Whatever happened to Whit Stillman?

stillman's really scraping the bottom of the austen barrel here.

beckinsale 4ever

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 23, 2016 2:56 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

someone on ILX once expressed a postulate that as the movies she was in got more and more lowbrow, kate beckinsale got hotter and hotter. wonder how this film reflects that.

someone should re-score that trailer to li'l jon

Love & Friendship was really wonderful!

A Thread for Whit Stillman's "Love & Friendship"

I finally saw DAMSELS IN DISTRESS.

Naturally it is quite good, maybe it's even very good compared to other films? - but I couldn't really it was that good compared to other WS films, which is a high standard.

It was possibly a bit too light for its own good. Or are they all pretty much equally light?

The incidental music seemed too intrusive and repetitive. The whole film seemed somewhat cheap. But then METROPOLITAN looks cheap, at least once you've watched the director's commentary, and is one of my favourite films of all.

I think if I had seen it in a cinema full of WS fans (which I didn't), it would have made me laugh along with them.

The above are probably standard views. Here is one slightly newer thought:

Has anyone remarked on how its musical ending pre-empts LA LA LAND?

I love Love and Friendship! I've watched it several times, as it feels like the most comforting movie in a long time

One of the things that amazed me (in a bad way) about DiD was the awful sound mixing/recording in some of the outdoor scenes. You'd think for a studio-distributed film, they could have gotten a few extra thou to fix that.

But I liked the film a lot anyway.

"Damsels In Distress" was good. Refreshing to see a depressive person imbued with a mean streak (Gerwig). Not always the usual fare in movies.

Tend to agree with Aerosmith - the sound balance in this film was not the best - whether this was about recording or the mix with the music.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP I think is superior and very good. DID seems more like a stepping stone back to that level.

Love & Friendship was superior in every way, yeah. Especially like how it opens with a nod to Kubrick with the scoring.

DiD made me laugh about five times as hard as L&F, which counts for something in a comedy, I suppose.

I enjoyed DiD more than L&F too. I think it would be easy to pick it apart, but I laughed hard and thought Gerwig was utterly charming.

I've avoided seeing it precisely because of Gerwig.

I don't love her in everything, but I thought it was kind of a perfect part for her.

Gerwig was perfect yeah

The Amazon pilot is getting rebooted into a spy series.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/whit-stillman-the-cosmopolitans.html

This is great to hear! I really liked The Cosmopolitans pilot.

His commitment to making the series happen puts me in mind of the Sambola!

And he's still hoping to make his Jamaican film.

Haven't made it through the whole interview, but having not really known a lot about Stillman himself previously, I'm amazed how autobiographical his early movies were (worked in publishing in the late '70s, moved to Barcelona afterwards etc.).

I'd been fearing just this. pic.twitter.com/dLLH5HVkfC

— Whit Stillman (@WhitStillman) June 24, 2020

Stillman on Twitter is really leaning into "lifetime white-shoe Republican repulsed at what his party has become"

Despite the Gerwigmania gripping our nation, not only is Damsels In Distress OOP on both DVD & Blu, it's also not streaming except as a rental from Direct TV (or as a purchased download from the usual suspects).

Somebody should get on that.

and the Cosmopolitans pilot while they're at it.

Oh yeah, that's not officially available<anywhere>

Except there's a epk promo on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Il8Xc8UYPA