Everything Everywhere All at Once

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354601#Comment_120354601

Funny enough, yes - the meat of that particular performance is very much later in the film. I don’t even think it’s a particularly awards-worthy performance, (other than as an acknowledgement of JLC’s long and excellent career) especially within the context of this film and its other excellent performances . But you really haven’t seen the substance of that performance if you’ve only watched the first hour.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354611#Comment_120354611

I have never seen a movie that bored me for 35 minutes and then became amazing subsequently.

If the first few bites of a steak taste horrible would you insist I eat it all before passing judgement?

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354679#Comment_120354679

Depends if it was cooked on a stone or not. The first bite might not resemble what the last bite would be like.

ie, the film makes many departures after 30 minutes. No one will take your criticism seriously having watched less than a quarter of it.

joe40

I enjoyed the film reasonably well, but certainly didn't think it was great.

It was definitely overly long in parts and got a bit tedious.

I didn't mind the whacky storyline, but for me certainly not worthy 7 Oscars. Best actress yes, but not best movie.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354679#Comment_120354679

You’re literally judging an actors performance based on about 3 minutes of partial screen time at the time you dropped out… like, what’s the point in that?

if you were entirely unengaged after the first 35 minutes, then it’s probably just not for you. That’s fine, different people get different things out of movies (and all art). It’s enough time for someone to say ‘nah, don’t fancy this’… but probably not enough to actually offer meaningful critique of the movie.

(the steak thing is a weird analogy… it would be more accurate to say you tried and didn’t like the steak, and therefore just assume the carrots and potatoes are bad too)

Ficheall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354662#Comment_120354662

All what comes together? It wasn't a particularly complicated plot.

If someone said the ending was crap, and hadn't watched the ending, then fine, that's ridiculous. One doesn't have to finish all three courses of a set menu to decide the menu is not for them, not matter how good the dessert might be. And in this case, the dessert was absolutely not that good.

Penn

It's pretty ridiculous that Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actress for this film; Stephanie Hsu definitely gave a better performance imo and would have been a worthy winner. But it's a legacy thing. She won because of her career and so many people in the industry wanting her to win, rather than her performance in EEAAO.

Electric Nitwit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354757#Comment_120354757

"One doesn't have to finish all three courses of a set menu to decide the menu is not for them"

Electric Nitwit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354766#Comment_120354766

Absolutely, Stephanie Hsu was brilliant in it. In fact, I'd say she and Ke Huy Quan were the two most deserving of wins for this.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354757#Comment_120354757

Yeah, like someone can decide it's not for them, they just don't get to be judgmental about the food they haven't eaten...

It's a confusing one for me... to decide not to waste one's time on watching the movie, but to then spend time repeatedly complaining about that movie online.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354833#Comment_120354833

It would be a pretty poor discussion if everyone thought the movie was great

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354897#Comment_120354897

Of course - but it's an even worse discussion when it's with people who haven't actually seen more than half the movie... for a decent discussion you kinda want everyone to have seen the movie, seen what it's trying to do, and then talk about the things they liked/didn't like.

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120354897#Comment_120354897

It is equally absurd trying to discuss the film with people who insist on having an opinion about the significant chunks of the film they haven't seen.

Like, I absolutely agree that if you are bored by a film after an arbitrarily chosen period of time, you can and should turn it off. But the limit of the opinion you can expect to be given credence in that situation is "It didn't engage me enough to keep me watching". You don't get to comment on character development, plot, any of the rest of it - because you don't, in any meaningful sense, have a measure of that. You just have the (valid) conclusion that what you'd seen didn't entice you to stick around.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120356962#Comment_120356962

They are still entitled to express why they turned the film off rather than continuing. Its possible that a person could stop watching due to bad writing/acting/plot/spec effects

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120357943#Comment_120357943

I mean, you can - but look through this thread. The comments from folk only watching it because it got an Oscar and then saying stuff like "tripe, turned it off after 30 minutes" aren't doing that, they're treating the thread as if it's Twitter or something.

I don't think the story in EEAAO is particularly hard to understand, for example - I'd be interested to know if people who think otherwise have similar issues with e.g. the second Doctor Strange film (i.e. is it the plot concepts themselves or how they are delivered?).

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120357943#Comment_120357943

As Fysh said, it's fair enough if people say why they didn't like it and turned it off, or what they didn't like in the bit they did watch, but there are people judging the entire film or the actors performances just based on the less of the 50% of the film they watched, and that just doesn't track. There are films that have a terrible first half but it all comes together in the second half, or vice versa. There are actors who give a pretty normal or okay performance in the first half of a film but then their big scenes are in the second half.

There have been posts on the thread saying they don't understand how Jamie Lee Curtis won an Oscar based on the first 35 minutes of the film they watched. Now in fairness, I don't understand how JLC won the Oscar based on watching the whole film a couple of times, but at least I have seen the whole film to make such a comment.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120357943#Comment_120357943

Anyone's absolutely entitled to turn it off whenever they want and post about it - but they just shouldn't expect to be taken anywhere near as seriously in discussing the film as those who did the due diligence of watching the whole thing :) Especially when the comments - whether it is related to plot or character development or performance or anything else - could be very much impacted by the remainder of the film.

Again, this is just me speaking, but I don't think encouraging people to watch a whole film before coming down on either side is a particularly large or arduous ask!

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120358113#Comment_120358113

I know it's not the point you're making, and agree with yourself and Fysh... but I think it's broadly accepted the predominant reason Lee Curtis won the Oscar was more as a "lifetime achievement" legacy nod - given she had never won one before. Similar to the thinking why Scorcese finally got a gong for The Departed, of all things. Not his best but at that stage the Academy figured he was owed one.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120358140#Comment_120358140

Oh yeah it's definitely the reason. It just makes a bit of a mockery of the whole thing. But I think even just in the context of this film, it gives a false impression for people who haven't seen it about her character's role or even her own performance.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah I also think Stephanie Hsu was more deserving of that award, as were the rest of the nominees (Hong Chau would've been my pick if push came to shove, and I despised The Whale, although would've been great to see Kerry Condon win too). Jamie Lee Curtis' character was the least interesting of the main 'supporting' characters here. But I also think the most interesting aspects of that performance (including genuine character development!) occur in the back-half of the film during the laundromat scenes and the relationship she's shown as having in one of the multiverses. So while all of the actors give performances that require the entire film to appreciate fully, her one, in particular, is one that goes from being an outlandishly OTT villain to someone shown as much more sympathetic and 'human' later on.

Potential-Monke

As if I needed any more proof that me and the critics wouldn't get along. It was an alright movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of it before it devolved into a typical "family is everything" hollywood ending. Ugh. So much potential. Hot dog universe and butt plug scenes could be lifted directly from an American Pie type movie, felt very out of place to the rest of the madness. Delighted for Michelle Yeoh, but I don't think it was a particularly Oscar worthy performance. Can't believe JLC won an Oscar for that... Was it a bad year for movies?!

For multiverse films, I'll take the Dr. Strange one or even Marvels What-If series over it. It didn't do anything new, for me, but I do watch a lot of anime so this stuff isn't "new" to me anyway. It had great moments, and looked fantastic, but the ending ruined it all for me. Puke inducing crap. Wish someone would do an unhappy ending for once. Hell, if it ended at the rocks it would have been better.

secman

How in God's name did this movie win so many Oscars. Just wasted 40 mins of my life, atrocious comes to mind, full of ham acting too. Maybe want to be off your head to watch it........ They needed to keep sub titles for the guy who won the oscar for when he was was speaking English. The bar for oscars is about 1 inch off the floor.

Damien360

Just finished watching this now. Loved it. Comedy that takes a wide swipe at the whole superhero/multiverse stuff pumped out by Marvel etc. I'm not sure it deserves the Oscar's it got for acting as nothing stood out as particularly difficult or extraordinary. Enjoyed the mind trip and originality.

Jack Daw

Not sure how I feel about it.

It was different I guess so deserves some praise for some imagination being put into it and so I stuck with it for that reason. But overall it was fairly nonsensical and childish I thought (the butt plug and hot-dog fingers "jokes" are the kinds of things only a 12 year old would find funny) and the film wasn't really all that funny either. I rolled my eyes at the "be kind" bit at the end.

Some bits of it were entertaining and enjoyable and the whole how many different paths your life could go in depending on the choices you make bit is interesting as a film concept.I'd argue a more mature take on this aspect and less focus on trying to be weird and funny and you could have made a much more meaningful film that would resonate with more people.

I suppose the one aspect of the film that really did resonate with me is what a bunch of scumbags the IRS are , they do everything in their power to torment small business owners but if you are a big business with lots of money you can throw enough lawyers at them to get them to leave you alone. It really should be the other way around leave small business alone go after the big guys with all you have.

I think films that are weird and do something different always get massively overpraised by critics because they watch so many films that anything that isn't formulaic and is different from the norm gets their attention without the content of the film necessarily being that spectacular.

Shelga

I just watched this this afternoon, having been meaning to for ages. I really didn’t like it. It was original, sure, but I just didn’t care in the slightest about any of the multiverse stuff. I liked the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes, and that’s about it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I do get why other people appreciated it, it just wasn’t for me, and that’s ok!

cena

How did this movie win awards? I found it boring enough to watch

MarkY91

This movie made me lose all respect for the Oscars. What an absolute mess.

HalloweenJack

Just watched it and really enjoyed it.

I'm also a big Rick and Morty fan so I imagine that'd have something to do with it.

I'd agree with a lot of the philosophy behind the film (that life is essentially pointless and you need to give it meaning). The family aspect is probably a simplistic, easy-to-resonate way of making the point but there's also different takes on it (the hotdog, rock and raccoon versions). I think the multi-universe aspect is a way of presenting the idea that it's not as simple as just telling everyone to turn to your family.

The humour is quite silly but so what? Part of the film was the idea to not take life so seriously.

El Duda

Everything Everywhere All At Once – 8/10

After seeing all the glowing praise my expectations were super high. This didn’t quite live up to those expectations on a first watch but it has really stayed with me. There’s some real emotional depth and complexity to the family/mother daughter narrative at the heart of the plot.

The mechanics of the multiverse here are quite complicated and at times had me thinking of Tenet. The big difference here is that this wasn’t a chore to get your head around it was way more rewarding.

This is inventive, creative and heartfelt and I can’t wait to see it again. I fully expect I will be upgrading my score to a 9 or a 10. One of the best of the year for sure.

Update: Since writing this review, I have now seen it in the cinema twice and if anything I would downgrade my score slightly. The problems I had with the pacing more prevalent second time round.

DownByTheGarden

This is usually my type of film but i didnt think this one was great at all.

If this one won all those Oscars then i think FAQ about time travel (what a great film) was robbed of several Oscars.