Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Public Enemies


So I thought I'd post about a movie I disliked for once... I saw this quote today and I thought of this film: "Michael Mann told me that people experience movies *backward*, as they leave the theater; the climax/ending is really the beginning."

Discuss Below...

7 comments:

  1. I don't have time for a full review right now... I just would like to say that this is the ONLY film I've ever fallen asleep to in the theater... and Christian Bale and Johnny Depp are two of the most talented actors working today... so I blame Michael Mann...

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  2. It's like he was trying to make an "epic" movie... that just wasn't epic at all. And yea he def wasted the talent. I didn't fall asleep in the theater (like I almost did in Transformers 2), but I did think about getting up and leaving just out of boredom.

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  3. I to fell asleep in this movie...four times I might add.

    I gotta say, I really disliked the use of the digital camera. I know what he was going for, but I completely didn't feel it. Every time the digital look or blur was noticable, I felt like it would have been better if it had been film. It looked like a cheap history channel documentary with a large budget. It bored me in almost everyway.

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  4. I agree with you Jeremy... It felt like the filmmakers thought the film was more epic than it was...

    I really just couldn't care less about the characters... i felt like there wasn't anything there... like Mann just figured if he took these empty characters and filled them with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale then there would be something there...

    I never once cared what happened to them...

    The digital camerawork was ugly and distracting... i remember the most stunning shot in the film for me was the last scene... a closeup of Marion Cotilliard... and I remember it looking so much nicer than the rest of the film... turns out that shot was the only film shot in the movie... I think if they had used some more "classical" techniques then the movie would've worked a little better... using an EX1 for a period piece is a Full Sail move...

    Now I'm not saying film is better than digital. I understand what they were going for in terms of shooting a period piece like a documentary with today's technology... but an audience is used to a certain aesthetic when it comes to this type of movie... and if you have nothing else supremely interesting going on in your movie, that disconnect that the "unusual" images creates with the audience becomes a weakness...

    I had a friend of mine from VA (who knows absolutely nothing about filmmaking and could usually care less) call me after she saw the movie and asked "Hey, why did that movie look so weird?"

    But what are you gonna do with weak characters... they could've shot this fucker on IMAX and it'd still would've fallen short...

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  5. haha well put John... definitely agree.

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  6. This movie was bad, in so many ways. I thought the edit was terrible. I am convinced that there probably is a less boring movie on Mann's shelf some where, but he chose to release this piece. The whole film just dragged on, it looked terrible, and your biggest stars really didn't even have that much screen time. For me, this movie was a total bust. I think this movie was quite possibly the worst movie going experience I have had in the last 22 years. Granted, I didnt see The Happening....

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  7. ooo... "The Happening"

    "Hey there, plants! How ya doin? Some people wanna chop you up and put you in salads... but I just wanna talk with ya. Say hello to ya mother for me!"

    Mark Wahlberg can outrun the wind... I've seen it happen!

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