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Post by mrimpossible on Sept 24, 2019 19:23:28 GMT
Kind of surprised to see such divisive reactions I thought it was nearly perfect.
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Post by Viced on Sept 24, 2019 20:37:29 GMT
Like The Immigrant, this is a movie I feel like I should have loved but only ended up sort of liking because of some nagging flaws. A lot of the voiceover is bad or unnecessary, certain plot points in the second half are indeed ridiculous, and I felt like this movie needed to go darker by the end... it shouldn't have resolved itself as neatly as it did imo. The ending stretch was sort of anti-climactic, and I felt like more should have come out of the final act. Having said that, I was totally on this movie's wavelength for much of its runtime. While the writing is probably its weakest aspect, the film is spectacular on an aesthetic level, and I could have bathed in the film's colors and soundscape for another hour. Even when Gray's films don't completely work for me, he has a great sensibility, and his films always feel great. Overall, not as good as Lost City of Z, which covered some very similar thematic territory. 7/10ish Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I was expecting better but there's still enough to admire for me to call it a good movie. I didn't hate the voiceover tbh (though it was definitely goofy at times) but my main complaint is that it's just too damn sluggish. I get that it's an introspective movie about a depressed guy with a lot of issues, but it's also a movie about a journey from earth to the moon to Mars to Neptune... that shit should be a little more exciting. And I'm not talking about more rabid baboons. Also thought the ending was pretty underwhelming... and I really wonder what Gray's original ending was. And the moment we finally see TLJ it's just kind of like: "oh, there he is" when it should be a holy shit moment. But his savage IDGAF speech was probably the highlight of the movie, along with the cinematography and sound. Pitt was pretty good... not one of his best or nearly as good as Cliff Booth, but pretty good. Was hoping for more Donald Sutherland, especially because he was taken out of the movie in the lamest way possible. But I did like it..... I'm only bitching this much because I was expecting greatness. 7ish/10 for me too.
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Post by moonman157 on Sept 25, 2019 1:18:43 GMT
Kind of surprised to see such divisive reactions I thought it was nearly perfect. it's baffling to me though I do think James Gray isn't really a director that appeals to, ya know, plebs
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Post by moonman157 on Sept 25, 2019 5:04:40 GMT
very disappointing in its current form, gray’s worst by a mile release the snyder cut Not you too I really think people obsessing over how much the movie was tampered with is impacting their reactions. This is a James Gray movie, and it's a great one.
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Lubezki
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Post by Lubezki on Sept 25, 2019 18:53:49 GMT
very disappointing in its current form, gray’s worst by a mile release the snyder cut Not you too I really think people obsessing over how much the movie was tampered with is impacting their reactions. This is a James Gray movie, and it's a great one.
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Post by ibbi on Sept 25, 2019 19:02:33 GMT
This is the best I think one of his movies has come together since Two Lovers. The least he felt like some poor man's Herzog or some poor man's Coppola or some poor man's Scorsese probably ever. He finally reached the point where the writing matched the polished vision. Big fan, especially the disgruntled space monkey.
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Post by pendragon on Sept 27, 2019 23:41:33 GMT
This is definitely a flawed film, and its flaws have already been discussed at length, but I ultimately ended up liking it more than I didn't. There aren't many films since 2001 that have portrayed the stark emptiness of space and the isolation of space travel as well as this did. I would be curious if there's ever a director's cut sometime down the line.
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Post by DeepArcher on Sept 28, 2019 6:27:14 GMT
Saw this again tonight ... still kinda yearning for a director's cut, but this does kinda slap. Gotta always appreciate seeing a true auteur being allowed to work with this much scope because it's a rare breed nowadays, and even if it feels infringed upon it's kinda exhilarating ... a true slice of melancholy that absolutely devastated me even more on the second time around. The imagery is the best of the year and I could gladly catch it in theaters again, just really outstanding stuff.
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The-Havok
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Post by The-Havok on Sept 28, 2019 18:43:43 GMT
Pretty great seeing a near arthouse film on IMAX, even if the narration reminded me of the mock Willem Dafoe film within a film from Mr. Bean's Holiday. It portraya isolation and the illusion of progress indebted in our desperation to not be alone pretty boldly.
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Post by bob-coppola on Sept 29, 2019 12:25:34 GMT
Saw it on friday. It's a beautiful movie, and I know there's a masterpiece in there. It's very moving and it knows it has to prioritize the emotional growth of Pitt's character over some weird overcomplicated sci-fi plot. It's perfectly crafted, moves at a very appropriated pace... And Pitt, Jesus Christ... He didn't have to be that good, but he went there. It's his career-best, and until a few days ago, I thought OUATIH was his absolute peak. There's quite nothing to complain about just... ugh... The neverending voice-over. That was so off-putting, it dumbed down some the best scenes. It's like the producers didn't even trust the audiences to have a brain, some scenes go like this. Brad Pitt calls his wife and doesn't know what to say.
Brad Pitt (v.o.): In case you haven't noticed from the past 30 minutes, I'm emotionally damaged and don't know how to be honest about my feelings, and now I'm gonna explain it one more time.
Brad Pitt proceeds to delete the voice-mail he left his wife. It was so frustrating because it wasn't just something that happened in the first and the last 5 minutes. Every ten minutes we had to sit through a voice-over explaining like a school teacher what's going on and what that sad astronaut is feeling. I'm looking forward for it to get the Blade Runner treatment and to have its non-VO cut released in a few years. 8/10
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Post by countjohn on Sept 30, 2019 1:18:47 GMT
Saw it today and it wasn't that good. The comparisons to 2001 and Malick that I've heard are exceedingly generous. The FX and lighting are great and there are little kernels of interesting ideas that pop up every now and then, like the moon being turned into a hellish tourist trap instead of these utopian moon colonies you always see. One of the big problems is that this is one of those movies where the narrative basically boils down to an exposition dump, which can work, but it comes down to picking the right places to let the audience know certain things. I don't really think the right choices were made here which is why the pacing felt off. Then there's the excessive VO which felt like a lazy attempt to develop Pitt's character in lieu of actual writing. Pitt didn't help matters any with one of those sleepwaking movie star performances he sometimes gives. Now for spoilers- So much of the character stuff just felt tacked on. TLJ flying off into space was supposed to be the emotional center of the movie, but he was barely in it and specifically it didn't show enough of his and Pitt's relationship to make me care that much. Then there's Liv Tyler as the wife, who was in the movie for less than five minutes but then is brought back out at the end a if that's supposed to mean something to the audience when we barely know anything about her. The "hey wait, I should spend more time with people" resolution was so contrived Although some of the above issues may have been due to scenes being cut since apparently there were rumors of studio interference. This had the feeling of one that got chopped up in the editing room. 5/10
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Post by Allenism on Oct 2, 2019 4:11:39 GMT
This had so much potential but a lot of it was squandered by that paper-thin screenplay and what looks to be studio interference. There are flashes of Gattaca and Soderberg's Solaris here, specifically in the tone, atmosphere, and set design, but unfortunately there is also zero character development to support the visual storytelling. Pitt is serviceable and has one or two genuinely affecting scenes, but per usual he excels more as a blank slate than as an active performer.
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Post by JangoB on Oct 3, 2019 17:05:07 GMT
Putting my thoughts under spoiler tags to express them freely. I thought this was excellent! Way more mainstream-friendly than I expected (or, to be perfectly honest, wanted it to be) but as far as big budget mainstream space movies go, this is a pretty terrific example to aspire to. I'm a tad surprised that the movie somewhat lacked that haunting feeling of mystery that the more earth-bound "The Lost City of Z" was filled with (which made it so great) since space seems like the perfect setting for such a feeling to be amplified but Gray clearly wanted to step away from that and make a movie more about a man's inner journey which just happens to reveal itself alongside this big interplanetary odyssey. I thought the idea worked really well. Even the final segment is deliberately much more subdued and restrained than it could've been - throughout the whole film I subconsciously kept guessing what the finale might be like, would Gray go all trippy on us, etc. And the way it played out was this pretty lowkey conversation between Pitt and TLJ which honestly felt like a very fitting conclusion to this particular story. The way Jones just completely rejects any kind of connection to his home and to his people did hit an interesting emotional spot and of course Pitt wonderfully and subtly turning into a kid, a Son while seeing his father after all these years was quite powerfully conceived and acted.
I did feel that the film's ideas were spelled out in a bit too obvious of a way where leaving some of them to our interpretation would've made more of an impact, especially in the end where Pitt in his voiceover literally tells us what his father's problems were and how he was going to deal with his own ones. And in general the movie felt a little too straightforward where maybe some opaqueness would've been a better choice. But hey, it's not like James Gray is some kind of a super artsy director - his films have their own strong voice but he's definitely not on the 'too out there' side of things. So I shouldn't really be too surprised that the film is more straightforward than I expected. Thankfully it's not a problem that ruins it or anything. It's a pretty terrific picture.
BTW, I love me a truly memorable piece of art direction in a movie and "Ad Astra" definitely had two, both on Mars - the relaxation room with the images of flowers and waves projected onto the walls and (my #1 favorite) the red room in which Pitt recorded his message to his father. Those pieces of art direction really stuck with me. And I always appreciate detailed designs of realistic spaceships too. What I'm saying is that the production design was wonderful. The cinematography was of course very strong too - Hoyte Van Hoytema is not among the most show-offy cinematographers out there but he definitely knows how to bring gravitas to his images and make'em look great without making them too pretty.
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Post by JangoB on Oct 5, 2019 16:10:26 GMT
I must say, as much as I like the film...it faded away a little bit after a couple of days since watching it. Where "The Lost City of Z" was luring me into itself after the viewing, this doesn't have much of an aftertaste...All the good things I said about it still stand but the negatives seem to be more prominent after some time.
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Zeb31
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Post by Zeb31 on Oct 18, 2019 2:05:57 GMT
This was pretty damn great.
It's definitely flawed in ways that can probably be pinned on studio interference, and I think this would've been clear even if it wasn't for the rumors that Fox meddled with it. The last 10 minutes or so are way too neat and tidy compared to everything that came before them and seem like the result of a board of producers interfering with Gray's vision and ordering him to deliver something more palatable and satisfying to mainstream audiences, and as basically everyone else has already said the narration was certainly a clumsy addition that points to a significant lack of trust in the viewers' intelligence, regardless of whether that mistrust comes from Fox's side (most likely) or from Gray's. It wasn't bad enough to sour me on the film as a whole but a lot of those lines were certainly questionable, and they conveyed absolutely no information that wasn't already made plainly evident by other means. Pitt delivers some of his best, most richly internalized work yet, and in spite of that we're still treated to a lazy voiceover that spells out everything he's working overtime to communicate.
Add to that Liv Tyler's subplot (if one can even call it that), which also went nowhere and seems like something that a studio would demand gets tacked on to forcibly make the lead into a more familiar, conventional hero archetype. It made me yearn for a Blade Runner-type Director's Cut that runs a bit longer, does away with the narration and replaces the happy ending with something that's more truthful to the project's overall tone.
Still, though, even in spite of these flaws making me think of what could've been, what actually is on screen is nevertheless a real treat. It's very absorbing and well-paced, with some of the best technical work of the year: the sound, cinematography and music are all phenomenal. It's definitely bold for a major sci-fi epic to be this moody and character-driven, this concerned with psychology and emotional trauma, and that deserves plaudits even if I think more could've been done with the script to really explore its themes to their fullest. Count me as a fan.
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Post by Pavan on Dec 21, 2019 20:27:04 GMT
This was a mixed bag. I liked it enough but i expected better from Gray who is so much more capable than what he and his co-writer wrote here. Its not really interesting plot wise. A mix of ridiculous and cathartic elements i would say. Gray certainly handled the later very well. Sublime visuals and a moody score made up for a flawed script. Pitt's decent. There was a great film in there but it just didn't come out- 7/10
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Post by dazed on Dec 27, 2019 14:35:30 GMT
I thought this was pretty great. It’s stuck with me, more than a lot of other movies have. The voiceover didn’t bug me at all, since it was moreso used to build characterization rather than for exposition. It was needed since Roy was a more reserved character imo.
How this isn’t going to be nominated for best visual effects is baffling to me. The movie is beautiful. The cinematography is great as well. An issue that I have with the film though is that some of the very ambitious ideas weren’t nearly as fleshed out as I wanted them to be. This film could’ve benefited from an extra 30 minutes or so, which I can’t say often.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2019 6:34:35 GMT
Definitely rough around the edges but good stuff overall. Really like the message I took from it.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2020 5:50:51 GMT
This thing keeps playing in my mind as time passes. I actually would go so far as to say I think it's kind of fantastic now. The parts that bugged me a bit at first now seem pretty irrelevant as criticisms, and are heavily outweighed by the emotional power of the ideas Gray is conveying here.
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Post by DeepArcher on Jan 8, 2020 6:00:25 GMT
This thing keeps playing in my mind as time passes. I actually would go so far as to say I think it's kind of fantastic now. The parts that bugged me a bit at first now seem pretty irrelevant as criticisms, and are heavily outweighed by the emotional power of the ideas Gray is conveying here. Agreed, I had the exact same experience with it, and it got even better on a second viewing for me. Definitely one of the best films of the year that is unfortunately just not getting talked about anymore.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2020 6:07:27 GMT
This thing keeps playing in my mind as time passes. I actually would go so far as to say I think it's kind of fantastic now. The parts that bugged me a bit at first now seem pretty irrelevant as criticisms, and are heavily outweighed by the emotional power of the ideas Gray is conveying here. Agreed, I had the exact same experience with it, and it got even better on a second viewing for me. Definitely one of the best films of the year that is unfortunately just not getting talked about anymore. Gray is one of those directors whose stuff always takes me a little while to fully process. I'm not sure why, but it never sinks in until I get a bit of distance from it. I think it's something about the way they're written, feels borderline awkward at spots when I'm first watching it, but then seems just fine on contemplation/revisiting, and is overshadowed by the feelings it overall evokes (like the amazing ending of The Immigrant). I also really, really like Pitt's performance. I still have lots I want to see from 2019 but I'd put it as my 2nd favorite of the year right now.
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Post by DeepArcher on Jan 8, 2020 6:22:56 GMT
Agreed, I had the exact same experience with it, and it got even better on a second viewing for me. Definitely one of the best films of the year that is unfortunately just not getting talked about anymore. Gray is one of those directors whose stuff always takes me a little while to fully process. I'm not sure why, but it never sinks in until I get a bit of distance from it. I think it's something about the way they're written, feels borderline awkward at spots when I'm first watching it, but then seems just fine on contemplation/revisiting, and is overshadowed by the feelings it overall evokes (like the amazing ending of The Immigrant). I also really, really like Pitt's performance. I still have lots I want to see from 2019 but I'd put it as my 2nd favorite of the year right now. Yeah, Pitt's performance is fucking great ... my favorite of his from this year which is saying something because I really, really like his OUATIH performance too. I hate seeing people dismiss his performance here, to me it's some of the most purely emotionally-charged, innately talented acting I've seen this year. And Gray always has the same sneaky effect on me. The Lost City of Z for example is a film that I didn't really "get" when I first watched it but grew on me so much in retrospect, and The Immigrant and Two Lovers are both flawed films like this one but also resonate deeply in spite of that, there's just something about Gray's films that are just so deeply-felt that they always have a deep staying power.
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Post by Archie on May 20, 2020 23:23:20 GMT
RELEASE THE GRAY CUT
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Pasquale
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Post by Pasquale on Jul 4, 2020 18:07:36 GMT
Utterly meaningful.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 8, 2020 0:58:41 GMT
It's like Apocalypse Now and Interstellar had a child with daddy issues and a medical condition that made it speak entirely in disinterested monotones. The action setpieces are silly and add nothing (space pirates! ). Even removing the somnambulant voiceover, you're still stuck with "Brad Pitt staring with dead eyes into space for two hours" which is somehow worse than 2018's "Ryan Gosling stares sorrowfully into space for two hours." When this actually does do something kind of dramatic, it's basically just Pitt sleeptalking "I hate you space dad" and occasionally "I want space daddy to love me again." It's laughable whenever it isn't a complete bore.
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