It's actually really good from a cinematography and sound design perspective.
I get that it has totally incoherent lib politics but I actually really liked it.
I mean that's not surprising, Alex Garland is an exceptionally talented filmmaker. I think everything he's made has been excellent. I am surprised how libs the politics are - everything he's made before made me think he'd at least be left of lib.
Now I'm thinking the zombies in 28 {time periods} later got that way due to not respecting our institutions enough. The zone in the Annihilation was due to people not voting.
Now I'm thinking the zombies in 28 {time periods} later got that way due to not respecting our institutions enough.
I mean basically
spoiler
The whole pandemic started because a bunch of uppity animal rights extremists broke into a animal lab
Completely missed the point
Literally the opposite of Heinlein to Verhoeven with Starship Troopers
I didn't realize he was involved in Dredd. And it may have bad politics but it still rules.
"Men" is definitely not excellent imo. He is a talented aesthetic filmmaker but seems a little too dumb to tackle the themes in his movies.
I think Men rules but I know it is his least well received movie.
I've heard that it's fairly apolitical for a movie about a civil war and that they don't really get into the conflict itself and instead focus on the journalists. everyone made fun of that silly map but it ended up being totally inconsequential to the movie itself
anyway I torrented a 4K copy, I'll probably watch it tonight
I think the discourse I've seen around this movie is that Garland is a much better director than writer. Though thinking back on his prior work I'm not sure that's true either.
Edit: tbc I mean I think his prior work is both well written and directed generally.
Haven't seen it yet, but hearing Will, Felix and Hesse on Chapo compare Alex Garland to Aaron Sorkin in terms of how they both revere journalists was something I didn't expect and something I found really funny considering all the people who have tried to defend this movie.
Garland intends for the movie to be about how journalism is the truest and noblest of professions but instead makes a movie that accurately portrays journalists as amoral freaks
I got the feeling the president was meant to be a trump like figure, but then they made changes to obfuscate that by making it politically incoherent.
It can be viewed as any president. and that's a good thing. But it would be better if my personal leftist politics were the main focus.
Storywise there’ve been better “Jornos are real fucked up sickos” movies. And I felt like, in terms of worldbuilding, Garland based the whole thing on Twitter factions. It’s a movie with Trump brain. There’s a slight scent of like, Resistance-era lib smugness. At the end of the movie
spoiler
A random soldier, I think it might’ve been a black woman, shoots Donald Trump in the heart. The movie feigns neutrality “oh, we’ve simply presented this image of a soldier executing an unarmed prisoner of war, you make up your own mind about that.” But I felt like what the movie wanted you to think was something like “wouldn’t it be a shame if things got this bad, but at least we killed the bad guy who was responsible for all the evils that played out here. It’s not a deeper issue with America, or the West, it’s just a small band of Fascists that want to wreck things and have also managed to seize all the levers of power.”
But in terms of like, visual and auditory storytelling, top-notch film. I feel like my issues with the story are balanced out by my appreciation for how it was told, such that I don’t regret seeing it. Though it’s also not worth spending much more thought on than this. A picture that was a good watch but not good to reflect upon.
The trailer made me think this movie was going to be more like an American civil war "red dawn" type of movie.
I'm way beyond my super hero movie phase (like basically everyone is) but it's got some pretty good interpersonal stuff and really that's about the best you can expect from a superhero movie. There's the old joke about it being a better Avengers movie than Avengers 2.
