I've seen many movies in my life. Yet, I can think of only a handful where I walked out of the theater and the only word that came to mind was "wow."
Control is one of those movies. Control is the best rock biopic since Sid & Nancy. It is beautifully shot, brilliantly acted and perfectly written. It's incredibly depressing but then it's a movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division so of course it's depressing. It's one of the heaviest and dreariest movies I've ever seen and yet I absolutely love it. I can't think of any movie I've seen recently that hits you in the gut like this one does. Maybe Monster or Boys Don't Cry.
I really hope the Oscars don't look past this one because Control is one of the extremely few movies that have come out in recent times that I would call an undeniable masterpiece. It is absolutely briliant. It's so powerful that I felt the need to come home and drink every bit of alcohol I could find. For the record I'm writing this after three(?) PBR's, two shots of whiskey and a glass of wine. Yes it's THAT kind of movie. In fact, if you were planning on seeing it then get drunk first THEN see Control, it'll sober you up real quick.
kara [email] said at 10:03 AM 11-02-2007: Movietalk Friday:
Saw Gone Baby Gone last night. It was pretty good but just too much... they should have taken one or two of the main ideas or plot twists and narrowed others out just to make it more of a movie and less of a book adapted to a movie.
Really awesome casting and stuff though.. real-ass people.. "Dottie" for example, straight outta Hampden, will probably never appear in another movie again.
reggie [email] said at 11:11 AM 11-02-2007: Oddly enough that's about the exact same reaction I had to Mystic River which was based on a book by the same author.
julie [email] said at 11:41 AM 11-02-2007: Damn, guess I should've stayed to watch it, eh? That's okay, I'll plunk down my ten bucks like the rest of the chumps...
Mike F. [ url ] said at 1:52 AM 11-03-2007: I largely thought 'Control' was awesome -- the acting was pitch-perfect, the film was shot gorgeously, and the dudes who played Joy Division did a great job playing as the band (speaking of which, how awesome was whoever played the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall? Whoah!).
Having said that, though, I didn't feel like Debbie Curtis was terribly well developed (and she was the one who wrote the book the film was based on!). Ian cheating on Debbie sorta comes out of nowhere. There were some other bits that felt rushed -- the epilepsy foreshadowing seemed pretty pat and almost perfunctory -- even as the movie dragged. On. At. The. End.
Still, worth seeing in the theater for the soundtrack and cinematography and all.
And "About A Son" opens in Boston this weekend, too. Damn!
Reggienotloggedin said at 3:02 AM 11-03-2007: Debbie was pretty one-note but I think Samantha Morton can play anything she wants. I like the running Buzzcocks gag and the line about the Fall was pretty funny.
amanda [email] said at 8:43 AM 11-03-2007: I heard that this was awful, according to my music geek friends. I trust their opinions. I am not going to see this movie.
reggie [email] said at 9:53 AM 11-03-2007: As far as the link, that doesn't surprise me at all. Publicists are able to get by without actually knowing anything about what they're promoting. They're publicists. It's not like Anton Corbijn -- who knew the band pretty intimately -- called up the band and asked them to play. It was probably some 20 something intern who doesn't know the difference between Joy Division and Interpol.
milky [email] said at 7:01 PM 11-04-2007: Wow...I'm a bit blown away. Seems like it was just last year they were talking about possibly turning the book into a movie and I'd heard nothing since...and as a film geek who keeps up with production/release schedules, this is like, out of nowhere for me.
Hopefully it'll be in NOLA really soon and I'm definitely going to try to catch it there.
kiche [email] said at 12:22 PM 11-07-2007: i saw this last night, while i liked it; it's a really flawed movie. it skims over a lot of the more salacious aspects of joy division's carreer. for instance that they had neo-nazis showing up at some of their shows isn't mentioned at all or the controversy over the nazi imagery in their music and records.
also, his epilepsy is glossed over. sure, it's talked about and he mentions being worried about his epilepsy worsening; but i think he comes off more as a hypochondriac than someone who is actually suffering. he is shown having a total of three epileptic fits. only one of which was actually on stage. one was right before he killed himself. i can't understand why corbijn downplayed this aspect of curtis's life. the guy had multiple epileptic fits on stage. looking at photographs from the time (a lot of them ironically taken by corbijn) curtis didn't look like he was doing too hot. there's no mention of how the band and tony wilson played up curtis' epilepsy in order to promote the band. perhaps corbijn felt too guilty for his part in this affair and that's why he didn't show it at all.
i mean curtis had reached a point where the rest of the band was talking about reforming without him before he killed himself.
i'd still rate this as a good movie, but i'm a big joy division fan.
reggie [email] said at 12:48 PM 11-07-2007: See it's funny that you feel the epilepsy thing was glossed over because I thought it touched on it just right.
It's no fun watching someone have a fit whether it's real or fake so why keep doing the same thing over and over again. That there were only three in the movie gives each one more power.
I don't see how any of the neo-Nazi stuff is relevant to the movie. I'm not challenging you I'm saying as someone who likes Joy Division but isn't a die hard fan how is that relevant to the movie as it is presented?
One thing you always have to take into consideration when it comes to a movie like this is that we have no idea what was left on the cutting room floor. Like with the fits, the MPAA and/or producers may have asked for some of the fits be cut out.
reggie [email] said at 4:17 PM 11-07-2007: There's a difference between a biopic and a documentary. All of the things you mentioned are perfectly valid but probably more suited for a documentary. This was a narrative film, some things just don't play...
there's no mention of how the band and tony wilson played up curtis' epilepsy in order to promote the band
That would not have matched the tone of the film. What I liked about it is that for the most part no attempt was really made to explain anything.
kiche [email] said at 4:32 PM 11-07-2007: ok, perhaps you are right about tony wilson and the nazi controversy.
but i still take issue with the way his epilepsy was portrayed. it still looks like he was being a nypochondriac in the film by worrying that his condition would worsen. we aren't led to believe that his condition was worsening, which it was.
reggie [email] said at 4:50 PM 11-07-2007: we aren't led to believe that his condition was worsening, which it was
Hmmm, maybe. I think the goal was to make it more about the combination of his failing marriage, the pressures of fame AND the epilepsy all pushing him over the edge.* Also, the movie was based on his wife's book so that may have driven the focus more towards relationship issues. Or something.
[SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT]
*(The threat of a possible death by epilepsy was taken care of when he called to check on that one girl who had a seizure in his office and found out that she died. And honestly, I couldn't watch during that last seizure.)
kara [email] said at 9:56 AM 11-08-2007: I saw this movie last night and I agree with your above points that, this movie not being a documentary, dude was not obligated to put every detail into the film.
- I think Sid & Nancy is a terrible movie.
- Control was pretty good.
- I think "music nerds" are corny and I love Joy Division a lot.
kiche [email] said at 10:13 PM 11-08-2007: i am not a music nerd. i am simply complaining that aspects about the story that i find interesting were left out.
reggie [email] said at 6:29 PM 11-13-2007: We can agree to disagree on the quality of Sid & Nancy, it's been a while since I've seen it but I've always held it in high regard as far as rock biopics go. I seem to remember it being just as unflinching and unsympathetic towards its subjects as Control is to its own.
I'm also a Gary Oldman fan and he's rarely been better than he was in that movie.
