BABY DRIVER (2017) aka, the Edgar Wright/Ansel Elgort/Kevin Spacey/Jamie Foxx pop-song-and-car-chase Walter Hill homage(?)

I kept thinking this must have been an exacting nightmare to edit but I'm sure Wright was slick enough to make it as easy as possible

I think the main reason the movie disappointed me (even though I really enjoyed it for the most part) is the trailer made me think more of the film would be Baby and his love interest escaping his former life rather than it being tacked on at the very end.

some other details too bothered me, like why the corrupt cop gunrunners wouldn't first disarm the people they were planning to sell to.

this movie is v much not grounded in reality but v much a universe that exists only in crime movies (and it's a good thing in this case cos grounding woulda sunk this one fast).

it's a good thing in this case cos grounding woulda sunk this one fast).

and yet Baby likes the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

funny to see Sky Ferriera play Baby's mom, I can't recall if she had any dialogue but I guess for whatever reason it was important to Wright that the woman singing on the MOM tape was the same one actually playing the character.

One of the things I really like about Wright's movies and screenplays is how they tend to be strongly anchored by an actual moral, without ever feeling overdetermined or po-faced about it (being really funny helps). This keeps him in sharp contrast to his snarky/nihilistic, heavily postmodern peers. You could argue that "passivity is tantamount to complicity" is the moral to BD but the love story gets in the way of that and undercuts that strength a bit. (I should stress again that I liked this, it's just my least fave of his features.)

an awful lot of fatal car accidents happen in movies while people are driving and arguing simultaneously

also did I miss it, but why did Spacey talk about how he never uses the same crew twice other than Baby and then he re-uses Hamm and Gonzalez again 30 minutes later?

or did he just mean "exact configuration" i.e. Batts was subbed in for Griff so that = "new crew" even tho it was only 25% diff

also did I miss it, but why did Spacey talk about how he never uses the same crew twice other than Baby and then he re-uses Hamm and Gonzalez again 30 minutes later?

― Charles "Butt" Stanton (Neanderthal)

would you ever work with Flea again?

can I just

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5e/f1/bb/5ef1bb3bfa7be1814b910ba59bd6e647--ansel-elgort-fun-facts.jpg

or did he just mean "exact configuration" i.e. Batts was subbed in for Griff so that = "new crew" even tho it was only 25% diff

this is how I took it.

First half great

Second half shit

Scott Pilgrim is a perfect, incredible movie.

I really wish the MIchael Myers mask thing hadn't been in the trailer cos it woulda been a lot funnier just showing up cold mid-movie

I feel like blind foster dad shoulda been like "dude I am already not ok with u robbin shit but at least if yr gonna do i can I like benefit from it and live somewhere decent"

Every character in this is a cipher fyi

I kind of expected that going in tho

this wasn't too horribly different from Driver other than I feel like this was a better movie and Gosling's character liked to use stealth rather than do doughnuts on the highway

It was transporter more than driver but it isn't as subtle or as adult in its themes or relationships as transporter

Wished the movie kept up the energy of the first half hour but whatcanyado. It was still a fun watch

Is it named after the Simon & Garfunkel song?

yes it plays over the credits

Lily Collins is more of a MPDG than anyone in Scott Pilgrim was

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 3 July 2017 18:43

Lily James.

I enjoyed this, it moved along well but I do wish it had something a little bit more to it.

Only complaint is Hamm doing the "you can't hide from me" thing later on.

I do wish it had something a little bit more to it.

yeah, i don't want a ticket purchase for this to result in more films like it being made.

you chuckleheads should be discussing Walter Hill's The Driver rather than that ludicrous POS Drive, get yr titles right.

that kid's legs are too thin, Alfred.

yeah, i don't want a ticket purchase for this to result in more films like it being made.

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius),

What, decent Hollywood froth for once?

that kid's legs are too thin, Alfred.

So were McCrea's.

Wright's a big Hill fan, but I see Streets of Fire in this more than The Driver.

i need to watch Streets of Fire, thx

sacrilege to compare a boy to Joel McCrea

You're in luck: SOF recently got a Blu-ray reissue, I believe.

And you can dream about it.

If I can hold it just right!

i didn't like this at all really. clever-clever w/o being clever. careless about violence. terrible dancing. cutesy and shallow instead of 'archetypical' or w/e. 90s in a bad way. jamie foxx was great though.

i did like how it was really in atlanta instead of an anono-city, but that only highlights some unappealing racial attitudes in the thing.

no you're a terrible dancer

Anyone see Triple 9, the John Hillcoat Atlanta set Heist Thriller with Casey Affleck and Gal Gadot?

Jamie foxx was as bad as everyone else

in the Michael Jackson sense

I was hoping for more from this, but the first hour was fun. It didn't stay as funny as I'd have liked.

spoiler alert - obv all the non white ppl die in this. which is very 80s just like most of the movie. good to know edgar wright absorbed the decade well. i thought foxx was actually very good, though obv his character is an arsehole. jon hamm proved he can only really act as don draper, even when playing a bank robber. i liked the film overall, the car park battle was a bit too cartoon tarantino, and excessive in a way the rest of the film wasnt, and something i thought edgar wright was above, but hey, its hollywood. i like that he got to make this in the structure he wanted, it was a lot of fun to watch, and kind of sweet, but the film was also a little culturally/emotionally empty in a way his british films havent been. the other odd thing i found was that apart from the bank job in the red car, many of the car sequences werent actually that amazing to watch. this might be as i find very few race/car action sequences as amazing as many seem to think (unless its the delorean in back to the future), but i thought wright would pull something more kinetic and inventive out the bag. tarantino did it better in death proof IIRC. the sequence of baby just walking around listening to music on the street when he goes to order coffee was more memorable than any of the car scenes.

(spoiler) Hamm and Spacey die and the black foster dad doesn't, so I don't think that first point really holds up.

jon hamm proved he can only really act as don draper, even when playing a bank robber.

This is a plus! Also, he's way more handsome when elegantly wasted than in the suits.

yes, also very much reminiscent of 80s racial tropes. the non white character gets to live... but only if hes sufficiently harmless and non threatening to warrant being saved/spared. got to have One Good Minority character. good in this case meaning perfect by way of being adorably deaf.

SPOILERS

the point is not that 'oh hey! white ppl die too! all lives matter! okay?!' but that no non white characters live except the one no one could ever dislike. because there is no way he could every harm anyone. thats how perfect the non white good guy has to be.

*ever

Spoilers

Most ppl die in this movie

just realised, my comment should have read 'obv all the non white ppl die FIRST'

Yes it's now an excellent review of this bad movie

jon hamm proved he can only really act as don draper, even when playing a bank robber.

― StillAdvance, Monday, 10 July 2017 15:30

That's unfair, I thought they were very different. Similarities were just Jon Hamm playing a bastard.

And Lily James wasn't manic or unattainable or teaching Baby much at all, she was just really cute.

Last point to Simon H

main thought i had watching this was edgar wright is directing like this like someone who just saw MTV for the first time in the early 80s and thought 'what if someone did this in a movie?!'

other recurring thought: i need to get my old ipod repaired. i liked that dial much better than the replacement.

i loved that the 56 second intro to Geogaddi - Boards of Canada was in this. AND maybe a mid/late period Stereolab track?? there was s song playing when he went record shopping that sounded just like something from Dots and Loops or Cobra and Phases.

Atomic Blonde sucked, totally drab & boooooring

IT ALSO HAD A GOOD SOUNDTRACK.

Yeah, I was confused when I woke up but people looked attractively put together.

I would avoid the boring cut of Atomic Blonde, the one I saw was pretty great.

Watch snatch imo

i can see baby driver being an absolutely a+ airplane movie

hence a C movie in appropriate settings

Hmm. Movies I've seen on airplanes: Class Action, King Ralph, Entrapment...yeah, it'll do.

Atomic Blonde sucked, totally drab & boooooring

― flappy bird, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 3:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for once I agree with flappy

scott pilgrim rules, so does this movie (kevin spacey's last)

It definitely felt like a valedictory performance; I was very moved.

he died as he lived, being ambiguously creepy & controlling over pretty young men

not as good as The Blues Brothers

how about other films about tinnitus?

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:09 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Noise is better than this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=4u8KxEf4A3M

Doesn't Sly have tinnitus in Cop Land?

one punctured or ruptured ear drum iirc

loss of hearing due to years of listening to Harvey Keitel yelling

that reminds me, i've been meaning to ask for a while if non-uk ilxors are aware of harvey keitel's embarrassing reprisal of the character of winston wolf in a series of godawful ads for insurance which have been running for a few years in the ol' blighty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRTSd-ppQFQ

wow

Oh shit they didn't...

They didn't know

lol my thoughts exactly