Light On Dark Water

Anybody seen this Noah movie?

I've read two reviews, one good, one bad. The former did as much as the latter to give me the impression that it's somewhere between bad and extremely bad. I also note that the usual Hollywood vs. Christians arguments seem to be going on: assorted mockers more or less daring Christians to be offended; Christians being offended; other Christians saying "Come, come, we don't want people to think we're fundamentalists." (Surely there are believing Jews who are complaining, too?) Someone suggested that religious people are being consciously baited in the media in order to get publicity for the movie, which is not implausible.

So–does anyone who's seen it have an opinion?

Maclin Horton

43 responses to “Anybody seen this Noah movie?”

  1. Paul

    Doesn’t look like the sort of thing I’d pay money to see. I might watch it if it ever makes it to television.

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  2. Mac

    I will admit to a sneaking desire to see the actual flood, CGI though it may be. One would hope it’s a pretty good spectacle.

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  3. Stu

    Noah holds a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; my wife and I want to see it. I can hardly remember a Bible movie that was not controversial for whatever reason. Following the strict text in the Bible would most likely be a tad dry. I do wish I could remove the memory of the Mel Gibson one and the beating that went on most of the movie. So were King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told controversial at the time too? They are pretty milquetoast compared to anything more recent.

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  4. Craig

    I’ve not seen it, but I’d like to. It might be bad, I suppose, but most of the reviews I’ve seen have been fairly positive. Steven Graydanus and Alissa Wilkinson, for instance. Even A.O. Scott is measured but positive. Barabara Nicolosi sounds hysterical to me.
    I heard an interview with the director, Darren Aronofsky, on EWTN, and he sounded like he was trying to honestly engage with the story in a personal way, albeit with a lot of elaboration. In any case, he’s a talented and serious filmmaker, not a hack, and I’m curious to see what he came up with.
    Probably I’ll not see it myself until it comes out on DVD, simply for logistical reasons.

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  5. Mac

    Hard to believe Greydanus and Nicolosi are talking about the same film. Maybe it’s better than my original impression had it.
    I have to say the story of the Flood is a troubling one for me. What is its relation to history? And what exactly did God accomplish with the restart, since things got pretty bad again straightaway? To say nothing of the picture of God as drowner-of-millions (or thousands, anyway).

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  6. Mac

    I don’t think those old Bible films were controversial in the same way, Stu. I’m pretty sure they weren’t, in fact. Movie makers back then were pandering to a different sort of audience.

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  7. Marianne

    All these reviews have done for me is make me very curious about the rock monsters. There’s a small glimpse of one in this review. Apparently the Hollywood money types wanted the director to not include them. And critics on all sides have focused on them. Too Day of the Triffids for its own good?

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  8. Mac

    I’m beginning to wonder if Greydanus can be trusted. And I think I want to see Day of the Triffids. I remember when it came out but never saw it.

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  9. Robert Gotcher

    I’m beginning to wonder the same thing about Greydanus; I have been for a while.
    Nicolosi, does seem hysterical, although she is not a fundamentalist and would not object to a creative engagement with the text. She apparently feels like we are being played and she resents it.
    I don’t know and I don’t really care.
    I agree with Nicolosi about Lord of the Rings movies (thumbs down), but disagree with her about the Passion of the Christ (for her the greatest thing since bread, sliced or not). Greydanus liked both.

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  10. Mac

    I used to read Nicolosi’s blog and generally agreed with her aesthetic principles but often disagreed with specific judgments. I more or less agree about the LOTR movies, as I have hashed over many times here. But I thought Passion was actually pretty good, though it was certainly excessive in some ways. I was moved by it.
    Yeah, in the end “I don’t know and I don’t really care” is more or less my view about the Noah movie. Whatever its objective status is, I’m pretty sure it’s not something I would like.

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  11. Rob G

    Nicolosi missed it in such grand fashion with No Country for Old Men that I haven’t paid much attention to her since. Greydanus is hit and miss, but imo more often on-target than off.
    But as Craig says, Aronofsky is no hack, and was raised by Conservative Jewish parents. I’m willing to give it a shot, but I must admit I’m really not in any great hurry.
    As an aside, the best movie I’ve seen in the past year (and one of the best comedies I’ve seen in a long time) is the currently running Grand Budapest Hotel. It’s outstanding.

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  12. Louise

    To be fair to Nicolosi – she does work among the Hollywood crowd. Blech!

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  13. Louise

    I thought The Passion of the Christ was excellent – if hard to watch. As indeed, it would have been hard to watch if we had been there.

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  14. Louise

    I also note that the usual Hollywood vs. Christians arguments seem to be going on: assorted mockers more or less daring Christians to be offended; Christians being offended; other Christians saying “Come, come, we don’t want people to think we’re fundamentalists.” (Surely there are believing Jews who are complaining, too?)
    Exactly.
    I’d like to make a movie about Hollywood.

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  15. Louise

    I will admit to a sneaking desire to see the actual flood, CGI though it may be. One would hope it’s a pretty good spectacle.
    It ought to be, given the amount of $$$ they put into these things.

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  16. Mac

    Indeed!
    I’d forgotten about Nicolosi vs No Country. Yeah, she was totally off base with that one, in my opinion. I also remember her being way more negative about Pan’s Labyrinth than I was, although I didn’t like it very much either.
    I’ve been hearing really good things about Grand Budapest. I don’t suppose it’s actually showing around here….

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  17. Louise

    The basic calibre of comments we can expect to see floating around the ‘net:
    “A mysterious, omniscient being floods the entire world, but yeah, the rock monsters are what’s hard to believe in this movie.”

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  18. Louise

    So much of this is just down to personal preference. People with similar values and principles can still disagree about whether a movie is good or not. Is it really fair to think of reviews as being right or wrong? I do think it’s valuable for me to read about why someone (especially a committed Catholic) did or didn’t like a certain movie.
    As for any movie which is made about historical events or legends: I want the movie to be as close to the original story as possible. I want the facts to remain facts, where they are known. And I have no problem with creativity within that basic framework, but I’d like it to be believable.

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  19. Craig

    About Grand Budapest Hotel: is anyone else surprised to see Ralph Fiennes as a comic lead? He’s so good at being evil, but I guess Wes Anderson saw something else in him.

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  20. Mac

    We cross=posted–my “indeed” comment was intended to follow your “it would have been hard to watch.”
    A movie about Hollywood: it seems that when moviemakers do deal with their own industry, it comes off pretty badly. I have a theory that one reason the movies and tv portray all business as seriously corrupt is that the entertainment business is in fact extremely corrupt.

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  21. Mac

    And now I cross-posted with you, Craig–I was replying to Louise.
    I saw RF in something else not long ago where he was not evil…I can’t even remember what it was now…but I can’t say I was surprised, exactly, because I hadn’t recognized him.

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  22. Mac

    A comment by some unknown (to me) person on a barely-known (to me) person’s Facebook feed: “Going to see Noah and expecting it to be about Scripture is a lot like going to see Jurassic Park and expecting it to be about Paleontology”

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  23. Craig

    Ralph Fiennes “played” Jesus — really, he “voiced” Jesus — in the animated film The Miracle Maker. That’s a big counterweight to all his evil villain roles. He did a good job at it too. In fact, that film is really good, and not just for kids either.

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  24. Mac

    Haven’t heard of it. I remembered the one I saw: Strange Days. That’s him in the picture. Not a bad movie if you like the combination of sci-fi and crime thriller. I remember thinking as I watched it that (1) there was something vaguely familiar about the actor (2) there was something slightly wrong about the way he talked–the character is American and the accent was just a little off here and there, or a little forced, or something.

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  25. Rob G

    Fiennes did a good job as a somewhat comic bad guy in In Bruges. Maybe that’s where Anderson got the idea. I don’t have him pegged necessarily as a villain, but then I haven’t seen the Harry Potter films.
    He’s great in G.B.H., however. Really good comic timing.

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  26. Louise

    I have a theory that one reason the movies and tv portray all business as seriously corrupt is that the entertainment business is in fact extremely corrupt.
    That seems probable to me.

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  27. Art Deco

    I have a theory that one reason the movies and tv portray all business as seriously corrupt is that the entertainment business is in fact extremely corrupt.
    I seem to recall the odious Bill Maher offering “Record executives are those who lack the people skills to be pimps”.
    Professional (and shamateur) Athletics is another dimension of the entertainment business (and, I suspect, abnormally corrupt).

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  28. Mac

    Not exactly what you’re talking about, but, coincidentally, I just saw this story about the NFL allowing cheerleaders to visit fans in the seats. “Lap dances” to follow?
    From bits I’ve read over the years about the record industry, Maher may have a point.

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  29. Stu

    Grand Budapest starts Friday night at the Crescent Theater downtown, Mac. Margo and I will go see it Saturday evening.

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  30. Rob G

    My special ladyfriend has indicated that she wants to see ‘Noah’ over the weekend. It it happens I’ll let you all know what I think, for what it’s worth.
    A friend of mine spent some time in the music business in LA trying to get into scoring, soundtrack writing, etc. He had a little bit of success, but left and came back quite disheartened, stating that it really is all about the money, in a way that outsiders couldn’t really imagine.

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  31. Mac

    Thanks, Stu. Maybe I can manage to get there. I like to support the Crescent but living across the bay has a discouraging effect on us going very often.

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  32. Mac

    I’ll be interested in hearing about it if you do, Rob.
    I recall from working in record stores many years ago that the people involved with the companies referred to music as “product.” That kinda said it all. I don’t doubt your friend’s appraisal.

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  33. Paul

    I work in higher education. Our managers refer to students progressing in their studies as “yield” and “flow-through”. The first time I heard it I couldn’t work out what they were talking about. It brings to mind Tolkien’s quoting of a jaded colleague that “A university is a factory for the production of fees.”

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  34. Mac

    So do I. The only thing that surprises me about that terminology is that I somehow would have thought that Europeans didn’t take to it the way Americans do.

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  35. Paul

    Is there a film of Day of the Triffids? I’ve only seen the TV series. I might have to look into this.

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  36. Mac

    Yes–Marianne’s 3/31-5:18 comment above has a link to the trailer, or “preview” as we called them back then. It looks great. 😉

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  37. Rob G

    The old film of ‘Day of the Triffids’ from the early 60’s is excellent. Unfortunately I don’t think that there’s a good DVD version readily available. I watched it a couple years ago and the DVD that came from Netflix was a horrible transfer with bad sound, etc. It almost looked like a DVD copy of an old VHS version!
    Maybe there’s a better one out there but I haven’t found it.

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  38. Mac

    You must have seen this one. Link is to the Amazon page, where you see user comments like “Allied Artists’ idea of digitally mastering is copying an Nth generation VHS tape to a hard drive and burning a DVD!” There are references to another version not available in the U.S. Thanks for the warning–it may be on my Netflix queue, and if so I’ll remove it.
    I’ve seen several old ’50s-early-’60s scifi movies that were of similarly low fidelity. It really makes them kind of depressing to watch somehow–brings out the inherent cheesiness.

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  39. Rob G

    Well, finally saw the Noah movie last night. Here’s what I wrote in an email to my friends who were interested in hearing my take:
    I must say that despite its flaws, it’s actually quite good. I come down on the Greydanus side of things rather than the Nicolosi side. The “rock people” aren’t nearly as ridiculous as she makes them out to be. Not sure if “The Watchers” are completely Aronofsky’s creation, or something from Jewish folklore/commentary, but in any case they function not unlike the Ents do in Tolkien’s myth. Completely non-Biblical of course, but who cares? Aronofsky obviously wasn’t going for painstaking accuracy. Having said that, it’s obvious that he has a fair amount of respect for the source material — the story is not dumbed down, and its complexities are not avoided.
    Performances are all solid, although I do agree that Crowe could have given the main character a bit more panache — he comes across a bit like George C. Scott’s Abraham in Huston’s The Bible — kind of sour and gruff. But that’s a minor complaint. The cast is very good, effects and cinematography are outstanding, as is the score.
    Verdict: B+ — gotta give Aronofsky credit for trying something this challenging, even if the final result isn’t quite up to the attempt. I liked it.

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  40. Mac

    Interesting. However, the comment I had from a friend here who went to see it a couple of weeks ago was “You would hate it.” So I’ll probably take that personalized recommendation and not see it.
    Did you see Grand Budapest? I was thinking of seeing it but didn’t get around to it. It’s probably gone now. Also, I realized that I was confused about who the director is. I was thinking it was the guy who did Metropolitan, and was less interested when I realized it was the guy who did The Life Aquatic, which I didn’t quite know what to make of.

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  41. Mac

    Also, the trailer for Grand Budapest (which I think someone posted here?) didn’t really look like my cup of tea.

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  42. Rob G

    I’ve actually seen GBH three times — I really, really like it. It’s like a Coen Bros. comedy without all the ironic winks and sarcasm/bitterness. I’ve not liked Wes Anderson’s work much myself, but the trailer for this one reminded me so much of one of those old Hollywood madcap comedies with multiple stars doing cameos and whatnot that I had to give it a go.
    A friend who’s seen all of Anderson’s films said that he’s gotten increasingly better. He didn’t like the early ones much, the most recent two were progressively better, and this one the best so far.

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  43. Mac

    I started to reply to this and discovered comments were closed, because I had the blog set to close comments automatically after 30 days. So this closed between this morning and this evening. I was doing that to cut down spam but that situation seems to be better, so I’ve opened it up some.
    Anyway, I was going to say: I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Rushmore, but that’s the only other Wes Anderson I’ve seen. I really don’t remember it very well, though I have a vague “pretty good” sense about it.

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