Wild at Heart to Blue Velvet.
― cougars and sneezers (Eazy), Friday, 5 April 2013 11:56 (eleven years ago) link
so Albert Brooks' fork will be played by chopsticks in this one.
Never need to see another thing this guy does.
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 April 2013 21:40 (eleven years ago) link
if you mean albert brooks then i agree
― johnny crunch, Monday, 15 April 2013 21:55 (eleven years ago) link
was thinking of the sleek freeze-dried foreign sadist
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 April 2013 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
I actually couldn't sit through the gore in Valhalla Rising. Maybe I was all just-had-a-baby gone soft, but man.
― --808 542137 (Hurting 2), Monday, 15 April 2013 22:10 (eleven years ago) link
http://rousedtomediocrity.com/wp-content/uploads//2013/04/Only-God-Forgives1.jpg
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Monday, 13 May 2013 03:36 (ten years ago) link
speaking of voids, we enter them
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/onlygodforgivessm_zps2cca0cd5.jpg
― controversial vegan pregnancy (contenderizer), Monday, 13 May 2013 03:54 (ten years ago) link
Funny Games + The Hangover Part II
― cougars and sneezers (Eazy), Monday, 13 May 2013 05:22 (ten years ago) link
Cannes: 'Only God Forgives' Director Nicolas Winding Refn on Making 'Films Like a Pornographer' (Q&A)http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-god-forgives-director-nicolas-523970
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Friday, 17 May 2013 17:27 (ten years ago) link
his story about how The Dying Of The Light (written by paul schrader) fell apart is pretty good
"It was a wonderful, wonderful script about a C.I.A. agent who goes on an existentialistic journey and dies at the end. And I thought, 'If I could do a movie where Harrison Ford dies, I would contribute to society.' So I was really into making this film. And I had gone to Los Angeles for short periods at a time to work with him. And you know, because it's Harrison Ford and you sit around in his big hangar with all his private planes and you hang out with Harrison Ford. Then he realizes that he doesn't want to die. Then it's like, 'Fucking hell. Okay, then there's no movie, Harrison.' Well he'd been thinking about it and 'Wasn't there another way?' and back and forth. And I thought, 'Oh God dammit.' So I was so angry at myself for buying into the illusion of Hollywood and of course, nothing ever happens."
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 May 2013 17:33 (ten years ago) link
more violent pretentious wankery, plz
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 May 2013 17:58 (ten years ago) link
...he said with bated breath
― bleeding like a stoke pig (imago), Friday, 17 May 2013 21:26 (ten years ago) link
reeeeal human beeeeing
― tweeship journey to 51 (mh), Saturday, 18 May 2013 20:05 (ten years ago) link
well u guys shd love it
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/film/cannes-2013-only-god-forgives-and-the-bastards
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 May 2013 12:00 (ten years ago) link
I'll love it, but it should be noted that reviews have been disastrous across the Croisette. (The one follows the other, actually.)
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 May 2013 12:04 (ten years ago) link
http://tribecafilm.com/features/ryan-gosling-roles-ranked-by-smug-self-satisfaction
Capper of Holden's NYT review of OGF: "Three words should suffice: pretentious macho nonsense."
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 July 2013 16:34 (ten years ago) link
3. Drive: Everything about Nicolas Winding Refn's film is designed to make Gosling's "Driver" seem like the coolest creation in the entire universe. He barely talks. He doesn't have a name. He intuits bad guys in elevators and stomps their faces while lit in moody crimson tones. He's nice to children. In his early interactions with the criminals he drives for, he has very specific instructions for how they're going to pull it off. Because he knows everything, and as long as everybody does things his way, the job will go perfectly.
This kind of sums up why I didn't like Drive as much as I thought I would.
― Cap'n Conserv-a-pedia (Hurting 2), Friday, 19 July 2013 16:37 (ten years ago) link
Well, spoiler, but then you'll love Only God Forgives. Or at least parts of it.
― Frederik B, Friday, 19 July 2013 17:05 (ten years ago) link
It's beautiful, reasonably effective hogwash.
― Gukbe, Friday, 19 July 2013 17:05 (ten years ago) link
you've seen it gukbe? read some cannes reports (prob in S&S) that wrote this one off as a misogynistic disaster
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 19 July 2013 17:50 (ten years ago) link
This is now available through video on demand services. Don't think I'll bother until it's free.
― circa1916, Friday, 19 July 2013 19:45 (ten years ago) link
A lot of harsh words, and I can see why. I don't totally disagree with them either. Kind of misogynist, yeah. Doesn't go in for the type of revenge film it looks to be though, which is a plus. The score is incredible.
― Gukbe, Friday, 19 July 2013 21:05 (ten years ago) link
How's the soundtrack this time out?
― Your Own Personal El Guapo (kingfish), Friday, 19 July 2013 21:07 (ten years ago) link
Interivew with both Zimmer and Refn by John Hughes' son:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/only_god_forgives_director_nicolas_winding_refn_discusses_his_favorite_music.html
― epic check, please! (Eazy), Friday, 19 July 2013 21:09 (ten years ago) link
looking forward to a night of pretentious macho nonsense
one of the things i dug about drive is that gosling's driver only initially seems like a stereotypical action movie tough guy. as the film progresses, he comes to seem increasingly creepy, even inhuman. he's clearly the hero, but in that, he's as much travis bickle as james bond.
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Friday, 19 July 2013 21:37 (ten years ago) link
i watched this, its like nearly oppressively dour/humorless. right, transcending revenge or w/e ~ehhh. lotta cool hallways & wallpaper tho
― johnny crunch, Friday, 19 July 2013 21:37 (ten years ago) link
edelstein's review: I thought it was just about the worst fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 19 July 2013 21:38 (ten years ago) link
lol
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Friday, 19 July 2013 21:42 (ten years ago) link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/only-god-forgives-reviews_n_3624095.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment
1. "Movies really don’t get much worse than Nicholas Winding Refn's 'Only God Forgives.' It's a shit macho fantasy -- hyperviolent, ethically repulsive, sad, nonsensical, deathly dull, snail-paced, idiotic, possibly woman-hating, visually suffocating, pretentious. I realize I sound like Rex Reed on one of his rants, but trust me, please -- this is a defecation by an over-praised, over-indulged director who thinks anything he craps out is worthy of your time. I felt violated, shat upon, sedated, narcotized, appalled and bored stiff. [...] I was repelled by this film in ways I didn't know I could be repelled before I saw it." -- Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
2. "The truth is this unwatchable atrocity can't be saved from itself." -- Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
3. "The new Ryan Gosling movie has to be a comedy, I think. The only alternative to laughing at it is napping through it." -- Kurt Loder, Reason.com
4. "The wallpaper emotes more than Ryan Gosling does in 'Only God Forgives.'" -- Peter Debruge, Variety
5. "The innovation of Refn's latest is mostly just in the way it manages to merge gory and boring. At least it's created a new movie adjective for me: goring." -- Sara Stewart, New York Post
6. "'Only God Forgives' is the kind of remarkable disaster only a very talented director can make after he finds success and is then allowed to do whatever he wants." -- Ty Burr, Boston Globe
7. "This is the worst, least, dumbest picture made by people of talent this year." -- Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune
8. "I thought it was just about the worst f--king thing I’ve ever seen. In fact, I was depressed it wasn’t laughed off the screen." -- David Edelstein, New York
9. "Gruesomely grotesque and pathologically pretentious, a diabolical horror called 'Only God Forgives' may not be the worst movie ever made, but it is unquestionably in the top five." -- Rex Reed, New York Observer
― epic check, please! (Eazy), Friday, 19 July 2013 22:14 (ten years ago) link
lotta cool hallways & wallpaper tho
Sold!
― More Than a Century With the Polaris Emblem (calstars), Friday, 19 July 2013 22:30 (ten years ago) link
I thought Drive was strict by the numbers crap, some of the worst kind of Tony Scott/De Palma excesses allied to a schmaltzy, cute kid storyline & a bit of fashionable ultra-violence thrown in to give it a "modern feel".
"He barely talks. He doesn't have a name"
Refn should have hooked up with Mads Mikkelsen again, he can work that old trope to perfection without even saying a word.
Get the feeling I will dig Only God Forgives, despite it being shit. Also get the feeling that Refn is in thrall to Gaspar Noe, who is a malign influence on other directors, especially when they attempt to imitate black holes like I Stand Alone or Irreversible. At his best, I think Refn has more in common with John Boorman between his Zardoz/Excalibur period, with the potential to make a Hell in The Pacific/Point Blank if he got his act together and stopped miscasting conveyor belt aryan-nazi-hollywood-athlete-pussy-clarts who are too fucking bland to add some pizazz to his thin veneer of content.
― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:34 (ten years ago) link
RefnGosling
LANCELOT
― epic check, please! (Eazy), Friday, 19 July 2013 22:40 (ten years ago) link
Those huffpost-reactions are ridiculously over the top. Poll?
― Frederik B, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:18 (ten years ago) link
haha yes
― johnny crunch, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:23 (ten years ago) link
i hope michael phillips didn't just leave a word out and really means that almost biblical use of "least"
― """""""""""""stalin""""""""""" (difficult listening hour), Friday, 19 July 2013 23:23 (ten years ago) link
i keep reading it as "the worst, least dumbest picture" tho
― """""""""""""stalin""""""""""" (difficult listening hour), Friday, 19 July 2013 23:24 (ten years ago) link
it's not as bad as all those but i support the spirit of them if they get refn to not make another 1 or mutiple more exactly like this
― johnny crunch, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:25 (ten years ago) link
Sounds like this in a double feature with Belly would be wallpaper paradise.
― epic check, please! (Eazy), Friday, 19 July 2013 23:27 (ten years ago) link
Refn will probably make many more exactly like this. His funding doesn't really depend on american reviews. Fun fact: The budget for Only God Forgives was half of what Drive was. So this one is pretty wrong: '6. "'Only God Forgives' is the kind of remarkable disaster only a very talented director can make after he finds success and is then allowed to do whatever he wants." -- Ty Burr, Boston Globe'
― Frederik B, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:35 (ten years ago) link
maybe he wanted to do something cheap
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Friday, 19 July 2013 23:51 (ten years ago) link
it's humorless when KST is shouting about her sons' penis sizes?
― playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 20 July 2013 01:33 (ten years ago) link
forgot abt that, yea thats not bad
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 20 July 2013 01:38 (ten years ago) link
its def self-aware ie. - goz to the cop "wanna fight?" > then they literally fight & goz gets beat into jared leto in fight club
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 20 July 2013 01:59 (ten years ago) link
Enjoyed it. Hallway scenes, single point perspective and set pieces were all cool.
― More Than a Century With the Polaris Emblem (calstars), Saturday, 20 July 2013 02:21 (ten years ago) link
otm, this wasn't half bad. not great, but a good deal better than the shameful artistic faceplant described by the emerging critical consensus. it's portentous and arguably pretentious, but it's also challenging, involving & strikingly beautiful (when it isn't hurling gore at the screen). i can see why so many accuse refn of misogyny here, but the film is such a deliberately obvious and overheated freudian nightmare that such charges seem somewhat beside the point.
i've read a number of complaints about the wallpaper, as though slow tracking shots of textured surfaces were intrinsically risible, but i loved the photography throughout. i enjoyed the relatively slow pacing, too. no matter how static, the imagery is almost always suspenseful, dreamlike and charged with violent/sexual tension. and chang's magic sword is such a great touch.
i do agree that ryan gosling doesn't contribute much beside his sleepwalking good looks. with a more engaged and compelling leading man, this might have been better than "better than they say".
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Saturday, 20 July 2013 16:12 (ten years ago) link
i'm legit impressed by this thing's metacritic spread
― """""""""""""stalin""""""""""" (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 20 July 2013 16:20 (ten years ago) link
those reviews are funny
― surm, Saturday, 20 July 2013 16:37 (ten years ago) link
how does this compare to, say Spring Breakers?
― akm, Saturday, 20 July 2013 16:49 (ten years ago) link
less boobs, more wounds
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Saturday, 20 July 2013 16:55 (ten years ago) link
Watched it tonight and wasn't dazzled at all and I dig a lot of movies that are pure style. Haven't any of you guys seen I Saw The Devil by Kim Jee-Woon? South Korean directors shit movies like this out without much Cannes fanfare or controversy and do it a lot better.
― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Saturday, 20 July 2013 22:37 (ten years ago) link
Loved the villain, the minimalist storytelling, and the goddamn wallpaper.
― Meg White America (Eazy), Saturday, 21 December 2013 07:38 (ten years ago) link
i did not watch this in ideal circumstances, but i found myself a little (too) bored watching it. kubrickian deliberateness and bressonian blank-faced acting are a deadly mix, i think.
― ryan, Thursday, 16 January 2014 02:24 (ten years ago) link
i didnt really understand why this was rejected so violently, its the autistic hyperviolent dayglo nightmare hes been building towards for a while now
― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, 16 January 2014 03:29 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQq4QoQFWBw
^can't wait to see this guy's Only God Forgives fan film
― latebloomer, Thursday, 16 January 2014 03:34 (ten years ago) link
I loved Drive. This was worthless.
― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Friday, 24 January 2014 04:09 (ten years ago) link
did the people who hated this hate valhalla rising? i dont think they're worlds apart
― Hungry4Ass, Friday, 24 January 2014 04:13 (ten years ago) link
Valhalla Rising didn't embarrass its lead actress with dialogue so horrendous that I actually felt sorry for her. Of course, I don't even remember it having any women in it.
― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Friday, 24 January 2014 04:15 (ten years ago) link
valhalla rising was awesome, this was kind of a diff thing
― mh, Friday, 24 January 2014 15:30 (ten years ago) link
So this movie must've broke Kristin Scott Thomas; quitting films.
"She is tired, too, of being cast in films that need her more than she needs them. 'I'm often asked to do something because I'm going to be a sort of weight to their otherwise flimsy production. They need me for production purposes, basically. So they give me a little role in something where they know I'm going to be able to turn up, know what to do, cry in the right place. I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds, but I keep doing these things for other people, and last year I just decided life's too short. I don't want to do it any more.'"
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/31/kristin-scott-thomas-interview
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:13 (ten years ago) link
I would have quit before having the recite dialogue comparing the size of my sons' cocks.
― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Monday, 3 February 2014 18:26 (ten years ago) link
I didn't realize the actress was Kristin Scott Thomas until I clicked on this thread. I sort of enjoyed this movie, it wasn't as good as drive, but I loved the cop and Kristin Scott Thomas. It seemed like she really stepped out of her usual skin for this role.
― JacobSanders, Monday, 3 February 2014 19:44 (ten years ago) link
I mean, what other 2013 film even came close in terms of wallpaper?
― tbd (Eazy), Monday, 3 February 2014 19:47 (ten years ago) link
This movie is amazing and you are all crazy
― Everyone is awful except you. Wait, no, you are also awful. (jjjusten), Friday, 15 August 2014 06:23 (nine years ago) link
It's also so much better than drive that I can't even figure out where to start the comparison
― Everyone is awful except you. Wait, no, you are also awful. (jjjusten), Friday, 15 August 2014 06:29 (nine years ago) link
hey, i dug it okay, and it's stayed with me more than most of what i watch. saying it isn't quite as good as bad guy or i saw the devil hardly qualifies as a slam. not going for "amazing", but i am looking forward to watching it again at some point.
― Adding ease. Adding wonder. Adding (contenderizer), Friday, 15 August 2014 07:55 (nine years ago) link
ha well given our shared sensibilities i wasnt talking about your comments, but blanket statements are so much more fun
― Everyone is awful except you. Wait, no, you are also awful. (jjjusten), Friday, 15 August 2014 16:10 (nine years ago) link
I like the Pusher trilogy (particularly the 2nd + 3rd) and Valhalla Rising movies by NWR. Drive and Only God Forgives are merely shitty Tony Scott/Gaspar Noe pastiches imo.
― autumn reckoning faction (xelab), Saturday, 16 August 2014 22:55 (nine years ago) link
This movie had one hilarious scene.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 17 August 2014 01:05 (nine years ago) link
What hilarious scene?
Watched this. Quite disappointed but I find it odd that people felt such passionate extremes for it (but I've been confused a lot lately by extreme reactions to films, I'm still coming to terms with the idea of some people really loving Iron Man, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Stakeland, American Graphiti 2:Dazed & Confused and Poltergeist).
Not nearly as violent as I expected. Not much incest either. Some nice images and sounds. I liked the scene of the boy watching the man being killed. Just too slow and not enough good stuff.
Drive was a nice snack, Bronson was fine but Valhalla Rising is better than any of the former by a long distance, really lovely film. I'm curious about the earlier films like Pusher trio, Bleeder and Fear X (opinions about those?) and I really want Refn to be great in the future.
I was very fond of Kim King Duk for a while but after seeing 8 of his films I felt like I wasn't going to get anything more out of further films. But I am really impressed by how quiet and slow he makes his films without ever getting boring. He always gets the right balance.
I Saw The Devil is pretty decent but I don't think the ordeal is really worth it for any element.
I still think Only God Forgives is better than Spring Breakers which is quite pretty at times but too boring. But it felt unpleasantly mean spirited to me, as if the whole film was just mocking these shallow boring people. One big feature length sneer.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 17 August 2014 01:42 (nine years ago) link
I haven't seen a single positive review of Fear X but I'm still quite curious about it- John Turturro, surveillance thriller (yes more of these please), accusations from multiple critics of being a Lynch ripoff (yes also more of these too).
I liked Only God Forgives despite the sheer dumbness of the psychology and moralizing just for the visuals: this is a really fucking pretty movie, you guys. And Kristin Scott Thomas, and the scene set to "Wanna Fight" (the track in 4/6 with the ludicrous gothic pipe organ and synth lines running up and down the scale) that just builds and builds for ages until Vithaya Pansringarm just casually beats the shit out of a character whose only defined trait is "boxing". I mean, it's not great, but I don't regret it (and I definitely don't regret picking up the soundtrack either).
― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Sunday, 17 August 2014 04:09 (nine years ago) link
fear x is really good
been periodically ~thinking abt~ fear x since seeing it, stumbled upon this -http://www.offscreen.com/index.php/pages/essays/fear_x/
― johnny crunch, Monday, November 18, 2013 5:16 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 17 August 2014 04:45 (nine years ago) link
Pusher 2 + 3 are elevated above average genre pics by brilliant central performances from Mikkelsen and Burik, but I suppose tbh they are just above average genre pics but there is nothing wrong with that. Mikkelsen brings a lot of pathos to the heroically stupid Tonny character. Will have to give Fear X a dabble, I let the bad reviews dissuade me.
― autumn reckoning faction (xelab), Sunday, 17 August 2014 11:53 (nine years ago) link
the refn doc 'my life' is p good, interesting that just days before shooting started for OGF he sez 'I don't even know what this movie's about' & he reads one of those super negative reviews upthread on camera
also further confirms gosling as an all-time bro
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 17:17 (eight years ago) link
oh man I couldn't stand that piece of shit
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 July 2015 17:27 (eight years ago) link
xp should say "& LATER he reads.." the neg review, yknow after hes made the fim
― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 17:43 (eight years ago) link
film!
I love the fact that there has been made three docs on Refn. I think at least one of them was made due to money problem. The guy can be so good, but when he fails, he fails hard.
I might have said this before, but the best 'doc' on Refn was this long interview he did over several nights on a weird Danish late night show some time ago. It was before Drive, before Bronson, I think, at a time where his carreer was going nowhere, and the whole interview was the host asking him to explain, in detail, how he ended up as such a failure. I remember Nicolas ended up breaking down in tears, which made the host smile gloatingly as if that was the entire point. Now, it was probably staged, but it's absolutely incredible. And I can't find it. And it needs to end up as a dvd-extra on something.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 20:26 (eight years ago) link
refn seems to be kind of positioning himself as a von trier-like "personality" as much as a film director, or at least that's how it appears from over here
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 July 2015 22:33 (eight years ago) link
I wish the last doc had shown how his wife despises his films; it looked like it was going to!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 July 2015 22:41 (eight years ago) link
She's been in a couple of them, so I guess she likes those?
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 8 July 2015 00:13 (eight years ago) link
maybe she just likes hanging out w/ her husband.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 8 July 2015 01:37 (eight years ago) link
Reminds me of Gilliam laughing as he tells us how his wife thinks his films have went to shit.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 8 July 2015 01:39 (eight years ago) link
terry gilliam's wife OTM
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 8 July 2015 01:42 (eight years ago) link
Knew that was coming but apart from Brothers Grimm and bits of Parnassus, I disagree.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 8 July 2015 02:32 (eight years ago) link
Cut-and-paste reviews of this one and you have the reviews of the new one.
Refn's gonna Refn.
― Any Given User (Eazy), Saturday, 25 June 2016 18:47 (seven years ago) link
The new bad movie deserves its own thread.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 June 2016 18:52 (seven years ago) link
The reviews I've seen have been more positive than ones for OGF, but I'm not ready to trust him again.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Saturday, 25 June 2016 21:16 (seven years ago) link
If there is god, he would not forgive Only God Forgives. Utter trash
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 03:59 (six years ago) link
Fuck sorry for double post. Should've said he/she (recovering christian)