We’re mourning the loss, oh what can yah do..
If you haven't seen Remember Me, but plan on going to see it, I don't recommend reading the rest of this. If you've already seen it, or couldn't care less about the movie, and don't mind ramblings from an unhappy New Yorker, feel free to proceed.
The trailer for Remember Me is all, “Oh, hi, I'm on a bike. Now I'm at the beach. Now I'm on the LIRR.” There's some audio overlay, obviously, which I don't remember clearly enough to describe, but I do recall that the trailers didn't think it was necessary to clue the audience in to the big twist at the end of the movie. It's not that I blame the trailer for that, but any sort of heads up or warning would have been nice.
I saw the movie tonight with my mom and my sister. I was with the movie all the way until the end. As much shit Robert Pattinson (“Tyler”) gets for the whole Twilight thing, I thought he was surprisingly good. Hearing Emilie de Ravin (“Ally”) without the Australian accent I became so accustomed to while watching Lost was confusing, but I bought it.
If anyone has seen American Beauty (which better be everyone, that movie is excellent), then you're familiar with dysfunctional families (and with Chris Cooper), with things hitting rock bottom, and then seeing glimmers of hope for resolution before everything comes to an abrupt end. American Beauty is, well, a beautiful movie. It has, in my opinion, one of the most compelling, devastating endings of any movie that I've seen.
Early on in Remember Me we learn that Tyler's brother died when he was 22, and later on we learn that it was suicide. We know he has major issues with his father. We know that his father is pretty absent from his younger sister, Caroline's, life. The first scene in the movie is of Ally's mother getting murdered. Apparently they mention the year, 1991, which I completely miss. Ten years later, the actual story begins. At some point there's background dialogue of George Bush talking about stem cells.
At the end of the movie, Tyler had made some sort of amends with his father. They had plans to meet up at his father's office, but the father needed to postpone the meeting because he was taking his younger sister to school. Tyler is waiting in his office watching the slide show of pictures of the family that his father has set as his screen saver. He talks to his fathers secretary about when his brother died, May (something) 1995. He would be 28. Cut to Caroline sitting in class. Her teacher is writing on the board and turns around to reveal the date - September 11, 2001. The camera pans out to show Tyler standing in the window of an office in one of the twin towers.
This is where the movie is totally killed for me, maybe five minutes before it ends. I certainly don't want to be accused of being overly sensitive of something that happened more than eight years ago, but in no way do I approve of the movie trying to capitalize on something that affected, is affecting, so many thousands of people. It wasn't an integral part of the story at all. If they wanted to kill off the lead character, they could have done it in any number of ways. Yes, it's been eight years, but I still believe that its way too soon for something like this. It especially annoys me because I'm sure the casting director knows how much press this movie is going to get because of Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson. How many millions of dollars that this movie makes is going to be a direct result of young girls with a celebrity crush? How many of those girls were old enough to form memories in 2001?
The inclusion of 9/11 as plot device isn't appreciated. It's not appropriate. It wasn't necessary. It just feels cheap, and I don't think it's right. I can't be the only one who feels that way. I can't be the only one who never would have gone to see it if I had known they were going to exploit a tragedy still so close to everyone heart of the sake for whatever cinematic value they thought they were achieving.
The trailer for Remember Me is all, “Oh, hi, I'm on a bike. Now I'm at the beach. Now I'm on the LIRR.” There's some audio overlay, obviously, which I don't remember clearly enough to describe, but I do recall that the trailers didn't think it was necessary to clue the audience in to the big twist at the end of the movie. It's not that I blame the trailer for that, but any sort of heads up or warning would have been nice.
I saw the movie tonight with my mom and my sister. I was with the movie all the way until the end. As much shit Robert Pattinson (“Tyler”) gets for the whole Twilight thing, I thought he was surprisingly good. Hearing Emilie de Ravin (“Ally”) without the Australian accent I became so accustomed to while watching Lost was confusing, but I bought it.
If anyone has seen American Beauty (which better be everyone, that movie is excellent), then you're familiar with dysfunctional families (and with Chris Cooper), with things hitting rock bottom, and then seeing glimmers of hope for resolution before everything comes to an abrupt end. American Beauty is, well, a beautiful movie. It has, in my opinion, one of the most compelling, devastating endings of any movie that I've seen.
Early on in Remember Me we learn that Tyler's brother died when he was 22, and later on we learn that it was suicide. We know he has major issues with his father. We know that his father is pretty absent from his younger sister, Caroline's, life. The first scene in the movie is of Ally's mother getting murdered. Apparently they mention the year, 1991, which I completely miss. Ten years later, the actual story begins. At some point there's background dialogue of George Bush talking about stem cells.
At the end of the movie, Tyler had made some sort of amends with his father. They had plans to meet up at his father's office, but the father needed to postpone the meeting because he was taking his younger sister to school. Tyler is waiting in his office watching the slide show of pictures of the family that his father has set as his screen saver. He talks to his fathers secretary about when his brother died, May (something) 1995. He would be 28. Cut to Caroline sitting in class. Her teacher is writing on the board and turns around to reveal the date - September 11, 2001. The camera pans out to show Tyler standing in the window of an office in one of the twin towers.
This is where the movie is totally killed for me, maybe five minutes before it ends. I certainly don't want to be accused of being overly sensitive of something that happened more than eight years ago, but in no way do I approve of the movie trying to capitalize on something that affected, is affecting, so many thousands of people. It wasn't an integral part of the story at all. If they wanted to kill off the lead character, they could have done it in any number of ways. Yes, it's been eight years, but I still believe that its way too soon for something like this. It especially annoys me because I'm sure the casting director knows how much press this movie is going to get because of Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson. How many millions of dollars that this movie makes is going to be a direct result of young girls with a celebrity crush? How many of those girls were old enough to form memories in 2001?
The inclusion of 9/11 as plot device isn't appreciated. It's not appropriate. It wasn't necessary. It just feels cheap, and I don't think it's right. I can't be the only one who feels that way. I can't be the only one who never would have gone to see it if I had known they were going to exploit a tragedy still so close to everyone heart of the sake for whatever cinematic value they thought they were achieving.