By the way, to coincide with the release of the movie, Tetris Effect recently unlocked their secret 1984 Tetris level in the game.
Now that I’ve seen the movie, I gotta play it. Got, what an amazing game. I loved the scene in the movie where Henk is describing playing the game to his banker, and is describing how he was still seeing blocks dropping down in his mind, an effect that I think every single person who has played tetris can relate to.
We watched this over the weekend and totally agree. Loved it. I give it 4 rows cleared!
I feel like I am totally disconnected from the forum (for this movie and others). I watched it and I felt it was a total mediocre movie. Nothing that kept me interested. Halfway through, I was ready to shut it down, but my brother insisted to continue. He has a very mediocre taste in movies, so I knew I was right.
It felt like a movie-by-numbers. And very superficial. I bet Alex Pajatnov had a good time watching his alter ego but who else?
For reference, I was in a bad mood watching it. In the evening I went again to watch Seneca with friends, and that movie was still exceptional (on my second viewing). So, I think bad mood aside, I still can see the difference between a great movie and a just-OK movie.
Here’s the BBC documentary from 2004. I’ve watched 23 minutes so far, and while it’s interesting because of the subject matter, I’m really unhappy with the BBC’s musical choices for this documentary. It’s very dour and depressing. Which was fine for the opening scenes in the Soviet Union in 1985, but why continue that musical motif throughout the whole story?
Edit: Having watched that whole documentary now, I’m amazed at how much of the movie came straight from the real story. Including a critical meeting at ELORG when Stein, Maxwell and Henk Rogers all coincidentally arrived on the same day.
One thing I learned from the documentary that I didn’t realize watching the movie is how much this series of events were basically a deathnell for Atari, who had a really large stake in the outcome. The events of this movie were basically Nintendo’s finishing move on Atari.
Movies are always going to be a personal thing; some will like it, some will not. No worries there. If we all loved the same stuff, what a bore.
I think some specific things contributed to how much I and my wife loved the film. One, we remember the era rather vividly. Two, my wife, who has a MS in Computer Science and is also a hard-core gamer, really liked the look back on the period’s programming stuff. Three, my own specific experiences in Europe at that time, specifically in regards the Communist regimes at their final point, helped make it fee authentic.
Oh, and the Pet Shop Boys definitely put the chef’s kiss on it.
High five, y’all, we saw Tetris!
I also loved this! I spent the entire movie wondering who that lead actor was. When I discovered during the credits it was that blandly handsome Brit kid from the Kingsman movies, you could have knocked me over with a feather! All that desperate charm and energy and clear-eyed conviction (and don’t get me started on that immaculate mustache). Taron Egerton carried this movie, despite the amazing cast of supporting actors.
What a great story, too. I knew bits and pieces, but I didn’t know the whole tapestry, and it was a fine surprise to see it spun out so lavishly. Of course this was produced by Matthew Vaughn! It’s got his sure-fire kinetic sensibilities, even if it is mostly people talking in chunks of exposition. It’s like Aaron Sorkin meets Guy Ritchie meets a bunch of the stuff I grew up with!
suc·cor
assistance and support in times of hardship and distress.
“the wounded had little chance of succor”
We also really enjoyed this. I knew the story had embellishments for the movie, but I was surprised just how much of that insanity was actually true. I also loved seeing inside the collapse of the Soviet Union - an event I lived through from afar but getting a glimpse at the corruption and what was (possibly) going on was really enlightening.
The pixelization of cars during the car chase was a little weird and took me out of the movie, but overall I liked the direction in this movie.
I feel it was a necessary embellishment to show that the entire sequence was, well, a necessary embellishment. Much like the division of the story into “levels” to fit a traditional three-act dramatic structure. For me, that kind of self-aware playfulness was a big part of what made the movie work.
But, yes, definitely distracting from an otherwise nifty car chase. Not quite Bourne Supremacy, but it’ll do as a climactic action sequence.
Based on the strength of Jon Baird’s direction in this Tetris movie, I just watched Filth, which Baird wrote and directed about ten years ago. Think of it as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: Scotland. James McAvoy plays a very corrupt and very Scottish policeman.
The perspective is very very first-person. The plot traces his spiraling descent into being very very bad at his job, complete with mental health issues represented by jump scares, which are my single favorite thing in movies (they were entirely appropriate, but I still hated them).
Baird has done a lot of British TV over the years, but I specifically wanted to watch something cinematic, and sure enough, Filth fit the bill. It’s a no-holds-barred Scottish “fuck you” in the same vein as Trainspotting. Okay, not technically the same vein, given that it’s not about heroin. But otherwise, Trainspotting with cops instead of junkies, and all of them very Scottish. So in that same vein.
And it’s got pretty much every UK actor I like in it. Not the usuals who you’ll find in a Harry Potter movie; the other UK actors. Kate Dickie, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Imogen Poots, Jamie Bell, cute little Shirley Henderson, and some new ones I really liked (especially a hilarious fellow named John Sessions as the commissioner). And, of course, McAvoy really works it. This is the same McAvoy who tore into M. Night Shyamalan’s Split with such gusto. I see now where he laid the groundwork.
In Filth, you can also clearly see Baird’s style, which is further developed by the time he directs Tetris. Very rapid-fire, very personal and direct, very much about keeping the audience on their toes, pacing, pacing, pacing. Of course Matthew “Kingsmen and Kick-Ass” Vaughn recognized a kindred spirit and produced Baird’s Tetris movie!
Filth is especially intriguing for it’s eleventh hour reveal, and I can’t imagine it would go over well today. It feels so clumsily out of sorts with the times. SPOILER: the outlet, if not the cause, of McAvoy’s descent into madness is his dysfunctional transgenderism.
I don’t necessarily recommend Filth, as it’s a rawer and more abrasive version of what Baird did with Tetris. But it’s clearly the same style, and it’s got a fantastically dark sense of humor, and an embarrassment of riches in the talent of its cast. Plus it’s got a Clint Mansell soundtrack where Mansell is doing that hardcore industrial grunge built-up like the music in 28 Days Later.
Also, Imogen Poots briefly has a non-terrible haircut for the duration of a split-second dream sequence. Check it out:
Thanks for the recommendation and writeup Tom.
And it’s on Kanopy!
By the way, going back to Tetris for a second, did you or anyone else in the thread figure out why certain scenes (most scenes) in the movie transitioned with an 8-bit look before changing filters, but other scenes didn’t? During the movie my theory was that when we were switching from characters other than Henk’s perspective, then the next transition was not 8-bit. But I’ll need to watch the movie again to see if that’s right.
My thinking was that it was meant to parallel blocky Soviet architecture with the visual limitations of early videogames in general, and Tetris’ blocks in specific. Of course, it could just be the same playfulness as the car chase scene without any specific meaning. But I like your theory! You might be on to something in terms of character perspectives.
I don’t think those intermissions really worked much for me simply because they didn’t look 8-Bit! They were cute, certainly, but the dithering, shading and just general design sensibility was a way more modern ‘pixel art’ style than anything typical of the 80’s.
Even if they did come in under budget with a max of 256 colours in any one shot it felt very anachronistic.
(Actually, I did a search and came across a cool informative gif - looks like you only get 64 to play around with on a NES without some very clever manipulation and tricks to draw a good looking sprite):
Anyway, that’s just nerdy nitpicking, I thought the film was great.
The sort of work necessary to get the most out of the 6502-era CPUs and associated hardware required a lot of bad-ass programming skills, and probably a bit of luck. I show my students examples of assembler code from that era and the programmers, who are all working in C++, nearly have heart attacks.
6502 (and 8502) were some of the first assembly I ever learned. Still have a soft spot for accumulator based arches.
I’ll never not grin when a climactic scene is set to Holding Out For A Hero.
Ironically, if you play enough Tetris, you stop seeing blocks because your brain has figured out all the tilings. It is a rite of passage every grandmaster makes.
Yes, I don’t see the falling blocks anymore. But I can still relate because back in the early days I saw them a LOT.
