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Predestination


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My wife just bought the DVD of this, thinking it was a TV series about something entirely different :rolleyes:

I just happened to be walking past when she was running it and generally muttering in disgust, but I thought it looked interesting so I watched it.

It's actually based on a 1958 Science Fiction short story by Robert Heinlein called: "All You Zombies" and it is extremely well done.

What surprised when I saw the credits was that it was made in Australia, with financing from Australian Film financing bodies, which in the past has nearly always meant "unwatchable and/or commercially worthless crap".

 

It does show that a convincing Science Fiction movies can be made with virtually no use of CGI or expensive special effects, and without it being painfully obvious that they didn't have the money for it.

 

I appreciate they way they made the film look as if it had been made in the time it was written, rather than trying to adapt a 1950s story to the 21st century, which rarely works. Disney did much the same thing with John Carter (of Mars); the Martian aircraft looked very much like our Aircraft technologies from a century ago did, and which is pretty much how the movie would have looked if it had been made then.

 

So they preserved Heinlein's 1950s notions of "Spacecorp", a commercial spacefaring organizations in the 1960s and 70s with "2001" style uniforms and so on.

 

Another interesting thing is that was shot on an Alexa, but from Panavision....

Deutchland uber Alles (Springs) :D

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It is a very interesting movie.

The first arch in the bar is quite strange as you feel that the movie doesn't go anywhere, once they sit down, bum! everything makes sense and the movie goes really smooth!

 

Cinematographer Ben Nott creates a beautiful environment for the Spierig brothers to move the camera in the way they do, using all the set architecture to create a sense of straightness and clinical approach which suits the movie very well.

 

The "office" set is absolutely amazing, with that "central white thing" so congratulations to the production designer Matthew Putland too for those fantastic sets.

 

I enjoyed it a lot and it is a pity that it didn't make to the cinemas here in Ireland.

 

Have a good day.

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What surprised when I saw the credits was that it was made in Australia, with financing from Australian Film financing bodies, which in the past has nearly always meant "unwatchable and/or commercially worthless crap".

 

It's a shame when something good gets buried like that.

There is a UK film here which also had government funding called Skeletons which was also quite good and a real surprise because it didn't even have a sub-plot about married people having an affair (why are there so many of those!)

It received good reviews but I don't think it has lead to anything more for the people who made it.

I do start to wonder if government funding is actually the kiss of death in some way.

 

Freya

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It's a shame when something good gets buried like that.

There is a UK film here which also had government funding called Skeletons which was also quite good and a real surprise because it didn't even have a sub-plot about married people having an affair (why are there so many of those!)

It received good reviews but I don't think it has lead to anything more for the people who made it.

I do start to wonder if government funding is actually the kiss of death in some way.

 

Freya

Usually, the only projects that have made any money here are ones where the producers flat-out refused to accept any government funding.

 

eg:

 

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=54617&page=3&do=findComment&comment=370762

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I rather enjoyed Predestination, saw it on home video because it's not hitting the US theatrical market for sometime. The filmmakers took a few risks with the storytelling method which totally paid off. Even though it's a very dialog driven film and it can be campy/predictable at times, it was clever. Well shot, well directed and perhaps the screenplay needed a tweak or two, but it's still entertaining no matter what.

 

Ohh and Alexia Panavision, usually equates to Anamorphic.

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