Is there not yet a thread for DRIVE, the forthcoming Ryan Gosling vehicle (geddit)?

Plus Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. Michael Mann-ish? The Driver for the 21st century?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRa3zyHUCtI

wdn't really be anticipating save for Albert.

Four stars from Peter Travers. He just doesn't hand out that credit all willy-nilly.

Ignore Travers. This movie is hot.

(Also ignore Carey Mulligan.)

^^that's Mrs. Mumford to us...

seeing this monday morning!

keep confusing this with DRIVE FAST

Meant to post the trailer before, not that clip.

wdn't really be anticipating save for Albert

Wasn't exactly sure why he'd been getting notices at first. But then, et al.

i cant not picture a scene w/ cranston exclaiming DRIVE! like walt saying GO! in breaking bad

didnt realize albert brooks was in this, i p much despise him tbh

I p much despise driving movies where the cars go faster than Stewart's in Vertigo

i was sold on this movie when they released this clip during cannes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibRSt0Ajqk

holy cow

Morbs, I take it Ed hates this one too, so you'll at least have one other person in your corner.

I have no expectations either way! I haven't even watched the trailer! (I don't watch trailers anymore if they can be avoided.) I'm willing to be surprised by Nicholas Driving Refn, whose earlier films sounded like the bleakest horseshit imaginable. Maybe Hollywood will save him.

It helps to enjoy visceral pleasure.

well, that's what I'm expecting to get out of Warrior.

... the MMA movie?

I prefer to call it man-p0rn.

As you know, E, I also draw visceral pleasure from Temple of Doom and The Awful Truth.

lol @ the goz's toothpick in that trailer

will probably watch this movie tho

Warning bells going off left and right for me on Warrior, as they should be for you and Drive, Morbs.

A shame, tho, because Tom Hardy's about the only one to rival my love for Gosling lately ... when he's not disgustingly puffed up like he is in Warrior.

I like the Australian dude more, tho I have no memory of him in two Sith Wars movies. I do think that any film that inspires AO Scott to write "Sometimes you just have to strip down to your shorts and beat somebody senseless" should be patronized.
Then again, I have no time to see 'regular' movies.

"Sometimes you just have to strip down to your shorts and beat somebody senseless"

Wouldn't you just prefer to do that yourself? I have absolutely no desire to see movies about rock climbing.

well, there's nowhere to go after the Stallone classic.

is Gosling naked in this?

No; actually he spends a few scenes in this movie with even his face covered.

warrior is going to own bones. cant wait for that shit.

was really tempted to make a Warrior thread but i know im the only one on here who's pumped for it

dude Morbs just said he was into it, too

warrior is going to own his bone

i shouldnt attempt to speak for morbs but i have my doubts whether the manporn quotient will be enough to overcome the fact that it's a sentimental uplifting sports movie. but, i would be delighted if he dug it too~!

Wouldn't you just prefer to do that yourself?

I've never even put MMA gloves on, and really haven't ever done anything like it, with the occasional exception of sex.

this was...OK. Somewhat disappointing. A little too cool/coy for its own good.

Glenn Kenny kicked up a mild kerfuffle along those lines:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/09/is-there-anything-nicolas-winding-refn-cant-do.html

Dumb.

Hoberman likes.

loved bronson, pumped as all get out for this

what did you think of valhalla rising?

and yeah bronson was super impressive

it was cool and very silly imo xp

spoiler alert on that hoberman review :/

He also told the story of getting Ryan Gosling to do the film, for which he didn’t yet have the story. They went to dinner, and Winding-Refn, who doesn’t drive, asked Gosling to drive him home.

“There was this awkward silence between us. Ryan turns on the radio. It’s soft rock -- REO Speedwagon, ‘I can’t fight this feeling.’ And I start to cry. Literally. Tears falling down my cheek.

“Ryan is thinking how the fuck do I get him out of my car? And I start singing the song. It’s foreplay. I’m really into it. I slapped my knee. And turned to Ryan in car, and I scream in his face, music so loud -- I got it!

“It’s a man driving around in a car at night listening to music, that’s his emotional release.”

That became the film, "Drive," which opens in the fall.

what the fuck

film directors say the dumbest shit, all the time

someone should re-edit that clip cankles posted with can't fight this feeling as the soundtrack

“There was this awkward silence between us. Ryan turns on the radio. It’s soft rock -- REO Speedwagon, ‘I can’t fight this feeling.’ And I start to cry. Literally. Tears falling down my cheek.

“Ryan is thinking how the fuck do I get him out of my car? And I start singing the song. It’s foreplay. I’m really into it. I slapped my knee. And turned to Ryan in car, and I scream in his face, music so loud -- I got it!

Worst date ever.

No date with Gosling can be the worst ever.

That became the film, "Drive," which opens in the fall.

http://stupidcelebrities.net/wp-content/old_pictures/paul_harvey3.jpg

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/328765/thumbs/s-GOSLING-WINDING-REFN-large300.jpg

Anyone not wish they were the guy on the right? If so, sit down and shut up.

will see this because the soundtrack includes Desire and the Chromatics

any idea what drugs these guys are on in this cannes interview?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/may/22/cannes-film-festival-ryan-gosling

alcohol

danish people are so weird

you expect them to be really normal and easygoing cause their country is like social democracy most advanced society on planet type shit, but theyre just weirdos

swedes too

i love refn so i expect to love this as well

if i was giving refn a life home and he started crying when reo speedwagon came on, i don't know what i'd do.

OK, didn't realize til skimming the Scott and Edelstein pans what a gorefest this is. Planning to skip.

Already weeping at the uninformed interjections you'll be slipping into the detritus thread in three months' time.

Oops, I meant detrius.

Not gonna blackmail me into any more inglourious timewasters, BUB!

(I let Ed have it for that I'm Not There joke yesterday, I meant to CC you)

Well you can spend your time during next year's Oscarcast whacking off to your Criterion DVD of Design for Living then.

And not watching horror movies c. 2000-2011

I don't even like that one, particularly. (Gary Cooper) xp

whacking off to Gary Cooper is a horror movie.

also, I only behave that way at parties if they're in the basement.

People actually watch Noel Coward movies at parties now and not just in the shame of their lame solitude? I feel ill; need to go watch A Serbian Film now to get my equilibrium back.

in which Eric serves

damn, I hope you used better lines than this on TV's Frank!

The Lubitch film of DoL, anecdotally, used one line of dialogue from the Coward play.

in which Eric serves

You got Ernst'd

I do like it when Cooper stabs Fredric March in the eye with a fork (Oscarworthy)

I'd like that irl

really dark, too gory 4 sure but like bronson there'er some great scenes & refn is v skilled @ building tension. sound design & soundtrack are a+

he does appear to like his monotonous sequencers doesn't he

this will be my first time seeing a refn film (also never watched carey mulligan or gosling in anything)

also really want to see brooks be scary

On the phone from his home in Copenhagen, Drive director Refn says he "always wanted" Brooks for the role, but he still asked that the actor make his case for the part in person.

"There are certain things that I've wanted to do," Brooks says. "And one of them is to play a guy that's that guy — I don't like to call him a bad guy. I went to see Nicolas. [I said], 'You can go with the six people that are the bad guys in every movie ever made' — and I knew he wanted to hear this, because he asked me to come to his house — 'But, to me, it's more exciting when I don't know that I know everything that's going to happen when a guy comes on-screen.'

"So Nicolas liked that, and he said, 'You know, when I was a young man, I watched that movie Lost in America and I saw you yelling at your wife, and it scared the hell out of me.' And I said, 'OK, that's good.'"

"Albert was like a volcano of emotions," Refn remembers, laughing. "There was something really unique — and threatening. I felt that this guy, eventually, he will kill somebody — so let's make it in a movie."

^^^good idea for dark sequel to lost in america

Projecting a #3 for the weekend at 11m. I think a midnight screening will be empty enough for me to see it tonight, after roadworks held me up in traffic and I missed an earlier screening.

yeah i was thinking abt just going to see this tonight since im feeling to sick to go out properly

I like the thought of Morbs trying to find reasons not to see a movie and scrolling through the RT "Top Critics" section and finding the 2 Splats as enough justification to skip.

Nicolas Winding Refn sought advice from Gaspar Noé on how to make brutal and realistic facial damage.

wtg Nick

that a movie is made for nerds who fetishize 'hypermasculine' slick violence is usu reason enough, Guk

ie THAT'S A BINGO

what about people who like thrillers?

...or cars?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/

or, y'know, The Driver.

guess people should stop making movies

just empty ones

so is the problem that it's empty or that it's gory?

htfdik

btw RT Top Critics are mostly syphilitic dumbshits.

then why are their reviews enough to convince you to skip it?

you are annoying me; ta

we really need an opens-umbrella-spins-on-heel-walks-away.gif for these moments

Films that are likely to be unmorbs are obvious and he can tell immediately.

TA!

some people find it hard to admit that they just don't like a certain type of thing.

What does this movie make you think and feel about Los Angeles?

that the clippers are relevant

hmmm

Sometimes I don't know for sure I really truly liked a movie until morbs starts slamming it unseen.

let's face it, he's a maniac

He'll kill us all.

Har, I went and saw Shoeshine in rep tonight instead of this. Morbs would've been proud.

i doubt drive is less "empty" than the driver. i love a film that is 100% style/technique

ha i think i meant more but w/e this is going to very stylized and the noir-by-numbers plot won't really get in the way of enjoying the visuals i reckon. and i def don't care for gratuitous violence but i'll wait to see the flick before commenting on that.

Sometimes I don't know for sure I really truly liked a movie until morbs starts slamming it unseen

You told me I didn't like it, sweet stuff! (also, this is the sight-unseen-I'm Not-There guy)

Saw this tonight. There was this obnoxious fat idiot behind me commenting on how "ugly" Carey Mulligan was, and he said it in the most disgusting popcorn-eating fat slob voice: "GAH, (nom) SHEESH (nom) UGLEE!" I wanted to kill him.

Anyway, it was alright. Gorgeous to look at, great score and some awesome moments of tension, but still pretty hollow.

Worth seeing, though.

that was me

lol

this is a pretty good character study about a man whose clippers fandom turned him into a rageful monster

this is pretty good, but like you said its hollow. the stylishness, tension, perfs carry it a long way. gosling's been promoting it as pretty in pink with violence, which made me afraid that it'd be some lame character study instead of a head-smashing good time. but the violence in it exceeded all expectations, reminded me of old school verhoeven like how total recall would have these explosions of comic brutality out of nowhere. i could see it again just for the gore money shots.

but in my opinion it fails at being a john hughes movie because gosling and mulligan are both from the wrong side of the tracks. hughes would never have stood for a same side of the tracks romance. nice try, you danish punk.

it would've been a lot closer to a great movie if they hacked out the carey mulligan character. nothing against her, but the character's a big nothing and has no place in a lean-n-mean walter hill ripoff. plus, gosling is already the movie's blank slate (he reminded me a little of leon from the professional - they're both unsettlingly childlike) - you cant bounce two blanks off each other like that

the multiplex audience was very uncomfortable with the movie's rhythms. lots of walkouts, even before the violent bits kicked in.

its no The Driver, but worth seeing if you dig that kind of movie

but in my opinion it fails at being a john hughes movie

first plausibly good thing I've read about it

i wanted to see this before i heard about all the ultra-violence (don't enjoy that kind of thing usually). but ill see it anyway, since Valhalla Rising was kinda vacant but really gorgeous.

This was a completely senseless good time. And aside from one or two decent pieces the actors were completely wasted throughout (why even both getting good people if you aren't good to even use them well). I did like that it moves at such a languorous pace for the first hour before the violence explodes (audible gasp in my movie theater during the first such sequence--there seem to be a high percentage of folks who thought this was a "date movie", I guess.) Anyway I wasn't bored and the movie (and LA) looked great.

The Driver might be a better movie than Drive (have to rescreen it) and Thief might be better too (which I also kept thinking of) but I'd rather watch Gosling than either O'Neal or Caan.

The Driver is pretty good, but when did it become one of the unassailable '70s classics?

yea i dont hold the driver or thief for that matter in v high regard & ive seen both fairly recently

When Drive came out apparently. Walter Hill really is underrated though.

I don't view it as such -- only saw it for the first time this spring -- just that it seems to be the most efficient ancestor of this film. I'm guessing Alex doesn't consider Drive the equal of Le Samourai, which some of the more wild-eyed supporters of this movie seem to be writing.

xxp

Yeah, but c'mon. The Warriors > The Driver and everyone knows it.

the wapo review of this described it as "very european" which i read as code for le samourai tbh

Xxp no I don't. I don't even think it's as good as any of the Pusher films.

The Long Riders is better than the Driver too.

The Warriors is amusing but way too 'cute' for me. *surprise*

also, neither of those films have Bruce Dern

Neither does Le Samouri.

charley varrick is a decent parallel imo. esp the heist-that-yields-more-$-than-expected & ensuing complications angle

I'm always happy to see a move in the mould of Le Samourai, even if it is The American

ugh, that was a waste, down to the concluding butterfly

Charley Varrick is a better, albeit less stylish, movie.

Thx for reminding me of The American, makes any hesitations I have about endorsing Drive fall completely away.

I didn't like The American, or at least I didn't like a lot of it, but those kinds of film are like catnip to me.

it would've been a lot closer to a great movie if they hacked out the carey mulligan character. nothing against her, but the character's a big nothing and has no place in a lean-n-mean walter hill ripoff

Yeah, this. Her second September movie in a row in which she plays a wan nothing.

The racial politics in this thing are...interesting.

My 12:10 showing was out of a David Lynch movie: a half dozen men with severe mental retardation making nose in the right rear of the theater.

I was the only one who laughed hysterically at Albert Brooks' excellent delivery of his resume ("I used to make movies in the eighties...critics called them European").

naw, i think she's pretty important (xpost)

the thing is that carey is an object of affection, you know? she's not a very sexual person. i think that's why she works in this role, she's someone to love (ditto the kid), not someone to lust over.

that said, i was pretty shocked to learn that Refn isn't gay. i imagine most straight directors would have picked a more sexual actress for that role

LOVED this film btw

and want Ryan Gosling

that a movie is made for nerds who fetishize 'hypermasculine' slick violence is usu reason enough, Guk

don't think this is accurate? there's nothing Tarantino (ughh) about this violence. it's not "fun" and there's no cheering it on (the film is tracking terribly with audiences, a C-minus cinemascore--there's a reason they hate it)

C-minus cinemascore

Uggggh, audiences!

Like I said, beside the Dream Team in the corner, my audience didn't utter a peep, and I distinctly saw rustling and phone-consulting.

man, I really envy Gosling's toothpick.

lol cinemascores. if there was ever any evidence that audiences are easy as hell to entertain, there they are.

the thing is that carey is an object of affection, you know? she's not a very sexual person. i think that's why she works in this role, she's someone to love (ditto the kid), not someone to lust over.

Unlike Isabelle Adjani in The Driver, which I assume in addition to the lacking of a police subplot is where Drive diverges (still haven't seen yet, maybe early this week.

That limbless surfer movie got an A+ from Cinemascore, so, um, yeah.

As long as you don't confront the audience with anything weird, you're generally guaranteed a B (lol Solaris). I'd be shocked if excessive violence turned them off, unless the violence in this is really excessive.

It's pretty graphic.

morbs otm re: most efficient ancestor - dont really understand what everyone else is babbling about

the wapo review of this described it as "very european" which i read as code for le samourai tbh

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:18 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

it's very euro but in a more contemporary way. i didnt think of le samourai much. lots of knife violence in it - you know if an american director got their hands on this it would've been nonstop guns.

naw, i think she's pretty important (xpost)

the thing is that carey is an object of affection, you know? she's not a very sexual person. i think that's why she works in this role, she's someone to love (ditto the kid), not someone to lust over.

yeah, she's the object of affection, big deal - the character has a purpose but still sucks. they could've cut her out and just used the kid, but then you'd be reminding people how much they'd rather be watching Leon. get real, tape store!!

don't think this is accurate? there's nothing Tarantino (ughh) about this violence. it's not "fun" and there's no cheering it on (the film is tracking terribly with audiences, a C-minus cinemascore--there's a reason they hate it)

― licking your challops (Tape Store), Saturday, September 17, 2011 2:46 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

there isn't, huh? then why was i lustily cheering along the rest of the theater, huh pal

i think friedkin's Bug is the lowest scoring movie in cinemascore history

you and your theater are sadists!

my theater was pretty much dead silent, with the exception of some muttering from the old ladies behind me </midwest>

oh there were groans at a certain restaurant scene, too

the violence got a lot of lols when i saw it. terrible script though.

"what do you do?"
*grin*
"i drive... for movies"
*grin*
*looks away bashfully*
*silence*
*shit-eating grin*

sounds existential

cue music ♫ a reeeal human being and a reeeal herooo ♫

^^^totally convinced i must see this soon^^^^

man to be the toothpick Gosling savors...

...it's probably flavored!

i think friedkin's Bug is the lowest scoring movie in cinemascore history

Kind of a badge of honor.

loved this. puts the nail in bullshit slapstick post-post-post-Tarantino post-Ritchie SMOKIN ACES bullshit madcap gangster bullshit. crime is sad all up and down the chain.

loved the self-conscious retro vibe, the title typeface, the long holds, the complete absence of score, the vangelis-y soundtrack elements. There are really very few acts of violence. It's just that they're... violent, which seems a far more moral cinematic position to take than the typical spray of poorly aimed bullets and one-punch knockouts.

pace am0n the script was dope. our lead more or less speaks in monosyllables until... well, when his first consecutive sentences come out, everything changes. that's a very neat trick. very little dialogue at all, really.

reminded me, oddly (or not so oddly given that it's a noir with a lot of breathing room that captures LA's particular brand of loneliness) of BLADE RUNNER.

dunno what movie morbs saw but i don't get the nerd-fantasy aspect at all. great reminder of just how little you need to create suspense/horror/pity/catharsis. glad I saw it in a theater. made me like being at the movies for the first time in a long time.

man, I really envy Gosling's toothpick.

I'd rather be Jake Gyllenhaal's bicycle seat.

dunno what movie morbs saw

I haven't seen it, I am gleaning the dissents.

YOU PPL WIN AGAIN, I'LL SEE IT, SOMEDAY, FUCK FUCK FUCK

I think the only reason you come into these threads to say "I'm not going to see this" is so we can all badger you into a situation where you feel you absolutely MUST see it.

Almost everyone you normally trust is on the CON side with this, Morbs. Don't know why you feel the need to catch it.

Saw this today. I've hated every previous Refn movie except Valhalla Rising, and/but I own both The Driver and Thief on DVD. This movie pretty much had me the second I saw the neon pink opening credits and heard the synth score. Beautifully shot, zero unnecessary elements...loved it.

Eric, like Popeye Doyle, I don't trust anybody.

morbs do you own any records from the italians do it better label? did you watch ALOT of hbo in 1983? look at the poster - that font, blow yr mind? if the answer to any of these questions is yes you might like drive, otherwise don't bother.

didn't have cable in '83

not even for the telegraph?

holy shit the violence in this film!

i don't think a morbs would really dig this

i liked the visual aesthetic, the noir-ish "precision" in dialogue, albert brooks' performance.

i thought the soundtrack choices were very ~euopean~

Still collecting my thoughts, but really dug this on the whole.

Russ Tamblyn was the crime doctor!

i noticed tambs in the credits and couldnt even remember him in the movie

Yeah, he's in the movie for literally 30 secs-1 min.

YES! YES! YESHSHG! GO HOME TO SHITSYLVANIA, LOSERS!

wrong thread.

morbs skip it and rent 'bronson' instead

I've had a screener disc of Bronson for 2-3 years.Will probably have time to watch it in January.

Watch Bronson! It pretty much single-handedly sold me on Tom Hardy's potential.

yeah Bronson is flawed but Hardy is really impressive

I'd say that as a whole movie it's uneven, but some of the set pieces in there are really great and, hey, if nude Tom Hardy is your thing then it's even better.

On thread topic, I actually saw Drive yesterday and will write something here after my thoughts come to a head.

"Logan's Run"

No, seriously: Gosling and Refn can't get enough of each other. They're planning on a remake of this 1976 sci-fi classic, with Gosling playing the starring role of a guy living in a dystopian world where no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. The project has long been in development, with directors like Bryan Singer coming and going. Fingers crossed that Gosling and Refn can succeed where others have fallen short.

Last I'd heard an LR remake was going to lower the age to 21 for greater appeal to the core audience.

The age in the book is 21!

"eyes crossed"

why would anyone cross their fingers that a Logan's Run remake will happen?

bcz really, remaking '70s garbage is the summit of cinematic aspiration

can't wait 4 remakes of remakes

..(wait for it)... of remakes.

The Award for Best Movie Musical based on a Musical based on a Movie...

"can't wait 4 remakes of remakes"

The Thing is coming out in October.

I'm going to remake The Maltese Falcon.

they remade Casablanca as Barb Wire, so y not

Alan Cumming in Peter Lorre's role

Meryl Streep as Gutman.

they remade Casablanca as Barb Wire, so y not

I... did not know this

what the hell

Rufus Wainwright as the gunsel

OK, I just got on a mental tangent of imagining what films would be like with different casts.

Drive starring Seann William Scott as the driver

Drive starring Seann William Scott as the driver

Dude, Where's My Million Dollars?

Yeah this isn't Tarantino-style geek violence.

i totally fucking enjoyed this.

also dr morbius i know this probably won't and shouldn't prompt any public self-reflection but your whole highbrow tsk-tsk schtick is embarrassing and too revealing -- it demonstrates exactly the opposite of what i expect you want it to demonstrate (that you're a cynical sophisticate).

anyway this film is by no means perfect. but i'm deeply skeptical of the usual "style over substance" complaint. style _is_ substance. and this had a lot of style. i didn't like the use of slo-mo, though paradoxically (?) i wish that refn pushed the boundaries of taste (not in terms of violence but in terms of film language) a bit more. on that score i liked the brooding superimpositions.

anyway on the level of "would you recommend that other people see this" i'd say HELL YES.

also LOL at people who have well-formed opinions on MOVIES THAT THEY HAVEN'T SEEN.

also some reviews seem to complain about gosling + mulligan being "unconvincing." what wold convince them? that they have INTERESTS IN COMMON? or A DEEP INTELLECTUAL CONNECTION? i mean, it's not that kind of movie. their characters are axioms. there's one brief but spellbinding sequence where gosling is about to leave her apartment and there are a few silent close-ups where they lock eyes and it's like THIS IS ON. that's all we need, really.

also nice that the italo revival now has a feature film to its credit. :)

i mean this movie could have been smarter, more intricate. it could have been better. but taken at face value it was super-entertaining to watch.

haha refn is so plastered here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/may/22/cannes-film-festival-ryan-gosling

if i was hanging out in cannes with an expense account i'd be sloshed too

also danish accents are fascinating because they basically learn better english than we americans do.

I wasn't looking for "intellectual connections," whateever that means -- I wanted Mulligan convincing as a person, and she wasn't.

alfred otm

dont get me wrong, i liked the movie, but

one guy i really liked in this was oscar isaac. he was literally the only good thing about ridley scott's Robin Hood too

Haven't seen this yet, but I'm rather personally offended that Mulligan's character was Latina in the book. Refn cast Mulligan because apparently he none of the actually Latina actresses who tried out clicked with him and Mulligan was the first actress he felt "protective" towards. Kind of gross, tbh. Par for the course though, I guess. I still want to see it, but it's kind of put me off seeing it in the theatre.

Like I wrote on Saturday, the movie's racial politics are weird.

Gosling as a goy Galahad.

For what it's worth, I also read that they were attempting to cast someone who actually had been in adult films for the part Christina Hendricks played, but they didn't get the results they wanted by going that direction, either. I thought that both seemed authentic to the film, in that the film does not really seem authentic to reality.

Amateurist all kinds of OTM

I thought that by keeping most things simple, the film succeeded by doing the few things it did reasonably well. Fleshing out anything would have been a risk. The most expository dialogue we get is from Brooks/Perlman and even then, it's still pretty general. I thought that was an interesting reflection of the lyrics of the songs used somewhat thematically -- in a more complex film, they'd have seemed trite but there was a simplicity to the plot depth that made it work.

My highbrow tsk-tsk schtick extends to being a Jackass and Spielberg fan, you may notice now n' then when I am flayed about the latter. (The former is fine bcz, u know, body fluids & sublimated homoism)

I have no well-formed opinions on this film; call them deep and well-grounded suspicions.

What I "wish to project" on this board is nothing, cuz I really don't give a fuck.

so gtfotm

I loved the polite, smarmy way in which Brooks dispatches a certain character.

style _is_ substance

never heard that before, soooooooo deep

Mulligan underwritten - and she couldn't bring anything more to it through her skills, sadly - but I think that works for that creepy, "protective" comment reason.

havent seen this yet, want to but wont have the cash til its on netflix prolly, but 3D characters in a movie about a face-stompin super-driver strike me as something that might be a bonus, not the draw.

sure - but the problem is when you spend an excessive amount of time with those cardboard characters

sometimes blank flatness can be really engrossing (can't think of an example tho, heh). sometimes you have to take it as a given that the people you are watching are true in their non-3d-ness.

speaking a little too generally i guess, and no i haven't seen this movie either.

imo stock characters are sometimes best utilized when not fleshed-out too heavily

carey mulligan is awful and I do not understand her appeal. What a dud.

In this film or in general? I thought she did a decent enough job of awkwardly smiling.

she was v pretty in this yeah

Just in general, she seems kind of BLAND

Mulligan was great on Doctor Who as Sally Sparrow

most people are bland, but most actors are all about effusing PERSONALITY

thank you carey mulligan for seeming real

hey when does this come out in britain?

Friday

gettin' down on Friday

style _is_ substance

never heard that before, soooooooo deep

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 10:23 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i don't intend to be deep -- it's how i feel. it's what i think. i mean think about, say, jacques tati. his (v great) films make total hash of the style/substance dichotomy. they are patently the same thing.

btw a few folx (e.g. glenn "never met a film-crit inside-baseball argument i didn't like" kenny) are comparing this unfavorably to walter hill's the driver, an obvious (even overweening?) influence. that's fine. but the terms on which the comparison is made are often fishy. well-rounded characters? psychologically realistic? the driver is one of the most (gloriously, on occasion) stylized and pretentious films to come out of new hollywood -- the characters there are even blanker and more axiomatic than the ones in drive. there is nothing resembling character psychology in that film. there is also a fuckton of stuff in hill's film that is dubious, even risible. that doesn't diminish its orginality. but like drive it is a formal exercise--and i feel like people are donning their rose-colored glasses in claiming its inevitable superiority to this new film.

also someone kinda mentioned this upthread but i thought the way some of the songs' lyrics were on-the-nose was itself part of the retro vibe.

but honestly i don't think there are many folx (except maybe those allergic to graphic violence, fair enough) who wouldn't find this really exciting/ entertaining.

morbs btw i am not claiming your tastes are universally highbrow, just that your persona seems characterized by this sort of aching condescension toward everything -- highbrows like "lowbrow" fare, in fact it's part of the job description since sontag et al. we probably share a lot of tastes, in fact, it's just the "pithy" way that you put down everything that irks.

often when people criticize a film for "style over substance," when i watch the film what i find are actually failures of style. trying to think of an example. a lot of neo-noirs, maybe. just not really this one.

amateurist I think you're maybe right for ilx but the moviegoing public in my theater seemed to be going nuts at the long shots of landscapes and facial expressions with no dialogue

I was going nuts because the middle-aged dude down the row from me couldn't figure out how to text message without his phone beeping or realize he could move his ass out of the theater

come on amateurist, everyone knows the 'point' of criticism is to voice only opinions that have never been spoken before

i.e.:

that a movie is made for nerds who fetishize 'hypermasculine' slick violence is usu reason enough

I feel sorry for the folks that show up late and miss the opening chase, because it settles the action jones for awhile.

amateurist I think you're maybe right for ilx but the moviegoing public in my theater seemed to be going nuts at the long shots of landscapes and facial expressions with no dialogue

― so i had sex with a piñata (mh), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 2:53 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i suppose it's a little arty for some audiences, i suspect folks on ILX would love it though.

Johnny Jewel wrote a score that wasn't used

The opening job is up there with some of the better movie opening set pieces I've seen. And the first couple minutes of it are on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE1tqMUd4R8

(Note that this is also somewhat of a misleading opening, as the movie is not car-action heavy)

ryan gosling is beautiful amirite?

Some publications having a laugh at internet folk/critics for always saying Gosling is "The Next Big Thing" and then the totals for this movie came in. Really snarky shit. Which annoys the hell out of me. Gosling could probably be a big star if he really wanted to, but he seems to have very little interest in fronting the kind of projects that would crossover.

Also the whole "stars can carry a movie" thing seems to be largely over anyway.

he's been in some (moderately) succesful movies! it's probably to his credit that he's doing more drives and blue valentines than the sub-notebook bullshit he probably coulda been sleepwalking thru since.

.. Gosling appears to be in every movie coming out this year so, regardless of what the publications are saying, it seems that Hollywood definitely considers him to be The Next Big Thing

this movie hasn't really opened wide has it? here it's in the "art" cinema and will open to the multiplexes next week.

did it really tank on per-screen average? coz i can see this building word of mouth.

i mean the key thing really is not total gross but per-screen avg.

ok per-screen avg is $3,929

ok so yeah that's bad but maybe not disastrous?

the problem w/gosling is that hes best in notebook shit

people LOOOOOVE that movie, what's the deal w/it?

I have no idea, it's a decidedly average, not at all special movie

weeping, making out, weeping iirc

It opened on 2,300-odd screens or something like that. Third behind The Lion King and Contagion is not bad at all, and it's probably made it's budget back by now. Fared much better than Straw Dogs or I Don't Know How She Does It, but box-office reporters love to rub arthouse/critics/the internets "failures" into everyone's face.

Not that this is the same thing. Critics liked Scott Pilgrim and, to a lesser extent, Kick-Ass, but those were triumphed by the Comic-Con, Aintitcoolnews Geek contingent, which is a whole different thing. These publications don't seem to understand that.

srsly when people started being all "ryan gosling, adventurous actor" between half nelson and b.v. i was like "the notebook lug"?

Aye, The Notebook wasn't much of a thing when it came out, but it has built a huge reputation from saddo-Nicolas 'I Don't Write Melodrama" Sparks fans. And girls who just think Gosling is hawt - which is fair enough.

the notebook would be part of the new cult cannon if ppl who wrote abt cult films didnt h8 women

hmmm

I mean, yeah, probably

dont syh at me cuz you dont understand romance

no head shakin'! my first thought was, "but it's a shitty film", but then I remembered that most films in the cult canon are shitty films.

I reaaaaaally wanted Gosling to fuck Gena Rowlands on a beach, but I missed that scene.

the notebook would be part of the new cult cannon if ppl who wrote abt cult films didnt h8 women

― #@_@# (Lamp), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 4:29 PM (9 minutes ago)

Can't figure out if I'm cringing because I realized a blind spot of mine has been illuminated, or because Lamp is trying to con me into watching The Notebook.

wait, the lion king?

i had no idea it was in the cult cannon until "Lazy Sunday" tbh

xp: in lifelike 3D, for a new generation.

yeah, they converted The Lion King to 3D to give it a 2-week theatrical re-release in anticipation of the Blu-Ray. They thought it'd get around 11 million and wound up making 30.

probs because people with kids who are you pretty young are the children of people who were kids when it came out and they all thought "oh man kid you should see this it is the best" but really they just wanted to go to the theatre and be taken back to a time before they had kids/worries.

A) Gosling's perf in The Notebook may still be one of his very best ever. He must hate that.
B) amateurist, sometimes your reactions surprise me so much I think someone else must be using your login

i haven't seen the notebook and eons and despite lamp's tsk-tsk'ing i'm not about to go back to it but while eric may be right i do have a weakness for actors that could have been leading beefcake who "took another path."

haven't seen the notebook in eons, that is

After the Brando comparisons, I look forward to 250 lb Gosling in 20 years.

the horror

I look forward to Ryan Gosling's Freshman reprise of the Driver.

while eric may be right i do have a weakness for actors that could have been leading beefcake who "took another path."

screw you for "enabling" the career of Leo DiCaprio.

marto scorsesington

Actors that could have been leading ribeye.

DiCaprio is a Boca Burger.

anyway The Gosling wrings whatever could be wring from that part in The Notebook, and McAdams does wring Gosling alright.

Gosling and McAdams made Garner and Rowlands' acting look like senile high schoolers.

Guess maybe that was part of the point.

fuck y'all, yr not gonna make me watch the notebook again

amateurist, sometimes your reactions surprise me so much I think someone else must be using your login

er... thank you? or maybe not...

"not enough driving" - s1ocki

:D

It was a compliment.

marto scorsesington

lol'd

fwiw i wld never encourage anyone to watch 'the notebook' just more rmde at ppl who act like its a worse or more manipulative film than like, 'half nelson'

Wouldn't really argue with that, though the general story/atmosphere of Half Nelson was better than The Notebook (which is hardly the worst film ever made).

s1ockster otm

morbs btw i am not claiming your tastes are universally highbrow, just that your persona seems characterized by this sort of aching condescension toward everything -- highbrows like "lowbrow" fare, in fact it's part of the job description since sontag et al. we probably share a lot of tastes, in fact, it's just the "pithy" way that you put down everything that irks.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 3:50 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

you do this thing where you pop out of a hole like a gopher every once in a while to take another poster down a peg and it always makes you look like an imperious asshole

srsly when people started being all "ryan gosling, adventurous actor" between half nelson and b.v. i was like "the notebook lug"?

― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, September 21, 2011 5:27 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

he was doing stuff like the believer and the slaughter rule before the notebook!

oh yeah 'the believer' may actually (hmmm) be my fave gosling role

i guess i'd have to admit that 'the driver' has a lot more driving than 'drive'

sorry for seeming like an asshole, princess TT. dr morbius gets on my nerves when i poke into a thread like this one b/c he's all pithy condescension -- it's like he (she?) makes argument-like gestures without making arguments. i suppose that criticism could be leveled at all of us, though.

or at me, anyway.

This movie is violent, but I never felt it really lingered on the gore in any way. A guy gets his head caved in, sure, but you never actually see his head iirc, it's all a low-angle shot of Gosling stomping. I think it's almost the opposite of that Tarantino/nerd violence fetish in the way it never lingers. By the way people were talking, I was expecting extended takes akin to the guy with the blown-off jaw in A History of Violence. But maybe I just missed bits.

i think there's a quick shot of his caved-in head, but a very quick one

the final bit of violence was handled extremely elliptically -- i don't think we ever see blades hitting flesh, it's all sudden movements and reactions (and shadows of course)

One of my favourite moments, that final bit. Quick shots, mostly shadows, intercut with the previous scene.

This movie avoids a lot of the groany-winking form of postmodernism Tarantino loves. It might be heavily referential, but it all feels a part of the piece as opposed to explicit citation. I'd also argue that the movie is so much from the Driver's perspective and his clearly adolescent views on love that Mulligan's character would never really have been allowed to be fully fleshed out because he sees things so simplistically -i.e. in terms of pop songs. It's more of the feeling of love than actual love. Although obviously there's a point at which I'm probably just making excuses because I found it quite beautiful stylistically.

There's a lot of self-mythologizing going on, though it's never pointed out because, again, it's his point of view. The lyrics to that College song are a little on-the-nose because he wants them to be. That's how he sees things. Telling, perhaps, that they cut out the spoken word bit in "Under Your Spell" which gives the song a sense of coming from a delusional, lovestruck teenager/stalker.

I really liked this a lot, but I'm probably just defending it harder because I listened to the Slate Culture Gabfest for about 7 minutes and got really annoyed.

the violence in this was great. love ott shit like that. more!

I'd also argue that the movie is so much from the Driver's perspective and his clearly adolescent views on love that Mulligan's character would never really have been allowed to be fully fleshed out because he sees things so simplistically -i.e. in terms of pop songs. It's more of the feeling of love than actual love. Although obviously there's a point at which I'm probably just making excuses because I found it quite beautiful stylistically.

no, i think that's a good point. my friend compared him to Pinocchio, which i also think makes a measure of sense. refn was inspired by fairy tales and thinks of driver as a knight stranded in the real world, which explains the character's purity and deployment of brutal, 'chivalric' violence

i don't buy the subjective argument at all. but then i rarely do. i don't think the film is inside his head at all. i don't think you need to motivate it that way. the character is blank because that's the sort of film it is: he's like ryan o'neal's driver mixed with all the other stoic taciturn macho action movie stars you can name. i think it's really beside the point to speculate on his psychology, because he doesn't have any.

kind of agree with the post above mine, though.

also think the contrast between the 'chivalry' of the character and the unnecessary brutal violence (i mean, sheesh, you can stop kicking the guy's head in now) is supposed to be kind of distancing. a way of measuring distance between this film & its time & its models & their time. i don't mean that to be deep nor does the movie i think. it's just kind of there.

in that sense i guess it's like every other contemporary reprehensible genre rehash but this one has more style so

btw when i step back from discussions about screen violence i realize how i've gotten sucked into this world where you have to justify it. which i don't really believe.

Don't be sorry, Am. Morbs hasn't once posted here without some level of condescension, pithy or otherwise.

I mean, it is Morbs. That's kind of what he does on movie and politics threads!

Just remembered: the shotgun blast interrupting what was a nearly silent scene that was building tension was good!

the rest of that scene was kind of eh

This was shared by the people who do the FB page for the film:

A tweet from Bret Easton Ellis: “After seeing Drive today was told: ‘Sorry, babe, but I'd leave you for Ryan Gosling...’ My response: ‘Um, babe, I'd leave you for him, too.’”

Salon dissects the "dreadful word of mouth":

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/drive/2011/09/23/drive_convo

Eric, I sometimes wish E.G. was here to provide higher-quality pith and condescension, but that's life:

For Salon, Thomas Rogers and Andrew O'Hehir discuss why audiences are rejecting Nicolas Winding Refn's pretentious, feels-like-it-was-made-by-a-Pitchfork-loving-hipster Drive.

lol

I am not sure what this "dreadful word of mouth" thing is about, since I saw it after a friend had recommended it and I told several others to do the same.

C- Cinemascore

and smug writers laughing at internet/critic hyped 'failure' blowing it out of proportion

it's a very deliberately paced movie - lots of quiet scenes that make normie audiences uncomfortable. one of my friends who hates anything artsy thought it was super boring.

^^^The backlash, if anything, is due to that more than the extremeness of the violence or the lack of obvious sex.

kids today. smh

What do you mean kids? It was mostly people in their 30s and 40s yawning and looking pissed off in my theater.

just joking there

mh acts bewildered about negative word of mouth, then admits entire theater hated movie

I meant that characterizing the word of mouth effect for this movie as completely negative is wrong. Don't get me wrong, most people in that theater told their friends not to go!

they told the friends they were with not to go? but they'd already gone

I don't think matters were helped by the fact that in the theatre I saw it in, most of the trailers were for more straight-forward action flicks (Killer Elite, Haywire, that J-G Levitt bike messenger movie), which really hammered home how different the feature presentation would be.

i fully anticipate that killer elite will be way better than this neon eurofart of a movie

What about the J-G Levitt has cancer movie?

Morbs, EG's condescension comes on a far more unpredictable timetable. Wd call you and him a draw on precision, tho.

I came close to tearing up once during JLG cancer movie.

I'd like to see it. Probably for the same reason I'd like to see Moneyball.

I'm starting to get legitimately angry with Bryce Dallas Howard's agent at this point.

I thought this film was remarkable.

Deeply stylized, 1980s now, so much style that the style became a substance.

Music that was cornily pastiche, and moving.

Immense use of silence, waiting, non-responses, non-communication, like a proper art film (which I don't generally like that much).

I have managed (maybe by avoiding reviews etc so far) not to see anyone yet compare it to GRAND THEFT AUTO so I will say it was the film of that.

The compelling things above were somewhat complicated by the ultraviolence, though, which was pretty shocking, disturbing and maybe oddly made the film seem more mainstream than it otherwise did?

i still really want to see this, but the violence is going to make it a hard sell to my gf (and to myself, for anything eye-related).

there are only a few violent moments and the violence is v momentary but quite shocking

It's almost all concentrated in the last half of the film as well.

so she can come in for the first half and meet her in the foyer after

Yeah, or she can take an extended powder-room break, or go play Dance Dance Revoolution in the lobby, or sneak into another movie, or...

:)

ialso some reviews seem to complain about gosling + mulligan being "unconvincing." what wold convince them? that they have INTERESTS IN COMMON? or A DEEP INTELLECTUAL CONNECTION? i mean, it's not that kind of movie. their characters are axioms. there's one brief but spellbinding sequence where gosling is about to leave her apartment and there are a few silent close-ups where they lock eyes and it's like THIS IS ON. that's all we need, really.

amateurist otm, here -- i feel like what was effective about gosling, especially, but mulligan too was, it was almost like refn was provocatively stripping down the leads to being as generic & typical as possible - so laconic or brooding gosling who protects & drives & is inscrutable, & potentially redemptive, offers-a-chance-at-a-new-life CM who occasionally infects RG with happiness, family etc. these are the products that we were probably going to get out of a more developed relationship between the two (i don't think a slightly more fleshed out script was going to take it in other directions aside from the driving), but what refn was doing was relying on our schema & expectation of that with the minimum expenditure of effort/additional story. the first few shots in which they met, smiled, were silent were v effective, i thought.

i think because i'd heard so before seeing this, i went in thinking that the film's ""sound design"" was meant to be some lauded & exemplary thing, in the way that its enjoyable soundtrack is; perhaps that isn't something the film's been credited with (it's only mentioned here once), but just wanted to rebut it. the song picks work well but the ''design'' is totally standard & maybe sorta uninventive considering the possibilities of music-in-cars (struggling to recall the specifics of radio on here but think it's better, even when non-diegetic.

i kinda liked this for its streamlined thing. i liked the lighting a lot, throughout, in a lot of different ways.

Salon dissects the "dreadful word of mouth"

dunno about this, saw it tonight (ie second week it's been open) and the theater was packed, like close to sold out

thought this was ok - wasn't expecting that level of violence/gore. thought it was interesting that they exaggerated the stereotypical heroic stoicness/silence/singlemindedness to the point where the main character seemed borderline retarded. like he exhibited literally no signs of intelligent thought/planning, his only asset is being able to drive. also it was a totally vapid, superficial movie, which isn't a criticism - at least the vapidity seemed like a conscious decision, unlike most movies.

feel like chris penn definitely would have been in this movie if he could, rip

A John Doe cameo would have been welcome.

i suppose it depends on who is doing the word of mouthing. i certainly encouraged people to go. maybe they opened it too wide?

i guess i don't have my finger on the pulse of america, since i thought this movie would be an audience-pleaser.

what if america was like dick cheney and had no pulse, i wonder.

i can't imagine this movie had a budget much over $30-40 mil, so i don't know why everybody was expecting blockbuster numbers to justify its existence.

i think maybe it was more like $15 million. and yeah--i think it'll do just fine.

I havent seen this yet (and now uncertain if i will because of the violence) but i wonder if critics don't misunderstand what audiences want. it's not so much tons of coolness and action, but gobs and gobs of obvious sentimental cliches. even in the "action" movies.

i was quite surprised they were able to open it as wide as they did. i dont really understand distribution, etc enough to know how it happened but id be interested to read something on it. late summer seems to be a really good time to put a movie like this out imo

The weekend estimates are out.

Drive falls to #7, with $5,771,000, which is also about a million or so more than it did between the weekends. The current gross estimate thus far is $21,425,000, and the budget has been released at the tune of 15 million.

Things to Chew On:

• Last week's #2 & #3 (Contagion & Drive) got pushed to #6 & #7 with 4 new openings separating them from reigning champ Lion King 3D.

• Of these 4 new films, two of them (Abduction & Killer Elite) can easily be considered more straight-forward action flicks than Drive. However, according to these estimates, neither has grossed as much as Drive did opening weekend. (Although Abduction is pretty close.)

Drive really hasn't done bad at all. Compared to this week's Killer Elite or Straw Dogs and I Don't Know How She Does It, it's done very, very well.

Yeah, it's actually turned a profit. I just noticed that Contagion still has a week or so before you can say the same.

minus 49% at the box office this weekend. I guess mh's word of mouth sample is slightly off.

EG's condescension comes on a far more unpredictable timetable. Wd call you and him a draw on precision, tho.

That is absolutely deliciously phrased nondiplomacy!

I'm just one guy, and I told just one guy after one young lady told me.

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls66bzpbWR1qegdapo1_500.gif

I just saw this last night.

The first ten minutes were great. I was so stoked for the film during the initial getaway car chase/manuevering/parking at the Basketball game/credits with synth pop/Miami Vice-esque font.

The montage of kid and mom and driver kinda made me start to get sad. And then it was just not very good from then on out. I wanted more car chases, actually. I don't find Gosling hot, either, if you can believe it!

Interesting use of hardly any guns, though. Also really gross.

i can believe it!!

yeah, he really does not seem h2 material

That mask was so silly. I still have no idea why he wears it.

Because it's CREEPY!

I thought the movie had great style and mood, though. The story just kinda didn't go the way I'd have liked it to--I guess I like your typical Hollywood crap when it comes to car movies.

no, i hear you. my ideal movie would've been a lot more like that (killer) opening sequence, though i still liked it for what it was. and you're otm about that kid/mom montage being exactly where it started to lose me

I think it was supposed to be neato that they went to some little woodsy oasis by the LA river, but it was pretty cheesy and kinda even borderline embarassing

I thought they avoided embarrassment through ritualized undercharacterization and a lack of pursuing anything really novel. Chilling at a park? Most generic human experience.

i'm with homo on this one, i kinda cringed at that part

I really liked this.

I think the mom/kid stuff served the exact purpose it was supposed to: give a searching and aimless person something to find a purpose in. I agree with whoever said it was like a comic book hero origin story.

it was very similar to Valhalla Rising i thought, just more successful, or at least the religious overtones seemed a little more moving this time.

the mask was really interesting! also tons of visual stuff going on with light/shadow--kind of in the Western mode of the hero exiling himself from the Eden he helps create.

did he really wear the mask just because it was creepy

its p creppy

I don't really need any more justification than that, tbh. its a fascinating image! I loved the slo-mo shot of Perlman grinding on some random blonde.

each to their own

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/108867adc4/drive-to-shitty-music-trailer

Watching this movie made me want to rewatch The Driver, which uh I did at work today because the entire movie is on YouTube.

^^I rescreened it on dvd the other day. Forgot how much Adjani's part consisted of looking alternately cool & scared in the cab of pickup.

i love that the descrip on the youtube vid is "the full movie of the driver enjoy"

the font was fucking awesome

^^I rescreened it on dvd the other day. Forgot how much Adjani's part consisted of looking alternately cool & scared in the cab of pickup.

― The Man With The Flavored Toothpick (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, September 28, 2011 7:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah adjani is just there to look pretty, but then again so is ryan o'neal (who has always struck me as a ridiculous actor). the romantic stuff in the film is completely superfluous.

i like the driver but i feel like it doesn't go all the way in the minimalist direction that is it's raison d'etre, and if it doesn't go all the way it's sort of a problem since going all the way is the point.

it's = its

I cannot comprehend ron perlman really

I've only seen o'neal in Barry Lyndon, so i probably have a very distorted view of his effectiveness.

one other thing i liked about this movie was how it was very self-referentially about Refn himself "going hollywood."

"what do you do?"
*grin*
"i drive... for movies"
*grin*
*looks away bashfully*
*silence*
*shit-eating grin*

― am0n, Sunday, September 18, 2011 12:29 AM (1 week ago)

This is hilariously otm. Loved it though

yeah adjani is just there to look pretty, but then again so is ryan o'neal (who has always struck me as a ridiculous actor). the romantic stuff in the film is completely superfluous.

i like the driver but i feel like it doesn't go all the way in the minimalist direction that is it's raison d'etre, and if it doesn't go all the way it's sort of a problem since going all the way is the point.

The romantic subplot is ridiculously vague. Of course, it's roughly xeroxed from the Delon/Rossier plotline in Le samourai, minus Melville's symbolism.

Having looked at both of those films after catching Drive, it reinforced one of things I found most refreshing about the new film: No cops. (Aside from the opening chase & Mulligan's interview after the blown heist). It's all about these underworld types slowly self-destructing.

that makes me think of ghost dog

you know: the way of the samurai

oh THAT ghost dog

congratulations congratulations that was the joke

oh THAT was the joke

congratulation

hey guys i think we can all agree the prequel, GHOST DOG: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, is best forgotten

No love for Strongo Hulkington's Ghost Dog Part Deaux?

this was BOSS

"what do you do?"
*grin*
"i drive... for movies"
*grin*
*looks away bashfully*
*silence*
*shit-eating grin*
― am0n, Sunday, September 18, 2011 12:29 AM (1 week ago)

but yeah this is otm

q about the opening sequence: did he just ditch those dudes in the parking garage? like was he bailing or was that a job done?

I think that was the end of the job?

ah ok. i assumed as much, it just seemed like the dudes in the backseat were a little "wait what are we doing here"

maybe they're saving that for the sequel

he was past his 5 minute mark, he said explicitly anything that happens after that isn't his business, so I think he was just getting out of there. I assume they got caught. maybe not though.

the five minutes was for outside the place, no?

yeah p sure that's the case

Guy who's in charge of the pawn shop job knows the score basically. Gosling's character is too hard to work wih

q about the opening sequence: did he just ditch those dudes in the parking garage? like was he bailing or was that a job done?

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Friday, October 7, 2011

job done.

timed precisely to get them into the Staples Center garage just as the Laker game ends (seen on his TV at halftime in establishing). silver impala now one of hundreds. all three blend into crowd and walk out whistling.

I kind of liked that you couldn't tell if the other two dudes got out ok

it was the Clippers iirc

Oh right. It was. Still: perfect getaway.

"what do you do?"
*grin*
"i drive... for movies"
*grin*
*looks away bashfully*
*silence*
*shit-eating grin*
― am0n, Sunday, September 18, 2011 12:29 AM (1 week ago)

but yeah this is otm
― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Friday, October 7, 2011 4:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yes it is.. but I don't see anything wrong with that.

http://s23.theawl.com/hair/up/2011/10/Drive9.jpg

more

yeah that's so great

i don't get the big deal about this movie.

>:(

"How you gonna fit all them titties into two seconds?" is what the weird asshole part of my brain just thought.

lol

i love that lady's reviews

lol

hahaha

Emagine has already pointed out that it would have been happy to refund the cost of the ticket bought by Ms Deming, which is the suit's only demand.

http://s21.theawl.com/hair/up/2011/10/Drive2.jpg

http://s23.theawl.com/hair/up/2011/10/Drive11.jpg

In her suit, which was filed at the sixth judicial circuit court in Oakland, Michigan, Deming says the Nicolas Winding Refn film "bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film ... having very little driving in the motion picture".

here's a vdo for u bb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyyphuxM8Xg

sequel Drive 2: Keep On Drivin'

Thought this was okay, the dialogue between the Driver and Irene should be redone on XtraNormal.

I totally noticed the chase scene after the pawn shop was filmed on the Santa Susana Pass not far from where the Manson Family lived.

the dialogue between the Driver and Irene should be redone on XtraNormal.

omg yes this needs to happen

Loved this and the soundtrack

I want the soundtrack

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B005GSY23M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318273454&sr=8-1

Not sure if it was mentioned up thread but Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Chromatics, almost everything IDIB) and one of the Chromatics composed a full score for the film but got rejected. That score will now be used as a soundtrack to another film yet to be released.

i've been playing this soundtrack a lot recently.

cliff martinez's work on contagion was also pretty dope, i thought

Not sure if it was mentioned up thread but Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Chromatics, almost everything IDIB) and one of the Chromatics composed a full score for the film but got rejected. That score will now be used as a soundtrack to another film yet to be released.

Last I heard it was going to be put out on IDIB as the first volume of an instrumental series called Symmetry, for what it's worth

This interview was linked to up thread
http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/articles/2011-09-johnny-jewel-on-developing-the-unique-soundtrack-for-drive

Taxi Driver elements become more pronounced.

Drive inspired man to throw hot dog at Tiger Woods

Not sure if it was mentioned up thread but Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Chromatics, almost everything IDIB) and one of the Chromatics composed a full score for the film but got rejected. That score will now be used as a soundtrack to another film yet to be released.

― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Monday, October 10, 2011 4:38 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol all i was thinking during this is that it's the movie the chromatics always wanted to do a soundtrack for.

anyway this was interesting i guess but all the self-conscious attempts to be "different" got really tedious; no case was ever made for what the differences were supposed to be accomplishing. you know how some music videos have like dialog scenes where the music turns down for 30 seconds in the middle of the song and then there's some kind of coda after the song ends? i think the director would have been just as happy making one of those.

anyway this was interesting i guess but all the self-conscious attempts to be "different" got really tedious; no case was ever made for what the differences were supposed to be accomplishing.

lol this is pretty much what happens when a european director makes first film in hollywood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuzc07fBbNA

http://tylercoates.tumblr.com/tagged/drive

You haven't seen this so you're giving a thumbs-up to the snark because it's snarky to Morbs standards, right?

wow, someone who writes for The Awl, BlackBook, The Hairpin, Idolator, Popdust, Thirteen.org, This Recording, and Yahoo, among others is a dumbass

That's a ridiculously shit take-down of the film. There are much, much better ones, Morbs. Look harder.

Instagram: The Movie

everyone otm about this movie.

Hey, this interview with Elvis Mitchell is fun. Refn talks a good amount about his love for Pretty Woman.

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt110921nicholas_winding_ref

for Gukbe:

Fake toughness, fake sentimentality, fake style infected by Michael Mann. Brooding existential stuntman and petty criminal Ryan Gosling is so laconic and cool, he’s inadvertently comic. This second-rate actor occasionally drops his Steve McQueen impersonation and lets slip Mickey Rourke’s old smile.

I was thinking yesterday, Rourke would have been the one to play this role in the early 80s.

second-rate actor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEyDJpE00pM

fake style infected by Michael Mann

haven't seen Drive but gtf this is mean, Refn's better than Mann already

Mega challops

i have never and will never forgive Mann for Heat, the dude is a fucking stillborn academic hack

Haven't seen this either, basing most of my disdain off of Bronson, but that quote's basically true, right? Drive looks like a Mann pastiche.

awww Bronson is cute and alive, far from perfect but

why the disdain?

tryin to think of things that are not to love about 'heat'

it crams 20 minutes of banal story into 3 hours, it centres around a confrontation that doesn't really happen between 2 actors 10 years past their best, it hates women, it has that fucking hilarious line about closure

Felt like a well-made student film. All those Kubrick nods. Like it was trying just REALLY hard to be this cool, arty violent cult film. Just found it obnoxious.

xp

i watched it in the cinema with friends and didn't have the heart to walk out halfway thru

Xpost about about Bronson.

yeah i guessed :)

dunno if i cd argue with most of those criticisms but as i say i thought its chutzpah and Tom Hardy carried it well past its deficiencies, plus a lot of its world felt real to me, i was sympathetic

'nother discussion about whether a movie can 'hate' anything tbh, cf wilde on a book being either well written or badly written, nothing more

the women thing was a snide minor niggle about Mann aside tbh, most of my objections are purely writerly

i enjoy stuff that isn't "about" anything, i enjoy epic mode, i like shiny bright cinematography, i just think Mann takes the deadest bits of all these things and then deadens them some more.

he's not as bad as Christopher Nolan tbf

yeah nolan should make christmas tree baubles tbh

this was p boring eh.

someone's already made the point somewhere in this thread but it really should've been kill rather than drive. i liked the killings though, so there's that.

ryan gosling is never actually going to act again is he? just going to be dreamy in stuff.

nv on the mark ^ i haven't seen this b/c i hate movies that don't talk

xxp

Nolan and Mann cd maybe be cool directors of other people's scripts, Refn's might be trying to do studied cool but ends up feeling more irreverent, sillier and funner imo

refn doesn't hold 20 mins of bad plot together as well as mann, tbh

well i "need" to see Drive i guess. somebody in the pub last night told me that somebody's trying to bring a hilarious law suit against the studio for failing to meet the trade description or something, is that right?

oh i've just found the link upthread

always thought Escape to Victory was most open to being sued on the misleading titles front

Ryan Gosling >>> Mickey Rourke

and not because Gosling is "cute."

rourke was cuter, back in the day

i have never and will never forgive Mann for Heat

haha, you can't forgive him for maybe his best film

btw the Steve McQueenish quote was from Armond, I figured most of you wd know

morbs: whiter than white

Heat might be his best film but I don't think that says a lot about his work, also wd rather watch 5 minutes of Brian Cox than 3 hours of 90s de Niro

Prefer The Insider.

yeah i quite enjoyed that one

3 hrs of nothing tbh

many xposts to Morbs:

Much better.

Saw Drive, loved it. Then watched Bronson, hated it beyond measure

grease me up

Have I seen Ron Perlman in anything else? The head on that guy. Great work.

Refn definitely might have bought the extra second-unit helicopter footage from Collateral for this.

Perlman has been in a lot of stuff so I would say it is likely.

hellboy for a start. subtler performance, slightly less grotesque characterisation.

michael mann is definitely one of the sources of this film's style. "thief" is a pretty blatant intertext, between the faux-tangerine dream soundtrack, the font used for the film's title, etc. but i think there are lots of other sources, mostly dating to the mid 1980s. so i don't think it's fair to say that the whole style derives from michael mann.

i wonder if i'd like this movie a 2nd time around.

"thief is a pretty hit and miss film, isn't it? the dialogue w/ tuesday weld in the freeway-overpass diner sticks out as being particularly poorly written, much like the "sift through the detritus" dialogue between diane venora (sp?) and pacino in "heat." "heat" is a pretty great film though. i'll suspend judgment on "thief" since i haven't seen it in a long time.

"heat" is one of those films that for whatever reason i'd be happy to hate, and the film even gives me reasons to hate it, but i just can't. it's beautifully paced, it really breathes. it's a good 'un.

Those rather explicit Thief aspects aside, I'm not sure this is all that Michael Mann-ish, at least in regards to how it treats its character. Mann seems to favour exploring masculinity and codes of honour, etc..., Drive is a lot more about Travis Bickle-like delusions of grandeur, self-mythology, and psychosis.

and that's just from refn

michael mann would never have made a movie about a guy wearing a satin scorpion jacket

thief's not GREAT but it's pretty good, nicely shot (love the location shooting), big safecracking setpiece is great

This song kindof ruled during the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV_3Dpw-BRY

This song ruled more during the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0jOpr1Uhk

this was on a single screen here for one, maybe two weeks. the one night i actually made time to go see it with a friend, we got to the box office and were informed the showing we had planned to see was cancelled because "the key broke... and there's no spare key, sorry" i assume the key to the projector room for that theater?? anyway we went and played arcade games for the rest of the nite.

but it was total bummer since i was amped to see it, and after that weekend it hasnt been showing anywhere on this island.

so today i downloaded the screener that's on thepiratebay and watched it. which is kind of funny because (going on comments posted by people who watched the torrent & saw it in the theater) that version has some of the music that was used in the theatrical version, but also a lot of temporary music-- no joke the sparse piano theme from The Social Network was playing during one of the scenes w/ gosling & mulligan eating dinner with the kid!!

there were other times when the music seemed odd & out of place too: like when gosling sees mulligan having car probs in the supermarket parking lot it was this ridiculous, almost melodramatic synth swell that reminded me of the odd music cues in Contempt-- was this in the theatrical version??

i listened to the whole soundtrack album afterwards though and recognized a lot of it, so hard to say what was temp and what stayed in. i also noticed references in this thread to lines that weren't in the version i watched.

anyways, loved what i saw. the opening scene was so fucking good, the way the Chromatics song was used along with the Clippers radio broadcast and the police scanner chatter to totally build and release tension and move the story without any on-screen dialogue. i agree w/ mandee & ade that a 90 minute film like that would have been awesome to watch but i love movies like The American and Le Samourai too and am a total sucker for post-Mann visuals and italo-revival shit too, so I fucking loved this.

another movie i'm surprised hasn't been mentioned along with those two and Taxi Driver, The Driver, and Thief is Point Blank-- one of my favorite movies ever.

this will def turn in to a dorm-room dvd classic in the next decade.

PS- how did gosling's denim jacket fit him THAT good????

for gr80 http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2011-09/15/gq-film-drive-ryan-gosling-style-fashion-costume-design/denim-jacket

the Gosling-Brooks denouement was particularly badly edited/ridiculous. yes, you are going to turn yr back on a gangster w/ a big knife collection.

I finally watched this today on a flight while I was in a weird dreamy cold medicine and travelling induced haze and I really freaking loved it. Thought that Mulligan/her character were the weakest part - there was just nothing there. I loved the feel of the whole thing though it sort of peaked in the very beginning with the great opening scene. I LOVED the music even though it seemed weird and misplaced at times. Going to go look up soundtrack info now because I've had one song stuck in my head all day. I also really liked the end scene after he fought with Brooks and rewound that part about three times. Anyway I thought it was great and now I maybe even like Gosling a lot? He was pretty good in this at least.

I finally watched this today on a flight while I was in a weird dreamy cold medicine and travelling induced haze and I really freaking loved it.

This really would be the perfect movie for a weird dreamy cold medicine and traveling induced haze.

Yeah, I think it was a good choice.

I liked the film but I recoil now from its unnecessary grisliness. It was so good at suggesting a mood that the violence was redundant.

sure wish i'd had some sort of chemical enhancement while i had to sit through this tbh

xp yeah i think that's right.

i look back on this more fondly than i felt while i was actually watching it.

^^ how I felt about Meek's Cutoff

The US DVD release is one of the ugliest last-minute Photoshop rush jobs I've ever seen:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91kjzaYRb0L._AA1500_.jpg

I finally watched this today on a flight while I was in a weird dreamy cold medicine and travelling induced haze and I really freaking loved it.

I just watched this the same way and didn't really like any of it, kind of seemed like shoot the piano player without all the jokes

fork in the eye was a decent joke

really needed to kill Gosling

i gotta say, this movie grew on me big time

this really needs to be a MAD movie parody

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a2cc23e5de/drive-thru-official-movie-trailer

"what do you do?"
*grin*
"i drive... for movies"
*grin*
*looks away bashfully*
*silence*
*shit-eating grin*

― am0n

^^^ i think about this every time someone mentions the movie

gosling plays it kinda "special" throughout the whole movie

OK, so this film was "stylish"< with all the good and bad that labels contains. I have also been struck down by the lurgee, so the slow-prettiness of it worked rather well. Nice enough as a story, but Gosling's blank canvass act was irritating. Like, there was a big hole at the centre of the film which is usually filled with character? Nice soundtrack - not just the the tunes (where the electro noises meshed well with the cityscape) but the whole SOUND of driving.

And props once again for that tense opening sequence.

i ended up seeing the theatrical cut w/ the correct music and liked it just as much.

same dude did the music for Contagion btw.

also: http://www.shop-steady.com/Drive-Mens-Replica-Racer-Jacket-p/drive004.htm