step into the future and anticipate ∞ ELYSIUM ∞ (the dystopian science fiction blockbuster from the folks who brought you district 9, also matt damon + jodie foster)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=trueview-instream&v=QILNSgou5BY

oh wait i mean jodie foster :( -- change thread title, anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIBtePb-dGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RSDaRttpzk

so this is crank + robocop + 2001 + the matrix + mad max + john q + ?

The movie's already sold, man, you don't need to pitch.

This looks cool

i'll see the shit out of this

looks like a lot of blunt 99% vs. 1% allegory (or is it even allegory?), i got no problem with that unless they redeem the 1% in the end metropolis-style.

i understand the last shot is them all shaking hands

the mediator between elysium and earth must be matt damon

this looks dope

metropolis is basically the father of all "blockbuster ideology" where you get to toy with all these rich, topical ideas and then just fudge them so that nobody can accuse you of taking a stand on anything.

reminds me of the public enemy and all its stern forewords and epilogues about how they are NOT glorifying gangsters, but that they are a problem that WE ALL must solve, and its not our fault, and come on

looks promising

this looks fascinatingly empty; bolted-on smash suits and robot fight explosions are usual MUST-SEE indicators to me but when I saw this trailer, the strongest reaction I had was "Jodie Foster really looks like a friend of mine who went to college with her"

reminds me of the public enemy and all its stern forewords and epilogues about how they are NOT glorifying gangsters, but that they are a problem that WE ALL must solve, and its not our fault, and come on

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Monday, June 17, 2013 11:23 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you've seen that one scene (emphatically NOT directed by howard hawks) in scarface where the district attorney (?) sternly explains that organized crime is no joke, etc.

i think that's different from what i'm talking about, though. those are easily-parsable intrusions of the Production Code Administration and studio self-censorship at its least nimble.

what i'm talking about is stuff like the dark knight returns, which tangles "thoughtfully" with stuff like surveillance state, terrorism, etc. so as to seem relevant and Serious, but carefully parcels out the lines among characters and plotlines so that any serious attempt to nail down a point-of-view will necessarily fail.

see also the way that dr. mabuse is set up to be equal parts Right and Left. but in those films (and in Spies, which has a Mabuse-like villain) lang deals with this stuff with such flair, whereas in Metropolis it's so corny and unprepared-for by the rest of the film.

studio blockbusters aren't going to take a critical political position on anything, certainly not in this day and age

what i'm talking about is stuff like the dark knight returns, which tangles "thoughtfully" with stuff like surveillance state, terrorism, etc. so as to seem relevant and Serious, but carefully parcels out the lines among characters and plotlines so that any serious attempt to nail down a point-of-view will necessarily fail.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, June 17, 2013 12:33 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

yes the nolan batmans are the perfect example of this

Spies is one of the greatest movies btw everyone should see that shit, preferably on a big screen. the first 10 minutes alone are like the fleetest bit of visual storytelling ever.

i meant TDK btw, is there even a movie called "TDK returns?" what was the last one? ah, who cares, they're shit anyway.

studio blockbusters aren't going to take a critical political position on anything, certainly not in this day and age

― Bathory Tub Blues (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, June 17, 2013 11:36 AM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually think this is a bit overstated, but it's certainly truer now than ever before. a lot of film academics seem to keep hoping the revolution comes by way of a bruckheimer movie, hilariously.

i think a contemporary blockbuster can occasionally take a kind of political position, or at least have a coherent politics, albeit only by means of allegory e.g. rise of the planet of the apes.

and although zero dark thirty definitely makes use of the same sort of futzing around as TDK, i do think it makes some of its POV very clear, unfortunately that POV is mostly right wing, glenn kenny and others' attempts to recuperate it as a "critical" movie notwithstanding.

blockbusters aren't going to take a critical political position on anything, certainly not as long as Clooney is prom king.

why clooney of all people

I think Morbs is probing ILX for tender areas with a rusty scalpel.

I think Morbs is probing ILX for tender areas with a rusty scalpel.

― Home Despot (WilliamC), Monday, June 17, 2013 11:48 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i was tempted but not gonna take the bait. moving along...

Clooney did a mag interview about a year ago when he said he was "disappointed in Democrats who are disappointed in Obama," so I'm expecting a boring pro-Prism thriller from him soon.

are you talking to anyone, morbs?...

btw i'm not saying that all films that do this are inherently worthless or something.

stuff like TDK does bug me b/c there's so much heavy-breathing in the form of name-dropping topical memes, which for some critics and regular folk casts it in this glow of Seriousness, which Nolan is all too happy to bask in. but i think people confuse structural incoherence for complexity or something w/r/t the batman films. unlike other films that are purposefully incoherent it's hard to just ignore it in TDK, it seems to be fueling the film's overall tone of unwavering intensity which is exemplified in all the cross-cutting and in the sound design.

anyway i hope Damon does more Bam bashing on his promo tour for this

no, I'm not talking to anyone, it's the internets

zero dark thirty is strictly status quo reinforcement afaict. I mean yeah that's a political position, but it is not a critical one.

yup

well it's kind of brooding on the fact that we need to do such morally problematic things in this contemporary world in which we live in, which strikes me as a right-wing even though it's centrist now i guess

but its fatalism is def. political

kinda inclined to argue that the horror genre is the only place you find actual critiques of our socio-political status quo these days

this looks all right, but yeah i wonder how it will all resolve. guess i'll have to see it!!!

im not that pumped about it but i dug district 9 a lot so i'll wait and see

when i went to school
in elysium

pretty lame :/

damn it

some cool robots and neat-looking stuff but it basically stunk ya

Well that sucks.

you killed our dreams slockiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

yeah the todd mccarthy review kind of killed any anticipation for me b/c his criticisms had the ring of truth and dovetailed w/ everything i hated about district 9.

so, moving on to snowpiercer...

im not surprised, everything i've seen from this just hasnt moved my meter

:( i was going to go see this tomorrow but now what

there's def some fun moments that i particularly think h4a might like but its pretty poorly scripted, not enough happens on elysium itself, jofo doesnt get to do anything but scowl, damon is pretty blank, every female character is cowering, conniving or saintly, and it has some terrrrrrrible flashback stuff

and much of the action is done in a shaky close style that really only paul greengrass can get away with, what is people's problems with letting us actually see all the stuff you spent all your time working on instead of the rest of the movie

if i want to go see a BIG SUMMER MOVIE tomorrow, what should i go see

wwz

I saw an updated trailer that had made me think it would be better than the snoozefest I thought but

oh well

I watched part of District 9 last night and that 30 minute chunk satisfied about 80% of my desire to see Elysium

I still haven't seen District 9. I dunno if I will? it really doesn't interest me at all

district 9 was really cool.

if this film is worse than wwz then god help us all

sorry to be such a user but i dont wanna spoil this whats the consensus on this iyo ilx

some cool looking stuff but ultimately dumb and lame

noted ta

still kind of want to see this but now I am also really intrigued by scott's local convenience store

this was straight ass

and straight ass aint no good to nobody amirite

yeah this was bad. its weirdly sterile - its telling that blomkapmtp elects not to get any body horror mileage out of the exoskeleton. damon's just like, yeah, plug your shit into my skull. nbd. and he's not like, super stoked about it either. he doesn't seem to have any feelings about it. the guy's a nothing, so's the movie around him

its too bad. i really felt like district 9 was different. its a pretty weird movie! and i was kinda hoping this might be a weird movie on a big budget.

Pretty disappointing and lots of shit made not-much sense.

Like... the easiest way to stop people getting there was to shoot them with a rocket... from back on earth? Maybe it's plausable deniability to show that Elysium itself wasn't involved in killing innocent people... But what if the dude was taking a crap or something when Jodie Foster ordered him to do it?

Terrible ADR on Jodie Foster

yeah, this was lame, except for the exploding robot

he should have just looped that for 60 minutes and called it a structural film

This was moderately diverting but pretty much instantly forgettable. The only thing I took away from it is that Blomkamp has a real talent for creating cool-looking futureweapons.

One thing that bugged me when I was was watching it: when we see the exoskeleton being bolted on to Damon, he's basically naked. How does he get his clothes back on again intact under the exoskeleton?

Actually, I've just watched the scene again and he's actually fully-clothed - they just cut open his clothes where the parts need to be bolted on. And then I guess expertly sew the clothes back up again around the exoskeleton? Weird.

this might have been the worst film i have ever seen? every single aspect of it was laughably dreadful. terrible dialogue, plot apparently made up as we went along, no explanation or indeed internal logic about anything, piss-poor acting, really cringeworthy racial stereotypes...was almost surprised that the guy who made district 9 failed so badly but it's just new-big-budget overreach, right?

You're far from alone in yr disappointment: http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/criticwire-survey-2013s-biggest-disappointments

i was sooooo bored while watching this

its crazy bad

not surprised, but then again i didn't really think district 9 was anything special either.

weird how every single person in future LA is mexican except for the one super dude who can save us all.

also lame was the last-minute villain switch from rich people to super-sharlto

oh spoilers i guess~~~but if that stops you from watching this movie i did u a favor

still cant figure out why the super space station where all of the world's wealthy people are concentrated's sole defence system is a hairy guy on teh ground with a bazooka

Pretty disappointing and lots of shit made not-much sense.

Like... the easiest way to stop people getting there was to shoot them with a rocket... from back on earth? Maybe it's plausable deniability to show that Elysium itself wasn't involved in killing innocent people... But what if the dude was taking a crap or something when Jodie Foster ordered him to do it?

Terrible ADR on Jodie Foster

― Sick Rave and the Bad Speed (S-), Wednesday, 11 September 2013 05:30 (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait... i wasnt the first??!?!?!

Sorry, didn't mean to be a dick about it, morelike I too want answers to this ridiculous setup.

I can accept that this movie isn't good but Sharlto Copley and the bazooka defense system are great and fuiud

Also really liked Foster's bizarre accent.

i actually liked sharlto copley in this, he had a bit of life to im

sharto's crazy bogan was definitely the best thing about it, also weirdly the worst thing about spike lee's oldboy

I am kind of glad that I had such low expectations after this thread and reviews. I enjoyed it, but there wasn't a whole lot going on.

the thread?

lol at me just finding out that sharlto copley is apparently in that completely unnecessary spike lee oldboy remake

that, too xp

not digging the visuals here, movie is filmed like a socialist nokia commercial....also, foster is just LOL

just concentrate on Sharlto Copley

She was laughably bad, and in retrospect I kind of wish the movie pushed more in that direction. Would have been a lot more interesting if they made it more ridiculous. D9 had way more fun with itself than this.

this was ... incredibly terrible

and apparently informed by a teenage-level understanding of economics

new film really seems like Blomkamp sat down with a focus group and found that people like exploding robots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyy7y0QOK-0

If they are going to name the first sentient life-form after a dog's breakfast they might as well just call it Pedigree Chum. It looks fucking horrid.

AI life-form

Johnny 5 is alive!

this guy is the new shyamalan, isn't he? start off with a critically acclaimed, massively successful film (although in this case one that wasn't actually very good) then squander more and more of your good will with each successive, increasingly terrible film until you're less a filmmaker than a punchline.

of course if that were true in a very specific sense, this next film would be his "signs"—a mediocre film that makes tons of money. i'm kind of doubting "chappie" is going to hit that bullseye.

Maybe more like ... Andrew Nicoll?

But yeah, this looks like Short Circuit plus RoboCop. Plus, didn't District 9 end with some rock 'em, sock 'em exosuits?

oh man, andrew nicoll. :(

District 9 still better than Sixth Sense. But yeah Elysium was not very good and this looks weak.

Niccoll does seem like a good comparison.

oof i hadn't even realized niccol (still struggling to spell his name) did that would-be franchise film with saoirse ronan.

From the Stephanie Myers book! What could go wrong?

Elysium still looks nice, has Sharlto Copely and Jodie Foster (tho Blomkamp is probably quite excited that he's upgraded to Sigourney Weaver), and he is still a decent action director - he has his co-writer from District 9 back for Chappie, which is something.

ha, both members of die antwoord are in this - the guy was actually supposed to be the lead in elysium, but the execs insisted on a big name to get financing i guess, which is how matt damon ended up in it.

district 9 was fantastic, fuiud.

they really bogan-ized wolverine for this movie

his mullet really is exquisite