Let us Anticipate "Call Me By Your Name"

(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.