Primer: I love this film. I just watched it again about a month ago with someone who hadn't seen it. It's a different film the second time - you watch for things like transistor radios and the like and try to unravel the complications of the last third of the film.
I applaud it on many, many levels, but I think it's reach is longer than it's grasp. The back third *still* falls a bit too complicated for my taste *as a film*. Were it a book, or even a graphic novel, I think it may work, but as a 1.5 hour film, it's hard to keep track of the threads without a companion book (and the internets has a couple timelines).
I think it is one of the best representations of time travel in fiction I've seen in a long, long time, so that gives it many stars in my book. It's also awesome in that it will nearly *always* spawn deep, interesting discussions about metaphysics in people - even those who have no background in philosophy.
But still, it needed another half hour to bake in the last timelines.
>The back third *still* falls a bit too complicated for my taste *as a film*.
Yeah. Perhaps as a film. But what I think it maybe, just maybe, captures that no other time travel story I've seen or read ever has, is the truly bewildering sense of *already* being trapped inside time-paradox. By the time you realize this is a time-paradox story, it is way way WAY too late to escape, and I *love* the sudden dawning realization of that in the movie. Like you say: that is one ambitious f'ing reach, and maybe they didn't quite stick the landing with this film... but on the other hand, maybe they did, and it's just that time-paradox really *is* that hard to untangle once it goes awry.
>You've seen Arrested Development, right? All of it?
Dude, what kind of idiot do you secretly suspect I might be? Of course we have.
As well as occasionally catching episodes on the tivo as it is, since we still have our season pass and G4, IIRC, is running it in syndication. (Tonight, we watched the episode where Tobias becomes the director for the school play that George Michael and Mabey and STEVE HOLT are in.) Anyway. On this one thing, at least, you can let go of your secret fear that I am incompetent. You and I are already in sync.
Ditto on the Primer love. I saw it when it first came out. I also dug the complexity because what bothers me about time travel stories is how they are usually able to untangle all the causal threads in a neat manner e.g. Star Trek or Back to the Future, but in this case the characters are soon overwhelmed by the complexities of their own making. We need more time travel cautionary tales a la "Sound of Thunder" (the story, of course, not the dreck movie).
To be fair, The Cell was awesome in any respect that doesn't include the story. I made the mistake of taking a date to see it with me. I ended up having to walk out of it in order to spare the hopes of my evening because it was really freaking her out.
I still haven't seen The Fall, but it's on the queue.
Primer was awesome. For some reason, it reminded me of Floorpuller.
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I applaud it on many, many levels, but I think it's reach is longer than it's grasp. The back third *still* falls a bit too complicated for my taste *as a film*. Were it a book, or even a graphic novel, I think it may work, but as a 1.5 hour film, it's hard to keep track of the threads without a companion book (and the internets has a couple timelines).
I think it is one of the best representations of time travel in fiction I've seen in a long, long time, so that gives it many stars in my book. It's also awesome in that it will nearly *always* spawn deep, interesting discussions about metaphysics in people - even those who have no background in philosophy.
But still, it needed another half hour to bake in the last timelines.
WRT to 30 Rock and the unnamed Sunset ( ... )
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Yeah. Perhaps as a film. But what I think it maybe, just maybe, captures that no other time travel story I've seen or read ever has, is the truly bewildering sense of *already* being trapped inside time-paradox. By the time you realize this is a time-paradox story, it is way way WAY too late to escape, and I *love* the sudden dawning realization of that in the movie. Like you say: that is one ambitious f'ing reach, and maybe they didn't quite stick the landing with this film... but on the other hand, maybe they did, and it's just that time-paradox really *is* that hard to untangle once it goes awry.
>You've seen Arrested Development, right? All of it?
Dude, what kind of idiot do you secretly suspect I might be? Of course we have.
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I didn't even make it through the end of Mamma Mia's opening credits.
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I still haven't seen The Fall, but it's on the queue.
Primer was awesome. For some reason, it reminded me of Floorpuller.
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(For everyone else: http://omino.com/dvb/art/floorpuller/index.html - made by friends of ours from college.)
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