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

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lol

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

This is why I think it feels like a short. Very simple concept that it follows single-mindedly, and the abrupt and open ending.

Yeah, see, I'm definitely on the side of appreciating this. The goal is to get her to the boat, and that gets accomplished, as much as tasks are accomplished in any contemporary setting. I have not seen that movie where Bruce Willis has to guide Mos Def across fourteen blocks, or whatever, but I'm guessing that their safe arrival doesn't end criminal behavior forever, which seems analogous to what some people in my audience expected from this one: that the unpleasant future would somehow be corrected at the end?

Theo dies in part because every single person who helps them dies. (The airstrikes obviously help with that, but it seems to be underlined when the Russians get shot.) Also: I really liked Sid's death, the sense of hesitance and repulsion on Theo's part as he bashes him. I appreciate seeing a film this suspenseful where the hero doesn't engage in any more action than knocking people with car doors, jump-starting a vehicle, and then showing great distaste in finally actually having to brain someone.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 07:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Ahhhhh, Sid. His third-person self-commentary is awesome.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, Theo doesn't actually say "baby Diego's a wanker", much to my chagrin - he says "he was a wanker". I can still hear Owen saying my interpretation outloud though.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Also: I really liked Sid's death, the sense of hesitance and repulsion on Theo's part as he bashes him. I appreciate seeing a film this suspenseful where the hero doesn't engage in any more action than knocking people with car doors, jump-starting a vehicle, and then showing great distaste in finally actually having to brain someone.

Yeah, out of the heroes in the movie, who actually carries a weapon? Do we ever see Julian with a weapon? Theo uses a car door and a battery, but carries nothing. Kee: nothing. Jasper: nothing. Miriam: nothing. Merickha: carries nothing, but brandishes a piece of wood in an emergency (poor Sid brings out the worst in everybody). The only unsullied "good-guy" who carries a weapon in the movie is the Georgian(?) refugee who leads them to the boat.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Ahhhhh, Sid. His third-person self-commentary is awesome.

-- Sick Mouthy (sickmouth...), January 17th, 2007 11:59 AM. (Nick Southall) (later)

i dunno, this seemed a little out of place to me.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link

For me it worked - Sid's presumably about 50 years old, and perhaps been a policeman all his life. He'd therefore have had a few years of working before all the troubles and immigration issues kicked off, and his job would have turned incredibly unpleasant. He smokes a lot of dope, and herds people into cages for a living. Talking about himself in the third person is probably a reasonably good coping mechanism for this.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Played by Jeff Bridges in the remake.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought Mullan nailed the "make a fugee face" line perfectly. I lauged, I was sickened, and I got a feeling not only of the enormity of the refugee suffering (for this to become common place), but I actually felt a little empathy for Syd, who, though he may be an opportunistic fascist pig, is totally getting fucked up dealing with his job.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, it hadn't occurred to me that he brains Sid with a car battery: all of Theo's actions/attacks are with cars! Underscoring this film's status as Scariest Road Movie Ever.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.hiphop-blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/fugees_1.jpg

― The Ready Or Not Cat (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

http://videodetective.com/photos/458/019258_6.jpg

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

This is devolving into a "walk this way" bit.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

glad I followed this thread and actually went to see this - totally harrowing, some really great technical feats of filmmaking in here.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

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).

The Jarvis Cocker tune just compounded the awfulness of the ending. The last two minutes is by far the worst part of the film. They should have made it half an hour longer.

Awesome movie.

― Andrew (enneff), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, and I was totally having Half-Life 2 flashbacks the whole way through. Enhanced the experience for me.

― Andrew (enneff), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

The entire time watching the movie I thought it was "fuji" instead of "fugee," and I was scratching my head, like "she doesn't look Japanese."

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 22:20 (seventeen years ago) link

My take on it is pretty similar to Tombot's in that I watched it intently but the end left me in a state where I can't fully recommend it. Though less offensively than most Soderbergh (the director I most associate this with), it felt like Cuaron often used taste and craft to CONCEAL Hollywood bullshit, rather than make a film without it. Anybody looking for a good dystopian sci-fi film should see it, but it definitely feels overrated in some circles.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually I can recommend it, I just can't say its A+ or anything.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:42 (seventeen years ago) link

What, precisely, do you mean by "Hollywood bullshit"?

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

A lot of little contrivances as to who-dies-when, pointless moments of exposition (I really wanted Owen to say "um, yeah, I was there" when the midwife brought up how "that's when the despair started"), all the stuff people have brought up about the ending, minor details that you could argue the film HAD to have in order to work (I'm not really looking for an argument here - if I'm a nitpicker I'm a nitpicker), but I would have been fine without.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Er, so basic conventions of storytelling = "Hollywood bullshit"?

I think you're being a nitpicker.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I would have liked it to be a little less conventional, yeah. Sorry!

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think you have to apologize for anything except maybe inappropriate use of hyperbole (15-yard penalty, repeat 2nd down).

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not gonna apologize until I stop seeing the phrase "From the visionary director Alfonso Cuaron" in print ads, dude.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link

for hyperbole, I mean.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:00 (seventeen years ago) link

The only point I'll agree on is the midwife speech, that was unnecessary.

I still can't find fault with the ending. Seems like it's lose-lose for Cuaron - every possible ending would have annoyed someone.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:01 (seventeen years ago) link

That's not hyperbole, that's redundancy.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:01 (seventeen years ago) link

That's valid about the ending, though I was hoping the movie would just end with the two of them adrift in the fog. His death and the boat's arrival both felt really unnecessary.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, that's one that I would have thought about going with - but isn't it just as much of a cliché (albeit indie/art-film) as the hero's death?

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

have you read Rosenbaum's long review, Anthony? He seems to have the same view as you.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Which is why I said your point is valid, though I think that's really the end of the story (them getting to their destination, not whether the destination is what they hoped for).

x-post who's Rosenbaum? Is it linked here? I didn't read the entire thread.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Jonathan Rosenbaum
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/070105/

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement, though complaints like his and mine are in large part a reaction to the hype - if this was a relatively ignored genre piece we'd be big-uppin' it (and I think it is a top quality genre piece - having a hard time thinking of dystopian sci-fi films that were better, unless in a Zardoz-esque way).

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link

i think if it had ended with them in the fog I would have screamed in annoyance. at least this way there is some kind of ending that you can leave open to interpretation. leaving them in the fog would be a cop out.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Nothing really to add here, I just thought the escape from the Phish Pharm was one of the greatest non-powered car chases I'd seen in a while.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:33 (seventeen years ago) link

i think if it had ended with them in the fog I would have screamed in annoyance. at least this way there is some kind of ending that you can leave open to interpretation

For a couple of minutes after the film ended I was disappointed with the ending. The pair lost in the fog would have been a suitably modernist ending: despairing and symbolic at once. Then I realized that getting picked up by this crew Owen knows nothing about, whom we never see, whose motives we never know, is more legitimately creepy.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 18 January 2007 01:02 (seventeen years ago) link

ok i guess someone said this upthread but yeah, leaving them alone would be just as much a cliche as the way it ends. and what alfred said.

and i don't see how cuaron goes to any lengths to "conceal" anything, and frankly i think whatever gets you to that conclusion is a really fucking weird way to watch a movie.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 18 January 2007 02:58 (seventeen years ago) link

By contrast, del Toro's adherence to a single genre in Pan's Labyrinth, for which he wrote the screenplay, makes the film impressively personal and original

This sentence in Rosenbaum's review had me reaching for the smelling salts.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 18 January 2007 03:05 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a bit of a stretch to say that del Toro's done nothing but horror - or at least I don't think of Hellboy and Blade II that way.

Honestly, I don't even look out for his columns and reviews anymore. Dude has lost the plot.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 03:24 (seventeen years ago) link

The only way I think of 'Hellboy' is a movie I was really pissed off I did a paid on-demand for, while I've never watched a 'Blade' movie or TV show and see very little reason to. I'm just not into CGI superhero films; I almost forget it's the same director...

― Michael J McGonigal (mike mcgonigal), Thursday, 18 January 2007 08:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Anthony, I think the thing I'm having trouble with isn't your "be less conventional" take, but wanting to separate "Hollywood bullshit" from "conventions of storytelling." I see lots of straightforward, conventional storytelling in this, yeah, and often using a pretty straightforward visual grammar. I can't think of anything in it that strikes me as Hollywood bullshitty, though -- bullshitty meaning extravagant, artificial, or beholden to conventions of films rather than conventions of the real world or the basics of storytelling. I'd read "Hollywood bullshit" more as "Clive Owen does bullet-time crane-kick in hand-to-hand combat with enemy," or any of the other action-movie stuff this one seemed to deliberately steer clear of.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I already said I don't want to quibble on whether the pace at which certain characters die and have emotional breaktdowns are part of "the basics of storytelling" or just cliches. If the problem is that I called it "hollywood" bullshit when you think its bullshit that predates film, or that "bullshit" is too harsh a term, fine. My point earlier was that Alfonso CONCEALS these commonplaces - he knows better than to show a fucking crane-kick, but the movie still relies on him doing something at point A to get to point B in a way I found slightly too conventional for the film to be as exceptional as some people are making it to sound.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Huh. Interesting. I dunno -- I seem to hate like 90% of non-frivolous films I see mostly because films are fucking terrible at conventional storytelling, so seeing one that has any basic competence in moving a story from A to B actually does rate as "exceptional" in my book!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 17:54 (seventeen years ago) link

In a World With McG, I really can't get too sick over studio hype labeling Cuaron "visionary."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 January 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I did like it, and I totally understand if you think I expected too much, but a lot of the reviews got me hoping that Cuaron was doing something more than the Soderberghy application of film technique to make a story's obviousness less offensive. Cuz when the restraint falters, like in the ending, it becomes doubly annoying. A more flagrant and painful example would be Erin Brokovich, where the opening '70s-style character study turned out to be a prelude smokescreen for "A Civil Action for women."

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

how can a dude who listens exclusively to generic rock music demand that 'good' films be some kinda avant garde pomo cut-up instead of something with basic narrative stuff thats been around since the iliad?

― and what (ooo), Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

eat my ass, ethan.

I'm really voicing an issue I have with a trend in praised directors rather than saying "CHILDREN OF MEN: C+" or something like that.

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

I'm sorry if I have no right to say I was disappointed by high expections because "listen exclusively to generic rock music" (if that even has the slightest bit of truth to it).

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

high expectations, rather.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

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