Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
Wow, can you both give me examples of movies that you DID like?
Honestly, 2007 wasn't a big movie-going year for me (of course, Children of Men was 2006). The only movies I saw in the theater were Superbad (pretty good for what it was) and the reprint of El Topo (goddamned surreal masterpiece). Rock Band + DJing + Grad School keep me pretty busy.
I regret not catching No Country For Old Men in the theater. I loved the book (I've read just about everything Cormac McCarthy has written) and I'm a big Coen brothers fan.
Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
Wow, can you both give me examples of movies that you DID like?
i thought children of man was a great movie. very gut wrenching and evoked a lot of powerful emotions for me. especially the part at the end when everyone stops fighting when they see the baby, i think i actually cried during that part.
I agree that the end was a little abrupt. I was a bit like "so what does this mean for the world?" I was looking for some sort of eiplogue. Even so, I agree that it was emotional and visceral. I teared up when Michael Caine's character euthanized his wife and "Ruby Tuesday" was playing in the background.
Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
There's nothing boring about Children Of Men,the action scenes where phenomenal The hand-held camera sequences were top notch you truly felt as if you were there with them.
Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
There's nothing boring about Children Of Men,the action scenes where phenomenal The hand-held camera sequences were top notch you truly felt as if you were there with them.
Not to mention, some of the most technically innovative/difficult/longest/flawless one shot sequences ever filmed...
That alone is enough to earn respect for any movie buff.
Oh, how the mighty Bring It On franchise has fallen!
its the ernest of the new millenium, know what i mean verne?
I will ride for Stick It! - the Bring It On torch passed ...
it was ok, but i thought it coulda been more awesome. ie, more camel toe and french cut leotards. but yeah, it wasnt bad. man, the tom boy is prolly the most played out role for chicks. like nowadays when a chick says she's a tom boy, it means she shops at the mall instead of boutiques.
Zodiac was excellent. That gets passed over by the Academy for Juno?
Zodiac + Syndromes and a Century were my two favorite films this year.
!!!! - what did I miss about Zodiac? I do think I missed out by not seeing it on the big screen - it was a beautiful looking film - but it did feel like just another American story retold...what did I miss?
Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
There's nothing boring about Children Of Men,the action scenes where phenomenal The hand-held camera sequences were top notch you truly felt as if you were there with them.
Not to mention, some of the most technically innovative/difficult/longest/flawless one shot sequences ever filmed...
That alone is enough to earn respect for any movie buff.
Sorry, in my eyes, the whole thing looked cheap and kinda half-ass. I might not be movie buff enough but to me "innovative/difficult/longest/flawless" means nothing if the resulting product fails to engage me and eventually bores me half to death. Looked like a TV production and felt like a way too long train ride through an unappealing landscape. Boredom so thick that I could have smelled it.
I also failed to find any tragedy within the idea of the extinction of mankind....
"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" deserves some kind of honor for being the only movie I walked out of this year
Why did you walk out?
I couldn't take it seriously and wasn't particularly enjoying not taking it seriously.
I don't really understand what this means, but that's OK. It wasn't my favorite film of the year or anything, but I found it pretty entertaining and never considered leaving.
Blonde Ambition actually was in theatres though. It holds the world record for lowest gross sales of any movie, less than $2000.
is that possible? damn that's reminiscent of Ron Artest's soundscan numbers.
"Blonde Ambition averaged $48 per screen on Friday for a total box office of $384. Based on an $8 ticket price, that means that 6 people paid to see the movie at each of those theatres, and only 48 people went to see the movie! "
In its "defense" it was meant to go straight to DVD but got a very brief theatrical release in a handful of theaters in Texas. That said...
Blonde Ambition actually was in theatres though. It holds the world record for lowest gross sales of any movie, less than $2000.
is that possible? damn that's reminiscent of Ron Artest's soundscan numbers.
"Blonde Ambition averaged $48 per screen on Friday for a total box office of $384. Based on an $8 ticket price, that means that 6 people paid to see the movie at each of those theatres, and only 48 people went to see the movie! "
In its "defense" it was meant to go straight to DVD but got a very brief theatrical release in a handful of theaters in Texas. That said...
honestly I can't see how a take like that would even be enough to pay for fedexing the reels to those theaters.
Zodiac was excellent. That gets passed over by the Academy for Juno?
Zodiac + Syndromes and a Century were my two favorite films this year.
!!!! - what did I miss about Zodiac? I do think I missed out by not seeing it on the big screen - it was a beautiful looking film - but it did feel like just another American story retold...what did I miss?
I think Fincher films need to be seen on the big screen -- he brings so much atmosphere to what he does. Granted, Panic Room is far from his best film, but literally everyone I know who saw that one in the theatre enjoyed it, and all my friends who saw it on video disliked it.
I also gravitate toward stories of obsession, films set in San Francisco, 1960s esoterica, and I used to work for a newspaper, so all that probably helped with Zodiac. But more universally it had impeccable pacing, writing, acting, fascinating characters, very subtle games on tension and release... I thought it was exquisite.
Though having said that I have no interest in watching this movie.
Um worst for me would definitely include 1408 - you'd think I'd know better than to go into a film whose trailer promised "from a story by Stephen King" with any kind of expectations but the second half of this film was so bad it made me physically angry.
I expected Number 23 to be laughably bad but was hoping it would at least be watchable - Carey's dream where he's a hardboiled private eye did make me aloud a lot though.
Evan Almighty was pretty shitty though, as with The Number 23, it was a film more forced on me than watched out of choice.
Although not absolutely abysmal. Spiderman 3 was one of the more tortured cinema experiences of my life.
I've got a feeling there were a lot more bad horror movies but my brain appears to have filtered them out and to be fair they're hardly aiming for the stars anyway.
Really? I loved that movie. One of the best ones I've seen recently.
yeah, what actually made it so disappointing was that i've heard from a few people that they really liked it before I got to see it. I found it unspeakably pointless and cruelly boring. I get a cramp in my jaw just thinking back watching it.
Pointless indeed. There were interesting scenes here and there, but at the end I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure why I just watched that". It was dismal for the sake of being dismal ... and, yes, boring.
There's nothing boring about Children Of Men,the action scenes where phenomenal The hand-held camera sequences were top notch you truly felt as if you were there with them.
Not to mention, some of the most technically innovative/difficult/longest/flawless one shot sequences ever filmed...
That alone is enough to earn respect for any movie buff.
Purely from an action standpoint, I enjoyed most of the film. Individual scenes, like when their car gets ambushed, were impressive and the cinematography was groundbreaking. The battle scenes at the end were even more impressive. Though, one scene that bugged the hell out of me was when they escaped from the compound in the car that wouldn't start. They rolled down a hill, made it around a corner and then pushed the damned thing somehow outrunning a group of apparently athletic people sprinting at full clip. That's where the "realism" started to lose me.
Michael Caine's performance was good as well ... it was difficult to watch his character euthanize his wife and then get murdered.
However, what bored me was the overall quest. These two characters cheat death a hundred times over ... for what? To get the lady to some fairyland utopia to have her baby?
And the scene at the end where all of the soldiers lay down their weapons and stand there like "Children", letting this pregnant woman just walk by. You're telling me that noone would look at the most important resource on the planet and say "GRAB HER"? I bet their superiors had a fun time with that one. "You WHAT??!! You all just let her WALK AWAY??!!!!!"
So I dunno. Great action scenes. Great cinematography. Some great acting. Annoying story.
Not to mention, some of the most technically innovative/difficult/longest/flawless one shot sequences ever filmed...
That alone is enough to earn respect for any movie buff.
I don't really get this. A single performance of virtuosity doesn't, per se, redeem an otherwise flawed project. I actually liked "Children of Men" (though have no desire to ever watch it again in its entirety) but I just don't buy this "OMG, that tracking shot alone made the film worth watching!" I dug the tracking shot in "Goodfellas" but that was surrounded by a film that you didn't need to qualify by making mention of the tracking shot.
However, what bored me was the overall quest. These two characters cheat death a hundred times over ... for what? To get the lady to some fairyland utopia to have her baby?
This is what bothered me: the perfect place to end the film would have been right after Clive died BUT before the boat came, when the two of them are sitting out in the ocean, in the fog, with an uncertain future. That ambiguity would have spoke volumes to the kind of world they existed in. Instead, they felt it necessary to show the friggin' Greenpeace ship showing up.
The Good German was probably the worst movie I saw in theatres last year (I think it came out in the US in '06, but only in '07 in Lisbon), despite the relatively funny url www.goodgermanmovie.co.uk.
Comments
Honestly, 2007 wasn't a big movie-going year for me (of course, Children of Men was 2006). The only movies I saw in the theater were Superbad (pretty good for what it was) and the reprint of El Topo (goddamned surreal masterpiece). Rock Band + DJing + Grad School keep me pretty busy.
I regret not catching No Country For Old Men in the theater. I loved the book (I've read just about everything Cormac McCarthy has written) and I'm a big Coen brothers fan.
I agree that the end was a little abrupt. I was a bit like "so what does this mean for the world?" I was looking for some sort of eiplogue. Even so, I agree that it was emotional and visceral. I teared up when Michael Caine's character euthanized his wife and "Ruby Tuesday" was playing in the background.
ok, serious movie talk over.
Zodiac + Syndromes and a Century were my two favorite films this year.
Oh, how the mighty Bring It On franchise has fallen!
it sucked.
but who was the dj ???
its the ernest of the new millenium, know what i mean verne?
YES.
worst ending ever.
There's nothing boring about Children Of Men,the action scenes where phenomenal
The hand-held camera sequences were top notch you truly felt as if you were there with them.
Not to mention, some of the most technically innovative/difficult/longest/flawless one shot sequences ever filmed...
That alone is enough to earn respect for any movie buff.
I will ride for Stick It! - the Bring It On torch passed ...
it was ok, but i thought it coulda been more awesome. ie, more camel toe and french cut leotards. but yeah, it wasnt bad. man, the tom boy is prolly the most played out role for chicks. like nowadays when a chick says she's a tom boy, it means she shops at the mall instead of boutiques.
!!!! - what did I miss about Zodiac? I do think I missed out by not seeing it on the big screen - it was a beautiful looking film - but it did feel like just another American story retold...what did I miss?
I think the scene where they were adhering their leotards
to their butt cheeks made up for a lot of other flaws ...
Sorry, in my eyes, the whole thing looked cheap and kinda half-ass. I might not be movie buff enough but to me "innovative/difficult/longest/flawless" means nothing if the resulting product fails to engage me and eventually bores me half to death. Looked like a TV production and felt like a way too long train ride through an unappealing landscape. Boredom so thick that I could have smelled it.
I also failed to find any tragedy within the idea of the extinction of mankind....
I couldn't take it seriously and wasn't particularly enjoying not taking it seriously. On the plus side, it made me a fan of Michael Shannon.
VS
I don't really understand what this means, but that's OK.
It wasn't my favorite film of the year or anything, but I
found it pretty entertaining and never considered leaving.
Blonde Ambition actually was in theatres though. It holds the world record for lowest gross sales of any movie, less than $2000.
is that possible? damn that's reminiscent of Ron Artest's soundscan numbers.
"Blonde Ambition averaged $48 per screen on Friday for a total box office of $384. Based on an $8 ticket price, that means that 6 people paid to see the movie at each of those theatres, and only 48 people went to see the movie! "
In its "defense" it was meant to go straight to DVD but got a very brief theatrical release in a handful of theaters in Texas. That said...
honestly I can't see how a take like that would even be enough to pay for fedexing the reels to those theaters.
That's cold man, cold.
I just wish Lucas would rock that kind of gear on the regular.
I think Fincher films need to be seen on the big screen -- he brings so much atmosphere to what he does. Granted, Panic Room is far from his best film, but literally everyone I know who saw that one in the theatre enjoyed it, and all my friends who saw it on video disliked it.
I also gravitate toward stories of obsession, films set in San Francisco, 1960s esoterica, and I used to work for a newspaper, so all that probably helped with Zodiac. But more universally it had impeccable pacing, writing, acting, fascinating characters, very subtle games on tension and release... I thought it was exquisite.
Though having said that I have no interest in watching this movie.
Um worst for me would definitely include 1408 - you'd think I'd know better than to go into a film whose trailer promised "from a story by Stephen King" with any kind of expectations but the second half of this film was so bad it made me physically angry.
I expected Number 23 to be laughably bad but was hoping it would at least be watchable - Carey's dream where he's a hardboiled private eye did make me aloud a lot though.
Evan Almighty was pretty shitty though, as with The Number 23, it was a film more forced on me than watched out of choice.
Although not absolutely abysmal. Spiderman 3 was one of the more tortured cinema experiences of my life.
I've got a feeling there were a lot more bad horror movies but my brain appears to have filtered them out and to be fair they're hardly aiming for the stars anyway.
Purely from an action standpoint, I enjoyed most of the film. Individual scenes, like when their car gets ambushed, were impressive and the cinematography was groundbreaking. The battle scenes at the end were even more impressive. Though, one scene that bugged the hell out of me was when they escaped from the compound in the car that wouldn't start. They rolled down a hill, made it around a corner and then pushed the damned thing somehow outrunning a group of apparently athletic people sprinting at full clip. That's where the "realism" started to lose me.
Michael Caine's performance was good as well ... it was difficult to watch his character euthanize his wife and then get murdered.
However, what bored me was the overall quest. These two characters cheat death a hundred times over ... for what? To get the lady to some fairyland utopia to have her baby?
And the scene at the end where all of the soldiers lay down their weapons and stand there like "Children", letting this pregnant woman just walk by. You're telling me that noone would look at the most important resource on the planet and say "GRAB HER"? I bet their superiors had a fun time with that one. "You WHAT??!! You all just let her WALK AWAY??!!!!!"
So I dunno. Great action scenes. Great cinematography. Some great acting. Annoying story.
I don't really get this. A single performance of virtuosity doesn't, per se, redeem an otherwise flawed project. I actually liked "Children of Men" (though have no desire to ever watch it again in its entirety) but I just don't buy this "OMG, that tracking shot alone made the film worth watching!" I dug the tracking shot in "Goodfellas" but that was surrounded by a film that you didn't need to qualify by making mention of the tracking shot.
This is what bothered me: the perfect place to end the film would have been right after Clive died BUT before the boat came, when the two of them are sitting out in the ocean, in the fog, with an uncertain future. That ambiguity would have spoke volumes to the kind of world they existed in. Instead, they felt it necessary to show the friggin' Greenpeace ship showing up.