The Box
Published 2011-10-31
Film info
- Title The Box
- Director Richard Kelly
- Year 2009
- Run time 1hr 55m
- Genres Science Fiction, Thriller
- Tagline All you have to do is push the button
- Cast Cameron Diaz
When a little wooden box mysteriously appears on the doorstep of cash-strapped young couple Norma and Arthur Lewis, the secret it holds presents a moral dilemma which forces them to face the darkest depths of their humanity.
Live Blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:25 | Is this film set in 1976? I will prepare for some dodgy fashion then. |
| 2:26 | That looks just like the interior to the Mad Men house. |
| 3:57 | Can't believe they would just bring in a random box into their house like that. |
| 6:01 | Having the bus stop outside your house would be terrible as a school kid. |
| 8:31 | You don't get teachers showing off their feet these days. |
| 10:05 | They were talking about Mars in the 70s? And we still haven't been there yet! |
| 12:59 | Working at NASA must have been mega in the good days. |
| 14:36 | He's like that Two Face thing. |
| 16:20 | Directorially speaking, how have they taken half his face off? Painted his cheek green? |
| 20:22 | Old seventies typewriter letters. Cute! |
| 21:25 | I like the Coca Cola product placement but does it count if it is ye olde 70s coke? |
| 23:52 | Is that American Monopoly? They don't have Mayfair? |
| 28:23 | They must be rich, they have a TV in the bedroom as well. |
| 29:09 | "We don't need a million dollars to be happy, but imagine what we could accomplish." Hear, hear. |
| 32:54 | Push it, push it, push it. |
| 34:18 | Forgive me, but it's quite hard to take any of it seriously with that garish wallpaper. |
| 37:18 | You can't change your mind! Once a button is pushed, it is pushed. |
| 44:08 | Was that the scary child from school? What's he all about? |
| 56:58 | Awesome long corridor, I must say. |
| 1:01:36 | Freaky people with nosebleeds. |
| 1:04:46 | I love the word errands. Running errands. |
| 1:08:25 | Ooh, freaky, he's like the Pied Piper of NASA. |
| 1:15:50 | It's all taken a turn for the weird. |
| 1:17:15 | That's a bit of a mess. |
| 1:23:15 | I just get the feeling he is misusing NASA's property, wasting their space. |
| 1:30:54 | I will never look at Santa the same way again. |
| 1:33:04 | The music is just like LOST. |
| 1:41:33 | They didn't bring the gun upstairs, did they? Maybe he was holding it. |
| 1:44:04 | Why is it always the woman??? |
Thoughts
We spotted the trailer for this a long time ago and thought it looked interesting, but it fell out of our minds as other, more important, films came in. I'm not the world's biggest Cameron Diaz fan, I must say. However, it was 99p film of the week in iTunes and sailed up the charts and back into our consciousness so we grabbed it before we forgot again.
Oh, it was so very, very disappointing! The premise, the underlying concept, all good, and I really quite enjoyed the first hour - up until the point they went into the library. They were building it up as a sort of thriller, scary music, and tension rising for what could only be a jump or two, but then it was all gone in the crashing down of half a ton of water. After that, I didn't really follow what was going on and the ending was very disappointing. I was left feeling that it could have been brilliant, but they just tried to pull too much out of the short story it was based on and ended up focusing on nothing. It wasn't the worst film ever, but I was left feeling completely uninterested at the end.
Rating: 2 / 5