Civil War (A24 - Alex Garland, Spring 2024) • Page 10

I liked this a lot, crazy camera people are always an interesting topic in film for me.

 

Well this was a movie. Truly have no idea what he was trying to say with this.

 

How can I block a Twitter account on chorus

 

Idk I thought this was enjoyable? Definitely built for theater viewing as opposed to home viewing. Good cinematography and sound design, although there’s like one odd musical choice. I think the quote from a few pages ago about how it focuses on the “what would happen” rather than the “why the war happens” is accurate.

 

I hated this.

 

LCJ might suck but his tweet is accurate

 

It’s just like, an opinion man

 

When LCJ is right he’s right

 

hah, more like, lights camera jackass, amirite

(i have no idea who this person is)

 

This really worked for me from a production, acting and journalism standpoint. But also, I agree - what’s the point here?

 

It’s also hilarious how much the trailer misrepresents this as a pulse-pounding thriller.

 

I just don't see how you go from making Annihilation, Ex Machina and Devs (I don't really remember much about Men, but don't remember hating it), to something like this. Just completely devoid of substance, imo.

 

The big sequences worked for me. The sniper scene and especially the borderline Pleasantville town - really dug those.

 

Thought this was great and the point was much clearer than a movie called "Men"

 

what was the point?

 

If Allison Pill showed up in this, it would have had like the entire cast of Devs

 

There are isolated sequences I like (the Jesse Plemmons scene in particular) but by the end none of it comes together at all. Disastrous third act.

 

"This would be bad"

 

I mean I think the point was focused on how we observe violence in our society (mostly through the lens ((no pun intended)) of photojournalism), but it doesn’t dive into the subject enough for it to be truly impactful

 

Idk I think as Americans our relationship with war is that it's always something that happens overseas, I think it was pretty impactful to see this kind of thing depicted in America. They must have filmed near me because it looks exactly like my neck of the woods

 

This is exactly how I felt.

The choice to not really explore the specifics of the overall situation left me feeling like they could have set this story about photojournalists in any other hot conflict zone anywhere in the world, or even some unnamed or fictitious country - which I suppose kinda undercuts one of the major aspects of what it seemed like he was going for here. It came across less like a creative choice and more of a business choice in not wanting to alienate or piss off one particular side or the other right now in American politics and hurt box office. Even if it wasn't a business thing though, I don't think it was successfully executed.

Every time it showed the state of the art military shit like the jets, my mind kept wandering to the logistics and specifics of the overall situation, like how did The Western Forces end up with all the good stuff and outnumbering the actual (I think maybe?) remnants of the actual United States military?

At points it felt a little like he was swinging for something like Apocalypse Now - which is obviously an admirable endeavor - or Donbass (2018), but it wasn't nearly fucked up, brutal, visceral or absurd enough for that. Felt like this movie hedged it's bets a lot on all fronts, particularly with the politics of the whole thing, I think for business reasons but who knows.

war sucks, guns kill people, photojournalists are messed up adrenaline junkies whose work is still important even as it evolves with the times, and Stephen McKinley Henderson is a national treasure?

 

If you want a war movie set in America watch Red Dawn. This being set in America wasn’t impactful to me in anyway. There were maybe 2 scenes with non journalists/military people? The gas station scene which just felt like something out of any apocalypse movie and the town that was ignoring the war. If the point was to show how a war in America would affect Americans then this failed horribly.

 

I mean I don’t think that was the point