Disney's A Wrinkle in Time | 9th March, 2018 | Frozen's Jennifer Lee writing, Ava DuVernay directing. 45% on RT

[Dementeleus]

4 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

 

I think we have different ideas of what "sincerity" entails, though. I feel like it's a label you can apply to any film when you're trying to be nice to it.

 

This explains our differences, yep. I find it hard to apply the definition to a movie that doesn't have a strong clear distinct vision and *also* happens to be un-cynical and not afraid of seeming "cheesy".

[Barnack]

8 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

I think we have different ideas of what "sincerity" entails, though. I feel like it's a label you can apply to any film when you're trying to be nice to it.

Thiis is pretty much why those conversation turn out to be strange and a bit "useless" most of the time, people going on about a word without giving a clear definition of what they mean by that (in a context that is not clearly obvious), are the intention sincere, is the movie that person would have made regardless of any outside pressure of what they had in their head as their dream movie is what a sincere movie is ?

 

Is having no calculation made in the process of making the movie is being sincere ?

 

Really not sure exactly what people mean, there is obvious example of "insincere" movies, pure calculation of making money like Angry Bird and San Andreas, pure market study transferred into screen that do not represent an artist true feeling/belief and desire, not the movie he would have made he if could have made anything he really wanted (I guess that the best definition of a sincere movie), but then again they could be sincere that this is exactly what they are doing.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Barnack

[AniNate]

 

 

[AniNate]

4 minutes ago, Telehilation said:

 

This explains our differences, yep. I find it hard to apply the definition to a movie that doesn't have a strong clear distinct vision and *also* happens to be un-cynical and not afraid of seeming "cheesy".

 

But looking at the biggest earners historically, you don't think those qualities apply to them? Big time agree to disagree there, then.

 

I think optimism and cheesiness are things everyone claims to hate but secretly really craves. Movies and shows where those qualities really shine and have a cohesive vision guiding them have always had an appeal and still very much do, imo. The "cohesive vision" thing though seems like it might be the rub here.

[Dementeleus]

5 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

 

But looking at the biggest earners historically, you don't think those qualities apply to them? Big time agree to disagree there, then.

 

I see, you're talking about the biggest earners of all time. I was talking about "big blockbusters" -- i.e., the ones that get made by the bucketload every year (and many of which make a substantial amount of money).

 

I also think it's generally harder for sequels to fall into this category (almost by definition, though there are exceptions).

 

So we have not one but two different definitions -- no wonder we disagreed.  

[Porthos]

31 minutes ago, Telehilation said:

 

This explains our differences, yep. I find it hard to apply the definition to a movie that doesn't have a strong clear distinct vision and *also* happens to be un-cynical and not afraid of seeming "cheesy".

 

29 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

 

 

I want to highlight that bit in Tele's post and these two tweets because I think that is where a lot this is coming from.

 

Let's not kid ourselves.  There are a LOT of cynical dark and dour blockbusters out there recently.  Hell, even Optimistic Star Wars is coming off of two films which were pretty downbeat for the franchise.  And, of course, there is the elephant in the room: The DCEU.

 

The subject matter of AWiT is about as far as one can get from a lot of modern blockbusters.  If it is at all like the book, that is.  (Which, incidentally, is why  the "be a warrior" tagline irks me so much).

I can see AWiT getting a bit more praise than some blockbusters because it is preaching a different message than a lot of films right now.  "Just review the movie" is great in isolation.  But these things are rarely done in isolation.  Especially if one has been getting a steady diet of a certain type of film for about 15 years. 

 

It's also why some films can have extra resonance in some times and less in others.

 

Now this doesn't mean a horrible movie will get a fantastic score.  But it can move the needle around the edges.  And, yes, this is exactly where the area of "ambitious failure" comes in.

 

In summary, save the complaints for reviews that give it four our of four stars/four out of five stars AND says it is a mess. 

 

But if a review says it's flawed, but still good/worth seeing and you don't agree with the reasons for seeing it?  Well... The reviewer did their job, no? 

 

(Just another reason why Rotten Tomatoes is... not the greatest metric out there, BTW.    Simply boiling down something to "recommended/not recommended" can work in a lot of cases.  But for the edge cases... Well, let's just say this is where the warts of the metric can show up and leave it at that)

Edited March 7, 2018 by Porthos

[Porthos]

BTW, if anyone wants to point out the seeming contradiction in my stance for praising a movie like TLJ where it dared to embrace failure as a central motif AND saying I am looking forward to a movie that is unapologetic when it comes to wearing its heart on its sleeve...

 

Well, all I can say is that I contain multitudes.

 

Spoiler

There's a lot more to it, of course.  And I can easily square the circle here and point out that if one digs deep enough, it's not a contradiction at all.  But this ain't the thread for it.

 

[AniNate]

6 minutes ago, Porthos said:

Now this doesn't mean a horrible movie will get a fantastic score.  But it can move the needle around the edges.  And, yes, this is exactly where the area of "ambitious failure" comes in.

 

In summary, save the complaints for reviews that give it four our of four stars/four out of five stars AND says it is a mess. 

 

But if a review says it's flawed, but still good/worth seeing and you don't agree with the reasons for seeing it?  Well... The reviewer did their job, no? 

 

It didn't really matter to me how much of a factor it was in his rating. It just struck me as one of those shallow, overused phrases like "strong female characters" and "a love letter to ________" that I want all critics to stop using.

[RRA]

40 minutes ago, Ryan Reynolds said:

Ava the new Zac Snyder with ambitious failures ?

So she’ll have obnoxious fans who’ll overrate her skills when she dabbles in comic book movies?

[Steele131]

8 minutes ago, RRA said:

So she’ll have obnoxious fans who’ll overrate her skills when she dabbles in comic book movies?

She already has fans that do that tbh 

[AniNate]

Worth mentioning that Ava's filmography consists of a lot more than Selma but only that movie has gained her any of the notoriety she has. She was never a directing prodigy the likes of Andrew Stanton or Brad Bird. 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by tribefan695

[HockeyPads]

41 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

I want to highlight that bit in Tele's post and these two tweets because I think that is where a lot this is coming from.

 

Let's not kid ourselves.  There are a LOT of cynical dark and dour blockbusters out there recently.  Hell, even Optimistic Star Wars is coming off of two films which were pretty downbeat for the franchise.  And, of course, there is the elephant in the room: The DCEU.

 

The subject matter of AWiT is about as far as one can get from a lot of modern blockbusters.  If it is at all like the book, that is.  (Which, incidentally, is why  the "be a warrior" tagline irks me so much).

I can see AWiT getting a bit more praise than some blockbusters because it is preaching a different message than a lot of films right now.  "Just review the movie" is great in isolation.  But these things are rarely done in isolation.  Especially if one has been getting a steady diet of a certain type of film for about 15 years. 

 

It's also why some films can have extra resonance in some times and less in others.

 

Now this doesn't mean a horrible movie will get a fantastic score.  But it can move the needle around the edges.  And, yes, this is exactly where the area of "ambitious failure" comes in.

 

In summary, save the complaints for reviews that give it four our of four stars/four out of five stars AND says it is a mess. 

 

But if a review says it's flawed, but still good/worth seeing and you don't agree with the reasons for seeing it?  Well... The reviewer did their job, no? 

 

(Just another reason why Rotten Tomatoes is... not the greatest metric out there, BTW.    Simply boiling down something to "recommended/not recommended" can work in a lot of cases.  But for the edge cases... Well, let's just say this is where the warts of the metric can show up and leave it at that)

RT does have an average rating as well.

[BeastByTheBay]

Saw this on my Timeline

 

Also

 

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by BeastByTheBay

[marveldcfox]

Looks like the editor and director couldn't put the movie together with the material they had. Ava needs to do a small Oscar bait film after this, which hopefully she knocks it out of the park and then do a movie in an existing franchise or MCU film guaranteed to make money.

[Porthos]

25 minutes ago, HockeyPads said:

RT does have an average rating as well.

Yep. There's a reason why I almost always report the avg when I am posting an RT score.  It's my small contribution into trying to get people to focus more on the average x/10 rating and stop being so fixated on the up/down rating.

[RRA]

3 minutes ago, marveldcfox said:

Looks like the editor and director couldn't put the movie together with the material they had. Ava needs to do a small Oscar bait film after this, which hopefully she knocks it out of the park and then do a movie in an existing franchise or MCU film guaranteed to make money.

Kevin Feige is thinking “good thing I picked the right person for Black Panther.”

[syntaxerror]

Whats with Disney and 'original' movies? The get great, hyped-up directors (Duvernay, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird) each time but it just doesn't work.

[DAJK]

Looks like this coulda been a great Ang Lee movie

 

edit: this is only coming from the fact that he made Life of Pi, one of the best movies of its year from an "unfilmable book"

Edited March 7, 2018 by DAJK

[Mojoguy]

edit: this is only coming from the fact that he made Life of Pi, one of the best movies of its year from an "unfilmable book"

LOTR was unfilmable once until it wasn't.

The term "unfilmable" needs to die.

[Porthos]

13 minutes ago, Mojoguy said:

The term "unfilmable" needs to die.

Get back to me when Finnegan's Wake  is successfully adapted to the silver screen.

 

(I mean, I get the point.  And even I think the term is somewhat overused for AWiT, as I think most of it came about before the rise of modern CGI)

((Still, even said, I think calling A Wrinkle in Time a... challenging book to adapt is pretty fair))