Escape to the Movies: Life of Pi

[TheSapphireKnight]

I didn't really know what Pacific Rim was supposed to be about until I saw the recent trailer thing and that schematic. That instantly jumped to HOLY SHIT GIVE ME NOW.

Please please please be good pacific rim. Need. More. Giant. Monsters.

OT: Life of Pi looks cool too.....

 

[charliesbass]

Oh yes, Bob got his passion back. Didn't agree with the Silver Linings Playbook bit though, everything else was spot on.

 

[scarfacetehstag]

Kinda figured this would happen, this is the kind of review that makes me think Bob doesn't read much. Everything has one interpretation and only one.
You can interpret it as anti atheist, but you can also interpret it as anti religion, funnily enough that';s usually the way the book is seen by the hardcore religious.
I've always seen the book as saying that all religions tell the same story and saying one is more invalid than the other is silly.
And the over arching point of the book for me is to believe in something, not to be cynical realist. Disagree with that all you want, but don't call the book philosophical drivel for it.

I may be biased in the fact the author lives in my city, and I've gone to several of his lectures.

 

[gorfias]

After hearing so many people heap praise onto "silver linings" it's nice to hear some criticism.

Also, I'll watch Pi when it comes to DVD.

I'll write this about "Silver Linings": it was marketed dishonestly. Watch the tailor. It is marketed like a Rom Com with quirky characters:


It is not particularly romantic or funny. It is a nice slice of life about a guy with real mental illness. I brought my daughter and her friend and squirmed a lot in that it was more serious than funny.

While I prefer "Garden State" I did think this was pretty good.

 

[dubious_wolf]

soooo...
Isn't this based on a book?
Is the book this bad? why is this on high school reading lists and why are we making school kids read that?

 

[PunkRex]

'ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS, ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS!!!'

I might still se the film, it does look really easy on the eyes.

 

[Dire Sloth]

There's totally a sloth in one of those clips.

I'm just going to go see Rise of the Guardians again.

 

[FirebirdXR]

I won't debate the movie because I have yet to have seen it, and he may be right in that regard for all that I know...

But Bob should really avoid saying "self-indulgent".
Since it seems utterly hypocritical coming from him.

(Then again, that might be what a critic is, but with varying degrees. with Bob though...it's off the damned radar)

 

[hentropy]

Optimus Prime also has a lot more media penetration than a cartoon that ended over ten years ago and ran for 3 years.

So what you're saying is that Doug wasn't the most important animated masterpiece since Fantasia? I don't know what kind of twisted world you're living in, sir, but it's not a world I want to live in.

 

[hentropy]

soooo...
Isn't this based on a book?
Is the book this bad? why is this on high school reading lists and why are we making school kids read that?

Because pushing religion on youngsters is okay so long as you do it in a covert, non-denominational manner. Still better than Catcher in the Rye, though.

 

[samus17]

It's pretty sad how many people talk about how they were shyed away just because of the religious stuff in the movie.

 

[Penguin_Factory]

As a huge fan of the book I was already iffy about this due to the overblown visuals- the novel had Pi seeing a lot of col stuff but it was usually pretty grounded in reality, whereas from the trailers it looks like his raft took a detour into the oceans of Narnia at some point.

Pi being quirky might be an invention of the movie or it might be a result of the transition from novel to film- in the book his narration was often quite downbeat and despairing and he spent most of his time focusing on the minutiae of survival, with the profundity usually reserved for the big "wonder of nature" set-pieces. It sounds like in the movie they downplayed the former and heavily increased the latter.

About the storie's message.... I'm a pretty staunch atheist myself, but I honestly didn't have a problem with it. What the story is saying- that people will generally believe what they find most comforting- is pretty much objectively true and while the book does seem endorse this as a good thing (something I wouldn't agree with) it's not done in an obnoxious way. The only part of the book that got my hackles up is near the beginning where Pi trots out the old Atheist Deathbed Conversion thing, but it's just a single sentence in an otherwise excellent book.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

I'm kind of surprised Bob didn't mention Life of Pi is based on a book many thought to be un-filmable.

This. Someone give the director/etc. a medal for making a book that is all about philosophical wank, into an interesting movie.

Frankly, I don't think Bob even knew this was based on a book. (That's exaggeration, I'm sure he did, but he sure didn't act like it.) The book shouldn't have been filmable, because it was...long philosophical wank, just like he said. He should have *known* Pi was going to be exactly how he was, because the entire book is a philosophical diatribe. It's a great one! But it doesn't have a driving wonderful actiony plot hook that makes movies really go, so this thing should be praised just for having done well for its plot. Maybe it will encourage other directors to really put some oomph into their work and go for the weirder genres.

Most of his criticisms are as if he had no idea the book even existed. No one is going to go see this weird thing that doesn't know about the book, so we're all ready for it. The movie was about religion because the *book* was about religion. The plot twist was there *because* it was in the book. What did he want? People ***** if you deviate from the book, then they ***** if you don't?

 

[Markunator]

Pretty cynical episode but I'm intrigued by some of the earlier points you made (literal monster island?). Granted while this Pi character sounds annoying at least it's refreshing to have an Indian lead in a film billed as highly as it is.

As for the pre-review films, I would rather see a full Lincoln review now. Still having to wait in the UK since Oscar season films are released DURING the awards for even greater marketing.

As for Silver Linings Playbook, come on Bob, granted it's not all that originals or mind blowing but the characters are interesting and well played and it's not only great to see De Niro actually ACTING for once in the last couple of years but Chris Tucker (yes THAT one) isn't annoying, actually likeable. You may not care for it but a "piece of shit"? Far from it.

That's what I believe it probably is. I haven't seen it yet, though - it doesn't come out in Sweden until late February.

What really sold me on the film was the Spill Crew's review of the film. I trust their opinion far more than I trust Bob's, to be perfectly honest:
http://my.spill.com/profiles/blogs/silver-linings-playbook-audio-review

EDIT: Also ... "conventionally attractive"? Are you kidding me, Bob? Jennifer Lawrence is fucking gorgeous!

 

[TheSchaef]

Still, how would you feel if a supposedly nostalgic geek expert said something like "That leader of the Transformers" when talking about Optimus Prime. And yes, I am saying Judy is just as if not more important than Optimus Prime.

Yeah, no. If any character in Doug is Optimus-important, it's Doug himself. And I'm not even sure Doug would hold his own as effectively.

In fact, the more I think about it, Optimus may be the most enduring single character from the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. I say "single" because the Ninja Turtles are still around but they are recognized as a collective, and whatever reimaginings take place (e.g. the new Nick cartoon), it is still those four with the same names and basic personality types. The Power Rangers are the unbridled success that Voltron should have been, but there's like 30 different versions of the show, most of which feature none of the characters from the original series. There's nothing to tie them together other than the theme song and the ninjas-with-robots motif.

Optimus, and specifically a Peter-Cullen-voiced Optimus, is the Grand Unifying Force in Transformers lore. When second-gen Transformers floundered after they brutally murdered all of your childhood heroes, they revived the series by... resurrecting Optimus [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq1_6D9QS9Y]. His peripheral presence in Beast Wars et al lent weight to them as well.

Many of the doubts people had about the live-action movies faded when the first film opened with Peter Cullen's narration. Of course most of it came right back when they started following around Shia LeBouf for half the film, but still, Optimus. Same thing goes with Cullen's voice in the new Prime series.

Even Rescue Bots, a show my preschoolers recently discovered, featuring Dora-level animation and no Transformer you've ever heard of before, features conference calls where they report back to the boss... Optimus. Voiced by Cullen.

Even my wife recognizes the voice and person of Optimus immediately, and she doesn't give half a toss about cartoon robots.

There may be a character from that era with as much reach and gravitas as Optimus, but I can't think of anyone it might be.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

The moral sounds like a theological version of the moral of Secondhand Lions. From the sound of it, Secondhand Lions did it better. I can't comment on whether it's also a better movie about a boy and a big cat or not.

 

[A. Smith]

Foreword: I am an atheist, and I have only read the book, not seen the movie. With this out of the way...

I find the book to be much more of a study of why we (as a species) tend to believe in deities rather then the other pushing it on us. As an atheist, the final question had an obvious answer, but I did not feel threatened by the possibility that there's an argument for the other position, nor that other people might choose differently.

Indeed, if this had been written with the intent of pushing religion, do you honestly think

Spoiler

the main reason to believe is merely to escape from the terror of the alternative?

That said, the book itself had a few problems, the most important of which is how much the first third of the book sucks. Nothing happens for a good 80 pages. It has some merit, in that it somewhat sets up the final twist, but it could have been chopped down to half its size and it would still have worked. Heck, the movie probably helps with that.

 

[TheSchaef]

So anyway, about this movie.

I'm not sure I buy the "here's all my criticisms of this movie, but go see it cause at least it ain't Transformers 4" Based on his description, it sounds like a combination of the survivalist lone character of Cast Away and the "choose to believe my fanciful story" whimsy of Big Fish.

Do yourself a favor, if that's what you want to see, give this movie a pass and just watch Cast Away and Big Fish. Both are eminently better films with much more watchable leads (Tom Hanks and Ewan MacGregor, respectively).

 

[Chknboy]

Well judging from your review it sounds pretty much exactly like the book. I remember reading it in High School and thinking how douchey Pi was. Why do you have to be so God Damned Quirky!?