UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
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UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HOLLKM7-lL0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441395/
An alien in human form is on a journey through Scotland.
#3
DVD Talk Hero - 2023 TOTY Award Winner
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013...he-skin-review
Sounds interesting, and likely not something that is going to see a lot of mainstream enjoyment. The article also links to the same teaser as is in the OP so nothing new on the video front.
When a strange and unclassifiable beast walks into the world, the public has a tendency to split down the middle. One camp is beguiled and the other repulsed. Such is the experience of the vampiric space alien played by Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin, and so it is with the film itself. Jonathan Glazer's extraordinary piece of outsider art – the director's first feature since 2004's Birth – was greeted at Venice by an even split of cheering and boos.
A pox on the cat-callers; they can boo themselves hoarse. Under the Skin is far and away the best picture in the competition so far: a story that plays as a kind of malarial dream, bathed in cold sweat and seeing hallucinations in every corner. Johansson proves bizarrely engrossing as the unnamed succubus, fetchingly augmented with jet-black hair and blood-red lipstick, who drives a van around Scotland in search of her prey. The men she meets are bored and horny and can't believe their good fortune. The alien duly lures them in with polite, persistent questions, barely pausing to hear the replies. Then she ushers each man down the steps into a pool of viscid fluid where they spot the bodies of former victims, floating naked in the gloom like Bluebeard's wives.
We are never told where this alien is from or what she's doing, exactly, although the film takes its lead from a 2001 novel by Michel Faber. Slice it open and one realises that Under the Skin is actually a hybrid of two hackneyed film genres. It's indebted on the one side to the psychosexual horror movie in which feckless, lusty youths receive their comeuppance and, on the other, to those fish-out-of-water capers (like ET, or even Splash) about kooky visitors from the wide blue yonder. And yet the director works a magic on this material. He takes tired old prose and spins it into poetry.
In a perfect world, Glazer would win the top prize on Sunday and not have to wait another nine years before he makes his next film. But we do not live in a perfect world, and Under the Skin is perhaps best viewed as an icy parable of love, sex and loneliness. The director leads us between empty seashores and cacophonous nightclubs. He turns a hidden camera on the streets of Scotland and watches unnoticed as the people shop and smoke and tap out their texts.
Increasingly, it seems, Johansson wants to find a place in this throng. But try as she might, she can't quite fit. The TV set is a mystery, and the slice of chocolate cake only sticks in her throat. Driving on the road, she encounters a fellow pariah, a young man with a bone deformity, who shops by night and has no friends. A little later we shall see this figure again, wandering naked and bewildered on the outskirts of town, just another lost soul who's in search of a home.
A pox on the cat-callers; they can boo themselves hoarse. Under the Skin is far and away the best picture in the competition so far: a story that plays as a kind of malarial dream, bathed in cold sweat and seeing hallucinations in every corner. Johansson proves bizarrely engrossing as the unnamed succubus, fetchingly augmented with jet-black hair and blood-red lipstick, who drives a van around Scotland in search of her prey. The men she meets are bored and horny and can't believe their good fortune. The alien duly lures them in with polite, persistent questions, barely pausing to hear the replies. Then she ushers each man down the steps into a pool of viscid fluid where they spot the bodies of former victims, floating naked in the gloom like Bluebeard's wives.
We are never told where this alien is from or what she's doing, exactly, although the film takes its lead from a 2001 novel by Michel Faber. Slice it open and one realises that Under the Skin is actually a hybrid of two hackneyed film genres. It's indebted on the one side to the psychosexual horror movie in which feckless, lusty youths receive their comeuppance and, on the other, to those fish-out-of-water capers (like ET, or even Splash) about kooky visitors from the wide blue yonder. And yet the director works a magic on this material. He takes tired old prose and spins it into poetry.
In a perfect world, Glazer would win the top prize on Sunday and not have to wait another nine years before he makes his next film. But we do not live in a perfect world, and Under the Skin is perhaps best viewed as an icy parable of love, sex and loneliness. The director leads us between empty seashores and cacophonous nightclubs. He turns a hidden camera on the streets of Scotland and watches unnoticed as the people shop and smoke and tap out their texts.
Increasingly, it seems, Johansson wants to find a place in this throng. But try as she might, she can't quite fit. The TV set is a mystery, and the slice of chocolate cake only sticks in her throat. Driving on the road, she encounters a fellow pariah, a young man with a bone deformity, who shops by night and has no friends. A little later we shall see this figure again, wandering naked and bewildered on the outskirts of town, just another lost soul who's in search of a home.
#4
DVD Talk Hero - 2023 TOTY Award Winner
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
Here is another reaction, also positive:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...nsson-20130830
Also, this less than positive review:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rac...carlett-618843
and, of most interest to everyone here, confirmation of d2cheer's comment:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...nsson-20130830
Also, this less than positive review:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rac...carlett-618843
Along the way, she witnesses and/or experiences, with wide but emotionless eyes, death, desire, sex and assault, among other things that this world has to offer. Only a few words of dialog are spoken throughout the film -- and many of them come from Scotsmen who are virtually incomprehensible.
Johansson herself is not the source of the film's problems. She totally commits to the part, to the extent that she even performs several scenes of full-frontal nudity. Unfortunately, many, if not most, of the people who ultimately will check out this film will probably do so solely in order to check out those scenes.
#5
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Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
The trailer for this looks exceedingly bizarre. I can't find the audiobook at any of my local libraries, but there does appear to be a back order cassette version. Maybe I'll dig out the old Walkman...
#6
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
That trailer sucked me in. I hope it see's a decent theatrical release in Canada.
Oh, and its about damn time Scarlett Johansson got naked in a film.
Oh, and its about damn time Scarlett Johansson got naked in a film.
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#9
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
Kind of getting a Man Who Fell To Earth vibe from that teaser, which IMHO is an exceedingly good thing.
#12
DVD Talk Special Edition
#13
DVD Talk Special Edition
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
This would be the movie I would pay 50 bucs for... only if its true about the full frontal nudity. /drool
lol
lol
#15
DVD Talk Special Edition
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
haha - for the best really. Probably the most terrible collection of film 'fans' ever. The forums are only good once in a while to dig up information.
They probably kept it under wraps fairly tightly. Johansson was cool w/ the opportunity to do nudity before (but it never happened), I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for it to happen
This movie looks interesting enough that I'd see it even w/o the nudity promised.
This movie looks interesting enough that I'd see it even w/o the nudity promised.
#16
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
They probably kept it under wraps fairly tightly. Johansson was cool w/ the opportunity to do nudity before (but it never happened), I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for it to happen.
Last edited by hanshotfirst1138; 09-06-13 at 07:06 AM.
#17
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CYxUDbrArdM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Not much new is added and it says that it's red band but I didn't see anything too red-bandy. The score is amazing - especially in HD.
Not much new is added and it says that it's red band but I didn't see anything too red-bandy. The score is amazing - especially in HD.
#19
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#20
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Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
No.
In the novel she picks up men on the side of the road to
The novel is amazing and is one of the few that I teared up reading (the ending is beautifully written).
The film seems to take a different spin on the novel as many things seem different except the concept of picking up hitchhikers (even the lead character's name is changed) - but that's just by watching the trailers. I refuse to read any reviews as I almost spoiled myself by one review that basically gave the entire film away.
In the novel she picks up men on the side of the road to
Spoiler:
The novel is amazing and is one of the few that I teared up reading (the ending is beautifully written).
The film seems to take a different spin on the novel as many things seem different except the concept of picking up hitchhikers (even the lead character's name is changed) - but that's just by watching the trailers. I refuse to read any reviews as I almost spoiled myself by one review that basically gave the entire film away.
#21
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
First U.S. trailer from A24 - more amazing with each new thing that comes out.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kMUwA7ekIgc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
UK Poster (U.S. is same image but vertically longer)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kMUwA7ekIgc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
UK Poster (U.S. is same image but vertically longer)
#25
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Re: UNDER THE SKIN (2013) (dir. Jonathan Glazer) (Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan)
I saw this a couple weeks ago, when it opened here. The movie grabs you from the second it starts and doesn't let go till the end. It was Kubrick style meets Panos Cosmatos visuals. I'll def see it again, first day blu purchase as well.