Movies

[irishjayhawk]

Yeah, so I saw a lot of movies this weekend.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Mediocre, at best. Slow and dragged on. Shorten it to 2 hours and it's golden. It's not, so it fails.

Michael Clayton - Amazing. Everything about it is awesome. However, it's VERY complex and mind bending. You have to think, so be prepared. I still feel like I'm missing key details of exactly what happened. Gotta see it again.

Across the Universe - Perfect is one word that comes to mind. It just works. And, contrary to many people I bet, the movie is best viewed sober. Trust me.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Again, IMO, the worst part of Juno isn't the political message, it's the completely ridiculous screenplay. Human beings don't interact like that, ever.

Entertainment is replete with situations where the very STRENGTH of the 'screenplay' is that they're scripting people who are interacting in an unrealistic way. Wes Anderson and Amy Sherman-Pallidino live off that fact.

The art of it is creating a world where you are INTERESTED in how these particular people are interacting. And I think you shortchange the 'art' of the creation of those situations in Juno where people might not be performing cinema verite, but they are interacting in worlds that spark your imagination and resonate nontheless.

The obvious follow up to further explore the space patteau has hypothesized, though, is to ask you and Reaper's opinion of 'Knocked Up.'

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Again, IMO, the worst part of Juno isn't the political message, it's the completely ridiculous screenplay. Human beings don't interact like that, ever.

Good grief, it's not supposed to be a docu-drama. Nobody ever really acts like the Joker from TDK and nobody fights like Jackie Chan in real life either.

Edit: I just saw that you liked Rambo. I hate to burst your bubble, but...

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Entertainment is replete with situations where the very STRENGTH of the 'screenplay' is that they're scripting people who are interacting in an unrealistic way. Wes Anderson and Amy Sherman-Pallidino live off that fact.

The art of it is creating a world where you are INTERESTED in how these particular people are interacting. And I think you shortchange the 'art' of the creation of those situations in Juno where people might not be performing cinema verite, but they are interacting in worlds that spark your imagination and resonate nontheless.

The obvious follow up to further explore the space patteau has hypothesized, though, is to ask you and Reaper's opinion of 'Knocked Up.'

That's a very good question, and one I almost addressed earlier. I remember someone writing a review when it first came out, claiming that no career oriented woman like Heigl would ever go through with that pregnancy. I agree, but I also think that you have to look at the genres that these particular films play in.

Obviously, Knocked Up does the same kind of skirting of the issue, as the only counterveiling voice comes from Jonah Hill's character, and he's treated as monstrous. That said, the marginalization of his views doesn't really bother me, because that film is only operating as a comedy that morphs into a chick flick at the 100 minute mark (just like all other Apatow movies). Knocked Up isn't subversive, it isn't trying to be. Most of the time, it's just trying to be a funny vehicle for its stars and for the director's wife.

Juno postulates itself as having a deeper societal message. It broaches these subjects head on with scenes that clearly have an intentional message on the audience (visiting the clinic), not just the flippant remarks of a ne'erdoell stoner.

Both treat pregnancy as a part of the mise en scene, which is reductive, but IMO, Juno's transgressions are worse for the genre it attempts to place itself in.

YMMV.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Good grief, it's not supposed to be a docu-drama. Nobody ever really acts like the Joker from TDK and nobody fights like Jackie Chan in real life either.

Edit: I just saw that you liked Rambo. I hate to burst your bubble, but...

Those films aren't set up as character studies.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Those films aren't set up as character studies.

Meh. Sounds like a rationalization to me.

I doubt that the filmmakers were trying to suggest that real people interact in the same ways the Juno characters do. I think it's both odd and unfair to hold them to that standard.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Entertainment is replete with situations where the very STRENGTH of the 'screenplay' is that they're scripting people who are interacting in an unrealistic way. Wes Anderson and Amy Sherman-Pallidino live off that fact.

The art of it is creating a world where you are INTERESTED in how these particular people are interacting. And I think you shortchange the 'art' of the creation of those situations in Juno where people might not be performing cinema verite, but they are interacting in worlds that spark your imagination and resonate nontheless.

The obvious follow up to further explore the space patteau has hypothesized, though, is to ask you and Reaper's opinion of 'Knocked Up.'

Well, I ****ing hate Wes Anderson since The Royal Tenenbaums. I hate that quirky-for-quirkys-sake thing he's fallen into. (I haven't seen The Fantastic Mr. Fox so I can't comment on it).

Knocked Up was, similarly to Juno, a right wing movie (and obviously so, though curiously afraid to say the word "abortion"). I think it is a funnier film than Juno despite having many of the same problems with characters who speak only in pop-culture references. At least Knocked Up's characters talk about pop culture in the ways that I do with my friends -- easily, casually, with humor. Juno's lines felt so damn scripted, so artificial. Helping to save Knocked Up is the checks-and-balances so sorely lacking from Juno -- represented by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. That relationship shows the inevitable doom that will befall many relationships. Having even a glimpse of that other side of the fence, where the grass is brown, helps the film feel more authentic and honest.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

Well, I ****ing hate Wes Anderson since The Royal Tenenbaums. I hate that quirky-for-quirkys-sake thing he's fallen into. (I haven't seen The Fantastic Mr. Fox so I can't comment on it).

Knocked Up was, similarly to Juno, a right wing movie (and obviously so, though curiously afraid to say the word "abortion"). I think it is a funnier film than Juno despite having many of the same problems with characters who speak only in pop-culture references. At least Knocked Up's characters talk about pop culture in the ways that I do with my friends -- easily, casually, with humor. Juno's lines felt so damn scripted, so artificial. Helping to save Knocked Up is the checks-and-balances so sorely lacking from Juno -- represented by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. That relationship shows the inevitable doom that will befall many relationships. Having even a glimpse of that other side of the fence, where the grass is brown, helps the film feel more authentic and honest.

Have you ever seen Gilmore Girls?

If so I wouldn't mind your assessment, seeing as it is 'the perfect storm' of what it seems your own 'quirks' are.

It's simultaneously very liberal AND very conservative, and thrives on unrealistic, but very witty and entertaining scripting, precisely because it's unrealistic, yet aspirant and resonant.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Have you ever seen Gilmore Girls?

If so I wouldn't mind your assessment, seeing as it is 'the perfect storm' of what it seems your own 'quirks' are.

It's simultaneously very liberal AND very conservative, and thrives on unrealistic, but very witty and entertaining scripting, precisely because it's unrealistic, yet aspirant and resonant.

Nope. I've never seen it.

[blaise]

Gilmore Girls sounds like a play script when they deliver the lines. Like, bap- bap-bap-bap-bap, if that makes any sense. Not the way people speak in real life. Too quick, too witty, too sharp. Sort of like a Mamet play. For whatever reason, that syle of writing seems to be fine when it's done for the stage, but when I see it on TV or film it doesn't work. I don't really know why.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by blaise

Gilmore Girls sounds like a play script when they deliver the lines. Like, bap- bap-bap-bap-bap, if that makes any sense. Not the way people speak in real life. Too quick, too witty, too sharp. Sort of like a Mamet play. For whatever reason, that syle of writing seems to be fine when it's done for the stage, but when I see it on TV or film it doesn't work. I don't really know why.

I'm much the same way. On stage, the actors are organically creating this new world directly in front of an audience. There is at all times a knowing and feeling of the artiface of the stage, even if it is just in the very back of the mind. That's why the stage can get away with fantastical shit that film never can with any credibility.
Film can take an audience different places and on top of that is less immidiate (the film not being shot and broadcast in front of a live audience). With the intimacy and precise control of the camera often comes an expectation of honesty.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

Nope. I've never seen it.

If you could just quickly watch the 7 seasons and give your opinion.

j/k, so you know it's a drama about a mother daughter team in small town NE. It's conservative in the sense that the mom not only gave birth to her daughter as a teen but, rejected by her old-money parents for her sin [for the effect it had on the Ivy League track they pictured for her, not for religious reasons], strikes out on her own working at an inn and living with her daughter in a closet at said inn.

But the story takes up when the daughter is a teen, they have a home and the mom is the inn's manager [bootstraps]. They are in the process of reconciliation the mother's parents because the daughter is gifted and desires to attend a prestigious private prep school the parents [and her mom] are legacy [though the mom is a disgraced legacy].

OTOH, it's quite liberal in a 'it takes a village' sense, as the town is one big family who meet regularly in the town square to come to consensus on how issues of the day will be addressed collectively. There are no town failures, but a series of town projects that just need a helping hand or a few shifts as bushboy at the local diner. Also, the mother/daughter relationship is all adult and cosmospolitan, with the sex lives on mom and daughter discussed the 'right' way.

What's quirky and unrealistic, yet aspirant and resonant revolves around the 'banter' between mom and daughter, which is Sturges-esque in it's pop and sends viewer to Wikipedia with regularity [see, Miller, Dennis]. Kind of assumes that the two have devoted their entire existence to watching and rewatching every pop culture touchstone ever and reading every important work of literature ever, while they also put in the work to be an inn manager and child prodigy, respectively.

What sparked my interest in your exposure is the juxtaposition of your opinions herein, and your love of discussions of music and literature, which I think you would eat up.

to kind of give a generalized flavor, they'd show someone acting quirky in a particular way, and the mom would roll her eyes at the daughter and say 'who does he think he is Blah diddle blah-blah?' And if you read the cliff notes of the book in which Blah diddle blah-blah was a character, he indeed acted with the same quirks as that character in that situation.

Or the daughter would come home from hijinks at school and whine 'mom I've got a real flippity floop situation going on,' and indeed the hijinks at school mirror the plot of the obscure French novel flippity floop.

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

Helping to save Knocked Up is the checks-and-balances so sorely lacking from Juno -- represented by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. That relationship shows the inevitable doom that will befall many relationships. Having even a glimpse of that other side of the fence, where the grass is brown, helps the film feel more authentic and honest.

How is the Garner-Bateman marriage different?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

How is the Garner-Bateman marriage different?

Juno apparently needed a woman whose life was ruined or at least made uncomfortable by choosing not to have an abortion for redemption. Showing a less than perfect marriage doesn't cover the right territory.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

How is the Garner-Bateman marriage different?

The marriage in Knocked Up was at least balanced a little. Both characters had their faults. From what I remember of Juno, Jennifer Garner's character was pretty much depicted as the fun-sucker who wouldn't let Bateman, like, rock out and stuff. Bateman's character didn't seem to have faults. I could be wrong; it isn't like their characters or performances were good enough to make an impression.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

The marriage in Knocked Up was at least balanced a little. Both characters had their faults. From what I remember of Juno, Jennifer Garner's character was pretty much depicted as the fun-sucker who wouldn't let Bateman, like, rock out and stuff. Bateman's character didn't seem to have faults. I could be wrong; it isn't like their characters or performances were good enough to make an impression.

Yeah, I guess if you don't count infidelity (or at least an openness to it), dishonesty, and sexual interest in an underaged girl faults, you've got the Bateman character nailed.