1917 reviews

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MaxWilder
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by MaxWilder »

Big Magilla wrote:The Hollywood Reporter review below starts out talking about the actor's teeth, which I thought was ridiculous.
People pointed out this same 'goof' about Downton Abbey for years, thinking they were clever.

You're not going to find many professional actors with bad teeth, and most audiences don't want to see that anyway. Prosthetic or real crooked teeth would be more distracting than any camera technique. They're just not seen in film/TV anymore.
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Precious Doll
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Re: 1917 reviews

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Big Magilla wrote: Did older viewers, like most serious critics, miss it because they don't play video games or did they get it and ignore it because they concentrated more on the film's overall message?

Funny the things that bother some people and not others. The Hollywood Reporter review below starts out talking about the actor's teeth, which I thought was ridiculous. British bad teeth and worse dentures were well known facts as emphasized in the excellent documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, referenced in the review. Did Mendes not show bad teeth because he couldn't find the necessary props, or did he just not think of them?
Video games never occurred to me until Sabin mentioned it as I've not played any such thing since the late 1970's in a gaming parlour.

I didn't notice the teeth which is something I usually do in films but given that this one moves fairly briskly and doesn't include too many close-ups I guess its easy to miss for some viewers.

Best period detail of the last few years I think is Mike Leigh's Peterloo. Everyone had filthy teeth, hair, skin, clothes and fingernails. All was also so impressive I almost felt I could smell the odour.
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

I wondered about the video game aspect, which most critics either didn't get or ignored.

Did Mendes do it subconsciously because he plays a lot of video games or did he do it consciously to grab younger viewers? Then again, maybe it was just an unintended side effect of the gimmicky perceived single take.

Did older viewers, like most serious critics, miss it because they don't play video games or did they get it and ignore it because they concentrated more on the film's overall message?

Funny the things that bother some people and not others. The Hollywood Reporter review below starts out talking about the actor's teeth, which I thought was ridiculous. British bad teeth and worse dentures were well known facts as emphasized in the excellent documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, referenced in the review. Did Mendes not show bad teeth because he couldn't find the necessary props, or did he just not think of them?
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by Sabin »

There is something drearily appropriate about this film winning the Oscar (which I pray doesn't happen) that Saving Private Ryan lost. It is clear by now that (regardless of the film's quality), one of the lasting impacts of Saving Private Ryan was what it did for video games. I'm serious. Spielberg (knowingly or not) presented a vision of war that has been ported and gamified in uncountable different ways over the years. 1917 is the end result: after years of video games acting like war movies, we finally have a war movie that acts like a video game.

1917 is the first war movie I've ever seen that dares to say that war *IS* a video game. Everybody on this board has the same point: 1917 is a video game. But what if that is what Mendes is actually trying to say? That war is a video game. You run, you dodge, you pick up items, perhaps they'll come in handy later, you run out of ammo, you run, you kill, you complete your mission, you rest. That's it.

Mendes is using the video game-model to create an immersive, war-like experience. We are presented with our characters' orders: deliver the letter, call off the attack, save 1600 lives, a brother included. This is a mission that could work in any war ever but we are choosing to play it in World War I. The people that we meet along the way are non-playing characters. They don't have inner-lives or dreams. The mission continues until it ends. The film does not engage with any of the emotional trauma of World War I, the wasted promise of a generation lost. To be honest, I don't really wish that it did. I've seen that movie and I can't fathom a monologue about a girl back home giving the film anything. This isn't to say the film isn't emotional at times. It's just emotional in the same way that a video game is. Essentially, this film presents war as a theater of death and the film's best moments explore that theater. Mine is a river that is suddenly beautiful with falling cherry tree petals... only to be immediately subverted by, yes, more dead bodies. But this the second coming of Tarkovsky.

I mean, what else is there to say? 1917 is a movie that effectively video games war. And I do want to emphasize "effectively." These are people who know how to make this an immersive, satisfying experience. I just have limited use for such a thing.
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by dws1982 »

It's a gripping two hours, but much of it is gripping in the way that playing a video game for two hours can be gripping. Tee rightly mentions the trip-wire scene; the one that stood out to me was the airplane scene: starts out as a dogfight, then the outcome of that fight becomes a threat to our protagonist as a plane nearly crashes on top of him. It's impressive; if I had seen his before the awards, the Golden Globe for Mendes would not have been surprising because this film feels practically created for Directing prizes. I wouldn't be at all shocked to see this become kind of a compromise choice for Picture and Director, and for this decade, it would easily be in the top half of the choices in both categories.

But I wish it didn't try so hard to make sure we were impressed with it. And to be fair, it is very impressive at times. I wish it spent even half as much time trying to develop characters that register as it does trying to create shots and sequences that wow us. A lot of Oscar-watchers on Twitter have been promoting George Mackay for a Best Actor nomination, and I don't have a clue why, and it's not that there's anything at all wrong with his performance. He's good, he's a solid anchor to the film, but the film gives him very little work with.
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by Bog »

Can't help but be intrigued by what HAS to be considered the most trailer-porn of all the trailers this Oscar season...but the premise of the goings on (based upon true or not) annoy me and I am not shocked by Tee's initial reactions.

Tee reminded me immensely of my younger employee, who is a video gamer and came back from Dunkirk basically still aroused a weekend later, exclaimed it the BEST FILM HE'S EVER SEEN!!!

Nothing Tee spoke of makes me think Magilla won't be dead right in Deakins cruising, however...
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

1917 has a good bit of wow factor going for it -- there are moments where you can't help being impressed by the logistics involved, and the pyrotechnics. There are going to be a lot of people for whom that translates to "great" -- it might have been my reaction, when I was in, say, my mid-20s. But, today, I'm too aware of the film's narrative shortcomings: I didn't really have much emotional in the central characters, and their behavior seemed near-stupid at a few key points. There are moments (like one involving a tripwire) where the film feels alarmingly ciose to a video game -- fresh obstacles arising at predictable moments. There are scenes that feel beyond cliched (like the appearance of the inevitable French farm girl). And there are times I felt I was watching outtakes from The Revenant (we're in the rapids again, meaning it's just about time for that waterfall -- yep; here it is!).

But it's not close to bad. There are some dialogue scenes that work reasonably well -- the suddenly-hot Andrew Scott has a brief but sharp scene near the beginning, and Mark Strong has a pretty good one at mid-point. And, above all, there are those visuals. I remember, way back when, watching Out of Africa in a theatre, and, when the flying scene came along, thinking the cinematographer and composer had just clinched their Oscars. I had a similar feeling here, with a scene of George MacKay stumbling though ruins while lights flashed and fires burned, with the music soaring. There's no denying the power of these images, primitive or not, and the film is filled with them -- perhaps over-filled, but, as I say, many will be perfectly satisfied. A special word for the production design, which I think borders on the extraordinary -- the cinematography has been (justly) celebrated, but I think the film's design-look is equally breathtaking.

Bottom line? It's not unlike Mendes' Skyfall -- another case of he and Deakins collaborating to make something that's in many ways exciting to watch, but is still limited by the baseline content. It's very enjoyable to watch, but I find it depressing to contemplate its being cited as the year's best over several more ambitious titles.
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Re: 1917 reviews

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5/5 from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian who is practically wetting himself in his praise - must admit it does sound interesting. I saw a teaser/trailer last night at the movies and it looked quite good.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/n ... asterpiece
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Re: 1917 reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Hmmm. It took Roger Deakins fourteen nominations to win his first Oscar, but it looks like it will have taken just one more for him to win his second.
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1917 reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

Clearly a tech juggernaut, and almost surely a film/director contender. Currently 86 on Metacritic.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/revie ... ew-1257818

https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/1 ... 203416169/
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