Of all people, I'd expected you to pick up on the subtle humor therein Loyal.

<sigh>

A comment declaring all intelligence is dead...and then misspelling a word. Surely it was clear.

Don't look at me like that.

Jeff, I am disheartened at this review. There were plenty of logical reasons to dislike this movie, and honestly that's easily the path I could have followed but didn't, but you list almost none of them. I give you points for recognizing the awful acting, whereas some here found joy in it...somehow, but you ignore the other big problems: a very plodding script and weak character development in favor of showing how thoroughly you misunderstand the point of the film. Honestly this is an extremely flawed film and I don't hold anything against you hating it, but you really just sound like that jack-ass cream of the crop critic who wrote as his summary "after having seen a burning moose flaw around at the camera, it's hard to take anything else seriously." Jeff, you have A LOT of talent as a writer but you come off as so pompous and arrogant, and you analyze this not as what it is meant to be, a fun and dark disaster flick, but as if it's supposed to be a super realistic drama. The concept is, a girl 50 years ago predicted every major disaster till now, did you honestly expect it to have a logical linear plotline?

I know my review wasn't the best. I sat down to write it about 10 times and couldn't ever exactly get out what I wanted to say. And yes, I'm very much aware that I only touched on a few points of the film. The truth was it was so laughably bad that I just couldn't pin point every reason that made it as such.

And yes, I know what they were getting at. And it could have been interesting. But there were just too many coincidences. Too many "convenient" events that happened at just the right time to be able for this to be any sort of logical plot.

I guess I didn't see the "fun" in it when it had a rather nihilistic and "serious" ending. It wasn't a "fun disaster" flick like say Armageddon, which had one foot in psuedo-science and one foot in the "cheese pot" if you will. It wasn't over-the-top and silly like say The Day After Tomorrow (which I didn't care for, but at least it didn't shy away from being a by the numbers B-film). There was no humanist message as in Deep Impact. And there was no fleshed-out human story. It was just a bunch of random coincidences, a poorly crafted attempt at human drama (in which the one character dies before they can even share at least a kiss), and then this random ending.

And yeah, the space ships. Those annoyed me too.

Anyway, yes I'm aware it was an arrogant review. I pretty much stated that in the opening paragraph.

Get it? A "die" ing art...



Just like Einstein said: "God does not play dice with the universe", Jeff was subtly making a profound metaphysical statement about Knowing - - as a matter of fact, it turns out his entire review was a Colbertesque parody of a review of this movie.

I for one can only step back and shout: BRAVO!!!!!

That right there did a better job of pointing out the problems than you're whole review did. Sometimes less is more. Anyway, I personally liked it, somewhat, but definitely don't see the passion for it here. Personally I thought the sci-fi ideas at the ending were pretty intriguing, and the visuals were pretty amazing, and rather realistic. But that paragraph did a good job of pointing out what is wrong, and did it without any douchey pretension, and I can easily see why you would hate it.
So I'm not really "on-board" with your opinion, but I definitely get it, and don't let some people get down on you too much, a lot of people who love this hate Mystic River, so...

Like I said...I didn't really feel like putting much in to the review. I only posted it because Loyal mentioned my name again

And yes, I'm quite aware my reviews are rather pretentious. I think it came on soon after I started seeing the artsy-flicks and chatting with Galia about the pros and cons of modern art.

I was actually going for a sort of arrogance when I first started the review (the initial two paragraphs sat on my harddrive since I saw the film when it first opened)...

There were just so many problems. And another sticking point...why are all "alien spaceships" devoid of any real physics. Things that look like that would not fly...why can't aliens create spaceships that look normal...you know?

Yeah... who doesn't hate it when the alien stuff looks alien!

If it was functional. But why do aliens always have to be these oddly humanoid creatures with glowing skin and such. And why do the spaceships always have to have random rotating parts that come down and do this ...

It's annoying.

I really hope Jeff never reads a Stephen Baxter Sci Fi novel if he had issues with the ships.

Award for strangest correlation ever.

I also hear people that love Knowing breathe oxygen and prefer brunettes.

i'm usually amazed by some of the stuff you pick on. its pretty much your review but i did want to point out a couple of things cause people shouldn't like or dislike something based upon the wrong thing.

a) technically, if it looked functional for you, the ship probably wouldn't be functional for space travel. the limitations we deal with at the moment would not allow for space travel. none of us can say if those ships would either but thats one of the reasons why they are made to look alienish.

b) Rotating parts actually, surprisingly, go back to functionality. That's not a contradiction however. Rotation of any kind on a space craft is a symbolic gesture of the creation of gravity.

Oh I admit baba, I'm not physicist, and I couldn't tell you much of the differences in the innate differences between space ships and what not.

However, it just seems that in almost all "sci-fi" films, the aliens have these ships that ... are so off the wall and bizarre. I get it, it is classic sci-fi, I get it. But it would be interesting to see something that isn't just more of the same. The rotating parts that come down and then just hover there and then these long ornate processes to open a ship...It just bugs me. It is a pet peeve. It isn't like that alone spoiled the movie though. No, Cage's third facial expression did that for me.

I was simply trying to discredit the opinion, not make a comparison,

Pick a better film than Mystic River.

Try

a lot of people who love this hate The Bicycle Thief, so...

or


a lot of people who love this hate Breathless, so...

if I'd seen either of those it may be worth the effort, besides Mystic River is amazing, (and I don't say that only because of my mad love for sean penn.)

Didn't Zingy hate Mystic River?

Enough said.

well on the one hand, you're asking them to look functional and then when there is some reasoning given to their design, you don't like them).

I guess my point is, i don't really have an issue with you disliking the film ... I just want you to dislike them for the right reasons. On this specific design note, the issue isn't really the crafts, its just that you don't like them like i wouldn't like harleys, or the look of a burger king burger.

its actually quite a common issue. you're not really looking for functionality, you're looking for familiarity .. it doesn't actually need to make sense, it needs to be identifiable and relatable.

I see your point. But I feel it is more filmmakers trying to make spaceships as "out there" as possible. Unless these ships operate on some other plane of physical properties, it wouldn't fly.

Outside of its usage of Beethoven, I didn't find the soundtrack memorable enough to be irritating.

No. I loved it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, Nicholas Cage and all. The plane scene in particular was pretty harrowing, and I'm chuffed they followed through with the doomsday scenario.

B+

Now that you mention it, I didn't care for the font used during the opening credits...

I'd like to change my grade to an F!

Jeff did have some weak qualms with the film, but he also had some very legitimate ones.