Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee, 2016)

Message

Professor Wagstaff · Thu May 12, 2016 4:05 pm

Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

flyonthewall2983 · #2 Post by **flyonthewall2983** » Fri May 13, 2016 6:42 am

What in the hell is it with these YouTube trailers that have a 5-second teaser of the very thing you're about to see in it?

The Narrator Returns · Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:34 am

You can probably take Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk out of the running for the Oscars, since it isn't getting much better or worse than okay reviews and its central high frame rate gimmick has not impressed very many people at all.

#4 Post by **domino harvey** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:37 am

This is actually a big surprise as it was expected to rack up massive Oscar noms-- the dangers of hyping before anyone has seen the final film

The Narrator Returns · Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:39 am

Yeah, I've seen Kristen Stewart and Steve Martin bandied about as surefire Supporting nominees and possible winners, and most of the word about them from the reviews is about how tiny and underwhelming their parts are (and it even sounds like Martin is one of the worst things about the movie).

flyonthewall2983 · #6 Post by **flyonthewall2983** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 7:15 pm

That's a shame. Martin doesn't work much anymore and I do miss him a little as a screen presence.

flyonthewall2983 · #7 Post by **flyonthewall2983** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 4:34 am

But that has to be one of the clunkiest titles I can remember a major movie having in awhile.

matrixschmatrix · #8 Post by **matrixschmatrix** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 7:28 am

You don't think Vin Diesel's turn as 'Shroom' will get a nod?

Werewolf by Night · Mon Oct 17, 2016 4:12 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:But that has to be one of the clunkiest titles I can remember a major movie having in awhile.

It was the clunky title for a popular and award-winning book first, so they were kind of stuck with it.

sir_luke · #10 Post by **sir_luke** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:36 am

Speaking of the title, it's Billy Lynn, not Billy Flynn.

flyonthewall2983 · Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:08 pm

Werewolf by Night wrote:
flyonthewall2983 wrote:But that has to be one of the clunkiest titles I can remember a major movie having in awhile.
It was the clunky title for a popular and award-winning book first, so they were kind of stuck with it.

Billy Flynn (or Lynn I guess) or Long Halftime Walk would be marginally better movie titles though. It's most likely a ticket-taker would know which one you talked about if you split it up like that, as it's how most people tend to ask for movie tickets when the title is long.

Shrew · #12 Post by **Shrew** » Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:05 am

The first time I saw the title was actually in proofing a Chinese description of Ang Lee's recent career. If you think it's bad in English, it's a hideous mess in Chinese. Having never read the book, I do feel there was a serious editorial lapse with the title. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime or The Long Halftime seem like much more evocative titles given the set duration of a halftime, but I suppose there could be confusion that it's actually about an athlete.

Anyway, this sounds like further evidence to support a key law of Theoretical 21st-Century Filmmaking: Ang Lee can't do comedy.

willoneill · #13 Post by **willoneill** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 3:47 am

I just got back from this, and it was terrible. It was so clunky and silly that either a) they've completely screwed up the source novel, or b) the source novel is so terrible it should never have been published. The plot is pretty thin, the acting (except for Garret Hedlund of all people) is stiff, and the fact that it's a non-descript Dallas football team (instead of the Cowboys) and obviosu stand-ins for Destiny's Child just make the whole thing amateurish.

djproject · #14 Post by **djproject** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:18 pm

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk or: Sony's Continuing Attempt to Stay Relevant and Provide Meaning in the Film Market

tenia · #15 Post by **tenia** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 4:19 pm

I haven't heard prior to reading this thread about Lee having made / making a new movie, and I'm now learning this was shot in 4K 3D at 120 fps (and is planned for a projection at 120 fps 2D or 60 fps 3D).

hearthesilence · #16 Post by **hearthesilence** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 5:40 pm

I didn't know anything about the book until I told a friend about this film over the summer, and when I mentioned all the specs, he was aghast. To put it in perspective, he knew I had read Catch-22 and asked "who reads that thinking it should be made into a 3D spectacle?"

willoneill · #17 Post by **willoneill** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 5:46 pm

tenia wrote:I haven't heard prior to reading this thread about Lee having made / making a new movie, and I'm now learning this was shot in 4K 3D at 120 fps (and is planned for a projection at 120 fps 2D or 60 fps 3D).

My theatre didn't have those capabilities, so I saw it at 24 fps. It's my understanding those a dozen or fewer theatres in North America that can show it as intended (and I wasn't about to drive Toronto for something like this). I also understand Ang Lee's next project is a Joe Frazier biopic shot at that same speed, so maybe more theatres will have the technology by then.

Also interesting: the majority of the reviews I've read of the film refer to the team as the Dallas Cowboys. They're the Dallas Cowboys in the book, sure, but they are very obviously not the Cowboys in the movie. They're never refered to as the Cowboys, the team has different colours than the Cowboys, neither JJ Watt nor Richard Sherman play for the Cowboys, and Steve Martin is not playing a Jerry Jones stand-in at all. So why was this detail lost on the majority of reviewers? Did they care so little for the film that they didn't even pay attention, and just recited facts based on the original source novel?

By the way, one of the reviews I read was Armond White calling it Ang Lee's masterpiece, which says tells you all you need to know.

Being · #18 Post by **Being** » Mon Nov 21, 2016 12:50 am

djproject wrote:Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk or: Sony's Continuing Attempt to Stay Relevant and Provide Meaning in the Film Market

Sony should probably "retire" from the film business and get back to their core business, consumer electronics.

Brian C · #19 Post by **Brian C** » Thu Dec 01, 2016 11:45 pm

I thought this was pretty poorly done; willoneill used the word "amateurish" above, which I think fits. It's rather arbitrarily structured, the acting is mostly indifferent (although I thought Diesel and Dillahunt were fine), the war scenes are by-the-numbers, and in general it doesn't feel like it's been made by an acclaimed and experienced filmmaker.

But ... for some reason, it's stuck with me, and I've been trying to figure out why. And I think it's because, despite itself, it really does hint at an essential truth of American life. We live in a Fraudulent Age; everything around us is marketed and stage-managed to an inch of its life. And what the movie does, just with the story it tells if in no other way, is get inside what it's like to experience that up close, to follow characters who are witnessing first hand how the Great Fraud is conjured out of something that might have been true to begin with, but then manipulated for the masses until that truth is turned on its own head and celebrated for it.

Basically, it made me want to read the book. There is some very biting satire here wrapped up in a mediocre package.

Site Menu