Has anyone that has seen this let me know how the camera work is? I thought I heard someone say it’s a “found camera” style of movie, and while my wife and I would love to see it this weekend, she gets motion sick pretty easy and stuff like Cloverfield is unwatchable for her. She walked out of District 9 for example, she just couldn’t take it. Would she have a similar reaction here, as well?
Yeah, this is one of those very handheld camera movies, with a fair amount of shaky footage and whole mess of floaty footage. I don’t think she’ll be able to handle it.
-TomCrud. Okay, thanks for the warning! It will be well heeded. We’ll probably just check out Safe House then, we both wanted to see that too.
Saw this last night. Two thumbs up from myself and my movie-geek friend. Definitely reminiscent of Akira, both thematically and in some specific technical details. That might already be a spoiler, but too bad :-)
OK, SPOILERS BELOW (not tagged in deference to Mr. Chick’s sensibilities):
The writing was on the wall from the very first shot of the movie. I was cringing waiting for Andrew to snap. When he actually did, it was almost a relief to have all that emotional tension finally find release. Too bad for everyone else, though, of course.
The little floating rocks around Andrew as he first levitates are straight out of Akira. And the telekinetic combat was really quite awesomely done, I thought. Plus, a very clever move to have many of the most awesome mind-blasts be seen through grainy security cameras – must have saved a lot on rendering time when you don’t have to do a film-res render on your final shots!
There were a few moments that were excessively CGI (the car in the parking lot is probably #1), but overall the actors definitely sold the movie. I feel bad for Andrew and I’m actually sorry his dad didn’t tomato on the pavement.
Ah, I didn’t even think of the anime connection, but that’s a great point, RepoMan. I just thought of this is yet another twist on the superhero motif, but Chronicle will probably play very comfortably to fans of manga/anime/superteens-wrestle-with-morality. I wonder if Max Landis is into anime or if the connection is inadvertent.
-TomIt’s nowhere near Cloverfield or Blair Witch, and it’s not as frenetic as D9 This movie has a clever device to explain why the shakycam is not actually shaky. I mean there is a bit at first, but after that it’s almost like a regular movie. The ‘floaty’ bits are more like steadicam shots than anything else.
You had your eyes closed for most of the movie!
Finally got to see this over the past weekend. Really liked it.
No I din’t! Only until the SPOILER
…disastrous high school party, when Andrew started to go full psycho. After that I was glued to the screen. I just hate the whole embarrassing bullying thing. In a way I was rooting for Andrew to kick ass, terrifying though that is to admit.
Me too, man. Me too.
So what’s the deal with the found camera thing? Rather unconvincing and gimmicky in this particular movie. Almost like an excuse for lazy editing and cinematography. And, yeah, it is quite hard to pass an Alexa for a camcorder. Well, at least we were spared the crappy edge enhancement from the “first” camera. So deliberately annoying that I almost grinned when the damn thing got destroyed.
Decent idea overall, too often falling into meh cliches and then some sloppy execution. Like the totally arbitrary philosophy-for-dummies lines that one of the characters occasionaly drops this movie is rather immature in story and character development and technique. Might have something to do with the age of the filmmakers. All this would have been less glaring if they had skipped the turbo-realistic style.
I think the found footage method worked well, because it was a window into not only the main character’s world, which standard moviemaking could show, it was a personal connection to the guy himself. It served to make me feel like I was him, as opposed to making me feel like I was just watching him.
In Cloverfield I think this is one of the big failures of the movie. The found footage thing worked great in making feel like I was there while the creature was stomping around. But the character moments were crap. Not only did I not feel like I was the camera guy, I didn’t feel any connection to the people he was recording.
[REC] did a pretty great job at getting me connected with the people being filmed, although the cameraman remained mostly an unknown.
I think Chronicle is the best example so far of a movie getting the most out of the concept.
My point is that this method brings absolutely nothing to the movie. In fact, they cheated continuously. For example, the blog girl only served as a mean to put another camera angle in there (and the most pointless and the flatest character of them all). The floating camera trick is also a cheat (albeit an amusing one) meant to bring all the characters into the frame. And, of course, the numerous cameras of the final confrontation. Sometimes even getting established conveniently. That’s just weak.
You don’t need found footage to bring immediacy, nor to establish connection to a character. Movies are doing this all the time. The whole handheld camera approach is about intimacy, no need for “found footage” here. Except, it is much harder to do proper handheld than “amateur” clips.
My point is that this method brings absolutely nothing to the movie. In fact, they cheated continuously. For example, the blog girl only served as a mean to put another camera angle in there (and the most pointless and the flatest character of them all). The floating camera trick is also a cheat (albeit an amusing one) meant to bring all the characters into the frame. And, of course, the numerous cameras of the final confrontation. Sometimes even getting established conveniently. That’s just weak.
You don’t need found footage to bring immediacy, nor to establish connection to a character. Movies are doing this all the time. The whole handheld camera approach is about intimacy, no need for “found footage” here. Except, it is much harder to do proper handheld than “amateur” clips.
I think the underlying point of the philosophy-bullshit was to demonstrate Matt’s desire to be taken seriously (and also, in a way, show a sign of immaturity). I do agree that his girlfriend felt a bit redundant, but not to the degree of being annoying.
I flat-out disagree with your point about the “found footage” -approach not bringing anything to the movie. It gives a sense of authenticity and makes you relate to the situation in a more powerful way. Complaining about it is like saying that there is something fundamentally wrong to write a book in first person.
And why call floating camera a cheat? Couldn’t it be argued that it was Andrew’s desire that show himself in the frame as well? Amateur documentarists do it all the time. Now, I can understand if you didn’t like the acting, story or style, but complaining about something like this comes through as just wanting to be negative or an armchair director.
Also, the entire idea of the movie was to obviously show all (not just Andrew’s camera) factual footage of the “event” in a chronological order, like, you know, a chronicle. So I don’t really understand your complaints regarding using different footage from multiple perspectives.
Strongly disagree.
The method in this movie served VERY well in bringing me into it, to imparting some of the same sense of wonder and discovery and excitement they were feeling onto me, made me feel like I was one of the gang. Other films use the technique to get you in on the feelings of the movie and the best ones realize that’s why the technique exists and do that well (REC, this movie).
And the blog girl served to give them an excuse to have a camera after the bad things started happening. I can forgive them that because it is such a good, good film.
Ok, so I guess they found Andrew’s camera in Tibet after Matt left it there? Yeah, right.
You can go and think out tons of excuses and explanations for this or that but it is really all about consistency. The turbo realistic shooting style requires turbo consistency, turbo honest performances, turbo real characters, turbo real narrative. If it feels forced or fabricated somewhere then you fail. That is all. To me this felt like a student movie: overdone abusive father thing, overdone bullying schoolmates and neighbourhood thing, overdone motivation thing, overdone characters and cameras establishing thing. For a supposedly fresh approach to filmmaking they went safe and didactic on so many levels that it is actually funny. I will repeat myself: decent idea, sloppy execution.
Well welcome to Wrongsville, population: you.
NO movie lives up to extreme scrutiny. None. The Tibet thing is your biggest problem? I mean it’s within sight of a monastery after all. Where did the footage from the camera that was lost underground come from if you wanna nitpick? Why was Steven admission of drug use edited out?
And no, the abusive father thing was not overdone. At all. And I’ve no idea what you meant by “overdone characters”. I thought they were realistic and endearing. I totally agree with Repoman on the wanting but fearing retribution. I fully admit I got lost in the movie.
Well, apparently I have higher standards than you for what is ok and what is overdone. No worries, happens all the time. Must be related to my armchair or something.
The Tibet thing was in response to mixuk’s last paragraph. The dead underground camera they might have salvaged on their way out, I don’t remember. If not, this only backs my point.
Also, it is “overdone characters and cameras establishing”. Establishing the neighborhood’s gang before Andrew wrecks them later on, for example. Didactic. Establishing a random camera at the end (why even bother at that point?). Maybe I should also explain what overdone bullying is? Bullied allthe time by the father. Bullied by a random bloke for shooting his girl at the party. Bullied at school. Bullied in the neighborhood. Bullied by a redneck on the road. Well, you got lost in the bully fest, good for you. But don’t expect everyone else did. A fucked up unstable teen gone wild is much less interesting to me than a teen cleverly tempted by the dark side of his power. Well, maybe next time.
A teen cleverly tempted by the dark side of his power is a fuck of a lot less likely than a seriously abused kid to go absolutely uncontrollably apeshit and blow up about a hundred cop cars with his mind. That being, of course, the entire drama of this movie – what happens when Akira comes to Columbine?
What are you the scourge of, anyway? Movies?
Dear lord its hard to read about new movies without getting spoilered to hell…goodbye thread!