Serious Movie Discussion XLI

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Good looking out. I actually did miss that.

First off, Caveat, here's what I thought after I first watched it:

As to your points after your rewatch (and, before I start, let me state for the record that I have still only seen it the one time, so I'll be staying at a relatively general level here):

Meaning that you were able to become more intensely involved without having to worry about playing detective? Or meaning the first time through you weren't affected but the second time you were? Just curious.

More the first part. I think I expected something a little more mundane on the first watch and when things opened up (Desy's neck in particular - LOL) I was too taken aback to fit everything into proper context. The second time through I couldn't wait to get past all the typical murder-mystery stuff to watch the craziness unfold at the end - and I was better able to process it all at a coherent whole.

This is the Hitchcock territory I was alluding to. Hitchcock very famously included a "false flashback" in his film Stage Fright, and he also famously denounced it as a terrible mistake on his part. I actually don't mind the false flashback, especially in the context of Gone Girl. Unfortunately, I don't remember the film well enough to remember exactly what was going on with that flashback or how I responded.

That's interesting, I hadn't considered the false flashback before. I'm not sure what to make of it because I feel inconsistent immediately accepting the truth of one flashback but not another.

*FTFY.

She is crazy but that's too easy. I want to - as you say later - extend the olive branch to see where she's coming from.

I don't know if you're a big reader and/or a big fan of classical Hollywood, but with the way you're scrutinizing the implications of relationships/marriage, you'd probably enjoy Stanley Cavell's book Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wws5ObJsUv0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pursuits+of+happiness&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=pursuits of happiness&f=false). For Cavell, the main idea is the idea of remarriage where the "re" is meant to indicate the main issues in a marriage: First, what do the people involved understand (a/their) marriage to be (and, by extension, if their understanding changes, are they willing to continually redefine/reaffirm their marriage, i.e., are they willing to continually be remarried?), and second, is each one's "other half" a) suitable for them in terms of inspiring them to be the best person they can be and b) suited to them in terms of being inspired to be the best person they can be? And the fact that you ended your post on pretty much this exact ground is why I think you'd enjoy this book.

Two key passages from early in the book establishing the terms of Cavell's argument:

"[Comedies of remarriage] may be understood as parables of a phase of the development of consciousness at which the struggle is for the reciprocity or equality of consciousness between a woman and a man, a study of the conditions under which this fight for recognition (as Hegel put it) or demand for acknowledgment (as I have put it) is a struggle for mutual freedom, especially of the views each holds of the other. This gives the films of our genre a Utopian cast. They harbor a vision which they know cannot fully be domesticated, inhabited, in the world we know. They are romances. Showing us our fantasies, they express the inner agenda of a nation that conceives Utopian longings and commitments for itself."

"What is it about the conversation of just these films that makes it so perfectly satisfy the appetite of talking pictures? Granted the fact, the question can only be answered by consulting the films. Evidently their conversation is the verbal medium in which, for example, questions of human creation and the absence of mothers and the battle between men and women for recognition of one another, and whatever matters turn out to entail these, are given expression. So it is not sufficient that, say, the conversation be sexually charged. If it were sufficient then the genre would begin in 1931, with Noel Coward's Private Lives, a work patently depicting the divorce and remarrying of a rich and sophisticated pair who speak intelligently and who infuriate and appreciate one another more than anyone else. But their witty, sentimental, violent exchanges get nowhere; their makings up never add up to forgiving one another (no place they arrive at is home to them); and they have come from nowhere (their constant reminiscences never add up to a past they can admit together). They are forever stuck in an orbit around the foci of desire and contempt. This is a fairly familiar perception of what marriage is. The conversation of what I call the genre of remarriage is, judging from the films I take to define it, of a sort that leads to acknowledgment; to the reconciliation of a genuine forgiveness; a reconciliation so profound as to require the metamorphosis of death and revival, the achievement of a new perspective on existence; a perspective that presents itself as a place, one removed from the city of confusion and divorce."

From this perspective, Gone Girl could be an allegory of remarriage run amok. Amy's heart is in the right place (that's the only olive branch I can extend, and it doesn't extend very far); she wants the kind of relationship that Cavell describes as the utopian one of the mutual acknowledgment between two people and their commitment to bettering their lives as individuals and as a couple (and you acknowledged as much when you noted that Amy "still expresses a desire for intimacy [...] which shows a pretty intense commitment"). However, when it's clear that she's not going to achieve this with Nick, that Nick is not suited to her, she loses her shit. What's more, she violates the democratic principle of remarriage: That each individual be free to pursue their own happiness, that their happiness be one freely shared/freely shared. If she can be happy with a sham marriage that makes her husband miserable, then it's not a true marriage. The mutuality isn't there and both the concepts of marriage and of happiness are ultimately corrupted.

Hmmm, that does sound like me. I've never heard the term "re-marriage" before but I've expressed it in different language. People change, and we should expect that, but continuous assent to a committed union can still be had so long at the union is doing the job it's supposed to.

I agree with you about Amy's starting point but I think I break with her in how she responds to Nick being an asshole. He clearly has a bunch of insecurities that she should have been able to identify and talk about rather than delving into her own psychopathology to design a murder-suicide mission.

But I can also see that she's acted as a effective tool to push some of those domestic questions into the limelight where a more balanced girl - a "cool girl" perhaps - may have felt the frustration without being able to provoke the response.

So she's a crazy psycho, but a functional crazy psycho.

Now, with what you mentioned about the "feminism angle": There could be a way to interpret this less as an allegory of remarriage run amok and more as the failure of remarriage - and a failure that is the fault of men. Amy, the representative of Woman (not as inherently crazy but as driven crazy - i.e., driven crazy by men, here by Nick, the representative of Man), gets fed up with how sucky her "perfect guy" is and just goes ape shit. I don't remember the movie well enough to actually want to take up this interpretation right now, but there was so much going on that, while I will never waver from considering Amy a psycho who should die in a very public car accident (or some other comparable scenario where Nick can in no way be implicated), her craziness doesn't invalidate an interpretation of the film that sees it as questioning, in shrewd and provocative fashion, the current state of marriage in the American context.

Exactly what I was getting at.

That said, I was actually thinking of the feminist angle more in the sense of a pendulum of harmful over-reactions swinging back and forth. Amy is treated poorly, as are many other women, she responds by setting Nick up to get killed, the way some expressions of feminism today are very anti-men. Nick responds by trying to strike back at her full-force, MRA-style, but she's already moved on to a world where his value to her doesn't require his personhood, and where she's played the system properly to her own advantage (maybe a warning?). The kid fits the analogy somewhere too, in a way I can't think up right now.

Reading through the reviews a little more, it seems there was actually some controversy about whether Gone Girl should be understood as a feminist film. Supporters appreciated seeing a truly malicious, nonredeemable female character free of her obligations to some feminine virtue, while detractors thought she fit too perfectly into the fictional threatening-female mold devised by MRAs and other groups that could potentially be described at anti-women.

I think the answer is probably somewhere in between, but like we sort of agreed above, it definitely prompted an interesting set of questions.

Everybody Wants Some blends those two together. He's able to stand apart from it and look at the overt (and seemingly healthy) masculinity he was once part of. @Caveat : you should check it out buddy.

On it, thanks man.

 

[Ricky13]

Mediocre!

WITNESS Take 1:

 

[JSN]

I just finished watching Bring it On (the first one- not the straight to DVD sequels). 6/10. Pretty enjoyable flick. It's remarkable how undeniably impressive yet lame cheerleading is.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

This weekend's watches:

The Lobster - bizarre dark comedy, first English film from director Yorgos Lanthimos. I'm a fan of deadpan humour, but towards the end it became a little much even for me to handle. I felt like I was waiting for the relief that would come with the dialogue opening up, but it never happened. I felt similarly trapped by the setting, especially when Farrell and co. would go for trips into the city without ever really exploring it freely. Darker and more uncomfortable than I expected, but kept me guessing and at least on the verge of laughing all the way through. It's a mark in the film's favour that someone pretty enamoured with romance and coupledom could take that step back with it and poke fun at the arbitrariness of the whole institution from a distance.

Ghost in the Shell - always meant to watch this as an anime fan, and with the live-action version in the works now seemed to be a good time. It was pleasant to watch and some of the psychological and AI-related language surprised me with how prescient it was for 1995. The music and detail of the setting made it quite a beautiful watch as well, especially the use of lighting and water. Definitely reminded me why I love anime films. I was intrigued by how they would actually define the "ghost" - but the failure to provide that definition functioned well as a plot device to power the character's concerns about distinguishing life from non-life. It was a short film, clocking in at only 82 minutes, but I look forward to fleshing out the world a little more with the subsequent TV show and follow-up films. I also really enjoyed contemplating the opportunity to "merge" presented to the main character, Motoko, in the end. Could the promise to be a part of a transcendent power or understanding be worth sacrificing one's individuality? How much further could she have gotten trying to solve her problems through her own introspection? Stylish and thought-provoking.

 

[Sigh GunRanger]

I know I'm not alone here. @Bullitt68 what did you think?

 

[Ricky13]

I know I'm not alone here. @Bullitt68 what did you think?

Of course you're not alone. He thought it was crap. More's the bummer.

Here was his review, the link to which he posted in response to @The Hug Dog. He even mentions you in the first sentence (feelz all around).

You know, unlike Sigh, who I think gets a real kick out of being a contrarian, I don't actively cultivate that role. In fact - although I leave this to others to decide whether it casts me in a better or a worse light - I'm much fonder of proving you guys wrong than I am simply going against the majority. Like, if you all expect I'm going to hate something, I love being able to come in and prove you wrong and lavish a ton of praise on it. I wouldn't be going against the majority opinion, but I would be proving you guys wrong, and I get a kick out of providing pleasant surprises.

Unfortunately, I can't do that tonight. All of you guys expecting me not to like Mad Max, I have to say you were right. skza pretty much nailed it. It didn't suck, but it was pretty bad. A couple of cool scenes and an occasional cool shot, but other than that, it was basically a ludicrous cartoon that went on for fucking ever. The opening was really cool and I was strapping myself in for a bad ass ride. Then, after like five minutes, Tom Hardy is relegated to a supporting player and I spend the next two hours watching Mad Furiosa. Nothing against Nubsy, but she wasn't why I tuned in. But still, I was digging it for like 20 minutes, but I knew I was in trouble when all the Putty Patrol cars were driving after Nubsy and the jackass was playing the fucking guitar on the rig in front of the wall of speakers. That's when I started to get the feeling that I was going to hate this movie.

To its credit, I never actually got to the point of hate, but it couldn't win me back. And once they got past the canyon and the guys on the dirtbikes, I pretty much checked out. When Hardy comes back from doing what was probably something cooler than any of the other shit in the movie that they, of course, decided not to show - I mean, the movie's called Mad Max, but who wants to watch Max go out solo and fuck dudes up, amirite - and Interchangeable Toga Chick tells him he's washing with "mother's milk," I spent the rest of the running time singing Genesis' Deep in the Motherlode (so it wasn't all bad :icon_lol.

Now, I realize I'm having some mean-spirited fun at the expense of a movie you all loved (for reasons I'm hoping you'll all elaborate on, as I wouldn't be able to guess if my life depended on it), so on to my main criticism: Was the lack of information a brilliant strategy or a retarded misfire? For me, not knowing who anybody was or WTF was happening kept me from giving a shit about anything. Who was Monster Cohagen? What was the deal with his Putty Patrol? Why did they have to roll around in flour before going out? Why were they all sick? What was the deal with his Interchangeable Toga Chicks? Who was the old lady with the shotgun in their chamber? What was the deal with his WSM son? Or his midget brother? Why was he trying to get everybody pregnant? Was it his seed? Who killed the world? Why do they have water but nobody else does? Or do other people have it, too, and we were just in one tiny pocket of the world where they decided to go Lord of the Flies? What was Furiosa's deal? Who the fuck was Max? WHY AM I WATCHING THIS SHIT?!?!?! The key to action is the fucking stakes, and there weren't any. Why should I care about Max? Why should I care about Furiosa? Why should I care about the Toga Chicks? Just because? Fuck that. Give me something. And no, monster music video mash up little girl/screaming/eyeball montage people scaring Hardy every other time he gets five seconds of screen time doesn't qualify.

I will say that the music was pretty bad ass. Granted, it was basically Zimmer-lite, but still, when you ripoff the best, your imitation crap is still going to be pretty good. That's about it, though, and with an action movie - especially one that has everybody jizzing themselves around here - if the best part is the ripoff music, it's not a very good sign.

So, to sum up, Mad Max was pretty shitty and you're all fucking nuts.

There were a bunch of back and forth posts on it after by @Flemmy Stardust , me, @Bullitt68. It wasn't pretty. If you are interested, go to post #606 in this thread, and read from there:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/serious-movie-discussion-xxxvix.3003143/

 

[edco76]

I'm in the "meh" camp on Mad Max as well.

I think I may be in the "ruined by hype" group though. I wasn't horribly excited when it was announced, thought the trailers were meh and just thought I would "see it eventually". Then it got all this buzz as being absolutely amazing so I got really excited.

Then I was a bit bored. Some awesome action scenes and I was really impressed with some of the shots but I didnt really give a rats ass what was happening and I thought they did a piss poor job flushing out the world and characters.

I think I may have enjoyed it more if I had expected a decent movie and been surprised, instead I spent the whole movie waiting for a 10/10 masterpiece. Reminded me a bit of Dredd in that respect.

I did however re-watch 2 good movies this weekend. I had a friend over and while scanning my library he said he had never seen In Bruge so I had to fix that shit. Damn thats a good movie that gets better every time I see it. It really hits it all imo, unique story, beautiful locations ("It's a fucking fairy tale city!"), the score is great and everyone nails their characters. You expect it from Gleeson and Fienes but fuck, how is Colin Ferrel so God Damned inconsistent? Some of his expressions and mannerisms in that movie were fucking elite level IMO

Also reminded me how much times have changed pretty quickly. I use to order gay beers in bars all the time and I feel like that may be frowned on now.

Also watched Catch Me If You Can. Still a fun movie but the implausibility of a lot of the situations really takes you out of the immersion. I enjoyed the character and Dicaprio's performance but the story got really Frank Dux level at times. I know the guy may have been a great forger or whatever and I think the pilot thing was admitted by Pan Am but I call bullshit on the doctor and lawyer impersonations. And even if they were true, they did a shitty job of making me believe he was smart enough to pull it off. I completely forgot Amy Adams was even in this. She was really good in a small role though.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

I know I'm not alone here. @Bullitt68 what did you think?

Of course you're not alone. He thought it was crap. More's the bummer.

Here was his review, the link to which he posted in response to @The Hug Dog. He even mentions you in the first sentence (feelz all around).



There were a bunch of back and forth posts on it after by @Flemmy Stardust , me, @Bullitt68. It wasn't pretty. If you are interested, go to post #606 in this thread, and read from there:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/serious-movie-discussion-xxxvix.3003143/

Yeah here is the brilliant recap from @europe1

The Serious Movie Discussion group had like a 5-page civil war about that subject a while ago. Which the pro-side won by a Cro Cop styled head kick and a follow-up G&P in the Fourth Round, which was aggrevated by that Dan Miragliotta not knowing when to stop the goddamn fight. So you better get in line and praise the movie damit!

 

[HenryFlower]

Our dear Bullitt being so wrong about Mad Max: Fury Road makes me whimper like a puppy w/ its head stuck between two pickets of a fence on the nightly.

 

[JSN]

I'm in the "meh" camp on Mad Max as well.

I think I may be in the "ruined by hype" group though. I wasn't horribly excited when it was announced, thought the trailers were meh and just thought I would "see it eventually". Then it got all this buzz as being absolutely amazing so I got really excited.

I can totes see that. It was fun for me, but not amazingly so, but I hadn't heard much about it before seeing it.

 

[europe1]

Text Crash!

So I catched up on three Fritz Lang films from his Amerikanski days, The Fury, as well as the sibling films Scarlet Street and Woman in the Window. The Fury was just a couple of notches below his best German work - a magnificent film I must say. Lang really managed to conjure up a thoroughly raw, visceral feeling of loathing towards those ignorant lynchers and their craven attitudes. Their collective denial of responsibility was truly reprehensible. And Lang really managed to communicate this theme with great economy. Sylvia Sidney's catatonic, bug-eyed stare when Spencer was supposedly roasted really reminded me of Peter Lorre's terrified, bug-eyed stare when the mobsters where closing in on him in M.

Also, sullen and introverted Spencer Tracy (Fury, Seventh Cross and Dr Jekyll) > Jolly and boisterous Spencer Tracy.

Both of Lang's Edward G. Robinson pictures where good, though I think Scarlet Street triumphed over Woman in the Window. The latter had its fair share of tense and engaging momentum, but Scarlett just had this quaint sense of funniness underpinning it all that gave it a leg up (Scarlett Street was supposed to be a comedy, right? It's wasn't just me seeing this?). And I think Scarlett just had a better handle on its characterization and their movement in the story. There was a greater lure for me to see how Robinsons infatuation would play out and how Joan Bennett's long-con as an painter would fare. Woman in the Window -- while satisfyingly good -- just lacked this sense of an distinct identity in this manner.


Shuffling back to Spencer, Inherit the Wind was a really good court-room drama. One of those films with a steady sense of escalation were the arguments starts slow yet gradually grows intense and kinetic. There was a lot of little directors ticks that I liked in it, like how the courtroom scenes has a very palpable sense of heat. Another little thing was how the director would have all the characters -- both main and background ones -- flail fans in their faces as the arguments went on, thus giving the presentation a great sense of dynamism and energy, it's one of those tricks that Kurosawa would often use. This movie also seems to really understand mob characteristics, like how singing-along isn't just an action it's a way of coercing others into your cause. Gene Kelly was good and Spencer Tracy was boss as always - even though Fredric March gave him a staunch fight.


To mention more prestigious names, I also saw Hitchcock's Stage Fright. The Michele Soavi film was better. Still pretty good though. Marlene Dietrich was directed as if she was in an entirely different, more glamorous film (which was fitting I suppose considering her role). I don't really know what I thought about the fake-flashback... honestly it left me more bewildered and frowning rather than possessing any tangible good-or-bad emotions.



Of all the "great Samurai movies" I've seen -- Samurai Assassin has to be the most problematic. It has some good, wintery imagery - and a solid Greek Tragedy vibe going for it that gives it an identity of its own...but man there is just no economy to the narration! It's painfully overloaded, stuffed so full of details that you finally just don't care after a while. Yet, simultaneously, it ultimately lands the viewers on a good destination, despite how overwrought it is. So yeah, good but definitely problematic in how the production is handled. It's kind of funny though. The same director made the magnificent Sword of Doom - which likewise has a very convoluted plot yet there the main character just didn't care about any of that so it all felt periphery and distant rather than imposing and frustrating, making for a much smoother film that could smoothly focus on its thematic issues rather than get bogged down in the high-and-low politics of the day.


My Cagney dosage for this weekend was The Time of your Life (I'm still skirting Yankee Doodle due to it being a dirty musical), which is basically about Cagney hanging out at a bar while being the nicest man alive. It's a rather pleasant sit even though not being very funny, despite billing itself as a comedy. There is this odd scene where someone holds up a melon to Cagney's face and ask "what would you do with a melon?" and Cagney gives this innocent stare and replies "what would I do with a melon?" which feels like a callback to the famous grapefruit scene in Public Enemy but there it was a grapefruit and here it's a melon and gaahhh!


Likewise I put on Fiddler on the Roof not knowing it was a dirty musical but when the actual singing commenced those sly Ashkenazims had already ensnared me with their homespun charms so I couldn't push to stop button no matter how feverishly I tried! Chaim Topol is so goddamn engaging that he could lure me into a Calcuttan back-alley with that performance. Yeah the movie is basically the definition of something heartfelt... despite being a musical.


Jumping over to some less-than-reputable films, Revolution wasn't nearly as bad as it had been made out to be. Sure the script, characters and acting was atrocious and had no internal consistency, but the production design had some real beauty to it and the film gave a thoroughly nuanced presentation of the Colonial Revolt. You really don't see movies that has such a realistic, everyman take on historical events like these. There is no glamor and romanticism, both sides coerce ordinary people into the fight and the idealistic revolutionaries are primed to gang up on anyone who won't fly their flag. That said, the script is truly awful. So Al Pacino and his son are first abused by the Americans, then abused by the English, which somehow informs them that the Americans are fighting for freedom and personal liberty despite their experiences!? The entire movie had been all about diligently dispelling that romantic notion up until that point!


Finally, I rewatched several films I saw a long time ago to see if it was their quality or my youth that made them so good. They all passed with flying colours. Bonnie and Clyde is both superbly acted and superbly directed, On the Waterfront escalates into intensity and had that life-like Brando acting, Chinatown is one of the best Noir's of all time and has one of the best, most grim endings of all times, while Siegfried is absolutely amazing and just behind Metropolis in Fritz library, and lastly Kriemhilds Revenge is excellent as well even though I sorely miss the mythic qualities that dominated Siegfried.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Any of you chaps watch Embrace of the Serpent yet? @HUNTERMANIA there is now a better version out with good subs, or you can buy it here:

http://embraceoftheserpent.oscilloscope.net/

US only otherwise I would've just bought it, definitely gonna be a blu ray purchase when it is released though.

 

[europe1]

Okay, so in my previous mega-post I was going to have written about that wacky Kung Fu movie Bullitt mentioned, Kung Fu vs Yoga, but I notice now that the text wasn't posted for some reason and must have been deleated in the posting process. Not the first time that happens.

Anyways, the movie was gobsmackingly hilarious! Spastic, nonsensical, energetic Hong Kong humor at its funniest. That final 15 minutes where they fight the Yogi was just so thoroughly inane I laughed right through it, yet it was simultaniously really impressive too with how nible the guy was. This -- alongside The One-Armed Boxer (another spastic gem) -- has to be the funniest Kung Fu flicks I've seen. Thanks for pointing it out, Bullitt!

Humor in Wuxia flicks are always weird. Especially with how increadibly cringeworthy it can be at times (Excecutioners from Shaolin, for example). But there is definitively this subset of humor where Kung Fu vs Yoga end up in that is absolutely hilarious. There was this one film -- whose title I can't recall, where the three villians where practicing the "rat style", which entailed them standing one one leg, using the other to mimic the waggling of a tail, and fighting with their fingers in the snake style, hopping forward as they fight. These guys are presented as the most brutal badasses in all of China. People just jolt with fear whenever they see them rise to one leg. Snake in the Eagles Shadow also probably deserves a mention with how whackily funny it is.

 

[ufcfan4]

Holy shit! Bisping! That was awesome to see.

 

[europe1]

Holy shit! Bisping! That was awesome to see.

I wake up to THIS!?

Shit I was floored when Bisping beat Silva. But this is just unbeliveble! I went to bed after the Hendo fight - not expecting any suprises.

Pretty freaking awesome though

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Holy shit! Bisping! That was awesome to see.

The whole card was pretty great. I'm not a Bisping fan, but I'm even less of a Rockhold fan. That's what you get for mauling Machida.

 

[theskza]

"Dude Rockhold's gonna be the longest reigning out of the current champs"

- Me ITT

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

"Dude Rockhold's gonna be the longest reigning out of the current champs"

- Me ITT

I must've said something similar as well.

 

[theskza]

I must've said something similar as well.

Didn't you say Weidman would beat him? I meant to take that bet.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Didn't you say Weidman would beat him? I meant to take that bet.

I don't remember. After they fought i said that a rematch would have a different result.

I don't remember when that was...but i think i would have picked Rockhold if i was asked later.