Bird Box (Post-release)

[Vivek]

Bird Box is based on the 2014 novel by Josh Malerman. Directed by Susanne Bier. Screenplay by Eric Heisserer.

In select theatres December 13. On Netflix December 21.

Bird Box | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix - YouTube

 

[Halliwax]

this is all my friends are talking about... i have yet to see it

 

[Lear60man]

Predictable and a little boring. I say a little boring because the fast forward button was used quite a bit.

 

[GirlyGothicGeek]

I really enjoyed this film. It seemed to spring into popularity overnight, which was interesting. The power of Netflix.

 

[Snikt]

Great movie, really suspenseful. I also enjoy Sandra Bullock so that was cool to see her acting again, I feel like she hasnt been in anything recently. Boring? What parts did you think were boring Lear60man ?

 

[Lear60man]

Great movie, really suspenseful. I also enjoy Sandra Bullock so that was cool to see her acting again, I feel like she hasnt been in anything recently. Boring? What parts did you think were boring Lear60man ?

Ok, the forced love scenes because we all knew they were gonna hook up. Then the walk to the fortress because it was a given they were gonna make it. I cant make it to the toilet in the middle of the night without breaking a toe on a door jamb let alone walking through the forrest with a blindfold on. The car GPS scene was beyond silly because we all have cars with GPS and cant work on that scale

Im putting Sandra in the 'Do Not Travel' will list with Tom Hanks. Between 'Speed', 'Gravity' and the newest 'River Runs Through It', She is cursed in my book. Hanks ruined, air travel (Sully), space travel (Apollo 13), Ocean travel (Capt Phillips), I wouldnt trust that guy with an Uber hahaha.

 

[Snikt]

See, I didnt feel like it was forced. Tom was a good guy, and they were caught in a crappy situation with a small group of people. Well, she wasnt COMPLETELY blind, she could see through it a little bit. I didnt think the GPS thing was that silly, I thought it worked pretty well. It was just a technique to build suspense, and considering technology usually takes that away(cellphones, texting etc) I thought it was kinda cool. You know what annoyed me? John Malkovichs face.

Also, what happened to the people that stole the car? I was hoping they would have showed them get killed etc.

 

[Lear60man]

See, I didnt feel like it was forced. Tom was a good guy, and they were caught in a crappy situation with a small group of people. Well, she wasnt COMPLETELY blind, she could see through it a little bit. I didnt think the GPS thing was that silly, I thought it worked pretty well. It was just a technique to build suspense, and considering technology usually takes that away(cellphones, texting etc) I thought it was kinda cool. You know what annoyed me? John Malkovichs face.

Also, what happened to the people that stole the car? I was hoping they would have showed them get killed etc.

Oh....I know what broke the GPS scene for us. When they were at the house and the grocery store guy said, 'I work at Fields Market', the wife and I threw up our hands, and here's why. If you see a grocery store in a TV commercial or film or Food Network game show........its probably filmed at Fields Market, which is our local market. The second they said they were going to Fields, they were no longer in Northern wherever, they were in LA County. A fourth wall of sorts came down for us personally as its our go-to store. I guess thats one of the reasons why we couldnt suspend disbelief anymore.

Fun facts about Fields as only us RPF's can appreciate; The store may not have the greatest selections, but what they do have is displayed perfectly. Every box, jar, turnip is placed for maximum visual effect. At first glance, it looks well stocked, but there might be only one box of flour. Its like they use a laser level to make sure that box is perfectly placed along side its neighbors. Since is a filming location, everything looks perfect at first glance. One time I grabbed a lemon from a basket.....it was plastic. Somehow they were filming some produce and one of the props got thrown in with the real lemons. The cashier weighed it, laughed and let me buy it.

The first time we went there, we felt a sense of Dejavu (sp). It wasnt until we saw a commercial for Velveeta Liquid Gold cheesy shells that the light went off in my head. They usually have the store open during filming, or film after hours. The staff is super laid back, have fun with it and are more than willing to answer questions. The store is in an out of the way location and im fairly certain that filming revenue is their bread and butter.

Take a peak at the pictures to see how clean the store is and how much the set designers ransacked it for Bird Box:
Fields Market - West Hills - Canoga Park, CA

Velveeta commercial:

I shouldnt be too hard on Bird Box. Anything Sci-Fi with good production value is a bonus to fans.

 

[CutThumb]

I thought it was mostly good but the story, as has been said,was rather predictable. So telling it in flashback really didn't help and I felt that was a pretty odd choice to have made, because it weakened the existing suspenseful elements of the narrative (such as they were) even further.
And again it was obvious that the parts of the movie that many viewers would have had a problem with (ie they didn't work with the concept) were ridiculously glossed over and so alot of story logic was cheerfully tossed way out of the window (along with the odd character) . Even then I found myself wondering how they loaded up the car, got out of the house to the one way , way out in the wilds, why didn't they just bring everyone to the supermarket, why they couldn't have just looked at their feet etc, etc, etc. In the end I just gave up and went with the flow, which was just as well.
The "lack" of the visualization of "creatures" (sketches aside) didn't much bother me , I figured either somebody had rediscovered and then left the lid off the Ark of the Covenant for too long or that the monster from the island in "Lost" was taking a bus mans holiday, along with all the merry demons from Hell. I'd definitely have preffered something a bit weirder than simply a bunch of leaves being blown about with a bit of low menacing growling though.
Compared to "A Quiet Place" ,a movie that truely often had me gripped, this on the whole didn't and its unfortunate that "Bird Box" shared rather too many similar elements to it ( as it did with M. Night Shayamalan's misfire "The Happpening" ). I also cared a great deal more about that small family in AQP than I did to most of the characters in this, though, despite the very obvious direction the story arc took with all them, I was still rather moved by the end of it.
Oh and will the people in charge of casting stop hiring people because they "look" exactly like the characters they are supposed to play, it kinds of ruins the film even further.

 

[jarvis]

The out-of-sequence story telling was just dumbfounding. Was the editor bored? Was the first cut so unremarkable that they thought they could make it more interesting by mixing it up a bit? Because of this we know from very early on everyone in the house but Sandra and the kids is going to die. As a result, the rest of the movie became a chore. By the time they got out of the forest of whispers and blowing leaves and made it to the c.g. bird sanctuary and she finally told her kids she loved them I was about ready to pull the newspaper off my windows.


Coming to Amazon prime in 2019, Matt Damon wears earplugs in Hear No Evil. Thus completing the three wise monkey trilogy.

 

[Lear60man]

Coming to Amazon prime in 2019, Matt Damon wears earplugs in Hear No Evil. Thus completing the three wise monkey trilogy.


I had to Google that just to make sure you were joking.

 

[CutThumb]

Dear God. People are actually doing this in real life. I'm with the sheriffs department on this one.

US driver in 'Bird Box blindfold' crashes