I don't get the number of posts fight between two movies that aren't related at all.

****


Best movie in a looong time. A masterpiece.

10/10

i'm so glad.

Hey guys, it's me Rusty - the Canadian guy that everyone likes for some reason! I've been gone from the site for a while, but I thought I'd pop back to tell you all how much I loved Children of Men. I saw it last night after playing some hockey and eating at Horton's, eh? And I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it!

Anyway, how are you guys? I'd really like to catch up with you all and tell you aboot all the things I've been up to over the past few months. But I'm afraid I can only respond to your posts in this thread for some strange, unexplainable technical reason, eh?

Wow, hey Rusty! It's great to have you back! You sound like you've got an awful lot of interesting things to tell us about your life these past few months. I sure am looking forward to hearing about them all!

So I watched this again... and I was still underwhelmed, and this time I know why.

This movie is really that close to being truly great, I mean you can't deny the world Cuaron creates and how it ties into our today, the brilliant tracking shots, the thematic elements already discussed. I also picked up in some of the commentaries some interesting stuff like how the Michaelangelo statue and other art in the guy's collection is useless because the world it's placed in is destroyed.

My problem remains with the script and the amount of exposition Cuaron spoonfeeds us. Despite creating a great futuristic setting, he just never knows when to drop us into the world and let us piece together things ourselves without the dialogue telling us what we already know. I'll use some of the scenes at the beginning as an example... when Jasper and Theo are riding in the car, a truck full of immigrants rolls by hauntingly. Because of the signs and news reports already played in the film, we should know what they are and even moreso Theo should, but Cuaron makes Jasper clunkily say "Those are illegal immigrants, yada yada yada"... it completley kills the reality of the scene because there's no fucking way Jasper would have to tell Theo that. Similarly, the conversation at his house, it's there to tell the audiences what the Human Project is, and those intentions are disguised very poorly. The Theo-Julian stuff... we get the baby picture, then that stilted past lovers argument when they meet up (I though the acting and deliveries in that scene were also very poor), then if that wasn't enough, Jasper has to fill in the holes MORE in the Faith vs Chance monologue later. IMO, the film could've easily told us that story just through their expressions and body language on the bus and after her death, and had just as much emotional effect. Then the rest of that Faith vs Chance monologue, how nice of Cuaron to completley spoonfeed us the central theme that dominates the film and pregnancy, he acts as if we couldn't figure these things out on our own. And so on. And even away from the exposition, the dialogue and deliveries somehow feel a lot less believable than the environment they're in. I don't know... the emotion and feeling of the characters isn't there like it should be, I can't really follow up on why on that statement, it just does. It feels pretty external.

It's no surprise that by far the best scenes in the film are the shots without dialogue, between the numerous tracking shots, Julian's funeral, when the guns stop shooting at the end, the final scene in the boat. What Cuaron never realizes is that images and internal facial emotions can tell a story as well as dialogue can, but the film never shuts the fuck up enough to realize its full potential in that way, it's always talking .

Anyways, it's still a very very good film and Cuaron deserves credit for creating one of the best futuristic settings I have seen. I just have a few problems with the script and character deliveries past that.

4/5

They need to do a prequel to this, perhaps set in Seattle and a plot that suggested the infertility was caused by a failed plot to send all fans of Tyler Perry Movies into a hazed madness.

End of the World/Ethnic Drama/Loud annoying comedy/loss of will to live.

It would be awesome!

They had that with Dark Angel, didn't they? Well, minus the Tyler Perry stuff. But it was set in Seattle!

Ok, what to watch today?

This? Or other sci-fi classics such as Doomsday, Starship Troopers part 3, The Happening or Mutant Chronicles?

Never hurts to tell a person again. Its like reminding somebody to get butter while they are going to the shop and then reminding them again by phone, its the safe method especially if its a guy doing the shopping.

Which reminds me: did you get the butter? Because you're not coming home again until you do

DAMMIT!

See Shack people forget

I agree. And they should totally cast Wayne Gretzky in a pivotal role, eh? And get Celine Dion or Bryan Adams to write the song to it. Then maybe our cinema chains would pony up the cash to get it the same time as you guys (it was only released here a week ago. Which means our local one screener's finally got something else to play other than Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy - though the posters are still up, so I think it might be coming back )

I'd go with this and Doomsday.

Although I have a feeling you're being sarcastic...

Only with that comparrison.

I truly do need to see CoM, and prolly will do today.

You mean you haven't seen it? Absolutely watch it tonight then. Then report back here with three or four posts about how much you liked it.

In other news, I actually watched Starship Troopers 3 the other day. Fucking awful film.

Snrub, have you listed out your top 10 favorite moments from the film, complete with screenshots? I know that might take a bunch of posts to accomplish but still, as a fan you probably would want to do it anyway.

What a good idea! I think I will do that. Though to be honest, I don't I could choose just 10 moments. Who knows how many posts that will require!

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/chef_cooks_dream_omelet_from

This immediately made me think of Children of Men. Because don't they eat stuff in that film?

Speaking about Children of Men, the one thing I didn't get about The Dark Knight is that it didn't really make that much sense. The Joker claims not to plan anything, yet he clearly has everything intricately planned from the outset. He's supposed to represent chaos, but he's the most orderly character in the whole film...

However he creates chaos through being so random...

But he isn't random. Everything he does is calculated and planned. And the chaos he creates always plays into his plan, which means it isn't chaos at all. True chaos would leave both Batman and the Joker completely baffled as to what's going on. Not, "oh look, by trying to kill Harvey Dent, I have somehow managed to be in the same jail that Lau's in, while my minions are taking Dent and Rachel off to be killed. What a coin-ki-dink."

starting a batman related discussion, these posts should be moved to the dark knight thread.

No you see, it is perception.

We are not looking through the Jokers viewpoint but through Batmans viewpoint.

Joker has it planed out but to us and to Batman and to the people of Gotham its chaos...

The result always appears to be chaos, but in reality it is completely in order with the Joker's plans. Which makes it not chaos.