Skip to main content

The Forgotten: Rightfully Over-looked

You can count The Forgotten among the movies I'm regularly skipping over when choosing something to watch; I've seen the trailers and read the plot summaries and never thought, "Hey! I can't wait to watch this movie."

It's not just the boring plot or the stupid trailer. It's actually Julianne Moore. She has so little range as an actress it's nearly laughable. She can play exactly one character; the hysterical woman. In most cases, including in The Forgotten, I wish she could be someone else. Only once, once! have I wanted her to be an emotional wreck, and she was amazing at it, and that was in Magnolia. Every other time I just wanted to reach into the movie and slap her until she got her shit together.

Actually, let's also consider the director: Joseph Ruben - best(?) known for directing The Good Son back in the 90's. I mean - it's not like he's really got a history of running around Hollywood, taking risks and turning out terrific movies for it. He's really just slinking around in the shadowy outskirts, grabbing up crappy scripts that are just poorly rehashed versions of more popular movies.

So, what I didn't realize about The Forgotten, until actually getting into it, is that it's just a less cool version of Dark City. (A movie that I love.) Alien beings hang out and mess with human minds, changing their past - present - future, just to see what happens. Nothing new here. Certainly no Oscar on the horizon for Ruben.

So that's what, 3 strikes against The Forgotten? Already out and I've still got more to write about.

After watching the movie - and in preparation for this blog - I did some research on the movie. Out of the gate, I had thought the movie had a strangely well-known, well-regarded cast for such a throw-away movie. I was surprised to learn that it did fairly well at the box office. I hardly even remember it being in theaters.

This got me thinking that it's maybe not completely the throw-away movie I initially believed it was. So I checked out some ratings. Here's what I expected to see; a 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Now that's more like it. Real people don't actually like this movie, just theatre-going suckers do.

I do have to give it to Ruben though - he did manage to craft one great moment in which I literally jumped off my damn couch. What can I say? I am human and those well-timed loud noises can affect me, too!

Alright - the wrap up goes something like this: I wasted 1.5 hours of my life watching this movie so that others (like yourselves) don't have to. Unless you're gluttons for movie punishment (like many of my friends actually are!) Then I've wasted my time for nothing.

...whatever.

Watch the trailer here:

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Witch (2015)

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually...
1 comment
Read more

Mother!

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system  so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right  or only fair  to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Babadook

Spoilers and typos! Enjoy. We often look back nostalgically on childhood, envious of the joy we felt and the boundless imaginations we possessed. How conveniently we forget the other side of that coin: as children, we experience a depth of terror our adult selves continually try to recreate for cathartic entertainment. When we try to bring those childhood fears to life on the screen, we often end up with movies about "things that go bump in the night," which is a somewhat superficial approach. While it does provide an opportunity for a supernatural experience, it ignores the root of our fear: the unknown . As children, we lack life experience. We lack nuance. We lack understanding. Not knowing creates in us fear. Yes, we fear what lurks in the darkness but we also fear the adult world because we do not understand how it works. The Babadook works to exploit both  those fears. The short story: a widowed mother of a young boy experiences a mental breakdown and tries to...
Post a Comment
Read more