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Rottenwatch: Book of Eli (GAF meltdown incoming?)

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For those who particularly enjoyed the iPod scenes, a hint at a possible sequel:

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Boards of Canada said:
I just got back from seeing it.

I'm surprised I sat through the whole thing. It was incredibly boring. All I could think about was the seat I was sitting in and how uncomfortable it was. The trailer sold me an action-packed post-apocolyptic experience. Turns out, it's one of those movies where the best scenes are in the trailer and the rest of the movie is filled with poorly paced performances, laughable chemistry between Washington and the broad, dodgy fight scenes and unnecessary close ups of Oakley glasses.

Yawn.

Gary, the story sounds awesome.
Blind
guy in post-apocolyptic world with only surviving copy of the
Bible
in existence, fending off scavengers as he heads west ... etc. etc. How fuckin' cool does that sound? I was excited to see the movie because I knew the story had a great foundation. But I just don't think it was handled properly for the screen. There was too much style over substance when it could have been so much more. I blame the director and whoever handled the art direction.
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I mostly agree with this, concept was interesting
although the bible thing wasn't a big seller for me
. Execution was bland, the cinematography was simplistic and I felt that it was as if someone was actually intending to make a music video ... not a movie.

Colors on the screen were terrible, it's like someone was a Photoshop/After Effects n00b and said, "Let's do a crap brown sepia tone and add some puke green! That's going it make it look cool" not to mention the contrast.

But yeah, slow pacing, low level acting by everyone other than the lead--actually I wasn't even sold on Washington's performance--and "villain," with a mostly uninteresting story ... I wasn't feeling it.

Also I thought it was overreaching:
A blind guy who is a master at combat, has a perfect aim (even at snipers!) AND is a savant that can memorize a whole book, guided by some kind of god force ...
. Too much, I thought.
 
Just saw it and I thought it was excellent, Gary. One of my favorite themes of post-apocalyptic stories is the sense of emptiness and isolation, and I thought that was conveyed well here from the very beginning.

Also, typically, religious characters on TV and movies are either A) zealously and violently insane, B) not faithful to their beliefs, or C) lose their faith by the end of the story. So it was interesting to see that type of character follow a different progression.

Solid stuff, overall, dude; I'll be there for whatever you do next.
 
Congrats, Gary!

I just got back from seeing the movie and really enjoyed it. I don't see many movies in theaters, but I am glad I chose this one.
 
Thanks, glad you liked it!

We just passed one hundred million dollars at the box office (counting a few international territories). That was a fun milestone to hit :)

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I saw it yesterday night all I have to say the action scenes were cool. Did not really care for anything else, but the ending what a twist

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Just found out that I'll be appearing at WonderCon for a Q&A discussing the movie's journey "from script to screen". Friday April 2, more details to follow. If any GAFers are planning to attend, I hope to see you there!
 
Just saw it yesterday here in Mexico with my wife, we both liked it but sadly it had been spoiled by a dumb ass friend days ago :(

Anyway i really liked Eli as a character as well as Mr Oldman, i do have to say i felt the last 10 minutes were overkill, i mean to me the scene with Eli dictating and the close up to his face would've been the perfect ending, everything else was unnecessary IMO.

Great story Mr Whitta, i told my wife the writer posted in the same boards she see's me everyday and i felt important lol.
 
Damn this movie has been way more successful than I ever thought it would be, not that I wanted it to be unsuccessful. But 100 mil worldwide? Holy hell.
 
I just got out of this at Mann's Chinese where it played to a 7pm Friday night show of about 10 people. That makes me disappointed in humanity because I really liked it. Gary Whitta, just came in here to give you props and offer a critique.

The Hughes Bros., Silver, and Washington did nearly everything right in putting this project together. The script was great. For something with such sparse dialog it actually said quite a bit. Production design and cinematography were stylish and detailed. Sound was great and music was unique and tense. They took risks, leaving much of it slow and methodical. The violence was fast, brutal and refreshing to be not as sterile/choreagraphed like so many modern movies.

The script was such a great concept, I see why it was able to find a fan at WB. The resolution itself was a great surprise and well thought out. Also, I actually liked that the final setting would make ultra-conservatives vibrate with anger. :lol

Some missteps that hurt the overall quality:

Casting Mila Kunis. She was not up to the role, too clean and made up. She was dressed too contemporary and stylish. It was distracting.

The speech that Carnegie gives about controlling the weak minded seemed unnecessary. For something that wasn't overly preachy this felt out of place as "agenda" material. I could be wrong though... I thought his ambition was enough to establish his beliefs.

Bad compositing. Seeing it in DLP super pristine image quality didn't help. The scene in
the boat
was the really badly shot and the compositing was extremely distracting. It almost seem like that we-ran-out-of-money reshoot quality. Other times, the foreground practical stuff was so short that the VFX guys were leaned on too heavily. I suppose maybe digital is cheaper than practical but i would have extended the sets by another 50feet or so.

A very strange execution to the final pieces of the story.
As Eli rises from the dead to complete his task, we are asked to have faith. But the fact that he was still shot and no one reacted when he reached his destination, no scenes offering him medical attention, nothing. No suprise that he lived this far detracted from the sacrifice. The strange scene with him in Chinese funeral attire while still reciting the immediately cutting to his grave made me feel like a lot was cut out, like I was missing something.

On a scale of Wolverine to Lawrence of Arabia, I give it: A lot better than I am Legend.
 
I enjoyed it quite a bit. Finally got a chance to see it last week. Lots of laughs in the theatre at the appropriate times. Was a little empty but that's to be expected so far after release. My brother saw it long before me and thought it was awesome. After seeing it myself, I understand why he told me to not read anything or talk to anyone about it until I went to see it :lol
TimScribble said:
Hope this helps with the twist.

Watch it a second time and it will stand out very much to you. Im not going to say it's going to satisfy your want but you will notice it. 1) Broken down car, hits door with what he is holding, fumbles to check for shoes on the feet. 2) Runs hands along the dishes. 3) Trips in the house, I believe. 4) Jumps at closet doors falling off hinges (doesnt notice guy hanging until he smells him. 5) Has to feel down the leg to find the boots. 6) Cant get music to play, because the battery is dead, but he cant see that. 7) Conversation with Oldman's character upstairs, he is looking at the desk still while Oldman is walking around him. Doesnt notice that he is moved until he hears him talk. 8) Not positive, but if you watch the time he is chatting with Solara, it looks more like he is looking in general direction and not at her eyes. 9) Going to the old crazies house, he misses the no trespassing sign. 10) He hits the door with an item....

Those are just off the top of my head, saw it almost a month ago now. Yes, he had the super heightened senses and was on the mission from God, etc. But there are a lot of clues if you go back and watch a second time again.
Click to expand...
Also noticed he only shot after they shot him and he heard where the bullet was coming from
.
 
When I watched this movie I had absolutely NO IDEA what it was about. I didn't have the internet or anything at the time so I just thought I would go on down to the theater and watch whatever was playing at the moment and I picked Book of Eli since it had Denzel in it.

I actually thought it was a pretty good movie. The twist at the end really made me want to see it again. Although the whole 'faith' thing wasn't my cup of tea since I'm not a big fan of the concept but that's just me of course. Obviously I wasn't the target audience, I guess.
 
Gary Whitta said:
Oh, and for any audiophile soundtrack fans, the super-duper special limited edition of Atticus Ross's score - DOUBLE VINYL ALBUM! - is now available. Get it at www.bookofelimusic.com - I already got mine! :D

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Click to expand...

Late but def. copping. Who knows, maybe one day if I become a hotshot producer, I'll sample the shit out of it :lol
 
Congrats again Gary :D Fiance and I plan on renting it again once it hits stores (I'm really stingy about DVD purchases). Can't wait to see it a second time after the first viewing. Definitely one of the better January releases I've seen in quite some time. Surprised I haven't noticed this thread pop up over the last couple weeks... has it been announced when it's going to hit shelves?
 
Sklorenz said:
Congrats again Gary :D Fiance and I plan on renting it again once it hits stores (I'm really stingy about DVD purchases). Can't wait to see it a second time after the first viewing. Definitely one of the better January releases I've seen in quite some time. Surprised I haven't noticed this thread pop up over the last couple weeks... has it been announced when it's going to hit shelves?
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They haven't announced a date yet but my guess would be sometime in May?
 
I was at my local Century theater last night waiting for The Crazies to start and this pre-show anagram puzzle kept popping up, and it's been bugging the shit out of me. Can anyone solve it? The clue is "Warrior protects catalyst for society's redemption."

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Wow people are still talking about this. Just saw it last night. Thought it was a little too slow given the trailer. Didn't like the drawn out ending too much either. Still, it was pretty entertaining and the twist makes you want to rethink and watch it again.

Although it seems implausible that he could do some of the things he did blind. Such as finding cover behind the car during the firefight, and finding the door perfectly when exiting rooms. I can buy the combat abilities, but the other stuff doesn't seem sold enough to the viewer....unless it was and I missed it all. It almost needed the sixth sense style flashback to key scenes to help the viewer see the giveaways to the twist. Because unlike sixth sense I left with a really?? expression instead of a wow, should have guessed that!
 
watched it last week with some friends

it was okay-ish, not usualy a movie I would pay full price for, but we were realy bored

hated the typical villan failure of not fucking shooting him in the head

sorry forgot spoilers
 
Enosh said:
watched it last week with some friends

it was okay-ish, not usualy a movie I would pay full price for, but we were realy bored

hated the typical villan failure of not fucking shooting him in the head

sorry forgot spoilers
Click to expand...
What difference would that have made to Carnegie in the end? He had what he wanted, and the outcome of the movie for him would have been unchanged whether he had killed him or not.
 
Talked my supervisor into going to see this, he was torn between this or Shutter Island. So I spoiled Shutter Island for him. :)
 
Saw this movie and oh my god what a waste of time and money. I really don't know where to start. They want to make a post-apocalyptic scenario and all they come up with is a cheap version of mad max meets a western movie? Now come on, is there any less interesting and original setting then that? Specially the
Bar scene
could be taken from any single
western movie
ever made on this planet. Besides the whole plot doesnt make any sense. If he is really
blind
, how comes in that scene
where the street gangs rape that girl
he
looks at
what is happening all the time? I mean he looks at the scene
gets so made he can't look at it anymore, and then looks away
. Besides the
last 30 minutes must be some kind of a joke
. There is no fuel in that world, but they still manage to drive days without fuel? The film was just bad and didnt deserved my money. Avatar was a shitty and boring movie with a boring plot as well, but it did have some nice effects at least.
 
Random Book of Eli fact: a European collector paid $5000 for the
braille
bible Denzel carries in the movie. It really is a beautiful prop, created by an antiquarian bookbinder especially for the movie. Here's a pic I got with it during production:

4411772880_6cf46b7097_b.jpg
 
Never chimed in on seeing this despite it being two weeks already. I liked on the film on various angles as some of the messages are something that I can follow and value. The god stuff was more than I expected though it wasn't nearly as heavy handed as I expected. Only plot issue was the blind bits but most of the character seemed to have tone about spirit so it mellowed out. The way it was flimed or the coloring I felt was way to strong. I'm with others looks similar to what eli does or what flims do with browns and the sun stuff in general is done too much. Considering movies pride themselves on look I figured someone with some in to colors and how they look would say if you tones of green and grey you might want to be more subtle not so glaring like the matrix and other flicks have for some reason thinking it's cool to do. When the look is over done it takes when it has a real point cool otherwise it's a just a waste of the light spectrum and subtle beauty. Definitely will watch a few times when the flick comes out again it's worth that much value.
 
Gary Whitta said:
I used to love Zig & Zag, it was an honor and privilege to get to meet them!
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Who is that awful puppet on the left, with the furry teeth. I don't remember that one.
 
Gary Whitta said:
Some of these mash-ups are funny:

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There's a Notebook of Eli around somewhere too.
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Saw the movie at a premiere a last week! I really loved it :D. Thanks Gary ^^.
 
Hey ! congrats on all the success Gary ! havent been able to watch it yet since the theaters over here (Uruguay) dont keep anything showing for more than a week or two (exception being Harry Potter and Twlight). Looking forward to rent it of course, looks awesome.
 
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