I've seen LiT; it's a good movie, but it's not really "date night" material.
And that's OK! I don't expect every movie to get me some action. When the night's winding down, though, kids in bed, and my wife asks, "What do you want to do tonight", answering "watching a film that you will find at the very least boring, if not offensive or emotionally draining, because dudes on the internet said so" isn't the easiest sell. I love my wife, but she's very much a "I'm watching this to be entertained" popcorn-action/romcom/explosions and lolz kinda girl.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I've seen LiT; it's a good movie, but it's not really "date night" material.
And that's OK! I don't expect every movie to get me some action. When the night's winding down, though, kids in bed, and my wife asks, "What do you want to do tonight", answering "watching a film that you will find at the very least boring, if not offensive or emotionally draining, because dudes on the internet said so" isn't the easiest sell. I love my wife, but she's very much a "I'm watching this to be entertained" popcorn-action/romcom/explosions and lolz kinda girl.
Like B:L said, Four Lions vividly recalls the recent terrorist attack in Boston, not just through its prescient depiction of a marathon bombing but also through its portrayal of the Lions themselves who, like the portrait of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that has unfolded in the media, couple a foreigner’s hatred of the West with an affinity for Western culture and reveal a familiar humanity in the cold face of a killer.
As the final credits divide time between distant security footage of the Lions and uncomfortably close home videos, it’s tempting to divide their personalities into separate halves as well, isolating the endearing friends bickering over Maroon 5 from the blurry figures captured on CCTV preparing bombs. However, what Lions shows us is that the life of a character like Omar isn’t compartmentalized in that way, with Omar being a loving husband in one moment and then suddenly a killer in the next. Rather, the tender and violent aspects of Omar’s personality are constantly present so that we find ourselves watching a murderer tucking his child in at night and a doting father blowing himself up in the middle of a pharmacy, as inconceivable as that may be. The challenge of Four Lions is understanding how these irreconcilable traits can co-exist, how something as mundane and human as Mal and Tsarnaev’s love of rap can live alongside a feverish hatred for materialism and capitalism, and how the virtues exhibited by someone like Omar may fuel rather than resist the destruction of others and himself.
It seems clear to me that the answer lies in the relationship between the Lions. The terrorists are all inept losers, whose diatribes against the West and moderate Islam speak to an inability to fit into either the English or Arab world. Omar clearly yearns for a position of importance that normal life won't grant him, and Waj, Mal, Faisal, and especially Barry are all so deficient that it's hard to imagine them being embraced by any group but their own. Theirs is a group founded upon such extreme views that it can't afford to reject anyone, and because terror lies at its center the strength of the group depends on a constant commitment to terrorism. Without that, the Lions would just be a group of rejects with no reason to be around each other, and without each other they would each be alone.
Maybe that's why Mal reconsiders after meeting a girl, and why the friendship between Waj and Omar nearly forces them to do the same. Whereas the insufferable Barry remains fully devoted to the cause, knowing that terrorists are the only people who would ever accept him, the other three see a possibility for fulfilling relationships outside of their cabal. Omar begins the movie imagining himself dying with a smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that a suicide attack is the only thing that could give his life meaning, yet by the end he's ready to give it all up for Waj's sake. Maybe the terrorist group gave Omar's life meaning by giving him a source of friendship and importance through Waj, only to then threaten his friend's life and in doing so threaten Omar's own sense of fulfillment. Instead of accepting that, perhaps Omar finally realizes that he and Waj didn't need to be terrorists to be friends, that Waj would have given him the admiration he wanted even if he hadn't been leading a jihad. Unfortunately he realizes that too late, and following Waj's death he sees the planned bombing not as the thing that filled his life with meaning but rather as the thing that took that meaning away.
Of course, it would be an oversimplification to blame this fictional terrorist attack, much less the real attacks that inspired it and that have occurred since, on friendships between extremists. Comedy isn't about painting a complete picture of the world, though, but rather about revealing the layer of humor within human experience that, while often obscure, is nonetheless essential to the whole. Four Lions finds that humor in the friendly relationships between these terrorists, which forces us to acknowledge the quite human frailties and insecurities that exist even alongside their more monstrous qualities. It's a contradiction that's difficult to accept, but how could we ever begin understand until we accept that it is there?
All that said, I have to say that most of the jokes didn't work very well with me.
A lot of them, like pointing the bazooka the wrong way and having to pretend to be gay in a pinch, just seemed kind of obvious. The others didn't leave too strong of an impression, though I did laugh pretty hard at the confusion over whether a Wookie counts as a bear.
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
I learned something important from this movie.
Benedict Cumberbatch should not be a negotiator under any circumstance.
That aside, the movie itself was technically well done...but I had a tough time making it out of the first act. The "Confederacy of Dunces" troupe always gets on my nerves, especially when they're all dunces.
Alright I finally watched Fresh and I'm ready to talk about it with you gu-oh we're already on the next movie.
(Fresh was good! I had never heard of it before this thread. I liked how it counterbalanced the grim reality of ghetto life with a bit of wish fufillment fantasy - you don't envy Fresh's life but you do envy his hyperintelligence and badassness. Giancarlo Esposito is great and is pretty different here than he is Breaking Bad. Fun fact: he isn't hispanic and instead has a black mother and Italian father and was born in Denmark and raised in Europe and NYC.)
Well maybe it won't get someone to sleep with you but maybe it will get someone to rest their head on your shoulder while you stare wistfully into the distance.
Alright I finally watched Fresh and I'm ready to talk about it with you gu-oh we're already on the next movie.
(Fresh was good! I had never heard of it before this thread. I liked how it counterbalanced the grim reality of ghetto life with a bit of wish fufillment fantasy - you don't envy Fresh's life but you do envy his hyperintelligence and badassness. Giancarlo Esposito is great and is pretty different here than he is Breaking Bad. Fun fact: he isn't hispanic and instead has a black mother and Italian father and was born in Denmark and raised in Europe and NYC.)
I too just watched this tonight, with my girl. I asked her what she thought of it after and she said "You make me watch sad movies." Not much to say about it that hasn't already been said. If she's up to it we'll be doing Four Lions tomorrow or the next day.
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Alright I finally watched Fresh and I'm ready to talk about it with you gu-oh we're already on the next movie.
(Fresh was good! I had never heard of it before this thread. I liked how it counterbalanced the grim reality of ghetto life with a bit of wish fufillment fantasy - you don't envy Fresh's life but you do envy his hyperintelligence and badassness. Giancarlo Esposito is great and is pretty different here than he is Breaking Bad. Fun fact: he isn't hispanic and instead has a black mother and Italian father and was born in Denmark and raised in Europe and NYC.)
I too just watched this tonight, with my girl. I asked her what she thought of it after and she said "You make me watch sad movies." Not much to say about it that hasn't already been said. If she's up to it we'll be doing Four Lions tomorrow or the next day.
Yea, my fiance took a business trip and got back a few days ago, while I was both watching Fresh and trying to figure out my selection, as my first choice got taken off Instant Watch. She was surprised about the before(Justice League and Star Trek) and after.
oh and "oh matter of factly" way, four lions was filmed near where i live, craziest thing was i watching the film in the cinema (cineworld sheffield) and it had scenes which were just down the road where we were sitting. they lived right down the road.
now if you're all in LA that might not be a big deal, but us in the north of england, seeing these guys living down the road was mind blowing. the main leader terrorist working security if i remember right, was in working in meadowhall, were i was just minutes before driving to cineworld to watch this film and to see the place i was at just moments ago on the big screen, surreal as fuck.
If those can make it in. I'm in to watch some movies. Won't be able to start till this weekend though.
Yes. There is no requirement that the films be art films. Midnight Run for instance was a popular buddy comedy, but one unlikely to have been seen by most people here due to it's age. It's also an excellent example of a buddy comedy that's extremely well made. The key requirements is someone feeling passionately about the film. In a postive way. The Love Guru rule only exists because it's such a shit film and I don't want people thinking this is MST3K without the commentary that makes it worth dealing with shitty films.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Also, there's no rule against people catching up with older movies and posting about them. More conversation is always a plus!
I'm looking forward to watching Four Lions and Exiled this weekend. They both look terrific.
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Ohhhhh man I missed seeing Krull on the list. EASILY one of Liam Neason's finer roles.
I wonder if some of the wackiness ought to have been toned down a little - the reason the film is powerful is because it takes terrorists and humanizes them and shows them as real people - but then it'll have the characters act like cartoon characters instead of real people sometimes - like the time the guy goes to buy the bleach dressed in a chicken suit.
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
Watched Four Lions:
Interesting movie. I really wanted to enjoy the wacky British comedy aspects of it. And seriously, if the subject matter had been anything but terrorism, I probably would have been laughing my ass off. I just couldn't get past the main focus being on terrorists. I can watch Matt Damon and James Bond kill people all day long, but I was consistently disturbed by Four Lions. Even with the bumbling facade.
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Interesting movie. I really wanted to enjoy the wacky British comedy aspects of it. And seriously, if the subject matter had been anything but terrorism, I probably would have been laughing my ass off. I just couldn't get past the main focus being on terrorists. I can watch Matt Damon and James Bond kill people all day long, but I was consistently disturbed by Four Lions. Even with the bumbling facade.
I think that's part of what irked me too: the fact that in this day and age, there are people that are this incompetent, and yet they still have access to everything they need to kill other people with bombs. The barrier to entry, so to speak, has never been lower.
It used to be in the late 90's you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a Hong Kong Action Film. Then they just kind of disappeared. The bubble popped and Hong Kong went from making over 200 films a year to just under 40. But before the bubble popped it was a golden age where a copy of Hard Boiled could make you king among your friends. We talk a lot about guys like Woo, and Tsui Hark but one of the directors from that period who managed to stay under Western Radars was Johnnie To. While Woo was making Hard Boiled, To was making comedies. But in the early part of the last decade he switched his focus to Gangster films, and something magical happened. People outside of Hong Kong started noticing.
It started with Breaking News, carried on with Election and Election 2 and then leads us up to our film of the week Exiled.
Set in the lawless time leading up to the transfer of Macao from Portugal to China, Exiled is the story of two Triad assassins sent to kill their friend Wo, and the two other assassins that seek to protect him. A gun fight erupts and then turns into dinner as the group plans one last score to leave Wo's family taken care of. From there follows a complicated plot leading to the heist of a massive gold bribe. Along the way we are treated to long tension building shots where no dialogue happens but expressions and mannerisms give us all of the subtext we could ever want.
And eventually we realize that this is Johnnie To's homage to the spaghetti western. Long shots building up to a flurry of violence. Men trapped by duty into doing things they don't want to. The idea of violence being an inescapable cycle. The harmonica music. Lots of little touches to give us the fusion of the spaghetti western and the Hong Kong action film. Enjoy!
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Exiled:
Where guns are used to pick up anything lying on the ground!
An interesting piece. It hit the key notes, and bonus points for harmonica-playing, Scout-using army man. A few minor things distracted me(People do not need to get shot that many times to die), but the thing that stands out them most to me is To's blend of Western and Hong Kong. To me, it's an odd mix, because it's taking two genres that both have these incredible high points by themselves. Hong Kong is known for incredible gun fights that, while stretching the limits of plausibility, leave an indelible mark on the viewer. Westerns elevate the lone hero to an almost mythical force, whether for what is right or what is right for himself.
What I got out of Exiled was a group of men that made a mistaken decision regarding one of their friends, lucked into a ton of gold, and only gave it to their friend's wife and child when they got called out on it, while having gun fights that, while pushing some realism boundaries, I forgot mostly all of them while writing this.
It also contained the most useless character I've ever seen in that police officer. His entire purpose in this movie was to be laughably inept, and to tell us how many hours had passed.
Not a bad movie...but less than the sum of its parts, to me.
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
The purpose of the police officer was to demonstrate the lawlessness of the transition from Portuguese colony to part of China. He demonstrates corruption and apathy. He's a tool of Boss Fay, and even when things have gotten past the point where even a corrupt cop could turn a blind eye to the violence he does because it doesn't matter.
I have to say that I was a bit lukewarm on this one too:
I enjoyed the more whimsical aspects of the gunplay, like when Cat used his gun to maneuver a soda can into the police officer's head. However, while I expected the gunplay to only become more unrealistic over time, the most over the top moment (the spinning door) seems to occur at the beginning and set expectations that the rest of the battles don't even try to meet. After that I was expecting something like Shoot 'Em Up, but instead I got Hong Kong action film that was only slightly sillier than usual.
That's not to say that it was all downhill from there, though. The scene I enjoyed most, the one where Wo is lying on the ground and being filled with bullets as his friends helplessly watch, was very memorable despite being rather tame compared to the more stylish moments. I think it worked for me because it was the one of the few times when I really felt the fraternal bond between these characters, and how much it hurt that they couldn't fulfill it.
That also speaks to a major shortcoming in the film, namely the lack of time spent on developing these characters and their relationship to each other. Almost everything hinges on a single photograph and the implication that they have this storied history together, but apart from the charming opening sequence where they furnish Wo's flat we rarely see a glimpse of this enduring bond that is supposedly worth dying over. This issue is only exacerbated by the performances which, frankly, seem nearly devoid of real emotion or charisma. The actors aren't blocks of wood reading their lines like they came out of a phone book, but none of them are remotely convincing or likable in their portrayal of gunmen who are distinguished from each other only by their appearance and nicknames.
That's probably worth overlooking for fans of the genre, but I guess it stands out to me because I've never really been a fan of these films. That fact made Exiled a rare experience for me, something I could enjoy mostly for its novelty, but not one that I'm eager to repeat in the near future.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a big fan of Johnnie To's works. I thought the Elections were overrated, his style is very Soderberghish (read: long drawn out brain numbing boredom) and his pacing is erratic and long in the tooth. But I'm a fan of westerns so there's definitely a conflict in my bias going into Exiled
It was a long-in-the-tooth drawn out brain numbing western, which is ok when juxtaposed with the other movies of the time, but when compared to Internal Affairs of 2002 you can spot the flaws in pacing and in the cutting room.
The mood of the movie kept switching back and forth between whimsy and blood-drenched action. While the action setpieces were great, the drama really didn't draw you in to actually care about what happens to those characters, and in that sense it loses some impact. Some of the characters were paper thin despite how long the movie was. You can tell there was too much of too little going on, which is very Soderberghish as he also likes going into the banality of details.
The theme of a western worked out well, but it's not that the movie didn't improve on the formula, instead it added too much to it and overloaded it. There's good things to be said about the western's ability to not have to say much of anything, but Exiled takes it to a whole different level. I'm fine with long westerns (most recently watched: Django Unchained), but I found myself wondering why this movie was still going about a quarter to halfway through.
Still, it was an interesting premise and an interesting amalgation of a western and hong kong gun action flick, but I'm still not a fan of Johhnie To's works.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited July 2013
Posted on behalf of Atomika
Young Adult
released: 2011
dir. Jason Reitman
writ. Diablo Cody
Let me first preface this article with the caveats exposing my indifference toward both director Jason Reitman and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter/Williamsburg-Patient-Zero Diablo Cody. They have both developed a polarizing presence in film criticism circles in their relatively short time in the spotlight, and while I can't argue that those grievances are wholly unfounded, it's also true that Reitman and Cody both have a specific and unique voice to offer the cinematic community. Reitman, particularly, I've had various problems with in his three films prior to Young Adult, and the most consistent complaint I've made against him is his proclivity to dress up hoary rehashes with great acting from famous faces paired with a more nuanced aesthetic to disguise what is clearly middlebrow as the thoughtfully highbrow. Now, to put a positive spin on this phenomenon, you could say that he knows how to elevate the thin and trite above its origins (and you'd be right), but I actually think Reitman's real talent is telling stories within the performances of his actors. No matter what you might think of the gravity of his milieu or its detachment from realism, it's clear that Reitman firmly believes that the internal lives of people are the most important thing in a story, and that's something that I could only hope that more directors (I'm looking at you, Zach Snyder and Chris Nolan) would take to heart.
Jason Reitman builds characters. He crafts them. And he lets their actors inhabit them and become them. Then he tells a story about their lives. And what could be better than that?
The Woman-Child in full regalia
This is Mavis Gary. She's a thirty-something single woman living in the city and working as writer of young adult fiction, which is her "dream job," as she's constantly reminded by other people in the film (though we never hear her speak of it so fondly). We open on her being completely miserable and alone in her apartment, where she finds out through the internet that her old high school boyfriend and his wife are holding a party for their new baby. With little forethought and great impulse, she hatches a plan: travel back to her old hometown, seduce her ex, and make a new life with him. This may sound poorly thought-out to begin with, but don't worry . . . . it gets much worse.
The schlub of her dreams
Mavis isn't subtle in her efforts, basically throwing her herself at her ex when she first sees him, and his initial rebuff only strengthens her resolve. However, her pettiness and destructive course is pointed out by an old friend from school, Matt, who pointedly informs Mavis about how shitty she's being for her own personal ends. Matt is a lonely geek who is still crippled after a particularly nasty bit of hazing while still a high school student, so not only does he have to contend with his statural and social challenge (because, well, Patton Oswalt), he's also now physically impaired and almost incapable of having sex. Mavis and Matt form an interesting couple, and in a more traditional dynamic Matt and his weary cut-through-the-bullshit attitude would be the obvious foil for Mavis' oblivious recklessness (and in many ways he is), and their meeting at loggerheads would be the engine that drives the eventual and inevitable epiphany that they are perfect for each other. But this film largely eschews that bit of meet-cute tradition and plays the relationship with much more melancholy and realistic dourness than it might under a different writer and director.
"I'm not joking. My penis has a right angle. Stop laughing."
The traditional narrative arc for these kinds of films almost always end with the girl realizing that the hunk is a pig and the geeky nerd is the real prize, but Young Adult turns those tropes on their heads.
The "Nerd Proves Self to Hot Girl to Win Her Away From Psycho Jock Boyfriend" plot is almost always a fantasy from the POV of the nerd. The theorizing on that says that this exists because most writers are nerds and most nerds did not have hot girlfriends in high school (or any girlfriends, regularly), and while a bit pat in its application, the math on this assertion proves itself for the most part; look at almost any example of this trope and you'll find a poorly-developed female lead that is barely a human being at all, and certainly one devoid of any agency on her own part. She needs the help of the sensitive D&D player to forcefully demonstrate that her dumb, violent, abusive, lecherous boyfriend is bad for her, and when this successfully happens, the nerd will be rewarded with sex from the hot girl. The girl in this scenario is never more than placeholder for motivation and reward for the main character, the heroic nerd, and her will and desires are never considered because A) as a desirable female she obviously will have to have a man, and men will win her sexual affection through alpha-tastic feats of skill. Spelled out like this, it's hopefully easy to see why this trope is negative and harmful and hopefully dying out with the rest of the rape culture; even when it's done well (like, say, The Revenge of the Nerds), it's pretty ick when broken into its elements.
Young Adult subverts this common narrative first and foremost by regendering the scenario, and then making all the stereotypically unlikable players into nice people while making the protagonist a petulant weirdo who (still cleaving to the mores of the tradition) treats people like prizes to be won or discarded. Mavis Gary is petty and mean and empty, but she's also complex and uniquely motivated. And the guy she's trying to win over? He's pretty happy, and is in a healthy and fulfilling relationship with his wife. There's no one to "rescue" here, and everyone acts with their own agency. The people here are real people, not rewards or achievements for objectifying someone. But that's the interesting part about Mavis -- she objectifies everyone. Everyone is a means to some selfish end for her, and she barrels through this narrative arc not too unlike the charismatic nebbish (played by Ben Stiller or Matthew Broderick or Jesse Eisenberg or whothefuckever) would in a middling rom-com. She treats her ex, Buddy, like he's the missing piece that will not just complete her life, but will rebuild it and make it whole and fulfilling, never pausing to ask herself if that's something he even remotely wants (spoiler: it's not, at all). In that way, Young Adult is a mature and more realistic version of a John Hughes movie, with all the horrible outcomes that would surely produce.
from Abercrombie's "Resentful Stepmom" collection
So what's it all about?
Mavis is an unlikable character, and intentionally so, and so her story isn't about rooting for an unlikable person to succeed, but rather rooting for an unlikable person to gain some perspective. In better words, to grow up.
I've never liked that phrase, really. I've always found it condescending to imply that age imparted some kind of innate sense of wisdom once you allowed it to wash over you, accepting the loss of your youth and (largely implied) your energy and optimism and belief that you still control your outcomes. However, there are admittedly aspects of youth that do not survive the transition into adulthood without hamstringing a person in ways that impair their functioning as a self-directed independent human. Everyone knows (or often, unfortunately, IS) someone who is still controlled by holds put on them as a child, either through parental approval or bonds made in grade school or accolades heaped upon early achievement. I personally have a friend who came from a broken and impoverished home and made himself the vice president of a major national corporation by his 30th birthday; he frequently spends his weekends gladhanding in stadium suites with the likes of Drew Brees and Jay-Z, but almost every time I see him he can't help but bring up how cheated he felt by our football coach in high school when he was made second-string linebacker (the guy that was first-string, btw, is entering his eighth year in the NFL this season). So there's my friend; great job, lots of money, great marriage with a kid on the way, hangs out with celebrities, . . . . and yet he can't let the past go, even when it's petty and he's probably in the wrong.
Late in the film, we learn about a big event involving her ex, Buddy, that explains why Mavis can't let the past go, and I've always been torn about that late-coming revelation. I don't like when films withhold information from the audience to build false drama or mystery; it's usually just shitty writing, and quite often I feel like the director has falsely manipulated the audience or wasted their time. However, I also believe that a clever director can make that false manipulation work in favor of the film, forcing the audience to rethink their attitudes toward characters and scenarios once framed in a different context. Does that happen here? I'm not totally sold on it one way or another, to be truthful. In this case, however, a big question is, "Does reframing the context make Mavis a better person?" Honestly, I'm not sure, but what I can attest to is that it makes her a more relatable and understandable person. It provides the audience with empathy, and it colors sadness to everything that came before it. Mavis ceases being an unstoppable rampage of wanton greed and petty destruction and instead becomes a sad and bitter woman facing middle-age alone because she feels that a better life was stolen from her. And maybe she's right.
It's her insistence upon magical thinking, the kind of which romantic comedies and children's stories depend on to make their worlds work, that defines Mavis as an overgrown child and distinguishes her from everyone she knows. In the end, I wouldn't argue that we're supposed to be rooting for her, and I wouldn't even suggest that she's a better person. The journey here isn't an arc of self-discovery, or an arc of overcoming adversity, or an arc of defeating opposition. Mavis' journey is crossing the last bridge to her past simply because it's the only familiar thing she has left. She sticks one hand out, grasping and beckoning for it to take her back, or for it to go forward with her; failing that, her other hand holds a blazing torch, ready to burn the bridge down.
I liked this a lot, both for the ways in which it subverts the usual character arcs of thirtysomethings finding themselves and growing up and being happy and because scabrous, badly behaved people can be very, very funny.
A smart script, some really beautiful performances and the pleasing sensation that I didn't know how it was going to end.
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
So, Young Adult.
Everybody knows a couple of people like Mavis, at least, so moving past that:
Everything pre-bombshell was, to me, one of the most successful takes on a horror movie that I've seen. This woman sets her goal, which is quite unattainable, and then flies in the face of all reason and evidence to reach it, powered by some source unseen, frightening in scope. If the definition of insanity truly is repeating the same action expecting different results, then we bear witness to an insane woman, reaching to the moon on the backs of the many.
The miscarriage bombshell actually put a face on her disorder, not only showing that she could have been like them, but from the tone of voice, that she felt she wanted it. Going to Atomika's point of "Does this reframing make Mavis better", I don't think so...it just makes her pitiable. It pulls the curtain back on her motivation, and we see nothing but a broken girl, running on will alone, trying to return to when things made sense. She perceives a second chance with Buddy as the way to that time, and God help what gets in her way, because in the world of stories, the Princess always gets her way.
I thought Young Adult was great, and I liked Atomika's interpretation of it as a subversion of the typical romantic comedy mold. There's a lot of that in there with the archetypal characters and the emphasis on winning over a love interest despite heavy odds, but I probably wouldn't have seen the influence simply because the main character is a woman instead of a man.
What I liked most about the movie was the pairing of Oswalt and Theron, which was inspired. It's such an odd pairing, but it works, and thinking about why it works is a great entry point for figuring out these two characters.
To me, they're two people whose lives have been dictated for them by physical appearance more than anything else. Even before becoming handicapped, Oswalt is such an automatic outsider that people have to invent a justification for it, homosexuality, that has no basis in reality. It's never openly stated, but it's easy to tell that the real reason Oswalt is beaten nearly to death is just because he looks weird, so much so that he exudes an anti-charisma. After the beating, that effect only intensifies as his fucked up body creates another barrier between him and others, such that even a nice guy like Buddy treats Oswalt like a long-lost acquaintance even though they live in the same town and probably see each other constantly.
Meanwhile, Theron is this legendarily beautiful, popular figure whose every action seems to be common knowledge among the people, even though she really only has relationships with two men in the town and never talks to anybody else. In the end, we find out that everyone around her has been witnessing her breakdown and pitying it, and yet not one person among them has tried to help her. She's been placed on such a high pedestal, as the most popular girl in school and later as a pseudo-celebrity, that nobody feels obligated to treat her compassionately, like an actual human being, anymore. Like Oswalt and his limp, she's just someone to stare at from afar and make comments about behind her back.
In the end, everyone knows who Oswalt and Theron are for reasons stemming from how they look, and yet in this town they're still completely alone save for the relationship they have with each other. Beauty and ugliness are opposites, but the effect that they have on the bearer proves more similar than different.
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
edited July 2013
I got the spousal veto on Exiled so we ended up watching Young Adult. I liked it a lot.
I have to say that I'm glad that I didn't read the write up to thoroughly before hand. I actually went into this one fairly blind and am glad I did. The high school in the 90s vibe hit me right in the memories so that added a bit to how identifiable some of these characters were.
The interesting thing to me was how Patton Oswalt's character was not the usual "outcast nerd hero" that you would get in this sort of thing. Sure he is a voice of reason to Mavis. But at his base he's really very much like her. Clinging to his beating as the crutch from his youth that makes him the way he is today. A person who's never been able to let go. But you don't hate him for it like you initially do Mavis.
I also enjoyed how they gave "grown up" contrasts for both characters. Mavis is contrasted by Buddy, who was the good looking popular athlete. But has now grown into the loving father and husband. Matt's was, unfortunately, only a brief glimpse of the "happiest cripple in town". Mavis' cousin, who had also had a debilitating event in his childhood. I liked this particular scene because it really accented how poorly Matt dealt with his disability with his snide attitude towards Mavis' cousin.
I have to also say that I laughed out loud when Patton's sister, the adult version of the classic brown nosing high school groupie, stops Mavis' moment of enlightenment cold. Completely subverting the classic "Scrooge learns his lesson" ending. Brilliant.
I need to put some time into this thread! I just realized I'm watching things that I think were from the previous thread. :oops:
@jacobkosh
I watched Chinatown last week. I went out and bought it when I was done. I have no idea how I missed such a great Nicholson part until now. Awesome flick. I wish I could think of more to write about it, but the fact that I finished and literally went and bought a physical-copy hopefully holds some weight in expressing how much I enjoyed it.
@Thomamelas
I'm watching Shane right now. I'm not a big fan of westerns, but so far I am eating this up. I really love the set-pieces.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I need to put some time into this thread! I just realized I'm watching things that I think were from the previous thread. :oops:
jacobkosh
I watched Chinatown last week. I went out and bought it when I was done. I have no idea how I missed such a great Nicholson part until now. Awesome flick. I wish I could think of more to write about it, but the fact that I finished and literally went and bought a physical-copy hopefully holds some weight in expressing how much I enjoyed it.
Thomamelas
I'm watching Shane right now. I'm not a big fan of westerns, but so far I am eating this up. I really love the set-pieces.
Shane is very close to being the distilled essence of the Classic Western. It's one of my favorite films.
This guy wants to be a writer. What's the best way to write characters? Follow people, apparently.
"The young man" sets himself a few ground rules. Never follow people for too long, don't follow girls down dark alleyways, if you find out where they live never follow that person again and choose people at random. This separates someone from being a simple struggling writer looking for material to that of a creepy stalker. It's a very fine line.
One day, he breaks a rule. That's when the trouble started.
And that's all i'll say for the plot, the less you know the better.
This being Christopher Nolan's first feature film, you see a lot of his styles being used as testbeds. Sharp dressed questionable characters, non-linear narrative, theres a character called Cobb (the last name of leo's character in Inception) and even an appearance of a certain symbol that would come to make Nolan a household name. Which is some real fate shit if you ask me.
It cost roughly £3000 to be made and shot at weekends over a year with friends on crew/cast and Nolan writing, shooting and directing. Not amazing by todays standards but this was the late 90's and still on film, £3000 for 70 minutes was pretty special. A lot of the design choices were due to the budget, using houses of family members, friends and cast. (the young man's home was the actual flat of the actor himself, jeremy theobald, who also had a tiny part in batman begins) shot in black and white so they didn't have to worry about colour and lighting problems either. This gives a nice nior feeling to the already noir infused script.
The whole process nails home the fact that you always, always need a great script to begin with rather than big budgets and fancy effects. This and El Mariachi did wonders for the moral of aspiring filmmakers with little resources. The narrative being non-linear back and forth is what helped him explain and raise the funds for Momento too. If you're an aspiring filmmaker the commentary for the film is good stuff and filled with tips and tricks.
All in all, it's an interesting, if short look (70 minutes running time) at the early styles of one of today's big name directors.
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And that's OK! I don't expect every movie to get me some action. When the night's winding down, though, kids in bed, and my wife asks, "What do you want to do tonight", answering "watching a film that you will find at the very least boring, if not offensive or emotionally draining, because dudes on the internet said so" isn't the easiest sell. I love my wife, but she's very much a "I'm watching this to be entertained" popcorn-action/romcom/explosions and lolz kinda girl.
Oh well then she'll like Exiled.
As the final credits divide time between distant security footage of the Lions and uncomfortably close home videos, it’s tempting to divide their personalities into separate halves as well, isolating the endearing friends bickering over Maroon 5 from the blurry figures captured on CCTV preparing bombs. However, what Lions shows us is that the life of a character like Omar isn’t compartmentalized in that way, with Omar being a loving husband in one moment and then suddenly a killer in the next. Rather, the tender and violent aspects of Omar’s personality are constantly present so that we find ourselves watching a murderer tucking his child in at night and a doting father blowing himself up in the middle of a pharmacy, as inconceivable as that may be. The challenge of Four Lions is understanding how these irreconcilable traits can co-exist, how something as mundane and human as Mal and Tsarnaev’s love of rap can live alongside a feverish hatred for materialism and capitalism, and how the virtues exhibited by someone like Omar may fuel rather than resist the destruction of others and himself.
It seems clear to me that the answer lies in the relationship between the Lions. The terrorists are all inept losers, whose diatribes against the West and moderate Islam speak to an inability to fit into either the English or Arab world. Omar clearly yearns for a position of importance that normal life won't grant him, and Waj, Mal, Faisal, and especially Barry are all so deficient that it's hard to imagine them being embraced by any group but their own. Theirs is a group founded upon such extreme views that it can't afford to reject anyone, and because terror lies at its center the strength of the group depends on a constant commitment to terrorism. Without that, the Lions would just be a group of rejects with no reason to be around each other, and without each other they would each be alone.
Maybe that's why Mal reconsiders after meeting a girl, and why the friendship between Waj and Omar nearly forces them to do the same. Whereas the insufferable Barry remains fully devoted to the cause, knowing that terrorists are the only people who would ever accept him, the other three see a possibility for fulfilling relationships outside of their cabal. Omar begins the movie imagining himself dying with a smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that a suicide attack is the only thing that could give his life meaning, yet by the end he's ready to give it all up for Waj's sake. Maybe the terrorist group gave Omar's life meaning by giving him a source of friendship and importance through Waj, only to then threaten his friend's life and in doing so threaten Omar's own sense of fulfillment. Instead of accepting that, perhaps Omar finally realizes that he and Waj didn't need to be terrorists to be friends, that Waj would have given him the admiration he wanted even if he hadn't been leading a jihad. Unfortunately he realizes that too late, and following Waj's death he sees the planned bombing not as the thing that filled his life with meaning but rather as the thing that took that meaning away.
Of course, it would be an oversimplification to blame this fictional terrorist attack, much less the real attacks that inspired it and that have occurred since, on friendships between extremists. Comedy isn't about painting a complete picture of the world, though, but rather about revealing the layer of humor within human experience that, while often obscure, is nonetheless essential to the whole. Four Lions finds that humor in the friendly relationships between these terrorists, which forces us to acknowledge the quite human frailties and insecurities that exist even alongside their more monstrous qualities. It's a contradiction that's difficult to accept, but how could we ever begin understand until we accept that it is there?
All that said, I have to say that most of the jokes didn't work very well with me.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
That aside, the movie itself was technically well done...but I had a tough time making it out of the first act. The "Confederacy of Dunces" troupe always gets on my nerves, especially when they're all dunces.
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(Fresh was good! I had never heard of it before this thread. I liked how it counterbalanced the grim reality of ghetto life with a bit of wish fufillment fantasy - you don't envy Fresh's life but you do envy his hyperintelligence and badassness. Giancarlo Esposito is great and is pretty different here than he is Breaking Bad. Fun fact: he isn't hispanic and instead has a black mother and Italian father and was born in Denmark and raised in Europe and NYC.)
I too just watched this tonight, with my girl. I asked her what she thought of it after and she said "You make me watch sad movies." Not much to say about it that hasn't already been said. If she's up to it we'll be doing Four Lions tomorrow or the next day.
Yea, my fiance took a business trip and got back a few days ago, while I was both watching Fresh and trying to figure out my selection, as my first choice got taken off Instant Watch. She was surprised about the before(Justice League and Star Trek) and after.
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loving the write ups though.
now if you're all in LA that might not be a big deal, but us in the north of england, seeing these guys living down the road was mind blowing. the main leader terrorist working security if i remember right, was in working in meadowhall, were i was just minutes before driving to cineworld to watch this film and to see the place i was at just moments ago on the big screen, surreal as fuck.
I love you guys. I love you guys so much.
If those can make it in. I'm in to watch some movies. Won't be able to start till this weekend though.
Yes. There is no requirement that the films be art films. Midnight Run for instance was a popular buddy comedy, but one unlikely to have been seen by most people here due to it's age. It's also an excellent example of a buddy comedy that's extremely well made. The key requirements is someone feeling passionately about the film. In a postive way. The Love Guru rule only exists because it's such a shit film and I don't want people thinking this is MST3K without the commentary that makes it worth dealing with shitty films.
I'm looking forward to watching Four Lions and Exiled this weekend. They both look terrific.
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I wonder if some of the wackiness ought to have been toned down a little - the reason the film is powerful is because it takes terrorists and humanizes them and shows them as real people - but then it'll have the characters act like cartoon characters instead of real people sometimes - like the time the guy goes to buy the bleach dressed in a chicken suit.
I'm going to see if I can't find another trashy genre piece that is amazing.
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Chicago Megagame group
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It used to be in the late 90's you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a Hong Kong Action Film. Then they just kind of disappeared. The bubble popped and Hong Kong went from making over 200 films a year to just under 40. But before the bubble popped it was a golden age where a copy of Hard Boiled could make you king among your friends. We talk a lot about guys like Woo, and Tsui Hark but one of the directors from that period who managed to stay under Western Radars was Johnnie To. While Woo was making Hard Boiled, To was making comedies. But in the early part of the last decade he switched his focus to Gangster films, and something magical happened. People outside of Hong Kong started noticing.
It started with Breaking News, carried on with Election and Election 2 and then leads us up to our film of the week Exiled.
Set in the lawless time leading up to the transfer of Macao from Portugal to China, Exiled is the story of two Triad assassins sent to kill their friend Wo, and the two other assassins that seek to protect him. A gun fight erupts and then turns into dinner as the group plans one last score to leave Wo's family taken care of. From there follows a complicated plot leading to the heist of a massive gold bribe. Along the way we are treated to long tension building shots where no dialogue happens but expressions and mannerisms give us all of the subtext we could ever want.
And eventually we realize that this is Johnnie To's homage to the spaghetti western. Long shots building up to a flurry of violence. Men trapped by duty into doing things they don't want to. The idea of violence being an inescapable cycle. The harmonica music. Lots of little touches to give us the fusion of the spaghetti western and the Hong Kong action film. Enjoy!
An interesting piece. It hit the key notes, and bonus points for harmonica-playing, Scout-using army man. A few minor things distracted me(People do not need to get shot that many times to die), but the thing that stands out them most to me is To's blend of Western and Hong Kong. To me, it's an odd mix, because it's taking two genres that both have these incredible high points by themselves. Hong Kong is known for incredible gun fights that, while stretching the limits of plausibility, leave an indelible mark on the viewer. Westerns elevate the lone hero to an almost mythical force, whether for what is right or what is right for himself.
What I got out of Exiled was a group of men that made a mistaken decision regarding one of their friends, lucked into a ton of gold, and only gave it to their friend's wife and child when they got called out on it, while having gun fights that, while pushing some realism boundaries, I forgot mostly all of them while writing this.
It also contained the most useless character I've ever seen in that police officer. His entire purpose in this movie was to be laughably inept, and to tell us how many hours had passed.
Not a bad movie...but less than the sum of its parts, to me.
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That's not to say that it was all downhill from there, though. The scene I enjoyed most, the one where Wo is lying on the ground and being filled with bullets as his friends helplessly watch, was very memorable despite being rather tame compared to the more stylish moments. I think it worked for me because it was the one of the few times when I really felt the fraternal bond between these characters, and how much it hurt that they couldn't fulfill it.
That also speaks to a major shortcoming in the film, namely the lack of time spent on developing these characters and their relationship to each other. Almost everything hinges on a single photograph and the implication that they have this storied history together, but apart from the charming opening sequence where they furnish Wo's flat we rarely see a glimpse of this enduring bond that is supposedly worth dying over. This issue is only exacerbated by the performances which, frankly, seem nearly devoid of real emotion or charisma. The actors aren't blocks of wood reading their lines like they came out of a phone book, but none of them are remotely convincing or likable in their portrayal of gunmen who are distinguished from each other only by their appearance and nicknames.
That's probably worth overlooking for fans of the genre, but I guess it stands out to me because I've never really been a fan of these films. That fact made Exiled a rare experience for me, something I could enjoy mostly for its novelty, but not one that I'm eager to repeat in the near future.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Yes. She has already submitted it to me if she doesn't get a chance to post it.
The mood of the movie kept switching back and forth between whimsy and blood-drenched action. While the action setpieces were great, the drama really didn't draw you in to actually care about what happens to those characters, and in that sense it loses some impact. Some of the characters were paper thin despite how long the movie was. You can tell there was too much of too little going on, which is very Soderberghish as he also likes going into the banality of details.
The theme of a western worked out well, but it's not that the movie didn't improve on the formula, instead it added too much to it and overloaded it. There's good things to be said about the western's ability to not have to say much of anything, but Exiled takes it to a whole different level. I'm fine with long westerns (most recently watched: Django Unchained), but I found myself wondering why this movie was still going about a quarter to halfway through.
Still, it was an interesting premise and an interesting amalgation of a western and hong kong gun action flick, but I'm still not a fan of Johhnie To's works.
Young Adult
released: 2011
dir. Jason Reitman
writ. Diablo Cody
Let me first preface this article with the caveats exposing my indifference toward both director Jason Reitman and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter/Williamsburg-Patient-Zero Diablo Cody. They have both developed a polarizing presence in film criticism circles in their relatively short time in the spotlight, and while I can't argue that those grievances are wholly unfounded, it's also true that Reitman and Cody both have a specific and unique voice to offer the cinematic community. Reitman, particularly, I've had various problems with in his three films prior to Young Adult, and the most consistent complaint I've made against him is his proclivity to dress up hoary rehashes with great acting from famous faces paired with a more nuanced aesthetic to disguise what is clearly middlebrow as the thoughtfully highbrow. Now, to put a positive spin on this phenomenon, you could say that he knows how to elevate the thin and trite above its origins (and you'd be right), but I actually think Reitman's real talent is telling stories within the performances of his actors. No matter what you might think of the gravity of his milieu or its detachment from realism, it's clear that Reitman firmly believes that the internal lives of people are the most important thing in a story, and that's something that I could only hope that more directors (I'm looking at you, Zach Snyder and Chris Nolan) would take to heart.
Jason Reitman builds characters. He crafts them. And he lets their actors inhabit them and become them. Then he tells a story about their lives. And what could be better than that?
This is Mavis Gary. She's a thirty-something single woman living in the city and working as writer of young adult fiction, which is her "dream job," as she's constantly reminded by other people in the film (though we never hear her speak of it so fondly). We open on her being completely miserable and alone in her apartment, where she finds out through the internet that her old high school boyfriend and his wife are holding a party for their new baby. With little forethought and great impulse, she hatches a plan: travel back to her old hometown, seduce her ex, and make a new life with him. This may sound poorly thought-out to begin with, but don't worry . . . . it gets much worse.
Mavis isn't subtle in her efforts, basically throwing her herself at her ex when she first sees him, and his initial rebuff only strengthens her resolve. However, her pettiness and destructive course is pointed out by an old friend from school, Matt, who pointedly informs Mavis about how shitty she's being for her own personal ends. Matt is a lonely geek who is still crippled after a particularly nasty bit of hazing while still a high school student, so not only does he have to contend with his statural and social challenge (because, well, Patton Oswalt), he's also now physically impaired and almost incapable of having sex. Mavis and Matt form an interesting couple, and in a more traditional dynamic Matt and his weary cut-through-the-bullshit attitude would be the obvious foil for Mavis' oblivious recklessness (and in many ways he is), and their meeting at loggerheads would be the engine that drives the eventual and inevitable epiphany that they are perfect for each other. But this film largely eschews that bit of meet-cute tradition and plays the relationship with much more melancholy and realistic dourness than it might under a different writer and director.
The traditional narrative arc for these kinds of films almost always end with the girl realizing that the hunk is a pig and the geeky nerd is the real prize, but Young Adult turns those tropes on their heads.
The "Nerd Proves Self to Hot Girl to Win Her Away From Psycho Jock Boyfriend" plot is almost always a fantasy from the POV of the nerd. The theorizing on that says that this exists because most writers are nerds and most nerds did not have hot girlfriends in high school (or any girlfriends, regularly), and while a bit pat in its application, the math on this assertion proves itself for the most part; look at almost any example of this trope and you'll find a poorly-developed female lead that is barely a human being at all, and certainly one devoid of any agency on her own part. She needs the help of the sensitive D&D player to forcefully demonstrate that her dumb, violent, abusive, lecherous boyfriend is bad for her, and when this successfully happens, the nerd will be rewarded with sex from the hot girl. The girl in this scenario is never more than placeholder for motivation and reward for the main character, the heroic nerd, and her will and desires are never considered because A) as a desirable female she obviously will have to have a man, and
Young Adult subverts this common narrative first and foremost by regendering the scenario, and then making all the stereotypically unlikable players into nice people while making the protagonist a petulant weirdo who (still cleaving to the mores of the tradition) treats people like prizes to be won or discarded. Mavis Gary is petty and mean and empty, but she's also complex and uniquely motivated. And the guy she's trying to win over? He's pretty happy, and is in a healthy and fulfilling relationship with his wife. There's no one to "rescue" here, and everyone acts with their own agency. The people here are real people, not rewards or achievements for objectifying someone. But that's the interesting part about Mavis -- she objectifies everyone. Everyone is a means to some selfish end for her, and she barrels through this narrative arc not too unlike the charismatic nebbish (played by Ben Stiller or Matthew Broderick or Jesse Eisenberg or whothefuckever) would in a middling rom-com. She treats her ex, Buddy, like he's the missing piece that will not just complete her life, but will rebuild it and make it whole and fulfilling, never pausing to ask herself if that's something he even remotely wants (spoiler: it's not, at all). In that way, Young Adult is a mature and more realistic version of a John Hughes movie, with all the horrible outcomes that would surely produce.
So what's it all about?
Mavis is an unlikable character, and intentionally so, and so her story isn't about rooting for an unlikable person to succeed, but rather rooting for an unlikable person to gain some perspective. In better words, to grow up.
I've never liked that phrase, really. I've always found it condescending to imply that age imparted some kind of innate sense of wisdom once you allowed it to wash over you, accepting the loss of your youth and (largely implied) your energy and optimism and belief that you still control your outcomes. However, there are admittedly aspects of youth that do not survive the transition into adulthood without hamstringing a person in ways that impair their functioning as a self-directed independent human. Everyone knows (or often, unfortunately, IS) someone who is still controlled by holds put on them as a child, either through parental approval or bonds made in grade school or accolades heaped upon early achievement. I personally have a friend who came from a broken and impoverished home and made himself the vice president of a major national corporation by his 30th birthday; he frequently spends his weekends gladhanding in stadium suites with the likes of Drew Brees and Jay-Z, but almost every time I see him he can't help but bring up how cheated he felt by our football coach in high school when he was made second-string linebacker (the guy that was first-string, btw, is entering his eighth year in the NFL this season). So there's my friend; great job, lots of money, great marriage with a kid on the way, hangs out with celebrities, . . . . and yet he can't let the past go, even when it's petty and he's probably in the wrong.
Late in the film, we learn about a big event involving her ex, Buddy, that explains why Mavis can't let the past go, and I've always been torn about that late-coming revelation. I don't like when films withhold information from the audience to build false drama or mystery; it's usually just shitty writing, and quite often I feel like the director has falsely manipulated the audience or wasted their time. However, I also believe that a clever director can make that false manipulation work in favor of the film, forcing the audience to rethink their attitudes toward characters and scenarios once framed in a different context. Does that happen here? I'm not totally sold on it one way or another, to be truthful. In this case, however, a big question is, "Does reframing the context make Mavis a better person?" Honestly, I'm not sure, but what I can attest to is that it makes her a more relatable and understandable person. It provides the audience with empathy, and it colors sadness to everything that came before it. Mavis ceases being an unstoppable rampage of wanton greed and petty destruction and instead becomes a sad and bitter woman facing middle-age alone because she feels that a better life was stolen from her. And maybe she's right.
It's her insistence upon magical thinking, the kind of which romantic comedies and children's stories depend on to make their worlds work, that defines Mavis as an overgrown child and distinguishes her from everyone she knows. In the end, I wouldn't argue that we're supposed to be rooting for her, and I wouldn't even suggest that she's a better person. The journey here isn't an arc of self-discovery, or an arc of overcoming adversity, or an arc of defeating opposition. Mavis' journey is crossing the last bridge to her past simply because it's the only familiar thing she has left. She sticks one hand out, grasping and beckoning for it to take her back, or for it to go forward with her; failing that, her other hand holds a blazing torch, ready to burn the bridge down.
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A smart script, some really beautiful performances and the pleasing sensation that I didn't know how it was going to end.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Everything pre-bombshell was, to me, one of the most successful takes on a horror movie that I've seen. This woman sets her goal, which is quite unattainable, and then flies in the face of all reason and evidence to reach it, powered by some source unseen, frightening in scope. If the definition of insanity truly is repeating the same action expecting different results, then we bear witness to an insane woman, reaching to the moon on the backs of the many.
The miscarriage bombshell actually put a face on her disorder, not only showing that she could have been like them, but from the tone of voice, that she felt she wanted it. Going to Atomika's point of "Does this reframing make Mavis better", I don't think so...it just makes her pitiable. It pulls the curtain back on her motivation, and we see nothing but a broken girl, running on will alone, trying to return to when things made sense. She perceives a second chance with Buddy as the way to that time, and God help what gets in her way, because in the world of stories, the Princess always gets her way.
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But I did want to say that that write-up is fantastic, and that I really miss Atomika. The film thread just isn't as good without her.
Should be worth checking out if you enjoyed her write-up.
I'm watching Young Adult tonight too.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
What I liked most about the movie was the pairing of Oswalt and Theron, which was inspired. It's such an odd pairing, but it works, and thinking about why it works is a great entry point for figuring out these two characters.
Meanwhile, Theron is this legendarily beautiful, popular figure whose every action seems to be common knowledge among the people, even though she really only has relationships with two men in the town and never talks to anybody else. In the end, we find out that everyone around her has been witnessing her breakdown and pitying it, and yet not one person among them has tried to help her. She's been placed on such a high pedestal, as the most popular girl in school and later as a pseudo-celebrity, that nobody feels obligated to treat her compassionately, like an actual human being, anymore. Like Oswalt and his limp, she's just someone to stare at from afar and make comments about behind her back.
In the end, everyone knows who Oswalt and Theron are for reasons stemming from how they look, and yet in this town they're still completely alone save for the relationship they have with each other. Beauty and ugliness are opposites, but the effect that they have on the bearer proves more similar than different.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The interesting thing to me was how Patton Oswalt's character was not the usual "outcast nerd hero" that you would get in this sort of thing. Sure he is a voice of reason to Mavis. But at his base he's really very much like her. Clinging to his beating as the crutch from his youth that makes him the way he is today. A person who's never been able to let go. But you don't hate him for it like you initially do Mavis.
I also enjoyed how they gave "grown up" contrasts for both characters. Mavis is contrasted by Buddy, who was the good looking popular athlete. But has now grown into the loving father and husband. Matt's was, unfortunately, only a brief glimpse of the "happiest cripple in town". Mavis' cousin, who had also had a debilitating event in his childhood. I liked this particular scene because it really accented how poorly Matt dealt with his disability with his snide attitude towards Mavis' cousin.
I have to also say that I laughed out loud when Patton's sister, the adult version of the classic brown nosing high school groupie, stops Mavis' moment of enlightenment cold. Completely subverting the classic "Scrooge learns his lesson" ending. Brilliant.
@jacobkosh
I watched Chinatown last week. I went out and bought it when I was done. I have no idea how I missed such a great Nicholson part until now. Awesome flick. I wish I could think of more to write about it, but the fact that I finished and literally went and bought a physical-copy hopefully holds some weight in expressing how much I enjoyed it.
@Thomamelas
I'm watching Shane right now. I'm not a big fan of westerns, but so far I am eating this up. I really love the set-pieces.
Shane is very close to being the distilled essence of the Classic Western. It's one of my favorite films.
And that's all i'll say for the plot, the less you know the better.
This being Christopher Nolan's first feature film, you see a lot of his styles being used as testbeds. Sharp dressed questionable characters, non-linear narrative, theres a character called Cobb (the last name of leo's character in Inception) and even an appearance of a certain symbol that would come to make Nolan a household name. Which is some real fate shit if you ask me.
It cost roughly £3000 to be made and shot at weekends over a year with friends on crew/cast and Nolan writing, shooting and directing. Not amazing by todays standards but this was the late 90's and still on film, £3000 for 70 minutes was pretty special. A lot of the design choices were due to the budget, using houses of family members, friends and cast. (the young man's home was the actual flat of the actor himself, jeremy theobald, who also had a tiny part in batman begins) shot in black and white so they didn't have to worry about colour and lighting problems either. This gives a nice nior feeling to the already noir infused script.
The whole process nails home the fact that you always, always need a great script to begin with rather than big budgets and fancy effects. This and El Mariachi did wonders for the moral of aspiring filmmakers with little resources. The narrative being non-linear back and forth is what helped him explain and raise the funds for Momento too. If you're an aspiring filmmaker the commentary for the film is good stuff and filled with tips and tricks.
All in all, it's an interesting, if short look (70 minutes running time) at the early styles of one of today's big name directors.