dazed
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Likes: 1,757
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Post by dazed on Apr 30, 2022 1:18:55 GMT
yeah, I loved this. what a treat it was to watch this on the big screen. my favourite of eggers so far as well as by far his most accessible. felt like a 100 minute movie. direction, cinematography, and acting was all aces.
the score was intense and helped set the mood, but I couldn’t help but think what johann johannsson could’ve done with this.
the theatre I went to was pretty empty :/ and the one reaction I heard was from two older guys that loudly said “welp, I’ve seen better” literally right when it ended smh
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Post by mhynson27 on May 1, 2022 14:48:39 GMT
My favourite from Eggers thus far.
Also, bootyyyyyy.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 1, 2022 17:14:05 GMT
fuck it... just get Skarsgård again. outside of that... I dunno. Bale? Your main man Ben Foster could definitely bring the intensity. Or how about the star of Mel's last film goes waaaaay against type? I'm gonna throw Pilou Asbæk into the mix. I know his Euron Greyjoy wasn't the most beloved character in Game of Thrones, but I chalk that up more to the writing of that character than what the actor was bringing. But the scene where he slaughters the Sand Snakes -- just imagine that scene for two hours. Fuck it. Bring Coster-Waldau in there as well. Two rival Danes battling it out under Mad Mel's direction. Coster-Waldau going full Shot Caller in a Gibson movie sounds like heaven.
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Post by Joaquim on May 2, 2022 1:13:31 GMT
Could’ve been better but I liked it. 7/10
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on May 2, 2022 4:07:33 GMT
Aka. The movie that won’t be forgotten at the AMARA’s, because I’ll never shut the fuck up about it. Back for my third time tonight
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on May 4, 2022 4:54:58 GMT
It's the weakest Eggers film, but I still loved the hell out of it. Although Eggers has been outspoken about the ways in which he was constrained during the process of making this film, it still feels decidedly him, particularly with the mysticism at play. A great, straightforward epic that replaces some of the depth and ambiguity of other Eggers films for the visceral pleasures of well-choreographed bloodshed and characters spouting off the coolest shit they possibly could at the moment.
Not terribly surprised it isn't making much money, but disappointed nonetheless.
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Post by JangoB on May 13, 2022 22:09:31 GMT
Welp, I've encountered one of the most annoying problems humanity has even known - when you type a lot of shit and your computer freezes. So I'll sum up my thoughts briefly.
To me it's the strongest Eggers yet. My reasoning may be weird but to me it's exactly because his bold choices and fascination with all things mystical are applied to a traditional, or should I say classical, story. Sure, we've seen plenty of revenge movies and Hamlet-like tales but that stuff being put through the Eggers filter results in a pretty terrific viewing experience. And it's not like the film is a 'plotpoint A to plotpoint B' type of a potboiler. It is more narratve-based than his other two flicks but there's a strong current of hypnotic atmosphere running through this whole thing which elevates the piece from a simple story to something more fable-like. And because of that magnetic pull the film just flies by leaving you wondering how it can possibly be two hours and ten minutes long. It's as if you share the same daze that Hawke and the kid enter in that early Dafoe scene. Of course the high is occasionally broken and you come down to more earthly matters but the hallucinatory geiser keeps coming back and bursting upward right up until the very last cut. The filmmaking is wonderful, the ensemble is nothing but rock solid (all the Skarsgård beast references are highly deserved and Kidman is as awesome as advertised - indeed the best Lady Macbeth out there) and the viscera is really quite visceral. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece but I'm sure (or at least I hope) that there's one on the way because Eggers just keeps getting better and better.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on May 16, 2022 7:28:23 GMT
Yeah, this didn’t really do much for me. It felt to me like Eggers was so fixated on making his movie as METAL as possible on the surface, he thought that would make up for how utterly generic it is on a screenplay level. I get that the mythic simplicity of it is part of the point, but the film’s length, combined with the lack of characterization and the overall predictability of it just made it hard for me to care that much. Sorry, visual splendor and historical immersion weren’t enough to keep me engaged in this case.
My reaction to this was kind of similar to The Lighthouse, which I thought was an interesting stylistic exercise, but didn’t really add up to much imo. I think I slightly prefer that film, but I’m starting to think that Eggers is probably a more talented director than he is a writer. Loved The Witch, but he’s 1 for 3 with me so far, and I’m hoping he’s not a one hit wonder filmmaker.
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Post by futuretrunks on May 17, 2022 3:09:10 GMT
This was terrible. I bailed with like 15 minutes left. So monotonous and drudging. Even the hyped Kidman shit was complete bullshit. Weird, patently inauthentic accents. Anya was best in show, from what I saw. We used to have early 30s dudes putting out shit like Star Wars and The Godfather and Pulp Fiction. Now we have dudes pushing 40 putting out student films with zero point. Fucking sad.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jun 5, 2022 21:15:14 GMT
I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this because my worry with Eggers is that he's a brilliant cinematic technician with a strong grasp of filmic language but not much on his mind. My experience with The Lighthouse especially bore this out because even though I was bowled over on first viewing, on rewatch it became clear that the movie was no more and no less than a story about two dudes going crazy on a tiny island. All of Eggers' brilliant gimmicks and techniques are window-dressing to what was inherently a very simple story, and all the more simple-feeling for how it contrasts with Eggers' surrealist maximalism. And that's why I was a bit concerned -- because I knew Northman was also a simple story with a big budget.
But my fears were premature. This movie fucking rocks and I'm so glad I caught it while it was still in theaters. With the gargantuan soundscapes, stunning cinematography, cerebral score and dramatic use of exterior establishing shots it was instantly recognizable as an Eggers project. And I know he's disappointed about the box office but he has every reason to be proud of this and I hope he and his crew had as much fun making it as I had watching it on a big screen. The simplicity of the story was initially frustrating, I'll be honest. You know what happens because of the trailer and it all felt surprisingly perfunctory. There's plenty about the first 40 minutes to appreciate but mostly I was waiting for the story to get going and was covertly worrying that I would be feeling that way for the whole movie. Thankfully that wasn't the case.
It isn't until the story truly settles down in Iceland that it starts getting good, and it just gets better and better once Skarsgård brings out a scary sword and starts carving up his enemies like Christmas hams. More than anything else, it was really exciting to discover that The Northman is just as much a horror film as any of Eggers' previous outings, in which the titular Northman is actually a bloodcrazed Viking serial killer who infiltrates a community and uses black magic and witchcraft to destroy it from within. While watching I kept wondering what the film would've been like if Claes Bang and Nicole Kidman had been the protagonists and Skarsgård was "The Witch" to their puritan wilderness homestead -- an evil lurking on their periphery just out of sight and ready to strike, a personification of their sins and anxieties coming home to roost. But the movie we got is just as much a horror narrative and just as scary. Eggers' experience combining surrealism with horror language serves him well here. There are several sequences that are conversely beautiful and incredibly creepy -- the Björk scenes, the He-witch with the severed head, the screeching Valkyrie riding across the sky -- and they all add up to a viewing experience that approaches epic and achieves the mythic. By the blood-soaked closing minutes set against the backdrop of an erupting volcano, I was gasping in awe.
The Northman is peak Spooktober arthouse fare. A historical horror story of murder and vengeance steeped in unsettling occult imagery set far from civilization in a wild and frightening world under the gaze of angry gods. The only way to Valhalla is butchery.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 7, 2023 0:52:33 GMT
Welp, I've encountered one of the most annoying problems humanity has even known - when you type a lot of shit and your computer freezes. So I'll sum up my thoughts briefly. To me it's the strongest Eggers yet. My reasoning may be weird but to me it's exactly because his bold choices and fascination with all things mystical are applied to a traditional, or should I say classical, story. Sure, we've seen plenty of revenge movies and Hamlet-like tales but that stuff being put through the Eggers filter results in a pretty terrific viewing experience. And it's not like the film is a 'plotpoint A to plotpoint B' type of a potboiler. It is more narratve-based than his other two flicks but there's a strong current of hypnotic atmosphere running through this whole thing which elevates the piece from a simple story to something more fable-like. And because of that magnetic pull the film just flies by leaving you wondering how it can possibly be two hours and ten minutes long. It's as if you share the same daze that Hawke and the kid enter in that early Dafoe scene. Of course the high is occasionally broken and you come down to more earthly matters but the hallucinatory geiser keeps coming back and bursting upward right up until the very last cut. The filmmaking is wonderful, the ensemble is nothing but rock solid (all the Skarsgård beast references are highly deserved and Kidman is as awesome as advertised - indeed the best Lady Macbeth out there) and the viscera is really quite visceral. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece but I'm sure (or at least I hope) that there's one on the way because Eggers just keeps getting better and better. Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I thought the trailer looked very conventional, but at the time I also made a statement that perhaps Eggers needs something conventional to keep him from losing his grip on storytelling. He's a strong visual director, but his first two movies were aimless stinkers. Here, he has a simple tale and he sticks to the formula, elevating it with surreal imagery and Skarsgard roaring for two hours. The simplicity keeps it engaging. This isn't a masterpiece or anything (I label it a solid 7/10), but I'm happy Eggers was weighed down by actually having to tell a story, because he tells it very well. I wish that movies like this, The Green Knight and The Tragedy of Macbeth were considered Oscar bait. I don't think any of them are great, but if baity movies were more metal, I think bait would generate more interest. P.S. Pretty great musical score too. It isn't memorable, but it perfectly fits the movie at all times. I don't doubt that it's better than whatever Johannson would have done, as I was never a big fan of his.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 15, 2023 17:57:56 GMT
watched this again and it's still just a great vibe and very much a metal as fuck horror jam with all its human sacrifices and sorcery and spooky visions and talking severed heads. "The Night Blade Feeds" is the stuff of folktale nightmares and the climactic brawl under the erupting volcano is still so damn satisfying. The CGI is incredible.
I'm still amazed how closely this resembles the structure of The Witch just from the other side. Like it's exactly the same, down to Fjölnir & Gudrún banished from their home and living in a lonely backwater only to be plagued by malignant supernatural forces. Their chickens are coming home to roost in the form of Amleth and his black magic and scary sword, which isn't quite the same as The Witch's witch being a manifestation of puritan shame and self-loathing but both are serving bloody poetic justice.
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Pasquale
Full Member
Posts: 535
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Post by Pasquale on Mar 14, 2023 20:38:53 GMT
Braveheart and Gladiator hate-fucked and made this
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