Honestly, I walked away feeling pretty disappointed.
It’s one of those movies where the premise is actually quite intriguing, but the execution is just amateurish.
At its best, it feels like a low-budget production you might catch on a local public access channel, and at its worst, it looks like a cheap music video from Colony. I think I knew exactly what I was getting into right from the start—as soon as I saw that blatant, tacky CGI and that outdated Red Army gear trying way too hard to pass for some epic spectacle. The most awkward part, though, was watching Oshii lean into his usual anime tropes... he just has this knack for brilliantly managing to mess things up every single time.
It seems like in this bizarre mashup of Japanese and Polish influences, everything that could have been lost was lost.
I spent some time scrolling through the discussion boards on IMDb. People are saying his Turkish is absolutely terrible. Apparently, the actor couldn't even manage a single line without glancing down at a script tucked just out of frame. 😁
But honestly, the movie itself is fantastic.
I have to admit, I am completely obsessed with the lead actress. 😍 Sure, she’s got a pretty prominent nose, but once she flashes a smile, the woman just radiates pure warmth. It’s easy to see why Caim fell for her.
She’s such a fighter, too. She never backs down, even when she has to go toe-to-toe with herself.
I’m actually quite thrilled that Sibel Kekili picked up that major German film award—mostly because it means everyone finally overlooked her earlier work, which includes titles like Hotel Fickmichgut, Sweet Teeny Dreams and Young Debutantes 19 😬
They could have easily just named the main villain Gill Bates—that way, even the most clueless viewer would actually grasp who they’re dealing with, especially since the movie fails so miserably at using those other "subtle clues" (I mean, the guy looks exactly like Bill Gates, shares all the same hobbies as Bill Gates, lives in a house just like Bill Gates, and does everything Bill Gates does).
David Castillo2 said:Typically, you’d expect the camera to pan from left to right to really capture all the important details in the frame, but I honestly felt like the camera just stayed stuck right in the center for the entire movie. Like, take that scene where Tim Robbins is talking to his two lawyers—when they actually show up on screen, you can barely see anything past their shoulders instead of their faces. It was a total mess
Maybe it wasn't even a Pan & Scan issue, but maybe they just cropped the whole thing over to a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Oh, absolutely, especially since most movies on TV tend to be broadcast in Pan&Scan rather than letterboxed.
The standard TV aspect ratio is 4:3, which means you just can't fit those 16:9 widescreen cinematic formats onto the screen without either losing a massive chunk of the visual information—we're talking about roughly 40% of the frame getting chopped off the sides—or leaving all that wasted space with those black bars sitting at the top and bottom.
If I remember correctly, that lead actress, Piper Perabo, actually spent some time over in the States once for a theater workshop or something along those lines.
mistyfox812 said:'All under the sky' just carries a different weight entirely.
Actually, "All under the sky" was basically an old-school way of referring to China.
Back then, there was this slightly chauvinistic mindset where people believed their nation was the only one that truly mattered in the entire world (you know, everything under the sky).
Here are a few I’m hoping are still playing in theaters somewhere:
The Wall - absolutely excellent Elephant - just phenomenal Mean Girls - such a smart, hilarious teen movie; it's a rare find that I really appreciate
On DVD:
Before Night Falls - it's decent enough, but honestly, you should watch it just for an incredible performance by Javier Bardem Battleground - the 'action' looks almost silly when you compare it to modern World War II movies, but everything else about it is worth 👍 In America - even though it leans a bit heavy on the sentimentality and uses some of those cheap tricks involving child actors, the parts that actually work are priceless. I actually found myself tearing up at the end—good grief, that was a first for me.
As for films that haven't been released here yet:
Songs from The Second Floor - a drunken Swedish 'comedy' about the collapse of Western civilization Morvern Callar - two words: Samantha Morton 😍 Divine Intervention - a drunken Palestinian 'comedy' about the end of Eastern civilization Dog Days - hands down my favorite European film from the last few years.
fadedsailor932 said:...and every single movie starring Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen...
😎
Now that they’ve finally reached adulthood, you guys can technically enjoy those movies without any legal repercussions. You won't end up behind bars this time. 😁
So, I spent some time diving deep into the digital rabbit hole to clear up all this confusion regarding the different cuts of the movie.
The 96-minute cutis actually the version that was released in China and is what's being shown to the rest of the world now. There was an earlier assembly—somewhere between 108 and 118 minutes, depending on which source you believe—that was roughly edited during post-production before it ever hit theaters. Some people claim this was done at Weinstein's request, since that shorter runtime is much more palatable for American theater owners. There’s also plenty of gossip suggesting that before the US premiere, Miramax wanted to cut the film down even further (down to about 70 minutes!), but that's when Tarantino stepped in and insisted that the integral version be the one we see. That's where the whole "QT presents..." credit comes from.
As for that 108/118-minute cut, it was really only released on DVD (kind of like an extended edition) within the Chinese region.
I've seen some people rambling about a 130-minute version too, but honestly, I've already lost my patience trying to track all this down.🙂
casualotter21 said:… Bear with me, everyone. I’m honestly just recounting the plot based on how I read it from the subtitles during the movie.
😁
It’s probably a good thing you included that disclaimer, because after reading your first sentence, I genuinely thought we were dealing with your own "expanded" interpretation of what happened in the film. 😁
... Anyway, Miramax ended up cutting those ten to twenty minutes just to make the film more palatable for Americans. They trimmed out certain segments that might have caused confusion—things like the deeper connection between calligraphy and swordsmanship, along with some other "undemocratic" vibes toward the end. 😁 I actually caught an article in the New York Times mentioning that in the US versions, the Emperor was translated as "unifier of our land" rather than "unifier of all under the sky." 😁
Word on the street is that Weinstein agreed to distribute the full, uncut version if they put "Quentin Tarantino presents:" on the poster (since QT is such a huge fan of the film and the whole genre). I saw it at a previous MFF, and they were showing a shorter cut back then (it had subtitles, which means it was already polished for distribution).
Now I’m curious, how long is the runtime for this version playing in our local theaters? (Though I suspect it's probably the exact same print).
Anderson quickly carved out a signature aesthetic and found himself a unique niche within modern cinema.
I can't help but feel he still has quite a bit of growing to do, though. Whether you look at Rushmore or Tennenbaum ( I actually haven't sat down to watch Bottle Rocket, even though I remember seeing it on > ages ago ), his narrative structure tends to start falling apart right around the second act.
It seems like you just can't sustain a movie that relies solely on eccentric characters dressed in quirky, colorful outfits and their various personal hang-ups. 😁
... I've been noticing people on the > message boards going back and forth over whether David O. Russell's latest, I (Heart) Huckabees, is just a total rip-off of Tennenbaum😁.