i dug this~
We see the pay-your-dues lecture from the smarmy, sleazy music-biz suit (Brad Garrett).
heh, i thought that guy was just spittin plain truth at them!
it sounded like derogatis wanted something more exuberant. what i liked about the movie is it wasn't very pushy about trying to make you feel the magic of the time, its more like a wry, somewhat-embarrassed-but-also-fond look back. you're not supposed to pump your fist and go 'yeah!' at the twerpy dostoevsky line. it's a funny movie! some of the quiet character moments were almost a little too oblique - i'd love to read something examining those bits of the movie - but i liked the observational approach of the film
i really liked molly price as the mom. her jersey-ness seemed pretty authentic (unlike jack huston's)
here's the chase interview drogatis mentions, its a chill read:http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/david-chase-everybody-told-me-not-make-movie-70506?page=0,0
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 11 January 2013 07:31 (eleven years ago) link
tbrr derogatis is a terrible hack
― I had such a fontasy (stevie), Friday, 11 January 2013 10:02 (eleven years ago) link
i had to turn this off halfway through - terrible
pacing was just so broken; and all this missing information i didn't understand at all. who are these characters? what are their names again? what am i supposed to be inferring about the girl's sister? let's have a short, cryptic, melancholy conversation / then the band playing / then james gandolfini brooding / then another short, cryptic, melancholy conversation!
― sean gramophone, Friday, 15 February 2013 16:03 (eleven years ago) link
far from terrible
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 February 2013 16:10 (eleven years ago) link
Was this ever released nation wide? I know it's not running near me.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Friday, 15 February 2013 17:22 (eleven years ago) link
it expanded to 500+ theaters in January and went kerblooey.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 February 2013 18:02 (eleven years ago) link
just saw this. pretty good, not great. definitely supposed to be an embarrassed look back on youth.
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 20 February 2013 02:43 (eleven years ago) link
Glenn Kenny on JG's really great scene in this.
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2013/06/james-gandolfini-1961-2013.html
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 20 June 2013 16:29 (ten years ago) link
I watched it this weekend, and I got a different vibe from that scene that Kenny talks about. Sure the kid was definitely alarmed by the revelation...but he seemed to react *more* to his Dad using the Mom as the reason he wasn't going to take it any further. The way the kid repeats 'I'll take care of Mom', like don't use her as an excuse not to do anything?
I dunno, maybe I need to watch it again. the write up made me anticipate that scene quite a lot differently to the way it played out, and I don't think the kid comes off as badly as Kenny implies.
But he's otm about how great Gandolfini is in the scene, there's no question there. And it's a nice little movie. It seemed to be edited a little strangely? could've done without the go-go dancing tagline at the end but otherwise it wasn't bad. They must have paid a TON for some of that music.
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 24 June 2013 16:29 (ten years ago) link
and I am in LOVE with that kid. cute as hell
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 24 June 2013 16:30 (ten years ago) link
I don't think GK found the kid's reaction "bad," just confused and unprepared.
"YOU AND I AH GONNA TANGLE, MISTUH!" - most NJ dads
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 June 2013 19:11 (ten years ago) link
he had so many good dad lines
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 24 June 2013 20:20 (ten years ago) link
I liked him lying on the couch, empty bowl with spoon on his chest, ashing his cigarette into the bowl.
this was an odd little film. RIP Gandolfini :(
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 9 September 2013 16:06 (ten years ago) link
this was the worst movie I'd seen in years. since... "away we go," I guess.
basically it was this, but robbed of any redeeming vulgarity: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169528/
just a total nothing.
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 07:45 (ten years ago) link
actual lines include:
- "hey, man. she's stone free to do what she pleases."
- "oh, robert johnson (cut to ostentatious close-up of king of the delta blues back cover). we used to listen to him all the time during freedom summer." (also note forrest gump-esque caricature of white civil rights activists as flighty hippies.)
- "this was before anyone was talking about the sexual revolution!"
- "you must have blown him the night you loaned me 'time is on my side'"
basically there's a line like that every 10 seconds. sometimes entire conversations are a string of similar clichés.
for a "dream project," this was amazingly paint-by-numbers. worse than that. ugh.
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 07:49 (ten years ago) link
lol
― flopson, Thursday, 9 January 2014 07:55 (ten years ago) link
also, music cues.
as the errant hippie drives up to her parents' house with a dirty stinky homeless-looking hippie in tow, van morrison: "i can almost smell / your TB sheets"
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 07:56 (ten years ago) link
also: pretty much no soul music. at all. weren't the rolling stones fans listening to otis redding and motown?
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 07:58 (ten years ago) link
i wonder when david chase woke up and thought, "you know that movie that's been 400,000 times? i'm going to make it again, but worse this time."
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:00 (ten years ago) link
been MADE
one incongruous use of staple singers-like gospel soul, i guess, during a slow-motion montage
LOTS of ostentatious close-ups of album covers
this is what comfortable, critically-applauded HBO showrunners do during the summer instead of jacking off
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:04 (ten years ago) link
"we call them 'african-americans' now, dad!"
20 seconds later: "it's rude to homosexuals, that's why. the new term is 'gay.'"
that's a joke, son!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:06 (ten years ago) link
also tons of cringe-worthy cinephilic citations, including girlfriend quoting orson welles. earlier her and boyfriend-protagonist go to see "blow-up." him: "what kind of movie is this? nothing happens." her: "the trees are like... music." (i'm pretty sure this isn't meant to be funny, but rather to reveal her sensitive artiness or whatever.)
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:11 (ten years ago) link
also all the original music (esp. lyrics) sounds way more like forgettable '80s indie (rain parade? something more boring than that) than anything from the '60s.
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:20 (ten years ago) link
Great film
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:32 (ten years ago) link
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 08:44 (ten years ago) link
I didn't love it, but yeah yr fulla shit
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 January 2014 12:57 (ten years ago) link
this ruled
― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, 9 January 2014 14:58 (ten years ago) link
i dont care about any of the music stuff, its about the people, man
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 9, 2014 6:57 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i'll take this as cosmic affirmation :).
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, January 9, 2014 8:58 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
what people? all i saw were assemblages of clichés so tired i'm surprised they could stand up
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 17:32 (ten years ago) link
fear not, I will watch this soon and tell everyone what to think.
― ryan, Thursday, 9 January 2014 17:36 (ten years ago) link
i admit the weird flight into stylization at the very end was intriguing, if poorly executed, but it mainly functions as a weird nod to "goodfellas" and doesn't change the other 90 or 9,000 or whatever minutes of the movie.
there wasn't a single plot manipulation i didn't more-or-less anticipate minutes in advance, having been exposed to the master narrative of Rock Music and countless films about The Sixties.
i guess every movie deserves a few fans, and you folks are welcome to this one.
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link
the only moment that i remember about this was the band's audition performance, where they hit their peak and got it together and did everything right (for an audience of one bored industry dude), but it's clearly going nowhere except downhill from there. thought it was poignant and well-done.
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 9 January 2014 17:51 (ten years ago) link
i'll admit a few of the later scenes w/ gandolfini were slightly stirring in a "boy i wished i had talked with my dad more" b/w "man, james gandolfini died, that sucks" sort of way
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 18:01 (ten years ago) link
haha ryan
― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, 9 January 2014 18:10 (ten years ago) link
i'm looking forward to it :)
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, 9 January 2014 18:18 (ten years ago) link
finding this so persuasive, this movie did have such a shitty grasp on what relationships are like, like every two-beautiful-models-posing-as-actual-teenage-couple scene is so starry eyed
but yeah i thought it was pretty okay!, for the elegiac nature of gandolfini's performance sure
― mustread guy (schlump), Thursday, 9 January 2014 21:03 (ten years ago) link
earlier her and boyfriend-protagonist go to see "blow-up." him: "what kind of movie is this? nothing happens." her: "the trees are like... music."
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, January 9, 2014 3:11 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lmao did not make it that far
― lag∞n, Thursday, 9 January 2014 23:25 (ten years ago) link
agree with amateurist that the last few scenes and coda were the best and even intriguing enough for me to want to re-watch the movie as a whole. a strange movie though. I mostly liked it since the 60s stuff was so heavy handed it almost felt like an intentionally gratuitous reflection of boomer self-regard.
― ryan, Monday, 13 January 2014 04:11 (ten years ago) link
iirc the intro & coda was put on there at the studio's demand, wanted to give the audience more context or something
― Hungry4Ass, Monday, 13 January 2014 04:18 (ten years ago) link
oh that's interesting. I think maybe the stylization of those scenes worked best since the signifiers of cultural mythology that the movie traffics so heavily in seem a bit more dreamlike, almost eerie, rather than "hey remember the 60s?"
― ryan, Monday, 13 January 2014 04:29 (ten years ago) link
also the mother was very livia soprano.
― ryan, Monday, 13 January 2014 04:49 (ten years ago) link
did u like the movie
― Hungry4Ass, Monday, 13 January 2014 05:26 (ten years ago) link
i liked it
i liked it but am wondering if my crush on the kid clouded my judgement
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 January 2014 05:33 (ten years ago) link
I mostly liked it since the 60s stuff was so heavy handed it almost felt like an intentionally gratuitous reflection of boomer self-regard.
― ryan, Sunday, January 12, 2014 10:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i don't see how this could be a reason to see it, but to each his own. i'd sub "pathetic" for "gratuitous"
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Monday, 13 January 2014 05:38 (ten years ago) link
I gave it 3 stars on netflix. we can close the thread now.
― ryan, Monday, 13 January 2014 05:50 (ten years ago) link
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Thursday, January 9, 2014 2:49 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark
i dont know whats supposed to be self-evidently awful about any of these lines btw. ah, the classic You Blew Him The Night You Loaned Me Time Is On My Side cliche... when will they retire that old saw
― Hungry4Ass, Sunday, 19 January 2014 07:34 (ten years ago) link
it's teenagers talking -- they're stupid.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 19 January 2014 12:59 (ten years ago) link
yeah
― Hungry4Ass, Sunday, 19 January 2014 14:42 (ten years ago) link
lool
― lag∞n, Sunday, 19 January 2014 16:24 (ten years ago) link
This movie was really bad. And it had nothing to do with the dialogue. It was just really vague. I get the feeling it might have made a really god TV series - like, there were lots of elements that could've been good if Chase had had the chance to explore them further. But he didn't, and what was there just did not work.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Sunday, 19 January 2014 23:20 (ten years ago) link
Like, I haven't even got a clue what the ending was supposed to mean, and the ending was by no means the worst part of the movie.
I was impressed that when they started writing their own songs they went from Stones covers to being The Replacements though.
― the "Weird Al" Yankovic of country music (stevie), Sunday, 19 January 2014 23:22 (ten years ago) link
if it were just stupid teenage talk, i wouldn't mind. approximating teenage conversation would actually be an achievement.
instead, it's stupid screenwriter talk.
a lot of those lines have teenagers in 1966 spouting clichés about The Sixties in language that wouldn't be born until years later. like a lot of films, this one grants its characters a kind of totalizing historical self-awareness that rings false. (see also the way the film suggests that awareness of civil rights, in the line of one of the protagonist's kid sisters, just kind of bleeds directly into the sort of politically-correct anti-homophobia that's the norm today. there's a weird telescoping there that seems to imply that the baby boomers are responsible for all the social advances of the past few decades.)
also the way that music is the central thing in our lives, man theme is integrated into film is incredibly heavy-handed. it doesn't give you any room to breathe, in fact. i found it insulting.
the filmmaking was pretty tired too. a lot of quality-TV-like "cinematic" chiaroscuro and stuff but staging/framing/editing showed no invention or excitement whatsoever. so really i just felt like there was little or nothing to chew on.
i'm not going to persuade anyone who loved or liked this film to change their minds, least of all the sort of folks who double-down on their opinions when they are challenged (I'm often in that group). so that's cool.
yeah, that's a good reference point. the lyrics+music sounded more like an 80s indie band inspired by 60s bands than an actual 60s band. the specific sort of self-absorbed, lightly ironic relationship drama limned in the lyrics felt anachronistic.
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Friday, 24 January 2014 03:35 (ten years ago) link
nice post m8
― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 24 January 2014 03:37 (ten years ago) link
i can't tell when people are being sarcastic anymore :(
― ★feminist parties i have attended (amateurist), Friday, 24 January 2014 03:39 (ten years ago) link
im serious, that was a good post!
― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 24 January 2014 03:41 (ten years ago) link
its just funny because i read it as being more self-effacing than trying to enchant you with boomer myths, tho i guess the dialog is glib - i barely ever notice bad dialog - but i think that's a strength of the movie too in a way, it maintains a little bit of distance from the realtime urgency of whatever they're talking about, its more just about the vibe of vaguely/fondly remembered embarrassing episodes recounted in a low-key way
i thought the sense of place & time was pretty cool too
music is the central thing in our lives, man theme - i didnt think the movie was insistent about this at all
― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 24 January 2014 04:10 (ten years ago) link