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re: The Cabin in the Woods. TulaneLSU's 2011-12 movie review thread
Posted on 11/16/11 at 7:22 am to TulaneLSU
Posted on 11/16/11 at 7:22 am to TulaneLSU
Sarah's Key There is a growing corpus of Holocaust movies. Some of the movies are forgettable and are made with platitudinal frivolity, knowing that critics are slow to trash Holocaust movies, even bad ones. The subtitled, French flick, Sarah's Key, was neither lauded nor dumped, but it did receive a relatively lukewarm reception from both critics and audiences alike. After watching it, I think I understand why many critics were slow to say positive things about this movie.
Similar to the flip-flop juxtaposition of two lives in different time periods in Julie and Julia, we find in Sarah's Key two stories: one of a distrait girl running to release what she had locked away and the other of a woman in search of truth, also locked away. But truth is a powerful thing, something that can evoke angst, guilt, even if undeserved, and the pain of memory. Truth is the reason we are all called to be just, compassionate, kind, and humble. When we are not those things, we create a world in which truth harms the innocent and the innocent are decreated. The innocent become afflicted and suffer an unrighteous, unjustified penalty. We see this symbolically applied through the use of water in several scenes. Water, which is supposed to be a purifying substance, is transformed into purity's antithesis, guilt, as a result of the transgressions of others.
So much of the Judeo-Christian tradition is one of story telling. Whether the authors of this story made into a movie are explicitly aware of this characteristic is unknown. But the theme of remembering is strong, so strong in fact the movie opens and closes with a voiceover on the import of a story: "When a story is told, it is not forgotten." Those who have been following the LNBST may be thinking about YHWH's repeated command to remember. Remember your past. Remember where you were. Remember your bondage. Remember who you are because this story is who we are; this narrative of life is a grand drama from which we draw our understanding. The Christian Gospel, likewise, is a continued proclamation of this grand narrative: of what has happened and what is to come. Stories must be told. If they are not, they are forgotten.
I suppose that is the task of all arts: to tell a story, to prevent the story from becoming annihilated into a Heideggerian Vergessenheit. Without the story, the world has lost something vital to it. And that is probably why preservationists do what they do. They are trying to preserve a story because they understand that we are products of a story, of history, and that we are mere fragments of reality, truly illusions, if we have no roots in the narrative of history. The earth cries out with a story. All land is holy because all land has been witness to the story.
There is so much more to unpack from this gem about the little known story of the Holocaust in Vichy France, specifically, the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. While the movie's focus is on retelling that story and the story of a woman wrestling with the idea of abortion, and does an adequate job of both, where the movie really succeeds is reminding us of the need for roots. Is a self-uprooted class of movie critics the reason for its critical blackballing? 9/10
Similar to the flip-flop juxtaposition of two lives in different time periods in Julie and Julia, we find in Sarah's Key two stories: one of a distrait girl running to release what she had locked away and the other of a woman in search of truth, also locked away. But truth is a powerful thing, something that can evoke angst, guilt, even if undeserved, and the pain of memory. Truth is the reason we are all called to be just, compassionate, kind, and humble. When we are not those things, we create a world in which truth harms the innocent and the innocent are decreated. The innocent become afflicted and suffer an unrighteous, unjustified penalty. We see this symbolically applied through the use of water in several scenes. Water, which is supposed to be a purifying substance, is transformed into purity's antithesis, guilt, as a result of the transgressions of others.
So much of the Judeo-Christian tradition is one of story telling. Whether the authors of this story made into a movie are explicitly aware of this characteristic is unknown. But the theme of remembering is strong, so strong in fact the movie opens and closes with a voiceover on the import of a story: "When a story is told, it is not forgotten." Those who have been following the LNBST may be thinking about YHWH's repeated command to remember. Remember your past. Remember where you were. Remember your bondage. Remember who you are because this story is who we are; this narrative of life is a grand drama from which we draw our understanding. The Christian Gospel, likewise, is a continued proclamation of this grand narrative: of what has happened and what is to come. Stories must be told. If they are not, they are forgotten.
I suppose that is the task of all arts: to tell a story, to prevent the story from becoming annihilated into a Heideggerian Vergessenheit. Without the story, the world has lost something vital to it. And that is probably why preservationists do what they do. They are trying to preserve a story because they understand that we are products of a story, of history, and that we are mere fragments of reality, truly illusions, if we have no roots in the narrative of history. The earth cries out with a story. All land is holy because all land has been witness to the story.
There is so much more to unpack from this gem about the little known story of the Holocaust in Vichy France, specifically, the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. While the movie's focus is on retelling that story and the story of a woman wrestling with the idea of abortion, and does an adequate job of both, where the movie really succeeds is reminding us of the need for roots. Is a self-uprooted class of movie critics the reason for its critical blackballing? 9/10
This post was edited on 11/16/11 at 7:32 am
3
Posted on 11/16/11 at 7:22 am to TulaneLSU
Season of the Witch I read a few scathing reviews and went to see this just to see how bad a movie Cage was willing to sign to. I was surpised that this movie wasn't nearly as bad as the critics said. The large scale battle scenes are bad and the CGI for the most part about a decade behind, but the story was a bit interesting, and actually surprised me. At first, I thought this was just another attack on the Church of the Middle Ages, but it was actually, in a weird way, a defense of it. The movie was always entertaining and moved very quickly, so you won't be bored. 5/10
Seven Days in Utopia Before watching it, I did something I usually don't: I had a peak at the numerical grades the critics gave this movie. I was not that surprised when I saw the grades were low. It's not unusual for critics to pan an overtly religious movie. Some people, either for personal or intellectual reasons, hate religion. Anything that discusses religion in a positive light is bad to some of these people. I hoped that this was the reason for the low scores because who has seen more bad movies in the theater this year than I have?
The movie is a series of parables in which a budding golf star learns lessons by having his focus unfocused. All his life, the golfer, whose acting rivals the quality of acting on MTV's Real World, has focused on direct lessons from a father who is exacting, goal-driven, vicarious, and relentless. But when that world is torn, he is led to another father figure, played by the philtrum-stached Robert Duvall. Through a series of trials and parables, Duvall's character teaches the young man virtues of middle American religion: conviction, temperance, and detachment.
The messages are well and good for a nominally Christian and unrooted society that has a need for morality lessons, but the teachings of Seven Days are, like so many of the "Christian" movies coming out since Hollywood realized it could make bank after seeing the cash flow after Mel Gibson's The Passion, more suited for a society that is concerned with self first. The movie's theme is less about Christian virtues than it is about the virtues of modern American psychology cloaked in the language of Christianity. The movie's not about finding one's place in the world as a servant; it's about finding oneself. It's not about reconciling after real fractures; it's about superficial hugs and submission: case in point: the golfer's dad in the ridiculous golf scenes that close the movie. There was nothing real in their ostensible reconciliation. The dad's character is merely destroyed, his soul simply disappears after the two supposedly reconcile. And as a result of this phantom redivivus, the character and the relationship he has with the son are incredulous. And as bad as that relationship portrayal is, it's only half as bad as the young man's love interest and her family. Did the director really feel it necessary to include a shadow family?
Apart from giving a nominally Christian self-help message, the movie fails as a work of cinematic art because it has bad acting and no drama. There are no elements of suspense; every bit of this movie is predicated on folk family religion in the most predictable of ways. Whereas the profound lessons of a good work of art come to us in a susurrus, as do the lessons in a movie like A River Runs Through It, this movie is for an uncritical, unthinking audience who needs lessons pasted on billboards and blared on bullhorns. Even with all the bad, the movie moves quickly, and is over before you know it. But the next time I see Melissa Leo in Whole Foods, I will confront her. "Melissa," I will say, "Why did someone of your pedigree agree to do a bad movie? I've seen enough of them this year." 3/10.
Smurfs 3D There is an emerging study of color in contemporary philosophy. Much of it derives from psychological and linguistic theories, but it is annoyingly and fruitlessly emerging in philosophy. While we can objectively differentiate colors based on the spectrum of visible light, the new studies of color are more often than not based on an anthropocentric rather than physical understanding of color. As such, colors are colors in so much as they can create an emotional response. Artists have long known this; why it took philosophers so long to figure out, you figure out. Entering the movie I loved the color blue. Exiting the movie, I detest the color blue.
How can a movie create such a metanoia in opinion? Consider why many children do not like the lima beans. I believe it is not the legume's taste, it the legume's color: similar to the color of children's vomit. Smurfs is no more than vomit on the big screen. And it made me want to vomit. I wish I had listened to the lady in the preview of the Never Say Never copycat, Glee 3D, when she said, "This movie sucks. Get your money back." But we cannot change the past; we cannot undo what we have seen, and what I saw in Smurfs was a raping of my soul by none other than Papa Smurf, whose voice sounds eerily similar to the Larry King voice in those Xtranormal self-make movies.
It was an Indecent Proposal. How else can you explain any actor or actress agreeing to lend their face or voice to this movie? I can see the directors going to Doogie Howser: "Here's $2 mill, will you do it?" If Doogie had actually taken the Hippocratic Oath, he couldn't. I guess moral character is not expected from an actor who does a cameo in a movie about White Castle burgers and semen in a car's backseat. I'm surprised we didn't see any White Castle burgers in the movie. At every turn of the camera angle, there was one more advertisement for some company. Yes, Smurfs is nothing more than a series of infomercials painted blue. The directors then slapped on a five cent sitcom story about being a dad and a few crude jokes, that I hope went over the kids' heads. The sad part is that all that blue turned to green at the box office. Satan is red in my eyes no longer. 0/10
The Social Network Tight writing, great story, and moves at a pace that is irresistible. I haven't sat through two hours that went by more quickly than when watching this one. No performance sticks out; it's just a solid movie all the way around. 9/10
Seven Days in Utopia Before watching it, I did something I usually don't: I had a peak at the numerical grades the critics gave this movie. I was not that surprised when I saw the grades were low. It's not unusual for critics to pan an overtly religious movie. Some people, either for personal or intellectual reasons, hate religion. Anything that discusses religion in a positive light is bad to some of these people. I hoped that this was the reason for the low scores because who has seen more bad movies in the theater this year than I have?
The movie is a series of parables in which a budding golf star learns lessons by having his focus unfocused. All his life, the golfer, whose acting rivals the quality of acting on MTV's Real World, has focused on direct lessons from a father who is exacting, goal-driven, vicarious, and relentless. But when that world is torn, he is led to another father figure, played by the philtrum-stached Robert Duvall. Through a series of trials and parables, Duvall's character teaches the young man virtues of middle American religion: conviction, temperance, and detachment.
The messages are well and good for a nominally Christian and unrooted society that has a need for morality lessons, but the teachings of Seven Days are, like so many of the "Christian" movies coming out since Hollywood realized it could make bank after seeing the cash flow after Mel Gibson's The Passion, more suited for a society that is concerned with self first. The movie's theme is less about Christian virtues than it is about the virtues of modern American psychology cloaked in the language of Christianity. The movie's not about finding one's place in the world as a servant; it's about finding oneself. It's not about reconciling after real fractures; it's about superficial hugs and submission: case in point: the golfer's dad in the ridiculous golf scenes that close the movie. There was nothing real in their ostensible reconciliation. The dad's character is merely destroyed, his soul simply disappears after the two supposedly reconcile. And as a result of this phantom redivivus, the character and the relationship he has with the son are incredulous. And as bad as that relationship portrayal is, it's only half as bad as the young man's love interest and her family. Did the director really feel it necessary to include a shadow family?
Apart from giving a nominally Christian self-help message, the movie fails as a work of cinematic art because it has bad acting and no drama. There are no elements of suspense; every bit of this movie is predicated on folk family religion in the most predictable of ways. Whereas the profound lessons of a good work of art come to us in a susurrus, as do the lessons in a movie like A River Runs Through It, this movie is for an uncritical, unthinking audience who needs lessons pasted on billboards and blared on bullhorns. Even with all the bad, the movie moves quickly, and is over before you know it. But the next time I see Melissa Leo in Whole Foods, I will confront her. "Melissa," I will say, "Why did someone of your pedigree agree to do a bad movie? I've seen enough of them this year." 3/10.
Smurfs 3D There is an emerging study of color in contemporary philosophy. Much of it derives from psychological and linguistic theories, but it is annoyingly and fruitlessly emerging in philosophy. While we can objectively differentiate colors based on the spectrum of visible light, the new studies of color are more often than not based on an anthropocentric rather than physical understanding of color. As such, colors are colors in so much as they can create an emotional response. Artists have long known this; why it took philosophers so long to figure out, you figure out. Entering the movie I loved the color blue. Exiting the movie, I detest the color blue.
How can a movie create such a metanoia in opinion? Consider why many children do not like the lima beans. I believe it is not the legume's taste, it the legume's color: similar to the color of children's vomit. Smurfs is no more than vomit on the big screen. And it made me want to vomit. I wish I had listened to the lady in the preview of the Never Say Never copycat, Glee 3D, when she said, "This movie sucks. Get your money back." But we cannot change the past; we cannot undo what we have seen, and what I saw in Smurfs was a raping of my soul by none other than Papa Smurf, whose voice sounds eerily similar to the Larry King voice in those Xtranormal self-make movies.
It was an Indecent Proposal. How else can you explain any actor or actress agreeing to lend their face or voice to this movie? I can see the directors going to Doogie Howser: "Here's $2 mill, will you do it?" If Doogie had actually taken the Hippocratic Oath, he couldn't. I guess moral character is not expected from an actor who does a cameo in a movie about White Castle burgers and semen in a car's backseat. I'm surprised we didn't see any White Castle burgers in the movie. At every turn of the camera angle, there was one more advertisement for some company. Yes, Smurfs is nothing more than a series of infomercials painted blue. The directors then slapped on a five cent sitcom story about being a dad and a few crude jokes, that I hope went over the kids' heads. The sad part is that all that blue turned to green at the box office. Satan is red in my eyes no longer. 0/10
The Social Network Tight writing, great story, and moves at a pace that is irresistible. I haven't sat through two hours that went by more quickly than when watching this one. No performance sticks out; it's just a solid movie all the way around. 9/10
This post was edited on 11/16/11 at 7:32 am
Posted on 12/8/11 at 6:36 pm to TulaneLSU
Despite the childish palaver here, I am a chaste individual and always have been. Take not umbrage, my friends, the reviews are my gift to the board to enjoy or dismiss and mock as members please. Let the badinage go on!
Arthur Christmas I confess that when I saw the trailer, something I try not to do, for Arthur Christmas, I was not thrilled. It seemed to be a movie that militarized Christmas. Is there anything more anathema to the birth of the Prince of Peace? True, it was done in jest, but even in jest, I thought it to be of bad taste.
As the movie opened, I was uneasily awed by the display of military precision and force used by Santa's elves. The computer graphics, especially of S-1 and the chthonic North Pole HQ, are incredible and its degree of creativity is rare. Had the movie continued on this line, I would have been entertained, but would have left upset that Christmas had been so corrupted. Surprise, as unsurprising as Hollywood has been lately, was knocking at the door, and I left the theater with new ideas and new thoughts. I always consider such movies that have this type of power to be good movies.
Arthur Christmas is chock-full with classical themes we find throughout literature: sibling rivalry, megalomania, progressivism vs. reactionaryism (pardon these neologisms, if they are that), and finding one's calling, a theme that is making a comeback in Hollywood, and which is notably present in the recent Hugo. I think it is this last theme that will be this movie's calling card to me. In one sense, the ending is predictable. I realized it would happen before I walked in the theater, thanks to the trailer, but its predictability did not diminish its force. Speaking of a tour de force, before the movie begins, the viewer is treated to one of the most fantastic and hippest renditions of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" ever performed. The kicker? JUSTIN BIEBER performs it!!! My soul, being of paltry capaciousness, was stirred and I was dancing in my seat. The audience was not quite as wild as the one at Never Say Never, so I restrained myself.
"Blessed are the meek," says Jesus, "for they shall inherit the earth." After you uncover all the other wonderful themes found in the movie, I walked away with this wondrous beatitude. Blessed are the ones who are obedient to the Suffering Servant. Blessed are those whose hearts, though pierced and wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, remain pure. Blessed are the ones who walk in the clouds of doubt and ridicule, yet remain obedient to remain pure and of a childlike nature. Arthur's dark night of the soul cannot destroy his faith in what is right. Individuals and joy will win out against numbers and duty every time. Blessed are the ones who carry on the Christmas spirit in a world of doubt and cynicism. Blessed is Arthur.
Arthur Christmas is the best Christmas movie I have seen in the theater. It deserves to become a classic and I think it will. Families and adults alike will profit from a viewing. Blessed be you and your viewing.9/10
Arthur Christmas I confess that when I saw the trailer, something I try not to do, for Arthur Christmas, I was not thrilled. It seemed to be a movie that militarized Christmas. Is there anything more anathema to the birth of the Prince of Peace? True, it was done in jest, but even in jest, I thought it to be of bad taste.
As the movie opened, I was uneasily awed by the display of military precision and force used by Santa's elves. The computer graphics, especially of S-1 and the chthonic North Pole HQ, are incredible and its degree of creativity is rare. Had the movie continued on this line, I would have been entertained, but would have left upset that Christmas had been so corrupted. Surprise, as unsurprising as Hollywood has been lately, was knocking at the door, and I left the theater with new ideas and new thoughts. I always consider such movies that have this type of power to be good movies.
Arthur Christmas is chock-full with classical themes we find throughout literature: sibling rivalry, megalomania, progressivism vs. reactionaryism (pardon these neologisms, if they are that), and finding one's calling, a theme that is making a comeback in Hollywood, and which is notably present in the recent Hugo. I think it is this last theme that will be this movie's calling card to me. In one sense, the ending is predictable. I realized it would happen before I walked in the theater, thanks to the trailer, but its predictability did not diminish its force. Speaking of a tour de force, before the movie begins, the viewer is treated to one of the most fantastic and hippest renditions of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" ever performed. The kicker? JUSTIN BIEBER performs it!!! My soul, being of paltry capaciousness, was stirred and I was dancing in my seat. The audience was not quite as wild as the one at Never Say Never, so I restrained myself.
"Blessed are the meek," says Jesus, "for they shall inherit the earth." After you uncover all the other wonderful themes found in the movie, I walked away with this wondrous beatitude. Blessed are the ones who are obedient to the Suffering Servant. Blessed are those whose hearts, though pierced and wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, remain pure. Blessed are the ones who walk in the clouds of doubt and ridicule, yet remain obedient to remain pure and of a childlike nature. Arthur's dark night of the soul cannot destroy his faith in what is right. Individuals and joy will win out against numbers and duty every time. Blessed are the ones who carry on the Christmas spirit in a world of doubt and cynicism. Blessed is Arthur.
Arthur Christmas is the best Christmas movie I have seen in the theater. It deserves to become a classic and I think it will. Families and adults alike will profit from a viewing. Blessed be you and your viewing.9/10
This post was edited on 12/9/11 at 7:00 am
Posted on 12/13/11 at 12:58 pm to TulaneLSU
quote:
Sarah's Key There is a growing corpus of Holocaust movies. Some of the movies are forgettable and are made with platitudinal frivolity, knowing that critics are slow to trash Holocaust movies, even bad ones. The subtitled, French flick, Sarah's Key, was neither lauded nor dumped, but it did receive a relatively lukewarm reception from both critics and audiences alike. After watching it, I think I understand why many critics were slow to say positive things about this movie.
Similar to the flip-flop juxtaposition of two lives in different time periods in Julie and Julia, we find in Sarah's Key two stories: one of a distrait girl running to release what she had locked away and the other of a woman in search of truth, also locked away. But truth is a powerful thing, something that can evoke angst, guilt, even if undeserved, and the pain of memory. Truth is the reason we are all called to be just, compassionate, kind, and humble. When we are not those things, we create a world in which truth harms the innocent and the innocent are decreated. The innocent become afflicted and suffer an unrighteous, unjustified penalty. We see this symbolically applied through the use of water in several scenes. Water, which is supposed to be a purifying substance, is transformed into purity's antithesis, guilt, as a result of the transgressions of others.
So much of the Judeo-Christian tradition is one of story telling. Whether the authors of this story made into a movie are explicitly aware of this characteristic is unknown. But the theme of remembering is strong, so strong in fact the movie opens and closes with a voiceover on the import of a story: "When a story is told, it is not forgotten." Those who have been following the LNBST may be thinking about YHWH's repeated command to remember. Remember your past. Remember where you were. Remember your bondage. Remember who you are because this story is who we are; this narrative of life is a grand drama from which we draw our understanding. The Christian Gospel, likewise, is a continued proclamation of this grand narrative: of what has happened and what is to come. Stories must be told. If they are not, they are forgotten.
I suppose that is the task of all arts: to tell a story, to prevent the story from becoming annihilated into a Heideggerian Vergessenheit. Without the story, the world has lost something vital to it. And that is probably why preservationists do what they do. They are trying to preserve a story because they understand that we are products of a story, of history, and that we are mere fragments of reality, truly illusions, if we have no roots in the narrative of history. The earth cries out with a story. All land is holy because all land has been witness to the story.
There is so much more to unpack from this gem about the little known story of the Holocaust in Vichy France, specifically, the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. While the movie's focus is on retelling that story and the story of a woman wrestling with the idea of abortion, and does an adequate job of both, where the movie really succeeds is reminding us of the need for roots. Is a self-uprooted class of movie critics the reason for its critical blackballing? 9/10
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