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July 25 is the US premiere. Then probably an early August nationwide release. Here's the trailer at a site you may find useful:
http://www.woodyallenpages.com/2014/05/magic-in-the-moonlight-trailer-the-new-woody-allen-film/
Thanks for this info. Honestly, I did not even know the name of Allen's next film, much less what it was about. This trailer was the first I'd seen or heard of the film. I am probably the ONLY person on this board who is looking forward to a film with...Eileen Atkins in it!
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Posted: |
Jun 30, 2014 - 10:16 AM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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Well, 'good' and 'bad' is always in the eye of the beholder. No one sets out to make a bad movie. Quite often, I see movies that get badmouthed for certain reasons, yet other redeeming factors are totally overlooked. We all see different values in different things.
Pauline Kael once said it wonderfully:
"...perhaps the single most intense pleasure of movie-going is [the] non-aesthetic one of escaping from the responsibilities of having the proper responses required of us in our official (school) culture” /.../ The pleasures of this kind of trash are not intellectually defensible. But why should pleasure need justification?” (Kael 1970: 126).
Whether you like something or not is of course pretty subjective, but quality is, if not objective, at least intersubjective. Obviously Michael Bay films have certain qualities: they are deliberately brash and loud and huge and full of pretty explosions and intricate effects. But a poor, senseless script can be objectively bad, even if it's part of a movie you enjoy. The blocking of an action sequence can be poorly handled, regardless of whether some people enjoy that particular assault on the senses and sensibilities. And of course different people will have different lines when it comes to the particular infelicities they're willing to endure.
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. double post
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I was inculcated at university in the genre/structural/semiotic schools of film criticism -- where subjective concepts of good or bad are put aside. By and large, I agree with this approach -- that examination comes first -- with value judgements arrived at as a potential target way down the line.
This approach, of course, does have a whole set of "values" as underlying principles. And it may be that the human brain cannot really examine topics without making value judgements -- we're sort of wired that way.
Many of these films do connect with me on an emotional level (I blathered on about "Pacific Rim" in another thread) -- but what I find fascinating are the dozens and dozens of both thunderously huge -- and indie-small -- apocalyptic films. Not that I know what to make of this phenomenon -- but it is really striking how many films there are about "the end of days."
Susan Sontag wrote a terrific essay many years ago called, "The Imagination of Disaster" which still seems very pertinent. This is a link to the complete essay:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-imagination-of-disaster/
This is her conclusion to the essay: "What I am suggesting is that the imagery of disaster in science fiction films is above all the emblem of an inadequate response. I do not mean to bear down on the films for this. They themselves are only a sampling, stripped of sophistication, of the inadequacy of most people's response to the unassimilable terrors that infect their consciousness. The interest of the films, aside from their considerable amount of cinematic charm, consists in this intersection between a naively and largely debased commercial art product and the most profound dilemmas of the contemporary situation."
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Posted: |
Jul 1, 2014 - 3:13 PM
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By: |
Joe E.
(Member)
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My fiancée, her mom and I very much enjoyed it as well.
The thing is, we do also enjoy lots of comics-based escapist fare full of action and effects. Such movies aren't necessarily inherently bad just because they are what they are. There are good, clever popcorn blockbusters just as there are good, clever art-house films, and there are also poorer examples of both.
I will say I find the immense success of Michael Bay's Transformers movies (despite their apparent lack of quality) bothersome, but since I haven't actually seen any of them except the first, I can't actually talk about how terrible they are, though they certainly appear to be, to me.
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