So... HARD CANDY. Came out and I saw it. I've been waiting to see it since I first saw the preview in February. I'm not going to give away anything that's not in the trailer in my following rant:
It would have made a great short film. The first twenty minutes. Everything it should have been. The cinematography and the production design all the way throught the film, however, were stunning. This film was composed almost entirely of close ups, extreme closeups and wide shots. Nothing in between. And the way the production design and cinematography played off each other. They'd be in a room with different colored back drops so you see her against different colors in the same space. I'm a geek. I appreciate that shit. That beautiful disconnect between the characters and their space.
The performances in the first 20 minutes, stellar. The relationship, the tension, the discomfort at how sexually familiar they are and how conventionally, those words, those glances, those exchanges in general, are cinematically sexy... unless it's a 30 something with a 14 year-old.
Now just about, oh, a half hour into the film, things took a drastic turn. I don't so much have a problem with the plot at this point (which is another thing, lots of plot holes in this film) as I do the dialogue. I don't blame performances, I blame the script. There was also this technique, that used sparingly, I fucking love. Used overkill, as HARD CANDY utilized it, it's sad. What it is, is using humor during a moment that really shouldn't make you laugh otherwise. But beyond that, when you step back and look at the horrific moment you just laughed at, you stop yourself and wonder what the fuck could have been so funny to have made you laugh in such a situation. As I said. I love that. This film, however... there were scenes when tears were literally streaming down my face over the severity of the actions on screen, the actor's amazing performance as his range of emotion goes all over the map in a short amount of time... and then the audience bursts out laughing because of some stupid one liner. At that point, I feel disrespected. I feel as though I've been jerked around emotionally by the filmmaker, and in this particular instance, given the film as a whole, I don't think he really had a right to do as much.
Plot twists left and right I could have done without. I was more interested in the character dynamics.
I don't know... I was just thoroughly disappointed. I gotta stop building shit up.
It was beautiful though. I can't take that from it.
and scene.
cl0ck
but I can't stop listening to daft punk these last few days, right?
It would have made a great short film. The first twenty minutes. Everything it should have been. The cinematography and the production design all the way throught the film, however, were stunning. This film was composed almost entirely of close ups, extreme closeups and wide shots. Nothing in between. And the way the production design and cinematography played off each other. They'd be in a room with different colored back drops so you see her against different colors in the same space. I'm a geek. I appreciate that shit. That beautiful disconnect between the characters and their space.
The performances in the first 20 minutes, stellar. The relationship, the tension, the discomfort at how sexually familiar they are and how conventionally, those words, those glances, those exchanges in general, are cinematically sexy... unless it's a 30 something with a 14 year-old.
Now just about, oh, a half hour into the film, things took a drastic turn. I don't so much have a problem with the plot at this point (which is another thing, lots of plot holes in this film) as I do the dialogue. I don't blame performances, I blame the script. There was also this technique, that used sparingly, I fucking love. Used overkill, as HARD CANDY utilized it, it's sad. What it is, is using humor during a moment that really shouldn't make you laugh otherwise. But beyond that, when you step back and look at the horrific moment you just laughed at, you stop yourself and wonder what the fuck could have been so funny to have made you laugh in such a situation. As I said. I love that. This film, however... there were scenes when tears were literally streaming down my face over the severity of the actions on screen, the actor's amazing performance as his range of emotion goes all over the map in a short amount of time... and then the audience bursts out laughing because of some stupid one liner. At that point, I feel disrespected. I feel as though I've been jerked around emotionally by the filmmaker, and in this particular instance, given the film as a whole, I don't think he really had a right to do as much.
Plot twists left and right I could have done without. I was more interested in the character dynamics.
I don't know... I was just thoroughly disappointed. I gotta stop building shit up.
It was beautiful though. I can't take that from it.
and scene.
cl0ck
but I can't stop listening to daft punk these last few days, right?