In a stunning turn of events this is actually not playing in Hollywood and IS playing near me lol. Will watch this weekend.
1/10 according to RT. First showings here are the evening of 1/9. One is at 7:17 PM, which is interesting.
This was a great technical achievement, and I would like to learn more about how it was made. It was pretty thinly plotted and there wasn’t much “there” for me to think about with regards to theme, though it did take on extra resonance in the backdrop of our fucking moron of a president escalating us to another large scale military conflict. Overall I’d recommend it as a theater experience, but wouldn’t really vouch for it as a film outside of that. You’re better off watching Dunkirk again.
i don't like to take the easy shot of calling this "technically incredible but emotionally lacking" or something but that's kind of what's at the forefront for me. mendes and his long take is clearly being treated as the main course of this film to the point where the more potentially substantial moments (genuinely good as most of them are) take a backseat to a lot of it other than that, the performances, the cinematography, the score (thomas newman over a mendes movie is never a bad thing), and the closing minutes are all great. the film as a whole is... decent. fully expecting tons of people getting pissed if this wins any major non-technical oscars
I don't think it deserves anything outside of the technical awards, but neither do half the movies that will win. It does lack some of the more emotional depth, outside of a couple of scenes, which makes it feel more like an action adventure movie than a non fiction war movie, but I found it to be a super enjoyable theater experience all around.
I think if you look at this as a war movie, it's not that great. But if you look at it as an action movie, it's really damn good.
What do you mean by that? The action was absolutely not the highlight for me, it was the immersiveness (especially in the opening No Man's Land crawl, which was the clear best part of the movie from a tension perspective).
Maybe "action" isn't the right word. Maybe "suspense" or "adventure". I dunno... I just really enjoyed it and was fully immersed in it from the second it began until the credits ran. I completely agree with the criticism that there wasn't much emotional depth or anything to "chew on" but it's not often that I see a movie where I'm completely glued to the screen for the entire run time.
I've been thinking a lot lately about what I enjoy about movies and why movies that everybody else champions (Uncut Gems being a recent example) leave me cold. I think this article on "text vs texture" has been the best way for me to process it. The Two Crucial Filmmaking Elements Causing All Your Movie Feuds