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

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One summer I rented a room in Newport, Rhode Island, from this dude who watched Raging Bull at some time between 7 and 10am EVERY MORNING on his TV. He had a photo of Jake LaMotta framed on his wall. One time he was wrapping presents for his son, and he asked me to wrap them for him, because he didn't know how to do it. I moved out after my friend, who was also renting that room with me, told me he spent an entire night convincing him not to kill himself. Good times!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

reading over this thread has made me love this movie even more! yes, the long shots! the kittenz! the spiritual refs, the feet, possibility of other mothers and babies, etc etc.

i didn't feel initial elation/flood-of-emotions when the end title came up though, but my kind of neutral-due-to-being-shattered-by-film reaction was as honest as they come. and like most great films, it becomes better through how it leaves you and how you think about it later

--vibe and look kinda reminded me of 28 Days Later
oh totally - all the greys and blues and misty damp. the brits are great at teh dystopia. and this really was a zombie movie in many ways.

must see again.

uh, xpost x a million
i like 12 monkeys. a lot. la jetee is a moving art film that i also like. aliens is also rad.

― rrrobyn, breeze blown meadow of cheeriness (rrrobyn), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link

T/S: loving both La Jetee and 12 Monkeys vs. choosing one over the other

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:32 (seventeen years ago) link

good luck with that

― tony conrad schnitzler (sanskrit), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link

"Baby Diego's a wanker."

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 January 2007 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link

i loved the baby diego stuff so much

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link

i really loved this. it was a good audience experience, as well. the collective tension was palpable - sounds of general snuffling/teariness; the woman across the aisle from me was biting her knuckle through most of it, and the guy behind me was holding his breath for lengthy periods of time only to expel it in a huge groan whenever someone had momentarily escaped doom. i should have been annoyed by that, but i actually found it quite sweet.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:27 (seventeen years ago) link

guy in our aisle anytime anything happened (slow exhale): "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuccck."

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

i loved this but my audience was TERRIBLE - laughing at any halfway funny or surprising line, APPLAUDING when anything bad happens to anybody in the second half like its some fuckin die hard type action/revenge flick, and one frat-lookin dude started laughing really hard during the long awful shot of clive owen in the building, when dude was running up the stairs, and when his girlfriend gave him a wtf look he said as explanation 'there was chickens'

― and what (ooo), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:39 (seventeen years ago) link

meanwhile i got really immersed & if i hadnt been with a friend wouldve probably embarrassed myself even more by full-body wincing at essentially every scene after the car ambush

― and what (ooo), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link

frat-lookin dude OTM

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Overheard some frat-lookin dude afterwards: "Yeah it was okay, I was just waiting for that dreadlock dude to get killed already."

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm still weirded out by the fact that that was Charlie Hunnam.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link

O RLY?

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I am going to watch this again in half an hour.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

just ok, nothing special. some nice suspense, real world analogies gives it some cheap relevance which it doesnt follow through on, misses the boat (ha!) on anything more meaningful. move along, folks....

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 15 January 2007 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I always enjoy a consensus but this movie shitted me to tears. Occasional pretty shots but the “intellectual” camp thing makes any attempt at suspense veer into the absurd. The movie had little to say or at least if it did I missed it. Dull and corny.

― Kiwi (Kiwi), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I applauded the second time the rasta dude got doored!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:42 (seventeen years ago) link

body count too high. this is me, telling this to you people.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link

really really well executed, but, like, I think I worried more about most of the troops in Black Hawk Down than I did about anybody in this film, and I like this cast, a lot.

Leaving out Caine's final scene could have improved this movie a lot of ways, for me - watching that was such a gut check that afterwards the rest of the movie was really kind of a "whatever" experience except for the March Of The Crying Infant.

the livestock roaming the warzone ghetto were pretty funny, TBH. I didn't LOL though.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 14:46 (seventeen years ago) link

(BTW if I had to choose between "Dreamgirls" and this movie, I would pick this movie intercut with all of Jennifer Hudson's numbers from "Dreamgirls".)

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 14:49 (seventeen years ago) link

i was in, or close to, tears for a lot of this movie.

so many amazing details. off the top of my head, i liked:

that being nearly killed in a bombing isn't enough to get off work or even worth mentioning, but transparently complaiing about a diana-style celebrity death is.

the ethnic balkanization of the bexhill camp (british ramallah innit)

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:44 (seventeen years ago) link

That dreadlocked guy did get killed!

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:46 (seventeen years ago) link

In fact, I thought it was weird how dude got killed in such an unsatisfying way, in most movies when someone has earned so well the hate of the audience, they are generally killed off in a way where the audience gets to be all woohoo and shit; his death was really sudden and kind of unnoticed.

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Which I liked, because the hero doesn't always get to say something smart ass to the "bad guy" before gouging his eyes out with his thumbs or whatever.

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link

DANGER DANGER PREPOSITION CONFUSION

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link

self-destructive hero!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link

hahahahaha d'oh

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I meant to do that. [/peewee]

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Deliberately so, I'd suggest - by the point that he dies, he's totally unimportant to the portagonist/audience (Theo - who the audience "is", as we see everything from his POV), because the baby exists. There are greater things at stake than revenge, so his death is incidental rather than celebratory.

several Xs!

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I liked how it looked like Clive Owen got shot before taking her out of the building, but he seemed okay and I wasn't really sure until the boat.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link

nice one Nick. slocki is making a joke, there. is it worth bothering to add SPOILERS to the thread title?

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Also see Sid's death (if he did die): a sudden wack with a car battery, nasty and quick.

xpost re rasta dude

― chap (chap), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I would like a replica of Clive Owen's industrial-strength flip-flops.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Reviews that amuse:

For some unknown reason, male sperm counts have dropped to the point of sterility.[???] More amusing than compelling, like a campy episode of Lost in Space where anything goes and nothing makes sense. Oh dear! Oh dear!

In a world where...the only hope for the human race lies with a hard-bitten hero and an immaculate conception.

Another problem is that the movie doesn’t seem to have any point to it when, given its subject matter, it really feels as if it should. Timely themes of terrorism, asylum seekers and mass disillusionment are all there, but nothing’s done with them...it’s a movie that only sci-fi nerds are going to enjoy.

What happened in the intervening years? Without this knowledge these events make little or no sense.

As it turns out, the movie is set not in besieged Seattle but in England, which is besieged by peaceful immigrants because it's the last bastion of civilization. (I got this from the press notes; it's not clear from the movie why everyone wants to go to England.)[???]

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I actually read that last one a few days ago when I noticed it was the worst review on Metacritic. It's dumb.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link

hero suddenly revealed to have been mortally wounded 20 mins ago is a klassik device.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:20 (seventeen years ago) link

wow, hacks be reachin

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:23 (seventeen years ago) link

The critics from Newsweek and Variety were also unable to figure out why immigrants were flooding into England.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link

why is Hamlet so obsessed with killing his father? I mean, the scene with the Ghost was interesting and all, but none of it hangs together in the slightest. 2 stars (fair).

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:27 (seventeen years ago) link

haha 'uncle' hoist on my own lame comedy petard

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link

no your mistake there is actually in line with all the reviewers panning this because they can't keep up

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

As I type this in London in the middle of January, I'm not sure why immigrants are flooding into England NOW.

― chap (chap), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, i mean this was very carefully and clearly NOT an "in a world" movie. it just rolled into itself and laid out the important details on the fly. would they have rather had a lame text-crawl at the beginning?

actually who cares what morons would have rather seen! haha zap! take that, retards!

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

As much as I enjoyed watching this movie and was rooted to my seat by it the entire time, I am really bothered by a couple of unusual things, a day later:

a. I don't particularly want to see it again.
b. I don't particularly want to talk about it to anyone who hasn't already seen it.
--> C. This is because instead of thinking about the awesome parts of this film, I am stuck pondering relatively tiresome metaphysical bullshit, because (I think!) the ending was so open-ended as to be a poorly thought out cock-up.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

hero suddenly revealed to have been mortally wounded 20 mins ago is a klassik device.

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...), January 16th, 2007 4:20 PM. (Dr Morbius) (later)

agreed. this was one of the weaker points in the movie and it's an easy-out for a redemptive arc.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, the ending was the only part I didn't like.

I did go see it again, and while I noticed a lot of things I hadn't before, once you know what's going to happen it's not nearly as good.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:47 (seventeen years ago) link

would they have rather had a lame text-crawl at the beginning?

There was a text crawl at the beginning! (on the tv screen at the coffee shop)

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link

I think I hate movies with poorly thought out cock-ups at the end. God Dammit.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link

The only way the ending could have been better is if she didn't name the kid Dylan (which was OK, but a little distracting) and if we were left waiting and hoping for tomorow to come instead of witnessing its arrival (faith and hope and all that).

While the unknown wound, like the naming of the child, was a little distracting and cliche, two aspects of his death were important: 1) how Kee and Theo each handled his dying, and 2) Kee left alone with the child in a little boat in the fog on the ocean.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link

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