Logging

Film:  Life of Pi

I still don't get 3D.  I look at it through the lens of the audience experience, as opposed to being wowed by technological accomplishment.  It does not make the movie any more immersive or special to me.  It gives some depth - but for all these directors who talk about 3D being more life-like, etc, this is a complete joke and a borderline hoax.  In no way is the theatrical 3D experience even close to life-like conditions of experience.  First of the, the depth feels to me like about 6-7 feet of screen depth.  You get maybe one or two "layers" of space.  In real space, I can see from inches in front of my face to miles away with innumerable space in between and all around me.  This 6-7 feet of space illusion with glasses is nothing.  It still feels like a gimmick to me.  I don't get any more emotional or narrative satisfaction from the experience - it does not enhance performance or writing or visual wonder.  It is more artifice and less dream.  If anything, the whole set up feels less realistic.

James Cameron has talked about people watching 3D and how it activates more receptors in the brain and ends up triggering all these different things to make it a higher level experience.  Maybe he is scientifically correct - but I'm not going into movies to maximize my brain triggering mechanisms.  I'm going into movies for a variety of reasons - to relax and enjoy a community storytelling experience, to enter a dream world, to get told a nice story, to see a wonderful performance, to laugh, to cry -- and none of these things are much enhanced by 3D.  3D is a businessman's gimmick to get people into the theater and to pay a premium price.  It is also a technical accomplishment of what seems to me, astonishing complexity.  But that is not why I see movies - maybe some do - but I do not.

Pictures - photography - have a special power.  They capture moments to the exclusion of others that clarify and identity an emotional state.  They summarize what it feels like to be alive.  I don't think we are getting tired of looking at photographs - nor will ever tire of looking at photographs.  After all, facebook is really just one big photo album.  Movies are extensions of this fundamental technology and power - photographs plus movement plus sound, which creates an emotional experience of looking at a 2D representation of 3 dimensional space and time.

But yes, Life of Pi is wowing.  Watching the shipwreck all I can think about is - how the hell did he do this?  Watching the Tiger and the animation or whatever you want to call it - is amazing.  But ask yourself this - what would a similar movie look like if they used an actual tiger?  It would probably be impossible to make - but what would that experience feel like watching?

As to the story - bleh.  Didn't care for the framing device of the author interviewing the guy.  I've seen survival stories before, done better.  Not a great movie, but not a terrible movie.  Will not be in my tops for the year.