1-18-08

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

there is no connection to 911 in this movie and the fact that any person is trying to draw a connection to it is pretty insane.  ITS A FUCKIN MONSTER MOVIE.  pull your heads out of the sand and realize where fantasy ends and reality begins.

[Variety of Cells]

i dont understand why everyone is so mad a the shaky cam.  I didnt care for it either but it only made sense from the object of the movie. 

Because there's a line that separates appropriate and interesting camera work from the physical realities of motion sickness.  There is no doubt that it makes sense in the context of the story, and it most likely adds to the frantic tension of the film (sorry, haven't seen it).  But there is still the very real problem of motion sickness and headaches that some people receive when watching quickly moving images.  Also, when the camera is all shaky it has a tendency to take you out of the film, and lets you know this is a movie you are watching, not something you are actually experiencing.  Some people don't like that.

There are some people who have a much thicker line than I do.  I envy the girth of their lines.  Mine is so thin that I wouldn't last 2 minutes inside, leaving us both very unsatisfied. 

As for...

Everyone keeps talking about this film in relation to 9-11....

I just wanted to say, I CALLED IT!  That is all.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

heh whats up voc its been a while hasnt it?

everything you said about the shaky cam is true.  but some people like it and it was the point of the movie.  its one thing to dislike the film but you cant call it bad just because you didnt like the way it was done. 

[Variety of Cells]

I've been around, just in different topics.  It's true that it's not a good reason to hate a film, but if a film makes you puke all over the floor, I can understand if a person hates it. 

there is no connection to 911 in this movie and the fact that any person is trying to draw a connection to it is pretty insane.  ITS A FUCKIN MONSTER MOVIE.  pull your heads out of the sand and realize where fantasy ends and reality begins.

Really?  I even saw hints of it in the trailer.  Isn't fantasy supposed to mimic reality?  I don't really understand your strong opposition to the notion.  Why can't a fucking monster movie attempt to materialize a certain feeling that was had by many people?

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

because in that case it would lose money.   Hey man i went and saw it, and i couldnt think of single thing even CLOSE to 911 except for new york being involved, and thats far to tenous for it to be real. 

[Variety of Cells]

Godzilla might be more on the nose, but both films do the same thing (i know I know, I haven't seen it, but i think I know enough about it to make the connection, bare with me)

Godzilla was about a big monster terrorizing Tokyo.  The monster was a manifestation of the A Bomb.  The Japanese were able to relate to the film because they had gone through a similar experience. 

I don't think people are saying it's a one to one correlation with 9/11 (maybe they are, I duno) but you can't deny that the movie mimics similar feelings of that day.  A big attack.  People running in the streets.  Not really knowing what's going on.  Some huge threat that lets you know that we are vulnerable.  The feelings and situation is similar.  It might not go any deeper than that, but it still a movie that people can now relate to. 

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

hmmm

i think you got me voc.  I can follow that as truthful logic.  I just cant buy that it was intentional.  I think that would have been a deathknell for their profits. 

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

i cant buy that any movie maker would try to connect 911 to a monster movie given the current political climate is all i mean. 

[bettertomorrowamy]

Well when a movie has to have signs like this at the door, there might be a problem.  Or it could be to increase ticket sales.

[Rude]

...

Yeah, i saw that sign when i bought my ticket. Reminded me of the gimmicks that William Castle used for his films~

-Rude

[Variety of Cells]

Speaking as a film maker, I find it hard to believe that the screen writer didn't think about it while writing the screenplay.  That's just what you do when making movies, as long as you aren't a complete hack.  You put as much meaning into it as you can.  Even if that wasn't the intention when the screen writer wrote the first draft, you spend months thinking about the same story, going over and over it, trying to make it better.  There's no way he would have missed the correlation between the movie and 9/11.

But what they did was smart.  it sounds like they didn't hit you over the head too badly with the correlation.  They used just enough to evoke that feeling and that fear without using its name.  And I feel that is exactly what needs to be done in a film to address 9/11.  You're right, flat out trying to re create it will not work right now.  But re creating the feeling will sell lots of tickets.  People can relate to it, and things you can relate to can scare you. 

That's just an idea though, I can't speak to the final execution of the idea.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

i dont agree voc.  you dont need to hunt for meaning.  JRR tolkein beleived his lack of meaning made his books more poignt (spelling?)

[bratpop]

The connection to 9/11/? (Year? Anyone remember the year?) is that it looks like news footage or all the amateur video we saw of 9/11/year and its aftermath. However as a filmmaker, or if I were a filmmaker, I would find it offensive since the camera work was done by one of the actors who didn't even KNOW he'd be holding the camera for the whole movie. This is first of all, nuts, second (of all), not professional, and thirdly (of all) I can't remember the third thing. So where's the cameraman's union boycott?

[Rude]

However as a filmmaker, or if I were a filmmaker, I would find it offensive since the camera work was done by one of the actors who didn't even KNOW he'd be holding the camera for the whole movie.

Are you serious?

-Rude

[Variety of Cells]

A film doesn't have to have deep meaning to be good.  Or meaning at all for that matter.  But this isn't about meaning, it's about feeling and emotion.  Meanings and messages can be interpreted many different ways in films, so it's harder to speak to whether they are intentional.  But in film, a whole ton of thought is put into how the audience will react and feel at every moment.  From set design to lighting to plot points to the way a character speaks, its all carefully chosen to attempt to make you feel a certain way.  I still don't believe the correlation could be a coincidence, but if that doesn't convince you, our disagreement might have to stay just that; a disagreement.