Look this has a spoiler alert. So if you want to watch Code 46 don't read this. Having read this, you won't want to watch Code 46 any way.
So onto the task at hand. This is the second Winterbottom I have seen. It’s highly likely I won’t watch a third. I have Megan Spencer from the film review segment on JJJ to thank for watching this. I like Megan, so I won’t hold it her against her. Actually, I think to be fair she said there was plenty going for it, some good ideas, but it left her a bit ambivalent. I think. I think she might have said that.
Watched Code 46 tonight, it's one of those films I felt sorry for - a lot of money spent on it, big name stars and an attempt to make a sci fi film that isn't glitzy and over the top. It did raise some emotion in me but not quite enough to check my brain at the door. You're sort of sucked along and then HELLO he just had sex with WHO?
People just didn't like it.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it 51% .
Nik Huggins from http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=243 sums it all up pretty well:
Code 46 seeks a kind of geography of the body and mind in its central relationship to burn brightly amidst the shackling hegemony of this anonymous future world. Unfortunately the lack of on screen chemistry between Robbins and Morton crucially lets the dramatic element of the film down and thus reduces the entire enterprise to little more than a sumptuous mood piece. There isn’t enough at stake emotionally to draw you into the story and the relationship becomes lost and confused amidst the awesome visual scale. High on atmosphere, low on drama, Code 46 washes pleasantly across the senses, and remains a rewarding viewing experience, but in the end it’s little more than an exquisitely crafted travelogue laced with an overwhelming sense of missed opportunity.
I would have to agree with this assessment. I think further to this - if you want to create an empathy with the audience, why the hell have the character married, and totally cheating on his wife? Sure, they did that in The Bridges of Madison County - and people lapped that up (even though that wasn't Merryl Streep's naked body) Yep... and Clint Eastwood wasn't making whoopee with his mum. WITH HIS MUM.
Sure, if you're going to start playing with taboos like sleeping with your mother why hold back - but if you are going to create a film that rings true with the audience at some level, surely create a character we can empathize with. Usually films manipulate us to think the wife is an emotionally black hole and then we sort of see our way round to saying.... "Yeah.... yeah, don't agree with it but I can understand why...." Like Walk the Line. They did that in Walk the Line and we lapped that up. Actually I saw that and went "Uh Oh.... "
I found myself musing at William Geld's (Robbins) increasingly outlandish behavior (and yes - I did make the link to the empathy bacteria he had) and wondering why reason didn't prevail. Even if his emotions were riding him strong, his sense of "CRAP - I can't get home to his family" would knock him out of careering off into the desert with his floozy. Hey... maybe careering out in to the desert with his floozy would do it - didn't though.
Ultimately the film failed with me because I just couldn't see the warning Winterbottom was presenting us with. Holy Cow in the future a computer system called the Sphinx will use DNA to stop you cheating on your wife and sleeping with a woman that shares the exact same DNA sequencing as your mum, in fact a clone of your mum. And stopping all that from happening is bad because........ well, because it's romantic and wistful to leave your central character totally screwed over living out in the desert on the bare bones of her arse. That's no way to treat your mum.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
YOOOOOUR MUM!
Look this has a spoiler alert. So if you want to watch Code 46 don't read this. Having read this, you won't want to watch Code 46 any way.
So onto the task at hand. This is the second Winterbottom I have seen. It’s highly likely I won’t watch a third. I have Megan Spencer from the film review segment on JJJ to thank for watching this. I like Megan, so I won’t hold it her against her. Actually, I think to be fair she said there was plenty going for it, some good ideas, but it left her a bit ambivalent. I think. I think she might have said that.
Watched Code 46 tonight, it's one of those films I felt sorry for - a lot of money spent on it, big name stars and an attempt to make a sci fi film that isn't glitzy and over the top. It did raise some emotion in me but not quite enough to check my brain at the door. You're sort of sucked along and then HELLO he just had sex with WHO?
People just didn't like it.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it 51% .
Nik Huggins from http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=243 sums it all up pretty well:
Code 46 seeks a kind of geography of the body and mind in its central relationship to burn brightly amidst the shackling hegemony of this anonymous future world. Unfortunately the lack of on screen chemistry between Robbins and Morton crucially lets the dramatic element of the film down and thus reduces the entire enterprise to little more than a sumptuous mood piece. There isn’t enough at stake emotionally to draw you into the story and the relationship becomes lost and confused amidst the awesome visual scale. High on atmosphere, low on drama, Code 46 washes pleasantly across the senses, and remains a rewarding viewing experience, but in the end it’s little more than an exquisitely crafted travelogue laced with an overwhelming sense of missed opportunity.
I would have to agree with this assessment. I think further to this - if you want to create an empathy with the audience, why the hell have the character married, and totally cheating on his wife? Sure, they did that in The Bridges of Madison County - and people lapped that up (even though that wasn't Merryl Streep's naked body) Yep... and Clint Eastwood wasn't making whoopee with his mum. WITH HIS MUM.
Sure, if you're going to start playing with taboos like sleeping with your mother why hold back - but if you are going to create a film that rings true with the audience at some level, surely create a character we can empathize with. Usually films manipulate us to think the wife is an emotionally black hole and then we sort of see our way round to saying.... "Yeah.... yeah, don't agree with it but I can understand why...." Like Walk the Line. They did that in Walk the Line and we lapped that up. Actually I saw that and went "Uh Oh.... "
I found myself musing at William Geld's (Robbins) increasingly outlandish behavior (and yes - I did make the link to the empathy bacteria he had) and wondering why reason didn't prevail. Even if his emotions were riding him strong, his sense of "CRAP - I can't get home to his family" would knock him out of careering off into the desert with his floozy. Hey... maybe careering out in to the desert with his floozy would do it - didn't though.
Ultimately the film failed with me because I just couldn't see the warning Winterbottom was presenting us with. Holy Cow in the future a computer system called the Sphinx will use DNA to stop you cheating on your wife and sleeping with a woman that shares the exact same DNA sequencing as your mum, in fact a clone of your mum. And stopping all that from happening is bad because........ well, because it's romantic and wistful to leave your central character totally screwed over living out in the desert on the bare bones of her arse. That's no way to treat your mum.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
SONOFA.....
Just flippin lost a post I have worked on for... a while - like I wrote what I thought was a great piece and then it just.... went.
So much for "Well, I'm going to have another go at this..cept this time I won't be so pretentious... and I hope that I spelt that right... because pretention is worse when you can't spell...
so yeah it was like my come back tour only to have the band go up in smoke.
Anyway....
this is so no one thinks I'm dead or worse... giving up.
Which I kind of did.
So much for "Well, I'm going to have another go at this..cept this time I won't be so pretentious... and I hope that I spelt that right... because pretention is worse when you can't spell...
so yeah it was like my come back tour only to have the band go up in smoke.
Anyway....
this is so no one thinks I'm dead or worse... giving up.
Which I kind of did.
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