[inmatarian]

See this movie if you haven't already.

Spoilers from this point on.

I really liked this film. I totally picked up on all of the subtle political commentaries throughout the film, like Michael Caine's little thing about the government allowing the sale of suicide kits, but still keeping marijuana illegal. Plus, that scene where everyone stopped fighting for a moment to listen to the baby cry. Leave it to a Science Fiction film to come up with such a great scene while the rest of modern cinema drops the damn ball.
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[Dracko]

Best use of cinéma vérité and continuous shots techniques in ages.

Thematically, what I love the most about it is that it deals with actual human beings instead of the one-liner-cracking half-retarded bad-asses you tend to see in modern "commentary" cinema and left any and all moral and political lessons solely up to you. It wasn't aptronising, and thus, it was all the more effective.

And the backstory written in the details. That's great, and most stories should be that way. It's not important to know what happened in a character or areas' past to make them any less interesting. Their past should speak for itself, and this film exemplified that on all points. A good film is one that allows the viewer to create, through an orchestration of impressions, the meaning of its events.

[inmatarian]

Those continuous scenes were great. The one scene with the blood on the camera tipped me off as to where the cut points were, but they were so seamless that I wouldn't have figured it out otherwise.

And yeah, the way they worked the character's stories into the story itself is the way it should be done. I can accept the first 5 to 10 minutes of a movie being a little expositiony. That's needed for us to learn how to watch this movie. But then, that's it.
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[Capt. Caveman]

Is this limited release? I've been looking forward to it for a while.

[DarwinMayflower]

Like I said before in the movie thread. I'm fucking pissed beyond belief that Canada is probably not going to see the light of day of this film. It's only playing in Toronto so it seems, but what's worst is my vacation to a larger city sort of expected this film to make an appearance in order appreciate visiting a bigger city.

[Duckzero]

I just finished watching this movie. I was blown away by how character driven it was, rather than plot driven. Few films pull that off really well. One thing I greatly appreciated is how they never, ever explain how the women become infertile, but all of the things, Michael Caine spoke of earlier in the film were completely present, and each one could be a cause. The pollution in the movie was crazy, the amount of drug advertisements were out of control, maybe the "illegal" drug usage, the overcrowding (which in turn might have been natures way of cutting the population down) and government experiments.

I was also reading the imdb boards, and it's funny because someone was complaining that Kee was an immigrant Black woman. Now that argument is rather silly because the whole theme (I believe) that an immigrant was the first to have a child, is because of the rampant poverty, lack of health care, and overall, lower life expectancy rate, which contributed to Kee being the first to have a child in 18 years. Unlike the other side of society seen in the beginning of the film where everything was artificially maintained and created, except for life, due to the sterility of the environment.

Yeah, either way, great film. Very thought provoking!
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[inmatarian]

[Wilkes]

this movie is not playing near me : O

I might need to go to NYC for dis

[duomo]

Just wait until Friday, Wilkes.

[Baron Patsy]

I'm about to watch this. I'm rather excited!

[GalaxyHead]

Going to see it Friday, even if it kills me.

[Baron Patsy]

About half way through as we speak. This is my kind of movie!

[km]

I just saw it, and I agree on all points.

I need more time to process this movie in order to say more, though.
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[boojiboy7]

[Wall of Beef]

[Mr. Business]

I wouldn't mind a couple of those monitors that they had at the Ministry of Energy.

I wasn't particularly blown away by the movie. As a post-apocalypse fanboy extraordinare, I felt that they could have done something more with the scenario. Though that would defy the character driven nature of the film. I guess my problem here is that the characters really weren't particularly interesting to me. They felt very predictable.

However, those long takes were nuts. Completely nuts.
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[Dracko]

[Faithless]

My favorite thing in this movie was the pollution.

It was like the world said, "Fuck. We're all going to die anyway ..."

I wish everyone had been smokers.
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[boojiboy7]

Don't get me wrong, the obvious and repeated ties into the Iraq war and such made a lot of sense, and some of them were fairly well done (the ties into Abu Ghraib, for example). I would have found it strange if the movie had left all mention of the Iraq war out of it. I was mostly just pointing out that subtlety was not really even the movie's aim, and certainly was never actually accomplished.

I would be intersted to hear the reactions to the movie of someone who is pro-Iraq war, actually. I've noticed that when people agree with the political views of a work, they tend to be much les harsh on how those views are presented.

I did like the pollution thing as well, Faithless. In fact, I kind of liked that whole attitude to the film. There were a lot of people in the movie who were just saying "fuck it" and doing whatever they want. For example, when the main character SPOILERS asks who the fahter is. Of course Kee (wow not subtle) doesn't know, because hell, if we all thoguht we couldn't get pregnant, everyone would probably fuck like rabbits. END SPOILERS

[GcDiaz]

[boojiboy7]

well, we did see the cousin's house, where the young guy was playing with that wierd cube on mini projection screen thing. Like it seemed like technology advanced a little beyond our own, but then stagnated, even for the rich like the cousin.

[Dracko]

Who says stagnation? It's sci-fi, that doesn't mean it has to be garish about it.

And I'm really not seeing the Abu Ghraib reference. Is it to do with the militant attitudes against deportees? It's not like bags on heads is anything particularly new. The film, which remains an adaptation of a 15 year-old book, is clearly dealing with fears linked to comtemporary events, but there's nothing in it that seems to condemn the Iraq war, at least that I could see. Which was refreshing, actually. I'm tired of the molly-coddling fare as of late.

[Wall of Beef]

I don't think the movie has any thing to do with the Iraq war. Its just that it was the last War before the world went to shit with the infertility, and that the characters happened to be activists at one time. They could have forwarded history and have some sort of North Korean war be mentioned, but I guess they wanted to connect it more with the current world of the viewer.
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[boojiboy7]

dude, i mean, the wall of articles and posters and shit about the iraq war wasn't enough of a tip off? the martial law on the streets, the insurgence, the fricking parade with the dead body and the people shouting in arabic while holding up banners? I mean, it might not be specifically iraq (though i think it is) but it is most certainly the middle east.

[Wall of Beef]

[boojiboy7]

Of course there are logical explanations in the movie for the parade and all that. If there weren't, it would be a stupid movie. However, the images presented were drawing on the modern presentation of the wars in the middle east. You can't think that the choice to have a parade like that in the middle of his movie was just the dircetor saying "eh, maybe i will make them...uhhh...middle eastern?" There is a clear significance to such a choice.

The constant use of the term Homeland Security for the British military is also significant. Yes, the term existed pre-9/11 and all, but it's rise in prominent usage can be directly seen to corrsepond to the fallout from 9/11. This movie is not just drawing on the Iraq war, but is drawing on all of the hysteria that has come out of the usage of modern terrorist tactics in the "civilized" west. The opening bombing sets up that the use of terrorist warfare has become rather common place in modern london, pretty similar to how it has become common place in, say, bahgdad.

The paranoia of the British in seeming to export immigrants for no good reason is only a few short steps away from what the US government was looking to do immediately following 9/11. The movie is taking what has been happening since 9/11 (including the IRaq war) and saying that this (the ruling state of paranoia and fear, not neccessarily the infertility) is the result of it all.

[inmatarian]

[boojiboy7]

Oh, yeah, as a political piece, I like it a lot better than michael moore. though, shit, I tend to think Moore does more harm than good.

Speculative ficiton is just a word lit writers use when they want to write sci fi but dont want it ending up in the sci fi section of the book store. Just saying.

[Duckzero]

[alice]

I did not think this movie was all that great :(. Someone slap me with a fish or prove me wrong.

[Wall of Beef]

Another thing that kept popping into my head when I was watching this movie, "Man, this looks like an expensive movie." It just looks like they had to do a shit ton of work on these sets and locations just to dirty them up. I guess thats probably not too expensive, but just everything was so authentic looking. Maybe there was more CG than I can tell (a good thing) but either way I was just blown away by every environment and backdrop they traveld through.
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[Baron Patsy]

[Churippu]

I enjoyed this film alot. I liked how it was pretty much believeable by putting elements in that happen in real life, like the car scene were they couldn't get the car started. That was great! Definately my favorite scene. I got chillbumps when the baby was crying and all the fighting stopped just where they could hear the baby. That was magical.

and yes I cried at the end okay?

[Dracko]

Who here thinks the ending could have done with being just two or three seconds earlier?

That escape scene was so very, very British.

[Wall of Beef]

[Dracko]

[Mr. Apol]

i hope metal gear solid 4 plays like how this movie looked.
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[Wall of Beef]

[skonrad]

Anyone got a feminist read on this? The trailer made it look like the film might not address any of the latent misogyny of the subject matter. Plus I read somewhere that the director changed the story from the original book's concept so that it was the women who were infertile rather than the men (or both depending on the read), which doesn't bode well for my ability to sit through the movie without sighing a lot. But I'm willing to believe that it was a shitty trailer like everyone said!!

[Dracko]

I don't see why you'd sigh about something so insignificant.

Incidentally, no, the men are still barren.

[inmatarian]