1. Some movie comes out. It has a lot of effort, love, and time put into making it.
2. It has a lot of symbolism, philosophy, nuance, etc.
3. People with the patience for these kinds of things enjoy the movie, and recognize it simply as what it is. In Cloud Atlas' case, it is quite simply an eternal argument for good against evil. Good of all kinds. Evil of all kinds.
4. People who get paid to be edgy and negative (rather than, you know, contribute to the progress of humanity or something) come up with phrases like "quasi-profound" and "pseudo-intellectual" to call the movie for bothering to be deep and complex rather than shallow and simple. They spread the idea that movies should be an escape from reality, rather than an analysis of it. They advocate that audiences should be impatient, and should allow the flood of thoughts like "what is going on" to interrupt their process of watching the movie, in which you find out what is going on. These reviewers tend to write a lot about actors and budget and directors, and write very little about the substance of the film, but feel fine with shrugging it off as "nothing" at the end of their review.
5. People who think like these reviewers go through life avoiding any chance to "get a message" from a film and instead insist that their is no message. Lots of people like this occupy reality. Imagine how their lives ripple through time and space. Cloud Atlas is a movie that asks that you do so. He didn't get this out of it though. He says that all the movie has is coincidences and birthmarks, but it's not that the movie has nothing but tripe, it's that he chooses to get nothing but tripe from it.
This movie isn't deep at all. If you watch every story separately, the reaction would be "meh". Each story is an average tv episode and has been seen before. The 70s story is Silkwood, the far future story is Apacalypto, the old guy in the nursing home is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest meets and episode of Masterpiece Theatre. The other stories aren't worth mentioning. So what they edited it together nicely? They caked actors in layers of makeup masking their ability to emote and making them look like mutants. Same way you rationalized some critics' contempt for this movie, I can rationalize why you want to like it. But I won't, because they dislike it for legitimate reasons and you like it for your own legit reasons. I saw this movie a few months ago and I think it's pomp and circumstance signifying nothing.
But I think you'll see the individual stories in cloud atlas as more than ripoffs of other movies if you do.
Zachry's story is hardly Apocalypto. Like, seriously? Very loose similarities.
Nor is Cavendish's story One Flew. Cavendish is hardly like J.N's character in One Flew, and you're ignoring the whole back story about the book he published, the author who threw the guy out of the building, his brother who got him locked in the nursing home, and his connection to Louisa Ray's story.
You know when a film critic makes up words like "quasi-profound" that they entered the theater with a "pseudo intellectual" bent. Which is never good for a non mainstream movie. It's blurbs like this that make me wonder why anyone ever created the occupation of film critic. It's such a useless and ultimately self-gratifying role that in the end they serve no real useful purpose. If a movie interests you. Go see it. And if you like it. Then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
I saw this movie and though it was great. Maybe a totally insignificant point, but to say that Robert Frobisher is a "gallivanting bisexual" greatly diminishes his dignity; I wouldn't use either of those words to describe that character.
People can totally 'get' something and still not like it. Like this reviewer. He didn't leave the theater totally baffled, unable to comprehend the supposed incredible depth of the movie that people are talking about. He just thought it was bad.
God forbid that you would have to walk into the movie alert, and not get bombarded by just visuals and some acting without having to worry about the meaning of the film. You know, like most movies of the 21st century.
I love smart films but the problem here is every scene tries to hit you on the head like a new age yogi preaching about interconnectedness or the importance of grounding, you know, the direct and indirect means of improving health by absorbing the earth's natural, electromagnetic energy.
This is also why I didn't like matrix 2
It's really ironic that you refer to the reviewer as a child, implying that they are less mature than us, somehow - then imply that readers of the paper are retarded. When you're trying to insult someone, consider how it undercuts your point when you prove yourself to be just as bad or worse than the person you're attacking.
Darlin, you never get any 2 hours and 43 minuets back. You might try 'A Brief History of Time' to understand how it works, but it would be 1 hour and 20 minuets you won't get back.
Would quasi-idiotic be better than quasi-profound? Do we want more super hero movies and Jackass 4? At least they they aren't all icky thinky. Dummer are better, right? Better to aim real low and hit it, than to aim high and not be able to explain life the universe and everything in under 3 hours.
Harrison Castro
I hope you go out of print one day.
Oct 26 - 06:24 AM
David Ledford
Ha ha, I see what you did there!
Oct 26 - 06:47 AM
Brandon Mendoza
HAHA, nice one!
Oct 26 - 07:11 AM
Bertil Beaver
Uh, he said "I hope you go out of print one day"
I supose "I hope you go out of beer one day" makes as much sense?
Oct 29 - 12:38 AM