RE: Terrible - i know this!!

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RE: Terrible - i know this!! - 3/2/2013 4:26:01 PM

Indio

Posts: 7131
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: London

Thought this was pretty terrible, certainly the film of Cronenberg's that I've enjoyed the least. Just the first ten minutes of it tells you this is going to be a slog, all of the actors speaking their dialogue as if it was the most profound work that had ever been seen on screen and with next to no feeling in their performances while doing so, Pattinson gives a masterclass in how NOT to be a leading man, all of his lines spoken as if he's reading them off the back of a cereal packet, displaying the same emotions as if he was doing that all of the way through the film (Cronenberg may say that as he's playing the head of an investment company who doesn't give a flying one about anyone about himself that's the point, but that doesn't wash as the lead role in a film, even when he shoots himself in the hand at the end it's more of an 'oh deary me' moment than the viewer thinking he's actually in pain)

Similarly, thet whole bit about the rapper dying (I say the whole bit, the rapper is mentioned briefly near the beginning and then gets a musical montage of him lying in his coffin while a song co-written by Don De Lillo but sounds suspiciously more like a Chris Martin out-take than any gangster rap tune that would get the masses lining the streets of Manhattan plays in the background) seemed like an effort to make the film a little bit more 'street' so that people who probably wouldn't give a toss about a film about an investment type going to get his haircut might think it was a bit more 'street'.

The whole thing's not helped by obviously not being filmed in actual New York, within the first five minutes of seeing the pretty terrible special effects of buildings and shops that look like they were drawn up from the memories of someone who went on holiday to NYC a long time ago through the car window you just think the whole thing looks like something tatty from the Eighties rather than the cutting edge comment on life that we're supposed to think this is - but above all it's just boring, it's been a long time since I saw a film that seemed to go so slowly, the first twenty minutes or so seemed like an hour. One for Cronenberg completists and fanatics only.

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(in reply to Daniel James Taylor)

Post #: 31

Neo-Surrealism: A How Not To Guide - 28/2/2013 1:00:40 PM

blaud

Posts: 722
Joined: 13/12/2007

I think David Cronenberg needs to realize that he is not a jack-of-all-genres. After the moderate misstep that was A Dangerous Method, I for one thought that DC would get back into his trademark slick/ violent dramas or action films, which is, let's be honest, where he shone best. Cosmopolis starts intriguingly enough, but as nothing is resolved for the duration of the film, the intrigue only turns to tedium as more and more characters are introduced for minute reasons and then promptly disappear. It's all well and good to make a difficult-to-unravel surrealist film, but if you're using the fact that the film is intended to be surrealist to bypass things such as cohesive storytelling or character development, it's not going to work. This is the mistake Cronenberg makes; he tenuously links little motifs and phrases etc. between scenes and expects there to be some colassal realization of reason throughout. There isn't. It's pretentous twaddle. Cronenberg has tried his hand at a similar tone before and succeeded amicably (Videodrome), but Cosmopolis proves that a film must have an upshot as well as a rabbit hole to fall into, and after 108 minutes of tumbling, not even a well-judged performance from Pattinson can rescue this from being anything more than a self-indulgent, pretentious, and boring film that wallows in genre cliché

(in reply to Empire Admin)

Post #: 32