I finished it, just to satisfy my curiosity as to whether anything would feel satisfying by the end, but nothing did. Only side characters got what they really wanted or needed, and the main ones were just romance tropes that idiotically misunderstood one another (when they weren't screwing one another. Is soft-core just expected in all series now? yawn). Something about the pacing and style felt wrong - like random cards from different decks had been shuffled together to play poker. It felt like Baz Luhrmann was ordered to write and direct a Jane Austen novel that he really hated. I think it would have worked better had the world been entirely fictionalized. It was very jarring that the precarious position of people of color in Society was brought up in once instance, but then never entered into any other detail of the story. The story felt untrue to itself, and so I was disappointed overall.
Reviews
3 Reviews
It
(I) (2017)
Don't rate a helicopter as if you were hoping for a bicycle
7 October 2017
I am a Stephen King fan. Not everything by him equally, but I really like most of his stories - the creepy ones, the magically-real ones, and especially all of those even remotely related to the world and characters he created for The Dark Tower novels. This adaptation of "It" is, in my opinion, the best one that could be done while keeping as true to the story as possible. I don't mind that they moved the setting into the future, or that they changed a few things to make the story less horrible (Yes, folks. Less horrible. Read the book and you'll see why). I see that some viewers are disappointed by the lack of "scares" in the film. Most people equate being scared by a film with how often they are startled. Jump scares are an easy way to get an audience to react, and to give them a sense that they've enjoyed a film. As with "The Babadook," most viewers miss the point of horror. What frightens us as humans are the deep, primal things that really good authors and filmmakers are able to tap into. If you have children, the thought of them being taken from you is horror. If you are a child, the thought of being abandoned, lost, or betrayed by those you trust is horror. The point of a good monster movie isn't the monster, but the humans - how they react to the monster, what the monster wants from them, how they conquer the monster (if they do). I guess if you go to a "horror" film expecting non-stop gushing and squirting blood or those pop-out moments that make you jump in your seat, you will always be disappointed by films that go a little deeper than those cheap tactics. I'm sorry to see poor ratings based on generic expectations of a genre that has (for the most part) surrendered to mindless formulas.
Youth in Oregon
(2016)
Hard decisions served cold.
16 July 2017
I agree with some of the points other reviewers have made, but I wanted to offer an opinion from inside the subject matter of the film. Has a member of your family chosen to die by their own hand because they face the rest of their lives in an ill and endlessly declining body? Or do you currently know someone who is now, or has been, terribly ill and now faces an unknown quantity of time on Earth with a seriously altered body that no longer looks or functions normally? From both of these perspectives, I watched this film, hoping to see something with which I could identify. I ended up feeling a bit ripped off - which really made me think. As others have said, what you think should be the vital points of the topic feel buried under heavy-handed drama that grates on the nerves rather than lending a sense of "the real stuff people have to deal with when they're alive." And yes, it feels like a screwball comedy that had all of the humor erased from the script. An artistic choice? I don't know. Yes, people get angry when faced with the possibility or the reality of a loved-one's suicide. Anger, resentment, guilt, it is all there. But there is no "voice of reason" in this film, and I suspect that's what most viewers feel cheated of. We want a magical ending, a sense of completion, catharsis, or at least a sense of dramatic satisfaction (the ending may not be the one we hoped for, but it felt 'right'). What was Roy thinking, sitting in the room with his friend Pete? To me, in retrospect, that was the climax of the film - the point where a decision was made and now everyone in the story has to figure out how to deal with it (and with all the things they've said to each other throughout the film). This movie may not be what we wanted, but it is what it is and we have to choose how to deal with it and with its subject matter (which isn't what we were hoping for, let's face it). People make choices. There are cumulative consequences for every one of those choices, and there is no "easy" out. Death is never an "easy" out. That stings, both in art and in life.
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