Wonderstruck reviews

Mister Tee
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

I have no idea why this took so long to hit DVD -- Paddington 2, which only opened in February, beat it to home viewing. But I can finally weigh in.

Basically, I'm with BJ: I got to the end, and thought "And...?" -- there had to be more of a story than that, to occupy two hours of screen time. It wouldn't have been difficult to concoct more details, to make the journey seem more important. Was it really just "my son knocked your mother up and then died, so we haven't seen you in years"? And the narrative in the 1927 sequence was even weaker -- all that activity just to get to "I left both my parents and moved in with my NY brother"?

I have to admit, my problems with this section were heightened Haynes' story-telling choices. It was daring, replicating Rose's deafness, and initially it seemed clever to do a 1927 segment in the style of a silent movie. But this was worse than a silent movie: there were no titles, and I sometimes went long sections uncertain what was going on -- until they got to the dressing room, I had no idea Julianne Moore was Rose's mother (I couldn't understand why she was being so attentive to her). Later on it didn't register that the guy who took Rose home was her brother. This might have been me being dense -- she did go to the museum in search of him. But the sequence went on so long, I"d forgotten about that, and I had horrible "what if this guy's a child molester?" thoughts throughout the apartment scene (it wasn't till grown-up Rose explained it later that I got what had gone on).

For that matter, though I'd heard Ben's cousin say "I owe you a big favor", I had no idea she'd given him the money and bag to travel until Ben explained it an hour later. It was very problematic to be so in the dark about so many elements along the way. While there was plenty of Haynes' traditional directorial elegance on display, I found this the most disappointing of all his films on a matter of simple coherence.

I agree that the design elements -- and Burwell's score -- were impressive, despite the narrative issues.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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I was overall disappointed in Wonderstruck, and that's sad for me to say, because I've been genuinely pretty high on Todd Haynes's work in the past. And I would add that it's not a miserable watch or anything -- I was actually with the movie for a lot of the first two-thirds. At first the two story lines seem very disconnected, but then they settle into pretty clear parallel trajectories, and I was interested to see where the stories went, admiring Haynes's typically imaginative filmmaking along the way. The 1927 portion of the film is clearly the stronger of the two, simply because the black-and-white and silent approach is more unique, and provides an effective portrait of a young deaf girl's experiences by putting the viewer essentially in her headspace.

But I thought the last act really went splat, and sometimes when a movie does that it becomes hard to justify why any of this was a journey you needed to take in the first place. I think the resolution suffers from a number of problems: 1) the fact that "now I'm just going to tell you a huge long story" is pretty underwhelming for a climax, 2) I was ahead of the story much of the way at this point, and 3) the revelations all felt so simple, I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to find interesting about any of this. I think Precious Doll's comment -- why was this movie made and who is it for? -- is totally apt. It's not that it's terrible -- even through the finale, there's a lot of impressive craft on display -- I just think the plot adds up to so little, I left the theater feeling thoroughly indifferent.

Carter Burwell's score is pretty lovely, though, and is a real asset to those silent sequences.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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My favorite movie with "wonder" in the title: Wonder Boys (2000)

Silliest movie with "wonder" in the title: Wonder Man (1945) with Danny Kaye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB5W0kcVjlI
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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All of this proves that Terrence Malick was years ahead of his time when he put out To the Wonder a few years back.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

Post by The Original BJ »

Between Wonder Woman, Wonder Wheel, Wonderstruck, and Wonder, filmmakers this season sure are promising us a lot of wonder!
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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dws1982 wrote:Starting with Wonder Wheel, Amazon is going to self-distribute all of their films. Not sure if it'll make any difference on commercial/award prospects, but it's probably worth mentioning. Everything they've put out so far has involved collaboration with another distributor. Wonderstruck will be distributed in partnership with Roadside Attractions.
I was going to mention that Wonder Wheel was going to be their first distribution deal, but wasn't sure what the dealt was regarding Wonderstruck. All the more reason they're likely to be more behind Wonder Wheel as they have more to gain or lose with its success or lask thereof.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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Starting with Wonder Wheel, Amazon is going to self-distribute all of their films. Not sure if it'll make any difference on commercial/award prospects, but it's probably worth mentioning. Everything they've put out so far has involved collaboration with another distributor. Wonderstruck will be distributed in partnership with Roadside Attractions.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Amazon has another wonder this year in Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel, which has been getting strong early buzz for Kate Winslet. I suspect that's the wonder they will be promoting the heaviest.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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Wonderstruck will not be factoring in this news Oscar race, though a technical nomination or two would not be out of the question or underserved.

Though I enjoyed the film I'm stumped as to why it was even made and more importantly who was it made for. It hovers somewhere between family film and art film. Goodness knows how this film is going to be 'sold' to audiences.

Acting across the board is fine but no one is a real stand-out. Technical credits and story telling technics are the most interesting aspects of the film. It really is the biggest oddity of Todd Haynes directorial career thus far.
Last edited by Precious Doll on Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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My issue with Netflix, as opposed to Amazon, is just what Precious Doll stated. Netflix may put their movies in theaters, but once they're out of theaters, literally the only way to watch it is by having Netflix. Amazon at least puts their movies out there in theaters--unlike Netflix, they put them in theaters exclusively first. Just in the past year, Love and Friendship, Cafe Society, Manchester by the Sea, and The Lost City of Z have gotten fairly wide releases, and The Handmaiden and The Salesman did pretty well for foreign films.

Not sure why Netflix follows this release strategy; outside of Beasts of No Nation (not counting documentaries), they haven't had a single movie that anyone took remotely seriously. Not sure if it's a quality thing (haven't watched any) or a tainted-brand thing. And if they release their TV shows on DVD, there's no reason to hold back their movies.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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anonymous1980 wrote:Frankly, I don't know why they're booing. Any downsides of the Netflix distribution model isn't exactly Netflix's fault. They're merely providing a service to a market. That market is a consequence of combination both studios and theater owners stranglehold on the availability of screens and the proliferation of other forms of entertainment (video games, TV series, etc.) Yes, I do prefer to watch my movies in the theater on the big screen. But I understand that not a lot of people would take their time to do that except for certain films and some films never get released to enough theaters to reach a far enough audience.
There is a downside because Netflix tend to buy worldwide rights, barely release these films in the cinema (too bad if they are not released where you live) and don't release them on home media. It's highly unlikely they will ever play on free to air TV. Only a small percentage of the worldwide population would even have Netflix and it's competing with other streaming providers of which there are many.

Disturbingly, within a 15 day period I have attended two new releases of which my partner and myself were the only audience members recently. However, the fact is the way we watch films has been constantly changing since it's invention and this is another phase.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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Frankly, I don't know why they're booing. Any downsides of the Netflix distribution model isn't exactly Netflix's fault. They're merely providing a service to a market. That market is a consequence of combination both studios and theater owners stranglehold on the availability of screens and the proliferation of other forms of entertainment (video games, TV series, etc.) Yes, I do prefer to watch my movies in the theater on the big screen. But I understand that not a lot of people would take their time to do that except for certain films and some films never get released to enough theaters to reach a far enough audience.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

Post by Precious Doll »

dws1982 wrote:
Precious Doll wrote:Apparently at the press screening of Wonderstruck at Cannes the audience started booing when the Amazon logo appeared at the beginning. Not that this has anything to do with the quality of the film.
I guess they weren't aware that Amazon films (unlike those from Netflix) actually premiere in theaters 5-6 months before they premiere on Amazon.
Yes, and are also mostly released on DVD/Blu Ray the same as films from the major studios.

Apparently Netflix got even louder booing when Okja was screened.

Make what you will (no pun intended) of this:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/mo ... d2c1ed5340
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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Precious Doll wrote:Apparently at the press screening of Wonderstruck at Cannes the audience started booing when the Amazon logo appeared at the beginning. Not that this has anything to do with the quality of the film.
I guess they weren't aware that Amazon films (unlike those from Netflix) actually premiere in theaters 5-6 months before they premiere on Amazon.
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Re: Wonderstruck reviews

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Apparently at the press screening of Wonderstruck at Cannes the audience started booing when the Amazon logo appeared at the beginning. Not that this has anything to do with the quality of the film.

After all, the sight of the Fox fanfare (which had always been my favourite of the major's fanfares) just depresses me because it reminds me I'm giving money to New Corps, Rupert Murdoch's company every time I see it now.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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