|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 1, 2018 16:21:29 GMT -8
It's that time of year again. Happy new year everyone! With all the platitudes out of the way, please remember to post your 2018 film adventures here.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 1, 2018 20:50:22 GMT -8
Though it has its moments of quiet, observational profundity, and features one of the more nuanced performances of Willem Dafoe's career, The Florida Project perhaps leans a bit too frequently on shrill, irritating behaviour, and probably would've been a more focused, less repetitive experience with ~twenty minutes shaved off its two-hour running time.
A Ghost Story is bound to test the patience of many viewers with its long, still takes, but it's an artfully-composed, slyly witty, and thematically-ambitious mood piece.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 6, 2018 23:38:51 GMT -8
I watched two very tonally divergent films this weekend. One of which, Videodrome, an incredibly impersonal and cold film, which had almost zero cogent narrative rhythm between scenes...frankly I liked this one a lot. Storytelling or not, Cronenberg showcases scene after scene of compelling setpiece after another with great insight and thematic material packed into seemingly each one. I couldnt help imaginining if I were to make a film, it would probably end up looking something like this. Kind of messily compiled together with not enough care to overarching detail and structure sprinkled with good ideas and striking imagery. 4/5
The other film I watched, was incredibly warm and personally involving. As someone who is occasionally accused of being cold and insensitive, nothing validated those fears of mechanicalism more than Lady Bird: a film so inviting and authentically warm it made me feel like a damned robot for not responding to it all that much.
I also liked this quite a bit. Clearly well-written, funny, and the tonal management of drama and comedy is really rather impressive. Lady Birds adolescent plight is honest and charming, and yet somehow I always felt at a distance. Maybe because I've never been a teenage girl, who knows. Here's hoping I get to experience that someday, if for no other reason then to rewatch this movie and analysis the results of its effect before and after.
3.5/5
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 7, 2018 15:10:29 GMT -8
I don't know that I could watch Videodrome these days, if only because I don't want to devote a second of my time to that piece-of-shit, James Woods. He probably wouldn't respond much to Lady Bird, either, but he'd most certainly hit on her more conventionally-attractive teenage friend, like he did with Amber Tamblyn when she was 16.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 7, 2018 17:51:49 GMT -8
I don't know that I could watch Videodrome these days, if only because I don't want to devote a second of my time to that piece-of-shit, James Woods. He probably wouldn't respond much to Lady Bird, either, but he'd most certainly hit on her more conventionally-attractive teenage friend, like he did with Amber Tamblyn when she was 16. Haha, this comment seems designed to get a reaction from me. Idk though, seems a bit much of an indictment for an alleged attempt to "pick someone up". Unless I'm missing some piece of the puzzle (I had to look it up) To be fair im far less likely to care when you dismiss skepticism in the name of promoting some ideology while simultaneously asking others to believe "women", arbitrarily, and as a guilt trip while presenting a story that is unconfirmed. Blech, what dribble. Yeah, what a harmful trend of skepticism and predication on likelihood and evidence before coming to conclusions. I also love the subtle inclusion of gender in order to posit that this norm of skepticism is so obviously just sexism disguised. Perhaps people are either blind or uneducated to the biological predispositions of men and women, and thus the importance of such standards. The likelihood of predatory men and malicious sexual behavior is far more tenable given their evopsychology, the same too holds true for women to destroy reputations passively by fabricating such stories. Both are clear evils committed on behest of what is the worst of both genders worst instincts. This is clearly indicated by scientific literature and analysis of gender differences with regards to behavior. So I find the whole "war against women" narrative a bit infuriating, and in this particular case, the idea that we should believe such stories inherently. I would find general misanthropy more accomdating, it at least would be logically consistent and less deeply sexist.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 7, 2018 19:09:56 GMT -8
Yeah, him hitting on a teenager is really on the lower half of the list of things that make him a piece-of-shit person. I just thought I'd mention that as a little connective tissue to your Lady Bird mention.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 7, 2018 19:28:31 GMT -8
Yeah, him hitting on a teenager is really on the lower half of the list of things that make him a piece-of-shit person. I just thought I'd mention that as a little connective tissue to your Lady Bird mention. Ah. Gotcha. Yeah I don't know anything about the guy.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 7, 2018 19:49:10 GMT -8
Unkin, there's actually been some significant pushback lately against the #MeToo movement, from people concerned that it's getting out of hand. There's worry about mob mentality, fracturing social environments, and the promoting of victimization. Obviously, the culture at large is in the early stages of response (note some of the speeches at tonight's Golden Globes), and it's a little hard to tell which men deserve to be implicated (excepting some obvious cases). But there's at least some awareness of the other side of the issue, and I expect it will grow once the first wave of #MeToo passes. Yeah, him hitting on a teenager is really on the lower half of the list of things that make him a piece-of-shit person. I'll admit - when Amber Tamblyn's accusations first surfaced, and a bunch of actors began calling out James Woods, part of me suspected that the accusations were false (or at least exaggerated), spurred on by Woods' politics. Then a few weeks later, we got the Weinstein allegations and all that followed, and I reconsidered. But I'd still say that Woods stalking teenage girls is significantly worse than his political tweets (assuming that's what you're referring to).
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 7, 2018 21:46:50 GMT -8
I hadn't heard about Woods stalking multiple teenage girls, just of that instance, Jeremy. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more, given Tamblyn's statement about his attitude ("16? Even better.") in that situation. But yeah, if he hit on her, was rebuffed, and never engaged in that sort of behaviour again (and hadn't prior...unlikely but, you know), I would put his general attitude about the world, and his general treatment of others, on a somewhat higher level of shittiness. Regardless, I don't want to devote another second of my time thinking about him. In my opinion, he's a vile human being, and I'm glad he probably won't be getting much work in film and TV going forward.
ETA: I notice his most recent notable work is voicing an animated Lex Luthor. Seems about right...you know, minus the mastermind part.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 7, 2018 22:29:20 GMT -8
Unkin, there's actually been some significant pushback lately against the #MeToo movement, from people concerned that it's getting out of hand. There's worry about mob mentality, fracturing social environments, and the promoting of victimization. Obviously, the culture at large is in the early stages of response (note some of the speeches at tonight's Golden Globes), and it's a little hard to tell which men deserve to be implicated (excepting some obvious cases). But there's at least some awareness of the other side of the issue, and I expect it will grow once the first wave of #MeToo passes. Yeah I figured, and I appreciate that there is some reasonable pushback rather than...well, unreasonable pushback, which is somewhat hopeful. Obviously I see this all as being part of a bigger cultural issue. The problem is I suspect this political separation and extremism will just continue to oscillate from one extreme to the other as leftist ideology shifts further away from reasonability, which shifts pretty much everyone into chaos. I know I ranted rather fervently about the growing ideological discord and extremism among the left a couple years ago, obviously I've been saddened that it seems to get more absurd by the week. The problem isn't just ideologically one sided though, extremism breeds extremism as a reaction, people as a whole think mostly in absolutes, and so as ridiculous as the left gets, the right matches it with unbridled hatred and resentment, of course this only substantiates further 'justified' antagonism from the opposition. A war of ideas separated by such an absurdly large margin, and fueled by resentfulness is a rather scary reality. My only hope is that as each side of the spectrum fluctuates to extreme ends, a reasonable majority of people not so committed to the fringes take a sec and go "oh shit, these people are nuts" and join in some effort to find equilibrium. We've obviously never seen anything introduced like the internet and its malaise inducing structure-less culture, so, really only time will tell.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 8, 2018 9:19:16 GMT -8
Hey, at least folks on the left understand that there's divide and discord in their ranks. Lots of people on the right are too enamored by their current leverage in Washington to focus on the deep internal divisions within the party.
But I suspect you're right, and the #MeToo wave is an outgrowth of the current political ping-pong effect. People are expected to either fully commit, or else be branded "part of the problem." This extremism of course leads to reactive extremism (arguing that Hollywood is awful for letting this deviancy go on for so long), which only adds to the problem.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.
Incidentally, Unkin, are you familiar with the works of Christina Hoff Sommers (aka the Factual Feminist)? She takes a very critical, matter-of-fact approach to women's issues, and talks a lot about the problems of victimization. She's also written some really good books on the matter (including The War Against Boys, which is unfortunately even more relevant now than it was when it was published). I think you'd find her work interesting.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 8, 2018 15:33:33 GMT -8
Hey, at least folks on the left understand that there's divide and discord in their ranks. Lots of people on the right are too enamored by their current leverage in Washington to focus on the deep internal divisions within the party. But I suspect you're right, and the #MeToo wave is an outgrowth of the current political ping-pong effect. People are expected to either fully commit, or else be branded "part of the problem." This extremism of course leads to reactive extremism (arguing that Hollywood is awful for letting this deviancy go on for so long), which only adds to the problem. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail. Incidentally, Unkin, are you familiar with the works of Christina Hoff Sommers (aka the Factual Feminist)? She takes a very critical, matter-of-fact approach to women's issues, and talks a lot about the problems of victimization. She's also written some really good books on the matter (including The War Against Boys, which is unfortunately even more relevant now than it was when it was published). I think you'd find her work interesting. I have a very shallow knowledge of her work. I'm not precisely sure what it is she actually agrees to with regards to feminist thought. Assuming she agrees with patriarchy and other established social constructionist views of society relating to feminism I doubt I would find too much agreement with her (I don't find much coinciding of belief with feminist thought outside of gender roles and discriminatory restriction of the individual), but I at least respectfully disagree if that's the case, because she doesn't seem at all to be toxic or unreasonable.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 8, 2018 16:06:16 GMT -8
I actually think you'd agree with a lot of what she says. She regularly criticizes many current feminist concepts (the patriarchy, victimization, etc.), but frames her arguments in an eloquent and often interesting way. She's more in line with the old-school feminist movement, before it became as fragmented and controversial as it is today.
|
|
|
Post by unkinhead on Jan 8, 2018 17:05:46 GMT -8
I actually think you'd agree with a lot of what she says. She regularly criticizes many current feminist concepts (the patriarchy, victimization, etc.), but frames her arguments in an eloquent and often interesting way. She's more in line with the old-school feminist movement, before it became as fragmented and controversial as it is today. Gotcha. I'll check her out later. Uh, not in a demeaning or sexual way, I'm not a chauvinist objectifying pig, I mean...let me explain...I just...
|
|
|
Post by guttersnipe on Jan 9, 2018 12:52:21 GMT -8
almost zero cogent narrative rhythm between scenes Kind of messily compiled together with not enough care to overarching detail Not quite sure I follow you on this, as I'd argue that it's remarkably tonally assured, often the hallmark of what must be the horror auteur. Or do you just mean from a script sense? Because Scanners' troubled production led to a very scattershot screenplay; thankfully all its other elements are twenty-four carat (except Stephen Lack's acting, but then I'm not much concerned about that sort of thing).
|
|