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Topic: Noah (2014)

Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 04-14-2014 09:35 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
On the one hand it would attract a lot of the faith community, but on the other hand it might rub a lot of them the wrong way on that particular weekend, so maybe it might be better to wait another week. Maybe I'm over-thinking it.

You are not over-thinking it, Mike. Sure it might seem like the faith-based audience might be drawn to the subject matter, but they also have very strong, fairly immutable ideas as to what's biblical and what's not. Anything that's not, won't necessarily be accepted as literary license; it can be seen as tampering with their believe system and what's in The Book and they may not take kindly to that.

We have had no luck with titles that we thought might have drawn that audience group. All we got was grief. EVERYTHING caused gnashing of teeth...and at us. I think you are right not to do that link-up with Easter, although I am sure that's what Paramount's marking team wanted to do. And although it did decent business nation-wide, it can be very controvercial locally depending on your particular audience demographic.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-14-2014 12:39 PM

Here's what really pisses me off about this whole thing -- it's that Hollywood KNOWS there is a huge audience for this type of movie if it's done well. If they'd just done a straight re-telling of the story and avoided all the stupidity like the giant rock monsters, they might have had another Ten Commandments on their hands.

The Ten Commandments had a director who would go out and talk about how the movie was trying to be faithful to the source material as possible, and how he felt inspired by God to make as good a movie as he could, etc. all of which helped to draw people in. Which is the same thing that happened with Mel Gibson on "Passion of the Christ."

But for this movie, they hire a director who is supposedly an atheist, who chooses not to mention the name "God" in the movie, who goes out and says he's making the "least Biblical Biblical movie ever made" and they say they're "trying to play down the religious aspect" of the movie. WTF are these people smoking, anyway??

It's just more proof that Hollywood is run by idiots, as if we needed any. Talk about squandering the audience potential.

I hold out hope for the upcoming "Exodus." Although I'm sure they're already busy working on ways to ruin that story, too.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 04-16-2014 10:20 PM

It sure was nice that Noah was flat instead of scope. To see the whole updated common-width screen fill up completely was great.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 04-17-2014 12:45 AM

Yeah, because flat is clearly the way to the future. Flat was around before scope, so they must be onto something... And also, because you know, of that immersion thing... Flat clearly matches the field of vision FAR better than this stupid, outdated scope format... And you know what's even better, no more ugly black bars in those DVD and BluRay releases!!

Although flat is a great leap forward, we're not entirely there yet. I propose a new aspect ratio standard: TALF, or "reverse" flat. It's essentially flat but rotated by 90 degrees. That way, it almost perfectly matches the aspect ratio of all those great iPhone videos out there. And the great news is: Theaters don't even need new equipment for this, they just have to rotate the screen and projector with 90 degrees and voila!

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-24-2014 03:37 PM

We did wind up playing this movie over Easter. It was probably the worst decision I've made all year. Every single person I talked to hated the movie. I don't think ANYbody came out saying it was good, like they usually would. Most people had that "well, THAT was a waste of money" look on their face as they walked out. It's the first movie in recent memory where I felt like standing there and saying "Sorry" to everyone as they exited, as opposed to "Thanks for coming."

I remain incredulous as to what Paramount was thinking with this thing. It may even hurt business for a while, because we had people in who hardly ever go to movies and this pile of crap is not going to be much help in encouraging them to come back.

Thanks for nothing, Paramount. Now try not to be so stupid with the Ben-Hur remake, OK?

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 04-24-2014 04:00 PM

Mike can make it up with "Heaven is for Real". He'll definitely bank on that one.

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 04-24-2014 10:12 PM

I have had all kinds of inquiries about Heaven is for Real. People around here appear to be really interested in it.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-24-2014 11:13 PM

Same here....it's coming in a couple of weeks.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 05-03-2014 05:55 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Thanks for nothing, Paramount. Now try not to be so stupid with the Ben-Hur remake, OK?

Wait until they come out with their remake of The Ten Commandments from an atheist's perspective [Wink]

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 02-21-2015 06:55 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
The make-out scenes were in the Bible and the book also had much more nudity.

I'm hoping that some day, someone will do a remake of The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah, but rather than have the camera pull away and the credits start rolling after Lot's wife had her sodium intake issue, show the bit in Genesis 19 that would make even the sodomy look tame and conservative (Lot gets drunk and then impregnates his daughters). Without wanting to stray too far into politics and religion, I'd be interested to see the reaction of, shall we say, a certain lobby to that. Their instinct would be to be outraged, but they could not object to the assertion that such a movie would be entirely faithful and accurate to The Bible. I'd nominate Tarantino to direct (though if he wanted to do a Biblical epic, the story of Huldah and Sisera in Judges 4 would be perfect for him, possibly starring Uma Thurman and Steve Buscemi).

quote: Mike Blakesley
Not from the Bible:

- Giant living rock monsters (unless they are fallen angels, as noted above)

- Noah getting news of the flood in a dream (as opposed to hearing the voice of God, which is in the Bible)

- The giant battle, although if there was a huge flood and there was only one guy with an ark, what would you do?

- Noah thinking that ALL of humanity (including himself and his family) was due to be exterminated -- in the movie, he thinks his only job is to care for the animals to make sure they survived

- Several serious make-out scenes

- Ray Winstone bumming a ride on the ark and not exactly embracing vegetarianism.

As for the movie itself, it was entertaining, well enough done and I agree completely with the comments above that Aronofsky had little effective choice but to add something to a story that is so familiar that you wouldn't have much of a movie if you didn't. I do think there was quite a lot of ripping off of other movies going on, though. The landscapes, CGI monsters and battle scene were a Lord of the Rings import, and the final "Will he kill them?" scene clearly owes a lot to John Huston's version of Abraham and Issac in The Bible:In the Beginning.

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