The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

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hearthesilence
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The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#1 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Nov 19, 2014 1:51 am

movielocke wrote:it's almost unfair that Imitation Game is apparently so good, because it's so much fun to make fun of it on pure principle.
I just saw it. It is not so good.

I went in knowing just the basics about Turing, and I couldn't buy into the film because it seemed packed full of obvious contrivances. Like Argo before it, so much of the time, any intelligent person who put any real thought into the film would've realized over and over again, "there's no way that would have happened."
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1. The real breakthrough in solving Enigma is when Turing realizes that they could focus on a phrase that they know to be in every message…which only occurs to them many months after completing construction of their code breaking machine, and only after Turing overhears an anecdote. This is a basic tenet of any code-breaking - you start off with the stuff you know is there, the stuff you can immediately decode, and work from there. It makes no sense for an expert mathematician/puzzle-solver/code breaker like Turing to not know this, especially after constructing a machine that's essentially based on that entire concept. Imagine if The Natural ended with Robert Redford thinking, "Hey, maybe if I actually SWING this bat, I can score some runs to win the game!"

2. Immediately after solving Enigma, they find out that a civilian ship is about to be attacked within half an hour, and they also find out that one of the other members of their small code breaking team has a brother on that ship. It's possible a lot of this is built on truth, but thrown together in a pile of drama that unfolds in a few moments, it looks absolutely ridiculous and hard to believe.

3. I really hope I got this wrong - by the end, I was seriously losing interest in the story, or rather the story being presented by this film - but when Turing is arrested for indecency, a police officer he's never met before questions him, and with little prodding, he spills all the details about his work during the war, which at this point is clearly explained as classified. (There's even a subtitle at the end that says Turing's work in solving Enigma would stay a secret for over a 50 years.) Seriously?
And on and on and on….I'm willing to forgive plot contrivances - a lot of the greatest films are guilty of them - but you can only do that when there's so much more going for the film, but with this one there isn't, it's very thin stuff.

The acting is fine, Cumberbatch is very good, but that's it, the film is hardly interesting or compelling in the way it investigates anything. As mentioned, they already fumbled the spy story, so that leaves Turing's homosexuality, but what they do with it feels pretty lightweight and very familiar. There are hints of possibilities - for example, Turing's great fondness for a woman that's purely platonic, or better yet, the idea of code-breaking (or rather coded messages) as a metaphor for concealed thoughts, feelings…maybe because you're compelled to hide them by society, or maybe it's a result of emotional repression? These all would've been interesting and compelling threads to follow, but the film barely scratches the surface, it only hints at these ideas, no more.

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Jeff
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Re: Awards Season 2014

#2 Post by Jeff » Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:03 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
movielocke wrote:it's almost unfair that Imitation Game is apparently so good, because it's so much fun to make fun of it on pure principle.
I just saw it. It is not so good...

The acting is fine, Cumberbatch is very good, but that's it, the film is hardly interesting or compelling in the way it investigates anything. As mentioned, they already fumbled the spy story, so that leaves Turing's homosexuality, but what they do with it feels pretty lightweight and very familiar. There are hints of possibilities - for example, Turing's great fondness for a woman that's purely platonic, or better yet, the idea of code-breaking (or rather coded messages) as a metaphor for concealed thoughts, feelings…maybe because you're compelled to hide them by society, or maybe it's a result of emotional repression? These all would've been interesting and compelling threads to follow, but the film barely scratches the surface, it only hints at these ideas, no more.
Absolutely agree with this take on The Imitation Game. Without that really solid Cumberbatch performance, it would be a downright terrible run-of-the-mill biopic full of silly contrivances and "emotional uplift."

The same thing goes for The Theory of Everything. Eddie Redmaye absolutely becomes Hawking, but in the service of a manipulative film that goes for the standard "greatest hits" overview of emotional triumphs, and elides all that boring cosmology stuff.

These guys are likely going to be duking it out for best actor, and deservedly so. The films don't really deserve any attention beyond that though.

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domino harvey
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Re: the Imitation Game & the Theory of Everything

#3 Post by domino harvey » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:33 am

The Theory of Everything is so thoroughly middlebrow safe Vaseline-lensed biopic material that with a meaner audience it would play for unintentional laughs (as opposed to the chuckles garnered by the rather prevalent "safe" cripple jokes). It helps that you have two beautiful people for stars, but the movie is so by the numbers that it's hard to see what separates this from the countless failed Oscar-baits of recent years (though I guess I'm being presumptuous since it has yet to be nominated. But we all know it will). I kinda still liked it, in that I've seen literally hundreds of movies like this and it's inoffensive enough even in the Oscar-y biopic company. It's also highly unnecessary

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domino harvey
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#4 Post by domino harvey » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:43 pm

Perhaps this is common knowledge but I was surprised to learn Cumberbatch actually played Hawking in a TV movie a decade ago

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swo17
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#5 Post by swo17 » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:48 pm

Also in this, apparently.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#6 Post by domino harvey » Wed Nov 26, 2014 7:54 pm

I suspect that just contains clips from the aforementioned TV film and/or talking heads from Cumberbatch

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Luke M
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Re: the Imitation Game & the Theory of Everything

#7 Post by Luke M » Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:01 am

domino harvey wrote:The Theory of Everything is so thoroughly middlebrow safe Vaseline-lensed biopic material that with a meaner audience it would play for unintentional laughs (as opposed to the chuckles garnered by the rather prevalent "safe" cripple jokes). It helps that you have two beautiful people for stars, but the movie is so by the numbers that it's hard to see what separates this from the countless failed Oscar-baits of recent years (though I guess I'm being presumptuous since it has yet to be nominated. But we all know it will). I kinda still liked it, in that I've seen literally hundreds of movies like this and it's inoffensive enough even in the Oscar-y biopic company. It's also highly unnecessary
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn't think it was as predictable as typical Oscar-bait. I was pleasantly surprised when
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the film shifted its focus from Hawking to Jane. The attention to the caregivers often goes overlooked in these kinda films. I thought it handled the matter beautifully.

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barryconvex
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#8 Post by barryconvex » Fri Feb 13, 2015 11:24 pm

SpoilerShow
brilliant man impresses, brilliant man falls in love with dutiful woman, man gets sick, woman cares for him despite his warnings of hardship, man and woman get married, have kids, live life, woman eventually gets tired of brilliant man and falls for quiet, uncharismatic man leaving brilliant man wishing she'd listened to him in the first place.
why does every movie about Hawking not delve deeper into what makes him such a brilliant mathematician? this was also my complaint with eroll morris' film but "a brief history of time" is the mariana trench compared to "theory"s puddle. i understand how problematic it would be to bring the most impregnable mathematic equations to the masses but can i please get more than Tide detergent make clothes look quite sparkly in ultraviolet light...the movie then portrays Hawking in his later years as nothing more that a cliche spouting, half assed deepak chopra, whose great message to the downtrodden seems to be;everyone is special and don't give up!!

Redmayne is passable here. I'm not a fan of his in general and this role is not going to win me over mostly because his performance here is no better than any other "name" actors could've been with a fleet of make-up and dialogue experts at his beck and call and a raft of archival material to delve into. not to mention getting tips from the man he's portraying himself. i admit that Bio-pics are my most hated genre but this was so devoid of any dramatic thrust that i was longing for the ultra horrible "A beautiful mind" about halfway through. Another in a long line of movies that makes me hate the academy awards...

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lacritfan
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#9 Post by lacritfan » Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:45 pm

Caught some matinees recently to catch up on Oscar noms.
Eddie Redmayne in Theory was good but is yet another disabled person-Oscar bait performance; Keaton and even Cumberbatch were better. I hope Keaton wins but in my Oscar pool I picked Redmayne because...it's the Oscars.
As far as Morten Tyldum of Imitation Game I have no idea what the Academy director's branch and the DGA saw in his directing. Solid but run of the mill directing that might've won an Emmy for TV movie. If a mainstream picture's director had to have a nom I would've preferred James Marsh of Theory.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#10 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:53 pm

Ridiculous how The Theory of Everything beat out Under the Skin (which was actually nominated) and Mr. Turner (which was not) for Best British Film of the Year at the BAFTA Awards. One of the blandest, most vanilla Best Picture nominees in recent years, the worst kind of biopic that distorts and strips a real life story of all its complexity and reduces it to a run-of-the-mill triumph-over-adversity movie.


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solaris72
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#12 Post by solaris72 » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:37 pm

The Narrator Returns wrote:Image
"For a limited time all honorable sentiments conveyed towards the film will be carried over to the person. Act now and double the impact of your respect budget!"

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lacritfan
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#13 Post by lacritfan » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:39 pm

The Narrator Returns wrote:Image
Funny how Harvey Weinstein didn't feel that way about the men at Normandy...

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swo17
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#14 Post by swo17 » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:44 pm

Why should the Oscars honor the man when the film didn't even do that?

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Imitation Game & The Theory of Everything (2014)

#15 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:00 pm

Christ, if I won an Oscar because of campaign like that, I'd be absolutely embarrassed.

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