Panic Room

[CMJ]

Some quick thoughts....will post more later. Overall I really liked it though. :)

Tight thriller...some VERY intense moments.

Good performances..much better than a film like this usually has.

Great cinematography and sound work.

A more comprehensive review will come later...or once more people have seen it. ;)

[Jedi Master Carr]

I want to see it maybe next weekend. Well it looks like a lot of people went to see it this weekend it was the number one movie and made 30 million which is pretty good for March, also we got our first 100 million dollar film of 2002, Ice Age which crossed it friday, I will put that on there tomorrow (unless somebody else out there wants to do it). I think Blade 2 will make it though probably just barely, and Panic Room has a shot as well, I don't see anything else making it before Spiderman or AOTC, though The Scorpion King has a shot.

[Shawn]

Panic Room didn't look at all interesting. The bland suspense/horror movies just seem to keep piling up: Don't Say a Word, Jeepers Creepers, Joy Ride, the Glass House, etc. They all strike me as overdone, glitzy teen movies. Joy Ride and Jeepers Creepers, especially, make me think of the re-hashed teenage thrillers from the later 80's / early 90's.

Then again, everyone else seems to love them, so maybe I'm just the odd man out. Or maybe I'm just jaded.

[JonathanLB]

It's not that you are jaded, but it IS that you obviously have no respect for a great director or don't know who made Panic Room. To compare the films you listed with Panic Room is pretty odd because Fincher is one of the best directors around and Panic Room is NOT a teen movie, nor do I have any idea where you got that impression. It is one of the most stylish films of the last year.

Anyway, of those four films you mentioned, three were good to very good movies, but Don't Say A Word wasn't that good. Above average, but nothing more. Joy Ride was great. Audiences loved it, critics loved it, what are you talking about "glitzy" and "overdone"? What is that supposed to mean? I don't even believe the word overdone is applicable in describing a movie. That's like something a critic does; use a word that simply doesn't apply to describe a film, lol. If you mean stylish, then yes, Joy Ride and Jeepers Creepers were very stylish films, meaning the directors actually showed they have a unique sense of ability in making them, they're not just pawns for their studios. The same goes with Panic Room. Fincher is one of the greatest directors of all time, but he is too young for most people to realize that, although with five films so far, he's showcased his amazing talents. He'll be very fondly looked upon in another decade after he has a bunch more films in the can.

Don't dismiss Panic Room as a teen thriller, though, that is really really insulting. Perhaps you need to read more about Fincher, i.e. FIGHT CLUB, THE GAME, SE7EN, and ALIEN 3, and then you will understand that a film like that is not simply to be dismissed so easily.

Panic Room is one of his weakest films, but I still gave it 3.5 stars and it was very good. The fact it was a weaker film for him is only a testament to what a great filmmaker he is. My review is done, it'll be up tomorrow when I post the rest of them.

[Shawn]

I didn't say it was a bad film, I simply said that it impressed me as being a bland movie. As I stated earlier: A movie has to be top notch in order to earn my money. Panic Room simply doesn't look like it's going to make the cut.

[Super Wookiee]

I saw Panic Room friday night in a packed house. I liked it. There were a few moments that could have been written a little better. But all in all I left the movie happy.

[JonathanLB]

You need to know something about a movie before you judge it based on the trailer. Fight Club had a terrible trailer, but it also had Brad Pitt and Edward Norton with Fincher directing, and it ended up being one of the best movies of the last decade.

Panic Room didn't have that good of a trailer. I knew it was going to be very good regardless, but the trailer was at best about 2.5 stars.

You won't see *that* many better films than Panic Room this year, so it's your loss if you miss it. Fincher comes out with about one movie per 2 to 3 years, so miss this and it'll be a while until his next I'm thinking.

I've not seen better opening credits or better (niftier/more innovative) cinematography in any movie ever.

[sirdizzy]

it was suprisingly smart and ingenoeus


it didn't play all the stupid stereotype and predictable scenes most movies like this do it was very good at suprising you at times and staying one step ahead

[Shawn]

Last year, I saw maybe only about 3 films in theaters. This year, I've already seen 2 : Queen of the Damned (which I knew was going to be bad, but just had to see anyway) and Resident Evil.
You won't see *that* many better films than Panic Room this yearOh, I don't know... Attack of the Clones, The Two Towers, Spiderman and Men in Black 2 all looked like good prospects. Plus, I plan on seeing Minority Reports... it's been a while since I've seen a Tom Cruise flick.

[sirdizzy]

i see like 4 movies a week

[Super Wookiee]

I go in spurts. I try to get to atleast one a week though. Two weeks ago i saw The Rookie on sneak preview and got to see 40 days and 40 nights for free. This past weekend i saw Panic Room. But before that i think LOTR was my last movie, but i went to see that 6 times

[Admiral Lebron]

I've seen John Q and Mothman Prophecies and that is all I think I've seen in 2002. Maybe one more..can't remember though.

[Doc Milo]

You need to know something about a movie before you judge it based on the trailer. Fight Club had a terrible trailer, but it also had Brad Pitt and Edward Norton with Fincher directing, and it ended up being one of the best movies of the last decade.


Fight Club one of the best movies of the last decade?

Okay, to each his own, guess.

I wasn't all that impressed with Fight Club. It was an okay film in my mind. Not a film I was raving about to everyone and anyone who would listen to me. I watched it. I didn't hate it. I enjoyed some parts of it. All in all I thought it was a good film. But not great. Not something I'd want to see more than once. IMO, for a movie, to me, to be one of "the best movies of the last decade" it has to be something I'd be raving about to anyone who'd listen, and something I'd want to obsess over so much that I go to see it more than once in theaters, and want to buy the DVD and watch it over and over again. Fight Club was 0-3 in that criteria, for me.

But, to each his own.

[Shawn]

I didn't overly enjoy Fight Club for several reasons, one of which being that I thought it was predictable. I did, however, like many aspects of the film. The ending really ruined it for me, though... it felt too cheesy and Hollywood-esque.

[Darth Viscera]

yeah. people usually die after they shoot themselves in the head....what, did his second personality guy live in his throat? jeez.

[JonathanLB]

I hope a few of those comments were jokes ;)

Fight Club had ANYTHING BUT a predictable plot! It was totally unique and true to Fincher's style, the plot had a major twist at the end. If you don't like it, please, save us all the agony of having you in theaters and just don't go.

Great plot twists at the end are the most satisfying thing in cinema. I hate it when a movie is straight-forward the entire way with no plot twists at all, it's just lame. There are a few well done films with no real twists, but not that many.

Fight Club's ending is excellent, the best part of the entire movie. Up until that point it's only very good, not excellent, and The Game was only "pretty good" until the ending, when it became one of the greatest movies of all time. I was giving it about 2.5 stars until the last 15 minutes, then it became my fav. non-SW film ever at that time.

Fincher is awesome.

I was going to say Fight Club is one of the best films of all time, but the last decade sounded more appropriate anyway because that's when Fincher has been directing anyway...

As for movies in theaters...

Here is a list of the new releases for this year:

http://www.jlbmovies.com/NewReleases.shtml

I have seen them all except for 3 (among ones that already came out): Slackers, Birthday Girl, and Kung Pow! I'll get to them when they hit DVD...

I think that is like 32 new releases this year, plus the duplicates and the 2001 movies, so I hit 46 total showings on Sunday. :)

Averaging just about exactly 1 per 2 days in theaters, haha.

"Oh, I don't know... Attack of the Clones, The Two Towers, Spiderman and Men in Black 2 all looked like good prospects. Plus, I plan on seeing Minority Reports... it's been a while since I've seen a Tom Cruise flick."

Umm, yes, those films will ALL be better than Panic Room, probably significantly, but that's not very many movies at all. I think Panic Room will still make my top 15 this year out of 125 movies or so (150? 175?). Could only be top 20 though, hard to say. I 'only' gave it 3.5 stars, but it was a high 3.5. I mean, Van Wilder got 3.5 but it's not as good as Panic Room, although I probably had a more fun time at Van Wilder, that movie is so dang hilarious.

I had a more fun time at Van Wilder than The Rookie probably, well, sorta, ok not really, but it was close, yet The Rookie gets a higher rating by a good deal.

Comedies are just fun, hehe, not necessarily giving you anything of value in terms of knowledge or insight, but what the hey.

THREE movies in theaters a year? Good lord you are deprived! lol. That's like about a week of films for me, but some weekends it is many more, like 5 last weekend in 3 days.

With Episode II this year, I think I'll probably hit 200 total screenings of films in theaters.

[Shawn]

Sorry, I do other things than watching movies. Like working nearly 50 hours a week. The vast majority of the time, I work the weekends... usually getting Tuesday or Thursday off. Then I usually sleep through most of the day. I also work Holidays... Christmas Eve I was working until 1am (so, if you feel like arguing semantics, then I worked on Christmas day, too :p). I just don't have the time nor inclination to watch that many movies.

Fight Club's plot might have been "anything but predictable" to you, but I thought it was pretty obvious by the time "Tyler" was fooling around with Marla. After that, I got bored with it. The movie relied far too much on that single plot twist. Like I said: it had a couple of cool elements to it: The support group addiction, the "You're not your ****ing khakis" speech, etc. But overall, it's not something I'd consider a great movie. Rather, it's more like over-publicized mediocrity that thrived from word-of-mouth hype.
If you don't like it, please, save us all the agony of having you in theaters and just don't go. Funny, I like to think of myself as having excellent tastes. Every single person I've reccomended a book, movie or game to always comes back thanking me for it. I work at Blockbuster - I have at least a dozen people a day ask me to reccomend movies to them. Not once has somebody come back telling me that they disagree with my opinion. In fact, I've had people come back specifically to tell me what a great movie this or that was.

I don't know if you noticed, but I stopped mentioning Panic Room. For all I know, it's a pretty decent flick. But I find the whole "If you didn't like this movie, then you must be retarded" stance to be boorish and rather offensive. People have different opinions - not everybody likes what you like. It's a fact of life.

[JonathanLB]

"Like working nearly 50 hours a week."

Yeah, I work probably 75 hours per week, but of course a lot of that includes seeing movies. It just depends on what job you have, hehe, for me, it's running my online business and now looking after the new movie review site (it has been especially intense over the last month).

I cannot imagine doing anything better than seeing movies. If I didn't have time to see as many as I wanted, I would simply make time. It's a major priority and I cannot really get where I want to go without it. Filmmaking, writing, and my business all depend on my moviegoing. I figure if I see as many movies as I can for my site and go back and review all of the classic old films I missed, that'll really help me in film school if that is the path I choose to take, or it certainly will help my writing as an author and freelancer, and of course the more immediate advantage that it keeps my site going. But I love movies, it's not just like a money thing, hehe.

As for Fight Club, well no, it was not predictable, it's not a matter of "to you," it's not an opinion based matter. It was not a predictable movie. Nor was The Sixth Sense. If you happened to get the twist before the film ended, good for you, give yourself a star, but the movie really is not about that. It's really a social commentary against materialism and I think quite an important, insightful film. It IS great, if you don't appreciate its greatness, that is fine, but I've personally never met anyone who didn't like Fight Club so far.

Sean, Ben, Bryan, my sister, and myself are among the people I know who would put it in their top 25 to 50 greatest of all time. I've never met anyone who thinks it isn't a great film, so if you steer people away from that, it's definitely their loss. Critics pretty much loved it, audiences loved it, but too bad Fox did a terrible marketing job on it just like they did for L.A. Confidential. That's another issue entirely though.

As for Panic Room, it's a very good film. It wouldn't receive the good reviews it has if it sucked, hehe. I'm talking more about the audience ratings too, they are solid anyway.

My reviews are generally pretty close to CinemaScore ratings. Last weekend (cinemascore / me):

The Rookie: A / A-
Clockstoppers: B+ / B
Panic Room: B / B+
Death to Smoochy: C / C+

I think that's right anyway.

I like CinemaScore, it's a fairly good indicator of a movie's actual quality most of the time. Of course I depart from it sometimes, but mostly the general public's consensus opinion is more or less correct.

Ok back to work now, then sleep...

[Shawn]

As for Fight Club, well no, it was not predictable, it's not a matter of "to you," it's not an opinion based matterNo, not an opinion based matter. But when you've seen it done before, it becomes predictable. Watch much Japanese animation? Specifically, have you seen Perfect Blue or Serial Experiments: lain? Not to mention the videogames that come out of that country. Plot elements like that are not only predictable, but practically clichéd. Like a character mysteriously having amnesia. :p

It did have an interesting commentary on modern materialism, yes. As I mentioned in my previous post, that was one of the things I liked about the film.
I've never met anyone who thinks it isn't a great filmYou also said you've never met a guy who didn't think Britney Spears is hot. You must know a lot of like-minded people. :)

I don't necessarily steer people away from Fight Club. I tell them "Well, I didn't personally like it, but I know a lot of people did, so you'll probably be safe going with that." Same thing with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: I think it's Smith's worst film, but nearly everyone I've talked to raves about it, so that's what I tell people who ask me about it.

[CMJ]

Jonathan....predictability IS an opinion based thing. Some people figure films out, so to them they ARE predictable.
I'd like to see you try and explain to my mother and brother "Sixth Sense" not being predictable. They both figured out the ending from the TRAILER! Just because some people may be unaware about a twist coming...does not mean all are. Blanket statements like that make you seem incredibly narrow minded.

[Doc Milo]

I'd like to take on the whole: "most movies aren't good unless they have a twist" statement.

I like a good twist as much as the next person. That said, the twist has to satisfy a few criteria in order to be considered "good."

1. It has to be plot driven. It can't be there for the sake of having a twist. It has to be born of story. (Fight Club succeeds here.)

2. It has to be suspense or emotionally driven -- it can't rely solely on surprise. A twist that relies solely on surprise loses its value, and thus the movie loses its edge, once the twist is sprung. IMO, Fight Club fails here. I wouldn't watch Fight Club again because I know the twist, and the rest of the movie relied too much upon the twist; the twist relied more on surprise than any real emotion or suspense. Compare that to the twist in ESB. Every time I watch ESB, I'm on the edge of my seat during the Luke/Vader confrontation on Bespin. Every time I watch ESB, and Vader tells Luke that he is his father, I get chills down my spine. I am emotionally invested in the characters, and the battle is pure, perfectly built suspense. The twist relies on those elements for its power, not its surprise. Fight Club's twist is not like that. The Sixth Sense's twist is like that.

3. The twist has to be believable. I had a problem with believability in Fight Club. You don't just shoot yourself in the head and kill your alter ego and cause no damage to yourself. Okay, so maybe that's not a problem with believability of the twist, but it is with believability with the resolution that is born from the twist -- and as a result affects the believability of the twist. And by "believable" I don't mean, "something that can happen in real life." I mean something that makes sense in the context of the film. If a film uses sorcery and magic, or advanced scientific devices, etc... then those devices are part of the world, and their use in that world is believable. Fight Club, though, takes place in a world closely related to the current day real world. And so can't deviate from those parameters -- which it does.

I would much prefer a solid, emotionally satisfying straightforward movie or story without a twist than a movie or story that forces a twist for the sake of a twist, or a movie where the twist relies solely on surprise, or a movie where the twist is not believable, or causes an unbelievable resolution in the context of the movie-world's parameters.

I can't see how a twist can make a bad movie good. The twist, to me, has to be born of the rest of the movie. If the rest of the movie is bad, then the twist won't save it.

To me, a twist must be 3 for 3 in the criteria above to be sucessful -- otherwise don't have a twist at all....