THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Aimless on 11 Jan 2008, 23:54
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428446/
Any of you guys seen it?
If it hadn't been one of the available in-flight movies on my flight from Paris to abu Dhabi, I don't think I'd ever have heard of it. Boy oh boy am I glad it was!! It's no masterpiece, but it is certainly one of the funnier films I've seen in recent months. And it's nice fun, too, never painful and awkward, except possibly the soap-dropping scene!
The concept is pretty original, I think. The direction and camera-work and editing are also somewhat unusual, but in a good way. The acting isn't exactly something to write home about, although I think Joseph Fiennes was pretty damn' well cast. As was... the film-major dude :) some nice cameos in it too, Metallica being the most notable.
If you've a couple of hours to idle away and would like to do so with a fresh, intelligent (but simple) feel-good film, I would recommend you give Darwin Awards a try. This may seem like a very lukewarm endorsement, but I assure you my own feelings about the film are all very positive. I'm just being cautious because I know how much tastes can differ :)
Okay, peace!
-- P
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How peculiar.
I really despise the whole concept of the Darwin Awards quite strongly.
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I just despise all the inane conversation that they generate. It's almost as bad as mythbusters as far as people just regurgitating things they've just seen or read and passing it off as adding something valuable to the conversation.
I find it wierd how a film that I'm going to assume is about people dying because they did something stupid could be nice fun or a feelgood movie. I always feel somewhat awkward when people are spouting off and laughing at things from the darwin awards, I guess I just can't detach myself from thinking about it in terms of real people. And the terrible puns that inevitably find their way in just cheapen it further.
Take that with a grain of salt though, I have been known to hate fun.
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The feelgood aspect isn't really from the various stupid deaths.
The film is about a hematophobic detective, Michael Burrows (played by Fiennes) who has a gift for making psychological profiles. He also has an unnatural obsession with the Darwin Awards. More specifically, he is obsessed with the notion that the people involved in them may all have something in common, and he'd very much like to figure out what that is. A cock-up during a serial murder investigation costs Burrows his job, which in turn gives him an opportunity to combine his profiling skills with his obsession by becoming a claims investigator for an insurance company (the premise is that these insane accidents--regardless of whether the people involved live or die--end up costing the insurance company millions every year, and it'd be nice if you could make reliable profiles for such people).
The focus is on Burrows' development from the obsessive, over-cautious, somewhat deprived detective to, uhm, something else :) the Darwin-cases aren't just props for this element of the story, but the stupid/tragic deaths are by no means the focus.
Rather than cursing human nature, the film celebrates it (which was certainly not what I expected when I started watching). And, for being such a contrived character, I found Burrows to be very engaging!
The weakest part of the film is Winona Ryder's character. Or perhaps it was just her acting, I dunno. But it was acceptable!
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I always feel somewhat awkward when people are spouting off and laughing at things from the darwin awards, I guess I just can't detach myself from thinking about it in terms of real people.
This is exactly why I hate the very notion of the Darwin Awards so much.
That description of the film sounds intriguing, though. This year's I Heart Huckabees?
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That is uncanny. I've been thinking about I <3 Huckabees since I posted this thread, but as it's been so long since I last saw that film I haven't been able to figure just why Darwin Awards would remind me of it...
PS. The villain is a poet, if that means anything to you!
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I always feel somewhat awkward when people are spouting off and laughing at things from the darwin awards, I guess I just can't detach myself from thinking about it in terms of real people.
This is exactly why I hate the very notion of the Darwin Awards so much.
That description of the film sounds intriguing, though. This year's I Heart Huckabees?
I kept hearing about it during production and later on the festival circuit where it more or less flopped. It's already come out as a direct-to-dvd movie, and you can probably guess how that bodes for quality. The AV Club has a short review of it in its "Direct to DVD Purgatory" feature (http://mobile.avclub.com/content/blog/dispatches_from_direct_to_dvd_0).
The reviewers description of the Darwin Awards themselves as "condescending one-note hick jokes" just about covers it for me. They always seem to be a big hit among people who like to send you Family Guy clips and gross-out internet memes via cell-phone.
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I tried watching it with my friends, it was BAD.
They tried to make it into a faux reality documentary thing.