Hey, how about a return of the Bullets of Laziness?
- Actually funny
- I loved the warm lighting throughout the movie
- As an armchair design nerd, the opening title cards were bordering on obscene in their prettiness
- Full of Hey! It's That Guy!s
- It sorta broke my brain momentarily when I looked at the cast page on IMDB and discovered that Nick Naylor and George in Erin Brockovitch are the same actor - what can I say, I'm unobservant sometimes
- Speaking of Nick: he was certainly charming but if I knew someone like him in real life, I would probably punch him in the face every time I saw him
- I was hoping the kid playing Joey was being directed to act that stiffly, but then I realized that he was the kid with the boner for TV on the Radio in the season premiere of The 4400. He's actually just a really crappy actor
- Rob Lowe and Adam Brody totally stole every scene they were in
- Katie Holmes's character was awesome and her arc was completely satisfying, but holy moly, she was completely the wrong person for the role. This has nothing to do with her marrying Tom Cruise and everything to do with her just being too sweet and bland for the kind of person (I assume) Heather was supposed to be
So, I saw The Fountain a couple days ago, and I honestly can't decide whether or not I liked it.
I think part of this lies in me feeling a little stupid because I'm not so sure I understand what the movie was trying to tell me. I'm not the type to hate on a movie I don't understand - I actually really like difficult movies because they make me think - so I don't know why this particular movie is inspiring a big "meh" feeling in me.
In a way, The Fountain is a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, in that the story is laid out in the vaguest way possible and it's up to you to put it together. 2001 is about, well, quite a few things, but the main storyline is about the evolution of man. So kind of using that as a framework, I'm figuring The Fountain's about coming to terms with death. At least I think so. If it's not, please school my tiny plebeian mind.
And that's all lovely and everything, except it was executed in a really bizarre way. The movie was (I think) billed as a sci-fi film, full of time travel and epic love or some shit, but what I got out of it was the whole 1500/2000/2500 AD business was a metaphor, and that the movie actually only happened in the year 2000. So that'd make this a drama. Whatever.
Again, I might just be an idiot. Who knows.
What makes me wobble on my rating and not want to give this a straight thumbs down is the acting. It was good. Really good. Like, I was close to tears for a few scenes because Jackman and Weisz (mostly Jackman though) sold it so well. I am a solid non-crier, so this is kind of an amazing feat. I can also appreciate the artistry and skill involved in making the film, so it also gets brownie points from me for that.
Still, the most I can muster is staggering indifference.
Meh.
Anyway, what I remember in bullets:
- The visuals were absolutely stunning
- But man were there some creepy-looking dudes. That thing with the eyes on its hands in the commercials and trailers is exponentially more unsettling in the movie
- Ofelia? Adorable.
- Capitán Vidal was a heinous douche
- I loved that it was three different movies in one - part war movie, part loss of innocence story, part fairy tale - and that none of these stories suffered at the expense of the other
- The whole thing felt like something Jim Henson might have made if he took a crazy acid trip - only a good thing in my eyes
- Loved the end being ambiguous
