"Happiness"

I have issues with Alan Ball and Beauty. Ball is really and truly strident in his belief that the American middle class is somehow overly repressed and emotionally detatched, which has been a fashionable thing to believe since the 1950s but is not, I don't think, an entirely valuable or interesting thing to be going on about today, not to mention not entirely true anymore. That concern works much better in Six Feet Under, insofar as it's about a family of undertakers, whose repression and detachment can be seen as unique to them, and not a complaint about life in general; the characters the family is surrounded with are more often emblematic of the opposite. I'm okay with the idea that Ball has concerns in that area and wants to deal with characters working through them, but I don't appreciate his projecting those concerns on everyone else in the world as well and pretending that the problem is universal.

(1) I can't imagine Happiness on video -- the best thing about seeing it was watching people in the theater try to come to a consensus as to how they should react. 10% would laugh loudly, as in "We are hip enough to recognize this is a cynical joke," and then 10% would give them dirty looks, as in "You are a sick individual to be laughing at this." Possibly 5% cried at one point or another, and everyone else just looked around nervously.

(2) Ball's whole obsession is, I think, massively wrapped up in the fact that he is, I believe, gay. This makes perfect sense, when you think about it.

Personally, I admire _Happiness_, but I really like _American Beauty_. If you're looking for considered analysis, scroll up to Nitsuh's post, already.

Apart from Spacey's Burnham? I agree (AGAIN!) with what Nitsuh says about American Beauty. It just seemed a really unoriginal film suffused with an enormous sense of its own importance. As for Happiness, I do remember having problems with it but I can't remember what they were. I much, much preferred his previous film Welcome To The Dollhouse.

I don't think Beauty is a great movie, but there was something about its pomp and self-importance which I responded to. I suppose its the idea that if you have something to say, have the courage of your convictions. Happiness is more conversation - isn't this interesting, isn't everyone fucked up - an idea which never takes too much root in me.

Happiness was a lousy choice for a date movie too. Gah!

happniness...piss funny.

(a) something is horribly wrong with your life and you need help, or

(b) Happiness and The Doom Generation are the only movies in history that realistically address your life, therefore you should like them.

another twisted movie: friends and neighbors. yay or nay?

I never thought ang lee had such an even, unjudgemental, beautiful, and complicated film as this in him. though I don't know too much abt his other films. as I said on the other thread, everyone is v. v. good in it too - tobey maguire auditioning his version of quaint and goofy fr his future peter parker; sigourney weaver so reasonable and cold; christina ricci her usual dispassionate edged with adolescent curiosity; elijah wood 'sexual'; even kevin "a fish called wanda" klein (sp?) can't ruin it.) pretty bleak, however.

Donnie Darko, I found, did not stand up. The teen angst shit just seemed hackneyed and cliched and simplistic, and I found the sci fi stuff just seemed half baked.

Happiness, though, I think has got inside my head and stayed there. I know it's supposed to be black humour. I know it's not supposed to make moral judgements, but it was just unrelenting and grim and left me feeling bleak. I go to films for escapism, not to be reminded of awfulness and disconnection.

OTOH, Jared Harris naked.

i don't know who this 'ethan' character is but clearly he was MENTAL back in 2001.

why are people so hot for things which are 'nonjudgemental'?

I'm not hot for things that are nonjudgemental. I'm very judgemental. I just prefer movies that don't spell it out in that simplistic Bad Guy/Good Guy Bruce Willis Blows Shit Up American way.

I'm just getting a bit sick of films where there are *no* sympathetic characters at all.

oh god.

this is fucking stupid. sorry, i dunno if nitsuh is still around.

I suppose it depends on what kind of films one watches on a regular basis.

If all one watches are hazy non-moralistic art films, one must get bored of all that non-judgementalism. If all one ever watches are cartoon-based blockbusters one's friends drags one to, it makes a nice relief. I suppose.

Donnie Darko failed to move me either way. I'm glad that I saw it originally after all the fuss had died down, so I was able to accept it on its own terms. But, as I said, it just didn't stand up. Too overdone.

Anyway, what do I care? Like I said, Jared Harris naked.

i like 'blue velvet' for dennis hopper.