*TBT* Mr. Nobody (2009)

As Projectreel’s first Throw-back Thursday, I’m writing about one of my all-time favourite films, Mr. Nobody, which was released in 2009 starring Jared Leto and Diane Kruger.

This is the only film to date that I refuse to impose my meaning onto and a film that should be left to simmer in our individual minds and appreciated for what it is no matter what level you are viewing it from. On the surface, you are presented with a very old man who is recounting to a reporter in the year 2092 about his life. However, his story seems somewhat convoluted as he recounts various separate journeys with contradicting choices that confuses and even frustrates the reporter. On a philosophical level, Mr. Nobody challenges us to feel emotions we never thought we had and lets us easily understand seemingly complex characters and relationships. And of course, on another level it is just a masterpiece of understated minimalist music and the most beautiful cinematography you will ever see.

There are many moments of the film that are unforgettable. There’s the scene that always brings a tear to my eye – I’m talking about the scene where Nemo runs after the train when his parents get divorced. It is literally one of my favourite movie scenes ever due to it’s originality, emotional fragility and just the empathetic quality of a child faced with the impossible task of choosing between two loving parents. Watch it and see for yourself.

It’s really impossible to fault Mr. Nobody so I’m not going to. Below is a pictorial summary of some of my other favourite moments. What do they mean?? You’ll have to watch it to find out.

IMDb: 7.9

Rotten Tomatoes: 69%

My rating (As I said, in my eyes, the film is faultless):

May reels: Upcoming movies in cinemas this week

A Million Ways to Die in the West 

When: 29/05/14

Who: Seth MacFarlane (Director), Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Neil Patrick Harris, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman

What: A satire of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly with a lot more expletives and blood.

Sheep farmer falls in love with new mystery woman in town and must overcome his fears, ALL of his fears (“The American West is a terrible place and time. Everything that’s not you wants to kill you. Angry drunk people. Hungry animals. Outlaws. Diseases. The fucking doctor.”) to duel Clinch Leatherwood, the deadliest outlaw in the West, to earn her love and affection.

Why: Written, directed by and starring the highest paid television writer in history, and the creator of Ted, Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show.

Maleficent (pronounced ma-leh-fi-sent)

When: 29/05/14

Who: Robert Stromberg (Director), Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Juno Temple, Vivienne Jolie-Pitt

What: Sleeping beauty retold from the perspective of the villain.

Why: To see Angelina Jolie’s cheekbones as the sharpest objects on screens since the Miracle Blade III. But more seriously to find out that Aurora actually had interests and hobbies outside of sleeping and being beautiful.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

This was the first comic adaptation film I was actually excited to see and overall I was pretty happy with it.

I loved the beginning and the whole setting up of why they had to go back and change the future. The logic behind it was decent, in fact, for the most part, the storyline was logical (what didn’t make sense comes later).

Transcendence – just fell short *spoilers*

Coming into this I pretty much had 3 expectations of transcendence:

1. It’s based on a creative concept – dying Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientist, Will Caster (Depp) has his mind uploaded to a super computer so his subconscious can live on in digital form.2. From what I’d read and heard, the film fell short in its execution. One thing I’ve found with recent sci-fi flicks is that most begin with a really clever idea but so much time and focus is placed special effects and creating apocalyptic scenes of a massive scale that the storyline is often just lying raggedly in a corner, all forgotten and filled with holes.3. Bonus points for any movie with Johnny Depp, however creepy he may look with all those rods and wires coming out of his skull.

Now the reality.

 

To be honest my expectations were pretty spot on with this movie.

The idea of being able to copy the electromagnetic patterns that are unique to every human brain really is pretty cool.

The film poses the question of what it is that makes us human – are we simply a series of electrical impulses that dictate our emotions, thoughts and desires?

There are questions throughout of Will’s humanity. Is it human nature to seek to grow and expand? What I found interesting was the subtle turn towards the end that suggests it was him all along. As easy as it is to blame the evil machines that want to take over the world, the film reminds us that just like Adam was created as an image of God, AI was modelled on humanity itself. Perhaps it isn’t robots that we should be fearing but the people who build them and allow them to exist in the first place.

Now onto my issues with the film.

My biggest problem with it was the lack of character development. The beginning scenes felt a little too rushed and although we are introduced to Will and Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall), I struggled to connect with them and to feel like I cared about their fates at all. While the special effects certainly help to convince the audience that this future may not be too far away, the movie just didn’t pull me in via the vehicle of the characters. The completely unnecessary love triangle that was hinted at throughout the story felt like a weak attempt to inject some much needed emotional empathy.

I did feel that the film took the concept of a supercomputer with limitless applications and ran a whole marathon with it. While I get that the supercomputer may be smart enough to revolutionise nano technology which has great implications for medicine, isn’t the whole point of nano technology that it’s umm kind of small? And ok, I also get that it might be slightly challenging to visually represent this amazing development, but black balls – really?! And not only were they being injected out of mechanical arms but the ground just happened to be filled with them, conveniently allowing them to rise up into the air as strings of black beads.

Finally, of all the roles they could’ve offered Morgan freeman, they chose the role of the old man who refused cake?!

Like a nervous date who spills coffee on your shirt, the film had good intentions but it’s hard to remember what those intentions were when all you can see is the coffee stain.

Godzilla (2014) *SPOILERS*

I love end-of-the -world movies to no end (excuse the pun) but they usually let me down by trading off the destruction of the entire world for moments with a few (apparently important) individuals linked somehow to greater knowledge of what is really going on.

Godzilla was no different. I had particularly high hopes in the beginning, and the opening credits were really cool
(watch it and you’ll see what I mean). I could not complain about the nuclear disaster with the young Brody family being caught in the middle and Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) having to courageously put the fate of the world before saving his wife. It was all quite fine.

Bad Neighbours

I think I really have to stop IMDb-ing everything before I go see a movie because only then would I be pleasantly surprised instead of being disappointed at it not blowing my mind.

Bad neighbours was pretty much the trailer. The trailer stuck true to the film and there wasn’t much else (except stuff that would be way too graphic to show in a trailer). You have your typical Seth Rogen film of over-the-top WTF-ness, awkward moments that linger on for just a touch longer, and just a whole lot of sexual references that make you very glad your younger sister next to you was not just a little more curious as to why half the cinema is laughing.