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safaco posted:There are also a number of points where characters seem to make choices just to drive the story forward, rather than for reasons that make internal sense. President Offerman staying in the Oval Office instead of a bunker somewhere, just so they can get the symbolism-drenched shot of him clutching to the Resolute desk as they drag him out. Kirsten Dunst choosing to push Jessie down and then. . .just stand there? with a patronizing look on her face? instead of doing the easier move of grabbing her and throwing both their bodies to the ground/side, just so she can get shot and complete Jessie's character arc. Nobody helping Thufir when he gets shot, so that the camera can instead get a bunch (more) shots of crying and grim faces. The Western Forces soldiers mugging for the camera as they commit a clear war crime. Plemons not hearing an old Ford ExMachina roaring up on him from a quarter mile away, so that the remaining journalists can escape certain death. Generally agree with your take-aways. I will say one thing that's helped me from deprogramming from the "cinemasins ding" method of watching movies to give them a little grace around the implausible that happens for plot and theme. I work backwards from "it had to happen that way for a reason that wasn't directly important to the story they're telling." Specifically why Offerman isn't in a saferoom: My take away from what we're shown is he's a madman that refuses to believe Berlin is about to fall, to the point of insanity until he's literally looking down the barrel of Chief Clark's carbine. He's right where he belongs, and he's not going to tell the American people he cowered in a bunker during the triumphant moment the rebellious Western Forces were repelled from the District of Columbia.
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Apr 17, 2024 22:36
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this piece of marketing made me laugh. really not beating the "English dude who has no conception of the United States" allegations  it's fully AI, no part of Chicago looks like this
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Apr 17, 2024 22:58
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Famethrowa posted:this piece of marketing made me laugh. really not beating the "English dude who has no conception of the United States" allegations If it had Dave Matthews' tour bus on the bridge it would've been more believable.
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Apr 17, 2024 23:01
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Stoked for the direct-to-streaming sequel Civil War 2: Battle of the River North Canals.
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Apr 17, 2024 23:02
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I continue to be fascinated by Alex Garland's position in interviews:"nytimes posted:“I think civil war is just an extension of a situation,” said Garland, the 53-year-old British director behind “Ex Machina” and “Men.” “That situation is polarization and the lack of limiting forces on polarization.”
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Apr 17, 2024 23:24
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Oh I see, so he's a total idiot.
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Apr 17, 2024 23:26
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I never want to see the word "polarization" used in political musing ever again
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Apr 17, 2024 23:38
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Well after November you may not have to worry about that again! 
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Apr 17, 2024 23:46
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It's funny if his intent was to lionize good old fashioned press-tag-in-fedora journalists because my read of the themes expressed through the main characters was an extremely critical view of consumption of atrocity as lurid voyeurism. All of the main characters except Sammy are some combination of husks or deranged adrenaline junkies. Joel is all but jerking off to every bit of gore he snaps.
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Apr 18, 2024 00:19
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Alex Garland probably thought Ace in the Hole was inspirational.
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Apr 18, 2024 00:20
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Owlbear Camus posted:Generally agree with your take-aways. I will say one thing that's helped me from deprogramming from the "cinemasins ding" method of watching movies to give them a little grace around the implausible that happens for plot and theme. I work backwards from "it had to happen that way for a reason that wasn't directly important to the story they're telling." I'm happy to participate in the suspension of disbelief but these decisions kind of aggressively strain credulity. Like, I can believe that Offerman would've wanted to make his last stand in the White House. But in the Oval Office specifically? Right in front of three giant exterior windows? And all those Secret Service agents were just going to let him do that? That's. . .a little silly. Especially for a movie that's just spent two hours telling us that combat makes pragmatic survivors of us all. But that alone could be fine, especially to get the shot of him clutching at the desk. But the fact that it's preceded immediately by Kirsten Dunst basically going out of her way to die a symbolic death that also neatly completes a character arc, and followed immediately by WF soldiers happily documenting their war crime so that we can get more black-and-white shots of Jessie's burgeoning photography career, I think that pretty clearly dips into "plain old bad writing" territory.
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Apr 18, 2024 00:38
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Presumably the remaining Secret Service guys are the ride-or-die authoritarians, and since the President is a lunatic there's no tactical considerations to his behavior. It's pretty weak tea but that's what the movie is serving.
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Apr 18, 2024 00:47
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Maybe this one will sit better: the Beast Dash out of the gate was a decoy to let him try to break for Marine One, he just left the safe room minutes ago, and on his way up he and his detail got pinned down there. I'm sure if one's special interest is white house security and floorplan this doesn't work, but it hangs together okay enough in the abstract. I didn't really think much of "documenting a war crime" because while we the audience understand that is what's happening, for millions and millions Americans living in the weird speculative future presented this is their Ceaușescu moment. The "orders came down" that it was kill not capture; not difficult to imagine that the WF held a show trial in absentia and Chief Clark and the squad have legal cover, however notional. This also explains why they are all too happy to let the reporters join the room to room fighting, they want this poo poo documented. E: Maybe it would be more apt to say this is their Bin Laden raid? Point stands. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 00:56
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I continue to be fascinated by Alex Garland's position in interviews: saw it yesterday, spent a few hours mulling it over, still can't really decide if i ultimately really liked the movie or am just lukewarm on it and trying to convince myself otherwise lol you definitely have to take a death of the author stance on this movie, everything i've seen from garland seems to be at odds with the movie itself. the most interesting analysis i've seen is using the plot and lee/joel/jessica's characters to represent "traditional" press and the more modern "social media" influenced press that's more just thrill seekers getting battle clips to post on twitter, and how they'll influence the next generation of war reporters. and, again, if you look up Garland's take on this its that he saw this movie as glorifying war reporting when all of the characters involved are pretty awful people with little or no moral integrity who never once manage to take the high road. even when presented with war crimes and a chance to report on something that could be important they just end up escaping and lamenting how they're not gonna be able to report on The Big Story of the president getting assassinated.
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Apr 18, 2024 02:29
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safaco posted:I'm happy to participate in the suspension of disbelief but these decisions kind of aggressively strain credulity. Like, I can believe that Offerman would've wanted to make his last stand in the White House. But in the Oval Office specifically? Right in front of three giant exterior windows? And all those Secret Service agents were just going to let him do that? That's. . .a little silly. Especially for a movie that's just spent two hours telling us that combat makes pragmatic survivors of us all. there's lots of little things outside of this you can look at closer to ruin the movie for yourself. how did jessica snap multiple photos close together so many times? she has an old school film reel camera. like you have to physically crank a knob to go to the next shot, lol
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Apr 18, 2024 02:32
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The trick is probably that they simply don't actually see that poo poo as meaningfully bad.
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Apr 18, 2024 02:55
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Minera posted:
I think this is exactly what the movie came across as and I'm convinced Garland never saw his own movie based on his interviews. And honestly the more I think about it the more I do like the movie. Just perhaps for reasons that would mystify the writers and directors.
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Apr 18, 2024 04:25
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Famethrowa posted:I think this is exactly what the movie came across as and I'm convinced Garland never saw his own movie based on his interviews. Yeah, there's a lot of really well done bits if you lock in on this, it just gets buried under the Gee, War is Bad! and This is what ACW2 would look like! bits. I think I'm starting to lean "it's a really good movie" but almost entirely by accident. If nothing else, the cinematography is loving excellent. I think almost everyone I've talked to got got by the Go Steelers shot where your eye is drawn across the screen to the hanging bodies right after. Lee is the Traditional Press: She went around subjecting herself to all these horrors in a vain hope that if enough people saw it, the horrors would stop. The whole flashback sequence in the bath tub does an amazing job setting the tone of her character as someone's who has seen it all and explains why her reaction to a kid getting a bat in the face and seeing a suicide bombing is just "geez wear a kevlar vest next time" instead of "holy poo poo why are you experiencing this." And she drives this further home by directly saying "I went and took all these photos so that the people back home would say 'we can never let this happen here.'" and she experiences a break down over the course of the movie at the fact that the war happens anyways. When asked if she would take someone's death photo, she instantly reacts "Yes," later in the movie she reflects on her friend and mentor Sammy's death photo and deletes it, because she can't behave in that detached way anymore. Joel is the modern "press" as we know it in the social media era: He wants to get the scoop by being the first to report the President is dead, the war is over. But is he doing it because he's a reporter, or because he's just a thrill seeker? He blurs the lines constantly and pushes things too far; the first time you really see this is when it shows some actual war combat happening in the distance one night and he screams "holy poo poo this is giving me such a hard on!" You see it again when he's laughing and joking with a partisan about shooting a helpless wounded man in a building while a black bag execution goes on in the background. Jessica and Tony's friend jumping between speeding trucks on the highway is probably the most blatant example the movie makes of "okay, these people are just freaks out to endanger their lives, like mountain climbers or cave divers." But at the same time the movie does its best to constantly try and draw you in and entice you the same way they're enticed; the final act of the movie is all about drawing you the viewer in with the mystique of "oh, holy poo poo, are they actually gonna capture the president? are they gonna kill him? are they actually gonna make it there to take The Photo???" and maybe you start to innately understand the dark side of it all. Jessica is the next generation, quite literally; the actress is actually 23 but she's short and could pass for someone younger; Joel says she's "like 23" with the viewer assuming okay, she's actually like, fresh out of high school at best. She's not someone who should be in a war zone; Lee understands this and says "no" to bringing her along at first, then starts to realize she's made her choice to dehumanize herself the same way Lee did, and does her best to pass on what she can, even knowing how broken it will make her as a person. This is further paralleled several ways; Lee takes color photos and looks around the world and acts emotional and starts to understand the consequences of being in a war zone again; when everyone is freaking out under sniper fire, it snaps to that lensed camera angle it uses to represent her POV as she focuses on the beautiful flowers in front of her instead of the actual loving war happening right in front of her. By the third act she's an emotional mess in the middle of a war zone (right up until she realizes they're steps away from seeing the president first), not the completely jaded expert photographer she's represented as in the first two acts. Notice also that Jessica takes analytical black and white photos, while Lee is using color, to further represent how she's no longer seeing things black and white, but far too late to make a difference anymore. Minera fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 05:52
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Owlbear Camus posted:It's funny if his intent was to lionize good old fashioned press-tag-in-fedora journalists because my read of the themes expressed through the main characters was an extremely critical view of consumption of atrocity as lurid voyeurism. All of the main characters except Sammy are some combination of husks or deranged adrenaline junkies. Joel is all but jerking off to every bit of gore he snaps. I would suppose that Garland's idea is that the only way the truth gets back to the People at Home is through good old fashioned on-site photography and video, not punditry. But in this movie the job is arguably heroic, the people are not. Joel is a pilled-up, emotionally stunted scumbag, Lee is an absolute shell of a human being, I can't figure out why Sammy isn't retired let alone riding in a van toward the apocalypse, and Jessie is on her way to becoming Lee. Nothing of their behavior is especially noble or even seemingly competent. I wonder how accurate the depiction of following around troops to photograph them that closely is--I suspect not very. If a soldier has to tell you to get out of their way/shut the gently caress up, on the second time they'd probably just knock you out. Owlbear Camus posted:Maybe this one will sit better: the Beast Dash out of the gate was a decoy to let him try to break for Marine One, he just left the safe room minutes ago, and on his way up he and his detail got pinned down there. I'm sure if one's special interest is white house security and floorplan this doesn't work, but it hangs together okay enough in the abstract. For the Bin Laden raid, setting aside a variety of questions about the technical legality, violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, and so on, the public was initially given the polite fiction that it was a kill-or-capture mission. It later was admitted that the raid was kill on sight and retrieve corpse. When it comes down to brass tacks, people choose thorough over merciful or legal. Rival leaders being murdered during civil conflicts seems pretty likely. No one in the military's ever going to get charged for killing a president implied to be a war criminal, especially when they were clearly ordered to kill him. Again yeah I don't think the final scenario depicted comports with imaginable reality, it's trying to give a surreal effect to various levels of effectiveness. Pretty much every time a dictator is captured after an extended war, they're found under a rock somewhere or on the end of a meat hook. You wouldn't make your stand in the Oval Office unless you were completely delusional or something. I think it's an open question on whether the Secret Service would commit to go down fighting even if they were true loyalists. Just lots of little things, to name only two. But it's more surreal to have the head of the Secret Service try to negotiate a surrender in the briefing room before being murdered, before taking a picture with the dead president in the Oval Office.
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Apr 18, 2024 12:12
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So perhaps I just missed something, but can someone give me a rundown of exactly where this film started and the route they took to DC? When they said Charlottesville, the only one I know of is in NC, but that obviously makes no sense and now that I have checked at least that out, I see that its in Virginia, but I am still confused about roughly what the journey they made was. I was under the impression that it was from New York, but Charlottesville VA is south of DC and that just seemed a weird route. I am not American and I was trying to make sense of it while watching. Loved the film for the record, but my American wife found it a very difficult watch. She said that she wouldnt be shocked if this was a dangerous film to see in certain parts of her home state.
FiftySeven fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 15:26
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They start in NYC. The weird route that kind of circles around from the south through c-ville seems easily explicable since we're shown mostly blocked interstates and military checkpoints.
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Apr 18, 2024 15:38
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FiftySeven posted:So perhaps I just missed something, but can someone give me a rundown of exactly where this film started and the route they took to DC? When they said Charlottesville, the only one I know of is in NC, but that obviously makes no sense and now that I have checked at least that out, I see that its in Virginia, but I am still confused about roughly what the journey they made was. I was under the impression that it was from New York, but Charlottesville VA is south of DC and that just seemed a weird route. I am not American and I was trying to make sense of it while watching. Loved the film for the record, but my American wife found it a very difficult watch. She said that she wouldnt be shocked if this was a dangerous film to see in certain parts of her home state. They basically went down Interstate 80/81, which takes you out of the city, through Pennsylvania and West Virginia into Virginia.
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Apr 18, 2024 15:55
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FiftySeven posted:So perhaps I just missed something, but can someone give me a rundown of exactly where this film started and the route they took to DC? When they said Charlottesville, the only one I know of is in NC, but that obviously makes no sense and now that I have checked at least that out, I see that its in Virginia, but I am still confused about roughly what the journey they made was. I was under the impression that it was from New York, but Charlottesville VA is south of DC and that just seemed a weird route. I am not American and I was trying to make sense of it while watching. Loved the film for the record, but my American wife found it a very difficult watch. She said that she wouldnt be shocked if this was a dangerous film to see in certain parts of her home state. You’re thinking of Charlotte, NC. Charlottesville, VA is where all that alt right poo poo happened and the woman was killed. They mention something about not being able to go through Philadelphia so they have to take the long way around. I think it’s when they’re talking to Sammy in the hotel.
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Apr 18, 2024 15:56
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Something that's struck me is that this movie is supposed to be at least 12-20 years in the future and there's no drone warfare which has become increasingly commonplace over the past decade, especially in Syria and Ukraine.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:02
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Young Freud posted:Something that's struck me is that this movie is supposed to be at least 12-20 years in the future and there's no drone warfare which has become increasingly commonplace over the past decade, especially in Syria and Ukraine. another area in which The Purge: Election Year had its finger closer to the pulse than this movie
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Apr 18, 2024 18:03
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wasn't election year the one where they had to rescue Hilary clinton and vote her in to finally put a stop to all this mean old purging through bourgeoisie electoral politics?
Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 18:12
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Owlbear Camus posted:wasn't election year the one where they had to rescue Hilary clinton and vote her in to finally put a stop to all this mean old purging through bourgeoisie electoral politics? i think you're confusing it with the actual election year in which it came out
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Apr 18, 2024 18:24
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Young Freud posted:Something that's struck me is that this movie is supposed to be at least 12-20 years in the future and there's no drone warfare which has become increasingly commonplace over the past decade, especially in Syria and Ukraine.
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Apr 18, 2024 23:37
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So, I just need to know how realistic it is. We all know if Civil War broke out today, it would be Jan 6'rs vs the rest of the country. Overweight people covered head to toe in the US flag with pink and purple AR-15s and 5 laser sights on their guns. Tazering themselves in the balls and probably tripping over every log and accidentally shooting themselves in the head as they scrambled to defend their "territory". It would absolutely not be two or three sides of military people going against each other. It would be meal team 6 vs everyone else.
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Apr 18, 2024 23:45
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Philthy posted:So, I just need to know how realistic it is. We all know if Civil War broke out today, it would be Jan 6'rs vs the rest of the country. Overweight people covered head to toe in the US flag with pink and purple AR-15s and 5 laser sights on their guns. Tazering themselves in the balls and probably tripping over every log and accidentally shotting themselves in the head as they scrambled to defend their "territory". It would absolutely not be two or three sides of military people going against each other. It would be meal team 6 vs everyone else. You forgot that the cops (and a decent part of the military) will likely side with Meal Team 6.
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Apr 18, 2024 23:47
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Famethrowa posted:this piece of marketing made me laugh. really not beating the "English dude who has no conception of the United States" allegations lol is the big centerpiece a loving parking garage
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Apr 19, 2024 00:00
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The D in Detroit posted:lol is the big centerpiece a loving parking garage put some respect on their name https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_City
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Apr 19, 2024 00:06
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So what stage of capitalism is it when Hollywood produces a movie called “Civil War” in a country (and about that country) where social upheaval and turbulence has never been more pronounced in our lifetimes due to decades of bipartisan austerity politics?
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Apr 19, 2024 00:06
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I want a version of this movie where the civil war is ongoing but capitalism keeps grinding along, so everyone is still hard at work flogging the service industry to keep the last remnants of our treats-based society alive.
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Apr 19, 2024 00:26
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Owlbear Camus posted:wasn't election year the one where they had to rescue Hilary clinton and vote her in to finally put a stop to all this mean old purging through bourgeoisie electoral politics? That's the one they did just before Trump was elected. The prequel they did directly after the 2016 election is straight up "The Purge was ethnic clensing from the get go and the funny costumes are Cop Uniforms, Klan Robes and Nazi Regalia now." I quite like that before the government sends in the disguised paramilitary death squads to shake things up almost all of the first Purge participants we see are people playing mildly dangerous pranks, or trying to break open ATMs, or setting up and attending wild parties, or crooks trying to screw over other crooks while the police won't intervene, and the one guy who wants to be Jason Voorhees is anticlimactically shot by the aforementioned death squads during the climax. High Warlord Zog fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 19, 2024 |
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Apr 19, 2024 00:33
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I continue to be fascinated by Alex Garland's position in interviews: Breathtaking. Truly Kamala-like.
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Apr 19, 2024 00:39
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Young Freud posted:Something that's struck me is that this movie is supposed to be at least 12-20 years in the future and there's no drone warfare which has become increasingly commonplace over the past decade, especially in Syria and Ukraine. And yet there's an attack helicopter flying between the bottom of skyscrapers to missile people from 30 feet away for some reason
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Apr 19, 2024 00:40
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The fact the Western Alliance seemed to have the entire USAF fleet of F-22 Raptors (there's less than 200 in service right now & production stopped in 2011) is another one of those  moments.
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Apr 19, 2024 00:49
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Android Apocalypse posted:The fact the Western Alliance seemed to have the entire USAF fleet of F-22 Raptors (there's less than 200 in service right now & production stopped in 2011) is another one of those It is way more plausible than anyone operating f35s at that point.
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Apr 19, 2024 00:52
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The Loyalists sold all their F-35's to fund the war. Probably to Saudi Arabia. Or Israel. Or both!
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Apr 19, 2024 00:56
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