(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdesmond.yfrog.com%2FHimg96%2Fscaled.php%3Ftn%3D0%26amp%3Bserver%3D96%26amp%3Bfilename%3Dtakeshelter.jpg%26amp%3Bxsize%3D640%26amp%3Bysize%3D640&hash=5f5857a31bff5f3e66f866dd9bae93cecff3ce56)
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories)
Starring Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, and Shea Whigham
Trailer - http://tinyurl.com/424cwq6 (http://tinyurl.com/424cwq6)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675192/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675192/)
Release Date - 2011 TBD
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdesmond.yfrog.com%2FHimg198%2Fscaled.php%3Ftn%3D0%26amp%3Bserver%3D198%26amp%3Bfilename%3Dtakeshelterimagemichael.jpg%26amp%3Bxsize%3D640%26amp%3Bysize%3D640&hash=4f015845558e84c0263be4c4f0ae65d353a8e2ba)
This looks interesting.
I would watch the shit out of that. Reminds me of a more psychological, less political version of the Tim O'Brien novel The Nuclear Age.
I saw it at Sundance. It's pretty good (and Shannon is great) but it was definitely about 20 minutes too long and would have been a lot more effective with a trim. I'm not sure if it was edited before Cannes (or would be before release) but I'd be interested to find out since it won a Critics prize there. Also: it's not quite as thriller-y as the trailer suggests.
What I said then (http://modage.tumblr.com/post/3156711369/sundance-film-festival-11):
A film about the end of days or mental illness, depending on your reading of the film. Michael Shannon plays a man who starts having nightmares (or are they premonitions?) about a dark future ahead. The film does a great job carrying a tone of pervasive dread but at nearly 2 hours the film becomes repetitive. This is the one film I saw that would be greatly improved from trimming 15-20 minutes before it's release.
I agree on the trimming - maybe one less dream sequence is all this needs to be really great instead of really good.
This thing is a snooze of a snore of a bore.
The acting is great, but it can't carry the film, which has almost zero drama.
There is no "descent" in this "descent into madness" movie. It just goes from "not crazy" to "crazy" (OR DOES IT?! I've got the answer: "who cares?") with no exploration of the space in between. Mental illness is scary, I don't get how this managed to make it so boring.
I completely disagree about "maybe one less dream sequence" making this better. More and better dream sequences would have really helped get inside this guy's head. Maybe I would be able to feel his fear a little more. Instead, it's a 1,2,3 answer to the question "what it turned out everything you thought was real, wasn't?"... instead of getting a story about how it feels to loose your mind, I get a cold, boring, answer about going to see therapists and how much money it costs to build a storm shelter.
I don't get the mass praise for this movie. It had potential and dropped the ball on its own foot.
DVD-only release on February 14th, 2012. Amazon UK has a placeholder for a Blu-ray edition, but who knows.
Edit - Spoke too soon. Blu-ray coming, too.
I was pissed at this movie for it's last 15 minutes. Up until then it was all right. The thing is Michael Shannon has done this before and better. This character is kind of the same guy he played in Bug (a great underrated horror film) only a few months prior to his mental breakdown.
SPOILERS
What's disappointing is that for a long while I was convinced this was a serious portrait of schizophrenia, for which I was able to forgive the film for it's languid pace. But then near the end when Shannon has to "open the door" as a symbol of his staying within the confines of reason, with that heroic score (I was reminded of Unbreakable with Bruce Willis coming out of the swimming pool fulfilling his super hero prophecy) and his family behind him waiting on him that I felt the film broke it¡s own rules and language up to that point and became a generic "father owns up to his family" film. As if that wasn't enough, the film continues with a scene that goes back to what it had previously set, in which Shannon and family are consulting a psychiatrist. And then they finish the movie with that copout idiotic "it was all true" ending. I just felt the filmmakers wanted to cram everything into this little movie; the dad overcoming his illness, the dad being diagnosed with the illness and the dad not being sick at all. It was a letdown.
^
Spot on.
Quote from: Alexandro on May 12, 2012, 10:06:20 AM
I was pissed at this movie for it's last 15 minutes. Up until then it was all right. The thing is Michael Shannon has done this before and better. This character is kind of the same guy he played in Bug (a great underrated horror film) only a few months prior to his mental breakdown.
SPOILERS
What's disappointing is that for a long while I was convinced this was a serious portrait of schizophrenia, for which I was able to forgive the film for it's languid pace. But then near the end when Shannon has to "open the door" as a symbol of his staying within the confines of reason, with that heroic score (I was reminded of Unbreakable with Bruce Willis coming out of the swimming pool fulfilling his super hero prophecy) and his family behind him waiting on him that I felt the film broke it¡s own rules and language up to that point and became a generic "father owns up to his family" film. As if that wasn't enough, the film continues with a scene that goes back to what it had previously set, in which Shannon and family are consulting a psychiatrist. And then they finish the movie with that copout idiotic "it was all true" ending. I just felt the filmmakers wanted to cram everything into this little movie; the dad overcoming his illness, the dad being diagnosed with the illness and the dad not being sick at all. It was a letdown.
Great summary of what I found at fault with the film. Being from Arkansas, I had high hopes for Jeff Nichols after given up on David Gorden Green. What I love most about about Shotgun Stories was how tight the direction and screenplay was. There wasn't any fat in the film(I couldn't think of a better way to describe it). It took him years to shoot Shotgun stories scrapping up money where he could find it. That benefited Shotgun Stories while maybe too much freedom limited what Take Shelter could be.