Click here for the review of Beasts of the Southern Wild

SPOILERS must be tagged with the "SPOILER" tag!

I was hoping you'd love this, but I'm still excited. It's seemingly an ambitious movie, and a few naysayers is probably a good thing for a challenging movie, says me. I thought the trailer was pretty fantastic, and it's getting mostly raves so far. I don't know when it will make it's way to my area, but I'll definitely be checking it out when it does.

It is an ambitious movie and without the relentless shaky cam, I might have gone to 3 stars. It didn't give me motion sickness but it annoyed the hell out of me. The guy sitting next to me almost had to leave the theater and spent 15 minutes after the screening calming down his stomach.

I'm fortunate enough to not get motion sick watching movies and I'm a fan of magical realism, so I'm still interested in seeing this movie.

Every time I see the trailer for this movie I'm reminded of the visual style of those Levi's "Go Forth" commercials, especially the original one with the fireworks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdW1CjbCNxw

But also some of the newer Levi's commercials like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT16DcHcjRA

Did director Benh Zeitlin work on any of those Levi's commercials? The original "Go Forth" commercial was directed by Cary Fukunaga, but maybe he was involved in some other capacity or did one of the follow-up commercials in these ad campaigns? Or was he just heavily inspired by them?

Apparently, one of the actors in Beasts of the Southern Wild was also an actor in the original "Go Forth" commercial, as you can see here:

http://www.zbehl.com/cv.html

So there is some connection there....

I also see some of the visual style of David Gordon Green's early work, especially George Washington and Undertow.

Why did they add extinct creatures to what was already a perfectly good premise? Surely just the storm/water danger would have made for a decent backstory?

So the theory is that shaky cam is more intimate... the implication being that the average person's head bobs about when they look at something/someone? Horse shit. Tripods were invented for a reason and even film makers need to learn what this.

Yeah, I detest it when people use "realism" to justify shaky-cam, I hated it in Blair Witch, I hated it in Cloverfield and I hated it in the Bourne sequels.

It had a place in Blair Witch because the people filming were meant to be amateurs (although wasn't one of them a film student? Surely then they'd know to not be that obtuse?) but other than that, agreed. It's sloppy and has no place in professional work.

Loved it. Felt completely transported. Unlike JB, I didn't find the shakycam distracting at all except for maybe 2 or 3 brief moments, and I was sitting up close to a pretty big screen. My favorite movie of last year, Warrior, is another that JB specifically called out as distracting but that didn't bother me. Maybe I'm just not as sensitive to it? Neither, I'd say, felt half as bad as the camerawork in the first act of Hunger Games.

I'll agree with JB that the movie loses its way a bit when it gets more plot-y toward the end, but it pretty quickly rights the ship and ends strong. Also, yes, the Aurochs' big moment is a bit anti-climactic. But those are minor quibbles.

I was surprised how much the story engrossed me. I still can't believe the movie is only 94 minutes long. When it was over, it felt like it had been a 2+ hour movie. Not in that it felt long--I don't think anyone could accuse it of being boring. But the experience was so rich, and the story and characters so well-fleshed-out, it didn't feel like that should have been possible in a 90 minute movie.

Just a wonderful movie. Just glad I could get to it before the (inevitable?) backlash.

I just saw it at the AFI a few days ago. The first 5 minutes are really shaky, but after that, it seemed to calm down, or perhaps I just became desensitized after a while and stopped noticing it. Maybe a bit of both.

I think it's rather wonderful myself. It reminded me of Where the Wild Things Are crossed with George Washington. I think it's one of the best child acting performances I can recall. Quvenzhane Wallis was a joy to watch. The acting never felt anything less that completely genuine. I was quite impressed.

I was less impressed with the aurochs special effects. Looked to me like they just dressed up some pigs. That's a minor quibble though.

I could see this just making my top ten list for the year, depending on how the rest of the year plays out. Yes, it's that good.

This is the first movie I have ever watched that gave me motion sickness with all the shaking and bobbing(Cloverfield included). I literally had to look at the theater ceiling to keep everything from lurching upward. There is a reason that film makers in the early Twentieth century at the dawn of cinema had the wisdom to use a tripod. I would like to pass a law requiring the use of tripods as much as seat belts and life jackets. The other thing is the picture quality of digital video is so drained of color and sharpness at times you feel like your watching a movie with your eyes dilated.For $13 you should expect at least top notch photography instead of allegedly fuzzy realism.

Fuck, I still need to see this. I kind of assumed there was nothing good out, or at least nothing interesting out, but maybe that's not entirely true. Menlo's not too far away....

James caught my experience pretty well. The shakycam and impressionistic storyline, together with the aurochs, made it a case of a filmmaker's artistic ambitions getting in the way of his art. Still, it delivers most of what he's after and it isn't the usual Hollywood fare. I'd give it a shot.

Aurochs really looked like huge, muscular cattle with large longhorn-like horns. Hushpuppy has never seen a longhorn, so reconstructed them from her teacher's drawing and the livestock she's familiar with, namely pigs. If the teacher had told her about sea monsters, they would have looked like catfish or giant crawdads.

Here is an article that takes an interesting angle that Hushpuppy is a dangerous anarchist antihero.He makes some interesting points but he does some **SPOILERS** in his discussion.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/09/the_problematic_beasts_salpart/

I'm not really sure how to feel about this movie. It really does came across as "hey, isn't it great to be homeless and free!". I'm reminded of the idiot TV producer in The Fisher King who wants to make a TV show about wacky homeless people who are happy to be homeless.

Here's my review on it.

I've noticed that you've been doing this quite a lot throughout the forum, posting a link to your own site's review of the film. I don't know whether this constitutes to an abuse of the use of the forum or not, but I don't think it's the best way to use it. If you want to talk about/review the movie, do it here. Don't ask us to navigate to your own blog to hear your thoughts about it.

My intention is not to abuse of the forum at all. Sometimes I write a snippet of my review here, others I just post the link to allow whoever wants to read it to get the full scope of my opinion. If that constitutes a violation of the guidelines, then my apologies to everyone. Just know that it's not my intention at all to divert.

I know you probably don't mean to, but posting just a link to your own review site is bordering on self-promotional. We shouldn't need to visit another site to get your own opinion, unless you've made a video.

I'd ease up a bit thief or at least have something more substantive in your posts when you link yourself.

My apologies then.

In the spirit of the thread, I'll say that I really liked the film but, like James, I felt that the integration of the Aurochs to the main story wasn't that successful. I really don't think it added much to the film. The films strength is on its performances, and I think that, as good as Wallis was, Dwight Henry was more deserving of a nom.