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knives wrote:So if I'm understanding you correctly all I have to do is say Nichols is successful at what he is trying to achieve and your whole argument craters?

In a sense yes because if this film turns out to be lavished with praise, going down in the annals of film history then regardless of my feelings about it Nichols was successful. The reason I posted about it wasn't to trash it, but to discuss it. I was curious to find if there was something about it I had missed.

Funny thing since DH brought him up there is a lot of Malick in the film.

DI - I chuckled. Well played.

That really highlights my problems with your comments. You are seemingly connecting quality, or at least success and the 'right' to do ambitious work, with the praise a film has which is not logical. What is the critical basis that Truffaut had to make The 400 Blows?

Well can a work truly be accepted as ambitious if it fails? This is an idea I struggle with. Often times I find 'ambition' is a word used to describe work a person desperately wants to be good, isn't and throws the word out there to cover it up. Even earlier in this thread I wrote perhaps Nichols should be commended for trying.

Lets say you have a friend who has been swimming for a while who says to you one day 'hey I'm going to swim across the river'. You haven't seen much evidence he'd be able to do it, but hey he's been swimming for a while so give it a go. He dives into the water, but never makes it to the other side. Are you going to say that sucked, what an idiot or are you going to applaud his ambition?

I do see your point in that I wish I had drowned before checking back in with this thread

Two brief responses to questions raised above.

I think it's pretty clear from the film itself and a number of statements Nichols has made in interviews that for him both the "something else" he's interested in -- as opposed to the pure mechanics of the genres he's using to drive the surface of the narrative -- and the emotional thread of the film is Michael Shannon's embodiment of the strength, complexity and ambivalence of a father's love for his son.

Then there was the assertion that what we see at the end is

Spoiler

either "the lost City of Atlantis" (no clue where that idea came from) or some kind of alien civilization. Neither the boy himself nor anyone else ever calls him an alien. The film is very clear about his own understanding of where he believes he's from -- not outer space, some other planet or solar system or galaxy, but another dimension overlayed with ours. The kid says it pretty plainly in his own words just once. And then it happens. Part of that world overlaps/co-exists with Earth in a brief space for a brief time right in the spot where he foresaw it would. It's a rather restrained and sophisticated pop sci-fi take on some of the ideas about branes of multidimensional spacetime from string theory that, for me, were both envisioned and dramatized much less effectively in a film like Interstellar.

Thank you for that Warren. I think one of the reasons the film failed for me was not connecting with the father/son love. The film's genre mixing detracted from this as the chase element didn't afford it the time to focus on this emotional connection. I would go as far as to say Shannon's strength worked against this too. Admittedly this is perhaps more indicative of my own feelings than Nichols, but I have been moved by many works depicting a father/son bond.

Spoiler

As for my 'Atlantis' quip the structures and what looked like a ship popping up out from below brought this to mind. My point here is I thought the cgi used was poor and looked ridiculous. Reminded me a bit of Cocoon. In fact I think a film that was relying so much on the audience to fill in the blanks, use their imaginations, would have been better served without it. The boy leaving for another world also poked a hole in the 'father's love' theme.

I enjoyed the film. The performances were uniformly fantastic. I also agree that Edgerton stood out.

A lot of us sit around (rightfully) complaining about how bad Hollywood films are. Ironman 4, Transformers 6, Big Momma's House 5, etc, etc. So when a film like this comes along and tries to do something at least a little different, I try to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I also very much applaud "Midnight Special" for not giving away the ending in the trailer. They actually practiced some restraint.

It's not the most exciting movie in the world, but I recommend it.

I don't know how I've managed to not see a Jeff Nichols film. This I will see.

Edgerton's not an actor I really noticed, or just haven't seen his films, but I really liked 'The Gift'.

Black Hat wrote:Well can a work truly be accepted as ambitious if it fails?

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?"

I'm baffled by the notions that Nichols isn't entitled to be ambitious (shouldn't all artists be?) or isn't a filmmaker of significant import. I can't think of another director under 40 whose work I anticipate more. His four features have thematic, tonal, and visual consistency, yet each one feels "bigger" than the one before, and each feels fresh and new. I really like all of them, though Shotgun Stories might remain my favorite, since it's the only one where I don't have some quibble about the ending.

My thoughts on the success of Midnight Special more or less echo those of warren oates. I love the way Nichols dumps us into the story in media res, and parsimoniously doles out bits of exposition, making some details plain, eliding others, and trusting his audience to fill in the gaps. I wish (here's that quibble) that he'd shown as much restraint in the climax as he did in the first two acts. The boy's description of his nature was enough for me, and I wish Nichols hadn't chosen to visualize it for us. I'd agree with the notion that Kirsten Dunst was saddled with an underdeveloped character*, but the cast is uniformly excellent. It's really a Michael Shannon/Joel Edgerton two-hander -- a buddy picture of a particularly unusual sort with two guys on a particularly unusual quest. I loved Driver's small role too. I think he conveys so much in inflections and looks, and I really dug him in the Jeff Goldblum role here.

Part of what appeals to me about Nichols is how much he is in command of every nuance of his films. His visual style may not be as distinctive as some filmmakers, but it's no less assured. He and his regular cinematographer, Adam Stone, use the 2.35 frame as well as anyone since John Carpenter and Dean Cundey. Every shot feels perfectly framed and makes great use of negative space. Nichols has been pretty upfront about his influences in general and for this film in particular, and while you can certainly sense the impact of Spielberg and Eastwood (and Carpenter's Starman here), he has really come into his own. He's the cinematic poet laureate of that neglected portion of the south central U.S. -- alternately dusty and swampy, but possessing a charm all its own. He creates a clear sense of place, and fills it with great portraits of men desperately want to be good father figures against increasingly tough odds. His next film looks like an even bigger departure for him, but I understand that he believes it to be his best work, and it sure sounds like the folks at Focus have a lot of confidence in it. I'm happy to see him remaining ambitious.


*I had the same complaint about Reese Witherspoon's role in Mud, and I'd say that female characters might be something that Nichols struggles with. I felt like Jessica Chastain turned her Take Shelter role into something more than what was on the page through sheer force of Chastaininess.

Saw this last weekend and thought it was pretty terrible. Movie was good whenever it wasn't dealing with anything supernatural, but as soon as it did it was at times laughably bad. The ending was too much for me and my friend and we both cracked up when the credits started to roll. I liked Take Shelter and Mud, and I think Nichols is clearly a talented filmmaker, but sci-fi always gets difficult when you try to take the next step, into something completely out of this universe. Case and point for me is Interstellar, which in my opinion, completely shits the bed when it does the (spoiler) bookshelf thing. Midnight Special doesn't do it as badly as Interstellar but close.

Nosy Lena. This is garbage criticism. I don't understand why you dislike the film. Calling it terrible. Comparing it loosely to another film in the same genre as a criticism of this specific film. Mentioning 'supernatural' elements. This is not criticism. It is a lazy dismissal. I personally have not seen the film but your coarse bludgeoning of the film says more about you than the film. Have we no standards at criterionforum anymore?

I almost gave up hope of seeing this as Friday after Friday it failed to open here. This is after having a couple discussions with theater managers, in person and on the phone, lobbying to request it, and an email to corporate hq of a theater chain. I don't know if any of that had an impact, but it's showing now in a few theaters as of last Friday, and I saw it, and it was well worth the anticipation, mostly due to following Nichols' work.

terabin wrote:Nosy Lena. This is garbage criticism. I don't understand why you dislike the film. Calling it terrible. Comparing it loosely to another film in the same genre as a criticism of this specific film. Mentioning 'supernatural' elements. This is not criticism. It is a lazy dismissal. I personally have not seen the film but your coarse bludgeoning of the film says more about you than the film. Have we no standards at criterionforum anymore?

holy smokes are you for real?

Jeff wrote: I love the way Nichols dumps us into the story in media res, and parsimoniously doles out bits of exposition, making some details plain, eliding others, and trusting his audience to fill in the gaps. I wish (here's that quibble) that he'd shown as much restraint in the climax as he did in the first two acts. The boy's description of his nature was enough for me, and I wish Nichols hadn't chosen to visualize it for us. I'd agree with the notion that Kirsten Dunst was saddled with an underdeveloped character*, but the cast is uniformly excellent.

Seems your critiques of the film fall in line more or less with mine, but left you nowhere near as troubled.

Jeff wrote:Part of what appeals to me about Nichols is how much he is in command of every nuance of his films.

I would agree in that he knows what he's doing as a filmmaker and for sure this is appealing, but I don't think he's found his voice yet as a story teller. If you were to ask five people to give a quick synopsis of what this film was about you're liable to get five different answers. For a guy, to your point, as assured in what he's doing as Nichols — in interviews he's also made it explicitly clear what Midnight Special is about — this has to be seen in some degree as a shortcoming. I'd be very interested in seeing him direct a film he hasn't written.

Wish this movie had had more pulp and less cool detachment.

The distributor's website doesn't appear to have any release information. Is there any way to track where this is playing? It /still/ hasn't shown up in my neck of the woods. At this point, it's likely that any buzz has long worn off. Is Warner Bros on the outs with the theater chains, or Jeff Nichols on the outs with Warners...?

whaleallright wrote:Is there any way to track where this is playing?

movie search - change your location, enter film you're searching for. If it's currently playing, all theaters in that town will list. If it starts in 1-3 days, links to each day will show on the left margin. This is how I find limited release showings.

Well, I don't think this is a great film, but Black Hat's laundry list of problems is what happens when someone gets effusively turned against a film and begins selectively remembering it to fit their vantage, as there are a lot of obvious and clear answers in the film itself against many of his complaints and alleged gaffes. I enjoyed this while it lasted (especially the score), and I thought the screenplay did a nice job of slowly meting out information. But, I must confess, here I am only a couple hours since I saw it and all I can think is how little anything in the film added up to overall. I think charges of it not being subtle enough are bizarre: the film is barely there in the end, any less and it becomes a TV movie. My biggest takeaway is one shared by some others in the thread, that Joel Edgerton steals the movie and I look forward to seeing him in other films-- he seems like a natural fit for the parts David Morse has aged out of, at the very least!

I finally caught up to this film thanks to a nearby Redbox; it never played theatrically in my 200,000+ city.

I agree with domino's estimation. It definitely felt like an instance of "less is less." Nichols's M.O. seemed to be: distill the 1980s sci-fi thrillers he admires to the plot rudiments, boiling off exposition, along with details of characterization, and—most damagingly—almost any tonal variation.

I watched Starman not long afterward and I was struck by its emotional range. It's goofy, scary, suspenseful, and romantic by turns. Midnight Special, by comparison, hits the same purse-lipped note over and over again. I suppose Nichols's was aiming for some kind of genre "purity," but I don't think paring away all the good stuff paid off; the result mostly felt banal.

I heartily agree with the last two posts.

It's the type of film that's a victim of the style of film making that major studios aren't (on the whole) willing to fund any more.

It's almost as if Nichols wanted to make a full-blown throwback to the Spielberg/Carpenter late-70s and early-80s type of sci-fi film but knew he wouldn't get the studio backing. Therefore, he muted his story to match what he knew he could get funding for. And the resulting film is also terribly muted so it's exactly what whaleallright called 'less is less'. A pity.

This is pretty weak for Nichols who at least has had this Faulkner thing going for him in even his weaker moments. The big problem, as everyone has said, is that there's just not enough character here to give meaning to the plot which is handled with excessive opaqueness. What makes Mud, for example, so good even though it is obscure about the world it exists in is the like this film is that it very specifically occupies the headspace of the main character giving weight to the archetypes surrounding him as fragments of his development into manhood. There's no hook of perspective here like that. You can see Nichols try to work Edgerton as outsider in this way, but he remains tertiary to the perspective thematically and only aids the audience in providing a wall to bounce exposition off of.

I don't ant to make this sound all bad though. Even if the film doesn't work well in terms of substance it is mostly engaging through it all and deserves props for having a successful subtle Michael Shannon performance.