Annihilation (2018) -- Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, dir. Alex Garland, based on Jeff VanderMeer's book

Maybe? Not per se minding a glossed-up "Roadside Picnic"/Stalker riff though I guess more people will think of comparing it to Arrival as a contrast now (and does remind me I need to give Tarkovsky in general a long overdue rewatch). Anyway, first trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufaDurSCKOk

Separate thread on ILB re VanderMeer's work and earlier discussion of the film plans.

where lies the strangling fruit...Area X - The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

looks great. loved Ex Machina + good cast. (I can't stand Tarkovsky but that's another thread)

all that rainbow lens flare makes me feel a bit ill

maybe that's the intention

good book that was screaming to be turned into a movie. i trust ex machina guy to not fuck it up the way villeneuve steamrolled everything interesting abt story of your life, both because material is less fuckup-able and bc ex machina was simple and measured in its creepiness. sequel sucks though so they should just stop after #1

The book series went nowhere, is basically a faux literary riff on the TV show Lost

the tv show lost is more resonant that ever

I thought Ex Machina was dumb as shit, and couldn't make it through this book even though it was only like 80 pages long. But Natalie Portman has the perfect doll face and glassy stare to convey Meaning in this kind of thinks-it's-smart prestige SF, so there's that.

<3 <3 <3 Gina Rodriguez <3 <3 <3

screaming to be turned into a movie

― flopson, Thursday, 28 September 2017 01:45

I think that's usually a sign that a book did not deliver, so maybe it was just screaming to be a better book. I haven't read it.

The book was interesting and atmospheric but ultimately unsatisfying (maybe the sequals rectify this?). I will watch the film but don't really know what to expect.

good book that was screaming to be turned into a movie.

Boy, I would have said "good book whose strengths are weirdnesses of word choice and prose style that have no analogue on the screen." I don't see how they make this a movie without making it a "what is the spooky creature in the spooky zone" movie which would be .... nothing like the book, or rather, the kind of thing the book is explicitly a reaction against

dir Alex aaaaaaaand i'm outta here

Book was at #4 on Amazon bestseller chart yesterday!

My novel now seems like it's commenting on some of the other books. Anyway, thrilled it looks like our contributions to eco causes goes up. pic.twitter.com/kz9g5TSK77

— Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) September 28, 2017

(maybe the sequals rectify this?)

nope

Boy, I would have said "good book whose strengths are weirdnesses of word choice and prose style that have no analogue on the screen." I don't see how they make this a movie without making it a "what is the spooky creature in the spooky zone" movie which would be .... nothing like the book, or rather, the kind of thing the book is explicitly a reaction against

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, September 29, 2017 10:25 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not sure what the book is about or a reaction against aside from eco sci-fi with some heavyhanded pomo slabbed on thick, but the whole time i read it i had a feeling that Vandermeer had a film adaptation in mind. also c'mon [SPOILER] there are some good spooky scenes also some action iirc

some books r just cinematic, i wonder what that quality is exactly

anyway im there for this i loved ex machina

same here *unbookmarks thread*

I don’t think the books were unsatisfying. They were each pieces of a puzzle that didn’t totally add up, but suggested a cosmic horror rooted in overgrowth/environmental cancer/corruption/body-doubling/ineffectual bureaucratic conspiracy. All three of the novele brought different perspectives to a situation that was implied to be beyond human comprehension, while kicking the story just a little further down the road.

The tv show “lost” is a facile comparison.... some combination of “the prisoner” and “the thing” and Lisa Frank seems more apt.

This looks awesome, can’t wait. Loved the book(s)

Interesting if familiar story -- as a friend said on Twitter just now, regarding the reaction of the initial test audience, "Make it NOT the book."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/annihilation-how-a-clash-between-producers-led-a-netflix-deal-1065465

I try not to judge a book by its cover but holy cow does David Ellison have severe jerkface

Oh, it's Larry's son. Say no more.

I like the logic of 'This film is too complex, let's dumb it down to be more like Geostorm, which was a big failure for us!'

I try not to judge a book by its cover but holy cow does David Ellison have severe jerkface

― Dan I., Friday, December 8, 2017 2:47 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale_crop_768_433/2017/12/scott_rudin_and_david_ellison_-_split_-_getty_-_h_2017.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/54/Are_We_Not_Men_We_Are_Devo%21.jpg

holy shit

amazing

First I've heard of Geostorm.

tbf ...

https://tmhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Josh-Homme-near-death-meditation-w2.jpg

Annnnd new trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OP78l9oF0

Interesting contrast to the first trailer!

Good interview w/Garland

http://collider.com/alex-garland-annihilation-interview/amp/

he's familiar with stalker but still thought annihilation was genuinely original?

Garland is not exactly a great interviewee is he... I feel somewhat deflated and standoffish now and I didn't even read the whole interview.

early reviews seem generally positive so far... I'm dialing up some cautious optimism and will try to catch it this weekend

this is going to be another one of those amazing sci-fi megabombs that lasts like 3 weeks in the theater isn't it

The poster and the font and Portman all make me think this is some kind of Phantom Menace sequel with M16s instead of lasers guns

Gotta say, that movie title sells itself in this moment in time.

Queen Amidala in "Stalker 2018"

Exactly

Queen Amidala’s double in Predator 2049: Return to Tatooine

Endor, that is

If the book is a combo of Roadside Picnic & Mountains of Madness, I’m curious how much of that will translate to the screen.

Would prefer Marble Madness

Saw this last night. I really liked it. It’s a verrrrrrrry loose adaptation but it does capture the general atmosphere of the book.

There’s a lot of stuff in here that is going to reward repeat viewings.

no uk cinema release wtf

wait waht

apparently this is being released only in the US, Canada, and China, with other rights already sold to Netflix

Man this guy loves Tarkovsky. Liberally rips off Stalker & Solaris in almost equal measure (mostly Stalker, but the final scene & the whole idea of being able/unable to love a simulacrum of your dead spouse- I mean give me a break). Still, you could do worse when ripping people off. I liked it a lot, and it had a fairly rowdy matinee audience totally gripped and silent, and there was no moaning or groaning when the credits rolled without a lot of questions answered or threads resolved. But having seen Solaris and Stalker, I'm not left with much to think about. Garland not only took the exact imagery of those films, sometimes down to specific shots (underwater seaweed just like the opening shot of Solaris), but all of the ideas are Tarkovsky's. So I'm not sure what to make of it, glad it's out there, it's very well made and paced and it's nice that there's more "intelligent" sci-fi out there that could be successful (posters and advertising and the shit title - i know it's based on a novel - made it look like some Hunger Games shit), but... what's the point if you've seen Solaris and Stalker?

In fairness the Stalker homage is baked into the book

yeah, along with the really lame title. again I liked the film, I like Garland a lot, but the similarities were overbearing and distracting and most importantly, left me with little to think about. But I just saw it a couple hours ago (ha!), so we'll see I suppose. Glad I got to see it in a theater, huge bummer about the distribution being so limited outside of North America. they got bad test audiences, because like I said, the crowd I saw it with was completely silent and gripped, and there wasn't one "oh COME ON!" when the credits came up. it's a very good film and I can only imagine how many people who have never seen a Tarkovsky movie will love this.

enjoyed this. makes up for that amy adams one

haha I agree. it’s far from perfect but Arrival was and is painfully overpraised.

This was fine trending to good. There were elements of the book I missed but the visual elements were pretty good, I liked the end also.

I do wish movies about people doing a mission of some kind would spend less time with those people being breathlessly grim.

this is going to be another one of those amazing sci-fi megabombs that lasts like 3 weeks in the theater isn't it

deep dive:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/02/26/annihilations-grim-box-office-fate-was-an-inevitable-tragedy/#247797134ed9

is it really looking that grim? there was a decent amount of people there when i saw it yesterday, wasn't just spillover from Black Panther

"a decent amount of people" only cuts it in 1974. opening smash or zilch.

but that was how Ex Machina was, total slow burn success. does Paramount really have that little confidence in it?

Ex Machina didn't have a star budget, I don't think

Right

I should read that Forbes article

Ex Machina was an A24 film, apples and oranges. Much lower budget, surely.

I think the book was a little too fresh in my mind and it hindered my ability to just let the film roll, so I really want to see it again

It's really its own thing. The thing I feel is a strength is that the major questions of the work aren't stated by characters, and when they are, they're not elaborated upon. That's going to be a weakness for any audience that needs themes spelled out.

I was in awe that the Southern Reach facility looked exactly the same from the outside as what I'd imagined when reading the book

My partner described this as “femme The Thing”

My favorite bit was the dance in the lighthouse with the double, which it turns out was indeed choreographed by a dancer.

that intrigued me, so here's the article I found after inevitably searching:
https://www.wmagazine.com/story/annihilation-natalie-portman-dance-final-scene

that was my least favorite part but only because the music was hurting my ears and I thought it went on just a little too long

My partner described this as “femme The Thing”.

Yes! I thought that the . . err . . . thing they encountered in the empty swimming pool was very "The Thing".

I kept thinking of lichens, and how they're symbiotic colonies of two different things (algae and fungi) living in balance. And they never say lichens in the film!

I was in awe that the Southern Reach facility looked exactly the same from the outside as what I'd imagined when reading the book

― mh, Monday, February 26, 2018

same!

x-post no but the colorful things that were growing all over the walls at the main station place they camped out at were pretty obviously lichens, right?

everything was a blend of organisms, really

Right that was the whole point but there were a bunch of things that looked particularly like lichens but just really colorful.

otm

Massive fan of the books so very stoked to catch this without seeing or reading anything about it other than Garland's struggle with the studio. Wanted to support this financially ('smart' SF i'm always in the theaters for, even though I hate theaters now; 45 minutes of trailers? fuck). Given that it had to be wrapped up in one film, it's not bad. Surprised by how much SFX they threw at this, I thought it looked fantastic. The ending sequence is a bit lame but really any conclusion Garland tried to bolt on there, considering the story trucks on for two more novels, was going to feel bolted on

A lot of the flaws are right there in the material as mentioned upthread (undeveloped Portman and Issac characters), so i forgive that, along with the Stalker comparisons. (When I was reading the books I never thought of Tarkovsky at all. Thematically though it has much more in common with Solaris rather than Stalker ...)

Non-book-readers' reactions to this are interesting – I heard a bunch of women from audience afterwards expressing disappointment that the film was unoriginal and not compelling but dressed up with a PC team to distract from that. Which brings me to something the movie had to ditch because of time: the unreal creepiness not of Area X but the Southern Reach organization. The only reason the team's female at all is because a few years in to sending people in there, the Reach is grasping at straws and trying to figure out what factor leads to everyone being killed, leading to weirdness like team members not being allowed to learn or use each other's names as well as random team composition. I think this is going to be one of those films that gets sought out on video, because it sits uncomfortably between a lot of genres and doesn't satisfy their individual dramatic demands

I think the lingering question -- is this extraterrestrial? what is it? -- is wisely sidelined by the discussion about motive. If this is something alien, why do we assume it wants something or even thinks in human terms of motive. What was the line from Radek, Tessa Thompson's character, about the motivations of the expedition? I remember she said Lena was looking to fight it, but I can't remember the exact phrasing when she referred to her own motivation or Ventress's

I think I need a second viewing

That's the scene that stuck in my mind too because I couldn't remember her phrasing

In the movie she said that the psychiatrist wanted to confront it and and Lena wanted to fight it but she didn’t think she wanted to do either of those things and then walked off and started sprouting flowers on her arms before disappearing. I think.

the image that stuck with me, other than the flowers, mosses, and lichens seeming so beautiful, is the part of the video they find where Isaac's character is doing ad hoc exploratory surgery and he turns to look at the camera

I have no idea what the direction he was given was, but the near-manic wild-eyed look he gave was almost scarier than any actual gore

xp that sounds about right. thanks, E!

I get seriously freaked by 'found footage' in horror films (probably starting with Prince of Darkness' last scene) so yeah was loving the shit out of the two videos that are in the movie. In the books there's a bit more done with that idea, I won't spoil it here, but it's extremely satisfying

I have no idea what the direction he was given was, but the near-manic wild-eyed look he gave was almost scarier than any actual gore

― mh, Monday, 26 February 2018 22:20 (yesterday) Permalink

OTM it felt like a glimpse of an even freakier, more fucked up story.

The last video with him commuting suicide by grenade was also very haunting

someone more informed than me should start a "future of film financing/distribution" etc. thread with regard to blockbusters, prestige, niche/art films in the current climate. maybe there already is one?

Oscar Isaac shooting some of these scenes across the lot from the Star Wars flick during the same week is some mind-bending shit. Kudos to him for acting in completely different contexts

that first video clip with the serpent-like intestine thing actually rivals most movies pitched as horror imo

I went to the bathroom and came back at the very end of that scene :(.

oof yeah i had to look away during that. totally agree about Isaac's insane manic wild-eyed look into the camera, by far the scariest thing in the movie

Portman has a weird vestigial remnant of her Jackie O drawl in this. Isaacs also weirdly goes Sgt Candy on the accent for five minutes, then never again.

Isaac has no SW vestiges which is wild considering he shot some scenes when bouncing between that movie and this one across the lot

unfortunately otm re: jackie drawl

I saw it last night and enjoyed it a lot. It helped that it's been a while since I read the books, which I loved; I was able to roll with the changes to the story and appreciate how much of VanderMeer's ideas, mood, and imagery made it onto the screen. I'm going to have to take another look at Stalker and Solaris but the Tarkovsky comparisons are apt. Some of the visuals in the beach scenes reminded me of Ballard. There's the gruesome sequence mentioned upthread but otherwise not much horror; I wonder if it got its R rating more because of the not-sexy sex scenes. It's easy to understand why the studio decided this would die at the box office: it's slow, somber, cosmic, and not at all child-friendly.

you kidding me? there's that video scene, the actual corpse/lichen/moss thing in the pool, the giant bear-thing that attacks, a lady with her throat ripped out, and a suicide by phosphorus grenade

no particular thing on its own might merit an R rating on violence, but there's a fair bit of random gore in there

yeah my friend who I saw it with had to look away multiple times, she was freaked by the bear thing

for an SF film, it's definitely scary, but I thought the total horror quotient was low compared to many R-rated horror movies ... I guess my tolerance is fairly high, but there's a lot of recent horror that's too much for me, and this isn't like that

I think the scary parts of Annihilation are especially powerful because the movie isn't just a succession of shrieking musical cues, pop-up scares, and gore effects; its quiet mood of disorientation and dread makes the horrific moments more effective when they occur

brief profile of Vandermeer and his thoughts on the film here:
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/02/22/jeff-vandermeer-goes-hollywood-well-not-really-annihilation/364406002/

aw man i love "local author" pieces...

I’m hoping some people from my synagogue will want to come along and see it (the film) with me,” Ann said. “He (Jeff) would rather be watching things with a cat in his lap and you can’t bring your cat to the movie theater with you.”

is he on ILX?

More here about the books here: where lies the strangling fruit...Area X - The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

asked my friend if he wanted to go see this tonight and he was like “u mean the ferngully meets prometheus movie?”

But so did he want to go

no ;_;

pod interview w/ Garland here

https://www.tiff.net/the-review/tiff-long-take-ep-54-alex-garland-on-annihilation-adaptation-and-the-future/

I went to see this with a group of friends and no one was super into it, but the ones who had read the books just hated it. I was entertained enough because I didn't really expect it to be as surreal and ambiguous as the book, but everything after they went into the zone was pretty heavy-handed and the deus ex machina ending was lame (I chuckled when the psychologist said the name of the movie and started spitting fire). Also we were making LFO synth noises for the rest of the night.

I did like how quiet it was for the most part! Like literally the silence between lines.

I think Arrival is a better sci-fi adaptation tbh, I felt a lot more invested in that (and appreciated the story-to-film changes more).

i didn't love this either. it got better once she got to the lighthouse, especially bc that stuff reminded me of (the much better) "under the skin." the first 3/4 of the movie was pretty boilerplate and a little dull, despite all the scares. but my bigger problem was there were too many unanswered questions that the director didn't seem interested in pretending to have answers for. i often love movies that i don't feel like i completely understand, but this just seemed to have a bunch of mysterious shit that didn't really connect to anything in any meaningful way, and the main character's/director's answer to all that is "i don't know."

It's funny, the book people were mad that there were too many answers, like the comet + alien explanation.

I kept waiting for at least a nod to the glowing living writing/infinite gibberish poem thing from the book, that could have been cool cinematically.

I appreciated that, by combining the lighthouse and the below ground part, that it addressed the "tunnel versus tower" rumination in the book :)

can we talk about the tattoo

gina rodriguez had it, i think from the beginning
the dead exploded soldier in the pool had it
natalie portman had it when she was being interviewed, but not when she was in the shimmer. but she had a bruise on that spot, that the tattoo maybe ... grew from?

that was the one element that I actually wanted some explanation for, and I am not an explanation-wanter

tbh the real explanation is that it's an element introduced for science fiction film nerds to debate the significance of

"Under the Skin" is a good example of a sci-fi adaptation that jettisons most of the novel (including the overexplained backstory) and vastly improves it in the process

Parts of this felt incoherent to me. I don't really see how the major theme of "self-destruction" maps onto the mutational acceleration in Area X--unless the idea is that self-destruction is the expression of a deeper Life Force--that Life is just a fancy way to Die, etc.

xp i haven't read the novel so not sure whether it's an improvement or not

but one criticism i read of "under the skin" that i thought was valid is that it relies on knowledge of things outside the movie (like already knowing it's based on a novel about an alien harvesting food) to make sense of it

I had no idea what Under the Skin was about and I thought that the abduction of humans for _some need_, although it being food wasn't clear, was communicated by the end.

xp I felt like the theme of self-destruction existed only because that's what the exploration group brought with them. There's no indication that whatever alien element has changed Area X has desires or intentions in any human way -- it appears to be reacting to whatever impulse is carried in, as the physicist states

You could theorize that it's like a virus that wants to exist and coexist with the environment where it's appeared. Only instead of trying to find a homeostasis with pure biological function, it's also attempting to balance with psychology and physiology. So it's attempting a yin-to-yang approach with intent.

i guess centering an entire movie around an entity/character with literally no motivations or goal is an ... interesting approach?

around an entity/character with literally no motivations or goal is an ... interesting approach?

metaphor for nature?

Sounds like... science fiction to me!

The idea that something alien would be intelligent in the way we perceive intelligence, or perceives reality in the way we do, is difficult to convey.

Arrival was kind of a lightweight version of that in that we could see entities that seemed to be biological and, although they communicated much differently, they seemed to have motivations and goals. That made it more of a reveal when their perception of reality was shown to be incredibly different from our own, even if all other things were equal.

Parts of this felt incoherent to me. I don't really see how the major theme of "self-destruction" maps onto the mutational acceleration in Area X--unless the idea is that self-destruction is the expression of a deeper Life Force--that Life is just a fancy way to Die, etc.

― ryan, Monday, March 5, 2018 6:37 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that’s pretty much what Garland was going for. Thanatos/death drive on macro and micro levels of the story.

found this film really mediocre. promising first third but it just becomes rote at some point. no team has returned, okay, i got it, this is one of THOSE movies. and it is; just it then turns all wannabe psych at the end. and the effects keep getting worse. plus all those silly flashbacks! and mannnnn the script in this thing. on the nose and clunky as hell throughout.

also it's weird how "the shimmer" doesn't "refract" anything that's just constantly in the background, like it doesn't mutate their shoes into super soakers or ice cream and the grass and most trees are still basically normal, gravity and molecular bonds are all good, etc. too expensive i guess. that it turned into the "floridada" video at the end was acceptable i guess.

Welp, I guess there’s nothing more that needs to be said. Lock thread!

Netflix release tomorrow (so midnight tonight, if that is how Netflix works?). I've been avoiding this thread until I can watch it, with great anticipation.

Darn, Netflix UK actually says 12th March, the Guardian misled me by saying it was the 11th.

this was pretty good. I think it might be an unfilmable book, though. too bad all of the creeper stuff was removed, and the mind control stuff taken out. I kept expecting JJL's character to snap her fingers and say a code-word. otherwise, what was her motivation? hand-wave, hand-wave terminal illness? my biggest overall complaint is that the psychedelia after the floaty alien thing (which was way cool) was droney and overlong. the homunculus was overdone, and the burning went on too long, and the plot could've been served better by more spacing at the beginning of the picture. oh well. maybe extended edition will have more of the initial disorientation stuff. it could also have less of Natalie Portman's back mid-affair.

haven't read the books. thought the movie was real good. feel like ppl have ridiculous high bars for movies now. it was...good! good is nice! great is different! not everything has to be the ultimate!

this movie was so amazing that i lit myself on fire

Another thing. I read a piece with Oscar Isaac talking about how he filmed this across the street from Star Wars. Both movies have slender women who climbing into unexplained seaside ooky space butts to confront... themselves? Is it possible they used the same set and redressed it?

Who wore astral anus better? Amidala or Rey?

da fuq

watched this last night and it was... fine?

it's basically stalker + the last of us + images of present-day pripyat + that video that went viral a while back of the weird worm that jizzes out a root system all over a rock tho innit

I was in awe that the Southern Reach facility looked exactly the same from the outside as what I'd imagined when reading the book

this is v otm tho, they nailed the look of the place perfectly

One of the financiers David Ellison tried to get changes made to the last half hour which in my opinion was the saving grace of the film. Thankfully Scott Rudin had final cut.

I'm browsing David's Wikipedia and his sister Megan's - has there ever been a starker divide between the quality of two siblings work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Ellison

Big fan of the book, thought this film was absolutely dreadful, just bland and generic with none of the creepiness. Also Portman having seven years in the military and rising to full professor at Johns Hopkins would be I guess sixty? And the very subtle cancer metaphor of the book was somewhat overstated by I don’t know, ten overt mentions of cancer in the dialogue? What a waste. A massive letdown.

I'm wondering if the sound/visual component is going to be completely lost on anyone not able to see this in the theater (or without some ridiculous home theater) because the design was pretty striking on a large screen and droning sound

I enjoyed a lot of the design - especially the bear and the fungal efflorescence of the body in the lighthouse - but the drones were pretty rote to me, just like "we're laying in this drone bed to make this otherwise unremarkable scene portentous" trailer type work.

the soundtrack is pretty good tbh

although I swear one of the bass drone to rhythmic sections at the end sounds like a moderat song. I should bother Geoff Barrow about it on twitter so he can swear at me :)

Barrow has said on twitter that the first minute or two of that cue is Moderat, and then they riff on it

I'm pretty sure Matthew did not hear the film in a cinema?

whoa!

I should follow him on twitter

nah he's mostly an incoherent grumpy middle-aged bloke

found it though:

Yeh they did the first minute of the alien
Scene on the film we took it onto the climax from there it an amazing track &
We’ve tried to not be assholes and take the credit for it.

Quite right, I'm in Australia and it is only on Netflix here. Watched it on my friend's setup and to be fair I don't much like the picture or sound quality there. Whereas I realise these things are particularly important to a film like this, I found the characters clichéd and falsely motivated, and the worst crime was the total absence of tension. The book thoroughly creeped me out with its themes of bodily invasion, altered perception etc. But the transformation was handled poorly, a few key shots (and frankly stupid microscopy) replacing the relentless infected feel of the novel. A couple of digital deer with flower horns and a bunch of public art level topiary. The other crime was the "brightness" and perceptual shift in the narrative was written as an internal thing in the book, a sense that Lena's mind is being colonised, but adding it to big wide objective camera shots in the film make it seem like she was fine mentally.
And where was the crawler? Instead we got a silly Dr Who regeneration in a set left over from Prometheus. The ever-evolving optical fungus which resulted from that was brilliant, though.
I liked Ex Machina by the way. I guess I'll watch it again in better circumstances and see if I change my mind, it's happened before.

A couple of digital deer with flower horns and a bunch of public art level topiary.

I didn't read the book but that was kinda my issue too - - - this really needed some Rick Baker type talent in the makeup and effects department, to give us a sense of subtle wrongnesses starting to pile up in the body and in the setting. Just felt like they were in some southern swamp where occasionally something weird would pass through. Would be cool if the water and sky themselves look increasingly wrong, or if the buildings they find and inhabit don't just look abandoned but changed. Not something OTT, but things looking and feeling out of place, idk. I'm thinking of like, House of Leaves but with everything, not just the walls and floors, unsettlingly fluid and unreliable.

OTM, this and the sense that the changes might equally be perceived / perceptual as well as actual differences in real world things, and the increasing unease that such a distinction doesn't even exist, are key to the book's weird power.

If I'd read the book I'm sure I'd resent those things for their absence, happy enough that I didn't!

worst crime was the total absence of tension

People were crawling out of their chairs both times I saw it in the cinema.

Barrow has noted that the sound mix is inferior on Netflix for no apparent reason, and has generally been dropped 5dB btw

Apparently cinema screenings have started to be added at some English theatres due to demand.

matthewk and doctor casino otm... they started on this with everyone waking up with no memory of setting up camp etc and then just dropped it

I'm wondering if the sound/visual component is going to be completely lost on anyone not able to see this in the theater (or without some ridiculous home theater) because the design was pretty striking on a large screen and droning sound

this is otm, the sound design was very very good

sense that Lena's mind is being colonised, but adding it to big wide objective camera shots in the film make it seem like she was fine mentally.

I definitely did not read the film as telling me she was fine mentally. By the time she gets to the beach she has begun to abandon a sense of self, abandoning all her supplies and shelter & seeming more drawn to the locus, or carried by inertia, than heading by wilful intent. She is jolted back into agency on learning the fate of her husband, a reminder of her core reason for entering the shimmer.

matthewk and doctor casino otm... they started on this with everyone waking up with no memory of setting up camp etc and then just dropped it

This is actual storytelling, not a sloppy error. We learn that they have travelled for days , and thus have presumably had their minds about them until now. At the point they reawaken, perhaps the memory lapse is a result of making it through the "outer wall" of the shimmer -- as the film progresses, we learn that (in addition?) the minds of everyone within the zone break down.

There's no need to go back and fill in what happened prior: the absence is in fact specific information we have been given, as fellow travellers on this leg of the journey.

i think what rogermexico was getting at was that having established this loss of memory and time, there are no further weird time glitches or sense that time moves differently inside the shimmer or anything like that. it's all filmed naturalistically, time seems pretty ordinary there actually, and there's not even a token "look at your hair, it's grown eight inches while mine looks the same!" or whatever kind of scene.

It's already been established that time moves weirdly inside but appears normal-ish to the inhabitants though, through Benedict Wong's interrogation of Portman about how long she was inside, and (afawk) Oscar Isaac's uncertainty about how long he was away.

I definitely would have enjoyed more weirdness personally! But I think Garland did a great job of dropping signposts to weirdness while keeping the onscreen narrative clear for the audience of multiplex normies for whom this big-budget action film was made.

if id ve known this was so stalkerish id prob have skipped it

sic I think you've convinced me to see this again when I get a good opportunity, I so wanted to like it.

smh sic you misunderstood my post completely

tbf it becomes less clear every time I read it

maybe your DNA is being refracted?

I enjoyed this, but feel somewhat underwhelmed. Part of that is undoubtably that a lot of the visuals and sound were wasted on my laptop viewing - I wish I could have seen it at the cinema.

I've not read the book(s?), but want to now, hoping that there's a bit more to dig into and think about there, as I really like the whole premise and much of what the film did, but in general I think I wanted it to go further/deeper with the weirdness, mystery, wonder, creepiness...

The books are satisfyingly weird. Also, the first had lot of disorientation based on time. Lots of moments of “how did the tents get set up?” I had hoped that more of that would show up on film, but I understand that it kind of stalls the storytelling.

i loved the books. they put me in a trance. very memorable reading experience.

The movie really does seem like a half-remembered or reimagined version the first book, by someone who has placed it in the history of film science fiction. They’re very different things

Garland's whole thing about not reading the other two books is kind of weird

in my perfect world the guy who did the Fargo and Legion shows would have made a t.v. series out of these books. that guy gets things.

i don't think that the books were perfect or anything but they did kinda get to the heart of what i love about reading in a pretty profound way. they brought me back to me as a kid staying up all night in my room reading a stephen king book. just completely immersed in a strange world. with no VR headset!

I think the other two books had not come out when he wrote the script, but he said he didn't even re-read the first one. Seemed promising st the time but a bad idea in retrospect.

the second book was released three months later...

he's doing a tech thriller t.v. show:

http://deadline.com/2018/03/fx-devs-pilot-ex-machina-alex-garland-scott-rudin-1202336940/

the second book was released three months later...

...

this was barely b-level i thought, which is fine as long as there's some kind of rollicking good times but it was so dreary

"hey, why so mopey? what's your name? i'm a straight-shootin wisecrackin scientist! come over and meet my buddies. yep, all of us will be dead soon, it's that kind of movie. get to know us!"

the exact moment when i knew this would be unfun was when they walk right through the pearlescent soap-bubble shimmer without even pausing

i mean.. surely as the director you think - hey. this is a big moment. maybe a moment of no return. they're about to enter the most inexplicable zone ever encountered by the human race. maybe they... pause? reach out a hand to touch it? maybe we even get a... close-up?? a reaction shot? no they just blorp right through, doesn't even slow em down, out of our way, we're here on a fact-finding mission! to find out about... stuff! (like this iridescent bubble??)

agreed w/all the above about lost opportunities to truly unsettle. doesn't even need special effects, just some playing around with film grammar, the way janet pops into existence in the good place.

felt extremely Homecoming in places (for fans of the Gimlet podcast..)

And Portman remains the death touch for every. single. thing. I've seen her in. It's as if an entire generation of filmgoers/makers is unable to process that someone attractive and intelligent could have zero charisma and no affect.

agreed. She’s the Claire Danes of actresses.

could not disagree with Tracer more strongly about the bubble, that was one of my favorite things in the film. no corny-ass moment where trained scientists suddenly become wonder-struck children letting the camera dawdle over their wide-eyed awe. they walk in. they have a job to do. in the movies, characters sort of are always reminding the viewer "if this was you, you'd be totally blown away by these circumstances." i like a movie that lets people with do their work the way people do their work: without calling massive attention to their own reactions.

isn't their job to be at least a little bit curious about the bubble?

and even if your answer is no i just thought it was a real missed opportunity. fine, if you think they ought to be uninterested (for whatever reason). i don't but let's grant that. so in that case let's SEE that. set us up for a moment of wonder and then show them grunting impatiently through it. that imparts information, tells us something about them. they're so dim in the rest of the film that this moment didn't read like they were badass prioritizers it read like bovine incuriosity

did it occur to anyone else that a way around the comms blackout might have been two dixie cups and a very long piece of string

there are plenty of attempted "moments of wonder" in this btw - the deer, the flowers, the legs sticking out of a DNA fresco in the drained swimming pool, the writhing snakes in the belly - none of which was anything more than super obvs 5 seconds after hitting the screen so maybe it's for the best that they didn't try for one here

i could certainly have handled a little less of portman calling massive attention to her own (pained, self-serious) reactions to every single goddamn thing

Idk if “moments of wonder” was the goal of the movie at any point? Deer, topiary, bear, guts, crocodile, flowers, etc., were all about the adventurers’ perception of the alien in the familiar/familiar in the alien.

i always find it so weird in stories like this, where nobody's ever come back from the mysterious portal, that they keep sending in teams with all kinds of equipment, outfitted for weeks of survival and so on, your mission is to reach the lighthouse blah blah. i'd be like, your mission is to get the fuck back out and tell us what's going on. in this one there's at least the possibility that they would try to do that but they got screwed up by that initial loss of time and the scrambled instruments so all they can do is try and make it to the shore. weird that they don't bring in like, a hot air balloon. or a little baby helicopter like james bond. or try to climb a tree. i could not figure out why they didn't climb a tree. file that under "the four of us have to defend this gigantic sprawling base that's already been breached - better split up and have some people keep watch down on the ground!"

tbh i may have just wanted a more faithful adaptation of fantastic four #293-295, in which Central City is swallowed by a gradually expanding black time bubble.

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/scans15/FF293_IronMan.jpg

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/scans15/FF293_SheHulk.jpg

i didn't need a scene of wonder at the shimmer's edge. but it'd be cool to maybe get a little more of a sense of what it feels to touch it, to push through it.... i guess it was kinda interesting/different that it presents no resistance at all but you just lose a ton of short-term memory so we don't see any of that part of their journey. i guess it'd be hard to actually show everything happen and then depict them not remembering the scenes we just saw. but in a way that might be more interestingly weird than just showing them becoming unhinged and tying each other up all of a sudden.

Send a drone into the shimmer, at the very least put a phone on a telescoping rod and take a pic?

IIRC the shimmer is totally impenetrable except for one little entryway

Good entry point for the drone ime

The sound is such a major part of this movie. It is a serious cinematic crime that a lot of folks are forced to see this first on Netflix.

Also didn’t realize that so many people have such an allergy to Portman. I guess people take her lack of “warmth” for woodenness or something but I think she’s usually fine and was fine in this.

brb installing a full dolby atmos setup in everyone's home

visually portman reminded me of, and bear with me on this one... owen wilson??

something about her rawboned, squinty look i guess

o_O

i know

i was like.. what is it, what is it and when it hit me i was like wow okay

Good entry point for the drone ime

they established that technology doesn't work in the zone, jeez

poor obama

Pinhole camera on a selfie stick

How about just tie a rope to somebody who goes in and pull them out?

Maybe felt it was a good opportunity to get rid of Natalie Portman?

i think it's an interesting choice to make the team all scientists, could be cool, but they don't really act like any scientists i've ever met most of the time, so that felt like window-dressing. idk i think there's a reason things in this genre often have some non-scientists on the team to force the story to go a certain route and get you past any "real scientists would not behave like this" - well they want to sit around and discuss how you would begin to set this up as a study but there's this army person who's tired of all this mumbo-jumbo and wants to remind them they're on a mission. JJL is playing that role here i guess but not strongly enough to get me away from the "wait, why would they do that?" problems. arrival felt much more like it was about people who think about complex and unsolvable problems for a living, and was really interested in the Big Questions that at some distant remove motivate the fields the characters work in. sure it wasn't AS smart about science as it could have been but idk it's just like, if they're gonna be scientists, have that inform who they are and how they act.

thinking about some of the characters in the mars trilogy, how e.g. the geologist has really strong opinions about martian rocks that extend ultimately into an ethical-political question about the future of mars and whether humans have the right to fuck with this martian rock ecology that's been doing its own thing for millions of years. if what the movie has its mind on is people being confronted with a more mutable, fluid world than the stable one they're used to, then idk, make that a thing. so is the idea that portman makes it to the end because she gives lectures about cancer and is therefore more used to the idea of life being full of things growing and developing in a way that seems harmful from one POV but is kinda just what life does? idk there are the seeds of some strong ideas here but the script is just sooooo dumb that none of it really felt under control to me. glad others are liking it though!

JJL’s character was still a psychologist in the film I thought?

yea she was

the underrated science

right hence my "i guess." she was also the commanding officer of the mission so she did some of the "we're on a mission here, people, enough pontificating let's move on" work even though she was notionally also a scientist. they basically barely did any science stuff beyond coming to abrupt conclusions about the nature of the world inside the shimmer. it's b-movie stuff and fine as far as that goes but idk if i'm gonna get this level of dialogue filling it out, i'd rather be watching deep blue sea.

their mission was to make observations, but ultimately do so once they got to the epicenter at the lighthouse

this was basically crap wasn't it? so glad I didn't have to spend money at the cinema to watch what was p much an extended Stranger Things episode with all the charm and fun removed

I feel like I've encountered this premise so many times recently, the idea of an underworld or a flipside or an area that's been taken over by a mysterious entity. Silent Hill, the OA, Stranger Things and of course things like Stalker or Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy.. it didn't feel like it was doing anything these hadn't already done and the characters were all so dull, with some lousy acting and heaps of exposition. the odd cool bit mitigated it but there weren't enough of those cool bits (screaming pig monster;the mimic etc)

The ending saved it for me, otherwise I'd be inclined to agree with dl

as much as I'm kvetching abt this movie's mediocrity, the mimic really was super unsettling and a very inspired design. great scene. marred only by how forced it is that they're all tied up and helpless. and how does natalie portman know that the trick is to not react? is she just thinking of jurassic park? whatever the weird skull face was great.

I think in the book there was a creature out in the night who had the voice of one of the previous expedition's members, that could have been good. Also it was more an eerie recurrence than actually attacking them, but whatever.

the Expanse also does a riff on this - a superweapon that's essentially an evolutionary mutation machine on fast-forward

Next they perceived all around them an infinite number of beasts, lean, panting, with bristling claws, and mingled together one above another in a mysterious and terrifying confusion. There were serpents with feet, and bulls with wings, fishes with human heads were devouring fruit, flowers were blooming in the jaws of crocodiles, and elephants with uplifted trunks were sailing proudly through the azure like eagles. Their incomplete or multiplied limbs were distended with terrible exertion. As they thrust out their tongues they looked as though they would fain give forth their souls; and every shape was to be found among them as if the germ-receptacle had been suddenly hatched and had burst, emptying itself upon the walls of the hall.

from Salammbo, Gustave Flaubert, 1862.

read by me here
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/eli-reads/id1345096977?mt=2

(this chapter the above passage comes from goes up Wednesday)

But beyond it seemed as though there were a cloud wherein were twinkling stars; faces appeared in the depths of its folds—Eschmoun with the Kabiri, some of the monsters that had already been seen, the sacred beasts of the Babylonians, and others with which they were not acquainted. It passed beneath the idol’s face like a mantle, and spread fully out was drawn up on the wall to which it was fastened by the corners, appearing at once bluish as the night, yellow as the dawn, purple as the sun, multitudinous, diaphanous, sparkling light.

they should’ve used the plot from the book imo, instead of turning it into Jurassic park. pretty good movie tho

also, it’s not much like Stalker, at all?? i cant think of any similarities beyond ‘people exploring The Zone’...

there's trees. and pained expressions.

it’s a small group exploring an area that’s changed in some way that can’t be easily scientifically addressed and the real thing they end up confronting is their own motivations and frustrations

outside of that, it’s not much like stalker

the big payoff of the zone in stalker was that it’d know your greatest desire, regardless of what you felt it was

annihilation doesn’t make it clear if there’s something acting on human emotion but the characters seem to believe it

I understood the book as saying - in a lovecrafty way - that even if nothing is acting directly on the brain, the effect of immersion in an alien environment is eventual madness. Very “Color out of Space.”

it’s a small group exploring an area that’s changed in some way that can’t be easily scientifically addressed and the real thing they end up confronting is their own motivations and frustrations

this is true of the book, which I wouldn’t deny has a closer connection to roadside picnic/Stalker. but in the movie they figure out what’s going on scientifically in 30 mins and the thing they end up confronting is a sequence of monsters trying to kill them

Except “color out of space” is crap and the book is good

this thread is like a plaintext game of chicken, where posters urge each other on in a frantic escalation of wilder and wilder terrible opinions

I have tried several times to enjoy the writing of HP Lovecraft and it’s all quite bad

they figure out what’s going on scientifically in 30 mins

saying "everything is refracted, dna, radio signals, etc" is closer to philosophy than science, it's what a scientist would ruminate about if they wanted to say "nothing makes sense because the laws of nature are broken"

that’s a lot more than we learn about the zone

they spend some time ruminating on what the granting of desire means and why the zone would do it, iirc

xp Roberto love your take

new board description p much

I'm in the 'this was just fine' camp; I read the first book and it was ok but didn't grip me (just a personal aesthetic reaction to Vandermeer's particular brand of Weird). The freakiest moment for me was Portman sitting on the sofa reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is exactly what I'm reading right now.

The movie goes over the top with the cancer stuff (and also with trying to explain the title), although I can interpret it as being how a biologist would interpret area x.

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that the movie changes the ending of the first Southern Reach novel in a way that shuts down the storylines of the second and third novels ... if the studio wanted a sequel the writers would have to start from scratch.

"another shimmer appeared!" done

I saw this last week on netflix and just read this thread. I had no clue this was a theatrical release, thought it was a netflix original and even for that I thought it was meh. Some parts looked great. I kept expecting Natalie Portman to break into her SNL rap when she was being interrogated post-shimmer.

imo it'd be more apt if she yelled "I am the black swan!"

'begun, these clone wars have'

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that the movie changes the ending of the first Southern Reach novel in a way that shuts down the storylines of the second and third novels ... if the studio wanted a sequel the writers would have to start from scratch.

― Brad C., Thursday, April 5, 2018 9:41 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Alex garland wrote the script after only the first southern reach book was out, wrote it as a standalone

this was fine.

the commentary mentions that the human-shaped plants were directly inspired by Garland being a big fan of the Alan Moore-era Swamp Thing

only listened to 1/3 of it last week but I caught that nugget

Deeply meh.

I thought parts of this were impressive, but not especially entertaining on the whole. I was annoyed by the way it introduced a lot of interesting questions and ideas only to pay them off first with a combination of gore and jump scares, and then finally with an extended 2001-style "woah, man" sequence which mostly felt like a way of distracting from the lack of narrative closure. Some of the effects in the first were intriguing, even if everything still looked a bit to slick and too clean, as is the standard in the CGI age (cringeworthy as the stomach sequence was, both it and some of the other effects could have benefitted from the touch of Tom Savini, if not Cronenberg), and even on those grounds the film mostly becomes a light show by the end. We also don't get nearly enough of Portman and Issac's relationship to care that much about it; like, it is obvious what motivates each of them to go into "The Shimmer" but what we see of their relationship doesn't really set up the emotional payoff that the film is clearly going for.

Haven't seen Ex Machina and I don't know anything about the books, but simply thinking of this film alongside its contemporaries, I vastly preferred Arrival in just about every way.

otm

ex machina >>> annihilation > arrival

imo the range of emotional and even physical expression between the members of the expedition is pretty well thought out. our narrator/protagonist is the least expressive and most guarded, which is a difficult proposition

It's no masterpiece but it's not average either. It's a B+/B movie. What a relief to watch a movie with Hollywood actresses interested in their jobs. And the wild boar/bear hybrid is the most terrifying special effect of the year after Ethan Hawke's drinking Scotch in First Reformed.

I still don't understand the purpose of the narrator's affair with her coworker, and especially of the flashbacks to it during the psychadelia at the end. Was it supposed to be some thanatos/eros fusion thingamadoo? was it supposed to be the trigger for her annihilation? so much writhing of back-muscles.

What if we remade The Thing ... wth digital effects

ex machina >>> annihilation > arrival

― flopson, Monday, June 25, 2018 6:50 PM (two hours ago)

yes

appreciate Alfred’s comment and his blog review, very much on the same plane as my feelings

Re the affair, supposed to cue us to the steaming erotic hotness of Portman, who otherwise spent the movie looking like she was trying to check off a list of items from a shipping list. Clue: it didn't work.
Will forever be angry about the total failure to transfer ANYTHING of the corrupted, febrile tone of the novel to the atmosphere of the film. Just weak, shitty writing and filmmaking. If it came out that Garland had a reader prepare a treatment for him instead of reading the book himself, I would be completely unsurprised.

the affair in this one and the international negotiation in Annihilation feel like they serve the same purpose: a narrative conceit meant to provide a familiar conflict for film to soften the ambiguity of science fiction stories

it’s less of a contribution to the plot with Annihilation. it’s meant to show human impulse or yearning from an otherwise stoic character but doesn’t quite hit.

hrm, do you mean Arrival with the first Annihilation there? cause i thought that the negotiation stuff was just echoing the other themes of the film about communication and jumping to conclusions about the intentions of the people on the other side of the line, etc.

appreciate Alfred’s comment and his blog review, very much on the same plane as my feelings

― mh,

xo

I don’t get where those scenes were meant to portray “erotic hotness” at all, though, unless “woman has sex” is inherently lascivious

it read more of a commentary on military couples and the ambiguity of lost spouses, of a basic human drive the character was addressing without having the external emotional capacity to speak about her need or her waning/conflicted feelings about her missing husband

I did, thanks DC. The short story hit all the points without an international breakdown but it was the addition to make it a full-blown movie. I can’t think of an addition that’d fit better, but it seemed off. Probably just the hazard of being acquainted with a story before seeing the adaptation

the vibe this movie had was so much closer to aliens than solaris that i think they should have just shoved in and gone full-cameron on it. the sinister hypnosis angle from the book could have been grafted onto the movie by making the psychologist a swirly-eyes android.

also swap jennifer jason leigh and natalie portman roles

this reminds me of game of thrones actually, in that the book was a dumb recapitulation of previous topoi of the genre that ultimately subsumed what was original to it in dreck, but holy god move things to a visual medium and it turns out, man , they can get dumber

My review.

Re the affair, supposed to cue us to the steaming erotic hotness of Portman, who otherwise spent the movie looking like she was trying to check off a list of items from a shipping list. Clue: it didn't work.
Will forever be angry about the total failure to transfer ANYTHING of the corrupted, febrile tone of the novel to the atmosphere of the film. Just weak, shitty writing and filmmaking. If it came out that Garland had a reader prepare a treatment for him instead of reading the book himself, I would be completely unsurprised.

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Monday, June 25, 2018 10:03 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok that is a total misread about the affair lol. the movie plays with her uncertainty and guilt related to his disappearance for emotional pull than the book does. will he even come back? was it even him who came back? will he survive? is it still her? i had an affair because i thought my husband was dead (actually i can't remember what the timing of the affair is--is it after he returns?) but now he's not dead/but maybe that wasn't even him/am i even me?

i think it's a successful adaptation, and i think garland took the adaptation very seriously (which is why he took to many liberties with it). first of all, the novel is not febrile! it's extremely clear-eyed and coldly rational throughout. book did this cool thing where you'd shift between being in awe of her deductive genius and thinking she was just paranoid, all mirrored in her own uncertainty. in the film that's all shifted into panic at being attacked by monsters, and anxiety about husband stuff

also swap jennifer jason leigh and natalie portman roles

― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 25, 2018 10:25 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah

What a relief to watch a movie with Hollywood actresses interested in their jobs.

I get that, and even though it shouldn't be in 2018, it is a point in the film's favour. The non-Portman characters could have still used a bit more fleshing out than one of the characters filling in Portman on everyone's backstories, though.

yeah, no, comment not fully thought through with regard to the affair, for some reason I am just irrationally angry with this movie in particular and Portman in general, I feel like she has a monopoly on parts which could be played by far more interesting actors. Would love to have seen Samantha Morton do this, my god.

Just watched this last night, enjoyed it conceptually and visually but I got zero emotional resonance from it.

I wasn't much moved by it either, but Stalker and other movies like this are for me examples of concepts encased in well-wrought forms.

Yeah. I didn't think this was in Stalker's league (what is?), but it's in its junior varsity. I am a fan in general of the new era of arty sci-fi, even though I like some better than others. Besides Garland there's the Shane Carruth movies, Arrival, Under the Skin -- what else? Actually, some parts of Annihilation reminded me of Twin Peaks: The Return, so maybe that belongs in the category too. It does have actual extraterrestrials.

Oh, Black Mirror too obviously. I got tired of it so I don't think of it much, but it's obviously an influence on Garland.

Carruth is on another level but he's too damned exacting to get movies made very often, which bums me out (even though it helps account for the quality)

I enjoyed this film but it definitely had its moments of abject stupidity. Also did not care at all about the Portman backstory/marriage/affair and would have much preferred it playing out as a proper ensemble piece.

Yeah I was confused about the timing of the affair, like someone above said. At first I thought it happened while he was missing and before he came back, but then it became clear it was before he left and was a precipitating event for him volunteering for the mission. Anyway, it felt tacked on, and despite the dialogue claiming some huge connection between her and the other married guy, there was no sign of chemistry on screen. (I realize that subplot/motivation may come from the book, I haven't read it.)

I want no back stories. For one, it makes the films longer.

I haven't seen this yet but I haven't seen a single person who likes that aspect of the movie. Hopefully he jettisons them entirely on the next one (whatever it is)

A movie where the backstory really bothered me was Gravity -- it was like, I don't need to know her motivation beyond trying to stay alive. That's plenty. Similar here, there's plenty to the mystery, and plenty of ways/reasons to get her character to the zone, without the domestic drama.

File this one under "ambitious failure," but I'm not sure if it fails because it's ambitious or rather that its (to my tastes) failures - direction choices, somnambulant acting choices, vagueness masquerading as ambiguously profound script choices - would have been insurmountable no matter its ambitions. Which is a roundabout way of saying this was OK - failure is not always *failure* - but could have been better. (I think it either needed more or ... less?) And as far as ambitious metaphysical sci-fi failures go, it isn't as good as (as I remember it) "The Fountain," let alone "Sunshine," but I'm sure I'll remember it! I like Alfred's (distant) assessment that whatever one thinks of this, it's probably exactly as Alex Garland intended it to be.

ferngully meets prometheus was correct imo

Eh Sunshine collapses at the end in a way shittier way than this did, imo

helluva ride till then.

Certainly this one collapses a lot more quietly than "Sunshine" does. They do share a few similarities, though.

A bigger mystery to me is, per the movie's contentious release, is how it ended up a Netflix property yet is not afaict on Netflix.

distributed by Paramount in North America and Netflix for international

that reminds me of how alias grace, partially funded by the canadian broadcasting company, was until recently available on netflix everywhere but canada.

This was fine as a mishmash of canonical sf film ideas but not much more than that. Was tripped out that i was just reading about the alzabo in sword of the lictor prior to watching this, which contains a near identical scene. Glad it got made, even tho it wasnt as good as ex machina.

Garland: ..."The first conversation I had when I was meeting actors or having production meetings was that the film is about various things and various themes but the basic underlying principle is the journey from suburbia to psychedelia. We’re going to start in suburbia and end in psychedelia. That was the underlying principle."

I think this is a shame because this is exactly how it comes across (which I don't particularly find interesting) - more concerned with looking like a scrambled kaleidoscopic light show at the end rather than having any coherent logical thread informing/constraining the visual and narrative conclusion. I liked the hacky 'human hox gene' thing with the plants, more of that kind of idea would've been a positive thing, I think. Although it seemed to dabble in many questions/themes without giving particular weight to any one.

profoundly dumb "smart" movie here; basically a genderflipped 60's b-movie with pretentions of Malickness/2001/Stalker. might've been more interesting with an eighth of the budget. Acting was often laughable, machismo of all characters was doofy, script was a chopped up mess, even most of the effects weren't particularly good.

It's definitely a weird mess. Sort of the opposite of "Ex Machina," which I thought was smart, tight, well-acted, with good effects.

garland wrote the script (iirc) based on one reading of the book, which he purposefully didn't return to during the writing process, and the book is heavily inspired by stalker et al anyway, so no wonder the movie feels like a chopped up mess cuz it's basically photocopies of photocopies

I loved the Southern Reach trilogy but have absolutely no interest in seeing this. Should I?

I wouldn't go out of your way, no

if you wanna see a vaguely trippy remix of things alex garland half-remembered from the first book and other stuff he made up himself which don't add a great deal to the story, go for it

some of the visuals are cool, tho, and as someone said upthread it, i think, it nails the book's descriptions of the southern reach itself

It's a goofy mess, but so many films I liked this year (ahem Sorry to Bother You) were. Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina.

stby was a mess, yeah, but it had a very clear point of view and it was entertainingly delivered

annihilation was a series of sludgy vignettes and occasionally arresting visuals that added up to... not much

Annihilation and Sorry to Bother You are good analogues in that both are artfully rendered disappointing implosions with poorly defined ideas, bad execution and a desire to tell a lot more than they show.

I'd hesitate to mention them in the same sentence.

I liked Annihilation, mostly because I like Stalker-like introspective adventure-mysteries. Its a bit surprising that it was immediately critically dismissed given its a film about competent women in STEM careers, utterly flattening the Bechtel test. The soundtrack is superb (and worth a d/l). Yes, its the worst Janet Jason Leigh performance of the past decade, and the set pieces ape later day Pink Floyd album artwork or lesser H.R. Giger. But I was happy to be along for the ride.

I loved Sorry to Bother You, which I finally saw last night (the US blu is $10). It's intentionally shambolic, not unlike Michel Gondry, but it has a lot more going on under the hood, and I think its going to inspire a generation of filmmakers. I will rewatch, but it really does a remarkable high-wire act of exposing the lives of the working poor, critiquing modern capitalism, and remaining laugh out loud funny throughout.

Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina.

no way

xp: That said, Tessa Thomson is great in both, in wholly different roles. She may just save Westworld S3 from disappearing up its own arse. .

I am enjoying how much everything in the last 2-3 years, despite being terrible, is really playing up how much we mindlessly were giving men money and accolades for empty fucking visions.

It's a goofy mess, but so many films I liked this year (ahem /Sorry to Bother You/) were. Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn /Ex-Machina/.

/Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina./

no way

Dirty Work, yum

lol whoops that's what i get for posting from mobile

i liked this well enough. I certainly found the visuals very memorable. I read the book afterward, and liked that as well. I canj't say I'm enjoying the second book much at all though.

more for the weird fiction thread but yeah...

as a reader of the weird vandemeer is extraordinary - he's read everything and thought as deeply as anyone living about what makes it tick and out of that has developed some really deep and powerful concepts of his own.

as a writer of the weird... he's either not interested in spinning a yarn or writing compelling sentences, or not capable. the first southern reach book is probably as close as he's ever come to doing justice to his own vision.

I preferred Borne to the Southern Reach books. Seemed like he was having more fun

def seemed like he was having more fun but also like the pages evaporated as you read them... left absolutely no impression

sanpaku you may have misunderstood the bechtel test, considering portman's only apparent motivation is figuring out what happened to her man

dykes to watch out fort

sic did u make it to Fun Home the musical when it went up here? I saw it on Broadway and liked it quite a bit

ehhh, I think Portman's character goes on the expedition as a sort of penance. Not strictly for her infidelity, but there's something inherently broken with her life. not that I'm pulling that out of thin air, it's pretty much spelled out

I appreciated this a lot more than others here, but perhaps because the openness in the plot worked for me -- it's a group that's looking for answers and the area they go into seems purpose-made to dissect the sense of self

I assume you mean Funt Home, the bioplay about the loveable Candid Camera creator

xp: The Bechtel test criterion, as I understand it, is is simply that two women talk about something other than a man. That so few movies pass even this minimal test is an indictment of the film industry.

Whether Portman's character is motivated by the disappearance of Issac's character doesn't really enter into it.

it’s called the bechdel test, folks

Is this the test to determine whether a particular movie has the right ratio of white roux and milk?

Sorry, not the most important "bechXel" in my life experience. Also, I'll blame muscle memory for all my sins.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/88/Bechtel_logo.svg/440px-Bechtel_logo.svg.png

I believe thats the color the company wants to leave the seas with...

Fun Home is great but left me a bawling mess

oh yeah sorry too many nights studying at (the same) bechtel hall

haven't read books

really liked this, would happily fight most of ye about it tomorrow.

ito ex machina, arrival, this comparisons they were all good-to-great tbh

thought themes/metaphors were obvious and done very plainly, but more than reasonably deftly. maybe a long time since i found a 'do u see' message within a psychological/fantasy refreshing and resonant as opposed to being a showy frustrating reveal

portman is a bad actress tho this is true

good book that was screaming to be turned into a movie.

now that I've read the book I find this sentiment baffling. Like Naked Lunch or Crash or The Story of Your Life, I feel the opposite - that it's screaming *not* to be made into a movie. so much internalized narrative, with a fixation on the inaccuracy of perceptions/senses, and the non-linear structure (ok I guess you could just jump-cut between a lot of flashbacks but...)

The book is way better, obviously.

I just watched this yesterday since I really liked the books. I wish someone had pushed the novel into the hands of David Lynch, as I feel he would have accurately translated what I liked about the novel: identities slipping away, the detached tone of the narration, the increasing strangeness of Area X (not just visually, but the off-ness of even the mundane parts of the environment). Maybe would have been better as a high budget tv series, where it could linger awhile.

I just don't think film is the ideal medium for unreliable-narrator-syndrome type narratives

I'm trying to think of film examples where it's done successfully but usually they involve dumb gotcha/reveal endings (Usual Suspects, Fight Club, etc.)

Not a huge Vandermeer fan, but I was pleased by this today:

Wow. Nice one, Dan Simmons. What a jerk. pic.twitter.com/6VKCFPvU6a

— Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) September 25, 2019

Our generation of speculative fiction fans really need to view past generations of right-wing anti-environment sci-fi authors with a critical eye.

didn't realize simmons was a right wing loon. that's ok though because i could barely finish Hyperion and it's sequel and decided he is not for me.

apparently he’s always personally been an asshole but was of many who ramped it up and took it public after 2001

Loved Hyperion/Endymion and some of his other books even though he's a right wing loon.

Flashback however is fucking abysmal and the one where his shitty views are on prominent display.

Needing some distraction from the news, so I'm watching Annihilation again...geez, why does it start out like Arrival, fer fuck's sake...?!?

— Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) January 4, 2020

Personally, I think the director had things he wanted to address that included Stalker and my book was just a convenient vehicle for that. Which created complications for me, given my book is not at all influenced by Stalker/Roadside Picnic.

— Jeff VanderMeer (@jeffvandermeer) January 4, 2020

that first tweet is a thread

not sure if serious

no, it’s definitely a thread

New show from Alex Garland. Pretty sure I'll be watching this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNloYTsH0Y&feature=youtu.be

"(Playback ID: 7MsQp_v670f9y-sv)" is an episode of Mr Robot iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8klax373ds

interesting cast. dunno about longform fiction from this guy tho'.

maybe it's fine in context but characters who say "nothing ever happens without a reason" (more usually "everything happens for a reason") and writers who write those characters can, unless the character is obviously meant to be a grade A idiot, fuck right off.

the next line "everything is determined by something prior" - reasons are not causes.

any talk about his new show Devs? just starting it

“ my book is not at all influenced by Stalker/Roadside Picnic.”

sure brah

yeah, the cancer without radiation is taken directly from roadside picnic.

Devs is getting a little more interesting. It feels like a cross between Ex Machina and a few others, with a slow roll-out

I’m really digging Devs. The camera work is gorgeous, and I think some of it is shot at UCSC. Don’t want to spoil anything though.

We just binge watched the first 5 episodes of Devs, and it's pretty good, yeah. Some of the themes feel maybe a bit too well-trodden in sci-fi, but the look and sound of the show is consistently great, Salisbury and Barrow have done as great a job with the music as with Annihilation. And some of the visual details they've put into creating an eccentric tech geek's paradise are neat, love those ring lights around the trees, and the Dev team headquarters look amazing.

no idea what Devs is but maybe it should have its own spoilers thread so ppl idly scrolling thru here don't get them...

I’d be down for a thread

It’s a new show on FX/Hulu from Alex Garland fyi

Devs is an eight-part miniseries created, written and directed by Garland, currently airing weekly, that I'd intended to start until the spoilers above.

xpost

Sorry about that, though the stuff we discussed happens in the second episode, and it's not really a big spoiler regarding the main plot... Like I said, this is not really a mystery show, they show they cards almost right from the start.

I'll start a new thread and ask the mods to delete the spoiler posts.

A thread for Devs, the new Alex Garland show on FX/HBO (with SPOILERS)

Saw Men tonight. Good build-up for the first half, some beautiful shots, and a final 30 minutes that was insane and felt twice as long. Between this, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and her weird turn in Fargo, Jessie Buckley seems to be the default actress for--I'm not sure how to describe whatever it is.

she's in The Lost Daughter too, although a bit less - whatever it is

I like a lot of Alex Garland, writer and director, but I'm really not sure what could convince me to see the new one. When I was last in the theatre and saw the trailer, even this little old lady in the back piped up "Why would I want to see that?"

You talking about the civil war movie?

Yeah. Not sure I really need it.

There’s a new book in the series coming this year.

Civil War was extremely unsettling overall, particularly the short Jesse Plemons scene, which might be as scary as anything I've seen in a horror movie as of late.

there are definitely eyerolly bits but it's fairly po-faced as things go

some are making it out to be like The Day After for a new generation, and some of the 'violence-porn to SHOCK U out of complacency' is in this film for sure, but I don't really find the description accurate.

really hits a lot of themes, not any very deeply, it kind of wants you to sit with your own discomfort for a bit. you're kind of left to your own fill-in-the-blanks on every character's past/personality, and there's no real examination of how the conflict began, you're also somewhat meant to piece that together; but I didn't think that was a bad thing, I don't think it would have been satisfying for constant drip-coffee dialogue pointing out "this here event and that here event led us here today".

a lot of 'fog of war', where enemies often don't know who or why they're fighting, who's winning/losing, and some of the conflict seems as expressions of localized despair and rage as opposed to part of a bigger mission. the scarier parts of the movie aren't the depictions of wanton violence, but the moments of beauty that torture people with memories of more civilized times before they inevitably drive by people hanging from a pole or see burnt out husks of cars littering the road, people standing in FEMA-esque lines waiting for water.

obviously given what the US is going through right now it's not easy to watch something like this, but it's also far enough away from our current reality that it isn't massively triggering. for one, the film assumes California and Texas would ever collaborate on anything, or that a Floridian militia could ever become organized and terrifying on a national scale.

It's essentially like from the journalists' perspective? That's my impression.. I might check it out in the future but no big rush to see this in the theaater

Yea entirely from theirs

I'll let you know. I may go to a screening tonight.

I thought it was very very good

Annihilation is screening this month at the imax screen at the OMSI Sci-Fi Film Fest in Portland, OR.

They are also screening Stalker.

(Not Solaris, tho, which is disappointing)

Nice write-up Neanderthal. I saw this yesterday and enjoyed it

my kid came home from school annoyed today that his government teacher went off on the movie in a very predictable fashion, primarily that there wasn't enough explicit stuff about race and that 'the only person of color sacrificed himself for a white girl'. my son didn't want to get into it with her but was fuming that she overlooked the explicitly cuban journalist, and that she seemed to not pick up on every element of subtext in the film (like, the entire Jesse Plemmons sequence). It's a complaint I've seen a lot online. IMO it's really quite obvious that Offerman is a Trump stand-in (third term, 'greatest victory in the history of mankind', 'antifa massacre', disbanding the FBI); it's only the inclusion of Texas in the WF that makes this not a 100% proxy for the current situation. I did think perhaps it would have been wise to not have a white girl as the main protagonist, but then she would not have lived past the Jesse Plemmons scene and would never have made it to the end of the movie. I think the film did an amazing job of telling a story from a unique POV, and developed very realistic characters for whom the viewer builds an incredible amount of empathy in 2 hours.

The final 15 minutes or so of this film are among the most intense scenes I've ever seen in a theater (I generally avoid war films).

(I guess that actor is Brazillian but since the character was from Florida I assumed he was Cuban)

This was a great film with a terrible name that almost kept me from watching it. Glad it didn't

I've seen your takeaway in lots of places, but I still can't quite bring myself to watch this, at least not in the theaters. Maybe it is just the title, but the title is terrible enough to give it the discomforting tinge of from-the-headlines exploitation.

Obviously "Civil War" is a great title, very eye-catching, but what would have been a better fit?

(By both great and terrible title, I mean, yeah, it's certainly eye-catching, from a marketing standpoint, which is great, but it's terrible because of what it conveys, which may or may not reflect the plot/premise of the film itself, which I and of course others find uncomfortable, given this country sometimes feels like it is teetering on the brink.)

Josh you should go watch it. If it's about civil war, it's maybe 1% of what the movie is about. Just pretend it was called "war journalist - 5 stars and two thumbs up from everyone - best picture nominee".

I think it has more to say about the current situation in Gaza than the sitch in America. But then again I'm not a US citizen so maybe it is saying things to US citizens that our kind aren't picking up (doubt it tho)

I think this film particularly benefits from the cinema experience too. There are many tense scenes made more palpable by it.

I found the "cars" scene more tense than the obviously tense scene that came afterwards. My heart rate was up!

Maybe a terrible headline could help

https://i.postimg.cc/CxWWHBR4/Screenshot-20240419-231131-Chrome.jpg

It really doesn't want to say much at all about "civil war", but it's a great backdrop for the things it does want to say

Loved the cowardice of this movie. Great stuff! 👍

it's an accurate headline.
Josh, you won't lose much by skipping this movie

yeah reviews like that are, IMO, off base; as I said above, it's like they can't deal with subtext. Subtext is not cowardice.

subtext is for cowards, as the Garth Marengi meme frequently reminds us

Akm otm. Poor reflection on the viewer if they come away from this thinking "wimpy politics".

also apparently Lee dies at the end? I thought kevlar + no blood meant she just got knocked down big time.... kinda the ending I prefer tbh

yeah she dies, as it's meant to show how the events of the movie eventually break through her hardened shell. Earlier she implies in the movie that if Jessie was shot and killed, she would shoot it dispassionately like a journalist, so we're meant to see that the earlier events of the film change her a bit when she actually runs to her rescue instead of shooting Jessie's death

I got that, I actually thought it was one of the only groan worthy moments of the film. I just didn't think they made it super clear she died. Think it's less "groany" if she didn't so I'm choosing to believe that's what happened. Kevlar!!!!

I thought her breakdown during the siege did enough to clarify "hard exterior broken. Real woman feeling things again". And it did so in a not so tropey way. The sacrifice for the younger version of herself was so telegraphed I wish they missed it. But oh well. Didn't ruin the film, but it was its low point imo

can we discuss the film without making little digs at each other? thx

That's fair, I apologies for my "poor reflection on the viewer" post. Sorry.

Nothing could make me interested in seeing this movie

otm

Wouldn't go quite that far, if it turns out that at some point a character turns to the camera and goes "what's so civil about war anyway?" that might sway me.

if Axl Rose made an appearance it might've been worth it

i'm frankly confused by the resistance to viewing this film

i'm frankly confused by the resistance to viewing this film

It seems stupid and NPR-brained and Garland's previous movies, Annihilation aside, weren't that great?

I guess I like his work more than you do as I think most of the movies he's written the screenplays for are good. I don't know what "NPR-brained" means.

"NPR brained" to Uri Berliner means something different than it probably does to you, and to me.

Putting California and Texas on the same side of the fictional war is enough for me to decide that this is a fundamentally unserious work of fiction

it's actually about ethics in photojournalism

I will die on the hill that Men is a very good horror film, and the ending is inspired

lol I watched Annihilation, stuck it in my top 20, and I have no memory of it.

They say the name of the movie at the end

More like they are it is the name of the movie

The California-Texas alliance, the president who's coded as a mixture of Biden and Trump, the reference to an "Antifa massacre" without a clarification on whether Antifa was massacred or committed the massacre, the strict avoidance of actual political ideology throughout the film, the general anxiety over partisanship/political tensions without ever taking a side... I do think of this movie as profoundly politically unserious in a particularly American liberal way. It's trying so hard to avoid angering any viewers that it ties itself into incoherent knots. NPR brained is right.

The movie isn't about the politics that lead to Civil War, it's about a hyperbolic depiction of what it would actually look like.

Offerman didn't code as Biden to me AT ALL. his opening monologue is Trumpian and he disbands the FBI, and illegally stays in office a third term, and drops missiles on Americans, all while insisting he's winning the war even as his own army is surrendering. What exactly about that codes as Biden?

For those itt bragging about how you won't see it, congrats, you want a medal? You can either trust those of us who have seen it and aren't NPR brained or you can keep insisting the movie is what you say it is without ever seeing it. Your choice

Like I'll gladly have discussion with people who have seen it and disagree with me but I ain't gonna debate it with people who haven't and still inexplicably want to say what it is

Neaderthal OTM, I don't see any Biden coding here; the actual states involved in the WF are beside the point; and I don't think it's unclear at all what the 'antifa massacre' meant.

but maybe the film is an interesting palimpset that strengthens or amplifies the viewer's biases and preconceived notions?

Just putting this out there: https://newrepublic.com/article/180080/civil-wars-mystifying-vision-american-meltdown

it's actually about ethics in photojournalism

― ivy., Saturday, 20 April 2024 02:07 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol Ivy

Also an obvious otm to Neando's post. The problem with the above article (and many like it) is it assumes that the movie is trying to be a political vehicle when that is not the impression I get from it at all. It seemed to me the movie was trying to be a character study, a high-tension thriller, and a look at the ethics/world of war journalism. It does the last two of those well, the first one too if you can put up with a couple lame tropes in the process.

Yes, the problem is that it is not trying to be political, in fact trying very hard to be not political

Well, we disagree on whether that's a problem. I am thankful politics is a tool for art to use, not an inherent essence which defines its worth... but to each their own!

silby you haven't even seen the film so I'm not sure how you can say it's trying very hard not to be political.

I don't really need a fictional movie (or book, or any art) to just tell me explicitly all the things I already believe. I prefer it when that's backgrounded in service of the characters.

otherwise, this is just the Handmaid's Tale (the tv series). which, you know, was good but I gave up on it after a while.

if I only posted my opinions about things I'm familiar with that wouldn't be much fun

fwiw I think the film being studiously divorced from real politics is a problem because that's stupid, not because that's immoral or something

things shouldn't be stupid!

if I only posted my opinions about things I'm familiar with that wouldn't be much fun

no one is claiming talking about things you have no immediate knowledge of isn't fun! It's a hobby I'm well acquainted with. I just try to not label it a virtue.

hard agree that things shouldn't be stupid tho. n-e-ways, bad posting silby, sorry to say.

I'm not on my A game

i don't know why people are saying the film isn't political. it's completely political. it's not polemical. what do people want, someone to give a speech in the middle of the movie explaining why fascism is bad? the movie shows you in practically every frame why fascism is bad. or maybe it should end with the dictator not really being bad at all but we all learn that we were the fascists the entire time as some kind of twist?

xp we all have off days.

akm, again, completely otm.

Akm otm throughout.

Neanderthal too. Maybe watch the film?

Spoilers: It's a really good film

Don’t care to

I mean I might who knows the future is unwritten

Probably not though

you gotta admire the dedication

No you don’t!

lol

I still haven't read an explanation or review of it that makes me want to see it

this was a politically incoherent mess and i did not enjoy it

The California-Texas alliance, the president who's coded as a mixture of Biden and Trump, the reference to an "Antifa massacre" without a clarification on whether Antifa was massacred or committed the massacre, the strict avoidance of actual political ideology throughout the film, the general anxiety over partisanship/political tensions without ever taking a side... I do think of this movie as profoundly politically unserious in a particularly American liberal way. It's trying so hard to avoid angering any viewers that it ties itself into incoherent knots. NPR brained is right.

― OneSecondBefore, Friday, April 19, 2024 11:22 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol ok u beat me to it

i saw this today with my dad and my sister in east tennessee. there were i think 5 other people in the movie theater. it was a matinee. pretty crazy fuckin film. i'm surprised no one's mentioned how well it's made. the photography, the sound. it's amazing. the choppers overhead felt real.

re how the movie assiduously refuses any mapping of current party politics onto the different military forces it's the right choice imo because otherwise we'd be cheering on one side when they blow the shit out of the other, or vice versa, at least a little bit, and the movie doesn't want to let you get that comfortable

xpost the president is clearly trumpian for the reasons i think akm spells out above - but the various secessionary forces all disagree with each other (i think sammy says they'll all tear each other apart when d.c. falls)

the plemons character has enough bullshit racist nativist political ideology to fill the rosebowl and the movie's not exactly subtle about it

you can say that if you were making this movie you'd have a Texas-Missouri alliance instead or something, but in this movie, the one you actually saw, it's a Texas-California alliance. why? because the filmmakers are mush-brained NPR centrists who don't want to offend anyone? i really don't think that's why.

people are rioting for water in new york city which is about as water-secure as a major metropolis gets iirc - something Very Big has torn society apart and one of the consequences is no water. maybe the Texas-California alliance is about getting access to water. Maybe one of the other factions has blocked it and the trumpy guy won't step in. idk. none of that is important for the story this movie is telling

I saw "dude takes 3rd term, is obvious scumbag for bombing 'his' civilians" within the first 3rd of the movie and that was enough to put aside any claims of 'political' cowardness. They're clear good guys and bad guys inferred by this movie, and they're not very controversial claims of whose on which side. The parallels of what Yahu's doing in Gaza and how journalists are being treated by that kind of government.... you know, I really didn't think this film was being subtle about its politics when it chooses to address politics (like, 2% of the movie, thankfully).

Maybe Andrew should have set the movie in Australia so Americans could enjoy it

*Alex. Brainfart

I think this movie will grow in appreciation as years go on, however the future of the country goes

The Texas-California alliance sounds implausible if the movie is meant to take place in the world we live in now. But one thing we know is that Kirsten Dunst's character built her reputation on photos of "the Antifa Massacre" that she took when she was in college. Assuming the character is the same age as Dunst (41), this event happened roughly 20 years before the events of the movie.

So the movie is either set at least 20 years in the future, enough time for political realities to shift (less than 30 years ago, states like Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia voted Democratic in a presidential election). Or it's set in an alternate-reality present or near future that doesn't neatly map onto the real world.

It doesn't really matter because Garland isn't really interested in worldbuilding. But, as Max points out, that doesn't mean that the movie can't still work effectively as a pulp thriller:

"Ultimately the movie seems much less concerned with making a particular political or moral statement (or even exploring the politics or morals of its fictional scenario) than it does with efficiently and energetically moving its truck of adrenaline junkies from one suspenseful action set-piece to the next. It’s like finding a 1967 alternate-history novel published by Del Rey with the tagline 'They Crossed a War Zone Between New York and D.C.--to Photograph the President’s Murder!""

https://maxread.substack.com/p/what-is-the-civil-war-in-civil-war

Del Rey Books was established in 1977, but ok.

Not familiar with that publisher; I was imagining a mass-market paperback published by Bantam or Signet.

Other than that, I thought the essay was fine. Still not sure if I'll see the movie.

i think it probably works a lot better if you don’t know much about it before going in but i guess you’re past that point

it’s a very intense experience

my only knock on it is that the last 20 minutes play out a little like a videogame fantasy.. i was also confused about what seemed like suicide on lee’s part. why does she stay up like that? clearly something has changed in her, but it feels out of character even so

Tracer OTM. This film isn't trying to be a satire about current US politics. It could jist as well have been set in Australia or any other country and ultimately been the same

I agree, it's an incredibly well produced film. Every helicopter, round of ammo, explosion, feels real. And when Dunst melts down towards the end, I felt it. Enjoyed the characters and the acting a lot too

i recall that scene Tracer alludes to as being in slow motion, so I don't think she's staying up for very long. i could be wrong

the way they filmed it it felt deliberate to me. if they'd wanted to show her getting clipped by a bullet as she tumbled on top of jessie, like an accidental consequence of her action, they could have, but she really just sways there for a second, looking down. it was like once jessie was safe she had no reason to keep living? she had nothing left to accomplish? idk

Don't forget, there had to be enough time for Jessie to take a few photos of the occasion, for character development reasons

The Symmetry must be obeyed

(I guess that actor is Brazillian but since the character was from Florida I assumed he was Cuban)

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, April 15, 2024 8:09 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol he sounded Venezuelan to me

The politics for all the reasons Neanderthal and Tracer Hand mentioned are....explicit. The Texas-California alliance is the odd one, but we've seen any number of convenient political alliances in the last century. When the film does go into equivalences is showing the barbarism of the WF soldiers (is Plemons and his unit one of them? I couldn't tell. I may have missed it). Maybe the anti-faux-Trump forces realized they needed to get as dirty as he did?

I thought that pulp book line was going to be about this book my mom's old boss co-wrote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas-Israeli_War:_1999

When the film does go into equivalences is showing the barbarism of the WF soldiers (is Plemons and his unit one of them? I couldn't tell. I may have missed it).

no, I think they were simply a militia, who may or may not have supported the President, but were absolutely happy to use the resultant chaos to further their own awful goals.

I thought one of the most interesting scenes was the one with the house and the invisible sniper, and the guys they encountered hunkered down. it's completely unclear, and maybe irrelevant, who is who. When asked what's going on, the answer was "that guy is shooting at us. we are shooting at him".

Ah, makes sense.

Yeah, that sniper shot (blurring him was a shrewd touch) creeped me out.

I thought for a moment that the shot of the white woman, Latin American man, and Hong Kong reporter in front of Plemons' militia was on-the-nose, but the NPR affiliate reporters I know are a diverse lot.

Stephen McKinley was best in show as he almost always is.

xposts yeah the movie couldn’t really make it clearer that that line of interrogation is not what it’s about

Stephen McKinley is getting a lot of work these days!

I thought that pulp book line was going to be about this book my mom's old boss co-wrote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas-Israeli_War:_1999

So, I watched this thing at my local AMC theater today at 2:35 in one of the smaller screening rooms: 50 seats at most. I'd say it was half-full. It impressed me -- I can count on five people at most on a Monday afternoon.

Not Waldrop, Saunders - he gave me a copy when I was 11 or 12 but I don't remember anything about it aside from the title (and later wondering if the guys from Lift to Experience read it). I think he and Waldrop ended up not on good terms over the years.

Quite fun to see nick offerman getting clipped

This movie was extremely intense in the watching, and a day or two later, but I’ve thought about it zero times since. It doesn’t have a conventional structure where the protagonist learns a lesson about themselves or whatever - it’s kind of a shaggy dog story, video-gamey - get from A to B. Or in a lot of ways like a turn-based role-playing game. These different obstacles and enemies, a band of travelers with different skills, various signs of impending dread. I think it is really valuable as a way of confronting war and how fucking horrible it is, and as an intense experience, but beyond that there’s not much to chew on tbh

That's what I went in expecting of this, since 28 Days Later is the only other Garland film I've seen and it gave me exactly that experience: intense and riveting in the moment, but I can barely remember a thing about it.

It also felt credible that war photographers, especially Stewart's character, would be less into taking sides or even figuring out factions, rather than capturing raw footage and letting other reporters sort it out.

As a big fan of Jon Lee Anderson's reportage (in recent years from the Central African Republic, Haiti, and elsewhere), setting a film through this POV especially drew me in.

This movie was extremely intense in the watching, and a day or two later, but I’ve thought about it zero times since. It doesn’t have a conventional structure where the protagonist learns a lesson about themselves or whatever - it’s kind of a shaggy dog story, video-gamey - get from A to B. Or in a lot of ways like a turn-based role-playing game. These different obstacles and enemies, a band of travelers with different skills, various signs of impending dread. I think it is really valuable as a way of confronting war and how fucking horrible it is, and as an intense experience, but beyond that there’s not much to chew on tbh

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, April 28, 2024 12:21 PM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk I think there's a lot there about how exposure to extreme violence quickly warps people's moral & ethical compasses ... its a movie about what its like to become inured to casual violence in a war zone, placed in a Familiar Western Context that forces the western subject to not distance themselves from it as something happening "over there"...It does a good job splitting the difference between the last decade of backsliding towards fascism that makes it feel both totally feasible, and showing something that is w/in recent history totally alien, something ppl envision happening 'way over there'... but the way that ppl are profoundly affected by exposure to extreme violence feels like its underlying theme to me...the way the idea of positioning oneself at some ethical remove seems insane and impossible once the safety nets have been removed from social society.... really smart movie imo

the other thing that's kept me engaged with it is the number of people i see w very stupid opinions about it. some of the most incredibly stupid takes a movie has inspired in years

Great post

showing something that is w/in recent history totally alien, something ppl envision happening 'way over there'

"It doesn’t have a conventional structure where the protagonist learns a lesson about themselves or whatever"

i cannot rly believe ppl still hold up this kind of screenwriter 101 template as something to be considered at all tbh

great revive

Saw this a couple of nights ago. I agree with most of the positive criticism, especially it being deliberately politically vague (though the subtext is clear) so, as Tracer says, you don't get too comfortable. I thought having the journalists as protagonists was very interesting, viewing the action that extra step removed somehow, paradoxically, made it seem more real - I guess because as a civilian it's easier to place yourself in their shoes than it would be if the main characters were combatants; and also being unarmed civilians they are much more vulnerable and it makes the danger much more apparent.

I think, though, the movie undercuts itself somewhat. It wants to show the horrors of war, and the danger and the moral complexity of war reporting. But it also wants to show how exciting it is, and the last section is basically a thrill ride where it's totally clear who we are rooting for.

What do we think about Jessie? It seems to me that from the very start to the very end she is, without exception, a dipshit and a shithead.

I thought she was just a kid

kids can be (or not be) dipshits and shitheads too.

That's true! Though I thought most of her dipshit/shitheadness was directly related to her youth (she's meant to be like 18 or something right? That's the impression I got). Didn't think she was any less or more of a shithead than her two companions. She just had inexperience tacked onto it

22 or 23 they said in the film. I agree she seemed younger but the actress is 25 or 6 and all young people seem like fresh faced babes in arms to me. She showed a complete inability to learn from experience and a complete recklessness and willingness to put herself *and others* in mortal danger.

It was also clear that Lee was motivated by a desire to bring the truth to light, Jessie was an adrenaline junkie (like Joel, to be fair) motivated by a desire to get good looking pictures.

Seemed to me like she was pretty adrenaline averse for all but the car chase + last scene! That was her development. Can't deal with any of the pressure/reality of what she's getting herself into, to then going overboard on the other side and putting everyone in danger because of it. She was a kid who had ideas of war, but had yet to actually meet it in the flesh. A foil to the worn and weary Joel + Lee.

Like yeah, total idiot, but I do think most of her idiocy can be reduced to youthful naivete and inexperience which is an inescapable period of life. She just decided to bring her youthful naivete and inexperience to literal war. But you can blame a drunk and horny Joel for that. I blame him as much as her

it's clear that Joel, Tony and Bohai are dipshits and shitheads too. And that those are not all that they are.

yeah i get all that. but her complete failure to learn from experience - and what she does after lee's death - indicate to me that she ain't going to change.

I can't believe no one has commented on how hot Wagner Moura is in this thing

i saw him described as a cut-price (or second-rate or whatever) pedro pascal on a twitter comment about this movie and i had to put the phone down and take a walk

"Wagner Moura" is such a quintessentially Brazilian name.

i had to put the phone down and take a walk

Words to live by

I did for a moment think it was Pedro Pascal in the same that in 2002 it took a couple seconds studying Michael Pitt to realize he wasn't Leo DiCaprio, like, at all.

Thread has officially annihilated Annihilation!

deems i mentioned that structure not as something to emulate! just that it’s rare to see a movie these days that doesn’t in some way try for it. it is “effective” in that it’s a shortcut for activating a sense that something has happened, that we have witnessed a change occur

think we've had enough talk for a dedicated thread - CIVIL WAR (movie) - 2024, Alex Garland

I think, though, the movie undercuts itself somewhat. It wants to show the horrors of war, and the danger and the moral complexity of war reporting. But it also wants to show how exciting it is, and the last section is basically a thrill ride where it's totally clear who we are rooting for.

What do we think about Jessie? It seems to me that from the very start to the very end she is, without exception, a dipshit and a shithead.

― ledge, Monday, 29 April 2024 08:00 (fourteen hours ago) link

I don’t think this undercuts it — this is honest — again it’s a movie about the effects of extreme violence & how people become inured to it … this also includes a fascination with it

This thread has made me want to reread the trilogy.

Has anyone read any of VanderMeer's other work? I read Borne and Dead Astronauts and found them fascinating.

think, though, the movie undercuts itself somewhat. It wants to show the horrors of war, and the danger and the moral complexity of war reporting. But it also wants to show how exciting it is, a

I don't think it consciously shows how exciting it is. It's the nature of war films: to show the horror is to show its erotic qualities.

I agree she seemed younger but the actress is 25 or 6

― ledge

to 4

I don't think it consciously shows how exciting it is. It's the nature of war films: to show the horror is to show its erotic qualities.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

jeez, idk, i was just thinking about all those old "men's adventure" magazines with nazis branding swastikas on naked young women and how completely and totally _anti-erotic_ they are

that's not to say that war films aren't erotic, it's just that it seems to be a distinctly male-gendered form of eroticism

for instance, wil hulsey's classic man's life cover "weasels ripped my flesh" is _very_ homoerotic imo

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that's not to say that war films aren't erotic, it's just that it seems to be a distinctly male-gendered form of eroticism

of course

of course

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

not that a lot of us lesbians (myself included) aren't in our own way _quite_ fond of smart military women. war films just tend not to present women in the same way that they present men.

I don’t see mention of it yet - and I didn’t read the books - but I thought the movie had some very strong Buddhism influence and message going on?

Annihilation itself was the - badly translated - term for Nirvana in the Victorian era.

I don’t think the movie is just going from point A to B, I think it’s about impermanence, self-discovery and enlightenment. There’s this alien force that is blending everything known in the universe together and it’s either terrifying or comforting depending on your state of mind. It’s been years since I last saw it but iirc there’s the woman who accepts it and immediatly turns into a flower statue, the video of Portman’s husband sitting in a meditative state blasted by light. Then she goes on to fight her ego.

Idk I might need to rewatch it, but I remember the Buddhist overtones were very on the nose.

Oh gosh we're conflating two different films now. Who knows where this could go... to its own thread perhaps?

Oh we have one. Okay sorry

Lol I was thinking about the similarities though.. band of intrepid good guys entering a zone of danger where nothing makes sense

Welp sorry carry on lol