come anticipate david gordon green's "undertow" with me

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

trailer:
http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2004/STUVWXYZ/Undertow/trailer-page.html

its supposed to be out in limited release at the end of october.

i cant wait to see this as i am a david gordon green fanboy

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I will gladly anticipate.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I think this and Huckabees are the two movies I'm most looking fwd to this fall.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 16:20 (twenty-one years ago)

anticipating!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 16:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Very curious.... I didn't like "George Washington" at all, but I loved "All The Real Girls" tremndously, so this could go either way for me I guess...

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I love George Washington.

Sorry that this post isn't more insightful than that.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:02 (twenty-one years ago)

What is "Undertow" about? Who's in it?

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Taxi Dancing OTM. Or, well, I admired George Washington but couldn't involve myself in it enough to love it.

Undertow: "Set in a contemporary South untouched by time [you're kidding, David Gordon Green is setting a film in a contemporary South untouched by time?!], Undertow is a dramatic thriller about two brothers who run away from home to guard a secret following the death of their father and the arrival of their greedy, troubled uncle."

Starring Jamie Bell (the kid in Billy Elliot), Josh Lucas, and Dermot Mulroney.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I just noticed that Malick is one of the producers.

Also, that Philip Glass did the score. Not sure how I feel about that.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

boo is how i feel about that

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Dermot Mulroney???

― adam. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i saw a dermot once, on the utah state highway

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to (anticipating!) Glass's score at all. I just hope that it's original material, and not THE SAME GODDAMN MOTIFS YOU WROTE IN THE EIGHTIES AND HAVE BEEN RECYCLING EVER SINCE.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

ha, i saw hambugrer hill the other nihgt and wondered what hapened to him.

crosspost. yeah and glass too.

― :| (....), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Thing is, after just watching that trailer, I'm not sure I'd really care about this movie except for the fact that Green directed it (and also Ebert jizzed over it at Toronto).

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

as i've written before, phillip glass music reminds me of the sounds garth and wayne make when they're running their hands over their faces to set up a dream sequence on "wayne's world"

doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo...

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Also: I am afraid that Dermot Mulroney will reprise his About Schmidt hillbilly caricature.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually like a lot of Philip Glass, but I don't think he's a very effective film composer.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(Except for Koyaanisqatsi.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

his hamburger hill score sucked! im glad there was so litle of it.

― :| (....), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, yeah, the plot and cast and composer all look terrible, but it'll probably end up being good.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm going to request a moratorium on the following words strung together: "Ebert jizzed over it" starting IMMEDIATELY.

That said -- this is supposed to be Green's most mainstream film. Dermot Mulroney is awesome! Search "Living in Oblivion," where he plays the pretentious cameraman Wolf. That movie is hilarious.

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

when i said "anticipate," i didnt mean "hate on"

yes, i am looking at all you chicagoans.

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I am still anticipating it! Look at my first post!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:28 (twenty-one years ago)

whatever jaymc. mr. flip-flop

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

But I voted for anticipating the movie before I voted against it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

your smooth talking doesnt work on me!

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i know where your heart lies.

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:35 (twenty-one years ago)

My penis is anticipating this movie a lot less now that I know Zooey Deschanel isn't in it.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I said it.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you know that Yeah, I Said It is the title of Wanda Sykes's book?!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Awesome. Wanda Sykes rulez.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

There should be a movie where Zooey Deschanel looks pretty and then Wanda Sykes comes in and tells some jokes.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

you men are all the same! *weeps*

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Makes you wonder how true to the film that trailer is, with the Malick/Green involvement. More action in that minute than both of his other films combined.

Looks good, but any hillbilly father not played by Billy Bob Thornton doesn't seem right.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

Caught the screening last night. I enjoyed it for the most part, but the score was the worst part by far. I can tell when a scene is going to be suspenseful, you don't need to have the doo doo doo doo la la la la la music accompanying it, it was during a chase scene on top of that. Loved all the homages to Night of the Hunter. Good, not great film.

― Jeff-PTTL (Jeff), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

and jaymc was there!

― Jeff-PTTL (Jeff), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

thought he was making "a confederacy of dunces"? that reminds me to include "All the real girls" in the most meh film of all time thread.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

All of the Undertow articles say that CoD has been shelved. The latest film comment had a good DGG article, it highlighted pretty much everything that was good and also frustrating about ATRG and Gee-Dub.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I am relieved that Confederacy of Dunces has been shelved.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:51 (twenty-one years ago)

so am i - will ferrell???!!!

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 14 October 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

What worried me most about that was actually Drew Barrymore. Other than that, it didn't sound godawful, but I'm still relieved.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 14 October 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

this was very good

― amateur!!st, Monday, 8 November 2004 05:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I missed Jeff's revive. As expected, I liked this very much, although I do agree on the P. Glass score; thankfully, it was used sparingly.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 8 November 2004 06:35 (twenty-one years ago)

hopefully this will still be playing next week so i can drive up to see it.

― todd swiss (eliti), Monday, 8 November 2004 06:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Loved all the homages to Night of the Hunter.

you mean, like, the plot??

― amateur!!st, Monday, 8 November 2004 06:56 (twenty-one years ago)

the worst part was the druggie chick stuff.

and i think he rushed the ending--though it did exist on that "gloria" level of nudge-nudge "too good to be true?" ambiguity, which i liked.

really stylistically assured. i loved the freeze frames. and he uses zooms really well (usually w/pans)!! it's hard to find anyone who uses zooms well.

― amateur!!st, Monday, 8 November 2004 07:00 (twenty-one years ago)

this was 10x better than either of his previous two movies, and i really liked "all the real girls" (w/serious reservations).

― amateur!!st, Monday, 8 November 2004 07:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, I am really surprised that you guys liked this so much! I have to admit, I was bitterly disappointed. I couldn't stand the score, the freeze frames, and I thought some of the acting was terrible.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 16:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I also thought this was a really odd choice for Mr. Green. Why...this...now?

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 17:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i thought "all the real gorls was one of the dullest films ever made and i'm not (at all) easily bored.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 13 November 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought it was quite lovely.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Be more specific about the acting in Undertow, adam.

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 13 November 2004 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

all the real girls was great. Is undertow absolutely nothing like it? I actually don't know anything about undertow, so maybe I should look into it myself.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, all of the "grown up" actors' performance rang kind of false to me. And come to think of it, the younger brother was kind of grating, too!

I think DGG is at his best when he is making unselfconscious films about unselfconscious people. The whole piece felt uncharacteristically self-conscious to me.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

As amateurist said above, few people can pull off the stylistic "flourishes" like Gordon Green does. I put that in quotation because it is to his testament that they rarely feel superfluous at all. Only in Undertow, they did.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Malick and Philip Glass would seem like a perfect match for Gordon Green, only I have to wonder if their involvement gives this film a "weight" (in terms of publicity and the material itself) that he could possibly do without.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i thought ATRG was very self consciously unselfsonscious.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

But perhaps I am unfairly pinning them as scapegoats.

xpost - I can see why you might say that. It's very much to each his own.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i wasn't sure about the adults, but the acting by jamie bell was PHENOMENAL. also his girlfriend in the early scenes has a remarkable face.

there were a few too many widescreen shallow-focus CLOSE close ups of the father.

― amateur!!st, Saturday, 13 November 2004 23:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree with you about Jamie Bell!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Saturday, 13 November 2004 23:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i like that they didn't make-up-over jamie bell's acne.

some of the performances were condescending in their interpretations of poor southerners. but his really wasn't. and his accent was totally convincing.

― amateur!!st, Saturday, 13 November 2004 23:47 (twenty-one years ago)

The quirky idiot-savant thing gets tired after three movies, the younger brother really started to bother me after a while. Okay, ten minutes. The standard portentous-but-not-really-at-all dialogue was worse than usual, too. At least in ATRG it had a place and an emotional honesty, here it didn't mesh well at all with an actual plot. It felt like it needed to be longer - so much time spent setting up the escape and then condensing that (including the meetup with teen crackho Shiri Appleby) into too little time.

Despite that, I think I really liked it. Stylistically assured, all of the acting outside of Appleby was top-notch, I loved the landscape and scenery (that old train station/warehouse turned into homeless camp was incredible). If Green could marry his ability with actors and visual style with less wacky-for-the-sake-of-wacky stuff, it would be nice.

Am I weird for disliking one-shot v. one-shot scenes? I don't know the technical term - I'm thinking of when Bell and his father are talking downstairs and it cuts from one shot of Bell's head on the left side of the screen with open space on the right to a shot of the father's head on the right side and open space on the left, then back and forth a few times. It always seems lazy, like they couldn't think of a better framing or shoot them together - not quite close enough for the impact of a close-up but too close to include any meaningful detail.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 05:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm thinking of when Bell and his father are talking downstairs and it cuts from one shot of Bell's head on the left side of the screen with open space on the right to a shot of the father's head on the right side and open space on the left

do you mean shot/reverse-shot patterns?

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 24 November 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't think shot and reverse was the right term, because it's the same same angle/plane for both, they would have been looking at each other in a wider shot.

But looking it up, yes. Reverse in my mind != reverse in cinematic language (not a shock).

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 24 November 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

Just watched this. (newly out on dvd). Would need time to compose more complete thoughts, but I think it's both very good and also frustrating. Green's weird rhythm and mannerisms I two-thirds love and one-third find irritating. Maybe the split is even 3/4 to 1/4; I mostly like him, but his affectations still put me off when I feel like they're supposed to pull me in. I hadn't read much about this, so I didn't know it was a Night of the Hunter update. It makes sense, though. That's kind of the ur-text of Southern Gothic filmmaking, and the Laughton/Agee pairing has some of the same High Art/Dirty South aspirations as Green's movies (esp. one with a Phillip Glass score). The music, yes, I could have lived without. The dialogue was sometimes distracting, the voiceovers in particular (tho they were thankfully few). But the phsyicality of the movie is really something. The violence is brick-hard, and even just some of the chase scenes feel like real danger. Visually effective, of course, even if the decrepit Southern fantasia is less convincing than the more gently moldering settings of the other two films. I don't know, Green's a hell of a filmmaker. I don't think he's quite made a great movie yet, but I think he's feeling his way toward one.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 6 May 2005 06:38 (twenty-one years ago)

(and the hell with Confederacy of Dunces, the movie Green oughta make is Suttree)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 6 May 2005 07:40 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

gypsytipsy generally OTM. The more conventional thriller-type sequences were uninspired.

I get the sinking feeling, as with Sofia Coppola, that his first feture is going to remain DGG's best for a long while.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 12 November 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

i get the feeling morbs may not be too happy about DGG's next project...

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 00:02 (eighteen years ago)

this film was rub!

― admrl, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 00:49 (eighteen years ago)

morbs is gonna flee like the plague from his next one, true

― omar little, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 01:01 (eighteen years ago)

what is it?

― jed_, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 01:02 (eighteen years ago)

A Apatow-Rogan script?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 01:06 (eighteen years ago)

yes.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 09:53 (eighteen years ago)

It depends. However, it might be a smart move, since as M Sicinski says,

There's nothing noteworthy about his rhythm or editing anymore, and I'm wondering if there ever was. I'm tempted to think that without cinematographer Tim Orr, Green wouldn't be anything to write home about. It looks like the fifteen minutes have elapsed.

― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 14:06 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.