Wow yeah just finished this. Cool, weird book. Now I’m more excited to read the other two than I am to see the movie.
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So is this book supposed to be related to Stalker / Roadside Picnic somehow? They seem to have pretty much the same premise?
Its hugely derivative of Stalker and Roadside Picnic but this time mushrooms instead of generalized weirdness.
I mean that’s unfair, it’s actually more derivative of JG Ballard’s Crystal World but mushrooms instead of crystals.
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I recall thinking he was throwing in a dash of Hodgson too.
Uses the phrase “last redoubt” specifically. Signpost!
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Watched Annihilation yesterday with @gary, @bib, and @Mothra!
That movie’s dialogue is flat-out embarrassing. I felt bad for the actors, there’s no way to pull those lines off convincingly. A lot of half-hearted reaching for profundity that never connects, but instead just reads as very awkward small talk.
The tone was wildly inconsistent too. There was no cohesive feel to the film, it was all over the place.
BUT… It was worth a watch! There are individual setpieces throughout the film that really stand out. The spooks are on point. The visuals are mostly great. I can say from first-hand experience that they really captured the look and feel of psychedelic encounters in the Florida wilderness.
Also, it was fun to see a movie with my Boston SB comrades.
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Yeah, agreed. It was odd. A lot of the dialogue was stuff that was relevant to the theme they wanted for the movie, but on the base-level of these characters interacting with each other, just felt weird and irrelevant.
I do wish they’d stuck more with pure exploration, maybe occasionally finding something horrifying or surreal. The movie was at its best during those moments - up to around the mid-point I was really loving this.
Overall, there are a lot of really great moments in this, so it’s worth seeing.
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i thought it was pretty much embarrassing dogshit!!
there were some nice enough moments of spectacle, but none i really need to see again
good job making jennifer jason leigh boring, jeez louise
Yeah I thought it was pretty bad. The last time I was this confused by general positive response to a movie was Gravity (fight me!!)
It’s like a good see-on-Netflix-well-after-it’s-out-of-theaters movie, I’d say. There’s enough weird shit in this to make it worth seeing.
As a movie with a story, it doesn’t work at all. As a visual adventure, it’s pretty good in parts.
It would actually have been a lot better with zero dialogue and one character.
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Gravity is also undone by WOMAN MUST HAVE EMOTIONAL BACKSTORY and a raft of talking that just should not be.
The more distance I get from ANNIHILATION the less I like it but I do like Walter Chaw’s very positive review because I like it when he just writes about depression and self harm: www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2018/02/annihilation.html
He is like Ebert was: if a movie hits one of his fetishes just right, he seems to lose all critical faculties. But the flights he goes on are resonant (if rather overwrought) so 
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I’m pretty sure like 50%+ of the positive response to gravity was people just glad that alfonso cuaron was working again
I was trying to get at Portman’s thing in chat and Tulpa offered “would you say she’s like a Ryan Gosling?” and I guess yeah, sort of. She has a very particular presence and can hold the screen just reacting to or taking in stuff but when she speaks it’s 50/50 if she sounds like an actual human being. There aren’t a lot of Silent Woman Stares At Shit movies so she’s denied a niche and only half gets it here?
Yeah she has an Oscar but it’s for playing a fragile child-woman you can’t do that forever!
Keep thinking about how Tessa Thompson finally gets A Scene and she owns but then has to keep chewing on Alex Garland dialog until she chokes and it sucks.
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I just like space, so shoot me
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imagine a space that doesn’t contain a Bullock yammering @ herself about bullshit that doesn’t matter
picture it
Curious–is it bad in a way that is different from the way the dialogue in the novel is bad?
I mean, the book’s dialogue is so stilted and awkward, yet that feels very deliberate. Just one of many reasons it’s hard for me to imagine it working as a film
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It’s been a while since I read the book, but I don’t remember taking any particular objection to the dialogue in it. My girlfriend read it more recently, and after the movie she was telling me that the screenplay really failed to capture the characters’ personalities and ways of interacting with each other, so I’d guess it’s pretty different.
Most movies would be better shruggified but it’s still good shrug because space.
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Today I watched Yi Yi (A One and a Two) because someone on SB said that it’s the best film ever made about video games. I don’t know about that, but I can say with confidence that it’s the best film I’ve seen in months. It’s shot with such empathy and warmth… So much of the film lingers on small moments of domestic life, and there’s some ineffable quality to it that made me feel like I was there and involved. I’ve never seen family life portrayed on film with such depth of feeling.
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I also purchased the Criterion Collection Blu ray because of that post but I haven’t watched it yet. I liked A Brighter Summer Day (which you should also see if you haven’t, but be warned that you need to set aside 4 hours for it), so I am looking forward to this one too
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I have had this sitting on my harddrive for ten years and haven’t watched it because I am almost certain I will be at most unmoved by it because of my ineffable tastes.