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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/10/2009 : 14:41:27
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Forget 2012. Forget The Titanic. This is what I call a disaster movie!
I guess if you're in a coma you might register a few frames of this saccharine sack of shit. Hopefully, you'll flatline and not have to watch any more.
PS Some of the acting is terrific ... well, the two people who have anything to do that requires acting, namely Stanley Tucci and Susan Sarandon.
Everyone else is either in that coma with you or wishes they were.
I'll bring an open mind to The Hobbit, Peter, I promise.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/27/2010 19:02:54 |
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Beanmimo 
"August review site"
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Posted - 12/10/2009 : 14:46:24
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Oh no baftababe that's awful.
The book was so engaging, did you read it? |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 12/11/2009 : 13:10:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Beanmimo
Oh no baftababe that's awful.
The book was so engaging, did you read it?
Agreed on all points.
And from your brief description, it sounds like they totally changed the focus of the book for the film.
(Why do books we love get butchered so by Hollywood?) |
Edited by - ChocolateLady on 12/11/2009 13:11:07 |
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Beanmimo
"August review site"
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Posted - 12/11/2009 : 13:14:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
I've heard conflicting reviews on this.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380510/ratings
Looks like younger people love it, older people don't.
Hmmmm where does that leave me being neither older nor younger!! 
I'll just have to go and make my own mind up!! |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 03/25/2010 : 22:46:57
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The Lovely Bones
I've seen some fans of the book whingeing about the film, but that's always the way. I liked it for very possibly the reasons they liked the book. It's dreamily enchanting and most of all different. What could have been garishness in the in-between I viewed as charming na�vit�.
I've also read people complaining that the actor playing Ray Singh isn't beautiful or exotic enough, but I have to disagree there totally. However, he doesn't seem to be ethnically Indian and I hate how widely in film and T.V. any mid-tone ethnicities are treated as being interchangeable.
5/5 |
Edited by - Demisemicenturian on 12/26/2010 07:01:45 |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 03/26/2010 : 02:18:46
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Oh no! Really?? 5/5!
I'm totally with BB on this one, I could barely stand sitting through it, I thought it was so turgid.
A few points that spring to mind (ugh, it's still in there)
1. The sappy, over-emoted voiceover of Susie was loathsome. I wasn't in the least sorry she was dead. Actually I was rather impressed that Tucci had the foresight to bump her off to save everyone from her insipid dullness.
2. And how's about a massive neon finger pointing at the incredibly strange, doll-house fixated loner living next door with the rubbish contact lenses. He's not suspicious at all officer. Tucci is good value, as always, but dare we say it, a subtler script and design concept would have served him, and the film, wonders.
3. Why cast someone who has proven time and time again that he can't handle emotional scenes on film as the grieving father of a murdered girl. Whalberg is just dreadful - on a par with his non-performance in The Happening. The whole casting was a shambles actually. Weisz, Whalberg and Sarandon just don't fit together in any strange movie world.
4. Playing up the super bright soft focus 70s colour scheme made the transition to "heaven" a bit redundant as we'd already been subjected to a hideous colour scheme before we reached CGI-ven.
5. And what a uninspiring heaven it was. And with seriously underpar CGI too.
6. Given Sebold isn't one to pull her punches in her writing, what a shame that Jackson decided to completely wimp out in the screenplay. He wasn't so squeamish on Heavenly Creatures... a film leagues better than this one in every way. This was so half-hearted and dramatically limp it felt like Jackson was terrified of the source material and just concentrated on how it looked rather than what it was all supposed to mean; basically he shouldn't have touched it.
I did enjoy the book very much when I read it, but funnily enough it hasn't especially stayed with me so watching the film I came to it with a vague memory of the turns of the plot - it didn't sway me one way or the other in disliking the film as much as any I saw in the cinema in the last 12 months. Just crap. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 03/26/2010 : 04:01:17
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| It might come down to 4/5, but not below. I loved that kind of naffness of it. I don't know why; it just seemed sort of endearing. |
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Beanmimo
"August review site"
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Posted - 06/20/2010 : 23:47:18
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I think somebody told Peter Jackson the story of The Lovely Bones while he was drunk and he wrote the description down on a piece of tissue paper with a crayon before setting off to make the film.
One of the worst adaptations I've come across.
Se�n, is (nearly) forty old? |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 07/04/2010 : 22:14:53
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Not as bad as you've heard.
I've read the book. |
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 07/06/2010 : 02:48:41
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| As I noted somewhere else on here, this film struck home. Mostly, it is because Saoirse Ronan has my goddaughter's eyes and at times she looked like Sunshine. That Sunshine died a similar death made it sting. I think that when a film touches too close to home, one can't really have an objective opinion on it. So, I was taken with it in my subjective way. It isn't necessarily that it was a stellar film, more that it hit way too close to home. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 07/17/2010 : 23:40:33
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quote:
Originally posted by wildheartlivie
As I noted somewhere else on here, this film struck home. Mostly, it is because Saoirse Ronan has my goddaughter's eyes and at times she looked like Sunshine. That Sunshine died a similar death made it sting.
That sounds horrible, w.h.l.  |
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 07/18/2010 : 07:17:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by wildheartlivie
As I noted somewhere else on here, this film struck home. Mostly, it is because Saoirse Ronan has my goddaughter's eyes and at times she looked like Sunshine. That Sunshine died a similar death made it sting.
That sounds horrible, w.h.l.
It was horrible. The film fairly much was a "rub your nose in it" sort of experience. I called Sunshine's mother up and told her to avoid this film at all costs. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 07/18/2010 : 13:34:41
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| That's awful Livie. I'm interested that you must have known the subject matter before you went to see it though - I wonder if you were looking for some sort of cathartic experience or understanding? Another way in which Jackson failed miserably in adapting the book is I believe much of the point of the original novel is to comprehend Suzie's violent death and give some hope or peace to people who've lost children, in similar situations or otherwise. If he'd nailed it I should think this would be exactly the sort of film Sunshine's parents might have appreciated and be glad of seeing as a way to deal with their own loss. |
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 07/19/2010 : 22:29:37
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| Actually, I knew it was about a serial killer, which is a topic that I rarely shy away from. I didn't know that the serial killer in question was a pedophiliac one. I was mostly drawn by the nomination for Stanley Tucci, and I wasn't prepared for the looks similarity of Saoirse Ronan to Sunshine, or what I think she would have looked like if she'd lived past the age of 11. Perhaps if it had been better written, or they'd found the body, or if Tucci's character had outwardly paid for the murder and not just killed. There is that innate desire for vengeance there. Or maybe it is because her murderer is coming up for his first parole hearing this week... |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 07/20/2010 : 02:06:24
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God, how awful. If you can bear to share I'd be interested to hear how that turns out.
In reference to some of your points: the book is infinitely better written so do consider giving it some time. It's redemptive and satisfying in the way the film adaptation is not. I know what you mean about vengeance - you really want him to pay, if not suffer, for what he did. Again it's clearer in the book that Susie actually has a very significant role in his demise. In the film I don't think it's particularly clear (or that he is graphically dispatched enough - Jackson copping out again I'm afraid). |
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The Lovely Bones
