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| marantzo |
 Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:27 pm |
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Feeling more in line with Marc's opinion (and some reviews I've read), I'll wait to see Cloud Atlas on TV so it won't cost me anything and if I don't like it I can turn it off without suffering for 3 hours.
Jeremy, I think it was gromit who wrote about the silly things in The Amazing Spiderman. I didn't see it but I saw the latest Batman and I reviewed it. The first half hour or so was not bad but then it degenerated into a bunch of boring crap and went on and on while I squirmed in my seat. FEH!!!! I would of walked out but I was with a good friend of mine and thought he might be liking it. When it ended he said, "That's not my kind of movie." And he is a big sci fi and action movie lover. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:29 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Well, you can certainly see that Cloud Atlas is polarizing. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 11:48 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Quote: I felt good to be alive when I walked out of the theater.
Yes, I too felt good walking out of Cloud Atlas. I felt good that the movie had finally come to an end, sparing me anymore of its metaphysical mumbo jumbo.
Bartist, if Cloud Atlas is so mindbendingly wonderful, as you and Ebert contend, why isn't it the subject of mucho discussion among film buffs? Why didn't it inspire critics to take it more seriously? If the movie was so incredibly uplifting, why didn't the word-of-mouth result in ticket sales? Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the movie a C+ grade, which means they really didn't like it.
Generally, extraordinary movies that don't do well at the B.O. are championed by critics who write follow-up reviews encouraging their readers to see these ignored films. Andrew O'Hehir recently wrote a piece on Holy Motors practically begging his readers to see the film. I haven't heard of or read any articles on how Cloud Atlas is being unjustly ignored by audiences. There isn't any sense of surprise among most folks who closely follow the success or failure of major movies that Cloud Atlas is a bomb. I knew it was going to be. Why? Because I'm the kind of person who normally likes challenging "head" films that have something profound or provocative to say. I'm the guy who Cloud Atlas was designed to turn-on. I'm a brain-addled old hippie that has suffered permanent LSD-induced chromozonal damage and am in a state of perpetual acid flashback. I still think black-lite posters are the coolest thing since smoking banana peels. I'm the dude sitting in front of you at the movie theater wearing sunglasses and thinking the MGM lion is Jerry Garcia clearing his throat. I'm the demographic that Cloud Atlas was created for and I hated it more than the brown acid I ate in 1969 that resulted in me having sex with a woman who I thought was Janis Joplin but turned out be a short, balding accountant from Westchester named Marty.
2001, Blade Runner, El Topo, Performance, Don't Look Now and Enter The Void are mindblowers that elevated my consciousness, challenged me and made me think. They had depth and, like a profound dream, they altered my worldview. At no point did Cloud Atlas ever transcend its gimmicky structure, lame Buddhism-lite philosophizing and ADD editing to propel my mind beyond the shiny images on the screen. There was no lift-off. I've had more spiritual insight delivered to me in the form of a one sentence message in a fortune cookie than all of the jive flapping out of the multiple mouths of Tom Hanks and his various incarnations. Clouds Atlas is like the Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi without The Beatles or a Tootsie Roll without the Pop. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 1:00 am |
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Marc, no doubt that you are an excellent writer and commenter. I've never been a Hippie or even a Yippie (close), but a semi-Beatnik (my generation). Your opinions of movies with these ethos are a completely honest from your point of view, without treating them with kid gloves. I may not always agree with your critiques but they are very straight forward and clever.
I'm too sleepy to write any more.  |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:25 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12944
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Sounds like I made a good choice seeing Wreck-It Ralph.
Skyfall is next. Daniel Craig, Sam Mendes and a good script? I'm there. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:24 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Yeah, there's never been a movie that took critics and audiences time to catch up with it. If the result isn't instantaneous, it's worthless.
Marc wrote: Generally, extraordinary movies that don't do well at the B.O. are championed by critics who write follow-up reviews encouraging their readers to see these ignored films.
What sort of bullshit is this. Ignoring the fact that there are defenders of Cloud Atlas, where was the critical support, upon its release, of Beat the Devil, The Honeymoon Killers, Harold and Maude, among others. One had to wait quite a while for the critics to come around to those movies. And, besides, what sort of in-crowd hogwash doesn't allow one to see that maybe the critics missed out for once? It can happen. As I demonstrated above, it's happened before. Never thought I'd see Marc insisting that if the authorities don't appreciate it yet, then it can't be good.
For the record, both the AV Club critic and its meter for commentator votes gave Cloud Atlas a B, and the column itself reads like a rave. Looks like a cult film in the making. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:18 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Quote: where was the critical support, upon its release, of Beat the Devil, The Honeymoon Killers, Harold and Maude, among others.
There's a whole new world out there Joe. It's called the Internet, streaming films, DVDs, Blu-rays etc. The days of repertory cinemas are over. Good movies are now rescued from the dungheap of history by these new wonderful technologies. And it doesn't take decades for cults to arise around movies anymore. Perfect examples are Margaret, Wet Hot American Summer, The Room, Donnie Darko, Old Boy, Hedwig And The Angry Inch, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club . All box office bombs rescued by critics and film fans within a year or two of their theatrical releases.
We'll see what happens with Cloud Atlas. We should know sometime in the first quarter of 2013.
Quote: Never thought I'd see Marc insisting that if the authorities don't appreciate it yet, then it can't be good.
I'm actually in the minority in my critical take on Cloud Atlas. But barely. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion among the critics who liked it (and some of them loved it) as to why it died such a quick death at the B.O. My feeling is that those critics' feelings about the film have cooled down. Remember critics went apeshit over Inception? That didn't last long.
And I do happen to trust quite a number of film critics. Ebert used to be one of them before he turned soft. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:01 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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I couldn't get too far into The Avengers. I had little idea who these characters were or their back story, and so much of the film didn't make sense. Thor and his relationship to humans? Thor's powers? Captain America's powers? Or reason for having them. I knew I was in trouble when it took me 10 minutes or more to figure out who Dr. Banner was and semi-clue in to what had been confusing dialogue. But also I'm just not terribly interested in all of it anyway. This really seemed like a film in which one needed to be aware of the prior films or the comic books or whatever.
It was also a bit jarring how it started right off with a complicated plot, which was somewhat confusing, and then introduced the characters, which confused me further. I got left behind. After a bout 45 minutes, I forwarded ahead a few chapters and the latter stages of the film seemed to be full of silly CGI action-fight boring stuff. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:04 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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gromit wrote: I couldn't get too far into The Avengers. I had little idea who these characters were or their back story, and so much of the film didn't make sense. Thor and his relationship to humans? Thor's powers? Captain America's powers? Or reason for having them. I knew I was in trouble when it took me 10 minutes or more to figure out who Dr. Banner was and semi-clue in to what had been confusing dialogue. But also I'm just not terribly interested in all of it anyway. This really seemed like a film in which one needed to be aware of the prior films or the comic books or whatever.
It was also a bit jarring how it started right off with a complicated plot, which was somewhat confusing, and then introduced the characters, which confused me further. I got left behind. After a bout 45 minutes, I forwarded ahead a few chapters and the latter stages of the film seemed to be full of silly CGI action-fight boring stuff.
How I wish Mark Ruffalo were not in this movie. This way I feel I have to see it to be a Ruffalo completist, but even Mark, I think, would forgive me for skipping it in view of his subtle snarkiness about it on the Bill Maher show some weeks ago. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:22 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Marc wrote: Cloud Atlas has all the metaphysical heft of Jonathan Living Seagull's bird droppings. It's hippie shit. I can't think of a movie I've loathed more. True true.
I haven't gotten to the next page yet, but I'm enjoying this already. Immensely. True true.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:24 am |
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You probably should just re-watch The Kids Are All Right instead. Really, these comic book adaptation things aren't my kind of film and I wouldn't have seen them except I picked them up for my niece and for some reason put the discs in the machine. I'm just not the intended audience for these vehicles.
Along with the Spiderman film and this Avengers thing, I also picked up Dark Shadows for my niece, and might check it out. I usually like Burton, or often at least want to like Burton films. But I drew the line at picking up three dopey films for my niece and won't look for the Tron or XMen film. I'm not even sure she'll like these -- they were just highly recced by her friends -- other 19 year olds I assume.
Of course, I'm sending her things she might like or hate such as Peeping Tom; Harold & Maude; Margaret; Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs, among others.
But also on the recs here, I tossed in In Bruges and Billy's Bridesmaids. I might give Bridesmaids a quick peep, but I really don't think it's my kind of film (I disliked 40 YOV and Knocked Up, which are mentioned on the Dvd cover -- same producers or whatever). I tend more towards eccentric art films from Turkey and surreal deadpan Estonian films and am listening to Huey Piano Smith's Christmas album at the moment. (Actually in Windows Media Player you can sort your music By Year with one click and cue it up with one more click,, so right now I'm listening to 1962. I t was Mingus Oh Yeah just before Doing The Santa Claus with Huey.
One nice thing is I sent Mary & Max a few years back, and that became my niece's favorite film. I don't know if many here saw that, but I thought it was pretty fantastic and it's likely my niece will take the trouble to watch weird crap such as Little Malcolm because I once sent her her favorite film. |
Last edited by gromit on Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 11:37 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Marc,
Well, first, I'm simply not qualified to define some correlation between BO, critical reception, and the worthiness of film. Why should we let other people filter and guide our perceptions?
Second, defining Cloud Atlas's target audience as yourself, MARC, is very amusing and your description was sharp and funny, but it still makes no sense to me. I felt its philosophic approach was not particularly in the realm of acid-flashbacking chromosome-warped blacklight-loving hipsters who accidentally fucked balding accountants from Des Moines, but I guess we each bring our own luggage to a screening.
Calling it Buddhist - not on board with that, either. The connections between lives, the way things circled back arounnd, seemed more from the canon of Carl Jung than Sid Gautama.
Your list of faves with El Topo, don't Look Now, Blade Runner, etc. Great list. I don't know that Cloud Atlas is good enough to rub shoulders with those, but I liked it and it's very rarely that I like attempts to get metaphysical. The only other film this year that succeeded in that regard might be Il Quattro Volte, which also deals with reincarnation. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 12:04 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Must say that I absolutely detest Don't Look Now and have never remotely understood the cult around it. It's worse than mediocre. But aside from that I agree with most of what's been said here.
gromit--I too dislike Knocked Up immensely, though I love 40yoV almost as much as Bridesmaids, so we may be on two different pages. See it anyway. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 1:14 pm |
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| I liked both 40 YOV and Knocked Up (but not as much as 40YOV), You know how I felt about Brideswhatever...... |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:23 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| I like hippie shit (and Hippie shit) if its used (like good sci-fi) to make reality more fantastic; as a means to take us out from where we are so we can we can look back on ourselves. If there actually trying to sell the hippie shit, then I'm less keen. |
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