Jump to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.

Surly Horns

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

1917. Sam Mendes makes a war movie with Benedict Cumberbatch in it.

Featured Replies

7 hours ago, Continental Op said:

American Beauty did not hold up well.  Road to Perdition is a solid movie. 

This. And one of the things that draws me to RtP is the layer of ice that exists amongst all of the characters. It works great with the era & story.. Mendes seems to be drawn to stories where the protagonist is emotionally isolated from his environment (see Skyfall). He's got a great visual eye, that's for sure.

9 hours ago, DougO said:

I just can't imagine Cumberbatch pulling off a line like, "I reckon this here rifle-gun shoots a might to the right."

And when Alvin said Bobs yer uncle,  and Cor, you're a right little five speed gear box. I just wasn't buyin' it.

Edited by Onboard 2.0

  • 2 weeks later...

Saw it today, incredibly shot movie and detailed sets.

Quite distracting that the lead looks like Greta Thurnburg though.

24 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Road to Perdition is one of the most underrated movies of this century, imo. 

Tom Hanks in what may really be his best role, Paul Newman (no need to say more) and Daniel Craig.  It is really a masterpiece

10 hours ago, bluto said:

Saw it today, incredibly shot movie and detailed sets.

Quite distracting that the lead looks like Greta Thurnburg though.

The sky was falling though.

  • Author

It's a technical masterpiece, and will be up for sound editing and cinematography Academy Awards.  Like film schools will teach classes on it.  It's a technical masterpiece.  My friend is a history nut, and says it's completely historically accurate.  

And that's it.  None of the characters draw you in (although Andrew Scott's character comes close.)  There's one 10 minute scene that gets your attention.

Spoiler

The basement scene with the lady and baby.  It was solid.

The one-take thing was distracting.  It was just them trying to show off how good they were at it.  How many times did they zoom in then pan around to reveal what they wanted you to see, one piece at a time.  The "transisitons" were obvious; dark to light, through a door.  Those were the hidden cuts.  

I really wanna see a movie on how they shot this movie. Saw this on reddit


Going at 3:30 today. Looking forward to it.

I thought it was excellent. Worth seeing in the theater for sure.

Best movie I've seen all year, and I saw a shitload in 2019. 

Saw it today.  Good solid movie, but the narrative was pretty dry. It reminded me of Dunkirk a bit in that regard. None of the characters really piqued your interest. The celeb cameos were pointless. 

I dunno. I thought it was quite a bit more engaging than Dunkirk.

Anyway it’s good.

11 hours ago, Zombie said:

Saw it today.  Good solid movie, but the narrative was pretty dry. It reminded me of Dunkirk a bit in that regard. None of the characters really piqued your interest. The celeb cameos were pointless. 

+1

One thing that irked me and creative license and such but scofields rifle was established as bolt action but in the sniper scene he got multiple shots off without having to pull back the bolt. 

Gun experts, is there something I'm missing?

Back to my original thought earlier,  set design and details were amazing. Little things like barb wire and the milk not being completely clean were shot beautifully. 

 

 

you mean when he was sitting on the stairs and turning to shoot every few seconds?  pretty sure he was engaging the bolt action between shots.  could be wrong, though.  

  • Author
1 hour ago, Butch Had Not said:

Gun experts, is there something I'm missing?

With practice, you can cycle a bolt gun pretty fast.

 

  • Author

I really wanna see a movie on how they shot this movie. Saw this on reddit
 

Looks like this is the vid your post was taken from:

 

This is a much better cinematography experience than good movie experience. Germans aren’t ever that poor of shooters, and like Dunkirk you get zero emotional attachment to the cast. 
 

Worth watching because how it is shot and the expert directing, but the parts are better than the sum.

I thought the entire nighttime sequence in the burning city was ridiculous arthouse bullshit.  ruined the movie for me. 

Road to Perdition is one of the most underrated movies of this century, imo. 
This is probably one of my top five favorite movies. The opening few lines are just really good. The score by Thomas Newman is fantastic too


Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

Outstanding.  Loved everything about it.

the cinematography moves this from a run-of-the-mill movie to something to behold.  When you go in knowing about the long single takes, it makes it even more impressive.

Me likey

 

 

the movie insists upon itself.  beautifully shot pile of garbage. 

not close to as good as Dunkirk.  doesn’t even begin to approach the same league as SPR. 

Edited by futureman

Future, what about the nighttime scene did you feel was "arthouse?"

Saving Private Gallipoli 

Yup. That’s exactly what I thought.

I liked it though. Visually stunning and kept moving but felt like the scene at the end was lifted straight from Gallipoli. Makes me want to see that one again btw.
1 hour ago, Grandioso said:

Future, what about the nighttime scene did you feel was "arthouse?"

E53-B0515-A1-A1-476-E-99-B6-B22258162-F7

A visually stunning film. The opening, where the camera follows the two as they walk from a peaceful idyllic green field down into the trenches, the disposition of the soldiers around them changing as they progressed closer to the front line, was masterfully done. As Bluto said, the “no man’s land” and German trench scenes are worth a ticket. There isn’t much character development, but I thought it fit the nature of WWI combat: masses of men sent charging into machine gun fire with little regard.   

Overall, very good; I liked it.

Edited by Dutch

Best wide release movie of 2019 (technically 2020). Deakins will get oscar for best camera work

 

Best tracking shots in cinema history. Acting was top notch. Visuals and set design were absolutely incredible. If this had a little more character development, it would be a top 25 all time movie for me. Score by Newman (hes always fucking money) was tits.

 

blew Dunkirk outta the water, and is easily the best war movie since The Thin Red Line

 

8.75/10

11 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Best wide release movie of 2019 (technically 2020). Deakins will get oscar for best camera work

 

Best tracking shots in cinema history. Acting was top notch. Visuals and set design were absolutely incredible. If this had a little more character development, it would be a top 25 all time movie for me. Score by Newman (hes always fucking money) was tits.

 

blew Dunkirk outta the water, and is easily the best war movie since The Thin Red Line

 

8.75/10

troll. 

12 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Best wide release movie of 2019 (technically 2020). Deakins will get oscar for best camera work

 

Best tracking shots in cinema history. Acting was top notch. Visuals and set design were absolutely incredible. If this had a little more character development, it would be a top 25 all time movie for me. Score by Newman (hes always fucking money) was tits.

 

blew Dunkirk outta the water, and is easily the best war movie since The Thin Red Line

 

8.75/10

Ballgame.

On 1/12/2020 at 10:27 PM, 0xdeadbeef said:

the cinematography moves this from a run-of-the-mill movie to something to behold. 

By far this was the star of the movie. The movie itself was pretty damn boring. They took ‘saving private Ryan’ type plot and dulled it down, very British of them. Bland and Boring.

dunkirk at least had some interesting side stories. If this wins movie of the year, it’ll be a joke: 

Edited by tx 3 putt

Saw it last night and was just absolutely in awe of the visuals.  

A lot of valid criticisms in this thread, but for me, the cinematography more than makes up for those.  

I think this is going to win pretty much everything at the Oscars.  

Thread title should be edited because Cumberbatch was in it, what, 5 minutes?  I thought George MacKay was pretty great for a guy I'd never seen before.

 

Yeah I'm in the camp with the people wowed by how much of a technical achievement of it I can live with the plot contrivancies. I was just blown away by how great it looked. 

On 1/12/2020 at 12:28 PM, Butch Had Not said:

One thing that irked me and creative license and such but scofields rifle was established as bolt action but in the sniper scene he got multiple shots off without having to pull back the bolt. 

Gun experts, is there something I'm missing?

When he crosses the bridge and faces off against the sniper, you can see him cycling the action and ejecting the spent casing from shooting the pilot that stabbed Blake. They got the details right, at least to my eyes.

It was a tremendous movie. The final scene where he meets Leftenant Blake is one of the saddest.

Saw it this afternoon and thought it was amazing. The scene where he is running parallel to the line as everyone else charges was absolutely perfect in every way. And the dedication at the end to Sam Mendes' grandfather was beautiful. I've never choked up at a dedication, but it got dusty in the theater during the credits.

Saw it today.  Good solid movie, but the narrative was pretty dry. It reminded me of Dunkirk a bit in that regard. None of the characters really piqued your interest. The celeb cameos were pointless. 


I saw it today and largely agree with this. Worse than pointless, the celeb cameos actually took me a bit of it. I’m curious how it would hold up to a rewatch once the novelty of the cinematography wears off.

I was surprised to see someone call it boring. This is the first time since Road to Perdition that I haven’t been incredibly bored during a Sam Mendes movie.
On 1/12/2020 at 4:48 PM, The Ace of Aces said:

This is a much better cinematography experience than good movie experience.

This. Beautifully shot, but honestly it was not very exciting for a war film. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Posted on other thread. 

It was good. Simple story, but well done. Great cinematography. Just visually impressive. But best picture? That’s a no for me dog. 
 

I will say I did appreciate the subtle turn of events at the farmhouse. I didn’t see it coming and imagine that’s how simple and fast shit goes sideways in war. 

18 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Saw it this afternoon and thought it was amazing. The scene where he is running parallel to the line as everyone else charges was absolutely perfect in every way. 

Saw an interview on him where he was talking about the long takes, about how if something went wrong, you kept going to try to salvage the take.  Both times he got knocked over in that scene were accidents.

After marinating on it for almost a week, ill double down and call this one of the movie incredibly-shot movies ever made

 

How the fuck does Deakins have only one statue

  • Author

Without looking I'm gonna say he got one stolen by Shakespeare in Love.

The singing when he reached the forest of friendlies....brilliantly done

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.