{"id":22152,"date":"2018-03-10T20:10:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T10:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22152"},"modified":"2018-10-24T20:35:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T10:35:52","slug":"annihilation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22152","title":{"rendered":"Annihilation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tagfilm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"annihilationposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Alex Garland
\nWriter:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Alex Garland
\nCast:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac<\/p>\n

A<\/span><\/em>nnihilation\u00a0<\/em>is the most recent movie I think of whenever I need to be reminded of how stupidly hard it is to get a film made and distributed out of Hollywood.\u00a0\u00a0Annihilation<\/em> released earlier this year on Netflix but it only landed there because director Alex Garland was unsuccessful shopping this film around to various film distributors for a cinematic release.\u00a0 That’s right, the guy who did\u00a028 Days Later, The Beach, Ex Machina\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Never Let Me Go\u00a0<\/em>couldn’t find anyone interested in distributing a sci-fi film with a cast including Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson and Jennifer Jason Leigh.<\/p>\n

Good thing for us that Netflix is around because it has made the film accessible to a wide audience and guess what, it’s a damn fine movie.<\/p>\n

Based on a novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer,\u00a0Annihilation\u00a0<\/em>begins with a woman named Lena (Portman) being questioned at a quarantine base.\u00a0 We learn\u00a0that the government has been investigating the mysterious appearance of a gigantic electro-magnetic field they have termed The Shimmer.\u00a0 Lena’s husband Kane entered the Shimmer with a team but did not return.\u00a0 Lena joined an expedition to rescue him but has suffered amnesia and can only partially remember what happened.<\/p>\n

Through flashbacks we see Lena and her team\u00a0enter the Shimmer and gradually uncover its secrets.\u00a0 Their entrance begins with an attack from a crocodile that appears to be spliced with shark DNA and it gets wilder from there.<\/p>\n

\"annihilation\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Annihilation<\/em> is an ambitious and sophisticated sci-fi, that is stylistically unlike most of its contemporaries in the genre.\u00a0 It has a very cerebral and thoughtful tone.\u00a0 I’m not sure how much of that is owed to the original creator’s vision or whether Garland is just a bottomless well of inspiration when it comes to making these films.<\/p>\n

The dream-like visuals and the way\u00a0Annihilation<\/em> melds the emotional state of its characters with their physical form is an intriguing concept and there is enough ambiguity left in the resolution to leave you pondering what happened long after the credits roll.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It’s a shame\u00a0Annihilation<\/em> didn’t get a widespread release in cinemas.\u00a0 It is an artfully made production and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to\u00a0see a film like this in a communal environment and watch the responses of others around me to the film’s various twists and turns.\u00a0 Regardless, I’m happy Netflix gave the film a second chance.\u00a0 Garland has made many memorable films over his career and\u00a0Annihilation<\/em> continues his fine form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don’t apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[659,2413,767,1763,2766],"class_list":["post-22152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-alex-garland","tag-jennifer-jason-leigh","tag-natalie-portman","tag-oscar-isaac","tag-tessa-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22205,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22152\/revisions\/22205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}