roguejuror
matty's hype man
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- Jan 24, 2010
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I admit I did some pauses during ww
Arrival (2016) - As of now (but with still some good candidates to view) this has my vote for Best Picture of 2016.
Director Denis Villeneuve has become, for me, the king of making movies that seem to be about something but are really just thrillers. Prisoners seemed for a good while to be about the philosophical question of the okayness of torture. Would you? In the most extreme conditions? But that question ended up being peripheral. Likewise Sicario seemed to be about the inherent impossibility of policing the war on drugs - and it seemed like it was going to say something deep about it - but it was really just a thriller in the end.
Nothing wrong with a good thriller and those are both decent thumbs up movies. Just not quite what they seemed to be advertising.
Arrival is a movie that seems to be about the paramount importance of clear communication - and I'm not going to say that wasn't an important part of things - but it also had a structure that reduced the importance of that in the end. Not totally though. A nice point was made. I'm avoiding spoilers and will just leave it at that.
But it's really good. Just a thoroughly thoughtful, intelligent, absorbing production. Amy Adams is truly one of the best out there. You look at this and then you remember Junebug and Enchanted ---> chick has got some ridiculous range.
8.2 out of 10
Neither of you are comprehending the concept of non-linear time. That's okay though. It is effectively linear.