Unstoppable

I recommend Tony Scott's new movie Unstoppable to the group. Maybe it's because of the place I'm in now that I learned so much from this movie on first viewing, and have much still to learn from it. I intend to see it several more times before the new year. This is a movie that in film school we'd have viewed over and over, in many places frame by frame on an analytic projector. Tony and Ridley Scott have visual sensibilities equal to any working filmmakers, the sound work was fantastic, and the acting top notch. A lot of learning points came up for me, and I want to open a discussion with others in our group about these things:
• The sound mix somehow was able to handle dialog in the locomotive of a racing train with a helicopter hovering above. I hate it when a loud bus drives simply drives by during my shoots…
• There were places near the beginning where slow motion was clearly made by repeating each frame 3 or 4 times. This kind of production could easily afford a truckload of Phantom rigs, and there were places where high speed cameras were used. Why did they include the low budget slow-motion parts?
• The color was so finely done, keeping near-saturated colors but still setting a controlled and gritty look, including film grain that may have been exaggerated. I'd welcome some insights into the color grading that was done, and why.
* The editing was incredible, but then the editors probably had an overflow of fine material to work with.
* There were helicopter shots that were shaky and others as smooth as could be, while at least twice the path of the camera was in a direction counter to that most films would have travelled.
* I did not consider the acting to be over the top, or overly restrained given the intense nature of the action, but it could have easily been that way. Acting and directing actors are still areas I have a couple of lifetimes of learning to go ahead on.

I haven't read anything that others have written about the film yet. I'm looking to start off with the NEMC insights first.

Happy trails,
Chuck