Hacker Cinema
Mute
2018 · Film · 126 min
Part of Moon Collection
Directed by Duncan Jones
Science FictionMysteryThriller
A mute man with a violent past is forced to take on the teeming underworld of a near-future Berlin as he searches for his missing girlfriend.
1 positive2 negative1 mixedfrom 4 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
2022 - Kimi, After Yang, Crimes of the Future, White Noise, Official Competition, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Tar, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
2021 - Nightmare Alley, The Card Counter, Zola, The French Dispatch, Come True, Don't Look Up, I Care A Lot,
2020 - I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Mank, The Sound of Metal, Possessor, His House
2019 - Climax, Uncut Gems, Parasite, Vivarium, First Cow
2018 - The Clovehitch Killer, Prospect, Mute, Anon, Mandy, The House That Jack Built, Cam, Sorry to Bother You
2018 had a glut of Netflix sci-fi B-movies that I think are very solidly good if not so great. I think they're underrated so I included them. I might have also messed up on the years.
These are all films I've seen. There are many others that I suspect are even better that I haven't seen.
I think it was less Warcraft's under-performance in domestic theaters that did that (because it still had huge audiences in Asia; Hollywood accounting is weird, of course, but it was still a profitable movie despite it getting the "flop" branding in the US) and more Mute's flop on Netflix that left a black mark. (Netflix's accounting seems even weirder than Hollywood's, especially given how opaque it is, and also seems to have an outsized impact on the rest of Hollywood for how opaque it is.)
It's a bit weird that you think Hollywood is only 5 studios. That would be like saying Silicon Valley is just FAANG. There are dozens of studios in LA alone, not including the studios in NY, Atlanta, and Vancouver.
Netflix is the 5th biggest studio in Hollywood (the industry) but is the biggest studio actually located in Hollywood (the neighborhood of LA) as the other major studios have their own facilities in other neighborhoods or cities of LA. (Sony = Culver City, Fox/Disney = Century City and Burbank, Paramount = Mid City, Universal = Universal City.)
Comparing the end credits for Netflix originals and Disney films, I see no difference in the amount of vertical integration. Netflix films generally aren't VFX heavy so there isn't as much outsourcing that needs to be done. Disney films are, and most VFX shots are outsourced since (a) it's cheaper and (b) the specialized VFX shops are usually faster and more nimble than in-house VFX teams. Compare the end credits for thein-house VFX-heavy Netflix original like Bright and Mute. They have just as much outsourcing as a Disney film.
(Source: I count Fox Searchlight, Vendome, and Sony Pictures as former clients and I currently work for a media company. I'm well versed in how movies are made.)
Oh, many things. Bad acting, bad dialogue, bad directing, bad editing, undeveloped characters, inconsistent characterization, tonally inconsistent, logically nonsensical. It wanted to be film noir, or some sort of bizarre satire about immigration, but did neither well. The sci-fi aspect of the film was also shoe-horned in at the last minute.[1]
The visual effects were good though.
[1] Per the post-premier interview by Rian Johnson, this was apparently the first script Duncan Jones wrote. It went undeveloped for 15 years because no studio would touch it. After Netflix agreed to produce the film, Duncan updated the film to a sci-fi setting because Netflix wanted a followup to Moon and was also shopping around for sci films. Originally, Mute would have been set in the 1980s or roughly modern day.
What is wrong with Mute? I actually really liked how they captured the feeling that goes with living with the kind of liberal arts studiers (it's a bit of a generalisation, but I think it holds) that make a group of people like that. They pretty much nailed the ambiance and the personal interactions, even if they were occasionally a bit overblown. That is something movies do.
I laughed pretty hard after reading this blog post.
Netflix movies have been on a horrific downhill trend in quality (though their documentaries have remained great). After the Adam Sandler flicks, Bright, The Cloverfield Parodox, and especially Mute, it's become clear that Netflix's film department has no fucking clue what they're doing. It's getting to the point where people I know who are avid Netflix bingers would literally rather rewatch a show or film they just saw than watch the latest Netflix film.