Much more than a trailer, this is more like a first glimpse at the film. After watching this twice, I still really don’t know what the hell it’s about or who the characters are, what they do or what they’re motivations could be, but holy hannah does it look fantastic on an epically grand, cosmic scale. Which could also mean it’s a complete non-sensical mess relying too much on star power and CGI effects work. I do get a bit of the much contentious, “Mr. Nobody meets The Adjustment Bureau in more of a fantasy world” vibe coming off this thing.
But here’s hoping this is the imaginative and creative opus that it looks like it could be. Based on a novel by David Mitchell, I do believe that this is a rare case in which I’d like to get through said novel before tackling the film; ya know, so I can criticize it “fairly.” Official IMDb synopsis is as follows:
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
We have the full trailer under the seats in crystal clear Quicktime format.
Reminds me the most of The Fountain and I am so up for that movie from those guys, also I think I love that they are just cramming all of it into one movie instead of doing two or some bullshit.
I am still looking forward to the Mr. Nobody and Bellflower Movie Club Podcast.
It’ll happen some day. Though we’d have to convince Jay to actually take the 2.5 hours out of his life to watch it again.
Under those circumstances, I would be up for revisiting those films for a Movie Club Podcast. However, it would mean we would have to find a movie that the Mr.Nobody haters love so that the others have something to mutually rip apart.
Andrew hates/dislikes The Hurt Locker, superhero films, anime, The Iron Giant, Iron Man, The Prestige, Greenberg, Monsters, and Red State:
Matt Gamble hates/dislikes The Fountain, Lost in Translation, Tree of Life, Brian De Palma’s films, Lars Von Trier’s films, and as Rot points out, “The more Gamble loathes a film the higher the quotient of potential pathos. Guy is a sentiment filter.”
Kurt hates/dislikes Armagedon, Ron Howard’s films, Raimi’s Spiderman films, Cabin in the Woods, Enchanted, Taken, Iron Man, most of Liam Nesson’s filmography, Red Dawn, and the Natural.
Why am I getting lumped in with the Mr Nobody lovers?
I actually like the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, i don’t love ‘em, but I like em. I dislike Liam Neeson too, maybe only dislike 25% of his filmography!
Otherwise, you’ve got me.
Movie Club Podcast: Mr. Nobody + Margaret + The Game (or Repo Man).
Not a bad idea; especially THE GAME. I think there’s a ton of good stuff to talk about in there – especially with the Criterion Blu of it being released.
I think Mr. Nobody might be fun but also an impasse. Something was fundamentally different between Film Junkers viewing experience and the Third Rowers. A lot of that movie comes down to, “I really liked that part.” “Well, I didn’t.” “Well I did.” “Well I didn’t.” You either like it or you don’t and it’s hard to articulate why on some of that stuff. Still, it might get spirited to be sure.
At this point I’m interested in a Cinecast vs. Mamo! on comic book super hero movies – without the 2 minute time limit thing.
We still haven’t got our crap together for doing 52 Pickup and The Driver episode. I’ll try to make this happen before TIFF starts. Then we can think of doing THE MOVIE CLUB PODCAST: SMACKDOWN EDITION.
I’d enjoy a The Game episode, but wait for the Criterion this fall!
The Game is hands down, my favorite Fincher film. In terms of direction, it is cinematic poetry. The green filter cinematography is also astounding. Michael Douglas, arguably, gives the best performance of his career.
Mr. Nobody & Margaret?
only if Gamble has to rewatch Margaret theatrical and then the director’s cut.
WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE GETTING DOUBLE PENETRATED IN THIS SCENARIO!!!
because they like to hear you scream.
Wow – that’s either going to be an almighty mess or an absolute masterpiece. Either way it looks beautiful and fascinating. The first half of the trailer wasn’t doing much for me, but it truly kicks into gear after that.
I need to get the book read – it’s length always scared me, but by the looks of the trailer I imagine it needs that length.
Watching this for the second time I’m going to go out and a limb and say this won’t work as a movie.
There’s WAY too much in here to keep it as in depth as it looks like it needs to be to be packed into 2-3 hours.
I hope not, but we shall see. Probably should be a trilogy or something.
I have the same feeling (see above), plus a lot of it looks pretty sappy, but I’m remaining hopeful because it looks so damn interesting, visually as well as content-wise.
I hope it is this years THE FALL. Seriously I do.
I think Life of Pi looks more like Tarsem than this.
Also, who is the band playing during that last 1/3 or so? I recognize it but can’t quite place it.
M83
That would explain why they sounded familiar. Thanks Jay. Listened to the shit out of the “Saturdays = Youth” album about three years ago. Haven’t been back for more.
God I wish you Canadians had Spotify!
I’ve been avoiding spotify and rdio because I don’t want to become addicted. I am getting realy tempted as of late, though.
Boy, this looks cool.
I’m going to do a Prometheus and skip everything for this movie, including this trailer. I wish I would’ve done the same for TDKR, then the opening scene and the bridges and football stadium would have been much more impactful.
On the whole, we just know way too much about movies these days before we get to see them, and it almost always hampers our enjoyment, or my enjoyment at least.
Yeah, I was all ready to click and watch this, until I saw it was almost 6 minutes long. Really? I don’t want to see 6 minutes of any movie before I see it. One that sounds as good as this, I probably don’t want to see any of it.
I’ve been saying that for years. I try to avoid almost all trailers like the plague.
However, I make seemingly at random exception. Like with this.
I make exceptions for films that I don’t have any preconceptions about. Like, I had no idea whether I was interested in a Total Recall remake or not – I hadn’t seen the original, knew nothing about the story, had no feelings toward or against it. So I watched the trailer. This one already has the Wachowskis, Tykwer, and an awesome-sounding book in its favor, so I was pretty sure I was going to see it even before everyone started raving about the trailer. Now I’m sure even without watching it myself.
As a trailer this thing was nothing but an abject failure. I knew next to nothing about the film going in and after 6 minutes of disjointed scenes and bad voice overs I’m not in any better position, and now I am even less likely to watch it.
You sound like an old bitter man, Matt Gamble.
The three directors address this problem, in this 2:22 video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q2qeFxgGpM0
So because it is hard to reduce they choose not to even try. Fantabulous. I wonder if that is what they do whenever something is hard? Should make for a terrific film.
Matt Gamble — I prefer this approach than the common approach of spoiling the whole film.
These are hardly the only two ways to cut a trailer. I’d think they’d want to not sell the film as a ridiculously long mish-mashed mess with self-indulgant voice overs and trite philosophical meanderings. That doesn’t exactly entice people to watch a film. Nor does it actually accomplish the primary goal of a trailer, to sell an audience on the film.
Actually, I’m sold on the movie for a few reasons. 1) Visually it looks interesting and epic. 2) I’m genuinely curious about what the story is since this trailer really tells me nothing. 3) I’m curious to see if they can pull it off because this trailer makes it look like a mess.
I agree with Matt that this trailer is a disjointed mess. But in this case I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. It gives hints at all sorts of things and glimpses of past and present and some “our” favorite movie stars in different worlds as different characters. So while it’s intriguing, I have no idea what the movie is actually about; which is good. I want to go in surprised. Also, there’s so much here that I won’t remember any of it by the time the film actually screens.
With all this said, they are obviously going to have a more conventional trailer that can be played in 2.5 mins in the theaters and 30 second spots on TV.
An 100 million dollar, independent film. Interesting.
So, based on the TIFF reaction, this is most polarizing film since Mr. Nobody. I am still looking forward to watching the film.
This and To the Wonder. Kurt got his reactions reversed.
Fair warning, by the looks of it Kurt is to Cloud Atlas as I was to Drive last year.