I saw Knowing, you guys!
I kid, I kid. It actually wasn't entirely horrible -- the special effects were wonderful, the disasters were phenomenal, and the plot itself for most of the movie was pretty intriguing.
Aaaaaand then came the ending.
Well, okay, first came Nicolas Cage, who is -- let's be honest -- a walking pile of cheese. I think he probably smells like Velveeta. He can't deliver a line like a normal person anyway. It's like every time you turn a camera on him he's in that warm sleepy state right after you wake up when you desperately need coffee. Unless you're me, in which case replace "coffee" with "Pepsi, fudgsicles, and Pixy Stix." Breakfast ofWorld of Warcraft champions, beeyotches.
Anyway. Then came the ending.
We've all played Mad Libs. Mad Libs are the BEST. With Mad Libs, you can come up with an ending that says, "And then the albino aliens gave them bunnies and flew them in an inside-out comet to a giant silver space tree," and it's okay. It's even really ridiculously pretty. And I maybe kind of want post-movie fanfic of it. I never said I wasn't lame.
Also, they didn't have the Yellowstone caldera. I'm going to end up having to write this damn thing myself, aren't I? Come ON, Hollywood! Discovery Channel specials aren't going to cut it with me.
EDIT: Spotted on IMDb ...
Roger Ebert is definitely in the minority in his assessment of Knowing. The Chicago Sun-Times critic often finds himself at odds with other reviewers, but in this case he's standing alone against just about every one of them, who give the film one of the worst drubbings of the year. Ebert awards the film four stars and writes that it "is among the best science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome." Contrast those words with these that conclude Kyle Smith's review in the New York Post: "The movie begins shameless, grows stupid and winds up silly. If the ending had less of the air of a crackpot religion and more pretentiousness, you could almost call it Shyamalanish." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe nearly echoes those words: "Knowing," he writes, "starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous." Christy Lemire of the Associate Press writes that it is "an early contender for worst movie of the year." But A.O. Scott in the New York Times notes that the audience he saw the movie with appeared to be having a good time. However, he added, "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it's probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles."
... wait, it's wrong to giggle during movie disasters? I fail. *hangs head*
I wish I could argue with most of those assessments, but they're actually fairly apt. You have to keep in mind, my idea of ridiculous and other people's idea of it when it comes to disaster movies are WORLDS apart.
I kid, I kid. It actually wasn't entirely horrible -- the special effects were wonderful, the disasters were phenomenal, and the plot itself for most of the movie was pretty intriguing.
Aaaaaand then came the ending.
Well, okay, first came Nicolas Cage, who is -- let's be honest -- a walking pile of cheese. I think he probably smells like Velveeta. He can't deliver a line like a normal person anyway. It's like every time you turn a camera on him he's in that warm sleepy state right after you wake up when you desperately need coffee. Unless you're me, in which case replace "coffee" with "Pepsi, fudgsicles, and Pixy Stix." Breakfast of
Anyway. Then came the ending.
We've all played Mad Libs. Mad Libs are the BEST. With Mad Libs, you can come up with an ending that says, "And then the albino aliens gave them bunnies and flew them in an inside-out comet to a giant silver space tree," and it's okay. It's even really ridiculously pretty. And I maybe kind of want post-movie fanfic of it. I never said I wasn't lame.
Also, they didn't have the Yellowstone caldera. I'm going to end up having to write this damn thing myself, aren't I? Come ON, Hollywood! Discovery Channel specials aren't going to cut it with me.
EDIT: Spotted on IMDb ...
Roger Ebert is definitely in the minority in his assessment of Knowing. The Chicago Sun-Times critic often finds himself at odds with other reviewers, but in this case he's standing alone against just about every one of them, who give the film one of the worst drubbings of the year. Ebert awards the film four stars and writes that it "is among the best science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome." Contrast those words with these that conclude Kyle Smith's review in the New York Post: "The movie begins shameless, grows stupid and winds up silly. If the ending had less of the air of a crackpot religion and more pretentiousness, you could almost call it Shyamalanish." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe nearly echoes those words: "Knowing," he writes, "starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous." Christy Lemire of the Associate Press writes that it is "an early contender for worst movie of the year." But A.O. Scott in the New York Times notes that the audience he saw the movie with appeared to be having a good time. However, he added, "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it's probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles."
... wait, it's wrong to giggle during movie disasters? I fail. *hangs head*
I wish I could argue with most of those assessments, but they're actually fairly apt. You have to keep in mind, my idea of ridiculous and other people's idea of it when it comes to disaster movies are WORLDS apart.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-13 03:54 am (UTC)