What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

the movie gets progressively better and there's a pretty sophisticated reveal that makes it good sci-fi.

Sorry you didn't like it.

Booth and I come from a website where this guy used to watch ten minutes of a movie and write big judgment posts on it like you just did. It was weird.

Your beef with aliens having eight legs is weird. I'm not quite sure what makes you like or dislike things. It seems rather random.

You better not watch the Oscars Sunday night.

It's just like how I judge all of Canada by your online antics, really.

I'm going to finish it, maybe something will change my mind about it...but so far, I'm not impressed.

Part of the problem is that when these Serious Adult Sci-Fi films come down the pike, I get really excited. But they never quite meet expectations and I just get disappointed.

Michael Barnes wrote: So there is a novely reveal that explains why the rest of the movie sucks?

All five of your complaints sound like trivial nitpicks to me, so no, nothing is going to change your opinion about those things. However, Arrival is a movie that must be seen as a whole, not just a collection of parts.

Your inability to understand that Amy Adams might be suffering from depression and is therefore oblivious to the rest of the world, or that Forrest Whitaker has the power of the US military to make sure he knows her exact location, is kind of astounding coming from you. Are you sure you weren't just in a bad mood and decided to take it out on the movie? That's fine, but your complaints just sound out of character.

You may still hate the movie, and that's okay, too. I loved it, but there were several parts of it that I absolutely HATED. I'm very willing to admit its flaws, but they don't keep me from liking the movie overall.

Oh no, I considered the depression completely- how can you miss it, it is the most downbeat and drab movie I've seen since Melancholia. It just doesn't work. The screenwriting comes across as inauthentic, not stylized. I am NOT a nitpicker, but when things just don't add up and it takes me out of the narrative then I'll point it out.

It probably doesn't help that I watched Close Encounters a couple of weeks ago, so invariably I keep going back to that. I love how EPIC that film feels, it has the kind of sweep and scope that only Spielberg in the prime of his career can manage. Remember watching that movie in the late 70s/early 80s? It just felt HUGE, and it dealt with some of the same topics (so far) in Arrival. But it wasn't in this soppy, "my heart is sad" kind of way. I still like SF to have a sense of wonder...but so far (and this may change, I understand that) it's like "oh, aliens are here. My heart is sad." and I think that's pretty depressing in itself. The first meeting with the aliens KIND OF had some of that, and I did really like how they emerged...but my point about the space octopuses is that it is just such a SF trope- the tentacled, floating aliens. I think it would have been more effective to not see them.

Heh, Close Encounters would come on ABC Sunday Night at the Movies and it would run for like six hours. It would be on all night long.

I had some of the same reservations when I saw it last year, but I watched it again last week with my girls and liked it more.

It does feel slow and dark and dreary for a while, but that changes somewhat over time, in a way that sort of goes along with her connection with the aliens and understanding their language. I think there is even a subtle lighting progression over time to reflect that.

I think the things about her behavior at school are nitpicks, Michael. She is aloof and focused on her job and little else. It reflects her character. I can see teachers ignoring a gathering of students around a TV set. For all they know it's the next stupid Trump news thing. I mean, she looked on with some vague interest, but then continued to her classroom. Seemed realistic enough.

This isn't trying to be Close Encounters. Meant to be more of a realistic speculation about some aspects of how difficult it might be to try to really communicate with a completely alien race. It's rather clinical in that sense, perhaps to its detriment. And although it only scratches the surface of that, I think it does a great job of getting into some of the basic issues that would probably be involved. I found that aspect very interesting. And the related political climate of something like that seemed plausible enough.

I don't think of octopus type of creatures as being too expected in alien movies, especially the way these ones behave. I like that they have a threat of danger about them, and how the pictures of them leaked online would likely create a fear and panic. But that they are more complex than that, and require some effort and interaction to connect with.

I don't seem to like Forest Whitaker in anything anymore. He kind of mumbles his lines and doesn't seem very engaged somehow. He does have a cool look and physical presence, but that's about it. So I'm with you there, though his part was pretty minor and peripheral, anyway.

I can see the resolution being love/hate, and probably parallel to whatever you felt about the Interstellar ending. I have mixed feelings about it. I much preferred the middle part of this film, exploring the nature of understanding the language, and some of the plot points surrounding that.

While I really enjoyed Arrival, I had a couple of complaints when discussing it here last month. In scope of things I think my complaints were minor as I'm a big fan of the film.

I agree though that your complaints seem nitpicky. Those are small details that completely overlook the greater themes of the film (which you haven't really seen develop yet).

I think Arrival is awesome, and I haven't even seen it yet!

(Actually, I'm betting that John Wick 2 might have it beat in "Best movie I haven't seen lately", but my tastes are pretty lowbrow.)

I liked Arrival OK, but it doesn't stick in my memory as anything special. But Barnes' opinion on it has no validity whatsoever and never will - even after he's actually done watching it. He obviously haven't figured out the twist yet, and instead of recognizing that it's pretty smart, he'll probably rant about how Independence Day was much better.

Having said that, the only consistent thing about Villeneuve over his three movies (Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival) is a that he is a deeply pretentious human being with no discernible sense of humor. Which I think is not good both for the Blade Runner 2 and the next Dune.

Villeneuve's best work is Enemy. A film almost no one has seen for some reason. I've enjoyed all of his flicks though. That border crossing scene in Sicario brought back flashes of Heat.

the border crossing scene was so much better than Heat. All of the movie was way better (Vlad disagrees)

I think lacking a sense of humour will be good for Blade Runner 2 (but bad for Ryan Gosling) and might be good for Dune as well.

Black Barney wrote: the border crossing scene was so much better than Heat. All of the movie was way better (Vlad disagrees)

I think lacking a sense of humour will be good for Blade Runner 2 (but bad for Ryan Gosling) and might be good for Dune as well.

Don't diss HEAT! I love that movie. Well, the recut some crew did that gets rid of the whole Natalie Portman arc, anyway. SNOOOOZERRRRRR. The armored car and bank heist scenes are some of the best set pieces in modern crime films.

oh come on, who doesn't want an unconscious Natalie Portman in their bathtub?!

Heat is good, no question, I mean it has Ashley Judd before she went cuckoo. But honestly, Sicario is far better start-to-finish. Heat has one or two incredible scenes and then lots and lots of filler. Lots.

You really FEEL the automatic weapons in the street shoot-out though. That was pretty intense.

very quickly, without much though, I'd probably give it 4.5 stars (heart) and 4 stars (brain). It's not exactly a thinker. Sicario does better on both fronts I think. Again, only if we are looking at the entire movie. If we are only judging scenes, the bank shootout in Heat is pretty incredible.

charlest wrote: Villeneuve's best work is Enemy. A film almost no one has seen for some reason. I've enjoyed all of his flicks though. That border crossing scene in Sicario brought back flashes of Heat.

I saw Enemy. It's one of those movies where I thought it was really good, but I wasn't sure if I actually liked it.* It definitely made the audience work.



*This is probably why Barney's reviews have a Heart and Mind rating.

Charlest, thanks for reminding me of Enemy, I definitely need to watch this...

The Ride to Juarez is an awesomely filmed ride. It would work better as an actual ride, though. As a segment of a film, it is very problematic, because despite being like 30 mins long it doesn't have any impact on the plot. Still, I agree that it is the best part of Sicario, but that-s not saying much.

Barney, you are damn right I disagree, but not just that. I find your comparison between Heat and Sicario to be in equal parts appalling and disgusting. Heat is a great movie, period. Sicario is not even close.

As for Blade Runner2/Dune - I am not saying that these should be made into comedies (in case of Blade Runner 2, I'm not even sure it should be a thing). But if you take some ponderous original material like Dune, with some dead serious mystical-religious-messianic-ecological-political themes and you attach to it a director who takes himself and everything he does very, very seriously... do you think the resulting movie will be any fun to watch? Like LOTR fun?

LOTR was fun?