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

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I always cry at "Independence Day" because Vivica A Fox is like the only film stripper who only goes down to a bikini.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I find most of the complaints about the film baffling I just wanted to speak up for a moment and point out that NOT everybody who helps Kee dies.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

Another way of putting this: when Caine goes down doing the "pull my finger" routine from the opening, that fits a well-known story convention -- character goes out defiantly doing the same stuff that made us like him. But there's a reason people like that convention, and depending on how a film treats it, it can read as either succumbing to lame formula or just effectively pushing the emotional button that gets pushed when we see this sort of thing happen.

xpost -- Shakey, are you keeping the air strikes in account?

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Ethan, this is a movie that took a lot of effort to make its emotional grabs and storyline seem less standard than they really were, something that's impressive enough but I can think of things a director can do that I find more impressive. So to repeat myself for the last time, the movie was good but it didn't live up to the expectations I got from critics. Expectations that may have been unwarranted. In which case, I apologize to the offended.

And now...your moment of zen.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/im52xmax/skowie8F07-047.jpg

x-post Nabisco you make a pretty decent point, though I think you're so determined to protect the basic tenets of narrative (which I am not challenging) that you're not acknowledge the presence of cliche at all (just as I'm undoubtedly overstating it on the relative scale of cinema today).

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:58 (seventeen years ago) link

i think the ultimate problem with the film isn't its conventionality (i love that shit usually) or anything like that. it's just a deeply unsatisfying film that, beyond a few thrills (like exactly 3 maybe), was sort of morose without any intelligence and lacking really anything to get worked up about. if it's an action movie it's a bad, boring one beyond a few scenes, and if it's a thoughtful sci-fi dsytopia it's kinda cool but really nothing special beyond a few rotting cow carcasses.

i guess i just dont get the fuss :/

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link

And when you say "is this cliche really so bad?" my answer is "relatively speaking, no, I'm just talking about my expectations."

x-post to Nabs.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think anything about this movie attempted to make the storyline seem less standard than it actually was! I just think it was really fucking good and harrowing.

Ryan, what do you mean when you say the movie "was sort of morose without any intelligence and lacking really anything to get worked up about"? Did you perhaps see "The Cleaner" by mistake???

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Anthony I'm not trying to deny cliche, just trying to ferret out where it bugged you in this film -- but yr kinda getting piled on, so don't worry about spelling it out or anything. You're definitely right about the "relative scale of cinema" part -- I mean, 90% of films are made of nothing but rearrangements of conventions, and we're all content to enjoy and talk about superhero movies or romantic comedies without saying "I thought it was kinda obvious how that thing his uncle told him helped him win the final battle" or "I thought the part where they met cute was a little formulaic" or whatever. (That former's a good example, actually: I think my difference between "cliche" and "narrative convention" is the difference between when the hero thinks back on what his uncle said and you groan, and when the hero thinks back on what his uncle said and you just understand the connection at face value.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link

haha, maybe! i dunno i just got a "omg NY was nuked, no more babies, isnt that terrible!" --- it doesn't go beyond the cliches in that department really. i mean, children's voices at the end? it's just cloying...

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

"xpost -- Shakey, are you keeping the air strikes in account?"

hmm you have a good point there but assuming characters get killed isn't the same as showing them being picked off - in terms of supporting-cast-whose-deaths-you-don't-see I was thinking of the rich dude and the gypsy. Marika (sp?) may have been my favorite character.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

What's a cliche but a truism that's become horribly apparent?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

rofl at "The Cleaner."

I think Ryan is getting at part of the problem I have with these types of movies, which is that the second you start taking on some political pretensions (which it'd be really facetious to claim this movie didn't), I start holding it to a higher standard than I do, say, Crank.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Anthony this is why I have stopped reading reviews entirely until after I've seen the movie. With music it's different, somebody can talk about an album for a whole page and I still don't really have "it". Movies on the other hand are so much about narrative and, like nabisco says, the rearranging of tried n true filmic furniture, that even if no actual spoilers are given it's impossible not to erect a model of what you think it's going to be like in your mind, and if you're kind of excited about it, it is very very hard - in my experience - for it to live up to what you've been imagining. Which is why I really lucked out with this one, the only reason I went is because I'd locked myself out and my roommates had just gone to the Ritzy to watch it.

Ryan I think somebody else linked to an interview where they said the blood on the lens thing just happened by accident and they decided to carry on with it.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Reading reviews beforehand doesn't really affect whether I liked the movie or not, but it obviously does alter what I feel the desire to point out about the film to people after the fact.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Re: political messages, for me the great strength of this movie is that it SHOWS rather than TELLS, even when they're re-creating scenes from Abu Ghraib, it's just put there in front of you. The world they've set up has nothing to do with Iraq, so there's no one-to-one-correspondence being claimed for anything.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

It could be argued that actually re-creating images of Abu Gharib is just as much a "TELL" as a character saying "Abu Gharib, yo."

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link

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

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Pink Floyd make everything m ore annoying.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link

It could be argued that actually re-creating images of Abu Gharib is just as much a "TELL" as a character saying "Abu Gharib, yo."

Yeah, by someone WHO IS BATSHIT CRAZY.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link

i liked the newspaper that went something like "Russia detonates Nuclear Bomb. Kazakstan annihilated!"

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Dystopian science fiction is inherently political, no? Come on, dude.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Theo's "London 2012" sweatshirt was a nice touch.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link

The political message seems to bve look at how good people are at doing terrible things to eachother even in the face of salvation.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, this is barely a sci-fi film, right?

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

But... it's in the future.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

what about star wars?

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Romantic comedy.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I love scifi films that take place mainly in the countryside, there aren't many.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe it's a war movie. It has battles and guns like Black Hawk Down.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, this is barely a sci-fi film, right?

Sure it is! Speculative fiction, anyway. It's much more sci-fi then, say, Alien, which is just a horror movie in space.

― Charlie Brown (kenan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link

waht?

dune and star wars and logan's run are all totally pastoral you senile doosh

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link

also deep space completely counts as the countryside wtf

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:28 (seventeen years ago) link

"Sleeper" takes place almost entirely in the countryside.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link

xxpost I said barely.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link

I think I said upthread that the Abu Ghraib image was one of two or three details that point a big finger outside of the film in a somewhat jarring way, but that one totally works for me, because of what happens if you follow out the thought: you think "Abu Ghraib image," but thinking it through reminds you that that's a control and interrogation method used by our military, and probably others, and so maybe it's not really jarring to imagine they're using this extant control method in the world of the film, and ... suddenly you've been led to this gut-punch horrifying reminder that what you've filed away as "Abu Ghraib image" is not a specific event, and is somewhat commonplace, not necessarily any more out-of-place in this future than the bomb detectors at government buildings.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Silent Runnings!

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Srsly having the characters move after a few minutes to better frame THE PIG FROM A PINK FLOYD COVER think about that

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:33 (seventeen years ago) link

it's all a continuum. "science fiction" and "weepy romance" are the extremes whereas stuff like "romantic comedy", "war film", "retarded action film", "SNL comedy," "tony scott film", etc are in the middle somwehere.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:34 (seventeen years ago) link

"retarded action" and "tony scott" is kinda redundant.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but nobody says "oh cool, Pink Floyd!" It's just there. I mean, they also framed a shot to include "Guernica", should they have cropped that out?

TOMBOT, the desert is not the countryside.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I am actually psyched that my music nerdiness has waned to the point where even after it was explained, I still don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about re: the Pink Floyd thing.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

(I was thinking more of eXistenZ)*

*the exact moment everyone stops listening to what I have to say about movies

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

it works better if you just think of it in traditional "when pigs fly" terms.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.batterseapowerstation.org.uk/floyd/animals1.jpg

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I didn't notice the PF thing, cos I don't like PF.

I get the idea I'm just gibbering in the corner while you lot talk seinsibly.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, the coolest thing about that bit -- thematically, visually, generally -- was that the guy sits and eats lunch with Guernica hanging over the table.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

it was all I could do not to sing along to King Crimson during that bit.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha I thought the Pink Floyd reference was too heavy-handed.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Though the broken David's prosthetic-style support was neat, too.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I know there was a shot in the movie that looked like the cover to Animals thanks to the magic that is this thread, but I couldn't actually tell you which shot in the movie that was and it certainly didn't register while I was watching the movie.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link

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