darren aronofsky's mother!

The Bunuel comparisons have popped up in everything I've read on it so far, but I kind of suspect this film lacks anything like Bunuel's playfulness.

― the general theme of STUFF (cryptosicko), Saturday, September 16, 2017 11:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, there's nothing Bunuelian in Aronofsky. the parallels with Exterminating Angel are strictly superficial

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Sunday, September 17, 2017 12:05 AM

agreed

No idea if it's going to actually get nominated, but I was completely enthralled with the sound design

"Dedicated to destroying pleasure" doesn't describe my experience. The action of the movie is so theatrical and nested in its own allegorical world that I never found it seriously disturbing or unpleasant.

I've never minded babies getting eviscerated in the hands of a mob.

I agree in theory that an artist's self-loathing is not really an interesting subject but I found this pretty effective for what it was

I think ppl are underselling the Rosemary's Baby style black comedy aspect - a huge proportion of this is basically escalating a classic what about bob? type premise

He spells it out: http://ew.com/movies/2017/09/17/mother-darren-aronofsky-burning-questions-answered/

End credits song should have been "Get Out of My House."

i'm going to see this tonight... is it bad or good

it sucks but you should still go

the very polarized reactions and takes itt and elsewhere would compel me to see it more than anything

Okay, but what was that bloody thing in the toilet?

lol, I was wondering about that all weekend.

Anyone know what he's talking about with the yellow powder?

Like most movies it's neither terrible nor great. Don't let yourself be polarized!

it sucks but you should still go

― flappy bird, Sunday, September 17, 2017 8:02 PM

I assume thats a reference to Charlotte Gilmans Yellow Wallpaper. A few other reviews have mentioned it too.

(xposts - re the yellow powder)

thx. i am going to go to it

only reason I could justify seeing this is for Pfeiffer

worth it

saw it at the weekend. For me it's an allegory about the nightmare that is DIY

This was of the worst movies I have ever seen.

first half (with the family who invite themselves in) was a good surreal black comedy, second half (by the time kirsten wiig was instructing a militia to shoot fans of javier bardem's poetry in the face, i mean) was the worst movie i've ever seen. i now think daron aaronovfsky is a deeply stupid person (maybe i should have thought that a long time ago, but it's been a long time since i last saw a film of his). it's actually a feat how much the ending spoils whatever goodwill it had built up in me. sound design was cool (nailed the feel of a creaky echoey old house)

*one of

xp to myself

It's like it was written by a fifth grader.

Some of the first half was okay (Michelle Pfeiffer's performance especially) but the characters are all so flat it's hard to give a shit about any of them.

saw it at the weekend. For me it's an allegory about the nightmare that is DIY

― André Ryu (Neil S), Sunday, September 17, 2017 8:42 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hearty lol @ this btw

what were the bible allegories i am too stupid and unlearned to catch them

ya pfeiff was the best thing about it hands down

xp Vice reviewer was otm. She mentions that mother could be mother *nature*, which makes the poet the godlike figure, and humanity's abuse of mother nature the allegory. But if that's the case, then the movie sort of glosses over it in favor of secondary themes like womanhood and the suffering artist, and it's a mess.

I realized how much I'd missed Pfeiffer the last 25 years.

what were the bible allegories i am too stupid and unlearned to catch them

I haven't seen the film but, based on the plot synopsis I read, the allegories seem to have been very, very blatant so I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic

Awards blogger-racist nitwit Jeffrey Wells is calling this the new L'Age d'Or

xp all that stuff about Jesus seemed as reasonable a Biblical parallel with the film as any

She mentions that mother could be mother *nature*, which makes the poet the godlike figure, and humanity's abuse of mother nature the allegory. But if that's the case, then the movie sort of glosses over it in favor of secondary themes like womanhood and the suffering artist, and it's a mess.

I took the Bardem figure as being just as abstract as Mother, which would make the fact of his being an "artist" just as much a metaphor as the house is. but then I don't really buy the "this is about how hard it is to be an artist" reading at all tbh

or at least I don't buy it as the primary driver of the movie

Again, I am only getting this via plot synopsis (which described the movie events and didn't link them to particular stories) but the movie runs through God creating the earth, the creation of Man and Woman, Man and Woman getting cast out of Eden after eating the apple, Cain and Abel, and the birth and sacrifice of Christ, expressed as a cyclical pattern.

Kristen Wiig as murderous prophet is almost admirable in casting against type.

I like the one moment of diegetic music as the house party cranks up. Not sure what Bible parallel that was meant to be.

Is it? I've always seen her as rather imperious.

Yeah Wiig was great & casting made perfect sense

“There were actors we were talking to, but when I heard Kristen was available, I said, ‘Sure.’ I think it works with the whole weird dream vibe of the movie. That suddenly this familiar face shows up. I don’t want to say that Kristen shows up in a nightmare, but it’s very strange and odd. You’re not expecting it, and it kind of throws audiences. I think it’s just another way of people going, ‘What’s she doing?’ and seeing her character take all these surprise turns you would never expect of her. It was fun, and about giving audiences a little gift in the middle of the film.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/09/darren-aronofsky-explains-mother

movie made like 7.5m over the weekend and had a 'F' rating on cinemascore

yeah, imagine Americans being dumb dipshits that would watch the scary clown reboot that looks like a live action Five Nights at Freddys

*imagines this with zero difficulty*

Haven't seen it, in no hurry to see it, etc. (or It, for that matter). But $7.5 million seems so super low to blame just on bad word of mouth or cinemascore numbers or whatever, right? You'd think enough people would be just curious enough to see the movie (which features a host of big names) to top $7.5. I assume that's why Paramount opened it so wide, to get the most while it could. Maybe this is just the downside of keeping something so totally batshit under such tight wraps that no one even had an idea what the movie was, let alone who it stared or whatever.

I mean it's a 30 million dollar flick which for hollywood is basically a writeoff, and it's not like they went nuts with the marketing budget (that trailer they released last week was hilariously misleading)

I'm pretty sure they preferred it make money over losing money.

Cinemascores & especially RT have so much more impact now just bc they're so easily accessible & right next to showtimes on most apps.

But people had to see the movie first, right? Critical pans don't usually hurt a film that badly, and Cinemascore also gauges responses, right? It just surprises me that it couldn't do more than $7.5 million even taking into account those shitty negatives. Like, $15 million might still have been a bad opening at the scale it was opened at.

Jennifer Lawrence is a bankable star, so I feel like it could have done better with a bigger marketing push, even if it meant tipping the public off that this is a fucked up movie. Maybe the chatter around it will bring more people in.

I mean it's a 30 million dollar flick which for hollywood is basically a writeoff

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, September 18, 2017 9:09 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEL65gywwHQ

Could also be the clown movie overperforming and drawing audiences away from Mother.