127 Hours

Started by modage, August 24, 2010, 04:38:03 PM

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picolas

Quote from: Stefen on November 26, 2010, 11:45:03 PM
He just didn't feel it met the lofty hyperbole that some critics are using to describe it. He liked it a lot, but thinks other films were better this year.
why? why? why? be more constructive with your feedback.

why post that if you're not going to explain why it didn't meet the lofty hyperbole? i'm not asking for an essay. just a reason for the opinion. otherwise it's just pointless. i could have guessed one person on the internet disagreed with the critics but didn't think it was a bad movie.

Ghostboy

Yeah, sure, Boyle 'cheats,' but I don't care. The movie was wholly enjoyable, and sometimes a really great crowd-pleaser is exactly what the doctor ordered. James Franco is amazing in it, and his arm is the best villain of the year.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: picolas on November 27, 2010, 02:05:08 PM
why post that if you're not going to explain why it didn't meet the lofty hyperbole? i'm not asking for an essay. just a reason for the opinion. otherwise it's just pointless. i could have guessed one person on the internet disagreed with the critics but didn't think it was a bad movie.

Used to think the same thing a lot, but as movies are a democracy of different intentions, they also are a democracy filled with different reactions. Some people show their reaction with attributed reasons why and some just play by their gut. Then sometimes both camps switch sides without understanding why.

picolas

but is there literally no explanation as to why squints thought it was okay? i don't believe that. strikes me as more of a problem of not putting effort into understanding the reaction, or not sharing it. but let's say it was a 100% physiological reaction that can never be explained or understood by anyone other than squints. it just. felt. okay. well, fine. but why would you post that? i don't understand why that's worth putting on a message board.

Gold Trumpet

OK, but when someone says they love something or thought it was great and use other words that basically reaffirm those basic things, are they really saying anything? I'm with you in the sense it would be nice for everyone to contribute something which constitutes dialogue about a film, but I have seen lots of film get praised here and I felt like I wasn't reading any real opinions. And that includes heavyweight films like There Will be Blood. Just saying, it happens all the time. I even did it with my original review of Brokeback Mountain, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Lust, Caution. The nature of message boards is for comments both large and small. If the small didn't exist, I don't know what Silias Ruby would do. And yes, Silias, I say that with every intended affection. You're a true fan of movies and that's a good thing.

picolas

Quote from: Gold Trumpet on November 27, 2010, 06:38:15 PM
OK, but when someone says they love something or thought it was great and use other words that basically reaffirm those basic things, are they really saying anything?
that's exactly what i'm talking about. it has nothing to do with love or hate, just some semblance of a reason behind what you think. lots of things happen all the time. does that make them okay? does that make my quest to know of squints' true feelings any less valid? why is it so weird and 'jerky' to want to know what someone on a film discussion board thinks? i read an opinion on a forum that doesn't seem to mean anything so i want the poster to explain further. that's the point of message boards. and saying things in general, i think. again, i could imagine there were tons of people who loved, hated, mildly enjoyed, didn't enjoy, vomited based on this movie before i came to this board. the reason i'm here is to understand other people's ideas of movies and to share my own. if it's just 'i disagree with critics. the end.', then why am i here? i couldn't imagine a less jerky premise than trying to understand why someone feels a certain way.

RegularKarate

I'd say this is Boyle's best.  I don't know that I'd watch it again, but that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of it.

Boyle's "cheating" is kept at a minimum and I think calling it cheating is a shitty thing to say.  He made choices and I wouldn't call them cheap choices either.

SPOILS
When he says "I need help" at the end, I lost it.

Stefen

It's really, really good. What surprised me the most is that Boyle really jumps right into it. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes in and Aron is already stuck in the crevice. I thought he would dilly dally and play with all his fancy editing for awhile, but nope, he really jumps right into it. It never got boring and I think Franco was perfect for the role. I can't imagine Gosling in it. As others have said, it wouldn't work as well without someone like Franco. He just has a carefree face. It would have been a stupid movie if it was just Dicaprio intense face for an hour.

I don't know if it's my favorite of the year and it's not going to change filmmaking, but it's a very solid film and love him or hate him, you gotta admire Boyle for always trying new things. He's no Wes Anderson.

SPOILERS.
I too lost it when he spots that family and says in a hushed voice, "I need help." It was heartbreaking. The actual part where he cuts off his arm is brutal but not gratuitous. What stuck with me the most is how red the blood is. The breaks of the bone were pretty bad too but didn't bother me as much as the breaks did.

My only beef was how it showed him having a premonition and he's married and has a kid, and then it says how it came true. Yeah, most people get married and have kids (not here). I just felt like that aspect tried to hard to pull at the heartstrings. I loved all the flashbacks of him seeing his family and his little sister playing the piano. I thought all of that was very well done.

Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

I doubt that it was an omen that he'd get married and have kids, I imagine he fantasized about it and came so close to death that he was totally driven to seek it out if and when he survived.  It's not like he predicted some impossible event, he probably just poured all of himself into seeking that out, and who knows, that brings to question how much power that desire gave him to survive the situation of being trapped by nature.
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

matt35mm

It's a specific hallucination from the book.  I guess that image was the last straw for him, and it does mark a significant change from someone who had been previously driven to show that he can do everything on his own and not need anybody to this image of someone from the future whose very existence depends on his getting out from under that rock.

I also wouldn't call the style of the film cheating.  I think it's part of what makes the film feel so unique, because we've never seen something like that, LIKE THAT.  It wasn't just a bunch of style to try and distract you from how boring the movie really was.  The style and the story marry to make that film.  To wish for a different style would be to wish for a totally different film.

I guess I don't believe that one can talk about presenting a story with a different style and still be talking about the same film.  I don't really like that kind of film criticism because I think it's a way for the reviewer to talk about some imaginary film instead of discussing the film as it is.  It would be a different matter if the reviewer discussed more detailed elements of the film that could have been pushed more this way or that way in order for the film to be a more realized version of what it was trying to be, but broad criticisms of the fundamental aspects of the film become relatively meaningless, not necessarily because the reviewer is wrong, but because we can't really have a conversation about broad fundamentals, because we might have very different feelings that we associate with such broad ideas, and so we won't be talking about the same thing.  So then it just becomes a really wordy way of saying "I liked it" or "I didn't like it," with no significant justification.

It's kind of like when people have an argument about religion--most of the time, absolutely nothing is being communicated between the people having the argument because they were talking about two completely different things in the first place without realizing it, and then they curse the other for being oblivious to what was so obvious to them, as though something just being obvious to you has any real validity in a debate/argument/analysis.

It's not easy to really evaluate a film and make intelligent and meaningful criticisms of it through clear arguments.  (That's why I don't do it.)  Really, all that we do here or anybody ever does on forums is say that they liked something or didn't like something.  Their reasons for feeling the way they do aren't really illuminated by using more words or specifying which parts of the movie they liked, and adding why they felt that way tends not to really illuminate anything because it will probably be just another thing that they feel that you might not feel.  Everybody's review of the film so far on here is just a variation of "I loved it/liked it/thought it was okay."  That's pretty much what happens on movie forums, because it's rare that someone will say something genuinely insightful in a post that they spent 10 minutes on, and no one's gonna spend days crafting a hefty essay to put on a movie forum.

Oops.  I kinda just rambled about a bunch of stuff at once there.  I hope something in there made some sense to somebody.  I'm tired.

picolas

Quote from: matt35mm on November 29, 2010, 10:12:11 PMTheir reasons for feeling the way they do aren't really illuminated by using more words or specifying which parts of the movie they liked, and adding why they felt that way tends not to really illuminate anything because it will probably be just another thing that they feel that you might not feel.
WHAT???!!! using more words and being specific doesn't mean anything?? saying why something means something probably won't mean anything to anyone else because they might disagree????? this is, like. completely senseless. you're pooing onto the screen, and my eyes are being forced to eat that poo.

Quote from: matt35mm on November 29, 2010, 10:12:11 PMEverybody's review of the film so far on here is just a variation of "I loved it/liked it/thought it was okay."  That's pretty much what happens on movie forums, because it's rare that someone will say something genuinely insightful in a post that they spent 10 minutes on, and no one's gonna spend days crafting a hefty essay to put on a movie forum.
why the fuck is xixax rallying around the idea of not explaining why you love or hate a movie, and even going as far as suggesting it's not worth doing? ON A DISCUSSION BOARD?? i feel like i'm arguing the theory of gravity right now. these are bad times. is this really how the majority of xixaxers think at present? being as vague as possible when talking about movies is good? vagueness must be DEFENDED??? if so we're doomed. why is no one else jumping on how absurd this is?

it's also kind of funny how long and essay-like your post is, explaining why people shouldn't explain things.

Stefen

haha, dude, chill out. Stop getting so mad that people don't like what you like as much as you liked it. What are you? An only child?

Besides, who wants to write a 20 page essay on a film they didn't like? Who the hell even wants to write one about something they did?

I encourage long posts about films because it's exciting, but some people just don't have the energy to write out a long post for something that didn't really affect them. It's easy for you to write the War & Peace of xixax reviews for this movie because it affected you so strongly, but others may not have liked it as much and don't really feel like writing a long review.

I know if something has a lasting appeal to me, I'll talk about it at length and it's easier to discuss but other films that I see that are 'meh' to me, I don't even mention I saw them most of the time.

Different strokes for different folks.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Gold Trumpet

Theoretically, it makes sense for people to say why they like something in a post, but still, I believe people watch movies for a whole host of reasons. It's a democratic art form and my opinion is no more valid than anyone else's. This is also a cyber world and people who love movies a lot do to go film websites of some kind. When they are visiting sites for strict news reasons, they don't generally comment, but lots of people come here for news on movies and they generally feel more free to comment without feeling there is a standard to adhere to. I just accept it and am thankful whenever genuine enthusiasm for a movie shows up.

picolas

Quote from: Stefen on November 30, 2010, 07:46:16 PM
haha, dude, chill out. Stop getting so mad that people don't like what you like as much as you liked it.
i'm disappointed you'd link those ideas together. my argument never had anything to do with how i feel about 127 hours. if it did i'd argue about 127 hours.

Quote from: Stefen on November 30, 2010, 07:46:16 PMBesides, who wants to write a 20 page essay on a film they didn't like? Who the hell even wants to write one about something they did?
i specifically said at the top of the page i wasn't expecting an 'essay'. just an explanation. something can be explained in a few words. i'm not talking about length. i'm describing content. this is getting confused.

Quote from: Stefen on November 30, 2010, 07:46:16 PMI encourage long posts about films because it's exciting, but some people just don't have the energy to write out a long post for something that didn't really affect them. It's easy for you to write the War & Peace of xixax reviews for this movie because it affected you so strongly, but others may not have liked it as much and don't really feel like writing a long review.
again i don't care about how long a review is. just that it goes one step beyond 'critics are wrong.' i'd also argue it's easier to write a lengthy review about something you hate (see: the 90-minute phantom menace review), but that's another tangent.

children with angels

Yeah, seriously: all Pic asked for was a modicum of expansion on an opinion. Surely that can be reasonably hoped for, and would have been entirely satisfied if even a short response had shown up before all this debate kicked off over its lack. Squints can't be blamed (we've all got other shit to do), but neither can Pic (he requested a very reasonable thing). Expressing reasons behind judgments, even if only brief, can only help the quality of discussion on the board.
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