Let us Anticipate "Call Me By Your Name"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9AYPxH5NTM

Luca Guadagnino adapts James Ivory's script of André Caiman's overripe little novel about a 17-year-old boy of Italo-American descent who strikes up a flirtation and eventual affair with the 24-year-old translator staying with his parents. Timothée Chalet plays the young man, Armie Hammer the translator. For anyone who's read the novel, The Peach Scene apparently made it into the film. Lots of buzz.

seeing Wednesday. Please God, let there be no voiceover... drama queen internal monologue, even at 17, is just tolerable on the page.

Do I dare to eat a peach? yuck

I'm watching it Thursday.

What'd you think of the novel? Once I accepted the novel's monomania I loosened up, and the last 80 pages are moving.

Anticipate's a strong word.

I don't usually get a seat on the subway, so I have 40 pages yet to go.

Having found Guadagnino's last two features of interest but ultimately annoying, I'm glad to see other people in that camp like this one.

btw Alfred it's Chalamet no matter how much you want him in your chalet.

link i'm inclined not to click on

Armie Hammer on gay romance Call Me By Your Name: ‘There were fetishes I didn’t understand’

btw Alfred it's Chalamet no matter how much you want him in your chalet.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius),

it's autocorrect

fortunately the computer didn't turn it into "autocock"

armie hammer has always seemed to me like there's a lot of things he doesn't understand tbf

I've seen A.H. in no films besides The Social Network, because look at that filmography.

armie hammer has always seemed to me like there's a lot of things he doesn't understand tbf

― Mr. Eulon Mask, urging the UN to ban the "homicide robot" (bizarro gazzara)

He's ideally cast as an aloof guy of modest blond looks idealized beyond comprehension and modest intelligence.

Saw it on Tuesday. There's a lot of great things about it, but I never really felt, umm, invested in the two's attraction/relationship as much as I wanted to so the whole thing kinda fell apart for me (like, I found the parts about Jewish identity more compelling than the more-discussed queer relationship, if I could disentangle the two for a second). Fortunately, the age difference (which really manifests itself in how Chalamet looks like he's 14 and Hammer is...well, he's not 24) became less of an issue as the movie progressed.

What are some great things?

The Jewishness was mentioned in the novel but not lingered over.

The performances in of themselves, some of the directorial choices, also not much of a spoiler since many of the reviews already mention it but Michael Stuhlbarg has a closing monologue that I found quite moving, all the more considering my aforementioned indifference to the central relationship.

I should have prefaced all this with how I haven't read the novel, but I'm definitely interested in doing so now.

I probably would've if they'd just called it Peach.

I think I let out an almost-involuntary "oh no" when I realized what was going to happen

Elio doesn't whine constantly before they fuck, right?

I keep reading conflicting reports about how much fucking Guadagnino films.

This is on shortlists for Oscar contention, so I'd assume there's probably very little there.

apparently so, unless James Ivory wrote tons of hardcore descriptive italics

Buggery scored to Satie

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/87/d3/3487d3f38d0f9f0390bc793a135ec721.gif

i'll be seeing that from the 4th row

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/87/d3/3487d3f38d0f9f0390bc793a135ec721.gif

oops:

https://media.giphy.com/media/26n6IquGhFFpbCu1G/giphy.gif

http://68.media.tumblr.com/4fd2e4154f7b430705dff0923ce2a396/tumblr_okrhnncLbZ1r3ssslo3_400.gif

Well, it's real good. The kid shows great range, and the absence of the interior monologue that floods the book makes Elio seem as savvy and manipulative as he is awkward.

seein this this weekend

bring peaches?

Something about that scene bugged me more than the 'discreet' sex, but I don't want to say yet.

Armie said in the Q&A he was scared that he didn't have the chops for this. (He did.) Then someone asked Chalamet if he had similar anxieties. "No, because no one knows who I am."

awww

so Hammer was well cast then. I worried the casting might even be too on the nose.

T.C. will come out of this very well; he'd be on my best actor shortlist. And Guadagnino gazes appreciatively at him.

Hammer is not really my type, but when he came out on the stage... lemme say the camera doesn't do him justice.

sorry i lied, i'm seeing this on Thursday October 12th

Same. I think I can hold on till then.

i won't tell you what band Armie has his Ralph Fiennes moment to.

It's not Sufjan, who i guess might be on the Oscars next year.

I don't think I'll get to see it until November, but I'm looking forward. I loved the book.

There's a good discussion between Aciman and Tóibín from 2007 in which they talk a lot about Call Me By Your Name. (here)

I watch it tonight.

https://media.wmagazine.com/photos/59838de704027c40d504123d/3:2/w_640/0917.w.callme.lo.jpg

I mean

I can't.

i won't tell you what band Armie has his Ralph Fiennes moment to.

splendid marimba part

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLRKo2FW4AAZuE0.jpg

My excitement for this never really existed, but it's quickly dimming.

but that's been your mantra since 1980?

1979

meh, those pics don't do much for me... but they have good chemistry in the motion picture.

In (Fame) high school, Chalamet dated Madonna's daughter, so he may be gay.

Agree with Morbs: this was rather good and in some places excellent -- perhaps the best gay movie intended for a wide release Oscar crowd. I was relieved that Guardagino ditched the novel's lugubriousness: Ellio wants Oliver, and Chalamet's beautifully physical performance -- legs tossed over chairs, bare toes curled on stones, his eyes watching his parents' boredom with '80s Italian politics -- makes this clear.

Also, what is James Ivory complaining about? This was more explicit than I expected: shoulders getting gnawed, balls getting squeezed, foot massages. Even the peach scene, I realized, would not have worked as written in the novel -- the audience would have laughed it off the screen. The way Guardagino shoots it as a mix of shame and pleasure and relief after Oliver finds out is the film's most fully realized moment; I laughed out loud.

The dad's well-meaning, beautifully modulated monologue, to which Ivory added sentimental flourishes, came too late and was too I'm-ready-for-my-Oscar.

Excuse Spellcheck-corrected name mistakes.

I didn't realize this was being pitched as Oscarbait, but all that means is that I'd missed the Ivory connection until now. I'm not worried, though; all of your reviews (and others) have been encouraging, and it may actually play at a theatre near me now.

saw it this pm, thought it was just lovely

i thought this accomplished the feat of making subtle unspoken urges scream through the slightest cues; looks, postures, touches that last for a split second longer. also i thought it was generous to make the parents finding out about it not really a center of drama, even if it involved making them implausibly progressive (i mean, who knows, maybe there were 80s archeology profs perfectly unbothered by their post-docs sleeping with their teenage sons?) so that the focus could be on the romance

James Ivory is complaining?

I didn't see any added sentimentality in the dad speech, except they changed the answer to "Does Mom know?" (I don't think everyone even agrees about the object of the question)

there were a few other moments of ambiguity too ya, on the busride home my friends and i couldn't agree on some

in the novel Alfred says Armie Hammer (also lol at them casting the waspiest looking mf ever for this part) character is 24 years old. but in the film he looks early thirties, no?

oh u know what the one thing i didn't care for in this was? the Sufjan Stevens songs

There's no hiding Hammer's age; when he's shot from the bottom up he looks 29 or 30.

Dad quoted Montaigne and has spent his life looking at statues and reading Greek poetry. One of the bits the film gets that the novel doesn't (as I read it) is how Dad and Oliver understand and have absorbed Greek conceptions of sexuality: fool around in your youth, even love another man, but you're gonna get married eventually.

I was impressed with how the peach scene becomes the point at which Elio's shame but increasing sexual confidence collide against Oliver's jollity.

Yeah this was just exquisite, all the performances were great but Chalamet is just stunning. Peach scene alone deserves several oscars.

a bit fruity

I believe none of you.

I don't even know if you've seen it.

I haven't. And even though Morbs was right about The King of Comedy ... that had Jerry Lewis.

The adjectives everyone's using on this one are a little too creamy.

A milkshake?

uhm... I was virtually destroyed by this and almost left the cinema after the train station scene out of fear that i would start sobbing loudly (rather than just have some wet eyes). I mean i am a cryer but jesus...

i'll write a bit more in time. overwhelmed.

I honestly thought that another incredible gay love story, God's Own Country, wouldn't be surpassed this year but wow.

Has GOC been released outside of the UK?

incredible powerful, that is, it's all too credible.

ly

keep this to yourself, jed_ but

I teared up too

GOC opened in NYC a week ago, I saw it Monday. Solid feature debut, a little bit sentimental at the end and I could've done without the two (?) explicit Brokeback echoes. Hot sexfight in the mud though.

And even though Morbs was right about The King of Comedy ...

Eric, I could kiss you!

https://i.imgur.com/gEeTXcq.gif

And the Dardennes.

But not horror or comedy, so don't get excited.

ILX alone is slowly convincing me the Oscars aren't going NEAR Call Me come January. Think of the hot takes.

be thankful "Harvey" didn't produce it

the rabbit?

https://photos.vanityfair.com/2014/03/17/5327346c74f8a09c34ba3c8e_harvey.gif

Molly Haskell:

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/call-me-by-your-name-review-armie-hammer/

re the two(?) brokeback references in God's Own Country, I couldn't place them but google tells me the first is the Yorkshire guy trying not to watch the Romanian have a cloth-wash in the field. The second is Johnny having a sniff of Gheorghe's left-behind jumper after he's gone. I can't remember the first instance in BM but the second one is a fairly standard cinematic AND HUMAN trope that isn't a trope. have you ever lived if you haven't enhanced the sense of loss of an ex-lover by sniffing a trace of sent on their clothing and possibly all of us here have not washed said piece of clothing for a long time in order to keep that smell? It's a subtle and, imo, beautiful reference to the scene earlier in the film where Gheorge skins the dead lamb and puts it on an orphan lamb to make the ewe look after it. There's also something in there that i can't quite draw-out about Johnny using Gheorghe's name properly and casually rather than saying "Gorgy or summat" as he does earlier on when they first meet.

For what it's worth Francis Lee claims in an interview to have seen Brokeback once when it came out in the theatres and claims that those things are not conscious references. Lee grew up on a farm and still lived on a mobile home on his father's farm as he wrote the script.

I'm still not ready to talk about CMBYN but I'm keen to hear other thoughts on GOC. Morbs is right to called it a solid debut feature and any other relationship to it depends on how much you personally relate to the situation rather than making claims for it's greatness (fwiw I think it is alsmost-great and accept that it may only be great to me). Another reason GOC hit me hard is because the film is also subtly or perhaps accidentally about Brexit, ugh.

It's a subtle and, imo, beautiful reference to the scene earlier in the film where Gheorge skins the dead lamb and puts it on an orphan lamb to make the ewe look after it

this is what makes me think the scene is definitely not a Brokeback reference. It's quite deeply and personally part of the script and of Lee's actual life on the farm.

fair 'nuff

the washing scene is framed p much like the one in Brokeback

doesn't bother me tho, this is a better film!

I was quite amazed that a veteran US critic mistook Nan for mother instead of grandmother.

(maybe we shd discuss this in the "arthouse" thread or something)

https://medium.com/@stevenerickson/why-is-call-me-by-your-name-the-years-most-mainstream-gay-film-b54c8044fbd1

Spoilers there!

endless shots of sunny summertime Tuscan landscapes and the bare torsos of actors Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet.

And?

Some good points, but I think hanging James Ivory like an albatross on the film is unfair (my impression is that Guadagnino rewrote the script w/ JI, albeit sans credit). The alleged "timidity" about sex doesn't seem a valid charge either -- Guadagnino didn't show particularly explicit sex in A Bigger Splash, did he? (Maybe I slept through it.)

This Erickson guy was moved by the two concluding scenes that pissed off KJB.

also, Beach Rats is not better

Any gay film in which a man licks the lips of another man is not repressed.

Maybe artistically repressed. (Didn’t read the review yet for spoilers, but I’ve agreed with Erickson frequently in the past RE: gay films.)

Any gay film in which a man licks the lips of another man is not repressed.

Or assertively grabs his package on a bike outing.

When Oliver and Elio’s father argue about whether the word “apricot” really originated in Arabic, one can sense Ivory showing off his erudition. The same effect comes across when Elio jokingly says he just played a piano piece as Liszt performing Bach.

Did it occur to Erickson that both of these scenes might've come from the novel? The two characters are young erudite showoffs.

A-1 Jeffrey Wells dis, though.

Let me point out that James Ivory did not direct this movie, nor could he have.

Bland is an idiotic word to use about this film, It's certainly not that!

re: gay cinema w/arty qualities + James Ivory, is MAURICE any good? i saw a trailer for the recent re-release and visually at least it looked vv intriguing.

No.

The book is crap too, but gays like it if they read it at a formative age.

the film is a bit better than the book. it has rupert graves doing a country bumpkin accent.

Maurice is the only Merchant-Ivory movie I've seen I have any time for. And not necessarily a ton at that.

the film is a bit better than the book. it has rupert graves doing a country bumpkin accent.

― Susan Stranglehands (jed_), W

also: Rupert Graves' ass and flaccid cock

yes, Rupert could climb through my window anytime (at least then)

There are several good Merchant-Ivory movies, just not as many as blue-haired li'l old ladies think (and I include Rex Reed among them).

also: Rupert Graves' ass and flaccid cock

porky pig style iirc

I didn't get far into Aciman's book, CMBYN, I really didn't like the writing and found it po-faced and humorless. Having not read the whole thing I can't say for definite that film>>book, in this case, but Guadagnino seems to have successfully undercut that aspect and made a genuinely funny film. The humour makes the relationship much more moving towards the end. I've already said that I was overwhelmed by this, and I was, and I think the reason it upset me so much was that it made my own life feel so passionless. I can think of maybe three or four times in my life that I've been reduced almost to hysterics by a film. The father's speech near the end is something genuinely new. I would have cheered had I not been trying to hold it together,

The first third is rough going, and I almost gave up. Stick with it.

this was ages ago before the movie was on the cards. i will go back and check it then.

I can't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz7T96k6Isc

btw here's a taste:

https://78.media.tumblr.com/cba41759e9c1486092932094434bf481/tumblr_oxd603LOPV1tjvraqo1_500.gif

hm:

As the production neared its end, Hammer admits, he became peevish and started to withdraw. “For reasons that could be personal to Armie, I had the feeling that he was pulling away,” said Guadagnino. “The movie wasn’t finished, and I had to bring him back.” I asked Hammer what had made him behave like that. “Everybody was sort of lashing out because this thing was ending and nobody wanted it to,” he said. He hesitated, wary of what to reveal. “Honestly,” Hammer said, “I think I had fallen in love with Luca.”

“For me to make a movie, it’s really creating a family,” said Guadagnino. “Having a very profound familial bond with the people I’m doing the movies with, where you literally and constantly fall in love with all of them. Sometimes, this emotional flow can be very intense. Very! As it was with Armie. And then it can be very complicated.”

Hammer had flourished as an actor and as a person under Guadagnino’s guidance and he couldn’t bear to let the project go. Eventually, he would have to, and so would Guadagnino, who was slated to begin his next film, a remake of the horror film Suspiria. Hammer said he became jealous once he felt Guadagnino mentally move on to that film. “I was like, ‘You fucking philanderer! You duplicitous bastard!’ And that made me pull away, and then he did, and it turned into this whole thing.”

“That was not my explanation for it,” said Guadagnino. “I never, never put Suspiria in front of Call Me by Your Name.” Still, he understood Hammer’s passion and reciprocated it. “It’s beautiful when you fall in love with someone and you are restrained in your exploration of that feeling and you sublimate it in making a movie like that,” said Guadagnino, who eventually called Hammer to his apartment to hash out his feelings.

wow first I've heard of this suspiria remake

That's been in the works for what seems like forever.

Last I heard David Gordon Green was doing it, and Thom Yorke was doing the score?

Latter part's still true.

The kindest thing I can say about CALL ME BY YOUR NAME - and perhaps I'm boiling my own hot water here - is that the age difference and notions of consent, were very low on my concerns and priorities list.

Film.

Was.

Insanely.

Sincerely.

Romantic. pic.twitter.com/5OVmQvSeA9

— Blake Goble (@BlakeGoble) November 15, 2017

so he hated it

What's the consent issue exactly? Is it just a function of the age difference?

I'm curious if the age gap would bother anyone if it weren't for the difference in their physiques, the fact that Elio looks boyish next to Armie Hammer.

I missed the one festival screening I could have gone to last weekend and now have to wait until Dec 22. *grumble*

Their sex is legal; it's the climate in which the film is being released that has blown up this discussion.

It's not about the current climate, the physique difference is a deliberate tactic to mess with your preconceptions. Eliot is built like a boy but Armie acts as boyish as Elio who is actually more mature and grounded in some ways, in spite of how he looks. The director deliberately heightens it by casting an actor in his 30s. It raises the stakes and makes the patents' acceptance and the father's speech more surprising (and imo, delightful).

I don't understand that tweet Eric Posted - he starts off about to insult the film then gives it the highest compliment.

fwiw apparently Hammer looks older to some of you guys... he turned 31 in late August, so he was probably just shy of 30 when this was shot. (I wonder if actors ever get away with shaving a few years off in this data-driven age.)

i had read he was early thirties (possibly only in this thread) and i thought he was young looking for that.

Hammer plays 24 but looks 30, and jed_'s right: Elio's poise will upset people who haven't read the book and don't realize that life and art don't commingle.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l1J3AqzpjRStb0Nd6/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/26Ff68gV7hXgOtVni/giphy.gif

goddamn it

opened in NY/LA yesterday

Jonathan Romney: too idyllic

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-call-name/

pfft

I don't think I've seen many films that have overwhelmed and seduced me to the extent that this one does. Everything that Romney draws out occurred to me either during or afterward and, while I agree with most of what he objects to, I also don't care. I know that Elio is ridiculously precocious but I don't care. I know that his family is stupidly privileged and don't care. I know that I'm being seduced! I don't care! I love every second of this film!

(although it would be better without the Sufjan songs)

I'm...not getting, once again, that this movie is so timid that it deserves brokebacking.

it doesn't

God's Own Country is the less accomplished movie that I liked better.

Man, though, CMBYN has not one but TWO credit sequences for the ages!

https://www.out.com/armond-white/2017/11/30/call-me-your-names-sex-lives-rich-and-immodest

Even the editors of Out are, ahem, out to get him. "Swimming against the tide, our movie critic would rather watch Porky's than Call Me by Your Name" is not what he's saying here, but whatever.

Armie gave Timothee razor burn

http://people.com/movies/armie-hammer-timothee-chalamet-call-me-by-your-name-kiss/

and Chalamet has won best actor from the NY Film Critics Circle

I can't even

"So assailed are we by reports of harmful pleasures, and of the coercive male will being imposed through lust, that it comes as a relief to be reminded, in such style, of consensual joy." — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

"lmao my dude nutted in an apricot" — Whiney G. Weingarten, ILX

Almodovar likes:

“Everything is beautiful, charming, and desirable in this movie: The boys, the girls, the breakfasts, the fruit, the cigarettes, the reservoirs, the bicycles, the open-air dancing, the 80s, the doubts and the devotion of the protagonists, the sincerity of all the characters, the relationship with their parents,” Almodóvar said. “Behold the commitment of the authors André Aciman, James Ivory, and Luca Guadagino with the passion of the senses, the light of Northern Italy, and especially Timothée Chalament, the great revelation of the year.”

Upon further reflection, this movie's kinda overly precious, no?

Not moreso than teenage boys who play the piano, maybe.

Glenn Kenny thought so, however.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2017/11/the-sentimental-journies-of-call-me-by-your-name-and-lady-bird.html

In a sense, then, this is the furthest thing from a “queer movie;” its whole project is to de-queer Elio’s mode of being. That’s the point of the film’s final shot. Yes, he’s heartbroken and crying, but there’s “beautiful” music, he’s literally crouching in front of a fireplace (the hearth!), and behind him his family, while giving him his space, is preparing a sumptuous holiday meal.

Only a straight person would write a passage this addled. I'm never queerer than when my parents give me my space and prepare a sumptuous holiday meal.

This comment otm:

Also, if I'm reading this right you're kind of putting forth a definition of "queer" that excludes a happy relationship between a queer person and their family. I may be getting the terms "queer" and "gay" mixed up but most of the gay people I've known have had loving relationships with their parents, by their accounts. And rather than a dark sign of our reactionary times, couldn't we take a story about a gay teenager who's totally embraced and supported by his family as an attempt to normalize "queerness" and push it into the mainstream? In other words, couldn't we see this as a progressive, rather than reactionary story?

its whole project is de-queering my ass

kenny also references one of the most irritating and terrible pieces i've read all year. the old one-two

yeah i'm not buying that, just cuz these people are well-to-do and spending the summer in Tuscany xp

Not moreso than teenage boys who play the piano, maybe.

This is the lowest you've sunk, Morbs.

hehehe

His folks are queerer than Elio is and I mean that as a compliment.

also, I never describe myself as queer, but gay. the word doesn't offend me but i have some gay friends who would be horrified if anyone referred to them as queer.

His folks are queerer than Elio is and I mean that as a compliment.

― Susan Stranglehands (jed_)

Yes, and to its credit the movie aligns with the book on this matter.

Almodovar likes:

“Everything is beautiful, charming, and desirable in this movie: The boys, the girls, the breakfasts, the fruit

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2017/07/31/call-me-by-your-name-gifs/31-cmbyn-armie-glance.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.gif

also, I never describe myself as queer, but gay

Same. This was probably never going to be my new gay classic.

Sufjan Stevens:

They had retained the monologue from the older Elio, and he initially asked me to be the voice of the older Elio; to contribute that voiceover. He also asked if I wanted to appear in the movie as a bard, performing the song, almost as a break in the narrative. I got back to him and I said, “I think this voiceover is a mistake, and I think the interruption of me singing the song is a mistake.” I think he was just thinking out loud. I don’t know if he was really committed to the idea. So I said, “I’ll write you some songs, but that’s all I think you need from me.” And he agreed. When I saw the first edit, he said, “You were right, this doesn’t need a monologue or an interruption.”

https://deadline.com/2017/12/call-me-by-your-name-sufjan-stevens-luca-guadagnino-music-interview-1202225747/

There's a similar point made in the Q&A in this discussion, where Guadagnino says that the Sufjan songs were a way of implying some of the interiority of the novel by incorporating a first-person voice, without resorting to a voiceover. (Also worth watching for the hilariously awkward question at 38:40.)

Saw this last night, very impressive. Can anyone shed light on the seeming callousness of Oliver's phone call at the end? Trying to make sense of this.

well there's no easy way to tell last summer's effbuddy you're gettin hitched

I hated this! So much. It feels thrilling, in a way, to be overwhelmed with such hatred for something! rare for me

yeah I've read your comments, understand them, and don't see what you do.

and Elio's mixed parentage and ancestry complicates the "whiteness."

only saw fgti's (funny) tweets, where did u write about it?

on his FB page

Liked it, but too long. Could've lost 15-20 min. Loved the Psychedelic Furs song. Some wonderful shots: Elio sorrowful at night in the trees as the screen rhythmically flashes in overexposure, pan to the tree when they sleep together, red/gold color-shifted 'dream sequence', looking down on Elio and the girl lying in the grass, final conversation with the father, the snow, all of the town scenes, final shot.

"What'd you do?"

I semi-hated Guadagnino's two preceding films

read owens posts. very advanced

@ Alfred, the "whiteness" I refer to is the extreme privilege that Elio and his family carry, as well as the aesthetic appearance of both of the stars, who may be both of them half-Jewish, but definitely align themselves with the porn-industry's archetype of "hot white gay man"

The lip service that the movie paid to both character's Jewishness seemed almost kind of designed to create a "well, they're Jewish, so their whiteness is "complicated"" sideboard-rebuttal rather than actually complicate either character's white appearance and privilege

I adored "I Am Love" and think it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, didn't care at all for "A Bigger Splash"

There were all kindza gay movies this year about all kindza queers. This one seemed authentic to its chosen milieu.

why the hell did Orson Welles make his first 2 films about rich white dudes, anyhoo?

For whoever else who doesn't care to read through my Facebook longtypes:

1. Elio's character was a stereotype of a privileged young white gay man-- an avatar for that cancer within the gay community, which is, in short, The Ideal Version Of A Gay Man-- young, white, cute, rich, confident, starved for cock-- the Ideal Version Of A Gay Man that makes not-young, not-white, not-cute, not-rich, not-confident, not-cock-starved gay individuals feel worthless

2. Elio's disconsolate nature-- "oh, we have to suffer through these summers in Italy"-- was insulting and made him, to me, an unsympathetic character-- by the end of the movie, when he's literally crying at the camera, I'm wondering: "what about Elio is meant to compel me to continue watching this movie, if not his young, cute, rich, confident, starved-for-cock whiteness?"-- even friends of mine reaching out to me about "should I see this movie?"-- I'd say "no, pass on it"-- they'd respond "but the young actor is SO HOT"

3. The dialogue was poorly written to the extreme. It was so continuously, terribly awful that I figured that James Ivory was able to force this project into production

4. The scenario of this movie-- a 17-year old cockslut seduces an older visiting grad student-- was essentially the plot line of a porno, or more specifically, a yaoi manga-- and yet this movie offered none of the erotic satisfaction of a porn-- the best scenes were the ones where Armie Hammer monologues about the etymology of the word "apricot"-- and there was one long shot of them motoring off into the distance that was nice too-- but yeah, it felt nearly identical to a porno but with no actual payoff

5. Italy looked ugly, the female characters were props, the chain smoking mom seemed like an extra from a Morrissey song, Elio's female lover was debased over breakfast ("I almost had sex with [girl] last night"), even the professor dad confesses that he too! had faggoty tendencies, the only shot of food was a boiled egg, that Psychedelic Furs song repeated itself more times than I can count, Armie Hammer can't act

Basically I thought Timothée Chalemet was pretty good tho

But yeah especially in comparison to "Moonlight" this felt risible, the fact that it's getting praised to the high heavens makes me feel like nobody is immune to empathizing with the plight of a young white cutegay-- and it makes me even more frustrated that we face twenty-to-fifty more years more of "Whites Only, Please" on people's Grindr pages

Having lived for a year in L.A. and seeing what the proximity-to-the-film-and-porn-industry does to non-white non-cute non-young gay men in that city (i.e. it segregates them, devalues them, and creates this fucking nightmare-pool of weirdness), I saw this movie as further propaganda to the primacy of the young white gay male form within the gay aesthetic value system

In short, I thought this film was dangerous and insulting and I shit on it

I mean, even if you compare, plot-point for plot-point, Elio's journey with Little/Black's journey, or compare the decadent levels of erotic satisfaction Elio receives from Oliver with Little/Black's beach hand job and ambiguous maybe-they-hooked-up denouement, or even to compare three wan Sufjan songs (and I adore Sufjan) with "Moonlight"'s towering soundtrack, compare James Ivory's idiotic script to Barry Jenkins', and then to compare Luca Guadagnino's "dialing it in" direction with Barry Jenkins again-- "Call Me By Your Name" is effectively a case study on the rewards given to white people for being mediocre and making mediocre things

I have not seen this, but I was treated to a fairly long and detailed review/synopsis from my father in law, who, in a thick israeli accent raved about how it was "very beautiful" and was emphatic that "Everyone should see this movie! It's very important! No one who sees this movie can think there is anything wrong with homosexuals! It's the same feelings!"

god, i love this film and don't agree with any of your objections. Moonlight is an extremely poor film but the first third has very good things in it. imo, complaining about dialogue/characterisation and referring to that as insulting then ending your point by using the phrase "his young, cute, rich, confident, starved-for-cock whiteness" is, incredibly, gross. really a horrible thing to write.

Italy looked ugly

whaaaat

yea wow definitely not i mean they weren't in Rome but damn

saw The Shape of Water yesterday and was stoked to see Michael Stuhlbarg again so soon.

brought the feelings. idyllic to the point of briefly enchanting one into thinking one might want and be able to fuck off to the country indefinitely. Loved hearing Phrygian Gate and China Gate on the soundtrack. Not Jewish enough—Armie Hammer's goyische ass saying "my bubbe". Chalamet is an ethereal beauty and his character's twirling and thoughtless physicality made me feel old and tired.

p sure he's Jewish

sufjan in the trailer for this really put me off

My apologies.

I did enjoy how he was styled exactly like my dad, other than he had cooler sneakers and no mustache

I wonder if flamboyant goon would have liked the film better if it somehow showed that the characters were "mediocre" and didn't deserve beautiful, romantic summers in Italy. I am sympathetic to the view that the film uncritically shows how zestful life can be if one is rich, white, and cultivated, but why does that mean it's bad? Why, conversely, does the fact that Moonlight showed how black life is traumatic and constrained mean it was good? I'm not sure what I think about these questions but can say that I was prepared not to like CMBYN precisely because I suspected it would romanticize being white, privileged, and beautiful (and b/c I'm predisposed to scoff at earnest love stories) but was ultimately won over, whereas I found Moonlight a bit unimpressive. I'm not sure if this is just because I'm white (but maybe!).

oh yeah the score was great

I wonder if flamboyant goon would have liked the film better if it somehow showed that the characters were "mediocre" and didn't deserve beautiful, romantic summers in Italy.

Can’t say for sure, but maybe? I definitelée would have preferred the gays in this film having some relationship to their environment

I am sympathetic to the view that the film uncritically shows how zestful life can be if one is rich, white, and cultivated, but why does that mean it's bad?

Because: this lack of criticality is the definition of white privilege, where people are allowed to inhabit their luxury (and even complain about it!) without understanding the structures that allow these person’s privilege to exist. Sorry, but if the story is just “a story about rich White gays interacting only with their wealth and whiteness” then I can’t get on board

Why, conversely, does the fact that Moonlight showed how black life is traumatic and constrained mean it was good?

The thesis of Moonlight imo is that black gay life is beautiful and empathetic and kind (despite trauma and constraint)

I'm not sure what I think about these questions but can say that I was prepared not to like CMBYN precisely because I suspected it would romanticize being white, privileged, and beautiful (and b/c I'm predisposed to scoff at earnest love stories) but was ultimately won over, whereas I found Moonlight a bit unimpressive. I'm not sure if this is just because I'm white (but maybe!).

I don’t know! I think CMBYN did exactly what you suspected it did

Moonlight was at best okay and a nice try; I couldn't connect w/it precisely because this kind of misery bores me at this point in my life.

Anyway, in my review I explained the many ways in we (and movies) can be queer.

Loving this conversation, and the timing: I just saw this last night and have been trying to work through my feelings--particularly, my indifference--re: it, and this convo has been nudging me in some productive directions.

My husband hated the film precisely because he hated Oliver. Basically, he saw Oliver's treatment of Elio as cruel, exploitive and (in the peach scene) humiliating, and argued that men like Oliver are the reason too many gay kids are so fucked up by they reach 25. I'd argue that the relationship is a little more complicated than that (Oliver has his own issues, for starters) but I understand how Oliver's treatment of Elio made the film a difficult watch for him. Between my husband's reaction to the film and goon's, it is interesting to see the variety of responses that the film is triggering in some of its queer viewers. The complexity of these responses has definitely been more thoughtful, to me, than most of the uniform praise that the film has been receiving from critics; as Morbs pointed out, 2017 saw a wide variety of queer films, so why is it the James Ivory-scripted doomed romance between two wealthy, pretty white gay boys the one that critics (both the hetero and homo ones) are all over? Not having seen BPM, God's Own Country or some of the others, yet, I can't really offer an answer, but I have my suspicions.

by the time Call Me By Your Name ends, with Chalamet caught in a heartbreaking closeup for minutes, we sense that it’s Elio who’s made up his mind about himself and Oliver the confused old thing requiring direction.

this is wonderful. the whole piece is lovely, Alf.

Wow, he thought Oliver humiliated him in the peach scene?! Oliver was impressed by Elio's dirty mind!

Elio is clearly embarrassed in the moment, and Oliver presses him on it. If you're already in an anti-Oliver frame of mind while watching the film, I can understand how the scene plays this way.

(which is to say, I think that "Oliver is callously humiliating Elio" and "Oliver is impressed by Elio's dirty mind" can both be true)

It's also one of the few moment in the film when Oliver is in control over Elio.

Can’t say I’m impressed with the direction this thread has taken in the wake of ftgi’s — and I say this as someone who did basically like the film — lucid and empathetic takedown.

All in all, I liked the film OK, but I'm finding the more impassioned responses (positive and negative) to the film more interesting to discuss than my basic reaction of "that was pretty, but I wasn't as moved as I expected to be" one.

BPM, God's Own Country, Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo, all of which I like as much or more than CMBYN, got less attention because they're "foreign" films without recognizable names (Chalamet isn't a household word either but he's in the hit Lady Bird) or distributional muscle.

This film is not as boring as porn.

Chalamet was my favourite thing about the movie. Or rather, Chalamet's little twirls and dances were. I certainly wouldn't object to an Oscar for him, though I'm assuming the academy will once again be unable to resist the British actor imitating the famous dead person.

my basic reaction of "that was pretty, but I wasn't as moved as I expected to be" one.

Kinda my reaction too. I had a good time watching it, but it didn't match the novel. I think for me it mainly comes down to dissatisfaction with the film's Oliver, or feeling like I couldn't fully project myself into Elio's perception of him the way I could in the book.

I would agree with that. For one thing, Hammer came off more convincing lecturing on apricots than he did trying to subtly convey emotion.

Oliver's pretty stiff in the novel too, which is the point, I think: objects of desire bore everyone else. Elio's attracted to Oliver's aloofness, and the film makes this clear too. That's the point of the Psychedelic Furs sequences -- he's a white guy to the core.

The "Love My Way" pair of scenes were interesting for the ways in which they mirror each other all too closely, foreshadowing the film's conclusion. The second one is where Oliver should finally invite Elio to dance with him, but instead he just plucks another woman off the street.

I should've noted in my review that when Oliver coaxes Elio into shaking the busted statue's hand I wondered, "Which is stiffer?"

objects of desire bore everyone else

I can dig it.

I might have to regrettably watch this film again. My bf and I were groaning at literally every line of dialogue, we were so shocked that this had been greenlit... but I haven't felt so out-of-step with popular opinion of a script since Rian Johnson's "Brick"

(Or Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin", two similar movies to CMBYN in that my takeaway is that "the only reason you guys like these movies is because you wanna see JGL's ass")

I haven't felt so out-of-step with popular opinion of a script since Rian Johnson's "Brick"j.

now we're so in step I'm walking on your footprints on the sand.

Brick's way overrated

though I'm assuming the academy will once again be unable to resist the British actor imitating the famous dead person.

ugh seriously? i mean i know he's gonna get a token nomination but does anyone really think Oldman is gonna win for is OK performance in a totally shit movie? I assumed they would give it to DDL (Franco being the dark horse).

DDL has three of them already -- unless the Academy wants to crown him the new Katherine Hepburn.

Oldman has the "buzz" but Chalamet has swept just about every precursor critic awards. Tonight's the Golden Globes, so.

fgti, what is your favorite film about white twink(s)?

I liked the film whilst finding Oliver somewhat superficial and exploitative.

@ Dr Morbius, I can't really think of any. The only realistic narrative depiction of a twink I can think of is Racky from "Pages From Cold Point"-- nothing else captures the narcissism and the entitlement

(A white twink, that is. I like "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Happy Together")

I once assigned "Pages..." in class about 12 years ago and chickened out at the last minute.

nothing is worse than Y Tu Mama Tambien

Great (Portuguese) twink movie that no one has seen: The Way He Looks

nothing is worse than Y Tu Mama Tambien

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), S

except your inchoate animosity toward it

man that psychedelic furs song has been stuck in my head ever since i saw this movie yesterday afternoon and now i can't stop listening to it

It's been 16 years since I saw YTMT and I'm beyond certain I underrated it.

I love "Pages From Cold Point" so much, most accurate representation of a young white twink ever

I'm not gonna stan for "Y Tu Mama Tambien", I just felt it was the right balance of sexual titillation in a movie that was actually about other stuff

And "Happy Together" was perfect because Wong gives you the sex scene right off the top and then it's all about gay psychology, a perfect gay film imo

Curious to see how you'll react to The Ornithologist.

Brought up the "what's some good white twink content" with my bf last night and he said The Outs, which I haven't seen

there's about to be an all-star Broadway revival of The Boys in the Band

I have not read any Bowles besides The Sheltering Sky

Read his short stories –  a model of clarity and terror.

Ya, "Pages" and also "A Distant Episode" are his two finest things imo

I haven’t read any Bowles at all. Just reserved the collection that “Pages from Cold Point” is in at the library.

Oh and also, duh, I kind of half-mentioned it earlier but the two Alan Hollinghurst books I read ("The Swimming Pool Libraries", and "The Line Of Beauty") are extremely good depictions of white twinkdom-- even if both Will Beckwith and Nick Guest are mid-20s.

Hollinghurst is fucking brilliant imo. He has a way of creating these sexual worlds that are super titillating, but then deflating and upending their mystique by the end. The way "The Line Of Beauty" ended was crazy... after an entire novel's worth of snorting and fucking his way across London, Nick's whole abuse-of-privilege is laid out before him, ironically, in a homophobic rage by his patron-- (the "It's a homo trick" monologue.) Having Nick's real abuses of power described in homophobic language was really effective-- the criticisms were spot-on, and yet the language was so homophobic as to create this magical balance: the balance of "Nick has been a terrible person" with "Nick is subject to inhuman treatment as a British gay man during the AIDS crisis"-- it's this mix of disgust-at-his-tyranny and also empathy-for-his-lot that really gets to the heart of my feelings, at least, toward young white gays.

The fact too that Nick has been surrounded by AIDS for the latter half of the novel but only thinks to go get himself tested in the last few pages was... really amazing too. Contained all the feelings-of-indestructibility, lack-of-personal-accountability, and yet still we're sympathetic toward him because duh AIDS is a fucking travesty.

idk, I love that book, liked the BBC adaptation OK but would love to see a proper version of it on screen

The Line of Beauty is one of my favorite novels of the last 20 years; we may have discussed it once, goon

Possibly, yeah. I need to re-read it, I only read it once (when it won the Booker) and I was 25 at the time and had AIDS nightmares for a week.

it's probably my favourite novel from this millennia. I don't like The SPL very much but it's a debut. The Spell is the underrated one.

I also liked The Folding Star

The Folding Star has a CMBYN-esque plot but reversed. It has one of the hottest sex scenes I've read in serious lit.

lol yes!

I also really liked the echoes of Tonio Kröger and Death In Venice

and apparently (although I have never read it) Bruges-La-Mort by Georges Rodenbach

but yes, I've always read Folding... as a version of Death In Venice for our vulgar age. Luc is as blank as Tadzio, it's all projection. Thankfully, other than weekly checking the facebook page of a young actor I worked on a play with, I'm past that stage in my life.

lol

I love this bit on the film from Walter Chaw's year-end round up:

There's a conversation between lovers I come back to a lot where they ask why they wasted so much time in the beginning and then tell their story to each other over and over. I do that with my wife sometimes. I start with "Remember when we met?" or, "Remember our first date, when..." I do it as a bulwark against the realities of the day-to-day. It makes me feel good. Another conversation, between father and son, is justifiably lauded as one of the great moments in 2017 cinema--maybe of any year. It's become a model for how I want to be as a parent: open enough to be able to be vulnerable with my children--to show them where I've been hurt, as well as where I'm strong.

So this is everything cinema should be i've decided, 10/10, as good as faultless. Minor gripe; i do wish characters would stop doing that 'look into the camera in the closing shot' thing. Happens in The Florida Project too iirc. Nit picking though.

It has been a wonderful time, coming up with new names for Timothy Swiss Chalet, Timberly Chaturbate

In an interview designed to piss off goon, Frank Ocean talks to Chalamet.

FO The time period of 20th Century Women seems close to Call Me By Your Name, that ’80s time period. Did you get into these past eras of fashion and shit when you were doing the film?

TC Absolutely. I’m a total “nostalgist” and Call Me By Your Name’s director, Luca, grew up in that time period. In fact, the book is set in ’88 and he changed it to ’83 because he said that was the year in your life you can hear music from. In the movie, there’s Talking Heads, The Psychedelic Furs, or just the Bach or Beethoven—those are all songs from Luca’s youth, what it was like for him in Italy in the ’80s. Also, in 1988, the AIDS crisis had already hit and that was part of the reasoning for making [the film] a little bit earlier too, so it wasn’t as intense, and could be a little more utopic. What a tragedy for movies now that if you want to be contemporary, phones have to be involved, with texting and FaceTime. I don’t know if [the characters in] Call Me By Your Name would ever have that relationship if there was passive-aggressive commenting and “likes.” They actually had to talk, figure each other out, and struggle with their emotions.

If he wasn't a client I'd tweet that FO'd obviously been catfished into that interview

TC otm on electronic living

did someone itt post that article about how the 'limited release' distribution plan is outdated and really screwed this movie and The Florida Project? it's strange, the more straightforward indie / art house theater here is playing every awards season movie (they've had Lady Bird since early November), CMBYN opened at the end of December and it's already gone. at least CMBYN got nominations- back in October I was sure The Florida Project would be nominated multiple times.

yeah the studio badly fucked up this film's rollout. The good press built and crested just after Thanksgiving. It didn't open in limited release in Miami – where gay films do as well as T-shirt vendors – until the weekend before Xmas; it didn't go wide until the second week of January.

Didn't hurt Phantom Thread any.

Lady Bird has made $45 million and counting on a $10 million budget.

I saw Lady Bird a day after it opened here in the middle of November, and it was sold out. from what I've heard that's basically maintained for 2+ months. Phantom Thread only opened in NY & LA in 2017, its rollout was a little bit later than others. hype and word of mouth for Phantom Thread hasn't peaked yet, quite the opposite, feel like it's getting stronger every day. Also Phantom Thread benefits from people seeing it multiple times, to be expected from any PTA movie.

It's not so surprising that Lady Bird would have more universal appeal than Florida Project and CMBYN, no?

(I doubt Phantom Thread is going to make much more than $25m when all's said and done.)

absolutely

where is Phantom Thread at right now box office wise? aren't most of PTA's movies loss leaders?

(absolutely re: broad appeal of Lady Bird)

it's made $15 million and doing very well per screen. At one of our art houses, I learned last weekend, it's been sold out every screening since early January.

PTA, even adjusted for inflation, does not dominate box-office charts ...

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio	Adjusted Gross	Unadjusted Gross	Release
1	Boogie Nights	NL	$52,801,300	$26,400,640	10/10/97
2	There Will Be Blood	ParV	$51,433,500	$40,222,514	12/26/07
3	Magnolia	NL	$38,309,100	$22,455,976	12/17/99
4	Punch-Drunk Love	SonR	$28,194,500	$17,844,216	10/11/02
5	The Master	Wein.	$18,955,600	$16,377,274	9/14/12
6	Phantom Thread	Focus	$14,697,700	$14,697,709	12/25/17
7	Inherent Vice	WB	$9,151,100	$8,110,975	12/12/14
8	Hard Eight	Gold.	$445,100	$222,559	2/28/97

all threads are box office

poison

Anyway, my point was that I don't think the release was particularly fucked up for CMBYN and I think it did as well as it probably could've ever been expected to do, financially.

haha holy shit Inherent Vice only made 9 mil??

xp maybe enthusiasm for it just calmed down naturally. I think there's much more of a case to be made for a studio fuck-up re: The Florida Project, which like I said, seemed like an obvious Oscar movie back in October.

Nah, I had that one pegged to be a one-nomination wonder the moment I saw it.

(More a comment on the average Oscar voter, not the movie's worth.)

I wasn't crazy about it either but Dafoe's performance & the topical subject matter seemed like a safe bet.

but yeah i see what you mean

couple that with my powerful voodoo spells counteracting the film's commercial prospects

Alfred fucked up Florida Project

that was MY Florida Project.

your contest project

https://www.omaze.com/experiences/call-me-by-your-name-oscars-party

watched this last night. knew i'd be a sucker for the story but i thought the movie was best in its silence moments. some of the interactions between the two were a little stiff i thought, and i didn't think either really sold their character's reluctance well. there was a lot of subtle stuff i enjoyed tho... it was a well made and thoughtful movie, more gay than i expected in some regards but also a little too conservative. i don't begrudge all the praise but i get why it's hit a bit of a ceiling come awards season.

Was Elio ever reluctant? The only moment he is happens when he finally gets what he wants.

the way the conclusion of the peach scene, at least for a second. but it was really more of armie's job and he wasn't great at it.

it was 1983, some things were a little more conservative.

how did gay men eat cum-filled peaches in 1983

very carefully

bae: come over

me: cant pontificating on etymology

bae: microgenerational advances in libidinal liberties occur when fervent youths buttressed by loving parents within a progressive society pursue overt actualization of once-furtive acts, paving paths for exponential gains

me: pic.twitter.com/azrHNCtAyB

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) February 15, 2018

I thought for a second fgti might've written this comment on a CMBYN puff piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2018/feb/20/call-me-by-your-name-2018-best-picture-oscar-should-win-luca-guadagnino-timothee-chalamet#comment-112482443

"It didn’t feel edgy enough, so when Cera and Hammer come back together it’s for long sequences of violent sado-masochistic sex. Like something properly European."

Somebody posted this on FB: "this was my take: Not interested in the overplayed narrative of the younger boy and the older experienced man. Gag! The ever present affluent white euro gay experience. Double gag! Or the ends up with a woman trope! How scandalous!! And for anybody praising this yr in luck because there's at least 50 years of gay cinema that already covers all of these blatant cliches. This type of movie exists for 2 reasons. To make straight people feel cultured and to make gay people feel terrible"

Nice

that's a fairly commonplace, clichéd conclusion, actually.

Gays are fairly commonplace and cliched

https://goo.gl/images/HNBc7C

http://www.mynewplaidpants.com/2018/02/dial-nine-one-one.html

i'll just leave this here

To be sure, the father’s speech deserves unpacking; it’s an artful, stylized speech with formal language (“I am not such a parent,” Samuel Perlman tells his son, noting that most parents would have at best discouraged Elio from engaging in his relationship with Oliver). But the majority of gay viewers I’ve spoken with about this speech have found it intensely moving – and I think this response has to do with the speech’s novelty. It’s at heart a fantasy of what a queer person would be able to count on experiencing if the world were consistently just – if gay experience was no less affirmed and sanctioned than heterosexual experience, if queer people were free to pursue their desires without fear. My own working-class, immigrant, mixed-race parents certainly would never have given me such a benediction at that age, and in this I’m far from alone.

What High Queer Theory, which (D.A.) Miller emblematizes, specializes in is a critique of liberalism as pernicious, the fanged menace beneath the smiling surface of middle-class politesse and “tolerance.” Foucault taught us only too well to see in the seeming benedictions of normalizing society a crushing program of control. Though a Freudian, I have a lot of sympathy for this Foucauldian outlook – at times. The problem is that Foucault as a centrally defining guide is a catastrophe for gay and queer subjects, despite the hype. Foucault’s work, as Graham Robb has shown, has denied, or has been used to deny, gay/queer history. Miller’s essay, with an almost admirable explicitness, expresses the defining logic of his version of queer theory, the strict separation of sex/uality from the emotional life.

http://filmint.nu/?p=23937

"emblematizes"

Phantom Thread had as-good-as a limited release in the Uk, it was crazy. It wasn't on at all afaict in big town multiplexes with 12-15 screens, barely on in city-based ones and vanished in a fortnight from the arthouse/indies even with all the buzz/hype.

A long-distance old friend -- straight liberal woman, about 50, with a queer daughter -- just saw the film and did an FB post linking to a Boston Globe op piece calling the relationship "abuse." I did one brief eyerolling post but won't push it further.

She lives, of course, in Portlandia. Save us from the lefty puritans.

I saw the last 40 minutes again last Saturday, whispering whenI saw Elio LORD SOTOSYN LORD SOTOSYN LORD SOTOSYN

I was sure this revive would be for

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/luca-guadagnino-suspiria-dakota-johnson-therapy-1201955909/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgOEg2Drs3w&

hey guys once again I'm six months late to a buzzworthy film!

this wasn't badly made or poorly acted or offensive or anything but I did find it fairly dull. the classical Greek sculpture backdrop seemed very DO U SEE and the general arc of their relationship made me wonder if the structure of escalating sexual tension > dramatic consummation > dissappointment/betrayal (also evident in Y Tu Mama Tambien and Brokeback Mountain and probably some others I can't recall right now) is turning into some kind of cliche'd template for gay love stories in these kind of "prestige" pictures.

Y Tu Mamá También is a gay love story?

in the sense that ppl seemed to get *really* wound up about the buildup to TWO GUYS KISSING ON-SCREEN yeah, it was treated as such imo

I didn't really like it either tbf

I admit I'm hard-pressed to think of a depiction of a gay couple in a nominally mainstream film that I find at all engaging. comedies and weirder stuff (Fassbinder's "Fox and Friends" etc), sure

Gay relationships do admittedly lend themselves to comedy and weirder stuff, tbh.

lol

now that I think about it, most dramas that focus on the minutiae of a hetero couple's relationship bore me too. maybe I just hate ppl lol. but there always has to be something *else* going on beyond "omg when are they going to have hot sex" to maintain my interest.

shakey have you come around on Fassbinder?

I have always been a fan of certain things of Fassbinder's! def not all of it, he can get p tiresome

ah gotcha. yeah I like Fassbinder but have only seen like 13 of his movies, like most of them a lot, but I don't hold any of them dear. except maybe The Merchant of Four Seasons. too brutal and hopeless. I was just reading this thread last night, some really great discussion about Fassbinder's work being "horizontal" - no underbelly, no success, everyone is equally fucked. Tarkovsky otoh I worship

I think 'escalating sexual tension > dramatic consummation > disappointment/betrayal' is a dramatic arc of most love stories, gay or straight

there has to be something after that though.....some kind of growth, understanding

that kind of story line never gets old for me

*storyline

Dan S otm, any love story that doesn't follow that structure is usually a comedy

and not a courtship of mine (retired)

my problem with this movie is that the first hour, before the dance around the memorial, could have been pared down to around 10 minutes. i get the structure of these and the first act doesn't need to be so drawn out.

yeah i remember finding this pretty but way too long. but i am also a straight.

any love story that doesn't follow that structure is usually a comedy

yeah I guess that's true. Last Tango in Paris fits, for ex. Not a story form for me, I guess.

yeah but wouldn't you fuck Timothee Chalamet, comedy or not?

maybe I'm just old but I'm past the point of getting any enjoyment out of films based on the relative attractiveness of the ppl onscreen

I guess it's happening.

The director has offered an update on his plans for the next chapter in Elio and Oliver's life. Speaking to Italian outlet Bad Taste (translation via The Playlist), Guadagnino revealed that the opening shot of the sequel will mirror the final shot of Call Me By Your Name, which ended with Elio crying while staring into a fireplace. This time, Guadagnino said, Elio will be crying while watching a movie instead:

"I’m asking myself if in the new chapter of the life of Elio, Oliver and the Perlman family we should let them pass by Crema or not… but I don’t think so. Let’s give a small scoop: the sequel (but I don’t like to call it a sequel, their story is a ‘cycle’) will take place in Paris. And it begins with Elio crying. With this light shining into his eyes… and we wonder: are we still where we left him (in front of the fireplace)? No: he’s crying because he’s watching the ending of one of the best movies of the eighties, Paul Vecchiali’s masterpiece ‘Once More'. Absolutely consistent with the character: Elio loves Paul Vecchiali’s cinema… that is melancholic like him."

And...

André Aciman has revealed that he is writing a sequel to his bestselling novel Call Me By Your Name, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer.

A coming-of-age story detailing the poignant summer romance between teenager Elio and the slightly older Oliver, a graduate student who visits Elio’s family home in Italy, Aciman’s 2007 novel was adapted into a film last year. While the film ends with the pair still young, the novel gives a glimpse into Elio and Oliver’s future, showing a meeting between the lovers 20 years after their short affair.

Aciman revealed on Tuesday that readers would soon be given further insight into how the characters’ lives develop. “I would actually love a sequel to Call Me By Your Name. In fact I am writing one,” he tweeted.

The film’s director Luca Guadagnino has already been clear about his plans to follow the story with a series of sequels. “The novel has 40 pages at the end that goes through the next 20 years of the lives of Elio and Oliver, so there is some sort of indication through the intention of [the author] that the story can continue,” he told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “In my opinion, Call Me can be the first chapter of the chronicles of the life of these people that we met in this movie, and if the first one is a story of coming of age and becoming a young man, maybe the next chapter will be, what is the position of the young man in the world, what does he want – and what is left a few years later of such an emotional punch that made him who he is?”

Oh

The Elio Crying Cycle

hmmmm

don't think I'd watch or read any of them, but good luck to both

The novel sequel?

It fucking sucks.

Extremely unsavoury, to put it mildly. I made it two episodes in. Apparently, in later episodes the 14 yo protagonist has sex with the soldier who flashes his cock to him in episode one.

Oh shit, sorry, I thought you were talking about Guadagnino's HBO/BBC series called We Are Who We Are. Which is fucking terrible.

hahahaha

No -- the sequel to CMBYN.

both extremely bad then.

I only read Enigma Variations, it was not very good, but liked CMBYN the film

I haven’t seen We Are Who We Are, but Tom Mercier’s cock is awesome