Is the only reason I don't know what the hell "mumblecore" is is that I've have had no desire to see the films within the genre?

Also you don't read periodicals? Every newspaper and magazine that I've browsed through over the past several months has had at least one piece on this "Lambada" of genres.

My friend's been using this as the hell of pejorative and I've got simply a contextual understanding of it (ie I thought it was a music and not a film genre, like slowcore with less enunciation). Like she described the graphic novel "Blankets" as mumblecore - does this reflect the films of this 'genre'?

blankets is focused on awkward indie relationship 'drama' but not really. like the jim and pam stuff on the office when they're in the breakroom would be closer to mumblecore and it ain't really close either. early linklater movies would be a pretty good comparison maybe? esp if you cross slacker and before sunrise. i'm not wild crazy about what i've seen but i'm slightly intrigued and the enthusiast crit i've read seems smarter than the snark yawns. it also very vaguely reminds me of dogme in that it reads good and possible potential on paper but you wonder if it's every gonna produce anything that blows you away, if what you think is potential is actually the peak (ie. mumblecore : dogme :: harold miner : derrick coleman). either way of the 'failed nbc sitcom spec script' dominant mode of american indie cinema of the past 15 or so years it's easily the most interesting to me and the one that reminds me most of jarmusch instead of jim brooks or wes anderson.

I thought "mumblecore" only referred to Andrew Bujalski's movies. If that's the case, DO NOT WANT. I'm trying to think of movies I enjoyed less than "Mutual Appreciation" and the only one I can think of is "Christmas with the Kranks."

I don't hate Bujalski -- I like his acting, esp -- but the other filmmakers in the 'genre' are allegedly more self-indulgent. There's one m.c. movie that was described as Before Sunrise set in Park Slope (my gentrified former hood), which sounds like hell, Hawke's absence notwithstanding.

oh, god. i saw a preview for that (and a few others) when ifc film center was doing a mumblecore fest. it made me want to stab someone.

I liked The Puffy Chair - which I think has been called "mumblecore".

"Slackavettes" is much more evocative than "mumblecore"

These are sort of to Apatow movies what "spoken word artists" are to "stand-up comedians"

that should be "Slackavetes," they're not cars.

Amy Taubin declares the "genre" dead ... boy, does she ever...

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/nd07/mumblecore.htm

The mumbler with the loudest mouth and the director of three defining mumblecore features ... is (Joe) Swanberg, who commented on GreenCine last year that his work “is not about seclusion, it’s just a reflection of the white, hipster neighborhood I live in.” Deep-throating his own foot even further, he told Filmmaker magazine (in the Spring ’07 issue) that he didn’t feel he had “anything to say right now about the Iraq war. The story of my life and my friends’ lives are the ones I can tell most completely.” That Swanberg believes that his life and those of his friends are separate from the war or the global meltdown that is upon us seems to me reason enough to bring back the draft. I wouldn’t take these pronouncements seriously, were they not borne out by movies that are just as smug and blatantly lazy.

lololololol i was going to start this thread just this afternoon. sounds like taubin's reading pitchfork, to come up with a name like this.

without seeing them i shouldn't comment but jesus that quote is enough to keep me away.

i thought she invented the term tho -- had no idea this was a 'thing' in the US.

It was, but most people besides the filmmakers and their friends were unaware of it until the NY Times did a piece on it.

damnit, i wanted at least to see one of the films before i wrote it off. in concept, i liked the ideas it explored (or, at least, the ideas that it explored that I made up ion my mind). but that iraq war stuff is completely, COMPLETELY bullshit. Why does every filmmaker need to focus on everything relevant in the world? it's completely insane that she's blasting someone for NOT talking about one thing that's happening. Hey, asshole, why aren't your films addressing global warming, too?! Also, Burma!?!

I honestly don't think she's faulting him for not depicting Iraq or Bushism, but the solipsistic mindset that doesn't connect to anything except one's own milieu. And you can still see the films, I don't think they're letting Taubin burn them.

(see her point on whiteness and In Between Days)

it's completely insane that she's blasting someone for NOT talking about one thing that's happening.

it would be okay, i guess, but american filmmakers have kind of neglected the last six years of recent history, no? there's a difference between godard saying 'all films must be about vietnam', which is perhaps a bit much, and the feeling that, once in a while, a director might make a film that couldn't have been made ten years ago.

ffs independent cinema did, at one point, have some balls.

which is one reason 'southland tales' scores.

Her quote doesn't really do her justice, then, because it basically sounds like he's saying "Why should I talk about the Iraq War? My movies aren't about it, they're about something else" and she's flipping out, saying the draft should come back?!

xpost fair, but does that task lie on the shoulders of someone making a movie called LOL? It seems unfair to scapegoat this guy for indie cinema having no cojones.

aren't there a bunch of iraq-themed films on offer at the moment?

or gwot-themed anyway.

"That Swanberg believes that his life and those of his friends are separate from the war or the global meltdown that is upon us seems to me reason enough to bring back the draft."

this is funnies, no? in england people say stuff like 'bring back national service' over the smallest thing, it's a stock joke.

xpost

yeah -- after a loooooong time without. and they probably will suck.

I mean, if I were to make a film it'd have very little to do with the Iraq War, because as much as it distresses me and I hate what Bush is doing to the planet, a) I could never scrape the budge to make the film I would want to about it and b) it hasn't ACTUALLY directly affected me that much (I am a Canadian, after all). I'd sooner make a movie about, well, being social incapable of meeting new people because of replacing real social interaction with the Internet, and hating it. I know that more than I do politics!

xpost it doesn't seem to be in "stock joke" tone to me!

i bet money there's an academic paper out there on 'zodiac' as film about the search for WMD.

Some of these films would be decent if someone didn't make a name for them. Mutual Appreciation was okay, so was Puffy Chair. I suppose Old Joy is considered mumblecore too.

mmmmmmm, no to Old Joy. I mean, Air America plays over the opening; not insulated enough.

I am curious about Puffy Chair

Reichardt's been making films for a while and is much older than these dudes. (Also Old Joy is sort of craft-oriented, especially in the editing, in a way that Bujalski et al aren't)

quitney you're not appreciating how rigid public discourse about the war was in this country until 2004, even 2006.

but, as a counterexample, what about stuff like dude who wrote 'war of the worlds' talking about how its about ppl dodging apache gunfire in fallujah etc?

Ah but mumblecore has now mutated into THE NEW NATURALISM

http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/calendar/saturday.html#natural

I don't want to see movies about people that I avoid in real life that are less attractive than the people in real life.

Her quote doesn't really do her justice, then

read the piece that's linked. it's very reasonable.

Yeah, I read the piece, but that bit stuck out at me regardless as sort of "wtf?" and really made me question the rest of what she was saying, tbh.

also, yerac otm (as she usually is).

Maybe I can tolerate mumblecore because I actually spend most of my time at home or alone in the dark and not hanging out w/ my peers. I didn't even know I had peers!

quitney you're not appreciating how rigid public discourse about the war was in this country until 2004, even 2006.

no i get that, but that guy amy t interviewed wasn't all "i would make films about iraq or the patriot act or abu ghraib or blackwater* or cheney but the man is holding me down" -- he was actively against even brushing against these things.

*'shooter' kind of did this, not well.

but, as a counterexample, what about stuff like dude who wrote 'war of the worlds' talking about how its about ppl dodging apache gunfire in fallujah etc?

-- gff, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 8:41 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

this is what i meant by the 'zodiac' comment -- this is what we settle for in the end, which is ok i guess. but i was probably more affected by 'southland' than i would otherwise have been just because it at least *mentioned* the patriot act, ya know...

adam, you're peerless. it's true.

http://www.emusic.com/img/album/109/034/10903477_155_155.jpeg

Anyway, now I have seen Mutual Appreciation, I know that I have peers and they have problems like girl stuff and being in bands and not being able to afford furniture.

I'd sooner make a movie about, well, being social incapable of meeting new people because of replacing real social interaction with the Internet, and hating it.

i think that would be a good basis for a movie -- a romcom obviously -- but it could still be 'about' iraq 'really'. a generation stunted by whatever, desensitized to suffering, communicating only in pictorial zings...

http://www.jimwcoleman.com/photoblog/1004%20jim%20nerd.gif

"uncomfortable encounters," "peculiar atmosphere," "awkward, sexually-tense party scenes and set pieces," "several extremely awkward attempts at human contact..."

not to side with the jocks here but wtf how hard is it to make a film where people actually communicate successfully and aren't totally stunted? i'm thinking this is almost a moral problem

that "holy fucking shit" series looks like fun

i don't think that she's "flipping out" over anything, really. i read the "bring back the draft" as sarcasm, and i don't think that she's advocating that swanberg start making art that directly engages with war in the middle east. it's a reasonably frustrated response to swanberg's quotes. i mean, "i'm not excluding people, i just don't know any nonwhites" is pretty disgusting.

There are sooooo many pertinent issues one can more easily acknowledge in a "mumblecore" type film than Iraq and the "global meltdown." It seems like such a pointless and misguided dig to suggest that a bunch of overeducated underemployed single white adults in an american bohemian film should be dealing with THAT in a movie. Plus do we really need these guys talking about stuff they DON'T know? Would that help anyone? Mumblecore movies could stand to open a window, acknowledge sex and class more openly, but I don't think this kind of demand for relevancy is on key.

Mutual Appreciation really accurately captured a scene I have little interest to spend more time with than I already do. These films are resolutely minor, and can easily be solipsistic but I don't think the answer would be suggesting they comment on global issues.

It seems like such a pointless and misguided dig to suggest that a bunch of overeducated underemployed single white adults in an american bohemian film should be dealing with THAT in a movie.

as a comparison -- 'david holzman's diary' dealt exactly with this class of guys. granted there was a draft, but even without that, vietnam and the newark riots fkn permeate that film.

if they don't 'know about' recent politics maybe they could make a film about how that's a bit of a weird fuckin phenomenon in itself?

we could have these guys ape Godard and cut away to news footage between the chats.

"yeah i mean, jen's cool, but i dunno...not really looking for a serious girlfriend right now."

"HELLO, I'M ANDERSON COOPER. ACCUSATIONS OF TORTURE IN DC TONIGHT..."

I have never heard of any of these films/filmmakers and I'm wondering if this was just a good bit of luck on my part

if there's anyone these folks should aspire to, it's mazursky.

They should make a new DINER

shouldn't we just be glad these guys don't have mob fantasies?

"yeah i mean, jen's cool, but i dunno...not really looking for a serious girlfriend right now."

"HELLO, I'M ANDERSON COOPER. ACCUSATIONS OF TORTURE IN DC TONIGHT..."

Haha, that's pretty much how Air America (which is playing in the background on the car radio) functions in Old Joy. As far as I can recall, the characters never directly comment on it or react to it - though the fact that they're listening to it identifies them as liberals, I guess. And it creates a sort of larger ominous political backdrop against which the aimless bucolic outing seems more meaningful.

"yeah i mean, jen's cool, but i dunno...not really looking for a serious girlfriend right now."

"HELLO, I'M ANDERSON COOPER. ACCUSATIONS OF TORTURE IN DC TONIGHT..."

-- da croupier, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 9:15 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

demme kind of does this in his superior remake of 'the manchirian candidate'.

Iraq war allusions/references/thematizing: every single TV show for the last 4 years (the whole gamut, from Real World to Sopranos).

hey, THE NEW YORKER just discovered m*core! this week!

I watched Hannah Takes the Stairs last night, big shrug, mostly.