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Children of Men

Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:32 pm
by Cinesimilitude
Image

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original 5.1 DTS-HD master audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• New audio commentary by author and critic Bryan Reesman
• There is No Future, a new video appreciation by film historian Philip Kemp
• Fertility & Progeny, a new video essay by author and critic Kat Ellinger
• The Possibility of Hope, an archival documentary featuring interviews with activist Naomi Klein, philosopher Slavoj Žižek and others, exploring the film’s resonance with contemporary current affairs
• Comments by Slavoj Žižek, an archival featurette on the film’s themes
• Creating the Baby, an archival featurette on the film’s visual effects
• Futuristic Design, an archival featurette on the film’s sets
• Theo & Julian, an archival featurette on Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and their characters
• Under Attack, an archival featurette on the film’s ground-breaking camerawork
• Deleted scenes
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Corey Brickley

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mark Cunliffe and Amy Simmons

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 7:53 am
by Antoine Doinel
Cinesimilitude wrote:
Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:32 pm
Trailer up in quicktime and HD on apple. looks pretty awesome, and clive owen continues to impress me.
Yeah, this looks pretty damn cool. The latter half of the trailer though looked a little soppy, though I imagine that's probably just the studio selling the film. And yeah, Clive Owen is really making some intriguing choices lately. Glad to see that he's actually trying to live up to the hype surrounding him.

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:46 am
by Matt
Jesus, it's been ages since Julianne Moore has been in a decent movie. At least, this looks like a decent movie.

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:17 pm
by flyonthewall2983
I gotta admit, I wasn't really impressed. When the legend "from the director of Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire" or whatever showed up, all bets were off for me to take this seriously.

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:33 pm
by Antoine Doinel
It's a trailer, so obviously they're trying to interest as many people as possible. I don't think any studio would've approved a trailer that said "From the director of Y tu mamá también and Sólo con tu pareja (coming soon on Criterion!)".

Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:33 pm
by toiletduck!
flyonthewall2983 wrote:I gotta admit, I wasn't really impressed. When the legend "from the director of Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire" or whatever showed up, all bets were off for me to take this seriously.
As opposed to the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien, who we respect?

-Toilet Dcuk

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:40 am
by Antoine Doinel
From Dave Poland's Hot Blog:
Positive response to the Children of Men trailer combined with ongoing hopes that Al Cuaron can get a directing nod has led to a Dec 25 date shift for Children of Men... apparently there are some visual pyrotechinics of a Scorsese/Welles nature...

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:52 am
by Napoleon
Antoine Doinel wrote:From Dave Poland's Hot Blog:
Positive response to the Children of Men trailer combined with ongoing hopes that Al Cuaron can get a directing nod has led to a Dec 25 date shift for Children of Men... apparently there are some visual pyrotechinics of a Scorsese/Welles nature...
Because Orson and Marty have DOMINATED the Oscars.

Interesting bit of info all the same.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:05 am
by Kirkinson
I didn't realize until a second ago that despite the shifted US date, this film is still coming out this Friday in the U.K.

In any case, this British site has three fine clips and a tiny little bit of a video interview with Cuarón.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:21 pm
by Cinesimilitude
there isn't even a release date listd for canada, and this film doesnt go wide until december 29th.

looks like I'll be seeing it online first and then buying the dvd.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:27 pm
by colinr0380
Matt wrote:Jesus, it's been ages since Julianne Moore has been in a decent movie. At least, this looks like a decent movie.
Yes but she's balancing it out with that Trust The Man film. It sounds like there is some clause in actresses careers where they have to follow up a Monster's Ball with a Catwoman, or a Dogville and Birth with Stepford Wives and Bewitched.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:35 pm
by Cinesimilitude
dramatic scene's are tough as hell to get through. Even though they are excellent films, I can see why an actress would want some lighter fare before jumping into another dramatic role as huge as any of the three you've listed.

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:40 pm
by Matt
SncDthMnky wrote:I can see why an actress would want some lighter fare before jumping into another dramatic role as huge as any of the three you've listed.
Or she could just take a vacation, which would be a lot easier on all of us.

BTW, Trust the Man is written/directed by Moore's husband, Bart Freundlich. It's their 3rd film together, and it probably won't be as bad as the trailer makes it out to be. I still don't plan on seeing it though.

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:48 am
by soma
SncDthMnky wrote:Trailer up in quicktime and HD on apple. looks pretty awesome, and clive owen continues to impress me.
Agreed on all fronts. Clive Owen is on the up and up. I wish Scorsese had have cast him for The Departed over DiCaprio, Damon, etc.

I really liked Y Tu Mama Tambien, and the trailer for this looks most promising. Definitely on my shortlist for films I'm most hanging to see before the close of '06, along with The Fountain, Babel, Inland Empire and The Science Of Sleep.

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 9:57 am
by Fletch F. Fletch
soma wrote:
SncDthMnky wrote:Trailer up in quicktime and HD on apple. looks pretty awesome, and clive owen continues to impress me.
Agreed on all fronts. Clive Owen is on the up and up. I wish Scorsese had have cast him for The Departed over DiCaprio, Damon, etc.
Have you guys seen the trailer for Owen's upcoming film Shoot 'Em Up coming out next year? It looks absolutely insane... Check it out. I've been a fan of his ever since I saw The Hire short films...

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:53 pm
by Abulafia
Wow! Watched this last night. I think it's probably the best filmmaking I've seen any film this year exhibit, with elements of Godard's Weekend and Haneke. The long takes in the film are some of the best I've seen as are the films effects, which are simply extraordinary.

A mouth dropping piece of cinema, which just keeps building.

p.s. I should mention that I was extremely hesitant about seeing this film. Also, someone earlier mentioned seeing this on DVD first. I STRONGLY recommed viewing this at the cinema, unless of course you have a cinema at home, which you may very well.

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:58 pm
by Cinesimilitude
Fletch F. Fletch wrote:
soma wrote:
SncDthMnky wrote:Trailer up in quicktime and HD on apple. looks pretty awesome, and clive owen continues to impress me.
Agreed on all fronts. Clive Owen is on the up and up. I wish Scorsese had have cast him for The Departed over DiCaprio, Damon, etc.
Have you guys seen the trailer for Owen's upcoming film Shoot 'Em Up coming out next year? It looks absolutely insane... Check it out. I've been a fan of his ever since I saw The Hire short films...
I broked it :(
Abulafia wrote:Wow! Watched this last night. I think it's probably the best filmmaking I've seen any film this year exhibit, with elements of Godard's Weekend and Hanake. The long takes in the film are some of the best I've seen as are the films effects, which are simply extraordinary.

A mouth dropping piece of cinema, which just keeps building.

p.s. I should mention that I was extremely hesitant about seeing this film. Also, someone earlier mentioned seeing this on DVD first. I STRONGLY recommed viewing this at the cinema, unless of course you have a cinema at home, which you may very well.
YEEEEEEE-HAW! Love seeing positive news about projects I can't wait for!

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 3:10 pm
by soma
It was a fantastic film, definitely everything I had hoped for. Most striking perhaps was its raw immediacy; especially the handheld, documentary-style battle footage and long, politically-loaded takes of the refugee camps. Despite its message, somewhat of a reminder and wake-up call to the fragility of our existence, its sense of humanity and tender hope was most refreshing. Cuaron has crafted himself a great film here, without doubt the best sci-fi drama since Gattaca.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:35 am
by che-etienne
Beautifully conceived. I haven't seen a film with such raw visual power this year, and doubt I'll see one that will surpass it in a while. The much-lauded long takes are simply breathtaking, and I really wish I had the time and more importantly the eloquence to break down what an experience seeing this movie was. It may indeed be a masterpiece.... but enough of the speculative hyperbole, which I usually detest... I'll try to post a lengthy, comprehensive review soon.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:57 am
by David Ehrenstein
Quite an amazing piece of work. Cuaron's a master filmmaker. Remindful of Weekend to some extent but also the Mad Max movies and Jarman's The Last of England. Tour de froce action sequences with takes so long they take your breath away. Owen and Moore are marvelous but the dp and set designer take precedent in many ways. Far and away one of the very best movies of the year.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:00 am
by chaddoli
Ed Gonzales weighs in:

Children of Men
Children of Men's appalling trailer should give everyone pause, but Alfonso Cuarón doesn't push any Mother Africa theme throughout this account of a man's activist awakening in apocalyptic London. The problem with this film, an adaptation of the P.D. James novel, is that it doesn't push a whole lot. Cuarón and his small army of screenwriters drop us in London with no interest in rationalizing a society's downfall: why illegal immigrants are so callously hoarded into cages, a pig-shaped blimp hovers in the sky (is it just because it looks cool?), Julianne Moore runs a terrorist group that protects the first woman in almost two decades to have conceived a child, and a stringy-haired Michael Caine lives in the country (with a catatonic wife) growing jealousy-inducing batches of marijuana. But Children of Men is still worth seeing, mainly for the way Cuarón directs the mother-fucking shit out of a flimsy script. Soon after agreeing to secure a young immigrant black woman, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), with the necessary papers for her to leave the country, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) will learn that she's pregnant and that the birth of her child may change the face of a world whose youngest person is, after the assassination of a Brazilian teen, an 18-year-old girl. Beginning with the very unexpected death of one of the film's main characters, in a scene that exudes the we-can-make-it panic of a Zack Snyder zombie attack, Children of Men builds and builds, like a rollercoaster rising uncertainly to the heavens, to a visionary battle sequence. I have to agree with Slant writer Keith Uhlich's assertion that Cuarón's images lack for the emotion of Come and See and Underground, but the film's final leg, during which the sounds of war defy the screams of a newborn child and Cuarón's camera takes on the point-of-view of a dog of war, chasing Theodore, Kee, and a spastic gypsy woman who looks as if she might be Gina Gershon in disguise through the streets and buildings of a crumbling immigrant ghetto, exudes a voluptuous energy rarely seen in the movies. Cuarón's virtuostic vision is laced with magical realist touches (look for Kee in the playground of one scene, glimpsed through teardrop-shaped glass) and reflective of the constant flux that is the bane of so many refugee and immigrant lives.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:27 am
by scalesojustice
appalling trailer? apparently i'm a sucker for sigur ros. still, very much looking forward to this one.

oh yeah, that review above has A SPOILER and it seems to be somewhat major.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:34 am
by David Ehrenstein
That pig-shaped blimp is a fairly well-known art work of recent post-modernist vintage. Not sure of the name of the artist but in terms of the film it's as one with all the other art works Danny Huston's character is hoarding -- for no reason he can actually name. It's a perfect evocation of the utter uselessness of art.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:26 pm
by John Cope
David Ehrenstein wrote:That pig-shaped blimp is a fairly well-known art work of recent post-modernist vintage. Not sure of the name of the artist but in terms of the film it's as one with all the other art works Danny Huston's character is hoarding -- for no reason he can actually name. It's a perfect evocation of the utter uselessness of art.
Some art. Or, should I say, some "art".

I get the impression that "the film" (which I have yet to see) is not exactly endorsing the view you're describing. Could it be a critique? If not, it should be.

It reminds me of that eye roll inducing scene in The Day After Tomorrow in which an archivist keeps a copy of a Gutenberg Bible, not because it may have any inherent value, of course, but because it's historically important. :roll:

There's a similar moment in V for Vendetta. We are meant to sympathize with these characters because they have an appreciation for the poetic, but it's a purely aesthetic appreciation based on sentimentality. They appear to have little understanding of the transforming function of the poetic imagination and this attitude is designed to placate audiences who share this ignorance. They might be troubled by the implication that anything beyond sentimentality drives artistic devotion when they themselves can see in it only its supposedly non-practical applications.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:33 pm
by David Ehrenstein
I get the impression that "the film" (which I have yet to see) is not exactly endorsing the view you're describing.
Oh yes it is!

Danny Huston's character is not treated with any level of sympathy at all.