Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: UNSTOPPABLE

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Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 11-14-2010, 11:26 AM:

Whew!! Tired eyes and ears by the time this ended. The story is nothing not seen before (think of "Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" from the same director). The execution, meaning camera work and sound, are overwhelming. No hand held, to speak of, but lots of closeups and fast cutting. There is a love of the zoom lens rivaling TMZ cable gossip photography. Very often, when focusing on a face, there is a slight jump zoom to get closer. Very annoying. Music is "wall to wall" action. Someday I expect the speakers in a theater to rebel, and jump thru the screen.
In spite of the above comments, the movie has suspense, even though it's predictable. Will the train stop before it gets to Scranton?
I won't tell!

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-14-2010, 09:31 PM:

I saw UNSTOPPABLE today at the Regal Pearlhighland Theatre and enjoyed the film very much. As a professional photographer with some experience with cinema photography, I did not notice all of the things in the photography Richard had pointed out that had annoyed him. The only thing I had noticed was how gritty the picture looked and how it captured the way southern Pennsylvania looks from my many visits to that part of the country. I agree, the sound mix was intense and that contributed to my enjoyment of the film even more. I saw it in a auditorium that was almost full and a person sitting in front of me with a baseball cap was pissing me off when he kept leaning forward in this theatre with stadium seating and was blocking a good deal of the bottom of the picture. I politely asked him him to sit properly and he did but about forty minutes, he did it again. This time, I gently kicked the back of his seat to remind him and he quickly leaned back. It was a good thing he was good about it and not an ass hole.

4 out of five stars

By the way, I just noticed this is exactly my 2000th post and it took me eight years to do it. I enjoyed posting all these years and look forward to many more years of sharing knowledge and learning from many of you. Most especially Brad, Mark Guibrandsen, Adam Martin Joe Radifer, Gordon McLeod Steve Guttag, Mike Blakesley and many others about Cinema and Bobby Handerson, Vern Dias Joe Tommasello and others about home video.

-Claude

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 11-15-2010, 12:02 PM:

quote: Richard P. May
Will the train stop before it gets to Scranton?

Scranton?

Didn't realise that the train was heading towards Steve Carell and the cast of The Office.

Would make an interesting series finale to the current season. [Big Grin]

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 11-15-2010, 11:33 PM:

** (out of ****)

Saw this today. Was ok. I mean, Tony Scott does editing and camera work so fast...Sound mix was crazy too.

My main problem with this movie is that Tony Scott didn't take any chances. He should of taken a chance and killed the horses, the train full children and more. Maybe completely destroy a town or something.

Not enough special effects disasters for a $100 million budget.

The back story of Chris Pine was crap.

The best performance by far was character actor Lew Temple driving that crazy dually pick up truck. He brought life into the movie. DW was crap and boring and so was Chris Pine

How did I know that the train was going to do "wheelie"?

Cinematography was not bad. Running time was not too long, but Tony Scott really needed to take some chances with this movie and that was the problem.

Make it R rated.

No where near as good as "Runaway Train"

Posted by Preston Drum (Member # 5903) on 11-20-2010, 06:54 PM:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/193067/saturday-night-live-unstoppable-trailer#s-p1-sr-i1

this video says it all

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-20-2010, 08:32 PM:

I watched 3 minutes of this and the below was spot on. It was so annoying I don't think I can sit through this film.

quote: Richard P. May
There is a love of the zoom lens rivaling TMZ cable gossip photography. Very often, when focusing on a face, there is a slight jump zoom to get closer. Very annoying.

Very annoying? How about "hey Tony Scott learn how to shoot a movie annoying"?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-20-2010, 10:18 PM:

Brad, you should have realized that was going to be the case - BEFORE seeing it! Or did you miss Tony Scott's name on the poster?

[Smile]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-20-2010, 11:02 PM:

I live in a railroad town, so I am sure this movie is going to be chock-full of "Yeah, riiiight!" [Roll Eyes]

moments.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 11-21-2010, 12:02 AM:

I wish Tony Scott would go back to his Crimson Tide and True Romance style of film making!
This movie has me at hello because i love trains and at least the photography is sharp.
I also am a big fan of Denzel.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-21-2010, 12:11 AM:

quote: Richard P. May
Very often, when focusing on a face, there is a slight jump zoom to get closer.

I hate that shit. But it's the trend these days. I guess the young'uns LOVE it. They have to, why else would people keep doing this?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-21-2010, 10:35 AM:

Tony Scott and certain other directors that abuse the style over substance method of shooting movies are older farts. Paul Greengrass, Michael Bay, John Woo, etc. are middle aged or older. Those directors just believe everyone under age 40 has ADHD and cannot hold their attention on screen for more than about 12 frames without an edit or camera shake.

A few of my coworkers have seen Unstoppable and liked the movie quite a bit. I'm not sure I'm going to bother because Tony Scott has pretty much moved up to the top of the list of directors who annoy the shit out of me. Scott loves to employ camera moves/techniques that totally take me out of the movie.

For example, Scott likes using 360 degree dolly moves in various scenes. Michael Bay does this shit in just about all his movies too! It's an unnatural camera move because no one in real life is going to go running circles around some people talking or some piece of action happening. I expect they'll start turning the camera sideways or upside down to make the angle even more unnatural and annoying. Scott will sometimes cut between two different 360 moves happening at the same time. In Spy Game a dialog only scene between Robert Redford and Brad Pitt on a German high rise rooftop had a 360 degree helicopter shot and dollying close-ups. It was just a damned dialog scene but the thing was shot and edited like the building was fixing to explode. I thought more about the Wescam™ gyroscope camera mount on the helicopter and what sort of telephoto lenses were being used rather than thinking about the movie and its characters.

I caught a bit of the "HBO First Look" feature on Unstoppable and sure enough there's 360 degree dolly action in that show. They modified a train locomotive so they could run dolly track all the way around and through the cab. Thanks, HBO, for making even regular viewers aware of the 360 degree nonsense!

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-22-2010, 03:55 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Those directors just believe everyone under age 40 has ADHD and cannot hold their attention on screen for more than about 12 frames without an edit or camera shake.

And they are right.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 11-22-2010, 09:38 AM:

Frank I can't tell if your trying to be funny or just trying to sound dumb?

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-22-2010, 11:13 AM:

Your choice....but neither of which is snarky. [Wink]

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 11-22-2010, 01:15 PM:

Just making sure [Wink]

since there are some of us that are in our 20's that enjoy more steady long shots lol

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 11-28-2010, 12:48 PM:

I thought the camera work was terrible - if it did another 180 swing around, I was going to go mental. All in all I thought it was rather a waste of time.

even the framing of the digital projector was off, for Regal to install a new DP system (at Gallery Place) and then still have black borders around the entire screen was just shoddy.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-28-2010, 01:56 PM:

Assuming it was side masking, they probably ran the movie with the flat projector settings, but scope masking. That will produce the goof you saw with black borders all around the screen.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-28-2010, 03:27 PM:

Shouldn't the projector and automation automatically KNOW what format it is? The projector/server should see what it is playing and think "I am playing a flat movie. Shit should be flat." And then set everything to flat. Same with scope.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-28-2010, 03:59 PM:

None of the manufacturers have taken automating to that level, as any settings could be setup on any channel, so forcing things has the potential to do more harm than good.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 12-10-2010, 08:27 PM:

3.5 out of 5

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 12-11-2010, 08:14 PM:

Regal Hollywood 24. One of the common width screens. The image was a tad shifted towards the left causing overbleeing of the image onto the the left side of the screen.

It was decent watchable fun. If you have to pay for a ticket, it is best to watch the hulu clip of SNL parodying the movie. It is spot on. This is more of a home video type movie. Denzel is just cashing paychecks at this point. The only ineresting character was the truck guy.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 12-12-2010, 10:55 PM:

answering both of you, Joe and Brad: the image was it's full 2.35 scope AR, but honeslty it really did look like they didn't properly aim or install the projector properly - you shouldn't see black borders all around the entire 2.35 image on a 2.35 screen (?!)

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 12-14-2010, 11:06 AM:

Where I watch it I had a perfect crisp image that filled the screen with no ugly borders nor too much overlap onto the masking. but no left channel audio!! (yes I did get a pass after).

Anyway decent movie with solid performances and some nice action sequences.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-14-2010, 09:18 PM:

I liked it but it was really a switch-off-your-brain type movie. I've heard a few comments from railroaders who have come to see it:

- There's no way the control in the cab would "move by itself" like it does in the movie

- If a group of cars/engines going that fast is up on one set of wheels like it is in the movie, it's going off the tracks. It's not going to set back down, and if it DID set back down it's going to derail.

- Engines have a "governor" in them that caps top speed at 55 or 65 (depending what railroad is involved).

I did read a few interesting bits about the real incident vs the movie one:

- The real incident train's top speed was 44 MPH, not over 70 as in the movie

- Nobody was killed in the real incident, vs. one guy killed in the movie

- In the real incident, they hooked another engine onto the rear of the train and braked it just like in the movie, but they were able to slow it to 11 MPH at which time a guy ran alongside and was able to jump on and stop the train.

To me the dumbest thing in the movie was: When they hooked the two units onto the front of the train (which did NOT happen in the real incident), the engineer could have just walked from his cab to the cab of the out-of-control unit and shut it down.

So basically the beginning and the ending of the movie were real events but virtually everything in between was "dramatized."

Not that any of the above is BAD -- the movie was still well made and a fun train ride. This kind of movie isn't supposed to be believable, at least not these days. I didn't find the photography offensive. I mean it's way better than Paul Greengrass.

Also, Michael Scott is safe: The train is heading for "Stanton," not Scranton.

Overall, 3.5 out of 5 for me. Not a DVD buy, for sure.