Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013)

[tabuno]

A great movie even with the unnecessarily and perhaps outdated use of switches and manual instrumentation for Tom Cruise’s bubble cruiser, an almost nauseating voice-over narrative at the beginning unlike the acceptable to some voice over of Blade Runner (1982), a patently fake looking lunar moon, and the disappearance of a major female character occurring off camera. This is one of those movies where such flaws are easily overcome by the rest of the visual spectacle, artistic landscape and set design, and of course the storyline. What is fascinating about this tent-pole sci fi psychological action thriller extravaganza is that it isn’t all that original, but nevertheless with its tight fusion of previous incarnations that are so well weaved into the storyline, producing a substantive film with two compelling twists offering an American theme ending that it becomes more than its parts and becoming a very well made movie.

There are strong elements taken from Total Recall (1990) and improved on, devoid of the stereotypical arch enemy and false persona and replaced both by an underlying emotional humanity as well as a detached alien presence. There are elements of The Matrix (1999) but not as eerily and epic-like presentation retaining more of simplicity and uncluttered landscape of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1982) but incorporating elements of awesomeness as found in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and psychological unbalancing as found in Source Code (2011). The twists in this movie is similar to that found in Moon (2009) which focused more on the singular psychological and ethical aspect of a man confronted with loneliness and in which Oblivion finds a way to expand of the more tortured and dichotomous incongruity of the multiplicity of human life or that of a man having to face up to what had been an entire illusion one’s existence as in Planet of the Apes (1968).

Even so, Oblivion manages to retain a persistent theme of love and intimacy Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and as convoluted as Solaris (2002). The musical sound track resonates in places as symphonic as those found in Electric Dreams (1984) or Wavelength (1983). Other familiar themes may have been taken from Tom Cruise’s own Minority Report (2002) and Surrogates (2009) as well as one of the sci fi classics of all time Blade Runner (1982) that dwelt with human identity and emotional connections in a dystrophic future.

[Johann]

Visually it looks amazing. But I'll pass. Thanks for your thoughts tabuno.

I'll pass because I just don't like Tom Cruise.
I don't think he'll ever make a film that will impress me more than Eyes Wide Shut, and it wasn't because of his performance either- it was Kubrick.

I don't even know what kind of movie he could do to get me stoked. He's been in so many movies over the years that I don't think he has any faces anymore. I saw him on The Daily Show recently and he seemed to be campaigning to win fans back, saying he just wants to give the audience a good show. OK Tom. If reviews of Oblivion sway me, reviews that convince me that you put on the BEST SHOW you possibly could, I'll check it out.
But right now, your Mega-Buck career isn't blowing me away. And I don't know how you could do it, to be frank.
Eyes Wide Shut was 15 years ago. Kubrick didn't teach you anything?
Besides telling you to work with P.T. Anderson?
What have you done since?
You sat on top of the Burj tower in Dubai without a harness. Yay.

[Chris Knipp]

I would want to see this. There are a lot of other movie things for me to do right now so I don't know when I will though. Whether I will like it or not I don't know; it's a tossup. The Metacritic rating (http://www.metacritic.com/movie/oblivion) is 53, Kenneth Turan of the LA Times giving the best review and Manohla Dargis giving the worst one. I do not write off Cruise. He really has done plenty of good stuff all through the last decade, Johann. Look at his filmography. MI: GHOST PROTOCOL is great. MINORITY REPORT. The self-parody in TROPICAL THUNDER. Michael Mann's terrific COLATERAL.

[Johann]

I'm not writing him off- you can't write him off. He bounces back better than anybody.
I'm just not stoked.

I walked out of Minority Report and haven't seen it since.
the Mission: Impossible series seems like James Bond without a pulse. I'm just not stoked.
Tropic Thunder is worth watching for Robert Downey Jr ONLY. (and I think you'd need an ounce of good herb as well;)

Collateral is one I enjoyed- but, like Eyes Wide Shut, Cruise is secondary to the Master behind the lens...


Sometimes I really wish Kubrick had taken a chance on Val Kilmer as Bill Harford.
Stanley! You see? A married Hollywood couple meant NOTHING! Cruise and Kidman are divorced!
You should have hired Val Kilmer! He would've killed it!

[Chris Knipp]

I don't agree with you on debunking MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, the latest one or Cruise's turn in it. It's great fun, a brilliant fantasy action film. New director. Cruise does a surprising job in COLLATERAL. I can't second-guess Kubrick in his casting of EYES WIDE SHUT, though of course Kilmer tried a greater range of things than Cruise early on. Cruise's performance in MAGNOLIA is important, not just Kubrick's suggesting he work with PT Anderson. Once you start debunking somebody, your steamroller never stops. And you do it well. But I don't see the points to be gained for undermining Cruise just because he is a superstar. He's already plenty tarnished. Let him lay. He's done some good work, and recently. Leave it to lesser men to trash him.

[Chris Knipp]

The opening paragraph of Manohla Dargis' NYT review (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/movies/oblivion-with-tom-cruise.html?nl=movies&emc=edit_fm_20130419&_r=0) of OBLIVION. Ouch.


If only it were less easy to laugh at “Oblivion,” a lackluster science-fiction adventure with Tom Cruise that, even before its opening, was groaning under the weight of its hard-working, slowly fading star and a title that invites mockery of him and it both. The agony of being a longtime Tom Cruise fan has always been a burden, but now it’s just, well, dispiriting. You not only have to ignore the din of the tabloids and swat away the buzzing generated by his multiple headline-ready dramas, you also have to come to grips with the harsh truth that it no longer actually matters why and how Tom Terrific became less so. No one else much cares.


But that of course shows she walked into the screening room with prejudices. How you can not do so I have no idea, however. I must say he just seemed to me a non-entity in JACK REACHER (which cinemabon liked).

[Chris Knipp]

I just re-posted my review (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3486-IN-THE-HOUSE-%28Franois-Ozon-2012%29) of Francois Ozon's highly successful new movie IN THE HOUSE, which goes into limited US release today. April 19, 2013. I hope some of you will get to see it and maybe you'll forget about OBLIVION.

I also just say a preview of the upcoming limited release of Carlos Reygadas' POST TENEBBRAS LUX. Like all his work it's a mind-blower. My man Mike D'Angelo goes into it in detail in one of his Cannes AV Club dispatches (http://www.avclub.com/articles/cannes-2012-day-eight-the-director-of-silent-light,75619/) last May. He leaves open that if there's some secret overall deep meaning he has missed he'd upgrade it dramatically (there's a lot of head-scratching stuff) but for now, he ranks it pretty low among his Cannes viewings. It's fun to watch stuff as wild and nutty and brilliantly original as POST TENEBRAS LUX, though. That's why D'Angelo wrote so much about it, and why he wrote that letter to Lars von Trier at an earlier Cannes making me start to follow his writing. This one is sort of like Shane Carruth's UPSTREAM COLOR, which, however, makes more sense, but hasn't quite got the scary wildness.

[cinemabon]

Oblivion directed by Joseph Kosinski

“Just another day in paradise,” Tom Cruise’s character, Jack, says as the film opens. Yet even during this voice-over narration in absence of any credits, we find hints of a life that had been and shadows of what once was – an Earth like the one we know, vibrant with people and activity, now gone, shattered, with only broken remains. Jack is alone on Earth with his partner, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough – a thirty-one year old East Ender whose smooth delivery and expert execution bring the level of the film up from your usual heavily laden special effects film). Victoria and Jack have been assigned to maintain the ocean reapers, which supply Earth’s survivors who have been transplanted to the moon, Titan. Every day they check in with the colony, the face of that authority being a southern belle named Sally (Melissa Leo) whose terse replies are somewhat suspect, as if she had to take a hard line with the subordinates left on the planet.

According to Jack’s narrative, Earth was attacked by an alien race. But the humans won the war. Jack and Victoria are the mop-up crew, taking out the few last stragglers of aliens still alive who are trying to gum up the works. The world of Jack and Victoria is a very clean one, made up of steel, glass, and white Formica with electronic devices that have a futuristic albeit convenience-oriented bent. They love one another and the affection comes through from the very first scene where we see them part after spending the night together.

When Jack is sent to investigate another sabotage on one of their facilities, he is rescued by one of the automated drones, flying, floating killing machines programed to rid the planet of the alien manifestation. Relieved to be alive after the incident, Jack makes a solo flight, “off grid,” to an isolated spot – a valley – one of the few remaining places left on the planet where life still flourishes. Jack has built a cabin on a small lake and has brought a number of “memorabilia,” books, and recordings there. These seem to jog his memory of another life, a past life perhaps. We are never certain. This harmonious day to day existence is all about to change when the couple discovers a beacon sent from the “forbidden zone” where radiation is high. The beacon is mysteriously directed to space and everything you thought the film was about, rapidly changes to the point that any further discussion of the plot would become a spoiler.

For “Oblivion” while resembling other science fiction films in certain aspects to its ending, is for the most part, a surprising breath of fresh air in the genre and full of so many twists and turns that to even hint as to what happens next would be a disservice to you, the reader, and to my integrity as a reviewer. There is a great surprise here, and that is Tom Cruise. He brings his whole game to this film. He surprised critics in his last Mission Impossible film and he will surprise you with Oblivion. Once more I would reiterate that there are so many twists and turns to the plot that will you be running to catch up, breathless when the final bit of irony is displayed. The powerful cast, along with actress Olga Kurylenko’s brilliant performance as Julia, the girl with the mysterious past, adds to the level of excellence.

Kudos also go to production designer Darren Gilford (who also worked with Kosinski on Tron) and art director Kevin Ishioka (who worked on Tron and Avatar) for their incredible sets and look of the film, bridging the contrast between the techno-society and that of the post-apocalyptic planet Earth. Richard Francis-Bruce has keep the fast pace of editing for the fight sequences and cinematographer and Oscar winner, Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi) has given us a rich tapestry of images that are swimmingly eye candy to dwell in.

All and all, Oblivion is a science fiction film that surprises and delivers all the goods you’d expect from a good film with the qualities one you would find in films you’d consider great. For Sci-fi fans and even those who just love a good story that is not predictable (I know the critics are split on this one), I feel the film is a refreshing break from the “villain” pictures one sees so often. I had a marvelous time and I hope you do to, even if you are skeptical of Tom Cruise as an actor. I only have one recommendation – highly recommended.

Tab you beat me to this one. You must have seen a midnight show.

[tabuno]

I sat in for the 8 p.m. Thursday, April 18th showing at the Megaplex Legacy Theater in Centerville, Utah. My wife said Thursday was a good day of the week for her considering her weird work schedule.

Utah's largest state newspaper movie critic gave it three and a half stars out of four.

While I beat Cinemabon's posting, he sure beat me on his excellent movie summary and tight movie critic writing style.

[Chris Knipp]

If you start citing reviews you can get yourself into trouble. I also notice that the best known local print movie reviewer, Mick LaSalle, gives OBLIVION a positive. But as I mentioned, the no. 2 NY Times critic, Manohla Dargis, has nothing whatsoever good to say about it, or its star. and guess who didn't like it? ROGER EBERT. It was one of his last reviews and it begins thus:


If nothing else, "Oblivion" will go down in film history as the movie where Tom Cruise pilots a white, sperm-shaped craft into a giant space uterus. The scene is more interesting to describe than it is to watch. Cruise's sperm-ship enters through an airlock that resembles a geometrized vulva. He arrives inside a massive chamber lined with egg-like glass bubbles. At the center of the chamber is a pulsating, sentient triangle that is also supposed to be some kind of mother figure. Cruise must destroy the mother triangle and her space uterus in order to save the Earth.

Like director Joseph Kosinski's debut, "TRON: Legacy" (2010), "Oblivion" is a special effects extravaganza with a lot of blatant symbolism and very little meaning. It starts slow, turns dull and then becomes tedious — which makes it a marginal improvement over the earlier film. It features shiny surfaces, clicky machinery and no recognizable human behavior. It's equally ambitious and gormless.
--Roger Ebert "Oblivion" review (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oblivion-2013).

This is the guy who founds something to like in almost every movie he saw. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing it. But also showing in my area that I have not seen:

DISCONNECT. Metacritic rating 66 (OBLIVION'S is 55, remember) and about this one Mick Lasalle wrote a rave.
FROM UP ON POPPY HILL Metacritic rating 73 - Japanese animation by the son of Miyazaki
MY BROTHER THE DEVIL Metacritic rating 72. English film about a young Arab man in London in a gang
LET MY PEOPLE GO No rating. Finnish gay Jewish story (!?)
42 Metacritic rating 62. Everybody knows what this one is.

Furthermore I find that also showing here now is Shane Carruth's amazing

UPSTREAM COLOR. Metacritic 82.

I have seen that, but it is worth seeing again, in fact seeing it again is almost manadatory.

This is, admittedly, though not NYC or LA, an excellent place to see new movies. If you don't have the choices listed above, OBLIVION may be your best bet!

In fact, MY BROTHER THE DEVIL and LET MY PEOPLE GO! aren't listed as showing in LA. Those I listed above are currently in theaters in the East Bay. Over in San Francisco they are also showing these additional new or recent films:

ROOM 237 (Metacritic rating 81),
NO PLACE ON EARTH (Metacritic rating 61),
BLANCANIEVES (Metacritic rating 79),
THE ANGLE'S SHARE (Metacritic rating 68) Ken Loach's new one

The situation is pretty good right now. So with nine more highly rated new films that I have not yet seen currently playing in local theaters, why would I run to see OBLIVION first?

[tabuno]

I'd better stay away from professional movie reviewer comments I guess and stick to the actual merits of this creative feature films. Great art in my opinion is based on the use of many elements in a creative way that offers up a sensory feast that emotionally rivets and stimulates the mental faculties. The mass audience and its less than qualitative and quantitatively rich repository of a plentitude of films that professional movie reviews retain, Oblivion offers its this audience a rich assortment of a collage of elements, building from the vast rich history of sci fi films and creative a nicely balanced and smoothly connect love, sci-fi, action thriller story that has a huge impact on the eyes, ears, and mind. It leaves the audience with a haunting, dizzying feeling of wonderment, of huge, off-kilter scenes never really quite offered up before. It offers the audience a storyline that tilts reality and tosses one's reality of perception to side to side.

Both Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and Oblivion at one point taps into the America pride, centering on our flag and nation, fighting against some "enemy" and in the case of Olympus Has Fallen it taps into the father-son connection and in Oblivion into the deep man and woman connection and even more. Unlike Moon (2009) and its singular focus on one man's extended quest of an isolated self-mystery or the isolate man's surrealistic survival on a space module (2011), Oblivion offers a fusion of both riveting action, gorgeous epic scenery, a man's real man's fantasy getaway, and variations on love and the torture of less than what many of us understand as idealistic movie love, deliciously confusing the audience even more in an mind-opening look at future possibilities (something great movies do).

[cinemabon]

I'd like to compare apples with apples in this case. I find it interesting that Ebert, who has been gone for two weeks and was in fading condition before that, managed to screen the film so early (although it is possible). It is interesting to note that "Oblivion" is part of a new class of films that are no longer printed on 35mm stock but transferred to theaters via digital media (either as DVD or streamed). I saw it electronically translated (DLP) on a huge screen in my Cineplex (Raleigh has about a dozen or so scattered around our tri-city area) and the picture quality was superb - no longer the scratches, pops, transfers from one reel to the next or variations in sound from sound heads.

I believe Kosinski focused on the story and did not rely too much on the special effects. I believe that when effects were used, such as the "bubble" vehicle, it was used to great effect to enhance Jack's superior nature (at first) in the film before he comes to earth (the ground) and begins to explore. The way it was designed, the bubble, was on purpose by both Cruise and Kosinski, so that Miranda could move his camera in close and shoot right through the glass at his actors while the action happened around them.

********SPOILER********

Yes, there are parallels to other films (An Affair to Remember for one; I disagree with Corliss about Sleepless in Seattle, et al the previous mention), however, the most obvious one is "Independence Day" and I didn't want to mention that because the reader will immediate draw their own conclusions. If you did, you'd be wrong... and Ebert gives the same impression in his review and he is wrong. That is not the end of the film nor is it "the climax" although it is certainly one of the most fascinating parts. I felt the events leading up to the "insertion" were even more revealing when the contents of the "black box" peeled back more of the onion to show us that the core to this film was far more complex that we first thought. This is the great surprise that will come as welcome to fans of sci-fi, that at last a screenwriter could twist a plot that wasn't so predictable, that a villain wasn't doomed to blow up at the end and the rest was simply resolution. We just didn't know how it would end... and wasn't that welcome.

For the critics (cream of the crop), the film had a 50/50 response - about half liked it and most of those are younger reviewers whose eyes were not clouded by comparing the film to so many science fiction movies of the past. Whether an homage or not, Kosinski seemed to have borrowed ideas that worked in other films and incorporated them into this film. Even I admit that. But others just didn't like Cruise and no matter how hard Tom tries, they still don't like him. NYTimes reviewer Manohla Dargis confessed to be an admirer of Cruise and found it difficult to review the film because of her disappointment with recent news stories. This sort of admission of prejudice should have disqualified her review from the start (I suppose her honesty was refreshing).

[Chris Knipp]

If you've seen any science-fiction film worth a crap in the last twenty years, you've already seen a better version of Oblivion, I promise you.
--Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central, review of "Oblivion".

So I guess that means that if your being a "young critic" means you have not seen any of the science-fiction films worth a crap made in the last twenty years, you're just the person who can like OBLIVION.

[Johann]

I was downtown Toronto yesterday and happened upon a Universal Pictures media van that was promoting Oblivion.
I poked my head in and two young guys invited me in. They gave me some free Oblivion swag (but not unless I had my photo taken with the swag): a plastic bag water bottle with a carabiner attached to it and two paper toys for kids- the bubble sperm ship that Cruise rides in.

Both items had "Oblivionmovie2012" stamped on it, which means that this movie was scheduled for release last year.
The film you see now must've been tweaked to compete with the like of The Dark Knight Rises, which would've slaughtered
Oblivion at the box office.

That's why we see it in April 2013.
It wasn't good enough to run with the big boys.

[cinemabon]

Yes, Chris, but the critics are evenly divided...

“Oblivion” is a technical triumph rather than a philosophical breakthrough, demonstrating how beautifully digital effects can be blended with real people and real sets, demonstrating that neither Tom Cruise nor the 1970s will ever die, and announcing the unexpected arrival of a major science-fiction director. - Andrew O'Hehir

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/pick_of_the_week_oblivion_tom_cruises_gorgeous_sci _fi_allegory/?utm_source=feedly

[tabuno]

It's interesting how depressed the CinemaScore of B- is, though IMDb has it at 7.2. The overall tone of the movie isn't a summer blockbuster American ending, but a bittersweet and likely confusing one to American men and perhaps even more to women. What's fascinating about this storyline that while not quite original as similar themes readily are available from television's Outer Limits, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, even Fringe, is it's prominence place in an mainstream movie. Even though Space Cowboys (2000) is also bittersweet at the end, Oblivion offers its audience with a questionable relational ending that can be interpreted several ways, not always happily for some, but subtly and admirably acceptable to others. Like the updated Solaris (2002) or more recently Inception (2010), and maybe even Somewhere in Time (1970) the audience is presented with a mixed experience of emotional offerings, instead of the more solid black and white clarity of something like Men in Black (1997) and even to some extent The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

What Oblivion offers is a solid science fiction theme and raised relevant moral and relational questions regarding technology and life which is actually something that the original Star Trek television series (1960) did so well and which makes Oblivion definitely a cut above most sci fi movies. A very balanced, substantive presentation of a profusion of sci fi ideas.

[cinemabon]

I just finished watching the HBO special on the making of "Oblivion." Kosinski was a great fan of Stanley Kubrick and read up on how Kubrick filmed "2001." He wanted to duplicate the realism Kubrick had in the opening with the "Dawn of Man" sequence. So he built the entire "house in the sky" platform where Jack and Vickie live, placing a gigantic wall of screens behind them and then projecting images of different skies over the actors and the set but using lighting in the foreground to wash out the projection. The result is a beautiful image that is also very realistic. Since we have so many admirers of Kubrick on this site (including me), I thought I'd mention it.

Cruise brings number one to the weekend box office, his first in several years.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=103242

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3672&p=.htm

[tabuno]

Now that Kubrick has been brought up, it really conforms to the sensibility of the feeling and look of the station in Oblivion. I just didn't have a specific reference to it until now. Such careful visceral design is so important to distinguish it from Total Recall and how the emotional relationship at the beginning of Oblivion is solidly etched into reality which is the paradox here, but it is also sustained further into the movie unlike Total Recall which allows for a much more humanistic undertone, unlike the more black and white, two-dimensional treatment so often offered in earlier movie incarnations.

[cinemabon]

The realism didn't end there. Kosinski had a special motorbike built for the film that could fit into the back of the space "bubble" ship (which they actually built a non-flying version made of metal and glass). Cruise was instructed on how to take it from the back of the ship, open it up and drive it. The shots on "wasted" earth were actually in Ice Land on areas covered in volcanic ash over the past few years that devastated a large portion of farmland. Cruise did all of the motorbike work on his own and most of the stunt work as well, saying: "What good is a shot if you have to cover up the guy's face." He even walked to the edge of a precipice in the film and sat on the end of a rock formation, although for insurance purposes, they attached a safety wire to him that was later digitally removed.

In comparing "Oblivion" to "Total Recall" I take it you are comparing the remake of "Total Recall" with Colin Farrell and not the Schwarzenegger version. "Phone Booth" and "Miami Vice" put me off Farrell so I missed it; rare for me because I love science fiction. And what black and white incarnations did you refer? I can't recall a single science fiction film made in black and white unless you count "Dr. Strangelove" as science fiction or you go waaaaay back to the Flash Gordon serials.

[Chris Knipp]

Interesting information, guys. Cruise still does the job, for sure.

I've just posted reviews of two strong festival films with a strong sense of mood and beautiful visuals, the Colombian LA SIRGA and the Turkish PRESENT TENSE. I hope you'll go to the San Francisco International Film Festival Filmleaf Forums thread and connect to them, and all the earlier ones I've written in recent weeks.

More to come. And watch for my full reviews of some of the coming theater releases, including WHAT MAISIE KNEW and Richard Linklater's BEFORE MIDNIGHT, French animated charmer ERNEST & CELESTINE, THE KINGS OF SUMMER, MUSEUM HOURS, and more.

[Chris Knipp]

OBLIVION was released six weeks ago so there's hardly any point in reviewing it now, but I have finally seen it. Here are my reactions.

Joseph Kosinski: OBLIVION (2013)

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/909/RfpJhG.jpg
OLGA KURYLENKO AND TOM CRUISE IN OBLIVION

Visuals almost worthy of Kubrick; a script not up to that level

Yes, Oblivion has had mixed reviews; we've had time enough to see that. And why should this be? For the obvious reason that will quickly emerge if you skim some of the press. Kosinski's film is visually superb, a gleamingly perfect blend of CGI and humans. If you collect stunning sci-fi movie images, you may need to see it. It aspires to greatness in its narrative, however, but winds up only with a lot of loose ends.

To my mind the really worthy sci-fi films are few and far between, and glorious special effects enhance a good story but do not replace it. In fact simpler means may help to put over a good story. This was shown with Duncan Jones's similarly themed 2009 debut film Moon, (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2574-MOON-%28Duncan-Jones-2009%29&highlight=duncan+jones) also about someone doing maintenance on an uninhabitable or uninhabited planet, or planet-esque entity. Moon isn't much about looks or effects, though it has them. It's about situation and acting, and it has them, quite memorably. Compare these two films and you'll find many of the same ideas better and more clearly handled in Moon without the breezy and pretty but perhaps largely distracting zooming around in space vehicles that Kosinski seems so intent on providing. Well, of course Top Gun is one of Tom Cruise's greatest triumphs: this is, after all, a kind of sci-fi Top Gun. But Kosinski isn't intent on space machismo. He has higher aims.

Oblivion is from a graphic novel, not a fact that usually thrills me, but this one is by the director himself, which offers the promise that he's working from his own material. Alas, that benefit diminishes when we learn it's an unpublished graphic novel, and then auteurism all but vanishes when we are further apprised that, as it turns out, the screenplay is a group effort by Joseph Kosinski, William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, amd Michael Arndt. Who's Kosinski? Well, his previous, debut, film was Tron: Legacy. Uh-oh; that one was dead in the water, much though I root for Garrett Hedlund, and good though Jeff Bridges can be. This film is certainly more splendid than Tron: Legacy, but it has the same failings, even if they're not quite as glaring.

Now, what of the supposed problem of Tom Cruise? Call me crazy, tell me about all the "noise" of rumors and scandals about him, for me he still has a good deal of glamour and pizzazz. And that's handy, because most of the time as "Jack Harper" (whom I overall preferred to his recent "Jack Reacher") has to act in a vacuum, or in a drone bubble flying in nonexistent CGI spaces, or walking across a desolate "After Earth" landscape talking to his partner or his boss on a remote pickup. I refer you to Manohla Dargis's diss of Cruise, which taints her Oblivion review (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/movies/oblivion-with-tom-cruise.html?_r=0). She has just dissed After Earth, even more intensely, perhaps with more justification, but she seems prone to pre-judging films a bit too much lately on the basis of their stars' reputations. I do not think the presence of Tom Cruise in Oblivion is a problem. Get over it. Of course I'd rather this were called Moon and the star were Sam Rockwell, but that's just because Moon is a better movie. Oblivion has enough problems without picking on the cast.

As his partner Victoria (usually simplified to the modernistic sounding "Vika") is the most interesting cast member, Andrea Riseborough. Risenborough, who is English, has worked a lot in TV, including my favorite grumpy doctor series, "Doc Martin." Then she seems to have virtually exploded onto the screen over the past four years, in films ranging from the spooky sci-fi story Never Let Me Go, the lively women's lib period film Made in Dagenham and the atmospheric, also period, Brighten Rock -- all released in 2010 -- to suavely and with great composure impersonating Wallace Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor) in W.E., followed by another period film, this time set in Wales during the War, Resistance, those two both released in 2011. In 2012 she was in Shadow Dancer and Disconnect; in the latter playing a neurotic American lady, and that was the first time I noticed her. She was good. Shadow Dancer has just come out in this country, but released in the UK last summer. It's directed by the terrific documentary filmmaker James Marsh, and has gotten great reviews, but I haven't seen it yet; it's about the IRA in the Nineties. Playing the chilly, immaculate, almost clone-like Victoria must have been a walk for her, except for the same difficulty Tom Cruise faced: she must do most of her acting talking to a bank of electrical messages and diagrams. She does this, well, immaculately, and is it a surprise that she has four more movies soon coming out?

This is largely a two-hander at first and to say there is little chemistry between Risenborough and Cruise would be irrelevant: there's not meant to be. It would be unfair not to mention the other actors who later appear, first Olga Kurylenko, who is Ukrainian, is pretty, has a big wide mouth, and is in a lot of movies lately too. She is most known for Malick's To the Wonder, in which she hardly speaks, and that's about the size of it for Olga. It suffices that her Julia has a bit more warmth than Vika, to justify her role. I should also mention Morgan Freeman, except he doesn't have much to do other than talk in his Morgan Freeman voice, wear shades, and smoke a big cigar. Where they get cigars on post-apocalyptic Earth is just one of those many questions better not asked. There is also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as one Sykes, whose name you may not have caught. No matter: if he does anything other than pose with a sci-fi rifle and show off nicely slicked-down and tied-back hair, I missed it.

To reiterate by citing a release-date review: Andrew O'Hehir (http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/pick_of_the_week_oblivion_tom_cruises_gorgeous_sci _fi_allegory/)is right: "Oblivion is a technical triumph rather than a philosophical breakthrough, demonstrating how beautifully digital effects can be blended with real people and real sets, demonstrating that neither Tom Cruise nor the 1970s will ever die, and announcing the unexpected arrival of a major science-fiction director." Yes the 1970's and also vinyl records, which may come back in another sixty years. I'm not quite sure of the last point, though: it's hard to say Kosinski's "arrived" as a sci-fi director when he made one previously, and neither film quite qualifies as "major." But the images are razor-sharp, as has been often pointed out, and are notable not only for effective digital transfer but the use of some very good lenses. It is not a surprise to learn this movie was shot by Claudio Miranda of the visually glorious Life of Pi. The music, however, a mix of soaring strings and hammering Taiko-type drums, is conventional and intrusive.

The plot is a post-apocalyptic job and a very rote explanation by Cruise's voiceover fills us in at the start. Something went terribly wrong: I got that. There was a war for planet Earth and we "won," except that we destroyed most of the planet in the process. I got that, and it sounds like a pretty likely scenario, all in all, I'm afraid, the way things are going. Earthlings now all live on some moon of another planet, and are just maintaining guard over Earth power stations using drones, which Jack and Vika are on a tour of duty to maintain, Jack doing the field work and Vica the backup communications and liaison with HQ represented by the suspiciously chummy and down-home-sounding Sally (Melissa Leo).

It's best not to go into too much detail about what happens, out of fear of "spoilers," the bugaboo of those who use surprise as a substitute for though-provokingness -- but also because frankly it doesn't finally all make sense. The baddies Vika and Jack are stationed on the space platform to weed out are Scavengers, or "Scavs" for short, which sounds like Scabs, and that might have been more vivid, though sci-fi does love its made-up names and entities. They just appear as pod vehicles like the ones Jack rides. If you want fun baddies, go to the lurid District 9. I don't exactly understand -- I'm sure someone could explain to me -- why a man in his forties has a melancholic longing for a world that vanished six decades ago, which he seems dimly to remember. This is doubtless a potentially evocative theme -- Moon's protagonist too has a homesickness, and the Earth-longings of banished Earthlings is a favorite, and resonant science fiction theme. Kosinski & Co.'s development of it is too complicated and too unresolved in the details. The coincidences and complexities were too much for me. Jack and his girlfriend do live happily ever after. Moon has a darker and more powerful ending, which requires a courage that in Kosinski's case was squandered on technical ambitions. And you don't get this kind of budget with a downbeat ending.

Oblivion, 124 mins., released April 10-12, 2013 (international), April 19 (U.S.) (Universal).

[tabuno]

While I would agree in tone with Chris and his thoughtful and well researched (more than I ever could) movie commentary, I haven't had the extensive experience with the plethora of movies and storylines to compare Oblivion too. I enjoyed his thoughts about Victoria played by, Andrea Riseborough which is one of the reasons I thought this movie really excelled. I also agree that Moon with Sam Rockwell was really compelling. The more I read the content of Chris's commentary the more I wonder about his inward focus on singular acting roles as in Moon versus the rather more oblique focus on relational storylines. It almost seems like Chris is one a singular, self-voyage of exploration whereas I've been drawn more to the relational, transactional storylines which I've tended to rate more generously.

The storyline for me was satisfying and more than the usual traditional monster story. Moon had the solitary and the independent haunting ambivalent ending while Oblivion had the more American satisfying ending. Take my love for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) ending along with the more Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977) with Oblivion is in sort of a reverse theme along the lines that one might find with Keanu Reeves. My level of content with movies is something that I believe Chris is searching for that hard core sci fi angle that is, I admit, more rare. What I look for is a decent storyline that has layers, has acting that really moves me, along with enhancing visuals and the popcorn without butter and sufficient liquids to wash it down and I'm really happy. Thus is perhaps the negative consequences of seeing so many movies, though I also imagine that when those rare moments occur with much more frequency than for the rest of us, it must really be something.

[Chris Knipp]

OBLIVION seems worthy of my "quality time," especially after how much attention you and our other colleagues have devoted to it in this thread. But as you note I definitely focused more on the actors. This grew out of my defense of Tom Cruise, whose presence has been taken to be a basic defect in the film, which I don't think it is. Some of the characters (Julia, Beech [Morgan Freeman]) are underdeveloped in the screenplay, but there's nothing wrong with the performances per se.
I believe Chris is searching for that hard core sci fi angle that is, I admit, more rare Well, yes. This is a sci-fi movie, naturally I'm looking for "that hard core sci fi angle." This may be a pretty good sci-fi movie, as sci-fi movies generally go. At least it has good actors and outstanding visuals. "That hard core sci fi angle" is the scenario, which I'm not alone in finding far less satisfying here than the visuals and the special effects.

I have to make a correction since glancing back now at Anthony Lane's New Yorker review (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2013/04/29/130429crci_cinema_lane). I was calling Cruise "in his forties," but he hit fifty last year. The man looks great, but he's rapidly leaving middle age and going beyond. Lane is so much wittier than I am I can't resist quoting some of his review:
In “Oblivion,” [Cruise] spends his days traversing wastelands on a motorbike (the first choice for Cruise-transportation, as it was even in “Top Gun”), and visiting the remnants of leading attractions: the Empire State Building, a caved-in football stadium, and the shell of the New York Public Library, where the first book he finds is a copy of Macaulay, with its ennobling stanzas about Horatius holding the bridge in ancient Rome. Why couldn’t he pick up “Right Ho, Jeeves” or “Green Eggs and Ham”? Halfway through, Morgan Freeman makes an appearance, although somebody forgot to supply him with a proper script, or, indeed, a character. The same goes for Olga Kurylenko, as a beauty named Julia, who lands in a climate-controlled sarcophagus, bringing with her a secret epiphany and a choice of strappy tops. Jack is obsessed with Julia, you feel, without being particularly interested in her, and he only really perks up when obliged, thanks to a cloning subplot, to punch himself. “You should see the other guy,” he says. It’s the one good line in the film.
--Anthony Lane. I didn't mention the cloning subplot -- I used up so much space talking about the visuals and the actors I didn't have any left for such details -- but I thought it was something that strongly suggested a debt to, or certainly a link with, Duncan Jones's MOON. Lane concludes there are two reasons for seeing this movie: the cinematography of Claudio Miranda, and the remarkable Andrea Riseborough. On that I agree. Lane also notes that both Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko aren't really supplied with characters, though Olga comes in her box supplied with "a secret epiphany and a choice of strappy tops."

But writing counts! Of course a little film can be improvised, but that's not the point. A sketchy plot line and patchy dialogue are not what you need in a jaw-droppingly handsome looking sci-fi epic with a plot setup as ambitious as this one. You need a well-worked-out story line and a good script. You need "that hard core sci fi angle" too.

[tabuno]

Personally for me, besides the hard core sci fi movie contents, I believe I'm also impacted as much by the relational intensity and involvement that a movie incorporates as well as the layered and deeply reflective introverted insight into the human psychic. Interestingly, a sci fi movie can have its backdrop as a theme, much like Chris has described special effects, visual effects and even the performances, and yet even deeper and more important for me personally is how the movie depicts the transactional nature of human beings on a deeply moving level and the portrayal of existential, metaphysical meanings of life, death, and purpose. Thus the following sci fi movies still resonate a powerful impact regardless of their perhaps lack of hard core, original sci fi elements:

Deja Vu (2006). The love from afar that is then experienced close up but without real physical intimacy and later the sci fi twist of death and rebirth.

A Boy and His Dog (1975). The surprising twist at the end regarding the choice between the girl and something else. A rather haunting, lonely living in isolation movie.

Green Lantern (2011). A rare superhero movie that depicts a rather human superhero character unlike most other stylized, over the top dramatized personas that the average person can't relate to, only fantasy, similar to

Oblivion (2013). An edgy relational movie about what's real and what not real that actually depicts or reflects may real relationships even in today;s world, much more penetrating than that stereotypical Total Recall (1990). I felt the confusing sadness of loss in this movie.

A Wrinkle In Time (2002). Strong moving family tie elements in this movie.

WALL*E (2008). Much like Moon (2009) but with that added relational and then even a ecological component as depicted in Silent Running (1972).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Even though I really enjoyed this movie for its hard-core depiction of mysterious alien ambiance and visuals (apparently belittled by realist critics who didn't admire sci fi as a child), this movie did have its relational component which really was the basis for the climax of the movie.

Cloud Atlas (2012). scattered throughout is this eternal relational connectivity that seems quite quantum in its depiction, eye-popping at that.

Solaris (2002). a deeply relational version of the classic Stanilaw Lem's novel.

The Truman Show (1998). that came even before The Matrix about questioning reality and what's real or not.

Brainstorm (1983). one of the earliest movies about virtual reality and the last for Natalie Wood along with the fusion of relational themes and death/spiritual themes that connect together.

Spiderman 2 (2004) and Spiderman 3 (2007). strong everyman stories with sci fi elements along with the persistent development of relational development as well as moralistic inner demons.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). A mind blowing sci fi look at love and relationships.

Twelve Monkeys (1996). a raw look at mental disorders as well as deeply moralistic and personal issues of time travel paradoxes.

Blade Runner (1982). a visually dazzling look at humans and non-humans and their relationships.

Alien (1979). a whole small encapsulated relational human dynamics including especially a "cat."

Inception (2010). tucked away but always present a past love story that is sought in the future-present.

Another Earth (2011). a non-romantic, but nevertheless a haunting depiction of important relational dynamics.

One exception to this relational or existential criteria for sci fi movie excellence might be the serious, authentic depiction of sci fi themes similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) such as:

Fail-Safe (1964). About a thermonuclear accident to be.

The Andromeda Strain (1971) about America's scientific/medical response to an alien contagion.

Epoch (2001). about an encounter with an alien object and America's response, even in light of the Chinese-American dramatics.

Stranger from Venus or "Immediate Disaster" (1954). that combines from a relational and alien from the stars theme and America's reaction to it.

Stranded (2001). one of the more straightforward portrayals of stuck on another planet movies.

Splice (2010). a subtle and serous look at the hypothetical scientific look at creating new life.

Wavelength (1983). an immersive, less special effects driven movie about relating with young children and alien beings.

[oscar jubis]

I like a lot of the movies you list. I will watch Another Earth based on your recommendation. I remember thinking the premise sounded intriguing but I totally forgot about it until now.

[Chris Knipp]

It is a good list, though I don't agree on all (GREEN LANTERN? ANOTHER EARTH? OBLIVION?) and some I havn'et seen and might perhaps enjoy one day.

[oscar jubis]

You didn't like Another Earth? I'm thinking of watching it. Don't remember if you reviewed it

[Chris Knipp]

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/8127/mv5bmtg3mjc0ntmwn15bml5.jpg
BRIT MARLING

The star, Brit Marling, is beautiful. Not surprisingly, she has been getting a lot of work since. No, I did not like ANOTHER EARTH. It rubbed me the wrong way. But if only for that very reason I gave it my careful attention and wrote a review.
tabuno's review here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3245-Another-Earth-(Mike-Cahill-2011)) Miine here. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1851) I forgot to post it on Filmleaf but put a link to it on tabuno's thread.


The path that is taken by their [Rhoda and John's] relationship, if you can call it that, is scarcely more credible than the prospect of a fresh world that could sit in the heavens, not far away, without screwing up our orbit. Still, the movie exerts its own gravitational pull.
--Anthony Lane, The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/08/08/110808crci_cinema_lane). Perhaps now you will have to watch it and want to like it, as you very well might.

It won the Arthur P. Sloan Prize at Sunance, which has gone to GRIZZLY MAN, PRIMER, SLEEP DEALER, and this year to COMPUTER CHESS, and all of those I like. Reviews of ANOTHER EARTH were quite decent, enough for a Metacritic 66. I do like lo-fi sci-fi, but not always. Sci-fi that is scientifically quite impossible (but focused on today's world) starts with a serious handicap. This is a trickier genre than far-future sci-fi.

[cinemabon]

Getting back to "Oblivion" in relation to the latest "Star Trek" offering... I liked "Oblivion" better in terms of story and payoff, even though "Into Darkness" had the bigger budget. The story was a rehash... which disappointed me.

"Another Earth" on the other hand is less a science fiction movie and more a psychological drama. The sci-fi part of it is never resolved. I did not write a review because I stopped watching it (rental). Also, the science is a big stretch. We who love sci-fi like our science to have a little more credence than this film had. I believe they were fascinated by the performances and the first part of the story (resolving the car accident victim) than they were will a dual world story (which the film doesn't really go into much - although it alludes to that).

I did not see your review, Chris. Did you put a link in for it?

Tab - seven degrees of separation - you did not mention "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) which, like "Immediate Disaster" (1954) starred Patricia Neal; strange you mentioned the later and not the former considered one of the great milestones in science fiction cinema - score by Bernard Herrmann btw

[Chris Knipp]

I did not see your review, Chris. Did you put a link in for it?


Yes, in the post right before yours where it says "tabuno's review here. Mine here."

[cinemabon]

"Journey to the far side of the sun" (1969) tackled the same ground years ago (the doppelganger effect).

I read both reviews. Sorry I missed the links earlier... color didn't stand out to me. Chris didn't like. Tab loved. I'm more with the former than the later but not fair since I didn't finish. And as you so aptly pointed out this past year when I started to squawk over "Django" "you can't object to a movie unless you've seen it."

So there!

[Chris Knipp]

To review a film you need to see it all the way through, but to know you're unlikely to favor it you may need only watch a couple reels.

This has a surprise last image though, you missed that.

[Johann]

Thanks for the posts on Oblivion.

AFTER EARTH is pathetic.
Truly pathetic.
I've seen the trailer many times (on TV against my will and cringed at every single cut) and it is truly pathetic to toss this garbage at an audience.
Jaden Smith can't act and neither can his papa, who wrote this trash as a vehicle for him and his son.

I've read reviews that eviscerate it, saying it is "tired" and "patently ridiculous".
Will you be seeing it Chris?

[Chris Knipp]

It is certainly a very expensive vanity project. But we must not pronounce judgements on movies based on trailers (which we're way better not watching at all, all in all, for sure) or on the circumstances of the filmmaking per se. I am meaning to see it. After all, I liked Will and Jaden in Muccino's only successful Hollywood movie, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, though Jaden was just a tyke then and didn't have the main role. I don't believe in condemning something just because its makers are privileged. Many have jumped on the bandwagon and jumped on this movie. Manohla Dargis' de facto condemnation of it did her little credit. As a devil's advocate type, I was looking for those who take the other side and I was interested in the partially favorable comments on AFTER EARTH in the AV Club review. (http://www.avclub.com/articles/after-earth,98361/) Their reviewer Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (whom I hadn't heard of) begins:
For a $130 million vanity project, After Earth is remarkably lean. Conceived by Will Smith as a starring vehicle for his son, Jaden, the movie is a no-frills wilderness survival tale with sci-fi trappings. For most of its running time, its two major characters are the only people onscreen. Big chunks of the movie pass without dialogue. The set-up is clean and simple. . . [He gives it a C+] Note that the trailer (the one I saw) is all talk, the "scientology" message Dargis didn't like, betraying the "clean and simple" stye and the large chunks that are dialogue-free (hard but not impossible to convey in a trailer). The trailer reduces the movie to a "message," when that may indeed stand out too much amid all the silence, but when it's the action that counts, when "the key to the treasure is the treasure."

There are musical families, there are artistic families, there are thespian families -- what about the Carridine family and the Barrymore family? Oh sure, Will Smith is no John Barrymore. Okay, my favorite Will Smith performance is in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, but I liked him okay in I AM LEGEND. He's good at smart, energetic schlock. He may have gone pretty soft in this one, giving junior a Class A vanity project where he only has to run around and wiggle his eyeborws, but why this should enrage us I don't know. It might amuse us. Or we might just shrug and move on. We'll see,if I see it, I'll let you know what I think. I meant to see it, I was kinda looking forward to it, but then I realized I had to see Ben Wheatley's SIGHTSEERS instead. I've really been wanting to see that, missed a couple of chances, and finally it opened in Berkeley's Landmark Shattuck Cinemas, where the best concentration of cool movies show around here (in San Francisco it's the Embarcadero, but the Shattuck has more auditoriums -- Embarcadero gets movies earlier a lot though, the East Bay being several notches below SF in the cruel release-time pecking order which NYC and LA are well at the top of).

Yesterday instead I watched NOW YOU SEE ME, a general disappointment, despite all the "stars," but the cinema is very nearby, and serves delicious (or at least above average) hamburgers, delivered to your seat, with attention to the slice of tomato, the sprig of crisp lettuce, the fresh onion, the above-average bun, and the lightly applied, special sauce. I had to see this instead of AFTER EARTH because of the comfort factor. Would I have enjoyed AFTER EARTH moreif it had been the movie available just down the street with the good hamburger? Doubtful, but you never know. I'd certainly have been better off upstairs at this theater watching the latest British National Theater production of THIS HOUSE, which was showing at the same time, but those are reserved seating and you have to buy tickets well ahead.

[cinemabon]

I'm trying to find the reviewer that said: "One, how can animals evolve to hate humans if they've been absent from the planet? Two, how can animals evolve in a 1,000 years when it takes nature millions of years to make even small adjustments to evolutionary traits?" Go figure.

The "After Earth" bashing is pretty much across the board (Metacritic is 31; Cream of the Crop? 11 out of 100!). Biggest complaint? Jaden Smith wasn't ready for a leading role... the plot stinks... Will Smith had too much to say on the production. Thus ended the lesson on how to lose your shirt making a Will Smith sci-fi summer blockbuster after he's made so many (it's just plain bad).

[Chris Knipp]

I don't find the idea of animal populations multiplying and turning feral and roaming the earth turning hostile to humans in a thousand years so hard to conceive. Nor did I think that fanciful elements were unexpected or out of order in a sci-fi action movie.

But yes, of course, cinemabon, as Dargis said and others have too, there was nobody to say "NO" to Will Smith on this production. But come to think of it, isn't that just the situation we want for an auteur? Do we miss somebody from production teling Antonioni, "No, you can't have these long empty silent shots"? I know, I kno: Will Smith/Shyamalan aren't Antonioni.

But again, you have not seen it, right? Or even two reels of it? I would not declare myself on my own "it's just plain bad" without having seen it. "That's not who we are" :). Granted, the reviews are terrible; the highest Metacritic review is a 63.

Most movies are basically competent. Only a few are great and a few are terrible. I think it will be remarkable if AFTER EARTH really turns out to be one of the special few truly terrible ones.

This is not to deny that something has gone seriously wrong with the majority of critics and at the box office and probably for the reasons we have already discussed.

[Chris Knipp]

I am exhausting a great deal of verbiage on a film I have not even seen. But of course it is fun to discuss these things. Ignorance frees the tongue.

Don't forget what the AV Club writer said: AFTER EARTH is "remarkably lean.....clean and simple." I like the sound of that -- given the overstuffed quality of every blockbuster you ever see, whether FAST & FURIOUS 6, which I liked, or STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, which bored me, or the initially witty IRON MAN 3 that descends into mess and noise as they almost all do.

As you might expect, Armond White of City Arts, being both contrarian and black, has a different take on AFTER EARTH in his review (http://cityarts.info/2013/05/31/9391/) entitled "Like Father, Like Ingenue." He sees black themes of survival in a tough world, ghetto replaced by an unforgiving nature.


Race consciousness is implicit in the saga of both males’ survival. It transfers the stereotypical urban walkabout of drugs and gangs drama into a primal setting where Kitai tests himself against nature


But whether dull or exciting, After Earth’s new genre–Hip-Hop Sci-Fi–replaces 50s Cold War metaphors and pulp video-game escapism with a morality tale about growing into manhood and responsibility. It’s exactly the unusual hybrid one might expect a thoughtful Black filmmaker to initiate. . . .

Two images stand out: A shot of male bodies pierced by tree branches that connotes lynching and a post-apocalypse montage of urban destruction cannily resembling old news footage of riot-torn cities. Smith’s audience might not catch the significance of these images among the film’s unoriginal, Avatar-biting CGI, that’s why the story takes place after the end of history.

No Caucasian viewer would see images of bodies among trees and think of lyncings: any mature and thoughtful black man watching a film about an African American father and son in danger might. White contrasts Cipher/Will's advice to Jaden, "Danger is real, Fear is a choice," with Diann Carrol's welfare mother in CLAUDINE to her son, "You’d better be scared. This world will kill you!” He compares Will's character's idea of "ghosting" with Lawrence Dunbar's poem about Blacks in America, "We wear the mask." White writers and viewers would not see these comparisons. White points out "Cypher", Will's character's name, is a hip hop term for community or training ground -- another thing not noted by most reviewers.

White does not exaggerate AFTER EARTH'S artistic merit. He calls Will's performance "one and a half note," Shyamalan's direction "lethargic," KItai's "obstacle course" "sub-Apocalypto," and the movie "not profound" but finds these meanings and says "Boys without fathers " are "the target audience, the theme "a youth seeking to bond with his macho military father by emulating his masculine strength." He even compares Kitai shivering in the rain with the Moorehouse College students shivering in the rain as Obama addressed them recently.
Shots of Jaden freezing in the cold may remind contemporary viewers of those Moorehouse College graduates getting drenched in rain while President Obama, under a canopy, lectured them not to make excuses after spending four years doing undergraduate work.

[In urban slang "cipher" can mean a lot of things (all new to me), but meanings include a hip hop rapper community free-styling. Whether or not that's referenced in the film I don't know, but the hip hop slang resonance seems likely.]

[tabuno]

I'm sure to what movie that cinemabon is referring to when he wrote "Journey to the far side of the sun" (1969) tackled the same ground years ago (the doppelganger effect).

As for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), it was strange that I left it off my list and I did so deliberately. I have seen it many times and it continues to stand out for me since I was a child. I would have to say that I have fallen into the new and innovative intriguing trap whereby such a classic movie has been worn out for me and that Patricia Neal's other overlooked movie had more emotional impact on me more recently, being so unexpected and thus used her more recent movie as a replacement. I was getting real, real tried coming up with all the movies that I felt had some significant association with my relationship theme.

I will admit that AFTEREARTH is more of a psychological mystery thriller with a singular, but important science fiction element as a fundamental background setting. But I found the sci fi element resonating underneath throughout the movie and that was what made the movie so special for me. Like real life, we carry around these life themes and core beliefs that enter into our very normal everyday activities, beliefs and emotions. How this sci fi theme played out in the context with these people's lives offered a much deeper and insightful awareness than almost any movie I've experienced.

[oscar jubis]

I appreciate the comments of Armond White who is very insightful and also very much his own man, so to speak.

White's Top 10 Ever (as of 2012)

Avventura, L' (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Intolerance (D.W. Griffith)
Jules et Jim (François Truffaut)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
Lola (Jacques Demy)
Magnificent Ambersons, The (Orson Welles)
Nashville ( Robert Altman)
Nouvelle Vague (Jean-Luc Godard)
Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Sansho Dayu 1 (Mizoguchi Kenji)

White's Top 10 Ever (as of 2002):

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg)
L'avventura (Antonioni)
Intolerance (Griffith)
Jules et Jim (Truffaut)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
Lola (Demy)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
Masculin féminin (Godard)
Nashville (Altman)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)

[tabuno]

A rather big change in White's list over the decade with A.I. being on top in 2002 and dropping out completely ten years later while other lower ranking 2002 candidates managed to retain White's favor.

By the way, why is White's list being posted on this thread?

[oscar jubis]

Read CK's last comment, posted this evening.

[cinemabon]

That White should refer to the film this way does not surprise me since the protagonist is AA. I would expect him to see everything from his perspective both as a critic and being black. White seldom agrees with other critics; otherwise, how would he gain the reputation of being "the contrarian." While I respect White as an intellect and someone devoted to film and film criticism, I do not agree with his choices nor his opinion when it comes to many movies - especially Steven Spielberg's "A.I." which Chris, Johann, Oscar and I got into an endless argument over about three or four years ago on this site that went for page after page (I don't remember if you were in on that Tab or not).

I deplore children being depicted as victims as Spielberg did and I won't go into that film and be goaded into an endless debate all over again. It's one of the few movies I walked out of and it would not be the first time that a critic on the level of White is wrong about a movie, not that I'm piling on because, as Chris point out, NONE Of US has seen this film and we all seem to be taking sides!!!!

So we either see it or we should move on. Speaking of movies... Ethan Hawk was on Jimmy Fallon talking about "Before Midnight" and its gotten such rave reviews (except from you Chris) that I thought I'd like to see it. Oscar said it was one of his favorite films of the year. It's set to debut in theaters next week after doing the film festival run since January. I see it was at SSFF (if I got the initials right) and Sundance. Lots of 9 out of 10 on IMDB, too.

No more "reviews" of reviews. Chris is right. We need to discuss films we've seen and not rely on what others are saying... including White who is Black and feels this is all about race, which it isn't because it's a M. Night Shyamalan film, or isn't it? I don't know... because I have seen it, nor has anyone else who writes on this site!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tabuno]

What does listing White's top films mean especially having two lists from different decades? Is this to inform us that he's changed his way of evaluating, judging films? How? That AFTER EARTH doesn't nearly compare with these films? What do these films have in common anyway? That White has some common theme prejudice and filters how he views AFTER EARTH?

[tabuno]

It's strange in looking over my notes, that I never wrote down my thoughts about A.I. when I saw the movie, and even more shocked that I never rated the movie on IMDb. But 2001 a turbulent year for me I recall. I do know that I really was intrigued and very connected with the movie on a personal level because I imagined myself having to go through this journey myself in many ways and I still am.

[Chris Knipp]

AI is a topic best relegated to its old thread, which I think is here: http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?217-AI-Kubrick-Spielberg-etc

Thanks Oscar and cinembon, for the positive focus on Armond White. He is a critic I always like to consult. He can not only be wrong but jaw-droppingly wrong, and even vicious. But the intelligence and fresh point of view, seriousness, and passion for French cinema make up for all that.

I HAVE now seen AFTER EARTH and I'm working on a review.

By the way, Shyamalan is non-white.

[cinemabon]

I think we knew that Shyalaman was Indian

[Chris Knipp]

Of course you know Shyamalans Indian but I was suggesting that he would therefore, as non-white, have a kiinship with African-Americans. This thread is talking about too many things at once!

I have posted my review of AFTER EARTH, which I guess you also know.

[Johann]

I have finally seen Oblivion, and there are elements that I enjoyed and others that were just beyond me.
I feel it's a solid sci-fi film, with very cinematic images- really tremendous CGI.
The story just didn't grab me hard enough. I wish I could call it a masterpiece as some reviews have dared to call it, because it has the foundation for it. It was just too maudlin and un-involving for me. The visuals are pretty fantastic, but I'm not sure if the story lives up to striking a new mould for sci-fi films. We've seen the same quality of CGI in the Star Wars prequels, so nobody was slacking off on the LOOK of the film. It's just that story....could anybody watch it over and over and be wowed? Maybe a 15-year-old kid would. Kids might Marvel at it. I certainly would have in my youth. We've come a long way from Ed Wood's pie plates as flying saucers...

At first I thought I might have to see it again to grasp the whole concept, but by the time Morgan Freeman arrived I realized that I didn't need to see it again. It would be a great silent screen saver for my computer, to be honest. Beautiful eyeball Joseph Kozinski has, and this is only his second film, so he should do some mind-blowing stuff in the future.

The attacks of the battle droid-type "balls" that pivot and fire at will was very well done and eye-catching, and yes, Kubrick can be mentioned in reference to this movie because that "eye of Hal 9000" was everywhere. That red eye was dropped into many scenes, and cinephiles may feel satiated by it. I knew the reference and I didn't jump for joy. There is no Star Child "wonder" here, just an interesting vision of what this planet may encounter in 2077. Like I say, this could be a masterpiece if it was worked on a lot more. If Kozinski took a few more years and REALLY perfected it, he'd have an AVATAR on his hands. No joke. It aims that high.

I guess my only real complaint is with the maudlin tone.
If being maudlin is the only way to put distance between you and other blockbuster sci-fi films, then Man we're hurting over here.


There are lots of (aerial) scenes with fast pace, with great professional production design, but for the most part, those action scenes merely give the viewer a jolt, not deliver any feeling that a viewer desperately needed to see them. They seemed to me to just break up the maudlin delivery of the story.
I thought that bubble (sperm) ship was pretty neat actually- the way it could flip and reverse on a dime was cool!
And the Elvis bobblehead on the dash was just enough humour and humanity for a film with this tone.
The Led Zeppelin song was nice, and so was Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale"- Jack Harper's favorite song, apparently.
I think that was only the second time Zep has been used in a movie (the first was Linklater's School of Rock).

Joseph Kozinski can meld humanity, the future and technology pretty good, but that maudlin tone....it makes me feel that seeing Oblivion multiple times would be a chore.




I'm seeing MAN OF STEEL tonight. Got a ticket to see it early in 3-D.
Will post about it tomorrow.