Arrival | Nov 11, 2016 | Villeneuve/Adams/Renner | First Reviews Have Arrived.

[cannastop]

Going to see this soon. I'm giving a local theater one last chance to have a decent show.

[Kraken]

2 hours ago, La Binoche said:

Arrival is getting Best Picture and Best Actress nominations. 

 

Probably Adapted Screenplay too

[Eevin]

Any chance of a Best Director nomination for Villenueve? One of the most underappreciated directors working today, IMO.

[Wrath]

19 hours ago, DAJK said:

I'm afraid this is gonna be losing lots of screens to Star Wars  

 

Well, probably, just because Rogue One will pull screens from everything. But they're two *really* different movies and I doubt there's much direct competition between them. Plus, it'll be Arrival's 5th weekend so Rogue One shouldn't hurt its total that badly.

 

Its kinda wacky that any significant amount of its domestic take is still at risk.

 

Edit - I feel like I'm going to get rocks thrown at me, but I only thought it was good, rather than great. Adams was terrific, and I thought the pacing was perfect, its just that... I felt like it was a little too sure of its own massive importance.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Wrath

[DAJK]

4 minutes ago, Wrath said:

 

Well, probably, just because Rogue One will pull screens from everything. But they're two *really* different movies and I doubt there's much direct competition between them. Plus, it'll be Arrival's *5th* weekend so Rogue One shouldn't hurt its total that badly.

 

Edit - I feel like I'm going to get rocks thrown at me, but I only thought it was good, rather than great. Adams was terrific, and I thought the pacing was perfect, its just that... I felt like it was a little too sure of its own massive importance.

I thought it was good too. That's it. Buddy of mine who saw it last night and I were discussing it this morning and there were a lot of things we also didn't like about it.

[Wrath]

7 minutes ago, DAJK said:

I thought it was good too. That's it. Buddy of mine who saw it last night and I were discussing it this morning and there were a lot of things we also didn't like about it.

 

Yeah. Without getting into spoilers, I'll say that I liked the overall structure of the story but I didn't really like the ending that much.

[DAJK]

5 minutes ago, Wrath said:

 

Yeah. Without getting into spoilers, I'll say that I liked the overall structure of the story but I didn't really like the ending that much.

Same! I loved it at first but it hasn't sat well with time.

[RandomCat]

10 minutes ago, Wrath said:

 

Yeah. Without getting into spoilers, I'll say that I liked the overall structure of the story but I didn't really like the ending that much.

 

I felt like there was a beat missing. Something to tie the ending tighter.

[Tau Ceti]

Snubbed by the Globes! Bastards!

[AniNate]

Likely going to finish just short of $100 mil. A solid take for a niche sci-fi movie with a modest budget.

[marveldcfox]

4 hours ago, tribefan695 said:

Likely going to finish just short of $100 mil. A solid take for a niche sci-fi movie with a modest budget.

Oscars should push it to 100.

[AniNate]

I kinda doubt this movie gets much of an Oscar bump; all the buzz is going to LLL, MBTS and Moonlight.

[Tau Ceti]

I think this is behaving better than we thought it would a month ago. Based on Flight, I thought it's "natural" progression would land between 91 and 95 mil. It's going to get just shy of 96 mil "natural". A BP nom will clearly bump it to the century. This is doing fine.

[The Panda]

On 12/9/2016 at 11:52 AM, Eevin said:

Any chance of a Best Director nomination for Villenueve? One of the most underappreciated directors working today, IMO.

 

He has a good shot, but nothing's a guarantee right now.

[Eevin]

1 hour ago, tribefan695 said:

I kinda doubt this movie gets much of an Oscar bump; all the buzz is going to LLL, MBTS and Moonlight.

*koff* Hidden Figures  *hakk* *koff*

[robertman2]

If I had one wish, it would be that Norm pf the North sweeps the Oscars.

 

Or Arrival. Either is fine.

[JonathanLB]

On 12/9/2016 at 10:38 AM, RandomJC said:

 

I felt like there was a beat missing. Something to tie the ending tighter.

 

Something that didn't suck out of the ending would also be fantastic. If I had known the "message" of this movie or whatever, I would have avoided it. 

 

To be nice, I liked the cinematography, it was very good, I liked the atmosphere that the movie created. It had a dark, gloomy sort of look that worked. I liked the acting. The craft of the movie, there wasn't anything to complain about, but that's also kind of expected. I mean I don't walk out of a movie like Independence Day 2 going, "Well, it was very nicely crafted, obviously professionals worked on this movie!" Well, yeah, but the movie itself was pretty much garbage. Sure, it looked nice, and it was professionally made, but it played in movie theaters so that's... kind of expected. Like a pro basketball player understanding how to dribble the ball. 

 

As someone who doesn't like kids, doesn't ever want kids, yeah, I'm not apologetic about hating a movie where Amy Adams is basically like, "Put a baby into me!" and even when she knows her kid is doomed. That's disgusting. I don't need to see that and cannot empathize with such a mediocre and illogical sentiment. If that's your "big message" of the movie, then I'm sorry, but you didn't deliver anything worth watching. It also had absolutely glacial pacing. It was flat out a boring movie. I thought I would enjoy it, and really focused on the film for the first 45 minutes, then it was all I could do not to check my phone and load up Facebook and just find some way to kill time until it mercifully ended. Lucky for this movie my passionate hatred for Manchester and Moonlight is far more intense than for Arrival, so it narrowly escapes being one of the worst films I saw in 2016. Now it's just like top 10 worst film, instead of top 3, which is still pretty bad. Granted, I didn't see Norm of the North and I avoided some other critical duds but I have no doubt a lot of "bad movies" I would probably enjoy more than Arrival. 

 

I guess the ultimate message is supposed to be some cracker jack box "everyone needs to work together and listen to each other and we need to focus more on globalization." Yeah, that was the big liberal keyword for the last 20 years, and that's great and all, but I don't agree with that message either. This movie was a lot of agenda, none of which I support, so what's left is.. a slow, boring, meandering film with some pretty visuals. Yay?

[The Stingray]

@JonathanLB

 

That's an interesting point. Hadn't thought about it that way, that she wants to give birth to a child that is destined to die a few years later. That's selfish and inhumane.

 

Anyways, so Arrival, Manchester and Moonlight are your bottom 3 of the year. Out of curiosity, what's your top 3?
 

[Avatree]

For all the imagery in this film I thought it was pretty empty.

[Jake Gittes]

5 hours ago, The Stingray said:

 

That's an interesting point. Hadn't thought about it that way, that she wants to give birth to a child that is destined to die a few years later. That's selfish and inhumane.

 

It's not about what she wants or doesn't want. There is only one possible future, and she knows what's going to happen but she doesn't have control of it, so the movie is about her accepting it. I have my problems with the execution of that story - namely that Renner's character has all the depth of a Ken doll, and the daughter's sad angelic death from cancer conveniently absolves anyone of any responsibility for it (in the short story she dies mountain climbing, so she's at least consciously risking her life). But I think the basic idea of people knowing their future and coming to terms with it is good material for a drama, unless you are depressed by the very concept of that future being impossible to change, which is understandable. 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Jake Gittes