Classically Abby - 1917 HUSBAND VS. WIFE MOVIE REVIEW ｜｜ After 3 attempts, it's finally here!

00:00:00.160 Hello beautiful ladies and gents and welcome to today's video 0.98

00:00:03.200 where we're going to be doing a husband versus wife movie review on 1917.

00:00:13.520 In your own time gentlemen. Must be something big if the general's here.

00:00:19.520 You have a brother in the second battalion? Yes sir. They're walking into a trap.

00:00:25.040 So to start us off we're going to go through an expressed version of the review in total

00:00:32.160 because this is attempt number three. As far as I'm aware your videos don't have terrible

00:00:39.360 technical difficulties in their infancy from when you started but now they've come to fruition.

00:00:44.400 The teenage years of them. This is this is the time. The time has come and it is terrible so we are

00:00:51.200 going to do this. This is the final time. If it doesn't work this time we are not filming it again.

00:00:56.640 And in fact we're going to change our opinions about 1917 to be neither good nor bad but so neutral

00:01:03.040 and blasé it doesn't deserve a review. Pretty much. So why don't you give us like a quick overview of

00:01:07.520 the plot? Sure. So 1917 if you're not already familiar, although you should be, 1917 is a World

00:01:14.800 War I movie about two British soldiers given a mission that they have to accomplish to

00:01:20.960 hoove a set of orders a few miles on the war front in France to a nearby village to deliver a message to

00:01:28.560 a group of soldiers to call off an attack which has turned out to be a trap that the Germans have set up.

00:01:33.920 Yeah. So that that's the level of plot that this movie has because the movie is

00:01:38.560 not about the story. It's not about the plot. It's not really about character development.

00:01:43.520 It's about the experience of the characters and what they're going through.

00:01:46.720 So Jacob when we saw this movie was incredibly enthusiastic. He loved it. It was his favorite

00:01:52.640 movie of the last morning. Favorite movie released in the last year. In the last year. I've seen movies

00:01:58.160 that I liked better in the last year but those are more in the vein of Beckett or The Lion Winter and

00:02:04.320 stuff like that which are from the 60s. Whereas I saw the movie and I thought it was a good movie but

00:02:09.120 I didn't think it was amazing mind-blowing. So how could one of us be so wrong?

00:02:16.560 You get to decide which one. We were trying to discuss kind of why it was that Jacob felt so

00:02:23.520 strongly about this movie and why I felt a little bit less strongly. So you tell me which version do

00:02:31.120 you think our followers should hear first? I think they should hear your side first. That way I don't

00:02:38.560 feel like my side is being trampled on. Fair enough. We previously were discussing the movie when we got

00:02:44.000 out of it and it was very contentious between the two of us because there was such a gap between our

00:02:50.000 two perspectives on the movie. I don't know if this is the way it is for you all but I've noticed that

00:02:55.360 when you have two people who disagree about something and even if they're on the same side

00:02:59.760 of opinion they both like something if one person this is like neutral loves it and the other person

00:03:06.240 likes it the person who loves it feels threatened by the one who likes it and also by the same token

00:03:12.640 I've been on the side of things where I just liked something and I judge someone for loving it.

00:03:17.760 Why do you find so much significance in something that hasn't earned it? Why are your values so shallow

00:03:23.920 that you think this is great? It's definitely something I've thought before. The first time

00:03:28.000 we recorded this it was the most husband versus wife review that ever existed. The most husband

00:03:32.800 versus wife review. It's not the most husband versus wife. Yeah oh no no. Don't put the emphasis on

00:03:37.680 husband. It was the most husband that there's been. Yes. I've been more husband at other times in life.

00:03:43.600 When I saw the movie there were a few things that stood out to me that I felt made it less great and they

00:03:50.240 were kind of the things that made it so unique. So one of the things that this movie does is that

00:03:54.720 the entire movie is supposed to look like it's been done in one shot and there were two reasons why I

00:04:00.800 wasn't a huge fan of that and there are also there's also a reason that I like it. So the reason that I

00:04:05.120 like it is because it does put you in the story. It feels like you're walking through all the scenes.

00:04:10.880 You're experiencing it yourself. I guess there's actually three reasons why I wasn't a huge fan of it

00:04:16.560 otherwise. So the first thing that I wanted to mention was that it felt like a video game

00:04:21.760 and the reason I say this is because I only just recently started playing video games and so for me

00:04:27.520 I've started understanding the kind of format of video games where you're following someone around

00:04:33.360 sometimes. She was playing Red Dead Redemption or Zelda Breath of the Wild things like that where you have a

00:04:39.280 third-person perspective on the character where it's usually as if looking over their right shoulder.

00:04:45.040 Exactly and so a lot of this movie is shot just that way where you're watching the film over

00:04:51.840 someone's shoulder and so I was watching it I was like well it's kind of like playing a video game

00:04:55.920 and if I wanted to play a video game I would play a video game but instead I'm watching a movie that

00:05:01.360 I'm not able to control. So that was what stood out to me. Rebut it. So the criticism that there are

00:05:09.120 visual elements that at times bring you to mind what you if you play video games you have as a

00:05:14.720 mental image which is that characters here cameras here looking in on them perspective that third

00:05:21.760 person over the shoulder perspective yeah that's there I mean the camera doesn't hold hold on it it's

00:05:27.360 like what many movies do where you kind of follow them from here then the camera kind of moves around

00:05:32.400 to get facial reaction or look at the environment and then snap back so it's far more dynamic and

00:05:37.760 enough other movies have done stuff like that Darren Aronofsky and the wrestler he did it there I mean

00:05:43.280 I've played a good number of video games I grew up playing them it was my hobby you had better ones

00:05:48.240 and so I was seeing that perspective for many hours did not occur to me when I was watching this movie

00:05:55.120 you mentioned it makes sense it was not so distracting to me maybe because to you the experience

00:06:00.480 of video games is relatively novel and recent and so it's very striking but to me the conventions of

00:06:06.800 mostly video game cinematography take for granted exist sure whatever this movie doing what it did

00:06:12.800 was so unique that it didn't cross those wires for me also because the camera was dynamic enough and did

00:06:18.400 pan off the shoulder and look around the environment and like trace around for conversations between the

00:06:22.880 two main leads I if it were only that way all the way through especially for more action-oriented

00:06:28.240 sequences as if looking at the back of their head when they're doing it that would be very video

00:06:32.480 game-esque did not do that so it's more like you walk into a building and you have third person

00:06:38.080 perspective so you can feel the dread of they're going into the unknown you see what they see and so

00:06:45.040 it's the unknown for you and you're worried what's going to happen to them so to me that was more

00:06:48.960 self-identifying with the dread of the character and like things can happen to you which is actually

00:06:54.400 kind of what a video game is going for it's going to happen to the character it's happening to you as

00:06:57.920 the person playing that but then it moves away from that it's dynamic so uh i think you're wrong

00:07:03.600 fair enough it was not an obstacle that way but i can i can absolutely understand your your view of it

00:07:09.280 i think that makes total sense the second reason that i wasn't

00:07:13.120 now we're doing a review of joker oh god yeah yeah looking phoenix dancing i'm tired of joaquin

00:07:20.800 phoenix the second reason that i didn't love the cinematography was that you knew that something had

00:07:29.600 to happen at every given point they weren't going to allow him for example to get on a truck and ride

00:07:36.640 it for 20 minutes because it's supposed to be happening in real time there's only one time in the movie

00:07:41.520 where there's a cut and it's when he gets knocked out and one of the two main characters uh yes one

00:07:47.200 of the two main characters and the rest of the movie is supposed to be in real time so i found that kind

00:07:54.160 of distracting because i was always waiting for okay when's the next thing going to happen when's the

00:07:58.000 next thing going to happen i know that this can't take us too long i mean no so that's that's fair about

00:08:03.680 the nature constraint of trying to do a a one-er a one-shot style movie um because if everything is in real

00:08:11.200 time and we're not going to have cuts that smooth and jump the process you know cut to the next

00:08:16.320 relevant scene unless you're tarantino in once upon a time in hollywood where you will throw in for fun

00:08:22.800 along extended driving sequences right for the mere joy of brad pitt's charisma driving a car which

00:08:29.200 actually is real his charisma driving a car does exist but all that aside yeah it means that plot wise

00:08:36.960 you know the conceit of this is going to limit what could feasibly happen in the story it's kind

00:08:42.480 of like how in a horror movie you know that bad things happening to the main character only occur

00:08:47.600 in certain shots when you're in the close-up on the character from a certain angle you know you're

00:08:52.000 safe and the jump scare is not going to happen because you couldn't film the jump scare that way

00:08:55.840 it wouldn't work whereas once you go out to a mid shot oh no now i know something's going to happen

00:09:01.280 whereas if you're in a really wide shot oh i'm safe now because then we wouldn't be able to get the

00:09:05.280 money's worth out of the special effect because we wouldn't see him well right so oh the big shot's

00:09:09.520 frightening in a horror movie i know conventions of cinematography you can only do it here so in

00:09:14.400 this movie as you were mentioning uh at one point so main characters are trying to get from a to b

00:09:19.360 what's helpful in traveling distances automobiles so the main character gets on a truck a troop transport

00:09:26.000 to go and you know that well the movie's not going to cut so we're not going to watch this guy for the

00:09:31.440 next hour and a half or hour and 15 minutes of the movie sitting in the back of a truck

00:09:36.000 so he's not going to be on the truck for long and so certain beats and pacing and elements in the

00:09:40.640 movie you can predict will turn out a certain way which takes you out of it because now you're thinking

00:09:45.360 about the constraints of the style on the movie and for something like this you don't want to be taken

00:09:51.360 out of it like that it's not like tarantino where the style is the movie right here it's meant to get

00:09:57.600 out of the way of filmmaking in general so that you can like feel the experience of these soldiers

00:10:03.520 so it is kind of like uh it's an irony in this movie that you're pointing out is that

00:10:08.720 the nature of the style to make it one shot give you dread everything like that give the exhausting

00:10:14.160 nature of this hero's journey through uh the world war one battlefield oh that's the artistic mission

00:10:19.680 of the movie and then yet we're being taken out of achieving that because of the very way that

00:10:25.360 you're trying to get there right so yeah no that's a fair criticism of the movie also trying to find

00:10:29.520 the seams oh how did they do the next sequence here because i know they didn't literally film

00:10:34.560 all of this at once so like you know like um when you're watching a magician's act you're trying to

00:10:39.760 figure out how you did it a little bit of that in here yeah wasn't an obstacle to me but i agree that

00:10:46.720 is a fair criticism it's a fair constraint on the style that you're going for with that imperfection

00:10:51.280 of mind still great no and i i would agree with those with what you said and then the last thing

00:10:56.320 that kind of bothered me and then i kind of want to say just a couple short things that i liked was

00:11:01.360 that because the whole thing was shot this way it felt like sam mendez was the main character the camera

00:11:07.680 was the main character and i think that may have been the point in a lot of ways but i not a huge fan of

00:11:15.760 that i tend to i'm not a big fan of really artsy films that are for the sake of the art and not for

00:11:21.360 the character development or the plot or are made for me film is about getting to know characters and

00:11:28.480 getting to know and getting into their heads and and going through specific plot things that can't

00:11:33.600 happen very easily on stage or whatever it is so when the cinematography which i also am a huge fan of

00:11:40.160 cinematography i think it's cool but i don't like when the cinematographer and the director

00:11:45.280 become the main focus of the film you don't like it when the style is the substance yes that's

00:11:51.680 exactly right so you say that the um characters are the main point of the story and to me it's not

00:11:58.240 necessarily so that being character and plot driven is what the point of a film is for its story for its

00:12:05.520 artistic message uh you know i don't like artsy stuff that's long and indulgent it doesn't actually

00:12:10.240 have a point we saw the movie we're never really here starring joaquin phoenix at a given weight with

00:12:15.040 a given bad relationship with an awkward mother as a given form of socially estranged deranged man

00:12:21.120 aside from all that i didn't think this movie was that this movie did not really care about its

00:12:25.680 characters that much the actors were acting they had characters but it's not a character driven movie

00:12:32.720 in that you reveal things about the character as they develop and they change over the course of the

00:12:38.160 movie that's not the point here instead the characters are there so that you care about them as

00:12:43.920 men so that the horrors and threats and dangers around them acting upon them are something that

00:12:50.160 you care about because they're happening to a human being and your empathy comes into play and the

00:12:55.120 artistic purpose of this movie was to have a sense of empathy for the scale of horror of experience of

00:13:02.960 being a world war one soldier going through this and it did it i think effectively and i think it did it

00:13:08.800 in a worthy way i think that's a goal that does matter in the same way that poetry is different

00:13:13.520 from prose you know prose novel you have a journey you have a plot characters develop you're accomplishing

00:13:19.520 something and it can be written in spark notes a poem puts you in a place and a feeling and an emotion

00:13:24.720 and it says a state of it gives a state of mind in a way that you couldn't just explain a more dry

00:13:30.160 normal speech it's just a different artistic purpose this is more like a poem but it wasn't artsy

00:13:35.680 fartsy so it wasn't as incoherent as a poem might otherwise be and i think it did it the one shot i

00:13:41.440 think accomplished it you just feel this unrelenting sense of anxiety and exhaustion you have moments of

00:13:46.880 reprieve that then just kind of shift into horror again i don't think you could accomplish that the

00:13:52.320 same way with like normal traditional breaks because you get a reprieve you have a sense that this scene

00:13:57.440 is for this this scene is for that whereas in this movie everything just flows and so you have the

00:14:02.080 sense of like oh buoy and sam floating back up out of the deep where it was dragged down and then oh

00:14:07.120 god the horror's coming back and like back underwater well what i will say is that now that i have had

00:14:13.680 more time for this to kind of percolate i think the movie's grown on me because the more times we've

00:14:19.600 reviewed this the more time i've had to kind of reflect on it and i do think that it's absolutely worth

00:14:27.520 seeing i think there is more worth to a film like this than i originally gave it credit for

00:14:34.240 and i do think that there are these special moments in the film that for me feed my soul in a way that

00:14:42.400 if this was just you know following someone through their trials and tribulations it wouldn't but there

00:14:48.240 are some character moments that i think are really really special and give it that little extra

00:14:54.560 bit of soul soul yeah and so i do think that it's worth seeing and i tell us about the scene in the

00:15:02.160 movie there's a moment where one of the main characters shows up and sees this woman who is

00:15:09.680 taking care of another person's child she found their child in this go war orphan baby and there's just

00:15:17.200 this emotional connection between a soldier and a civilian in this moment where he probably hasn't

00:15:24.400 seen a woman or anyone who's not a soldier for a very long time especially a baby and the innocence of

00:15:32.560 a baby in the midst of all of this destruction is i thought was really well done and really moving and

00:15:39.200 a really important aspect of the story that wit or of the film rather that um gate like i said gave it

00:15:46.400 that that that little extra bit of soul that makes it worth seeing i mean yeah that scene was really

00:15:52.400 quite affecting and uh you know i think what's pointing about it is you know you have the baby in

00:15:57.440 the war tummy of the woman and so woman's the domesticity it's away from war even if she's caught 1.00

00:16:02.720 in the middle of it like the front line troop so he doesn't see that and um the one with the baby

00:16:08.720 you at once have like a feeling of irony that like woman and the home front and baby the future for your

00:16:15.040 country for any country for any civilization is there and is so fragile and is so hope inspiring

00:16:20.720 but its fragility is so threatened by the mass destruction of the war that it's ironic that a

00:16:25.920 country could go to war for the sake of the fragile woman the fragile child but by its nature be so 0.93

00:16:31.520 destructive that you can't imagine a woman or baby existing in the wars and it's just like that kind of

00:16:36.720 a thing not to be hippy-dippy about it because i'm not being hippy-dippy but i'm not extending that to be

00:16:40.640 i was not gonna say hippy-dippy i was gonna say just very philosophical in a moment that yeah as

00:16:45.520 a literature major it's a second nature to the degree it's useful it's nice to the degree it's

00:16:49.920 annoying and self-indulgent i apologize it's a very good choice to slap that in there uh the previous

00:16:55.200 time that we attempted this review i made this comparison i just want to make it now if you've

00:16:59.040 seen children of men a movie from the mid-2000s starring quite own julianne moore it's a dystopic

00:17:06.080 future story i believe it was a novel and then adapted to film mankind has stopped fertility not

00:17:11.360 deliberately just people have not been having more kids a new person has not been born in 18 years

00:17:16.720 and so there's this sense of decay and dread and falling apart to all society because without a

00:17:21.920 future the economic base is falling apart people aren't motivated depression is rampant society is

00:17:26.400 kind of unraveling the main character ends up being responsible for the protection of the one woman with

00:17:31.680 the first new child in 18 years and so just there's a moment where there's all this fighting

00:17:35.600 happening and then the baby starts crying and all the adults all the grown people are fighting

00:17:40.640 stop and there's an eerie silence all these soldiers all these gorillas are doing nothing and they're in 1.00

00:17:45.360 awe as the woman is carrying her baby shepherded by clive owen down the stairs it's a very affecting

00:17:51.440 scene this movie had very strong vibes of it just a baby in a war zone the innocence the fragility

00:17:56.880 the sense of context for why any of this would be taking place very powerful before we go i do want

00:18:02.480 to say my criticism of the movie oh which is your criticism of the movie well it's it's more of

00:18:07.040 like a kitschy thing okay but you and i share this so your video game analogy yeah in the previous

00:18:12.000 edition you brought up a very important point which we're calling the last review of the the last

00:18:16.320 edition the last edition second edition this is third edition review new annotations you have to pay

00:18:21.280 another full price for this it's like a college textbook oh i love that yeah yeah guys subscribe below

00:18:26.080 that's that's your payment so the movie was like a video game in the sense that it's not just over the

00:18:32.480 character but you have checkpoints and npcs voiced by famous actors what do we mean by that well you

00:18:39.840 may have seen from the trailer that colin firth is a general at some point in the movie giving orders

00:18:46.240 to the two main soldiers so that they can go and do their mission so we start off with like the opening

00:18:51.200 cutscene you know a little movie within the video game where a big important plot point happens yeah so

00:18:56.160 it's colin firth celebrity cameo focusing on him yes very conspicuously because almost no one else in the

00:19:02.320 movie is famous except for these npcs you just keep hitting these famous people and for a movie

00:19:08.560 that's all about trying to bring you in and make it feel like you're the one experiencing it it's the

00:19:15.920 easiest way to take you out of the story because you're like hey look it's benedict cumberbatch like

00:19:20.560 hey look it's richard madden from game of thrones and the bodyguard right what oh it's mark strong

00:19:25.520 of every guy ritchie movie fame wow and it's just like every 20 minutes there's a british celebrity who

00:19:31.520 comes in to be world war one edition british celebrity cameo and it's like it's like why why

00:19:36.560 would you go for that yeah it's so conspicuous it's so upsetting it's funny because if you take

00:19:42.480 an actor and he's well known but you give him a role then it gives him the opportunity to be

00:19:49.280 in that role to be taking on a different character but when you put him in for two minutes just in

00:19:54.400 the middle it's like oh there's that actor he came to get a paycheck and lend his credibility right

00:19:59.440 and it's not to say that they didn't act well they did but you have two minutes on screen and

00:20:04.640 everyone knows you as and recognizes you so it's just it's just put a mustache on him it's fine

00:20:10.720 it's bandit car rush no it's not it's a mustachioed it's mustache general it's mustache general

00:20:16.560 he's great yeah bring it your general mustache man to finish off this review i think we all know

00:20:21.280 the answer but would you recommend this film oh absolutely see it in theaters if you can whatever

00:20:27.200 is the biggest baddest cinema experience that you have access to if it's an imax seat in imax if you

00:20:33.280 have a better quality theater splurge if it's more expensive then the lower quality theater this

00:20:38.560 deserves to be full spectrum full scope it's something as an experience that film uniquely

00:20:45.360 can accomplish as compared to small screen television as compared to live theater as

00:20:49.920 compared to a novel and it deserves to be respected in terms of what's trying to achieve and i would

00:20:55.520 recommend it as well again i didn't feel as strongly as jacob but i do think it's worth seeing and i

00:21:01.600 would say go see it so thank you guys so much for watching please subscribe to my channel and blog if

00:21:06.880 you haven't already head over to my twitter instagram and facebook and follow me there and we'll see you

00:21:11.600 in our next video bye

Classically Abby - February 28, 2020

1917 HUSBAND VS. WIFE MOVIE REVIEW ｜｜ After 3 attempts, it's finally here!

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