Movie Review: In Alex Garland’s potent ‘Civil War,’ journalists are America’s last hope https://t.co/g38WnFO00s - The Associated Press (@AP) April 9, 2024
I haven't seen Come and See but I've seen clips and heard people talk about it and it pretty brutal. Shows the horrors of war, I think it's only film ever directed by that director. He never did another one.
Alex Garland films are hit or miss to me and more miss cause I think he functions better as a writer than director. He likes to hold back a lot and wants people to form their own interpretations which is kinda of annoying because I think sometimes the scripts suffers as a result but idk.
I'll check out Civil War but I'm assuming it's a bit of a mess lol.
Agree on Garland. I've never loved a film he has directed but I did love 28 Days Later and Never Let Me Go.
About this movie, I feel like too many people have already decided to hate it because of the California-Texas thing, which is so stupid. It's fiction, people. I was actually pleasantly surprised now that I know the movie is more about the work of war journalists (considering what's happening in the world right know and how many have died trying to document atrocities), than just about American politics. I don't know if I have the stomach to watch it, though.
I watched 20 Days in Mariupol and I don't want to see anything remotely similar again.
Yeah I'll check it out and make my own decisions because I do rme at non-Americans coming in and putting their 2 cents about our political system while being quiet on their system.
Yeah the focus being on journalists is a new revelations so let's see.
Come and See is a very brutal and haunting film, I saw it a couple of years ago and there are certain images from it that are permanently burned into my memories.
I’ve heard from people who’ve seen Civil War that it’s really not about an imaginary civil war at all, it’s more a film about war photography (?) and he just didn’t want to set it in another country. I liked annihilation enough - didn’t care for garland’s other films - but I’ll wait for this one to go online lol.
"and he just didn’t want to set it in another country."
How very British and European of him....lol everyone knows an American setting gets you more views cause everyone knows we're a shitshow perfect for entertainment lol!!
Annihilation I didn't get when I watched it (I thought the bear monster with "the voice" was horror perfection I will say) but I then got it when I watched a few analysis videos. And see that's my problem with his films....you leave clueless and they require multiple viewings to get it. He likes leaving things up to interpretation which is cool in other movies but his.....you could do that and still come up wrong lol.
Cause I remember a few people here theorizing about a feminist element to Ex Machina which I kinda agreed with but then he got asked in an interview if there was a feminist leaning in the film and he was like "no, I don't see where people got that?" iirc.
Yeah I guess my issue with a lot of his films is that he’s very good at making memorable moments - like that Oscar Isaac robot dance from Ex Machina or the shape-shifting man from Men which are literally the only things I remember about each movie, I don’t think I remember anything else - but the rest of each film is very empty and has nothing to say and the more you think about it the more it falls apart.
Yeah I feel like he set it in the United States at least in part for the discourse it would spawn which is free promo and it looks like his devious plan worked, I think I saw earlier that the box office projections are quite good. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank while people fight online.
His scripts sometimes feel like philosophical musings or streams of conscious.
"Yeah I feel like he set it in the United States at least in part for the discourse it would spawn which is free promo and it looks like his devious plan worked, I think I saw earlier that the box office projections are quite good. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank while people fight online."
While I agree that setting the movie in the US is very helpful for marketing reasons, there can also be more to it.
Americans often look down upon countries who experience coups, civil wars, etc. And politicians often brag about living in the "greatest democracy in the world", "the shinnig city on the hill" and the "land of the free".
Not to mention, US intevnetionism has created this exact type of in many other countries (mine included).
So, I'm not surprised a foreign filmmaker pulled a reverse uno card here.
I’ve lived in the U.S. since I was a kid but before that I lived in a country where the U.S. backed a genocide that my mother lived through. I remember when Trump was elected, my mom and all her friends were having a giggle about how the U.S. looked down on her country as a third world country but yet her “third world country” had better elected leaders in the present day than did the U.S.
Americans could all benefit from a look at how the rest of the world sees the U.S.
American cultural and socioeconomic hegemony doesn’t stem from it being just that super awesome or special, it’s a product of decades of aggressive foreign policy and interventionism. So it makes perfect sense for a filmmaker to comment on that.
And it’s more accessible to set it in the US because actually, a big chunk of the world understands all-too well how the American domestic system operates, as well as their own, because they have to. So market reach will be greater internationally because of it.
ia, I saw the movie yesterday and found it very interesting that he set the movie in the US precisely for that reasons. The US prides itself of its "freedom" while a lot of things are happening there that prove the opposite
I'm actually scared to watch Come and See because I know it'll fuck me up for like a week and haunt my dreams. I've seen enough of the clips and read about it but it's one of those films idk if I can sit through, it's that gutting.
Alex Garland films are hit or miss to me and more miss cause I think he functions better as a writer than director. He likes to hold back a lot and wants people to form their own interpretations which is kinda of annoying because I think sometimes the scripts suffers as a result but idk.
I'll check out Civil War but I'm assuming it's a bit of a mess lol.
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About this movie, I feel like too many people have already decided to hate it because of the California-Texas thing, which is so stupid. It's fiction, people. I was actually pleasantly surprised now that I know the movie is more about the work of war journalists (considering what's happening in the world right know and how many have died trying to document atrocities), than just about American politics. I don't know if I have the stomach to watch it, though.
I watched 20 Days in Mariupol and I don't want to see anything remotely similar again.
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Yeah the focus being on journalists is a new revelations so let's see.
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I’ve heard from people who’ve seen Civil War that it’s really not about an imaginary civil war at all, it’s more a film about war photography (?) and he just didn’t want to set it in another country. I liked annihilation enough - didn’t care for garland’s other films - but I’ll wait for this one to go online lol.
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How very British and European of him....lol everyone knows an American setting gets you more views cause everyone knows we're a shitshow perfect for entertainment lol!!
Annihilation I didn't get when I watched it (I thought the bear monster with "the voice" was horror perfection I will say) but I then got it when I watched a few analysis videos. And see that's my problem with his films....you leave clueless and they require multiple viewings to get it. He likes leaving things up to interpretation which is cool in other movies but his.....you could do that and still come up wrong lol.
Cause I remember a few people here theorizing about a feminist element to Ex Machina which I kinda agreed with but then he got asked in an interview if there was a feminist leaning in the film and he was like "no, I don't see where people got that?" iirc.
( ... )
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Yeah I feel like he set it in the United States at least in part for the discourse it would spawn which is free promo and it looks like his devious plan worked, I think I saw earlier that the box office projections are quite good. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank while people fight online.
Reply
"Yeah I feel like he set it in the United States at least in part for the discourse it would spawn which is free promo and it looks like his devious plan worked, I think I saw earlier that the box office projections are quite good. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank while people fight online."
How very
( ... )
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Americans often look down upon countries who experience coups, civil wars, etc. And politicians often brag about living in the "greatest democracy in the world", "the shinnig city on the hill" and the "land of the free".
Not to mention, US intevnetionism has created this exact type of in many other countries (mine included).
So, I'm not surprised a foreign filmmaker pulled a reverse uno card here.
Reply
I’ve lived in the U.S. since I was a kid but before that I lived in a country where the U.S. backed a genocide that my mother lived through. I remember when Trump was elected, my mom and all her friends were having a giggle about how the U.S. looked down on her country as a third world country but yet her “third world country” had better elected leaders in the present day than did the U.S.
Americans could all benefit from a look at how the rest of the world sees the U.S.
Reply
American cultural and socioeconomic hegemony doesn’t stem from it being just that super awesome or special, it’s a product of decades of aggressive foreign policy and interventionism. So it makes perfect sense for a filmmaker to comment on that.
And it’s more accessible to set it in the US because actually, a big chunk of the world understands all-too well how the American domestic system operates, as well as their own, because they have to. So market reach will be greater internationally because of it.
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