Ten Thoughts I Had While Staring at The Walk Poster
Monday, April 20, 2015 at 8:00AM
Manuel, who is deathly afraid of heights, here to discuss the newest poster for Robert Zemeckis's upcoming film The Walk.
1. This looks like a dolly zoom waiting to happen.
2. I miss Death Becomes Her/Back to the Future Zemeckis. Heck, I even miss Cast Away/What Lies Beneath Zemeckis. Might this be the film that restores my faith in his kinetic filmmaking after over a decade of losing him to performance capture (and that Denzel film which everyone seemed to warm up to but which left me cold)?
3. Oh, this is giving me vertigo.
4. The poster doesn’t really draw attention to it, but the blue-eyed, strawberry-blond Joseph Gordon-Levitt from the trailer still haunts me.
5. God, my palms are sweaty. And this is just a poster! Bring back that gorgeous minimalist teaser!
6. Can this live up to Man on Wire, James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary about this very “walk” which I saw through my sweaty palms but remember liking a lot?
7. “Every dream begins with a single step” suggests the marketing will be pushing this as an uplifting “true story." One hopes Zemeckis offers us a tad more. Related: will they really be billing it as The Walk: A True Story, and if so can we just call it TWATS for short?
8. The more I stare at this the dizzier I get and now my toes are tingling.
9. Snowden or Petit; which Joseph Gordon-Levitt “based on a real person” performance are you most looking forward to?
10. Will I survive watching this on IMAX 3D? he typed while wiping his sweat-stained keyboard.
I can’t look at this anymore without finding a nearby paper bag but I’m curious what those less heights-averse folks have to say about this poster and upcoming film. Will you take the first step with Zemeckis and JGL when this opens in October?
Reader Comments (21)
Let's make the TWATS namesake for this movie happen!
I only have two thoughts on "The Walk"
1."Man on Wire" was a great cinematic experience. What could "The Walk" possibly add to this story?
2. Joseph Cross! Joseph Cross! Joseph Cross! He would have been the perfect casting choice for the part of Philippe Petit. He is basically the doppelgänger of the young Petit and is also a very underused actor in my opinion.
I TOTALLY second every word about #2 (although I liked Flight more than I disliked it).
I had trouble watching the trailer due to my fear of extreme heights, so I won't be seeing the whole film.
"from the director of cast away and flight"
the marketing team have really short attention spans
@par
Those are his most recent live-action vehicles.
@Manuel
Those movies are products of the era they were produced in. Hollywood is so dead inside about what it'll fiance these days. Both movies would be cult TV shows if they were green-lit today.
Yeah-I don't think I can see this based on that poster. I will hyperventilate. About the only way is if it becomes an Oscar-nominee and I am forced to (and from the looks of it, it could land for Sound which is making me have a panic attack).
IMAX 3D? Good grief.
Flight was amazing if not for the tacked-on religious redemption in the last 5 minutes. Zemeckis loves throwing religious overtones into otherwise perfectly fine movies (CastAway for example), so I wonder if there'll be a scene where JGL looks at the sky, and the clouds part, and the sun hits him just so and it's like GOD HERSELF IS TELLING HIM to finish the walk.
#9. I really like JGL as an actor and admire his work on other things (e.g., hitrecord), but not sure why there needs be two new biopic movies when there are two perfectly great, recent documentaries covering the same people. Ugh.
I see a blue-eyed JGL in the trailer, but not a strawberry-blond. ?
Just watching this on a monitor gives me stomach-churning vertigo. No way I can handle it in IMAX 3D.
Christian symbol!
TWATS FTW
Two thougts I had watching this:
1. It's much better than the trailer (which is incredibly stupid), but still not good since it looks very CGI ish.
2. I don't know how to say this, but it looks like they're even whitewashing white people into whiter people (see JGL in trailer).
JGL seems like an odd choice. Not sure that he has Petit's grace. At least the trailer didn't make me think so. Also the trailer seemed like a weird tacky advertisement for suicide....on the World Trade Center (the whole take a step thing....plus he just seemed so wobbly, even when transitioning to the "graceful" part).. Taking the beautiful, lyrical story told in man on wire and making it a CGI 3d IMAX extravaganza sure makes me uncomfortable: WTC nostalgia is so hot right now! ... When will the WTC ride open, basically?
Am I the only person seeing the blatant crucifix on this poster? :|
Ugh. No. I don't think I can do it. I watched the trailer through my hands covering my eyes. I actually have heights-related nightmares a few times a month so I don't think this would be good for me. I'm praying it's not an Oscar contender so I don't have to see it.
Re: JGL's grace.
Take another look at JGL's "I got laid last night" parade scene from "(500) Days of Summer." Grace epitomized!
I have a major fear of heights but I don't remember wincing during the trailer. Maybe I was too distracted with how disgusted I was at the odd blue-eyed strawberry blonde JGL alien.
Manuel: Honestly, I'm significantly more interested in the Snowden movie. I saw Man on Wire and I don't know if there's a different perspective to have on this then the one the documentary did, because it's not a prickly political topic, it's just an inspirational crowd pleaser that SOMEWHAT plays on WTC nostalgia.
catbaskets: JGL's physical grace is something that's always struck me about his performances. He has a background in gymnastics, and Petit himself trained him in tightrope walking and said he was good. The casting makes sense to me, esp. considering that JGL, like Petit, seems to have a very driven and youthful personality.
Volvagia: I think there's room for a very different take, considering Petit's memoir, which is more mischievously irreverent and humorous than the doc. We've also never seen video footage of the actual walk (for reasons that the memoir notes and that perhaps the film will show). The 3D aspect of this film alone will be a different perspective, literally.
#7. Man "overcomes long odds, betrayals, dissension and countless close calls" in a "caper movie," a 3D "[visceral] experience," and "a love letter to Paris and New York City in the 1970s, but most of all, to the Towers of the World Trade Center." I think that's enough. :D
#9. Both, because I'm fairly certain he'll ace it as Snowden, but JGL as a Frenchman will be an entirely new transformation if he pulls it off, which he well could.
#10 Yes, just make sure the movie theater is not on a wire when you go in.