'Children of Men', the new Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi flick

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Though I was more annoyed by the TELL involving Pink Floyd.

I thought it made complete sense that the annoying Ballard/Moorcock/prog-loving guy you knew in college would grow up to be a self-styled Last Man On Earth who barricaded himself in Battersea with whatever art he could pillage. The only way that scene could have been improved was if he was blasting King Crimson all over London and not just inside his lair.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

David->Guernica->Hipgnosis' Animals is a bit of diminishing cultural returns. I wouldn't take it to heart Dan.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

Next time I watch the film (this weekend) I'll look out for it, but I imagine I'll agree with Fluffy bear hearts rainbow.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

wait wait i don't think the shot was trying to mimic a record cover, i think his cousin actually did save the actual old pink floyd pig, is the implication. it's a characterization, not a visual pun.

Yeah, but it still is actually mimicing the cover.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

What elmo said.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

Oh it made sense, I just got scared when it wouldn't go away.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

I can't really fathom wanting to see this movie twice.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

Or maybe I'm just sad that I'm the only one who thought "Hipgnosis!" before "Pink Floyd!", I guess I'm more Art Fag than Pop-prog Loser.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:49 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sure that guy also had a poster of the pixelated Mona Lisa in his dorm room... Only now it's a prosthetic-equipped statue of David.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:49 (nineteen years ago)

Dan, what PF should I listen to? i don't hear anything off the wall as music anymore, it's more like really tiresome iconography.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:53 (nineteen years ago)

Animals, for starters! John can give you better pointers because he has all of their shit (or at least he did in high school; he might front now like he never owned The Final Cut but I WAS THERE).

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the only PF album I've liked.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:58 (nineteen years ago)

Meddle.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:59 (nineteen years ago)

I was going to suggest Meddle but I couldn't remember what it sounded like.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:01 (nineteen years ago)

I was totally immersed in the story the first time, except for a few probs already mentioned like the midwife speech and Theo hanging around to watch Jasper die instead of hoofing it. I want to see it again to see the long, long scenes again, and time them this time. The one near the end is one long scene from the point where Theo squeezes through the door (just before he clocks Sid) all the way through the battle until after he brings Kee out of the building, isn't it?

Also, where the fuck was the camera mounted in the long ambush scene? Nice bit of rigging to be able to shift POV from front seat to back and side to side, and shut up, I don't want to hear "they've been doing stuff like that for decades now haha" even if they have. I don't pay a lot of attention to technical aspects like that on first viewings, and I want to see this one again to pick its craft apart.

― do i have to draw you a diaphragm (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:06 (nineteen years ago)

in the last long shot im pretty sure there is a cut hidden around the time they first enter the building...

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:40 (nineteen years ago)

i was trying to keep track of that shot, but i couldn't! after a few minutes i noticed the blood was gone, and i kind of kicked myself

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:43 (nineteen years ago)

yeah there's definitely a cut, cuz the blood comes off the lens.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:45 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, there's at least a cut when he rushes in after the explosion, because (a) the screen goes dark for a second when the camera passes over rubble in the foreground and (b) it's necessitated by the really graphic blood & make-up f/x when we see that dude still alive, blown in half, guts hanging out, etc.

still, it manages to maintain the immediacy in spite of / because of that transition, which is the effect of the long shot anyway. i guess i really liked the long shots because they were immersive in a way that jump-cut Requiem for a Dream style editing would just ruin.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

-- do i have to draw you a diaphragm (crump...), Today 3:06 PM. (Rock Hardy)

When was the sunroof invented?

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

Here is how they exicuted the car scene: http://www.doggicam.com/twoaxisdolly.php

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 19 January 2007 00:55 (nineteen years ago)

I was really hoping for a camera mounted on a dog's head based on the URL.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:28 (nineteen years ago)

rack focus, ubu, rack focus. good dog. *bark!*

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:35 (nineteen years ago)

leghumpingcam.com

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

Nabisco, the cars all actually start quite quietly (I don't know why I noticed this); in the future, I think they're all electric or something. So it's not entirely unbelievable that he drives away unnoticed by the Fish.

Dr. Morbius, the name for Quietus comes from Hamlet (according to the New Yorker): "That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,/When he himself might his quietus make/With a bare bodkin?"

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

thank you max :D

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:27 (nineteen years ago)

Hey, I just wanted to contribute.

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:27 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Ally, I wasn't mocking that part! I actually spent a moment there thinking about car-noise and then thinking "cool, in the future cars are quiet." (Haha one of the 3 or 4 minor and ridiculously plausible "futuristic" technologies in there: I can't stress enough how much I appreciate acknowledgement that in the future we will surely live in the same old buildings we have for the last few hundred years.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:54 (nineteen years ago)

yes that's a nice touch!

also, as my friend pointed out, they probably wouldn't bother to build a lot of new buildings what with the no future generations thing and all!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:56 (nineteen years ago)

also this is one of the few sci-fi movies where it really makes sense that everybody listens to music from our time rather than some exotic new futuremusik; with no young people who's gonna make the new tunes? the music scene would be DECIMATED!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:57 (nineteen years ago)

bloodspatter was an accident, Cuaron says, digitally removed after awhile.

Thanks for the Hamlet thing, max. Will could've worked for Big Pharma today.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 January 2007 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

Watching it the second time, I was looking out for the removal of the blood splatter--it happens right when the enter the building and he looks up the stairs, and it's totally seamless and works really well.

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:25 (nineteen years ago)

I like unsettling, unsatisfying movies. It's the story that leaves questions unanswered, that challenges our perspectives on life, that I like best of all.

And if anybody needs any reassurance that "Children of Men" is a movie that has lasting impact, I point to this thread. What's the last individual movie to provoke this much thought and discussion, and this many responses?

― Hey Jude (Hey Jude), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:53 (nineteen years ago)

Probably that gif of the dog eating its own sick.

― chap (chap), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

oh random googler, you are a precious traet.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

"What's the last individual movie to provoke this much thought and discussion, and this many responses?"

Crash. or maybe the Departed.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not a random googler, in fact I started this thread! But thank you.

― chap (chap), Friday, 19 January 2007 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

not you, dude! guess i should have xposted.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Friday, 19 January 2007 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, ok.

― chap (chap), Friday, 19 January 2007 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

Hey Jude isn't a random googler, either.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 January 2007 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

My mistake! The sincerity of Hey Jude's post is strange and foreign to me.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Friday, 19 January 2007 19:28 (nineteen years ago)

Hey Jude = Rock Hardy's wife.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 19 January 2007 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

Her sincerity is strange and foreign to me too. ILX has given me a ground-glass coating of irony and cynicism.

― do i have to draw you a diaphragm (Rock Hardy), Friday, 19 January 2007 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

JEALOUS

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 January 2007 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

Rock Hardy now looks like this:

http://www.njscuba.net/artifacts/images/disco_ball_01.jpg

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 19 January 2007 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

That's the right shape!

― do i have to draw you a heart attack (Rock Hardy), Friday, 19 January 2007 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

The King Crimson song was great, and a lot of the music was great. The Ruby Tuesday cover was unnecessary - surely the original would have sufficed. Don't know why they had to add the screaming SFX to the Aphex Twin track that Caine's character blasts for a laugh (and they should've used some intense Venetian Snares or something anyway).

Venetian Snares would have been more intense, but he's simply not British enough, had to be Aphex. Almost all the music in this film, relentlessly national. When the choral music at the end kicked up, I started fighting the film a bit, but at one point the music geek in me realized 'oh hey that's John Tavener most popular living British composer' etc. and it clicked with the rest of the film.

One exception to the nationalism, they use several seconds of Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" during the final siege

The 'Ruby Tuesday' cover was by Italian Franco Battiato, who did some really weird & good albums in the 70's -- this cover is from his later Euro mainstream period, but points for Battiato

need to see this film again

― milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 19 January 2007 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

Don't worry. My sincerity isn't contagious. At least not that I can tell.

Buncha doofuses. ;D

― Hey Jude (Hey Jude), Saturday, 20 January 2007 01:10 (nineteen years ago)

And my record for killing threads dead as a doornail continues! Woot!!

― Hey Jude (Hey Jude), Saturday, 20 January 2007 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

YO LIBRARIANS WHO LIKE THIS FILM!!!!!!!!!!!

I ordered a copy for work and it arrived today, but do i catalogue it as Mexican or English? We normally go for country of director's origin / most notable work period (as with literature), but this is SO English, from the novel, the funding, the cast. Annoying.

It's gotta be Mexican, cos that's where the other Cuarón film we have is (Y Tu Mama), but that seems ridiculous. Would I put HP & Prisoner of Azkhaban there too?

ARGH.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 22 January 2007 10:58 (nineteen years ago)

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