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Review: On "The Beach"
There were some reasons to expect something special from the much-hyped "The Beach," given Leonardo DiCaprio's success in "Titanic" and Danny Boyle's dazzling "Trainspotting." Lower your expectations.
"The Beach" is a contemporary fantasy, part about living a disconnected, low-tech life. It mixes elements of "Blue Lagoon" with "Lord of the Flies" and "Heart of Darkness." The premise is that Richard (played by DiCaprio) is a somewhat lost American teenage tourist in search of adventure. He gets wind of a deserted island off the Gulf of Thailand, and sets out to find it along with two French kids.
He finds a dazzling paradise, but you probably already sense that the only time Hollywood invokes paradise is to create a paradise lost. Needless to say, this fantasy place -- no electricity, phones, beepers, pagers, computers, Net (there are CD's) can't last long, and trouble lurks behind every gorgeous waterfall.
The word many people are using to describe this movie is "eye-candy," which is a bit unfair. It's a gorgeous film shot in a beautiful place, but primarily, the movie is a vehicle for DiCaprio to be as scantily-clad as possible, and to try and make the point that he's a dark and complex actor. The movie's sub-themes are ambitious -- our common yearning for escape, the things we'll do to preserve our so-called paradise, the desires most of us have for adventure and excitement -- but DiCaprio's oh-gosh wholesomeness and winsome smile isn't up to pulling off so heavy a role.
The movie shamelessly invokes "Lord of The Flies," the dark novel about what kids do to one another when left alone on an island and even more blatantly, pulls from Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" and Joseph Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness." How odd that in such a place, all of the teen refugess assembled happen to be gorgeous.
But DiCaprio is no Marlon Brando, who played Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" (inspired by Conrad's gloomy tale), and Boyle's great skill at invoking the world of lost kids in "Trainspotting" is in direct conflict with beautiful, half-naked boys and girls frolicking in an island paradise. His efforts at foreshadowing trouble and using this star to invoke darker themes fall flat. Still, the movie is cinematically amazing in parts, and when DiCaprio is playing a brave but tentative kid in search of meaning, he's not bad.
This is a movie worth seeing if you keep your expectations very much in check. Boyle is also clearly -- and very subtly -- trying to raise some issues about escape from a hi-tech, continuously communicative and invasive world.
--
The Beach is based on Alex Garland's excellent book of the same name.
;-)
Whetever you think of the movie, read the book as it's many times better -- the movie is a badly stripped down version of the plot without the inner workings of Richard's head. Plus the hero is English in the book
Here's the "Beach" document from the WVE site, at http://www.wildrockies.org/wve/beach.htm
I even bought the same pair of Airwalks that McGregor used in the movie, probably because all the advertising affected me so much. Or maybe it was coincidence. Still have them, though.
for a /. coffee break 'news nugget' - not too short and one doesn't start getting bleary eyed from trying to slog thru a 'wall of text' - monitors aren't books - decent compression - a word to the wise is sufficient.
But this crowd does go for coding issues.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
this accusation might be true. However, I did watch some silly documentary on the filming (normally I would not) on HBO. Based on what I saw, I have my doubts about these accusations. They showed pictures of that same beach before they touched it, and it was literally COVERED in debris and trash, I'd be suprised if they could have left it much worse off. I'm not sure how much traveling many of you have done, but believe it or not, many 3rd world countries have an even worse problems with polution and depris than any US metropolis...even bummfuck Thailand. While it is quite likely that the transplanted trees and sand created some erosion, the area that they altered was quite small, and in the grand scheme of things it is NOTHING. I find it hard to believe that anyone on slashdot is qualified to really speak about what happened, other than 3rd and 4th hand knowledge. Furthermore, even if they did, most everyone who reads this, lives enough of a consumer lifestyle (which inevitably creates polution, like it or not), that they can easily be called a hypocrite and then some. In fact, I suspect if you looked at the value added (dollars added to their economy) relative to the damage, you'd discover that your shoes or shirt or even your computer parts manufactured in Thailand (and other similar locations) cause proportionately more damage.
That being said, wild horses couldn't drag me to this movie. I despise DiCaprio, and
particularly any movie that would star him in a teen heart throb roll.
If Jon Katz ever plays brainball, my bets are on him.
bp
That book was an awful, confused mess they make High Schoolers read. High handed and overly abstract, that book was just trash.
Read something worthwhile, like Dilbert or User Friendly, for a more relevant commentary on the need to escape technology.
Alex Garland's book is quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever read. The details of what's going on in Richard's head caused me to have trouble putting the book down. In fact, I missed an exam because of it. That's true. I highly recommend the book to anybody.
When I found out that Boyle was making a movie from it, I thought "great!" I loved Shallow Grave (not many people have seen it, which is sad) and Trainspotting. Ewan MacGregor was to play Richard. When I found out that DiCaprio replaced him, I was shocked. This moron?! Then I remembered The Basketball Diaries and was somewhat comforted... Somewhat.
Then I actually saw the thing. Cinematically, it's not hard to tell that Boyle was at the helm. The camera work is great, and has Boyle's unique visual style.
The events and characters captured by the cameras are another thing altogether. I know, I know, most people will hate a movie because it's "not like the book" if they had read it. I'm not that type. I didn't mind that Richard played Rampage on his Gameboy instead of Tetris. I was disappointed that that all of the changes were really badly chosen. I wanted to see Jed. How could they remove him? DiCaprio really played on the "I'm American" thing in a very bad way as well. How could you not hate him? He was a complete asshole. In the book, Richard did some stupid things, yes, but at least we could actually like him. When Leo got in front of the still camera and started acting like a complete idiot, I wanted to shoot him.
When he started fucking everything on two legs I couldn't help but feel that the book Richard's character, the one which made it famous, was indeed destroyed. The world at large will forever think of Richard as this little blond-haired jerk.
The choices were very bad, indeed. I really wanted to see the book's ending on the big screen, but got something completely different. I won't say anything about it deyond that it's extremely typical of Hollywood to change books in that manner.
As for Katz's statement about getting away from technology, I don't really think so. They welcomed technology on the beach. They played Gameboys, built houses, used technology to their advantage. They were trying to get away from traditional tourist crap. I'm the same way. I hate being a tourist, yet enjoy travelling. I'll be damned if I'm not going to bring along some electronic entertainment. Maybe you should watch it again (better yet, read the book). The scene where they go back for supplies shows this very clearly.
He finds a dazzling paradise, but you probably already sense that the only time Hollywood invokes paradise is to create a paradise lost.
More than that, it seems the only time Hollywood invokes paradise is to lose it -- that is, to destroy it. For an idea of the environmental impact that shooting this movie was to cause / did cause, look here. I'm not sure what the final result was, and I'm not sure the movie studio or the Thai government will tell you.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
http://www.coopamerica.org/boycotts/bantargetchart .htm
says:
Womens Voices for the Earth alleges that the making
of the Twentieth Century Fox movie The Beach involved environmental destruction in Thailand.
You may not like Katz. You may not like some of the subjects that show up. But invoking the Corporate Conspiracy is a bit much. Save it for when there really IS evidence of marketing manipulation.
The original and best treatment of this subject matter is William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
Read the book:
Lord of the Flies at Barnes and Nobles
Or watch the movie:
Lord of the Flies (1963) at IMDB.COM
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I think that this is the first positive review I've seen of this film. One reviewer suggested "Read the book and buy the soundtrack", rather than watch the film. I'd guess that Katz hasn't read the book or else he'd realise just how much they've fscked it about. They even switched the nationality of the main character from English to American, so that DeCrappio could play the part.
The book is definitely worth a read. Think I'll give the film a miss, though.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
Someone care to explain exactly why we're posting completely devoid-of-technological-content movie reviews on slashdot now? Aren't we supposed to be up in arms about what the MPAA is tryign to do with this money they get every time we go to a movie? I mean aside from the fact that noone gives two shits about what movie dicaprio is in now, the whole concept of evaluating stuff made by peopel you're boycotting is a little ridiculous.
good job, Katz - nice to see you stand up for the principles of the community. or did you even buy a ticket - this review sounds like you saw the commercial trailer, but I'm not sure you saw the actual movie.
Katz is bad enough when he has a reason to open his mouth and spew forth the crap he calls articles. gratuitous movie reviews of completely 0-technology-related cinema (and I use the term VERY loosely) are 100% unneccessary in this forum.
It saddens and disheartens me, not only that this type of article gets press on slashdot, but that the press was favorable. It's turning the motto 'Stuff that matters' into a mockery.
Please join me and the above AC in boycotting this ridiculous movie.
Guvegrra?
The only reason I'd go see this movie would be because of the amount of chicks that would be there. Even then, I'd be eyeing them instead of the screen [while they drooled over Leo.]
Here's a list of stuff you can do with the 8 dollars that you save by not going to this movie:
Pay the kid next door to shovel your driveway during the two next snow storms
Rent Apocalypse Now and Lord Of The Flies buy a bag of candy.
Make a political donnation to Duke's Presidential Campaign.
Buy 40 lbs of Raman.
Go see Magnolia.
Buy two porno mags, distribute their pages to 12 kids in your neigbourhood and gain 12 disciples.
Buy candy and offer it to strangers at the mall.
Give it to the 4 bums you pass on your way to work.
Put it your piggy bank Cheers, Bart
I think the question Katz is asking is, why are idyllic environments always lush, deserted, tropic islands with no technology and scantily clad women? Well, the women I can understand, but why no modern conveniences...
Is it because these movies are inherently written by low-tech writers? Is it because this is a more socially traditional viewpoint and therefore shows up more? Is it the minimalist in all of us? Or is it because modern technological inter-connectivity is not necessarily a good thing?
I'm guessing the whole desert island motif is going to show up more and more. Hopefully in better movies than this one. I personally will not be buying a cell phone any time soon, I like to be alone occasionally without people calling me left and right. I liked it a lot better when my friends couldn't ICQ me every three seconds when I'm trying to do work. Even the friends I like. Seems like modern communications are changing the signal to noise ratio in peoples lives for the worse with email and newsgroups, etc.
Oh well enough of my wining...
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
"Hollywood studio trashed island paradise" is the kind of great black-and-white story a publicist dreams of -- a perfect, emotive headline to sell newspapers or excite activists. But for a more detailed and balanced report see the thaistudents' excellent site:
http://thaistudents.com/the beach/phiphi_0200/index.html
The film makers maybe should or maybe should not have been allowed to film on Maya beach. But they were clearly aware right from the start of the dangers of a publicity backlash; and they took considerable environmental care to try to avoid one.
Where they did make changes, such as bringing in the palm trees, they undid them once the three week shoot was over. In fact they apparently restored the beach to a standard which would have been better than it had been before they first went there, had the work not been partially undone by the unexpected violence of the monsoon storms.
The most serious danger to Maya beach now is the continuing effect of the large number of regular tourists who visit, rather than any direct impact from the film-making. The most pressing need is for a permanent ranger presence to manage use and access to the island. But apparently work to establish such a post, using some of the facilities brought by the film crew, has been vandalised by those with a stake in the current free for all.
It's actually one of the best books I've ever read. It was originally a novel by Alex Garland, a brilliant writer, much in the vein of Douglas Coupland... pop culture and all that. Having said that, the movie horribly slaughters the book with a 6" dull spoon. First, they deleted and changed various characters in the book. Second, they changed the main character from British to a smiley-eyed dull-brained morally-superior American, a change which destroys about half the character right off the bat. If you read the book, you'd see. Finally, they throw out all of the main themes of the book, and focus on Leo bangin chicks on a beach in Thailand. Like, wtf? The movie was such an insult to Alex Garland and his fine work I thought I was going to throw up. Luckily I left before I did. Once again the movie mantra holds: If there's a book, $@&! the movie. Kaii
How in the world did he come up with that? So out of place, is almost seems made up, just so it had a little technology aspect to it. This movie is nothing more than "Lord of the Flies" with a little more mature crowd and a little nudity thrown it to keep the "R" rating. Escaping from technology is quite a leap.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
This thread I can almost see the possibility of socio-impact comments on what happens to culture in isolation etc. Could be interesting, However I think there are much better vehicles that Leo's latest movie.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I fail to see how you make the connection between a "bad" Katz article and VA buying andover.net. Katz was posting stuff the people didn't like long before VA. In fact he's done movie reviews before. Also each Katz post doesn't equal one less post by someone else so just ignore posts by Katz if you don't like him.
I think that ever since VA took over slashdot, the news has gone steadily downhill. Who cares about a movie review? If I wanted a movie review I would go somewhere else, I want news for nerds, stuff that matters, what happened?
Dr Fgets Strikes again!
Have you ever been to the location where the film was shot? If so, you would have realized that the producers did a fairly good job of restoring the place back to what it was like before. Other islands in the surrounding region had suffered much more from popular tourism. Part of the problem is the general lack of self control. Admittedly, Phuket is much cleaner than other tourist spots, but wherever you have massive amounts of people coming and going, the environment is going to be impacted - like it or not. This situation won't get better until the Thai's (I am Thai myself) learn to respect the environment.