View from a Blue Moon

Like All Brain Farm releases- its Just Pretty Pictures..Nothing Else. We know Florence surfs..and...what else?? That's it..nothing more? Why even make a film. There is no story and you learn Nothing about the person being filmed. Any ambition in life beyond the self absorbed selfish surfing lifestyle. what about his family- father/mother,siblings, his friends his girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, his competitors? great filmmaking is much more than just pretty pictures. Someday a young extreme athlete will be brave and honest enough to open up their entire life to a filmmaker. Florence is obviously not that athlete and it will take more talented filmmakers than the gear obsessed dudes at Brain Farm to pull it off. This is just an expensive surfing highlights promo reel. We've all seem this a zillion times before,,,just the face has changed on the north shore.

Talk about disappointing!

I haven't watched a surf move since I was a teenager, when I used to watch them during my summers at the beach. Why not take a moment and see what's new?

Ooh, aah... first 4k surf video -- so what? The footage goes on and on and on, aimlessly. Any video editor around here? We've got one tube after another, and another, and... another... ad nauseum. Ditto for the handful of other maneuvers displayed.

Then we travel -- why bother? Did we travel because travel is so cheap in the modern world? Did we make a surf movie because our buddy has a camera with 4k video? Give me a break!

I have 4 criteria for movie viewing:

1. Do I believe the story?

2. Do I care?

3. Do I believe the characters?

4. Do I care about the characters?

I need 4 "Yes" answers to watch a movie. In the case of View from a Blue Moon, the result is horrendous:

1. Do I believe the story? What story? No story in this film!

2. Do I care? I wanted to care, but there's no story to care about.

3. Do I believe the characters. YES! Of course I believe them. The protagonist is a real person.

4. Do I care about the characters? Well, yes, but I care about the characters IN SPITE OF the film, not because of it.

I was going to give this movie 2 out of 10, but I've downshifted to 1 out of 10 - - AWFUL - for two reasons:

First, this movie was so awful, I couldn't even get through half of it. I was out before 30 minutes, and the only reason I lasted that long was because I wanted to like it. I hoped it would get better. Unfortunately, in my experience, if a movie starts out bad, it very rarely gets better.

Second, it seems like populism is the result of all of this social media combined with widely available, easily affordable Audio-Visual toys. North Shore surfer dude whose buddy has a camera with 4k?

That's preposterous -- next thing you know, more of these dude & dude's buddy with 4k-made monstrosities are going to be on IMDb -- and that's truly unfortunate for us film lovers!!!

Bottom line: This is a home movie -- How did it ever get played before my eyes? How did it ever get a page on IMDb?

Cinema is in sad shape until these issues are resolved!

Absolutely breathtaking from A to Z. Having watched plenty of surf movies, this one might rank around my second favorite, after, of course, The Endless Summer. I completely agree with whats has been said by the other review: this is a magnificent movie that will keep your eyes wide open during the whole thing. The beauty of the aerial wide shots, the poetry of all the scenes, (both surfing and not surfing) and the way they are so impeccably structured give an powerful sense of beauty and completion. I would give an overall mark of 8/10, no hesitation. I would even recommend this movie to people who don't usually watch surf movies. Indeed, the beauty of the images will appeal to anyone looking for a stunning viewing experience.

I think this movie is poetic in a ways that shows how John loves surfing and the sea through his eyes. It doesn't really need character development or consistent narrative because the movie doesn't serve the purpose of it being story to tell. The movie told the untold beauty of what most surfer sees, the wave and the sea.

I like movies and I like surf movies, but this was neither. If someone wants to waste 59 minutes on decent landscape footage then this is for you. Otherwise, I'd save my money and time. No point to the movie. No character development. Not even any drama or even some dumb surfers talking. Anything would've added to this movie. How about adding someone pulling into a wave eating spam musubi. A dolphin downing a porkchop when surfing a wave. Even some turtle licking his toe would've been better than this movie. Seriously, even if the whole movie was about a turtle popsicling his little toe would've been more entertaining than watching this toehead do the same trick over and over and over and over and over again. Anyhow, no spoilage alert here since there's nothing to spoil.