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Post by joekiddlouischama on Oct 14, 2019 9:01:06 GMT
no i mean it, i saw No Msg in Ad Astra whatsoever and would like to jnow what ohers saw in it. i think it will be nominated for cinematography and potentially music but i really struggled to stay i the theatre...it felt so empty and almost poser-ish but maybe i missed something bigger? After some reflection, I think the biggest problem with this film is it is too self-conscious. It was wanting to strive for something meaningful and existential, but ended up ultimately hollow and even contrived in execution. Were we supposed to even care about Roy, his father and his hazy— like his relationship with his wife liv Tyler, who literally had a hazy and random presence in the movie—epiphany by the end? Yes; I just used that phrase myself, even before reading your post.
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Oct 14, 2019 9:07:39 GMT
After some reflection, I think the biggest problem with this film is it is too self-conscious. It was wanting to strive for something meaningful and existential, but ended up ultimately hollow and even contrived in execution. Were we supposed to even care about Roy, his father and his hazy— like his relationship with his wife liv Tyler, who literally had a hazy and random presence in the movie—epiphany by the end? This is the whole central engine on which the movie is run on and it falls short because there's very little reason for the audience to care about Roy and his father. All we know of him is voice over thoughts of Brad Pitts character narrated throughout the movie and that isn't enough to forge a convincing bond.
Thinking about it, most other sci-fis recently have tried to do this parent-child connection as the backbone of their story to make us care about the hero in peril, with varying degrees of success. In The Martian, Matt Damon has a brief voiceover narration, like Ad Astra, about missing his parents and hoping that he can see them again whilst he's stranded on Mars. Again, its an example that voice overs are not enough imo to audiences care. Same with Gravity where Sandras character laments over her (dead) daughter on earth. Interstellar and Arrival I think do it best. There's a significant visual element into developing the Mother/Father-Daughter bond and that gives audiences a more powerful grip on the relationship.and makes you care more.
For Ad Astra, I would have liked to see some flashnbacks of Brads character as a kid with his dad maybe showing us him tutoring in math like he said. Anything other than straight exposition.
In my view, the motif is most potent in Interstellar. However, I actually found Gravity to be the best of these movies overall, because it largely maintains a logistical focus—almost like a 1970s genre film, it just jumps into its (narrative) problems rather than straining for greater meaning.
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Oct 14, 2019 9:20:13 GMT
But as you indicated, the constant voice-over narration is problematic—it renders the surrealism too self-conscious and too soft-pedaled. In Apocalypse Now, conversely, the narration seems more judicious, and it is certainly not sentimental. Just to further this point, the constant voice-over narration and the constant Pitt closeups are redundant. If one is featuring all that narration, then one does not need such tight visual coverage of Pitt (or vice versa). If one is using all that voice-over narration, then liberate the viewer to receive more expansive or varied visual perspectives. A worthwhile example can be found early in Apocalypse Now where we hear Captain Willard lamenting the Vietnam War's "lies" and the hypocrisy of the brass while we see his boat, among others, on the river. Since we hear him, we do not necessarily need to see him.
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Post by Vits on Dec 6, 2019 21:25:26 GMT
7/10
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arekay
New Member
@arekay
Posts: 19
Likes: 7
 
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Post by arekay on Dec 7, 2019 1:00:46 GMT
9/10
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 13, 2019 8:01:10 GMT
I ultimately viewed Ad Astra twice more in the theater, for a total of three screenings. On all three occasions, my assessment essentially remained the same—I consider the movie "pretty good," meaning above-average. I am favorable towards it, but Ad Astra is also less than a full-fledged "good" film.
The dialogue and narration are quite eloquent, as is the imagery. Part of what renders the movie compelling is the subtlety of the imagery in certain places. For instance, late in film, when the despairing, melancholic Pitt character contemplates giving up, the deeply distant sun slightly rotates from behind Neptune's rings—deep within the frame—and shines the tiniest bit of warmth and light upon the astronaut in the right foreground, silently encouraging him to journey home. It is a subtle, poetic, beautiful shot, but one that a viewer might not notice on an initial screening (indeed, I only recognized it upon my second and third viewings). Shortly thereafter, as Roy McBride's borrowed spaceship hurtles off toward Earth, it eventually becomes indistinguishable from the innumerable stars in the sky, blending into the astral mosaic offered by director James Gray's long, still shot. Whereas movies such as Gravity and Interstellar undoubtedly proved visually spectacular, Ad Astra is more elegant, more subtle, more muted—and arguably more laudatory for that reason. Whereas Interstellar wows the viewer and provides a virtual candy store of outer space optics, Ad Astra's visuals are leaner, sparser, and yet hauntingly attractive just the same. And the narration sometimes matches that quality. To paraphrase, "He discovered amazing worlds, full of awe and wonder. But beneath their sublime surfaces, they were empty. No love or hate, no passion or feeling."
The film's central flaw, however, is that the ultimate meeting between McBride and his wayward, iconoclastic father fails to deliver the requisite emotional payoff or punch. Their climactic rendezvous is tender and slightly poignant, but it also feels a tad milquetoast and foreordained. Ad Astra had not developed enough depth to the father-son relationship over the course of the movie; as another poster noted, some extensive flashbacks might have helped.
What proves appreciable, again, is that Ad Astra constitutes a big-budget, would-be blockbuster that moves slowly and gracefully, that combines splendid visual effects with the desire for introspection and a man's self-discovery. But the film also cannot quite transcend the limitations of its format and manner.
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