I’m surprised Viola Davis wasn’t included in that Graph of Shame starring Fassbender and Chastain.
I am invigorated by Rothkopf’s ballot (Time Out NY), who voted for Film Socialisme (my #1) as Worst. His best 3: Drive, Shame, We Need to Talk About Kevin. Rex Reed can retire, I have my new reverse barometer. Ha, xxp!
Sorry, Rothkopf is killing it.
Anyone notice yet that the whole #teammargaret campaign ends just like the movie itself: two people in a theater, hugging and crying? —Joshua Rothkopf
ok, he’s captain of the philistines.
not strictly detritus, but I adore this para from Armond White’s Dragon Tattoo review:
Trent Reznor’s score provides a new kind murder music, laughably indistinguishable from a floor-waxer or jet engine. Fincher’s team of high-priced, show-offy hacks are simply in the business of polishing and numbing Dragon Tattoo’s repugnant storyline even if it means incorporating such distractions as Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” or Enya’s “Orinocco Flow”–mash-ups worthy of Gaga. It’s all pointless enough to revoke Fincher’s Kubrick Fan Boy membership card.
Another overlooked gem that barely gained any recognition during its measly release, and only now seems to have developed a slow-building cult following: Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret. I stand by the assertion that this not-quite-completed work is the director’s Magnificent Ambersons, a masterful sophomore effort held down by studio pressure that has kept the director’s cut from seeing the light of day (yet). It’s a fragmented experience mainly anchored by Anna Paquin’s impressive turn as a scowling, confused young woman, but remains one of the most unnerving evocations of teen angst since Thirteen. — Eric Kohn
The opening credits of Dragon Tattoo are the movie’s one bright (sic) spot.
xp not buying it
to be fair, Drive is not awful, just silly. If they’d had the sense to kill off Gosling as the genre tropes require, I might grudgingly point my thumb up at a 95-degree angle.
I was sposed to go to Dragon Tattoo screening last night, but was exhausted from drinking w/ m4tmos.
Have you seen Margaret, EH? If not can I FedEx my ‘preemptive panner’ rep to you?
Won’t get here by Xmas, unfor.
And passing me that title on the basis of one single film is like that episode of Golden Girls when Dorothy hands Rose Blanche’s slut crown on the basis of a single story.
Have you seen Margaret, EH? If not can I FedEx my ‘preemptive panner’ rep to you?
hi, Morbs!
I keep forgetting that Eric watches I’m Not There once a week now
so what do I have to do to get you to send me that screener
lol, I misread his post as an offer to send a screener too, A.
Which I was going to refuse with maximum prejudice.
You have to read more carefully or run Fox Searchlight! They didn’t send any; I paid to see Margaret here in October.
xxp
Eric, are you still in the OMGSociety, and if so are we putting Pitt ToL performance in lead or supporting?
This might me my last year, so I’m debating whether or not to vote at all.
David Edelstein’s half-and-half review of Tree probably approximates my own feelings.
I read Edelstein as basically saying that Tree of Life was great but would have been better if it was half an hour longer, which is kind of my view as well.
It seems like lots of viewers try to attach some symbolic significance to the dinosaur encounter. I tend to see it as of-a-piece with the rest of the “birth of the cosmos” section—it’s just another step in the formation of the planet—no more and no less significant than other steps in the process, such as the cooling of the earth’s crust or the arrival of sea-based life. I certainly don’t see it as the “birth of compassion” or something like that. We shouldn’t try to get inside the dinosaur’s head. If anything it dramatizes a point on the evolution of life on earth—showing a creature with relatively primitive forms of social organization.
Margaret reopens in NYC on Friday
http://www.cinemavillage.com/chc/cv/show_movie.asp?movieid=2348
Have to submit my top 10 today. This reminds me that I actually totally loathe listmaking.
Listmaking is easy; blurbing is hard.
tree of life isn’t even beautiful, is the thing. no more so than yr average nature documentary, interspersed with cheesy cgi. how was the dinosaur scene any more meaningful than any given episode of walking with dinosaurs? so hokey.
i did wish margaret was longer! or, i could have seen how it could have been longer.
I’ve banished TOL from memory except for the Brad Pitt scenes.
there’s not much to remember. it’s not just hallmark card deep, it’s hallmark card attractive too.
haha im surprised that you liked ‘margaret’ lex!
tree of life isn’t even beautiful, is the thing. no more so than yr average nature documentary, interspersed with cheesy cgi. how was the dinosaur scene any more meaningful than any given episode of walking with dinosaurs? so hokey.
The “creation of the cosmos” section, coming right on the heels of the death of the son, the family’s grief, and its questioning of its faith is pretty clearly based on the Book of Job and God’s reply to Job in particular (a verse of which is shown onscreen at the beginning of the movie) so your reaction to this section may have something to do with how much the Book of Job resonates with you.
i posted something vaguely incoherent about why http://alexmacpherson.tumblr.com/post/14561553326/critically-divisive-films-that-last-about-15-hours-of
i tend to really like films which get human interaction right
xp
i think there are surely more resonant or meaningful ways to interrogate the nature of suffering than ugly visuals straight out of a windows screensaver
the entire film had the visual appeal of stock photography
your reaction to this section may have something to do with how much the Book of Job resonates with you.
what if like me you find the Book of Job beautiful and perplexing and this movie a stiff realization of it?
Well, that’s a valid point of view—I don’t agree with it, but I can understand it.
I guess some ppl found in ToL a rich explication of humanity’s role in the cosmos. The closest I came to that was Contagion.
I bet you giggled softly as you set up your own zing.
That’s an interesting parallel. I guess both movies dramatize the human condition: though in “Contagion” the universe’s relation to humanity is unequivocally one of supreme indifference, whereas in ToL, it’s more ambiguous.
xp
I had my problems with TOL but the childhood section was truly beautiful
stock photography > blogging
stock photography > coughing
stock photography < gwyneth’s peeled back scalp
I think Andrew O’Hehir of Salon has hit a year-end wall. They put up his reviews of Tintin & Dragon Tattoo yesterday, both mixed but both literally asking “Was it worth doing?”
I can relate.
oh boy, Lex Pretend sharing his piercing insights into The Tree of Life once more. he sees through the bullshit maaaan.
I enjoyed The Tree of Life quite a bit without caring what the “point” of it was.
I had my problems with TOL but the childhood section was truly beautiful
― Number None, Wednesday, 21 December 2011 20:49 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink
yeah otm i mean saying “the entire film had the visual appeal of stock photography” leaves out yknow the entire parts of the film that were beautiful thoughtful montage taking the vantage point of children & creating a tapestry that felt like memory.
why is it that the people who want to come after me are always the ones with completely anonymous, forgettable usernames that sound like caveman grunts? who the fuck is “berg non”? gtfo!
beautiful thoughtful montage taking the vantage point of children & creating a tapestry that felt like memory.
those were the bits i meant! it’s like if you typed “nostalgia” into istockphoto as a keyword
Have you seen Drive lex?
stock photog x hallmark cards anyway. i thought those scenes were super corny and completely inert and i did not find them remotely emotional.
xp the gosling film? no.
I had the opposite reaction to those scenes.
Also the creation sequence was beautiful.
I want to come after you, lex. Not that way.
Shots of the two brothers crying after learning they’re going to have to move are one of the year’s emotional apexes fuiud.
i keep thinking its strange to really love ‘tree of life’ or ‘margaret’ but not the other cuz they feel so similarly satisfying and ambitious and big but i guess its actually not all that strange
hiya eric.
margaret is so much more human than tree of life—i mean it’s not as simple as me just preferring human interaction to abstraction b/c i feel ToL completely fails on an abstract, visual level too, but that’s certainly one reason i’d respond to one and not the other.
margaret reminded me in a sideways fashion of synecdoche ny, it had that same sort of widescreen grandeur at the same time as putting the human condition under the microscope. (except i found synecdoche ny a little annoying, or maybe i just can’t be bothered to care about the male mid-life crisis in any sort of art any more.)
you really can’t beat a film-critic party where someone does an impression of Richard Brody w/ jazz hands
The Artist is crap.
yes, it is to Singin’ in the Rain & Guy Maddin what Drive is to Le Samourai & The Driver.
well, I voted for the OMGSociety nominees, my #1s being Cert Copy, Paquin, Shannon, Pitt (Tree), Berlin.
Oops.
there’s not much to remember. it’s not just hallmark card deep, it’s hallmark card attractive too.
― degas-dirty monet (lex pretend), Wednesday, December 21, 2011 2:23 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Permalink
i think the “hallmark” or “kitsch” criticisms are fair for Tree of Life but i also think they miss how fucking disorienting and strange it is as well. not sure how “kitsch” or “hallmark” accounts for, say, that truly freaky image of a clown that pops up half way though. or any number of other things. i think maybe those kinds of responses are probably as much against the sort of middle class American/Christian sensibility that the film seems to be at least on some level to be about. ie, “this is hallmark” = this is not a movie meant for me.
especially since i think the movie seems to presume a pretty wide knowledge about religion/theology. what’s particularly weird is how Job and the “tree of life” notion in the Kabbalah seem to intersect (not to mention how “tree of life” is a biological term too!), how both of those texts have a creation myth and how they relate to suffering.
also, in terms of kitsch, it’s really interesting (especially in the way critics have responded) to compare TOL to something like Melancholia (which seems equally kitschy, if more knowing about it).
the OFCS nominations are mostly boring or worse, but these 2 categories came out OK:
Best Film Not in the English Language:
13 Assassins
Certified Copy
A Separation
The Skin I Live In
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Best Documentary:
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
The Interrupters
Into the Abyss
Project Nim
Tabloid
http://www.ofcs.org/2011/12/15th-annual-online-film-critics-society.html
Saw Young Adult. The first half hour is the best work of Reitman’s career: taut and mordant. Then the movie succumbs to tonal imbalance and the Cody-Reitman ethos of going for the throat, in every sense. I wish Charlize Theron was a legit Oscar contender though, as she’s fantastic — her best work, I think.
Yeah, I’d def. have thrown her a nomination vote for the OFCS awards had I seen it in time. (And yes, the actual nods are a bore for the most part.)
xp but just wanted to otm those ryan posts above, they went unotmed
Brad Pitt got the shaft for Moneyball. I can live with that.
tabloid and cave of forgotten dreams can both go away now.
yeah I’m pretty much a Morris stan but after waiting over a year to see it, I found Tabloid to be his least interesting movie by some distance.
aw this is depressing to hear. that it’s been mentioned in the same breath as gates of heaven has me so psyched. it’s sorta interesting because his style circa GoH was so exquisitely appropriate & formally suitable, & i find his flourishes on stuff like standard operating procedure so excessive & detrimental, i don’t know where tabloid will fall.
Tabloid’s good, he doesn’t have to produce some deathless masterwork every time out. At least there’s no motherfucking evil Banksy ‘documentary’ this year.
tabloid and cave of forgotten dreams can both go away now
Think Tabloid edges the other one for Most Disappointing Offering From Its Director or Biggest Waste of a Trip to IFC.
At least there’s no motherfucking evil Banksy ‘documentary’ this year.
i feel petulant for never having seen this, & occasionally wonder whether i’m stubbornly resisting some rogue f for fake meisterwerk on account of my prejudice against its author, so TY for denigrating. i just can’t imagine it being good.
seeing tabloid & margaret next month so will contribute. cave of forgotten dreams was good, it was in service to its material. blown away by into the abyss, though.
I figured Eric manipulsted the OFCS nominations all by himself given the Margaret/Dangerous Method i-didnt -see-it hatred.
May vote for von Trier for best director since 1) he may be the most deserving of the five and 2) it’s virtually abstaining.
Errol Morris is a Great Filmmaker if you think pet cemeteries and crazy filthy crones are fascinating, I guess. #notgayenough
gabbneb, stick to electing police-state Democrats.
May vote for von Trier for best director since 1) he may be the most deserving of the five and 2) it’s virtually abstaining.
i find tree of life slightly gracelessly put together in parts but in terms of realising his vision it whups melancholia, which is so misjudged & loose for something so high concept
yeah, I can’t get too psyched for voting for either LvT’s best film in awhile or Malick’s worst.
I only give credit when other ppl’s vision matches my own.
Errol Morris is a Great Filmmaker if you think pet cemeteries and crazy filthy crones are fascinating, I guess. #notgayenough
If he’s a Great Filmmaker, it’s because he freed someone from death row, an impact I don’t immediately recall any other film matching. While somewhat pornographic, this time around almost literally, his voyeuristic commitment to uprooting truths is valuable, even if its value varies somewhat with the subject matter, this time falling relatively low on the scale because he wasn’t telling us much of anything new.
gabbneb, stick to electing police-state Democrats
I will be exercising my temporarily unabridged freedom of speech, thanks. Remind what liberties Obama has taken from you again?
go fuck yourself
Huh, I didn’t even nominate Kevin in screenplay.
Oh, and The New World is far and away Malick’s worst fuiud.
morbius telling gabbneb to STFU somehow perfectly encapsulating everything good about a sb-free board
he freed someone from death row
def deserved the Nobel over the Smooth Criminal
Are you reminding us that Obama is half-black? I don’t have much of an opinion on the appropriateness of the prize, perhaps because I don’t take it especially seriously (the sciences and other achievements less in the public eye moreso), but I think it quite likely that Obama has saved more lives, net, than Morris.
Are you reminding us that Obama is half-black?
wtg morbs, can’t believe you’re suggesting blacks shouldn’t get the nobel
What do you propose is the significance of comparing Obama to Michael Jackson, schlump?
whites shouldn’t get it either
What do you propose is the significance of comparing Obama to Michael Jackson, schlump?
It’s the song title, fool.
Thanks, I’ve been aware since age 11. Why was the song title of one of the other most famous black people in the world selected as an appellation?
cuz he’s a silver-tongued war criminal according to Morbz.
This is really not that difficult.
What do you propose is the significance of comparing Obama to Michael Jackson, schlump?
i am totally with you, i think ‘smooth criminal’ referred covertly to michael jackson, like the song, reminding us of how those two guys are similar, rather than being a neat encapsulation of how obama might be perceived, smooth, like how you might describe a good, camera-friendly orator, & criminal, the thing we are discussing, his purported criminal acts.
MJ was black iirc, & your weird ‘half-black’ pluck is further out than anything anyone else is saying
“your weird ‘half-black’ pluck is further out than anything anyone else is saying”
I was merely being precise wrt Obama. MJ, of course, lost a great deal of pigmentation, so there is some parallel there.
your sensitivity has lost a great deal of pigmentation today.
dirty detrius, yeah
I bet gabbneb likes The Artist, too
OH NO, PRINCE REF
That is what I thought of first, being that music is the greater medium.
Obama has saved more lives, net,
“net” is what should be thrown over you.