Like any critic worth his/her salt, I try to take notes during movies, to try to capture my initial reactions to what’s going on on screen in an amusing fashion. The other day, I was hanging out with my friend Rachel Mercer (here’s her blog and twitter) when I noticed she had an artsy notebook full of dense notes. I started reading some of her writings, taken during a screening of Terminator Salvation and found them pretty amusing. I asked her to share the rest with me, which she did below via e-mail (republished with permission). Note: SPOILERS ahead for Terminator Salvation.
“For the rest of my Terminator film notes that you asked about (copied pretty much verbatim, spelling errors and shorthand included), see below:
– Exterior shots are best. Interesting coloration.
– Inside shots shaky, leaves much to be desired
– seamless helicoptor shot is interesting bit of cinematography
– mushroom cloud incites fear in anyone
– these shots vary btwn compelling and sloppy
– cue hoarse batman voice!
– crawling out of the mud per frankenstein (Robert Deniro)
– action scenes sloppy, rest is relatively tight.
– USB sticks in 2018?
– Anton Yelchin unexpected after recent star trek appearance
– holy shit kids with guns
– Yelchin’s performance falls flat
– radio still works?
– Moon Goodblood = hot. Need compelling strong woman per Res. Evil
– “All on the same side”
– convincing kinetic machine like mvmts in fight scenes (Marcus)
– “I’m a little cold” – srsly? Not the best script
– always with the “thank you for saving me back there”
– “I’m not a good guy” BS
– Holocaust-like imagery w/ humans ferried into warehouses
– Interesting faceoff bale vs marcus
– an unexpected machine meets human love story
– above water hydro eels remind me of scene in princess bride
– sloppy cgi
– WTF fake Arnold, that was not expected.”