Don't listen to the tired German, Snowpiercer was great. It's directed by the same dude who did The Host, so it's technically a Korean film. It's only showing in a handful of theaters here in NYC, and most of them are the more arthousey cinemas.
Don't listen to the tired German, Snowpiercer was great. It's directed by the same dude who did The Host, so it's technically a Korean film. It's only showing in a handful of theaters here in NYC, and most of them are the more arthousey cinemas.
That's cause Weinstein is a little bitch.
The North American rights were acquired by The Weinstein Company in 2012, based on the script and some completed footage, with a plan for wide release in the United States and Canada. However it was only released in the US on June 27, 2014 in just eight theaters in selected cities.[22] This delay was caused by Harvey Weinstein, an owner of The Weinstein Company, requesting 20 minutes of footage be cut and opening and closing monologues be added. Bong refused to cut it. American fans anticipating the film were outraged, spawning the Free Snowpiercer petition campaign (founded by cinematic activist Denise Heard-Bashur) demanding the director's cut of the film to be released in the US.[23] Eventually Bong succeeded in getting the film released in an uncut form,[24] however Weinstein retaliated by relegating the film to Radius-TWC, which meant the film only received a limited release in art house cinemas.[25] On July 2, it was announced that thanks to the positive reviews and buzz the film would get a wider US release and play in over 150 theaters.
Under the Skin was excellent. I want to see it again.
Anyone see Birth by Glazer? I was on the road and it was out of theatres by the time I got back home. Kidman's face on the dvd box never moved me to grab it.
Sexy Beast is top ten movie for me so now I think I need to watch Birth as well?
Under the Skin was excellent. I want to see it again.
Anyone see Birth by Glazer? I was on the road and it was out of theatres by the time I got back home. Kidman's face on the dvd box never moved me to grab it.
Sexy Beast is top ten movie for me so now I think I need to watch Birth as well?
I read Birth was super-underrated/under the radar....I dont fusk w Kidman at all.....if i see it on Netflix or cheap DVD, ill check.
Today is its last day at TIFF and I'm at work. I hope it comes to the reps, I am going red this time.
SPOILERS
It was surprising and refreshing to see how utterly regular looking Johansson's body is. Just your basic not really thin, not really voluptuous, proportional ass, chest, legs and waist, regular-size-for-her-height female form.
And the only thing that really tripped me up and my movie companion and I spoke on at length is when the woodsman sets her on fire.
I don't really think that is a normal reaction a person would have.
And the only thing that really tripped me up and my movie companion and I spoke on at length is when the woodsman sets her on fire.
I don't really think that is a normal reaction a person would have.
hmm... yeah, not a normal reaction, but he was a bit of a jacked-up, predatory weirdo. and she was clearly very scared of him. so maybe when he noticed that she was, um, black underneath, he felt he could take care of her.
i got the sense that the movie is of sort of about a ruthless alien being humanized by the world, and how being a "female" alien affected that process (in contrast to the "male" alien, who just kept on givin'er throughout). tells us something about how women are subjugated within a society, even if they are able to have some sexual power. we're still learning about all the ways that the eyes are indicative of our health and well-being, so i wonder if the focus on her eyes was meant to draw attention to her change from a perfect, epic thing (that opening scene!!) to a (literally) battered woman. need to read up on this more - i'm sure there are theories abound out there...
To me it was all about loneliness, alienation, (sexual) exploitation and deception. Which basically is what all of life is always about, if you're an actual alien or not...
What fascinated me most was the ease and the steady and natural pace at which the movie told a story and how naturally it connected with your subconscious while staying outside the forms of conventional storytelling but never feeling forced or artsy. It told you something without spelling anything out. Truly masterful and stylistically and visually in a league of its own. To me the movie spoke a similar language as Jodorowsky's El Topo and I think it was more than just the the employ of crippled/disfigured amateur actors.
Lumberjack dude was just a predator who freaked out as his would-be victim was coming apart under his hands. He reacted with the sensitivities of a raping woodsman and utilizing the tools at hand.
What fascinated me most was the ease and the steady and natural pace with which the movie told a story that connected with your subconscious and outside the forms of conventional storytelling. It told you something without spelling anything out. Truly masterful and stylistically and visually in a league of its own.
A big point of disagreement between my friend and I was the thin line between kindness and seduction. It may be a gender perspective thing and how men (want to) understand women's behaviour and supposed signals. To me, her offering rides was an act of kindness. I don't think any of the men expected to end up sleeping with her, maybe they hoped to, but it was not implied that was in the cards by anything she initially said or did when they were still standing outside of the van. Her main criteria seemed to be if anyone would notice them missing, not, for example, if they were even interested in women.
To me, the 'seduction' started once they were in the van and she was chatting them up...making them feel special, safe, interesting, etc. etc.
Any "female issues" themes did not really stand out for me. The idea of shells, emptiness of urban life (also touched on by the swimmer) and emotional weaknesses are, as touched on above, part of the human condition
My read on the woodsman was "what the hell has he seen out there in the woods that he would actually come back to destroy her?" I think most people who are freaked would run and not come back or run to get their camera. He made a decision to fully destroy, not caring about what she was or meant for greater human existence and our place in the universe....not unlike the destruction of environment rather than understanding/harmony.
I also began to think that she and the other worker ants were not extra terrestrial but mutations.
But yea, the look, the pacing, the overall quietness of the film, the marked but seamless changes between city and country....It is gorgeous.
I think it's safe to say that the movie is more or less a work of surrealism. I thought of the lead character and her cohorts as "aliens" more in ways of a metaphor, extraterrestrial or mutant never occurred to me as a question.
The kindness/ seduction question, especially in regards of gender based perception is spot on and I have to admit that I was oblivious to this angle.
It is part of what makes this movie so special that it just takes you on a ride. I didn't feel pressured at all to explain anything to myself and instead just sat there and let it happen. Once it's over, the questions you ask yourself or others and the conclusions you might or might not come to might tell you more about yourself than about the movie itself. I haven't yet revisited it but I'm positive that this is one of those movies that keeps becoming even more rewarding and that will gain in complexity every tine you watch it. Definitely something that only come once every decade or two.
I haven't yet read up on how the movie was made but I've heard that most of the pick-up scenes were actual chance encounters with accidental pedestrians and that most of those sequences were filmed with hidden cameras (maybe I or the person who told me about it got this wrong though). In any case, I want to give myself at least one more unbiased viewing before I want to know any more details about this as I'm afraid that knowing too many facts might diminish the magic.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
rootlesscosmo said:
Frank said:
I found Snowpiercer to be unbearably boring...
I caught this the other night - it's on YouTube, if you search for it under its Portuguese title. It flagged in places, and the violence was a bit relentless at times (Park Chan-wook's influence?), but I liked it. It was pretty original by the standards of most post-apocalypse sci-fi I've seen in recent years, and I give it extra points for Tilda Swinton's hilarious Gracie Fields cloggie accent. Chris Evans still suffers from a slight charisma deficit and a tendency to over-act, but at least he hasn't turned into the Payless Ryan Reynolds he once looked like becoming. There aren't too many actors from that recent-ish crop of himbo leading men who are even halfway watchable, but Evans is one of them.
Snowpiercer. Was alright. Apparently there's a S.Korean h'ariginal that's better, maybe more violence or better fight scenes, can't see that the plot could be massively different.
Tilda Swinton - when she's pleading for her life and says "We can be friends" before whipping her false teeth out... do I have a sick mind or was that meant to be suggestive of something? At any rate I LOL'd.
Watched both Edge of Tomorrow and Snowpiercer this week. Edge of Tomorrow was pretty boring and of course they can't have a strong female lead without creating a romantic subplot. Double yawn.
I don't watch action or graphic novel movies too much so Snowpiercer was a real pleasure. I loved it, mostly for the visuals. The "I know babies taste better." backstory part practically derailed the entire film; corny, badly written and totally unnecessary. I thought this was the version *without* the explanatory narration! I'd hate to see what Weinstein wanted to put in.
I was beginning to get pissed, thinking I was in for another WHITE MAN SAVES THE WORLD!!!!! movie, but so it wasn't.
I love Tilda Swinton and also lept into the gutter for the dentures scene.
Boseman did his best and he pulled it off, lip syncing aside. Dan Akroyd is The White Guy Who Believed(tm) with a few Blues Brothers callbacks. It's always a pleasure to see Aunjanue Ellis (Vicki Anderson) in anything. You got the TAMI Show, Apollo, Boston Garden '68, Europe '71 (would have been nice to see a scene with Bootsy tripping balls to make his split with Brown) and such in there, but nothing much else of historical fact is dwelled on beyond passing conversation or a brief scene (purchasing of the radio stations, issues with the IRS, his oldest son dying). Some stuff is left out completely (trying to stay relevant in the disco era...). The infamous angel dust fueled debacle with police is the symbol of his fall from grace. The fourth wall schtick and anachronistic storytelling was acceptable at first, but it becomes annoying, especially when we're sometimes reminded of what year is being portrayed (as if the costumes, for example, don't sufficiently do so already). It's good for what it is, though.
Snowpiercer was pretty hit and miss imho. It didn't really make all that much sense but it looked amazing. What you'd kind of expect from a Korean director making his English language debut, style and violence and a slight lost in translation confusion.
bassie said:
The "I know babies taste better." backstory part practically derailed the entire film; corny, badly written and totally unnecessary. I thought this was the version *without* the explanatory narration! I'd hate to see what Weinstein wanted to put in.
I think he wanted to cut about twenty minutes out, so probably the "I know babies taste better" would be the thing that would've gone.
I saw this in April during the SF Int'l Film Fest. It was funny, sad, and the music was really good. I have an even bigger crush on MF now, dude can sing, play keys & guitar pretty well. His voice is dreamy! haha
Comments
Frank Sidebottom isn't dead...
easily one of the more annoying famous people to come around in the last 50 yrs.
She's actually pretty subdued in The Chef.
So the story is not quite as corny as Pacific Rim, but close. I'm just a sucker for sci-fi shit.
Anyone see Birth by Glazer? I was on the road and it was out of theatres by the time I got back home. Kidman's face on the dvd box never moved me to grab it.
Sexy Beast is top ten movie for me so now I think I need to watch Birth as well?
I read Birth was super-underrated/under the radar....I dont fusk w Kidman at all.....if i see it on Netflix or cheap DVD, ill check.
yeah, it's really excellent. from the opening scene on it just doesn't stop f*cking with you.
healthy focus on scar-jo's eyes (and the rest of her!), so need to watch it again...
SPOILERS
It was surprising and refreshing to see how utterly regular looking Johansson's body is. Just your basic not really thin, not really voluptuous, proportional ass, chest, legs and waist, regular-size-for-her-height female form.
And the only thing that really tripped me up and my movie companion and I spoke on at length is when the woodsman sets her on fire.
I don't really think that is a normal reaction a person would have.
hmm... yeah, not a normal reaction, but he was a bit of a jacked-up, predatory weirdo. and she was clearly very scared of him. so maybe when he noticed that she was, um, black underneath, he felt he could take care of her.
this is worth reading: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/13/scarlett-johansson-screen-stigma-disfigurement
i got the sense that the movie is of sort of about a ruthless alien being humanized by the world, and how being a "female" alien affected that process (in contrast to the "male" alien, who just kept on givin'er throughout). tells us something about how women are subjugated within a society, even if they are able to have some sexual power. we're still learning about all the ways that the eyes are indicative of our health and well-being, so i wonder if the focus on her eyes was meant to draw attention to her change from a perfect, epic thing (that opening scene!!) to a (literally) battered woman. need to read up on this more - i'm sure there are theories abound out there...
What fascinated me most was the ease and the steady and natural pace at which the movie told a story and how naturally it connected with your subconscious while staying outside the forms of conventional storytelling but never feeling forced or artsy. It told you something without spelling anything out. Truly masterful and stylistically and visually in a league of its own. To me the movie spoke a similar language as Jodorowsky's El Topo and I think it was more than just the the employ of crippled/disfigured amateur actors.
Lumberjack dude was just a predator who freaked out as his would-be victim was coming apart under his hands. He reacted with the sensitivities of a raping woodsman and utilizing the tools at hand.
yeah, totally.
To me, the 'seduction' started once they were in the van and she was chatting them up...making them feel special, safe, interesting, etc. etc.
Any "female issues" themes did not really stand out for me. The idea of shells, emptiness of urban life (also touched on by the swimmer) and emotional weaknesses are, as touched on above, part of the human condition
My read on the woodsman was "what the hell has he seen out there in the woods that he would actually come back to destroy her?" I think most people who are freaked would run and not come back or run to get their camera. He made a decision to fully destroy, not caring about what she was or meant for greater human existence and our place in the universe....not unlike the destruction of environment rather than understanding/harmony.
I also began to think that she and the other worker ants were not extra terrestrial but mutations.
But yea, the look, the pacing, the overall quietness of the film, the marked but seamless changes between city and country....It is gorgeous.
The kindness/ seduction question, especially in regards of gender based perception is spot on and I have to admit that I was oblivious to this angle.
It is part of what makes this movie so special that it just takes you on a ride. I didn't feel pressured at all to explain anything to myself and instead just sat there and let it happen. Once it's over, the questions you ask yourself or others and the conclusions you might or might not come to might tell you more about yourself than about the movie itself. I haven't yet revisited it but I'm positive that this is one of those movies that keeps becoming even more rewarding and that will gain in complexity every tine you watch it. Definitely something that only come once every decade or two.
I haven't yet read up on how the movie was made but I've heard that most of the pick-up scenes were actual chance encounters with accidental pedestrians and that most of those sequences were filmed with hidden cameras (maybe I or the person who told me about it got this wrong though). In any case, I want to give myself at least one more unbiased viewing before I want to know any more details about this as I'm afraid that knowing too many facts might diminish the magic.
Sacrilege? Looks quite good.
I caught this the other night - it's on YouTube, if you search for it under its Portuguese title. It flagged in places, and the violence was a bit relentless at times (Park Chan-wook's influence?), but I liked it. It was pretty original by the standards of most post-apocalypse sci-fi I've seen in recent years, and I give it extra points for Tilda Swinton's hilarious Gracie Fields cloggie accent. Chris Evans still suffers from a slight charisma deficit and a tendency to over-act, but at least he hasn't turned into the Payless Ryan Reynolds he once looked like becoming. There aren't too many actors from that recent-ish crop of himbo leading men who are even halfway watchable, but Evans is one of them.
Tilda Swinton - when she's pleading for her life and says "We can be friends" before whipping her false teeth out... do I have a sick mind or was that meant to be suggestive of something? At any rate I LOL'd.
I don't watch action or graphic novel movies too much so Snowpiercer was a real pleasure. I loved it, mostly for the visuals. The "I know babies taste better." backstory part practically derailed the entire film; corny, badly written and totally unnecessary. I thought this was the version *without* the explanatory narration! I'd hate to see what Weinstein wanted to put in.
I was beginning to get pissed, thinking I was in for another WHITE MAN SAVES THE WORLD!!!!! movie, but so it wasn't.
I love Tilda Swinton and also lept into the gutter for the dentures scene.
Boseman did his best and he pulled it off, lip syncing aside. Dan Akroyd is The White Guy Who Believed(tm) with a few Blues Brothers callbacks. It's always a pleasure to see Aunjanue Ellis (Vicki Anderson) in anything. You got the TAMI Show, Apollo, Boston Garden '68, Europe '71 (would have been nice to see a scene with Bootsy tripping balls to make his split with Brown) and such in there, but nothing much else of historical fact is dwelled on beyond passing conversation or a brief scene (purchasing of the radio stations, issues with the IRS, his oldest son dying). Some stuff is left out completely (trying to stay relevant in the disco era...). The infamous angel dust fueled debacle with police is the symbol of his fall from grace. The fourth wall schtick and anachronistic storytelling was acceptable at first, but it becomes annoying, especially when we're sometimes reminded of what year is being portrayed (as if the costumes, for example, don't sufficiently do so already). It's good for what it is, though.
I think he wanted to cut about twenty minutes out, so probably the "I know babies taste better" would be the thing that would've gone.
I saw this in April during the SF Int'l Film Fest. It was funny, sad, and the music was really good. I have an even bigger crush on MF now, dude can sing, play keys & guitar pretty well. His voice is dreamy! haha