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Post by Jay on Nov 29, 2019 9:36:03 GMT -8
Jer, you're in NYC, you should be able to find a theatre around that's still playing it?
I'd say one of the conclusions of Parasite is that there's less a human villain than a systemic one, but I'm hard pressed to say if that's better or worse overall.
(I still need to watch the final season of H+CF . Maybe I'll try to catch up on that soon.)
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Post by Jeremy on Nov 29, 2019 12:14:31 GMT -8
Yeah, there are some small theaters playing it within 30-60 minutes of me, but I don't usually trek that far for movies, particularly when I don't know a soul who would go with me to a subtitled Korean film. I might try it for Parasite, but the only time I've gone alone to one of these li'l theaters is for Wonder, which I saw in part for a class project.
(Speaking of Wonder, Todd Haynes' new film - Dark Waters - looks pretty good. And I can probably find someone willing to accompany me.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Nov 29, 2019 12:55:32 GMT -8
Jer, though I realize Pulp Fiction and (whatever you saw of) Inglourious Basterds weren't really your cup of tea, the film that ranked fourth (behind The Souvenir, The Irishman, and Parasite) on the recent Sight and Sound 2019 Critics Poll, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, would probably, for the most part, be right up your alley. Yes, there are a few sequences of pretty brutal violence, but it's mostly laid-back and irreverent, and has more emotional warmth than most of his other films. It's a relatively long (2h41m) film that mostly flies by, IMO. DiCaprio and Pitt do some of the best work of their careers, and Margot Robbie positively glows as Sharon Tate. From what I've been hearing, it was the front-runner for Best Picture before the Scorsese film arrived. It's a love-letter to the films, TV, and commercials of late '60s Hollywood, and I think it's out on Blu-Ray on December 10th.
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Post by Jeremy on Nov 29, 2019 13:01:15 GMT -8
Yeah, I’ll probably check out OATIH when it gets to DVD. (And maybe finish that Inglorious movie at some point.)
I’ll also try to catch a screening of Jojo Rabbit next week. Need some funny Hitler in my life.
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Post by Jay on Nov 30, 2019 10:24:23 GMT -8
I figured I'd explore some other of Bong Joon-ho's works and watched Snowpiercer last night. I'm not quite sure what to say about it, but I enjoyed it for the sake of spectacle, if nothing else. Something entertains me about the sci-fi conceit of a massive convoy that's ultimately kind of ridiculous.
I didn't mind the Tilda Swinton character too much although she was plainly there to be a little bit weird. I was slightly confused by her more Celtic-inflected accent given that Bong seemed to be generalizing based on nationalities in spots (two of the three fellows who spoke Japanese were baddies, as I'd anticipate from a Korean director). I think that the component that I responded more strongly to was the school car filled with propaganda. I think the veneer of it was a bit too 50s America, something you'd anticipate from the villains in an Addams Family movie, and it didn't do it for me given how everything else in the front cars was decadent if not depraved.
One complaint I could pose is that the final half hour or so, from Curtis' speech to Namgoong onward, was loaded with dystopian cliches and as a result, didn't quite do it for me. Otherwise, the entertainment value was there. It just seemed to be trying to hard to mean something, in spite of its bizarre operating premise.
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Post by ThirdMan on Nov 30, 2019 10:55:19 GMT -8
Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that it's necessarily bad to have some over-the-top characters: I quite enjoyed Swinton in Snowpiercer (Gyllenhaal in Okja is perhaps another story, though).
Yeah, Snowpiercer is pretty wacky: a fair number of disparate elememts thrown into a blender, really. But it's certainly ambitious. I liked the school car, though, regardless of whether it made sense, because it just made me laugh.
BTW, the director's Memories of Murder is on Amazon Prime. It's more earthbound, but it does feature cops beating up murder suspects by dropkicking them over a desk (LOL!).
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 1, 2019 13:49:50 GMT -8
While watching Knives Out, I kept trying to recall where I'd seen actress Ana de Armas before. Turns out it was as the holographic AI girlfriend of Ryan Gosling's character in Blade Runner 2049. Good actress. Also very beautiful, though they try to downplay it a bit in Knives Out.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 1, 2019 16:23:21 GMT -8
Yes, I realized that after Wiki-ing her as well. She's quite good. She was also supposed to play an important role in Danny Boyle's Yesterday, but for some reason (apparently for storyline smoothing), her character was entirely removed from the final cut of the film. (You can still see her in the trailer, which makes it extra-weird.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 4, 2019 1:06:57 GMT -8
Hey Jer,
If you're looking for a good hand-drawn animated film, you should probably check out the French film I Lost My Body on Netflix. It's only 81 minutes long, and it's quite artful and touching.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 4, 2019 9:33:40 GMT -8
I will certainly check that one out. Also want to see Klaus, which has gotten some pretty strong reviews.
(For the record, I am always looking for good hand-drawn animated films.)
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Post by otherscott on Jan 17, 2020 13:17:54 GMT -8
Bringing back this thread to talk more about Joker. (Sorry). There is absolute rage in the twitterverse about the level of nominations for The Joker, because a lot of top critics really, really don't like the movie. And then Film Crit Hulk, who used to be my favourite critic and has now become something I have a problem with in criticism, drops this: www.patreon.com/posts/33213577The root of it is basically something we've heard too often, that the movie is justifying the violence and the lashing out of the Joker, and thus giving voice to the "incel community" who would empathize with this character. The tricky thing is I think FCH understands this movie a lot better than most of those lazy criticisms do, and drives down this road anyways. I think he understands the intention of Phillips with the movie, that is wasn't to try and justify the actions of the Joker, or even really make you think very deeply about whether the Joker was justified. Of course the Joker wasn't justified. Just because you have sympathy for the Joker and what he goes through doesn't mean you continue to nod your head as he goes through the violent stage of the movie. This movie is a cause and effect tragedy, and it's clearly framed as a cause and effect tragedy. It doesn't need to frame itself in a way that distances itself from sympathizing with Arthur because it should be obvious that in no respects is Arthur ever react reasonably to what happens. The movie doesn't care about "justification", it cares about "determination." And that's not a hard read, and I'm not sure why critics are having so much trouble with it. There are two frustrating things that come in this article: "To be clear, do I really think the filmmakers want you to openly root for the Joker? Of course not. But from virtually everything Phillips has said, I don’t think he wants to think about it that hard, either. Just as I think that Joker so nakedly aligns with his anti-PC, far-left criticisms that I’m not sure he even realizes how much there is an overlap. In short, I don’t think Phillips fully realizes what he’s actually rooting for here at all. The exploration is just bringing him there. And I talk about this all the time in culture, but we have to think so much about the things we unwittingly align ourselves with and how we play into them." We have to think so much about the things that we unwittingly align ourselves with? What does that mean? Why do our expressions and our opinions and the things we believe have to be monitored so that we have to be careful they don't tread too closely with deplorables who believe something close to that thing? That seems like a ridiculous statement to me and is everything I find wrong with a lot of modern society. No one takes anything at face value anymore, they are always looking for the hidden meaning behind what you are saying, what the thing that you said actually says about your deeper beliefs. This is a lot of why the alt-right can be so effective, because they understand that flaw and manipulate it towards their goals. There was this big thing not long ago about alt-right people using graffiti'd "It's okay to be white" in places. In a perfect world, no one falls for that trap because that is a self evidently true statement, just like it's okay to be any other race. But of course, everyone did fall right into the trap because they instead attacked the implication behind that statement, allowing the alt right to then be able to portray the left as a side who does not think it's okay to be white and help gain more onto their side. The second thing he says that I take major issue with is right at the end: "Peel back through all the opaque layers of justification and you find it’s just a movie that wants to shoot a lot people, to suffocate its parents, to avoid true consequences, and then be held up and championed as a savior for doing so. But it not only wants all that, it finds the way to justify all of it, while simultaneously putting in a bunch of lip service that denies that that is the motive behind it. It wants to lash out and scream to the world, “look what you made me do.” Which means that everything it wants, along with everything it pretends it doesn’t want, is problematic framing in a nutshell. This thinking is clearly insidious. But it’s also entirely common. And because of that, the movie, like Arthur himself, gets held up to thunderous applause. " It should be noted that FCH thinks the movie is very well made, and has some very talented direction and action skills behind it. And this is just such a bad jump to conclusion about the people who like this movie, and looks too deeply and too generally into their psyche. People like this movie because it is a well made, well told story of a man who is driven past the brink. It's not more complicated than that. People don't like the movie because it celebrates justified violence. People don't like the movie because it removes responsibility from the main character. And I don't think FCH would phrase it that way like I did, but that is what he says in the paragraph. To rearrange the above paragraph and use exactly his words, "the movie gets held up to thunderous applause because it wants to lash out and scream to the world "look what you made me do" by killing a bunch of people and avoiding true consequences for it." I'm sorry, that is completely unfair. The funny thing is I don't even love the movie. I went into reasons why earlier, and I mostly hold to them. It shies away from real depth and exchanges it for an unnerving focused look at a single character. For a lot of people, that is a feature, for me it is a bit of a bug because ultimately the character itself doesn't really mean anything. But for the love of all that is good and holy, can we stop projecting? This is not a complex movie (from a thematic standpoint) to wrap your brain around. Can we stop being so mad that this movie got a lot of Oscar nominations? Like most nominated movies, it is truly well made even if it doesn't always reach the writing highs you would like it to. Sorry, I read too much criticism and get so annoyed I need somewhere to vent.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 17, 2020 22:04:45 GMT -8
Yeah, Scott, takes like that from FCH do seem really disingenuous.
Speaking of projecting, here's something from the comments section of freelance critic Glenn Kenny's blog. He really hates the movie, but these comments seem, to me, like they're reaching, a lot:
"In "Joker," the exasperation Fleck has toward his female, African-American social worker doesn't so much seem to have its roots in the Inefficiency of the System, given the waves of resentment Fleck/Phoenix aims directly at her. The bus sequence features Fleck finding reasons to be hostile to a conspicuously overweight African-American woman. Later, when he has a gun, he aims it at a television set that's showing the African-American dance team, the Nicholas Brothers. At the end of the movie, he murders an African American female doctor."
Re: his first point, I felt this was a fairly standard solipsistic-patient-venting-at-their-therapist scene, and that Arthur would've reacted that way regardless of his therapist's race, gender, or age. His second point is absurd: Fleck was being playful with the woman's boy, she was unnecessarily rude to him (given how her son was enjoying himself), and though Arthur was a bit taken aback by her reaction, his response was nowhere near hostile (more like vaguely sad and dejected). Re: his third point, I don't feel the movie draws any particular attention to the TV dance team being African American, and that it was more just random, stock 1970s footage. Regarding the last point, in blurring the lines between reality and Arthur's internal fantasy, it stands to reason that the film would be basically bookended by a therapist inside and outside an asylum, sharing some similarities in appearance.
Now, the question is, how purposeful, thematically-speaking, was the casting of black actors? (This, of course, also extends to the Sophie character, as well.) To me, they were mostly cast to reflect the racial diversity of New York City (there were also some Hispanic kids at the beginning of the film). While I think white privilege is, to a degree, an aspect of any story like this (some folks have noted that most black folks with the same mental-health issues as Arthur would, sadly, more than likely be living on the streets, due to having even less of a social safety net), I think it's a reach to suggest that his anger and frustration is aimed primarily at black people. And I don't think Arthur fantasizes about Sophie for any other reasons than she's pretty, generally friendly to him, and within close proximity. Now, Arthur isn't presented as a role model, and even if he WAS blatantly racist, that would hardly mean the film endorses his POV. That said, should directors avoid casting minorities in these types of roles to avoid any (likely unintentional) social/cultural subtext?
Just imagine if the film had Arthur just randomly, flippantly shooting innocent civilians, as the Joker character is certainly given to doing in other media...
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2020 16:51:52 GMT -8
I think the "Arthur hates black people" narrative might be more compelling if he didn't also attack and kill several white people throughout the film. I just don't see racial identity as a component of the story; as you say, J.C., the casting of nonwhite actors seems to be done to reflect the actual racial makeup of NYC.
Re: FCH's review - I confess I didn't read the full thing (he continues to strike me as a once-talented critic who has turned into the cold oatmeal of pop-culture criticism), but that "unwittingly align ourselves with" comment you quote really bugs me. It's the sort of comment that comes from a critic who really, really wants to say something profound about how the movie connects with our modern world.
I've long endorsed the idea that art is subjective - that people connect differently to different films based on their own tastes and experiences. FCH claims that we must therefore be careful that our own tastes... don't align with those of toxic people?
Are we really going down that route? Because if so, we'd better clear away the Fight Club and Matrix DVDs. Those two movies have a pretty strong following among the alt-right, despite the fact that both were produced years before 4Chan even existed. Should we take All in the Family reruns off the air? Archie Bunker is one of the most beloved characters in sitcom history, but the sad truth is that a number of folks (then and now) love him because they support his bigoted views.
Or, alternately, we can appreciate the characters and themes of these and other shows and films from non-bigoted levels. We don't need to draw a line between every white male TV antihero and the alt-right. Yes, garbage people enjoy watching TV/movies, and sometimes they will enjoy the same things that we do. That should not "lessen" the shows or movies on a qualitative level, because we should be mature enough to understand that the opinions of said garbage people has no bearing on our own ability to recognize and enjoy a well-told story.
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