I wish!
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 March 2014 13:40 (ten years ago) link
Gin and tonic? That called for an Alaska.
― Eric H., Monday, 24 March 2014 14:23 (ten years ago) link
Morbs OTM
Criticisms of Anderson often feel like cinematic rockism: Where's the realism? Where are the deep emotions? Surface v substance. Fun v depth. Dollhouse/chocolate box metaphors mandatory.
― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Monday, 24 March 2014 14:55 (ten years ago) link
Morbs, which 30s movies should I check out to help me appreciate GBH's relation to cinematic history?
― très hip (Treeship), Monday, 24 March 2014 16:25 (ten years ago) link
All of them.
― Eric H., Monday, 24 March 2014 16:26 (ten years ago) link
oh I agree but this film doesn't sustain the charm of its first 40 minutes
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 March 2014 16:29 (ten years ago) link
i wish he would do a spy movie or a heist movie or hard sci fi or something― ⚓ (gr8080), Monday, March 12, 2012 2:29 AM (2 years ago)
― ⚓ (gr8080), Monday, March 12, 2012 2:29 AM (2 years ago)
i guess i need to see this again but about 3/4 of the way through this i was like "oh this is his adventure movie, nevermind"
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Monday, 24 March 2014 16:33 (ten years ago) link
lol Jacobin Mag hard to take those grad students with shiny chips on their shoulders seriously
i like wes anderson pretty well as you folks likely know, but i think if you're trying to redeem one of his films by saying it's a "critique" you're barking up the wrong tree. that seems really willful to me.
― espring (amateurist), Monday, 24 March 2014 16:44 (ten years ago) link
i think i'll see the raid 2 before i see GBH. two kinds of formalism, my allegiance is increasingly w/ the former.
― espring (amateurist), Monday, 24 March 2014 16:47 (ten years ago) link
though i know it's a false dichotomy
Also the world needs more cat-killing jokes.
feel better about skipping this now
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 24 March 2014 17:10 (ten years ago) link
I enjoyed the overall lack of gravitas, and I don't think the presence of Nazi-like figures automatically requires gravitas -- what about Indiana Jones?
― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Monday, 24 March 2014 17:43 (ten years ago) link
Dr. Jones is accorded more reverence than Churchill in some quarters these days.
― Eric H., Monday, 24 March 2014 17:47 (ten years ago) link
God, the way some people clock their mortality in new wrinkles or grey hairs, I do in accidental Morbsisms.
― Eric H., Monday, 24 March 2014 17:48 (ten years ago) link
morbidity is the soul of wit
― espring (amateurist), Monday, 24 March 2014 20:03 (ten years ago) link
this might be his best since bottle rocket/rushmore i think. fiennes is totally perfect because he does the whole arch thing so well, but can do it with some warmth, its never totally sneery, which is just the kind of actor WA needs i think. this might be the tightest plotting WA has ever done too i think, or at least the least indulgent. i think he might be figuring out how to still be true to his voice without getting too carried away - there seemed to be less in-jokiness, which was nice and made me very grateful. hopefully by his next film, he will figure out how to write characters, not just poses (but i still greatly dislike his sense of humour and the whole 'arent i so smart' tone of everything so maybe hes just not for me - its not that i expect 'depth', theres just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA, even though i adore how his movies look).
4:3 is the all time greatest aspect ratio though - i wish more films used it. it doesnt allow the eyes to wonder.
― StillAdvance, Monday, 24 March 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
it's not ENTIRELY or even MOSTLY a critique, but i think a bit of that is there.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:08 (ten years ago) link
first script he wrote himself
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:13 (ten years ago) link
theres just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA
i can certainly see how his films might come off as rather complacent in some respects--i think he just about always walks right up to the line of condescending to his characters and their fragile self-constructed worlds...however, that's precisely why his OTT formalism is so necessary: it's self-implicating. any other stylistic approach would be smug.
― ryan, Monday, 24 March 2014 22:22 (ten years ago) link
just something hollow and self-congratulatory/smug about WA
but enough about Woody Allen...
― espring (amateurist), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:23 (ten years ago) link
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 24, 2014 5:08 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
well, I'll have to see it I guess. but similar claims made for other of anderson's films tend to ring hollow
(and I'm a fan)
― espring (amateurist), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:24 (ten years ago) link
"critique" is too loaded a term for he's doing, perhaps. it definitely implies a "realism" to be set in opposition to the constructed fantasies--something he seems to rather pointedly avoid doing, especially in the last few films.
― ryan, Monday, 24 March 2014 22:25 (ten years ago) link
in fact maybe that's the most interesting thing about his movies. the cracks in the facade are never really obvious intrusions of "the real" (of either historical or emotional sorts) but still within the logic of the constructed fantasy, the way things tend not to hold together even in their own terms.
― ryan, Monday, 24 March 2014 22:31 (ten years ago) link
something like a lack of internal consistency.
― ryan, Monday, 24 March 2014 22:32 (ten years ago) link
"Critique" is any dialogue between source and interpreter. This synthesis of Zweig and Andersonalia is itself a critique of Zweig, thirties Shangri-La-type fantasias, caper films, etc.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 March 2014 22:40 (ten years ago) link
I kind of want to see this buy that image of the purple bellhops in the elevator that is bright blood red just makes me think too much of Kubrick and the bathroom in the Shining. I sort of would rather rewatch a bunch of Kubrick films instead.
― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 00:41 (ten years ago) link
except the mediocre Shining.
Well this Hugo Guinness person gets a co-story credit.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 04:01 (ten years ago) link
shouldn't you be off championing Rocky and Patton?
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 04:02 (ten years ago) link
dude, you're as boring as fuck
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 06:18 (ten years ago) link
thank you
bye again, "academic"
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 11:41 (ten years ago) link
i can certainly see how his films might come off as rather complacent in some respects--i think he just about always walks right up to the line of condescending to his characters and their fragile self-constructed worlds...however, that's precisely why his OTT formalism is so necessary: it's self-implicating. any other stylistic approach would be smug.― ryan, Monday, March 24, 2014 6:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― ryan, Monday, March 24, 2014 6:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is interesting
― très hip (Treeship), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 12:46 (ten years ago) link
Self-implicating is key. I don't think he condescends at all because he sees himself in Max or Gustave. He likes to show how his self-reinventing characters (I can't remember if it's in the movie but I get the impression Gustave wasn't born with that accent or ease among the rich) are both heroic and sometimes self-defeating. I wish he'd done The Great Gatsby because it's perfect for him: the allure of beauty and new identities to keep pain at bay, and the fragility of those strategies. You don't see Gustave's world shattered but you see the aftermath.
Because he won't ever offer interviewers a psychological reading of his work, it's fun teasing one out. There are so many clues as to how he thinks and why he makes the movies he does but you have to assemble them yourself from slivers of autobiography. For example, he's said that the kids' baggage in Moonrise Kingdom was inspired by the way that as a kid he would cling to certain items as "talismans". He's unusually interested in exploring the psychological impulse that drives film directors' world-building and in the way people use art and artefacts to navigate the world.
― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 13:40 (ten years ago) link
This is definitely getting at why I love Anderson's films.
― Babby's on fiber (WilliamC), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 15:52 (ten years ago) link
you have to assemble them yourself from slivers of autobiography.
I'm not really focused on this, with hardly any filmmakers or artists. Don't most kids have talismanic objects in their lives?
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 15:55 (ten years ago) link
I can't remember that far back. Nothing's coming to mind.
― Babby's on fiber (WilliamC), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 16:04 (ten years ago) link
i was pretty into my pacifier
― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 16:08 (ten years ago) link
My point isn't that it's unusual but that Anderson specifically named things from his own childhood that inspired the way the kids behaved in Moonrise. It's a minor example but I mentioned it wrt condescension vs self-implication and whether he's just archly pushing figurines around or exploring patterns of behaviour that are important to him. Moonrise is based on a romance he wanted to have when he was that age.
― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 16:11 (ten years ago) link
His characters don't really seem any more superficial or contrived than pretty much any character in any movie on a random day at the multiplex.
― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
Average Hollywood movies suck though. They're worse than average television shows nowadays.
― très hip (Treeship), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 17:34 (ten years ago) link
whoa
― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 17:51 (ten years ago) link
Someone should start a thread on that.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 25 March 2014 17:54 (ten years ago) link
i'll take yr word for it, i don't watch either
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 17:55 (ten years ago) link
fascinating
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 18:00 (ten years ago) link
lock board
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 18:08 (ten years ago) link
I'm not just going to sit around and allow average Hollywood movies to be traduced in this manner. It's a dream factory that brings joy to countless millions, Treeship.
― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 18:10 (ten years ago) link
not countless, they count them all the time.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 25 March 2014 18:26 (ten years ago) link
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 24, 2014 11:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
my comment was just a bad pun on their common initials, WA, and they both have reputations for being self-indulgent filmmakers. but you used it as yet another occasion to toss a literal-minded and witless barb. i have no idea why "academic" is in quote marks in your response, what that's supposed to mean, or why i should care. but you're incorrigible. goodbye indeed.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 19:49 (ten years ago) link
btw i should be less dismissive of films, both ones i've seen and ones i haven't, here and elsewhere. for my lapses I apologize to everybody. seriously. it's an easy habit to indulge and i need to work harder at avoiding it. god bless.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 20:00 (ten years ago) link
ok, sorry -- i let my assumptions carry me away now & then.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 20:47 (ten years ago) link
im not at all fussed whether moonrise was autobiographical or not, my problem with WA is that his films are just plain shallow. it would be okay if the sheer vivacity or joi de vivre/charm/panache etc of them was really high (why has WA not made a musical? i cant think of a better director to make one), but its not, because it gets polluted by his inability to not be smug/knowing/smirking - i find it too distancing (i keep thinking of him as being a posh tarantino, both want you to see what theyre doing, except QT wants everyone to love it and be in on the joke, WA invites you to be in on the joke and condescend those who dont get it). i seriously LOVE looking at his movies but more or less hate everything else about them. and he really should stop the mammoth-all-star-lineup approach to casting now, as it just got silly in this new one, as if he forgot how many surplus actors he had at his disposal until the final reel). he doesnt have to be mr. depth of the human soul, but he clearly cares about how people dress and walk and how their environments appear more than anything else. i dont see the point in people trying to convince themselves this is not the case so they can like his movies better.
― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:27 (ten years ago) link