This Aint News

imdb 7.2

jeuxstine recommended me this movie after i told her that i think i've developed tinnitus, a hum in my ear and head that hasn't gone away for a couple of weeks now. imagine that -- telling me to watch a movie about a music man who goes completely deaf, after explaining about a slight worry i've had about hearing damage!~


what's it about?
this movie is about ibiza dj frank wilde, who lives the life of a superstar. looks like a bum, but has all the money, drugs and women he'll ever need. one day he suddenly experiences some ringing sensation in his ears, and it's rapidly growing worse, to the point of driving him pretty far off.

look at my awesome instruments!

what we see is a man's career and lifestyle derail properly, and how he deals with these events. it's an r-rated movie, so there's lots of drugs, but not too much sex, so it's safe for our north american audiences. there are cuts inbetween throughout the movie from people who had some sort of dealings with mr. wilde.


so, what's mog's thoughts?
while i've always enjoyed club culture and house music, it's never been more than just an occasional dip into it. one could say i've perhaps enjoyed it from afar. also, i'm not hot and trendy, so i wouldn't do well in their social circles. that is why i've not seen the movie until now, even tho i saw the trailer and eagerly awaited the arrival of the movie many moons ago, but it slipped off the radar pretty quickly back then.

still, i enjoyed this movie a whole lot, even tho it has its flaws. the first part of the movie is quite messy, and there's nothing new in filmmaking there. it's basically reeling in the line until he starts having serious problems. i suppose, if i flip the coin, the mess might have been there to visualise his lifestyle, to set the mood of what he was about to lose, or something. he obviously enjoyed that life, but judging by this i wasn't too keen to step into his shoes. i enjoy my liquor, but not to the point of puking in a friend's ear, nor would i ever coke myself up to the point that i lose all self control. tempting, but i am the kind of person who'd regret doing it.


coke badger, rumored to be a honey badger that ran out of honey

okay, enough about myself. the movie, after it has established his deafness, is fairly great. it's not a reborn man in the making, it's basically a story about a man who can stand up again and forge on, despite not hearing a single thing. they utilise the visuals pretty good during this part, putting you in his place. what they didn't utilise too well was that there was sound in some scenes i thought would've worked better silent. still, lots of people don't handle silence very well, so i guess they added dialogue and whatnot because of that, but some super calm and chill music -only- would've also done the trick. i ought to become a director, i think.


so, mog, what's your rating on this?
well, it was a bit tough, this one, i must admit. while an overall score was easy for my imdb rating, the next part is today will get the maximum score of 10. which might be better than the 400's of previous reviews, but not necessarily, as i find it hard to compare one movie's devicess to another movie's devices.

characters: hmm! 7?
well, they were pretty good, and not too many of them either. Paul Kaye did a very good job as Frankie Wilde and had me convinced from beginning to end. We also meet a manager/A&R and a couple of women. the music biz man was probably the worst of the main cast tho, not entirely believeable, but portrayed a fictional sleazy music biz man pretty well, with a couple of drops down to the ridicilous. DJ Wilde meets another woman fairly late in the movie, and she was pretty good too. no dips deep enough to be bothered, but i won't reveal too much as she was well knitted into the story.

camerawork: 7
while this ties directly into the directing part, they utilised the cameras pretty well in this movie. this is no the matrix or mission impossible style of camera work, it's just well fitted to the movie format. it never annoyed me, and they added to the sensation of some of the scenes, especially where there was a pivotal movie device going down.

sound/music: 4
while i described above my main concern with the sound in this movie, it did have some banging tunes. the tunes pull this up, but when it comes to the soundwork there are nothing to add positive points (meaning it was all recorded so hearing people could hear what was happening). the negatives were, as mentioned, the underutilising of sound/music work on some of the deaf scenes. they didn't forget entirely that they were making a movie about a man going deaf, but they left too much sound on the reels in scenes that should've been next to silent.

overall: 18 for this one! i gave it 7 stars on imdb!
while it is an intriguing film and a very good story, and also a fairly tight piece of film, it didn't boil up much more excitement in me than i get from a normally good movie outside of my primary field of interest. i think i gave mission impossible 7 too on imdb, as well as lots of james bond movies, so it is by no means a flat out average, easily forgettable scoring reflection of the movie. it IS a good movie, perhaps even very good, but by no mog measure great.

about the suspicion of my own hearing impairment i do have a knot in my stomach after watching this one. what was jeuxstine thinking?

n. mog

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previous reviews: Another Earth, Cargo