movie seen

[calimac]

Safety Not Guaranteed

This is a quirky little independent film concerning a (possibly) mad inventor who is building a time machine to travel into the recent past.

I want you to see this movie. I want you to see it, and then I want you to look me in the eye, and tell me that you agree with me that it is a much better movie than Back to the Future.

If you can say that, I will be inclined to take your further recommendations for movies. If not, I probably won't.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Safety No Guaranteed (though on your recommendation, I've added it to my Netflix queue). But I am uncomfortable with the use of "better" in your comparison. I enjoyed the Back to the Future movies, especially the first one. Saw all three in theaters in initial release, and not since.

But what constitutes "better"? To be sure, The Time Machine and Twelve Monkeys are better at speculating about time travel. The first BttF is a great deal of fun comparing 1950s and 1980s. "No wonder you have an actor as president"... and the whole scene where Marty tries to order a diet soda. The sequels follow familiar characters through internally plausible scenarios. The ending works pretty well.

For time travel movies, especially comedies, wear your heavy duty disbelief suspenders.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"Better" as a movie. As a work of art in cinematic form. Not a technical evaluation of its use of time travel. And I'm not looking for a definitive answer, just for opinions, because I think this particular comparison is a good test case for detecting whether others share what bothers me about the feel and style of the general run of SF movies.

[ken-3k.livejournal.com]

I would say that Safety Not Guaranteed is only marginally a SF movie; repeating myself from earlier, the movie is more about the potential of time travel. The question becomes: is Kenneth totally crazy, or only half crazy?

So, I probably don't share your thoughts on the "general run of SF movies." But, I am very fond of the small art movie field. (The three small SF movies I need to catch up with are Moon, Gattaca, and Never Let You Go.)

[ken-3k.livejournal.com]

So, looking at calimac's original point: Calimac should ignore my comments about SF movies - especially the mainstream ones - but follow my comments about small art movies. :-) So, for a recent film which touches the fringe of the genre through magical realism (and likely the best film I have seen in ten years), I recommend Beasts of the Southern Wild.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of Beasts of the Southern Wild until it received its Oscar nominations. I use Redbox rather than Netflix, but I keep a mental equivalent of the Netflix queue, and that one's on it.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Okay, noted. I tend to watch movies a bit different than other people ("DW Griffith did it better") and like much of Robert Zemeckis' work (Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forest Gump, Contact, etc). Still, I'll see SNG and (if I remember) comment someplace.

BTW: For a long time, one of my On the Same Page/Not on the Same Page movies was All That Jazz. I love it (and most Bob Fosse). Still is, but fewer people have seen it to compare notes.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I saw All That Jazz many years ago, and recall it as fascinating, but hallucinatory. A lot less of it would have gone a lot more of a way.