Annihilation (2018) -- Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, dir. Alex Garland, based on Jeff VanderMeer's book

Big fan of the book, thought this film was absolutely dreadful, just bland and generic with none of the creepiness. Also Portman having seven years in the military and rising to full professor at Johns Hopkins would be I guess sixty? And the very subtle cancer metaphor of the book was somewhat overstated by I don’t know, ten overt mentions of cancer in the dialogue? What a waste. A massive letdown.

I'm wondering if the sound/visual component is going to be completely lost on anyone not able to see this in the theater (or without some ridiculous home theater) because the design was pretty striking on a large screen and droning sound

I enjoyed a lot of the design - especially the bear and the fungal efflorescence of the body in the lighthouse - but the drones were pretty rote to me, just like "we're laying in this drone bed to make this otherwise unremarkable scene portentous" trailer type work.

the soundtrack is pretty good tbh

although I swear one of the bass drone to rhythmic sections at the end sounds like a moderat song. I should bother Geoff Barrow about it on twitter so he can swear at me :)

Barrow has said on twitter that the first minute or two of that cue is Moderat, and then they riff on it

I'm pretty sure Matthew did not hear the film in a cinema?

whoa!

I should follow him on twitter

nah he's mostly an incoherent grumpy middle-aged bloke

found it though:

Yeh they did the first minute of the alien
Scene on the film we took it onto the climax from there it an amazing track &
We’ve tried to not be assholes and take the credit for it.

Quite right, I'm in Australia and it is only on Netflix here. Watched it on my friend's setup and to be fair I don't much like the picture or sound quality there. Whereas I realise these things are particularly important to a film like this, I found the characters clichéd and falsely motivated, and the worst crime was the total absence of tension. The book thoroughly creeped me out with its themes of bodily invasion, altered perception etc. But the transformation was handled poorly, a few key shots (and frankly stupid microscopy) replacing the relentless infected feel of the novel. A couple of digital deer with flower horns and a bunch of public art level topiary. The other crime was the "brightness" and perceptual shift in the narrative was written as an internal thing in the book, a sense that Lena's mind is being colonised, but adding it to big wide objective camera shots in the film make it seem like she was fine mentally.
And where was the crawler? Instead we got a silly Dr Who regeneration in a set left over from Prometheus. The ever-evolving optical fungus which resulted from that was brilliant, though.
I liked Ex Machina by the way. I guess I'll watch it again in better circumstances and see if I change my mind, it's happened before.

A couple of digital deer with flower horns and a bunch of public art level topiary.

I didn't read the book but that was kinda my issue too - - - this really needed some Rick Baker type talent in the makeup and effects department, to give us a sense of subtle wrongnesses starting to pile up in the body and in the setting. Just felt like they were in some southern swamp where occasionally something weird would pass through. Would be cool if the water and sky themselves look increasingly wrong, or if the buildings they find and inhabit don't just look abandoned but changed. Not something OTT, but things looking and feeling out of place, idk. I'm thinking of like, House of Leaves but with everything, not just the walls and floors, unsettlingly fluid and unreliable.

OTM, this and the sense that the changes might equally be perceived / perceptual as well as actual differences in real world things, and the increasing unease that such a distinction doesn't even exist, are key to the book's weird power.

If I'd read the book I'm sure I'd resent those things for their absence, happy enough that I didn't!

worst crime was the total absence of tension

People were crawling out of their chairs both times I saw it in the cinema.

Barrow has noted that the sound mix is inferior on Netflix for no apparent reason, and has generally been dropped 5dB btw

Apparently cinema screenings have started to be added at some English theatres due to demand.

matthewk and doctor casino otm... they started on this with everyone waking up with no memory of setting up camp etc and then just dropped it

I'm wondering if the sound/visual component is going to be completely lost on anyone not able to see this in the theater (or without some ridiculous home theater) because the design was pretty striking on a large screen and droning sound

this is otm, the sound design was very very good

sense that Lena's mind is being colonised, but adding it to big wide objective camera shots in the film make it seem like she was fine mentally.

I definitely did not read the film as telling me she was fine mentally. By the time she gets to the beach she has begun to abandon a sense of self, abandoning all her supplies and shelter & seeming more drawn to the locus, or carried by inertia, than heading by wilful intent. She is jolted back into agency on learning the fate of her husband, a reminder of her core reason for entering the shimmer.

matthewk and doctor casino otm... they started on this with everyone waking up with no memory of setting up camp etc and then just dropped it

This is actual storytelling, not a sloppy error. We learn that they have travelled for days , and thus have presumably had their minds about them until now. At the point they reawaken, perhaps the memory lapse is a result of making it through the "outer wall" of the shimmer -- as the film progresses, we learn that (in addition?) the minds of everyone within the zone break down.

There's no need to go back and fill in what happened prior: the absence is in fact specific information we have been given, as fellow travellers on this leg of the journey.

i think what rogermexico was getting at was that having established this loss of memory and time, there are no further weird time glitches or sense that time moves differently inside the shimmer or anything like that. it's all filmed naturalistically, time seems pretty ordinary there actually, and there's not even a token "look at your hair, it's grown eight inches while mine looks the same!" or whatever kind of scene.

It's already been established that time moves weirdly inside but appears normal-ish to the inhabitants though, through Benedict Wong's interrogation of Portman about how long she was inside, and (afawk) Oscar Isaac's uncertainty about how long he was away.

I definitely would have enjoyed more weirdness personally! But I think Garland did a great job of dropping signposts to weirdness while keeping the onscreen narrative clear for the audience of multiplex normies for whom this big-budget action film was made.

if id ve known this was so stalkerish id prob have skipped it

sic I think you've convinced me to see this again when I get a good opportunity, I so wanted to like it.

smh sic you misunderstood my post completely

tbf it becomes less clear every time I read it

maybe your DNA is being refracted?

I enjoyed this, but feel somewhat underwhelmed. Part of that is undoubtably that a lot of the visuals and sound were wasted on my laptop viewing - I wish I could have seen it at the cinema.

I've not read the book(s?), but want to now, hoping that there's a bit more to dig into and think about there, as I really like the whole premise and much of what the film did, but in general I think I wanted it to go further/deeper with the weirdness, mystery, wonder, creepiness...

The books are satisfyingly weird. Also, the first had lot of disorientation based on time. Lots of moments of “how did the tents get set up?” I had hoped that more of that would show up on film, but I understand that it kind of stalls the storytelling.

i loved the books. they put me in a trance. very memorable reading experience.

The movie really does seem like a half-remembered or reimagined version the first book, by someone who has placed it in the history of film science fiction. They’re very different things

Garland's whole thing about not reading the other two books is kind of weird

in my perfect world the guy who did the Fargo and Legion shows would have made a t.v. series out of these books. that guy gets things.

i don't think that the books were perfect or anything but they did kinda get to the heart of what i love about reading in a pretty profound way. they brought me back to me as a kid staying up all night in my room reading a stephen king book. just completely immersed in a strange world. with no VR headset!

I think the other two books had not come out when he wrote the script, but he said he didn't even re-read the first one. Seemed promising st the time but a bad idea in retrospect.

the second book was released three months later...

he's doing a tech thriller t.v. show:

http://deadline.com/2018/03/fx-devs-pilot-ex-machina-alex-garland-scott-rudin-1202336940/

the second book was released three months later...

...

this was barely b-level i thought, which is fine as long as there's some kind of rollicking good times but it was so dreary

"hey, why so mopey? what's your name? i'm a straight-shootin wisecrackin scientist! come over and meet my buddies. yep, all of us will be dead soon, it's that kind of movie. get to know us!"

the exact moment when i knew this would be unfun was when they walk right through the pearlescent soap-bubble shimmer without even pausing

i mean.. surely as the director you think - hey. this is a big moment. maybe a moment of no return. they're about to enter the most inexplicable zone ever encountered by the human race. maybe they... pause? reach out a hand to touch it? maybe we even get a... close-up?? a reaction shot? no they just blorp right through, doesn't even slow em down, out of our way, we're here on a fact-finding mission! to find out about... stuff! (like this iridescent bubble??)

agreed w/all the above about lost opportunities to truly unsettle. doesn't even need special effects, just some playing around with film grammar, the way janet pops into existence in the good place.

felt extremely Homecoming in places (for fans of the Gimlet podcast..)

And Portman remains the death touch for every. single. thing. I've seen her in. It's as if an entire generation of filmgoers/makers is unable to process that someone attractive and intelligent could have zero charisma and no affect.

agreed. She’s the Claire Danes of actresses.

could not disagree with Tracer more strongly about the bubble, that was one of my favorite things in the film. no corny-ass moment where trained scientists suddenly become wonder-struck children letting the camera dawdle over their wide-eyed awe. they walk in. they have a job to do. in the movies, characters sort of are always reminding the viewer "if this was you, you'd be totally blown away by these circumstances." i like a movie that lets people with do their work the way people do their work: without calling massive attention to their own reactions.

isn't their job to be at least a little bit curious about the bubble?

and even if your answer is no i just thought it was a real missed opportunity. fine, if you think they ought to be uninterested (for whatever reason). i don't but let's grant that. so in that case let's SEE that. set us up for a moment of wonder and then show them grunting impatiently through it. that imparts information, tells us something about them. they're so dim in the rest of the film that this moment didn't read like they were badass prioritizers it read like bovine incuriosity

did it occur to anyone else that a way around the comms blackout might have been two dixie cups and a very long piece of string

there are plenty of attempted "moments of wonder" in this btw - the deer, the flowers, the legs sticking out of a DNA fresco in the drained swimming pool, the writhing snakes in the belly - none of which was anything more than super obvs 5 seconds after hitting the screen so maybe it's for the best that they didn't try for one here

i could certainly have handled a little less of portman calling massive attention to her own (pained, self-serious) reactions to every single goddamn thing

Idk if “moments of wonder” was the goal of the movie at any point? Deer, topiary, bear, guts, crocodile, flowers, etc., were all about the adventurers’ perception of the alien in the familiar/familiar in the alien.

i always find it so weird in stories like this, where nobody's ever come back from the mysterious portal, that they keep sending in teams with all kinds of equipment, outfitted for weeks of survival and so on, your mission is to reach the lighthouse blah blah. i'd be like, your mission is to get the fuck back out and tell us what's going on. in this one there's at least the possibility that they would try to do that but they got screwed up by that initial loss of time and the scrambled instruments so all they can do is try and make it to the shore. weird that they don't bring in like, a hot air balloon. or a little baby helicopter like james bond. or try to climb a tree. i could not figure out why they didn't climb a tree. file that under "the four of us have to defend this gigantic sprawling base that's already been breached - better split up and have some people keep watch down on the ground!"

tbh i may have just wanted a more faithful adaptation of fantastic four #293-295, in which Central City is swallowed by a gradually expanding black time bubble.

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/scans15/FF293_IronMan.jpg

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/scans15/FF293_SheHulk.jpg

i didn't need a scene of wonder at the shimmer's edge. but it'd be cool to maybe get a little more of a sense of what it feels to touch it, to push through it.... i guess it was kinda interesting/different that it presents no resistance at all but you just lose a ton of short-term memory so we don't see any of that part of their journey. i guess it'd be hard to actually show everything happen and then depict them not remembering the scenes we just saw. but in a way that might be more interestingly weird than just showing them becoming unhinged and tying each other up all of a sudden.

Send a drone into the shimmer, at the very least put a phone on a telescoping rod and take a pic?

IIRC the shimmer is totally impenetrable except for one little entryway

Good entry point for the drone ime

The sound is such a major part of this movie. It is a serious cinematic crime that a lot of folks are forced to see this first on Netflix.

Also didn’t realize that so many people have such an allergy to Portman. I guess people take her lack of “warmth” for woodenness or something but I think she’s usually fine and was fine in this.

brb installing a full dolby atmos setup in everyone's home

visually portman reminded me of, and bear with me on this one... owen wilson??

something about her rawboned, squinty look i guess

o_O