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  • Cloud Atlas

    Check out the Cloud Atlas movie trailer. It’s available exclusively at the Apple iTunes trailer site, so you need QuickTime. And it’s a long trailer, almost 6 minutes long. The movie opens October 26.

    WHO’S INVOLVED?
    Directors: Andy and Lana Wachowskis (the Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). Actors: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Huge Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, Zhou Xun, and many, many more. Not to mention that all the main actors will be playing multiple roles, and even multiple sexes.

    MORE DETAILED INFO
    When news that Cloud Atlas the novel was going to be made into a movie, there were lots of skepticism and groans, because people who have read the book felt (as I did) that it was unfilmable. The novel is complex and has a truly innovative narrative structure. It’s comprised of six different stories, from six different time periods, set in six different places, told in six different styles (and genres!). But somehow, it works: they all are connected and related and integral to one another. This is not simply a collection of stories sharing superficial connections; the connections here are essential to formulating the overall novelistic impression. While the novel works, the question is: can this be made into a movie? A lot of people are curious. They want to know if the Wachoskis and Tykwer can pull it off. From the trailer, I can’t tell. All six stories are there, and they look spectacular, but can they all come together?

    THE HAWAI‘I CONNECTION
    The novel’s apex story takes place far in the future when the human race has pretty much wiped itself out, except for small pockets of humans here and there, including a group in Hawai‘i. This story takes place in the Kohala district on the Big Island, where man has been reduced to a tribal existence, and things like cars and airplanes and technology are now myths.

  • #2
    Re: Cloud Atlas

    I am immensely eager to see this film. In addition to being a huge fan of the Wachowskis (and of 'Run Lola Run'), and many of the cast, I've also thought that 'Cloud Atlas' could never be made into a film. The fact that they went for it, and largely had to make it happen on their own (before the studio finally, grudgingly, jumped in) is impressive. The trailer is breathtaking, yet makes me even more intrigued about how they're going to put such a complex and somewhat recursive storyline into a single film. I keep watching it over and over.

    And yes, there's a Hawaii connection... though I'm going to guess they didn't film those segments here!

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Cloud Atlas

      Initial viewing was great.

      After watching it again , I was floored.

      Fascinating and worth watching.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Cloud Atlas

        A wonderful article in the New Yorker about the making of Cloud Atlas.

        If you’re a movie buff, or a fan of the Wachowskis, this look at how the ultimate unfilmable film came to be is fascinating.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Cloud Atlas

          The quote below is from the thread titled Hiff 2012, most of the post dealt with the movie Cloud Atlas which opens on Friday, October 26, 2012.



          Originally posted by zff View Post
          Without giving too much of it away, the movie tells six different stories simultaneously. The stories are from different periods in time -- the 19th century, 20th, 21st, 22nd, etc -- but they are intertwined in interesting and poignant ways.

          Despite being almost 3 hours long, the pacing was either quick or frantic. I guess with so much story to tell, they can't spend too much time on each one. They cut between the 6 stories frequently and without warning, characters are quickly introduced, and you have to mentally fill in the backstory yourself as the story is rushed along. You have to pay attention, or some of the subtleties of the stories and how they're related may escape you.

          It would also help if you're a sci-fi fan. For the future story lines, some common sci-fi themes go unexplained, and as I've explained above, you'll have to fill in the backstory yourself to make sense of those parts of the movie.

          Interestingly, they had the same actors play characters of different races, ethnicities, nationalities and even genders. For example, Halle Berry is white in one of the stories, Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from The Matrix) is Asian in one story and female in another, a couple of Asian actresses play white women, and Hugh Grant is British and American in different stories. My favorite character was a psychopathic Irish thug played by Tom Hanks. I would love to see a movie based off just that one character.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Cloud Atlas

            I declared "Cloud Atlas" my most-anticipated film of 2012, and this was based only on the Wikipedia entry and a failed attempt at reading the novel several years ago. I watched the extended trailer on YouTube so many times, I knew it by heart. And as the release date drew near, my wife and I resolved to read the book before we saw the film.

            It was the first book I'd read in a while, and the first book we'd read in tandem, making it a special experience on its own. And fortunately, I loved David Mitchell's recursive, varied storytelling. Different styles and voices, different degrees of 'meta,' all wrapped up in onion-skin layers, the book was a wonderful exploration of universal human experiences.

            I also realized why people had said it was a novel that would be impossible to translate to the big screen. Which made me appreciate even more the bravery (or folly) of the Wachowski's (of "The Matrix") and Tom Tykwer (of "Run Lola Run").

            We were able to catch "Cloud Atlas" a week early at HIFF. For myself, I'll say I liked it, both for its ambition and for its dizzying but still digestible restructuring of the story. But the movie pounds hard on points that are much more subtle in the book, adds some pat closure to aspects originally left ambiguous, and definitely leaves out a lot of the best parts (as you'd expect). So the book doesn't ruin the movie, nor vice versa, and I'd strongly recommend you consider diving into both.

            My wife posted her own review as well.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Cloud Atlas

              I am cautiously optimistic. Thanks for all the detailed reviews, and personal insight.

              I am a big fan of Hanks, and was REALLY surprised to see him on board. I HOPE that it lives up to expectations.
              flickr

              An email from God:
              To: People of Earth
              From: God
              Date: 9/04/2007
              Subject: stop

              knock it off, all of you

              seriously, what the hell


              --
              God

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Cloud Atlas

                YOW, I'm scarded!

                What's the benefits?
                What's the detriments

                I'm sARED.
                Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!
                ~ ~
                Kaʻonohiʻulaʻokahōkūmiomioʻehiku
                Spreading the virus of ALOHA.
                Oh Chu. If only you could have seen what I've seen, with your eyes.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Cloud Atlas

                  I'm 17th in the library queue for borrowing the book - down from 64th last month.
                  May I always be found beneath your contempt.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Cloud Atlas

                    Saw Cloud Atlas at the Ward Theater today with Albert and a friend. I never read the novel so I don't know how the movie compares with it.

                    The movie takes place in 6 different time periods, 3 in the past, 1 in the present and two in the future.

                    This is one movie one needs to pay attention because the story line moves between the time periods. The movie is long but no where did I say to myself when is this is going to end.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Cloud Atlas

                      The use of several time platforms was explored in some depth

                      by the TV show 'Dark Shadows'

                      The coast of Maine is a place only master Norse mariners could hope to reach

                      across the Atlantic.

                      The island of Iceland is home to a unique culture atune to vast

                      volcanic explosions.

                      In a sense Iceland is the Antipodes to the Hawaiian refuge.

                      The ancient legends there declare that the island was an egg dropped

                      from the sky.



                      The ancient legends probably contain much that is worth reading and thinking about.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Cloud Atlas

                        For the first weekend, this movie opened in 3rd place:

                        3 N Cloud Atlas WB $9,400,000

                        Weekend box office take @ Box Office Mojo.
                        I'm still here. Are you?

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Cloud Atlas

                          Cloud Atlas (2012)

                          Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Bae Doona, Ben Wishaw, James D’Arcy, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant. Directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer.

                          If you have read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, you are probably going to need to see this twice in order to judge it fairly. There are so many differences—big, big differences—between the source material and its film interpretation that it’s almost impossible not to be distracted by them. I was not planning to see the film twice, but a tsunami warning prompted an evacuation of the theater when I was about two-thirds of the way through my first viewing, so I returned the following night and was pleased to find it much easier on second viewing to accept the film on its own terms.

                          This is critical, because it’s a preposterous movie with all kinds of things to drive one mad: New Age sentimentality presented in Tuesdays-with-Morrie-like poster-ready freeverse voice-overs, gratuitous nudity, IQ-lowering shoot-em-up sequences, distracting makeup, and the stupidest-sounding pidgin dialects since Jar-Jar Binks. These should be enough to make anyone hate the film, but if somehow (somehow!) you can accept it on its own terms, there are some fun, interesting, rewarding narratives here that work together to unite six different stories under one theme. I couldn’t help myself, even in that first screening before the tsunami. I found myself liking it.

                          This can largely be attributed to some very good acting by Jim Broadbent and Ben Wishaw (the two strongest performances across the six different stories) and two especially engaging plots. In one, Broadbent plays an English publisher surprised to find that he has checked himself into a retirement home before his time, from which he cannot arrange his own release. In the other, a couple of hundred years in the future, Wishaw works to liberate a fast-food-serving clone and elevate her as the face of a revolution against a totalitarian government.

                          The film is cut in such a way that the six stories are not merely interlaced, but they actually overlap, with dialogue in one story sometimes describing action in the next (or the next few). If you can imagine a movie beginning with a “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…” voice-over, and imagine at the same time the scenery leaping from Cinderella’s scullery, Luke Skywalker’s moisture farm on Tatooine, and Mad Max’s Australia, you can get a sense of what I mean, except it happens multiple times throughout the movie, and sometimes it’s actually dialogue that drives the scene-shifting, and not just a voice-over. It’s a neat effect, if slightly heavy-handed.

                          Neat (if slightly heavy-handed) describes most of the film quite well. Some of the gimmickry works well; some of it just seems gimmicky. There are moments where Tom Hanks is great; there are moments when you just feel bad for him. There are scenes of breathtaking, stunning beauty, and there are scenes you swear you’ve seen after having too many Bagel Bites in some late-night drive-in movie unheard of by anyone except Quentin Tarantino, featuring Rutger Hauer and Roddy Piper. Which is all to say that it’s both likable and hateable, and whether you will come down on one side or the other is tough to call. Over all, I like it and will probably see it again, if not in this life than surely in some future (or past) life.

                          7/10 (IMDb rating)
                          75/100 (Criticker rating)
                          But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
                          GrouchyTeacher.com

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Cloud Atlas

                            After hearing how divisive this movie had become (some really loving it, some really hating it) and reading some of the advanced reviews, I was a bit apprehensive about seeing it. But since this was probably my most anticipated movie ever, I just had to see it.

                            So what’s my verdict? I’m still not sure. Overall, I liked it. It was better than I thought it would be, but not as good as I hoped it would be. This is definitely not your cookie-cutter Hollywood movie. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. You almost have to change the way you look at a movie. I found myself not so much following a story line (or story lines if you will) as I was following a thematic line. I’ve read the book (and highly recommend it) so I had no problem knowing what the six stories were, but having each story sliced up and interspersed with one another, like playing cards being shuffled, was jarring at first. Very different from the book. But after a while, I almost sensed a rhythm to it, and the stories began to blend together. Visually, it was stunning, and I was never bored. I’m glad I saw it.

                            There’s so much more to be said about this movie, but it gets to be somewhat overwhelming at times. I really need to see it again.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Cloud Atlas

                              Originally posted by Honoruru View Post
                              I really need to see it again.
                              So do I.

                              I know this is a bit conspiracy-theorist, but I get the feeling many movies these days are designed to elicit this response in order to boost DVD sales.

                              Comment

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