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

i've been a contrarian about this film since it was released, but i just watched it again because of this thread. i am still mostly unmoved by it (has anyone read the book? id be curious how they compare) but the one thing that's undeniable is those long tracking shots and the incredible tension they generate.

I also watched this again after reading that article / not being particularly moved when I first saw it, didn't really change my opinion. cool worldbuilding and cinematography, shame they wasted it on a movie w/o much of a plot. kinda felt like some really well-made post-apocalyptic video game, tons of attention to detail but ultimately you're just wandering around a maze protecting the princess from bad guys.

A.I. was splendid, of course. (easy question: who has made multiple great films, Spielberg or Cuaron?)

I assume CoM will stand as the last good Michael Caine performance.

this was a good movie that I don't really feel the need to ever watch again. It is very much structured like a video game, and while the attention to detail and the relentless forward motion made for compelling viewing, I'm having a hard time thinking there's anything meaningful that I would gain from repeating the fairly traumatic experience of watching it.

my wife was 8 months pregnant when we saw this in the theater lol

xp: It should be mentioned that Children of Men was very against type for P. D. James. Brit mainstream authors seem to do rather well when they dip their toes in spec fic. cf. Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (a better novel than CoM, a poorer movie).

because the movie (despite the many great things about it all noted in this thread) seems so intellectually thin to me

i feel like maybe the problem was more like it had so many themes + ideas where it clearly tried to be doing something and failed to live up to itself? like a movie that tried to do less would seem more intellectual bc it wasn't trying so hard? i liked it a lot but i remember when i first watched it during the manger scene i was just like wtf is this bullshit. (but in other ways it does seem packed full of ideas, but maybe didn't figure out exactly what it wanted to do w/ them so it never really coheres?)

mainstream authors seem to do rather well when they dip their toes in spec fic

I tend to absolutely revile this shit, hard-pressed for examples I've read that I didn't loathe

I have never thought of this movie as a movie of ideas. Just a document of the end and then a possible beginning.

the road? xp

idk if he's mainstream tho feel like a lot of his work before the road was along similar lines. wanted to say atwood but she's another one who's more like a spec fic author who has entered the mainstream than a mainstream writer trying spec fic?

Brit mainstream authors seem to do rather well when they dip their toes in spec fic.

If by "do rather well" you mean "rack up fawning reviews and award nominations from critics who sneer at actual good SF," then yes, they absolutely do.

yeah I didn't read The Road. Burnt out on McCarthy's schtick years prior.

xp

don't get me started about Margaret Atwood

McCarthy's last book that was worth a shit was Blood Meridian. He's been coasting ever since.

Blood Meridian definitely the platonic ideal of the Cormac McCarthy novel. there was basically no point to his style after that.

lol u two i mean it's not a totally intolerable opinion but gmafb

All the Pretty Horses could have been published by Harlequin.

It should remembered that because the film came out in 2006, ie fairly early in the Perpetual War on Terrah, it had a certain topicality which might now have shifted into ah-fuck-it-reality-is-so-much-worse.

fwiw Atwood's not a "spec fic author who has entered the mainstream" she was never a part of that genre/community (of her own volition, by all appearances)

This thread made me line up Children of Men to see tonight, but the mere mention of A.I. nary put me off completely. DJP otm, A.I. is horrible. Single most disappointing movie I ever saw at a theatre. I was in complete disbelief at how Spielberg managed to fuck Kubricks work up so badly. Finish it somehow completely out of touch with Kubrick's idea of the film. It should have ended 30 mins earlier, frozen at the bottom of flooded NYC imho.

Still going to watch Children of Men now though, for the first time!

> you mean "rack up fawning reviews and award nominations from critics who sneer at actual good SF," then yes

Fine. SF authors are inspired by ideas, more mainstream ones by character, so for someone like me who reads a handful of fiction novels a year, I rather enjoy the latter ones slumming in spec fiction.

I'm still waiting for better authors than Bacigalupi/Vaye Watkins or gods forbid K. S. Robinson etc to stumble into the Cli-Fi space. One can only recommend Marcel Theroux & Emily St. John Mandel so many times.

for the 43rd time, the plot ofr A.I. as it was filmed is EXACTLY WHAT KUBRICK HANDED OFF TO SPIELBERG. (also, S.S. inherited the film BEFORE S.K.'s death.)

XP

Cli-Fi space

Ballard's not good enough for you, eh? Brunner's "Sheep Look Up", Aldiss' "Hothouse"... there's a lot of these books

David Mitchell goes there too in his recent books (although not v successfully imo)

(the Hawai'i sequence in Cloud Atlas being the exception)

this is maybe for a different thread

xpost I love AI, but it is a very different film from CoM. Also, I can totally see the quirks of AI rubbing people the wrong way, but CoM is pretty action-movie sure-footed.

did Kubrick always adhere to the exact plot/shooting script of films and not do editing

for the 43rd time, the plot ofr A.I. as it was filmed is EXACTLY WHAT KUBRICK HANDED OFF TO SPIELBERG.

Eyes Wide Shut sucked too, I'm not laying the entirety of this turd at Spielberg's door.

Tangent: all of the James Bond movies are "like a video game;" yet Albert Broccoli never owned a PlayStation 4. Discuss.

all of the James Bond movies are "like a video game terrible

fixed

Of course he did, even after release. BUT after developing the scenario for YEARS, what you see on the screen is what he and one Ian Watson came up with. SK eventually decided to executive-produce with Spielberg directing, a few months before his death.

xxxp

Eyes Wide Shut is one of the best films about marriage, but it didn't have a Death Star gittin' blowed up, I'll give ya that

Eyes Wide Shut was a phenomenally stupid movie about marriage and relationships in general, in that the idea that distant, repellent people have problems connecting with each other isn't really something you need a boring orgy scene to figure out.

A.I. was non-terrible
007 is terrible
Cuaron invented video games
The Death Star was cut from Eyes Wide Shut

I learned so much today!

no no DJP you're thinking of Knocked Up

lol @ morbius' insight into marriage

i love how you can throw A.I. into any thread and it takes over like a virus.

the reason i mentioned it was that i was trying to think of 00s era "prestige" sci fi films that compare to CoM in scope.

you'd love to know what i've seen, but cinema convo w/ middle-aged Rogue One viewers nah

xp

Eyes Wide Shut would have worked a lot better if Kubrick didn't attempt to use Cruise/Kidmans' own celebrity relationship for his own ends.

Bring in unknowns / ruin their future careers. Its the Kubrick way.

Warner Bros and Kubrick both knew you needed stars for a big expensive Arthur Schnitzler adaptation

Brit mainstream authors seem to do rather well when they dip their toes in spec fic.

Does Atonement count here? The twist at the end is some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit.

Children of Men is incredibly exciting first time 'round but just too grim to rewatch.

McEwan actually did a dystopic sci-fi thing earlier in his career with The Child in Time

28 Days Later fits in here somewhere too. It gets lumped in with the latter-day zombie craze, but I think it was genuinely exciting at the time of release and had some crossover/mainstream appeal. Not high-minded, especially, but I'd argue that CoM isn't either.

you'd love to know what i've seen, but cinema convo w/ middle-aged Rogue One viewers nah

lol yeah middle-aged Rogue One viewer, you sure got me pegged. Now that I re-read your post I notice that you don't claim Eyes Wide Shut was particularly insightful about marriage just that it was one of the best films *about* marriage, although I'm not sure how it could be the latter without also being the former, maybe it's possible idk

Where's calum to settle this?

None of the paranoid classics from the 70s seem especially "high minded" either but you don't need to be a paradigm-shattering genius to guess what dumb, self-destructive tricks our species is going to get up to next

Now imagine Charleston Heston in this.

imo it got Tom Cruise's marriage to a T

the viewpoint is from his scientology handlers -- Nicole wasn't their favorite but he should stick with her because the outside world is full of creepy sex perverts and life destroyers. best to stick to the church and a mediocre marriage

that is why the scientologists killed kubrick iirc

Hey so is it true that Xenu = Darth Sidious?

"overrated (by me at first too)

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius)

Terrifying that even morbius was right, once, for a while; reassuring that all is now returned to normal