I liked this movie a lot. I think the part I liked the most was when Matt Damon’s character, David, asks Harry, “Are you the chairman?” Like it would be that easy. Like Oz would be unveiled in that way. And I loved the 1950’s feel of the men in suits with fedoras. Classy world controllers.
It was a really interesting theory on how the world works. I wonder if the book is better or worse. And to think, even a God or Chairman can’t get it perfect all the time. Even they make mistakes or even sometimes things are outside their ultimate power. I wonder if that’s why things on earth can’t always be completely rationalized or explained. Sometimes shitty things just happen and there’s nothing we can do about them. Like in the movie, David’s mom, they didn’t adjust her, that was chance.
Can chance and plans exist at the same time? Can the chaos of chance fuck with the tidiness of plan? Does what people believe make them so? Do they both exist because people believe in both? And could human kind ever really govern ourselves, live a balanced life, without the presence or the belief in something greater than ourselves? Do we need to believe in something bigger than ourselves to imagine we have free will? That there’s something to rebel against? Hmm, maybe the book would be a really great read.
First off, James Cameron is just so full of himself. Always needs to be praised. There, that’s out of the way.
I like how this story was inspired by true events, but these events were definitely not true. What makes the story really interesting are the interpersonal relationships and conflicts. Turns out the only event that was really true was that the director was once himself trapped in a flash flooded cave. But I liked how the story unfolded and how in the desperate moments of someone’s life, they can be noble or they can be selfish. The two sides can be in the same person as well, acting very altruistic one moment and on survival mode the next. I was kind of hoping more of the story was true, but it was still pretty entertaining and the underwater shots were so amazing.
I liked though how the father said, just trust your instincts and trust the cave. It doesn’t really care if you survive or not, but that creates a true baseline. There’s nothing much personal about nature. You just have to take your chances and trust your instincts.
What a sad movie. Sometimes there really are things you can’t take back, you can’t change. He ruined his life with one lousy screw. But I do believe that if he hadn’t been so selfish and instant gratifying, Miriam could have forgiven him. But it almost seemed like the last straw and I think because of what her father had done, she wasn’t willing to make any grand gestures.
The book is definitely something that I should read. I liked how Barney’s life wove back and forth between memory and reality. Perhaps that’s what living with Alzheimer’s is like, this constant weaving of what is and what has been. It must be so painful to constantly relive your life in the present. Every time he forgets where Miriam is and learns of his past actions and his past loss. Every time he learns that his dear friends have died. It must cut like a knife each time.
But I think what made Barney so lovable was that he was so imperfect, he was so rough. But what you see is what you get with him. Yet there were layers to him that we only saw at the end of his life. Like I love how he paid all that money to make that actress seem huge in Bulgaria. And he was completely willing to make her feel bad, to look like the asshole, so that she wouldn’t find out the truth, that perhaps she wasn’t so loved in Bulgaria after all. And maybe he really did believe that his friend was still out there, not dead and that he’d publish a great masterpiece.
Not anything outstanding or special, but it was a fun little spontaneous girls night out.
I like some of the more serious topics they brought up in the movie, such as not needing to be with anyone for fear of losing that person. But they so briefly skimmed over it. I think I probably had a little of those same fears after my mom died, in fact I know I did. I get scared all the time that G won’t come home because he’s been hit or that he’ll fall through the ice when he goes skating on the lake. And then my life will be devastated. It kind of makes me worry about how much of a worrier I’m going to be as a mother. I kind of wonder, will it be true for me, will I love my kids more than G?
I think movies like this are important. They’re not off speculating about what’s going on in the world. They kind of just make them known, to everyone. And I like the US poster (on the right) more than the Canadian one (left).
This movie really made me think about my family and how everyone is doing. It made me think of all the stress my uncle must be going through. It made me think of what so many Americans must be going through. And at times, you feel a little bit of a feeling like, well, what did you expect? That the good life would just keep going on forever? You have a Porsche and a membership at a golf club. A million dollar home. Everyone keeps thinking that they should just keep going up and up and up without any kind of cap or decrease. Ben Affleck’s character was ‘willing’ to take a $10k pay cut. His wage was probably super inflated to begin with.
There was one part that really hit me. How legal big business is, yet how completely unethical it remains. People have kind of forgotten that there’s a difference. Legal is just what some third party has deemed law (which could be seen as last resort standards, lowest of the low standards), but ethics can still be governed and influenced by us every day. There was something that Tommy Lee Jones’ character said, something along the lines of, I thought we were striving for something a little higher here (than legal). It’s like that’s all anyone is concerned with, the law. It doesn’t really matter if it’s right or not.
I was kind of surprised that Seth Rogen had such a huge part in getting this movie out there. He wrote it, directed it and who knows what else. But despite his heavy hand in it (or maybe because of it), I was a bit disappointed in the movie. I thought it was a little too wacky and unbelievable, especially the ending in the newspaper headquarters.
It’s also kind of funny how Kato has really just been some interchangeable Asian. In the 1940 version he was identified as being Korean. Then in the TV series, I’m not sure, was he a specific type of Asian? I mean he was Bruce Lee, so maybe they changed him to Chinese. And then in this 2011 version he’s from China. Are there any other characters in other such popular movies that can so easily be interchanged? I don’t know, but for some reason that kind of bothered me. Smart marketing though, using such a popular Taiwanese singer to draw the Asian crowd.
But really, overall the movie was a bit of a disappointment. The action was okay. The martial arts was not very good. The stunts were pretty cool, but then they were wacky. Even the villain got a little nuts (although you have to admit the intro with James Franco was pretty funny). Overall, meh.
I feel like this has got to be one of the worst movie posters of all time. I don’t really know how they do it, but this is just horrid. Question, can you make a great poster for a crappy film? Or do you have to have a film of substance to make a poster of substance? Can a good poster exist without a good movie? Hm, ponder that.
Despite the poster though, this movie was everything I expected it to be. Enjoyable, creepy at times and just really an escape from reality. The only thing that kind of creeped me out was that the Bunny was kicking and moving around the whole time and I was kind of freaking out that I was tainting my child with a witch/devil movie. Where do I come up with this stuff?
I love the grit of this movie. Talk about gritty and drama! This family was crazy, yet it seems they found a way to stay a family and still somewhat support one another. And even Charlene found some peace with them. But man, that mother and those daughters are the stuff of Jerry Springer shows.
I thought Christian Bale just stole the show. He almost after awhile disappeared and all that remained was Dicky. I think any true sports story has a lot of the same elements. Tough life, worked hard, found perseverance in the hope of becoming something outside of what they seemed. But what I liked about Micky and his story is that he kind of kept all of himself. He became something bigger, something better, but in the end he didn’t turn his back on his family, his brother. He kind of kept them all.
And I think what I liked best of the whole thing was the quality of the filming. It kind of all felt a little gritty. A little dirty. I don’t know what kind of film they used or what kind of filters, but it all just felt real. The whole thing almost felt more like a documentary than a film, even the parts that weren’t documentary style. I think even the colors were washed out a bit. The whole thing just made the story feel alive. And Dicky made the whole thing feel alive.
