Jack Brickman
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I feel like he also slouched the whole time, which didn't help.
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Rate the last movie you saw
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I feel like he also slouched the whole time, which didn't help.
col63onel
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Saw Annihilation and Thoroughbreds and while good, they both had a common "flaw" to me.
I knew Annihilation was a SciFi/horror flick. I was hoping for more Sci Fi and less horror (not that there was a ton of horror). Other than that, it was very enjoyable. I very much like Alex Garland's directing style, and look forward to his future projects. Characters where a bit one note, but not overly so. The climax of the movie was pretty disturbing, visually, to me anyways. I know that was the point, but that's just not my cup of tea.
Thoroughbreds was a dark comedy, and I was expecting more comedy based on the one trailer I saw, but this film got pretty dark. Still really good. Olivia Cooke is in the early running for an acting nod for next year's Oscars (Lead or Supporting). The director used a lot of long, unbroken shots which I really liked and added a lot of suspense.
Question for those who saw Thoroughbreds that I'll put in spoilers
I knew Annihilation was a SciFi/horror flick. I was hoping for more Sci Fi and less horror (not that there was a ton of horror). Other than that, it was very enjoyable. I very much like Alex Garland's directing style, and look forward to his future projects. Characters where a bit one note, but not overly so. The climax of the movie was pretty disturbing, visually, to me anyways. I know that was the point, but that's just not my cup of tea.
Thoroughbreds was a dark comedy, and I was expecting more comedy based on the one trailer I saw, but this film got pretty dark. Still really good. Olivia Cooke is in the early running for an acting nod for next year's Oscars (Lead or Supporting). The director used a lot of long, unbroken shots which I really liked and added a lot of suspense.
Question for those who saw Thoroughbreds that I'll put in spoilers
Even though Amanda was the first one who suggested killing the stepfather, I kinda think it was Lily's plan from the beginning. She set up the "tutoring" sessions to reacquaint herself with Amanda, somehow got Amanda to suggest the murder, that way she has a perfect patsy to commit it herself and blame Amanda, and why she was so emotionless at the end.
kosis
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I'm assuming your question is if others feel that's what happened? I'd say maybe. They were actually trying to get Yelchin's character to do it first... And she knew him from her own life, not Amanda's. But I can see a scenario where she's been on the hunt for a fall guy. She did come around to the idea pretty quickly after all.
kosis
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Yeah it's a shame, he's a great actor. Was just rewatching Green Room a couple weeks ago. Another great, tense film that I'd recommend if people still haven't seen it.
gourimoko
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The book is basically completely different. AFAIK, the term "Shimmer" is never used in the book, it's simply Area X. Also, the lost time is explained in the book, as is the term "Annihilation." In the movie, you're simply thinking that their brainwaves are somehow scrambed and they're not forming long-term memories ... This effectively means it's not a sinister or malicious act, but just a product of the Shimmer. In the book, it's far, far more sinister.
In the movie, they send in the weirdest oddest fucking collection of people, for no reason. In the book, they explain why they chose these particular individuals, and again, it's for sinister reasons.
In the book, none of them have names, and Portman's character (the original) does not get out of Area X/The Shimmer. She doesn't die; but she wishes she had. Also, they don't destroy the Shimmer with a fucking grenade..
The reasoning that I recall (there was a big dispute about this) was based almost entirely around the direction of the film and Natalie Portman's character being wholly unlikable. It's a downer. I've even heard the movie called misogynistic (see: Ex Machina for the origin of this).
I loved Ex Machina, but Annihilation .. ehh .. Just too much of the film didn't make sense, and that was largely due to what comes off as laziness on Garland's part IMHO.
They wanted to avoid the risk of it flopping internationally. Having seen the movie myself; I have to say I agree with the decision. Garland took the book and really changed it in ways that one has to ask if this will work on the big screen, for a large audience; and I have to say, I don't think so. The theater I was in, there were people saying "what the fuck was that?" And of the people I know who have seen it, I like it the most and they the least; and I'm still not sure how I really feel about the movie.
I don't think the Southern Reach Trilogy will get made unfortunately; even though I think it'd be awesome. Honestly, this should have been a Netflix show, like Stranger Things, and set over 2-3 seasons of maybe 8-9 episodes each. You could definitely make that work, and that likely would've made more sense.
All in all, I'm still not sure how to rate this movie.
My thoughts:
The first act, I thought, was brilliant... I was enthralled by what was happening early on in the film, and felt confident some of the loose ends would be tied. I was going with it.
By the second act, I realized Garland didn't intend on the audience having a full understanding of what was going on; and I understood this was in part because the characters were effectively in a daze themselves, largely because of the effects of The Shimmer. I was willing to accept this.
By the third act, things started to really go downhill. The amount of body horror and gore had reduced; and in fact, the strongest scene in this act comes at the very beginning where the physicist sprouts leaves and walks off -- but this was completely contradictory to what she stated was actually happening.. So while we as the audience can assume, okay well, she was wrong; it would have been helpful if it had been stated explicitly or at least, narratively.
Yet from there, the journey to the lighthouse is more or less uneventful; going down into the tunnel almost made no sense -- what was the motivation for going? She could've blown the lighthouse up, or just left and completed the mission; instead, her curiosity nearly gets her killed, and potentially does.
The psychiatrists character was totally wasted... completely. Her undoing made very little sense, and how she just vanishes into the cloud was wholly unexplained as well... What was happening?
There was no explanation whatsoever for how the mimicking alien got on the stairs.. It just happened. It seemed almost comical, almost cartoonish. And I understand how this might have worked in a horror scene with a ghost, but this is a physical entity that just teleported from one area to another (and it wasn't two beings, just one).
The mimicking scene was okay, but at various points they broke their own rules. It was mimicking at one moment, then not the next. It conveniently stops mimicking when she hands it a grenade and runs for the door...
Lastly, when she arrives at the base; no one notices she has new tattoo on her arm that matches the same tattoo as one of the male soldiers lost in the 11th expedition? No one noticed that Kane now had a pronounced Southern accent? And their cells were visibly not human under microscope in the Shimmer, so... was this not known when they got back?
Like, the movie ends as though there is some pending threat, but in reality, these two would just get killed off, likely immediately.
And this ending, the entire third act post-flowering scene, just fell off a cliff and the ending was just .. cookie-cutter. Like, "hahaha, she's now one of them.." But the entire movie suggested these creatures were mutating without much rhyme or reason -- now we find out in the very last scene that there was some ulterior motive here, some purpose, and that was what?
See, with the duplicates, it almost makes sense in that the mimick made copies of them once they reached the lighthouse; but, the psychiatrist isn't copied .. she's just absorbed .. and Kane is copied, yet the original kills himself; it's the duplicate that leaves. With Lena, she kills the duplicate, and she, the original, gets out.... Yet she's still under the influence of The Shimmer. So WTF is the point of duplicating them in the first place?? It literally makes no sense.
There's just so much wrong with this scene, particularly the crying out of the term "annihilation." The whole point of the word "annihilation" in the book is because it's the command word the psychiatrist brainwashed the group with whenever she decided they should immediately commit suicide. So her blurting it out at the end was just lazy on Garland's part. He completely removed key elements of the book, and then tried to rely on an explanation about DNA shifting about in The Shimmer as a way of explaining pretty much everything; even though scenes later contradict this very explanation.
So I dunno man, I like the style of the film.. I loved the aesthetic, and the sense of dread established in the first act. I was with it through the second act of the movie as well... But that last act comes close to ruining the movie for me. Because all of the loose ends, flaws, etc, that were hidden in the terseness of the movie; all of that is just laid bare and exposed by the end -- and we're forced to realize all the flaws and contradictory information we've been given and how it doesn't work.
By the second act, I realized Garland didn't intend on the audience having a full understanding of what was going on; and I understood this was in part because the characters were effectively in a daze themselves, largely because of the effects of The Shimmer. I was willing to accept this.
By the third act, things started to really go downhill. The amount of body horror and gore had reduced; and in fact, the strongest scene in this act comes at the very beginning where the physicist sprouts leaves and walks off -- but this was completely contradictory to what she stated was actually happening.. So while we as the audience can assume, okay well, she was wrong; it would have been helpful if it had been stated explicitly or at least, narratively.
Yet from there, the journey to the lighthouse is more or less uneventful; going down into the tunnel almost made no sense -- what was the motivation for going? She could've blown the lighthouse up, or just left and completed the mission; instead, her curiosity nearly gets her killed, and potentially does.
The psychiatrists character was totally wasted... completely. Her undoing made very little sense, and how she just vanishes into the cloud was wholly unexplained as well... What was happening?
There was no explanation whatsoever for how the mimicking alien got on the stairs.. It just happened. It seemed almost comical, almost cartoonish. And I understand how this might have worked in a horror scene with a ghost, but this is a physical entity that just teleported from one area to another (and it wasn't two beings, just one).
The mimicking scene was okay, but at various points they broke their own rules. It was mimicking at one moment, then not the next. It conveniently stops mimicking when she hands it a grenade and runs for the door...
Lastly, when she arrives at the base; no one notices she has new tattoo on her arm that matches the same tattoo as one of the male soldiers lost in the 11th expedition? No one noticed that Kane now had a pronounced Southern accent? And their cells were visibly not human under microscope in the Shimmer, so... was this not known when they got back?
Like, the movie ends as though there is some pending threat, but in reality, these two would just get killed off, likely immediately.
And this ending, the entire third act post-flowering scene, just fell off a cliff and the ending was just .. cookie-cutter. Like, "hahaha, she's now one of them.." But the entire movie suggested these creatures were mutating without much rhyme or reason -- now we find out in the very last scene that there was some ulterior motive here, some purpose, and that was what?
See, with the duplicates, it almost makes sense in that the mimick made copies of them once they reached the lighthouse; but, the psychiatrist isn't copied .. she's just absorbed .. and Kane is copied, yet the original kills himself; it's the duplicate that leaves. With Lena, she kills the duplicate, and she, the original, gets out.... Yet she's still under the influence of The Shimmer. So WTF is the point of duplicating them in the first place?? It literally makes no sense.
There's just so much wrong with this scene, particularly the crying out of the term "annihilation." The whole point of the word "annihilation" in the book is because it's the command word the psychiatrist brainwashed the group with whenever she decided they should immediately commit suicide. So her blurting it out at the end was just lazy on Garland's part. He completely removed key elements of the book, and then tried to rely on an explanation about DNA shifting about in The Shimmer as a way of explaining pretty much everything; even though scenes later contradict this very explanation.
So I dunno man, I like the style of the film.. I loved the aesthetic, and the sense of dread established in the first act. I was with it through the second act of the movie as well... But that last act comes close to ruining the movie for me. Because all of the loose ends, flaws, etc, that were hidden in the terseness of the movie; all of that is just laid bare and exposed by the end -- and we're forced to realize all the flaws and contradictory information we've been given and how it doesn't work.
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Jack Brickman
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@gourimoko Is the book really good? I am pretty sure I have it on my Kindle.
gourimoko
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It's definitely a decent sci-fi read, yeah. The trilogy of books are all fairly different though, so, to some people, they may not like the shifting in tone or style from book to book.
David.
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Thoroughbreds
Ps lady bird is over rated
No one provoked her to suggest the murder. She also ignored her for days after the suggestion.
It would have been a fun twist though. Seemed like the writer wanted it both ways, the twist isn't consistent through the entire movie though
Also, lily initially did want her to do it herself. But she didn't initially know she was a sociopath either.
I think she saw the opportunity after the meet and ran with it
It would have been a fun twist though. Seemed like the writer wanted it both ways, the twist isn't consistent through the entire movie though
Also, lily initially did want her to do it herself. But she didn't initially know she was a sociopath either.
I think she saw the opportunity after the meet and ran with it
Ps lady bird is over rated
Lyst
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Man I tried to like Lady Bird but it was so bland and put me right to sleep.
David.
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I don't think it was bad, it was just "so what".
David.
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Good recommendation .
Hurl Bruce
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@AZ_, probably.
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