View from a Blue Moon
View from a Blue Moon
| 11 November 2015 (USA)
View from a Blue Moon Trailers

From the dreamy blue perfection of the South Pacific to the darkest uncharted waters of Africa (and everywhere in between), John Florence faces a broad spectrum of emotions as he continues to seal his legacy as one of the most gifted surfers ever. And while the young Hawaiian is pulled in increasingly different directions, there is no form of pressure that will keep him from his ultimate goal — to redefine what is possible in the ocean.

Reviews
Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Zkot Pen 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!
spinandmarty 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.
jefe_kefe 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.
Red_Identity Completely left in awe as to all the difficulty in attaining the footage that they got. And even more in awe as to how they could've made such a great film out of it. The film isn't just a "surf film" though, it functions at a much higher level than that. There's such a poetry to its images, and it really captures footage from such different locations and assembles it into a cohesive story without much of a narrative or, well, "story" by the usual definition. Heart, passion, and genuine creativity burst from this film from the get-go. Its editing, in both its film scenes and sound, is brilliaaaaant. And the music it uses just fits so perfectly. Every single second of this film was carefully structured. Quite frankly, it's just fantastic and easily one of my favorites of the year. It's such a wholly immersive experience, of the kind that no visual effects in Hollywood could achieve. And did I mention that it may very well have the best opening title sequence of all time? Definitely the most beautiful.