― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 30 November 2002 14:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 30 November 2002 17:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
damn Mr Jamison, all i want to do is DAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNCEEEEE!!
― doom-e, Saturday, 30 November 2002 17:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― doom-e, Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― doom-e, Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― doom-e, Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 30 November 2002 21:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
I heard he had an upcoming project working with Noah Baumbach of Kicking and Screaming fame.
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 30 November 2002 22:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
Whit Stillman is the world's most indie film maker.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 30 November 2002 22:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 1 December 2002 01:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
Yeah. Me too.
I don't see why Whit Stillman is the world's most indie film maker.
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Sunday, 1 December 2002 01:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 1 December 2002 01:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ernest P. (ernestp), Sunday, 1 December 2002 05:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
the characters in his films are very indie.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 1 December 2002 17:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Sunday, 1 December 2002 22:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
Supposedly he's independent wealthy so has no need to work on films unless he really wants to.
I decided this coming weekend I will watch all of his films. I wonder if I'll like "Last Days of Disco" as much as when I first saw it...
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 04:20 (twenty years ago) link
I heard he was making a reggae movie (!) next.
― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 3 July 2003 05:02 (twenty years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 3 July 2003 05:10 (twenty years ago) link
A writer/director whose light, urbane sensibility launched him to the forefront of the American independent filmmaking movement of the '90s, Whit Stillman was born in New York City in 1952. The son of a member of John F. Kennedy's Presidential administration and an impoverished debutante, he was raised in the upstate New York area of Cornwall, and later attended Harvard University, where he wrote humor pieces for the college daily. Upon graduating in 1973, Stillman relocated to Manhattan and began working as a journalist. While in Spain in 1980 for his wedding, he met a group of film producers and attempted to convince them that he could sell their movies to Spanish-language cable television stations in the U.S. The producers ultimately agreed, and Stillman spent the next several years as an international sales agent for Spanish filmmakers including Fernando Trueba and Fernando Colomo. He also occasionally appeared in motion pictures, including Trueba's 1982 work Sal Gorda and Colomo's 1984 effort La Linea del Cielo. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1984, Stillman began working at an illustration agency. Over the course of the next four years, he spent much of his free time agonizing over the screenplay of Metropolitan, his debut film as a director. To finance the film, Stillman sold his Manhattan apartment for 50,000 dollars, securing the other 175,000 dollars necessary to complete the project from friends and relatives.
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 3 July 2003 05:48 (twenty years ago) link
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 3 July 2003 05:59 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:49 (twenty years ago) link
(i admit no guilt w/r/t movies.)
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:52 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:58 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:07 (twenty years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:11 (twenty years ago) link
― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:41 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:44 (twenty years ago) link
― colette (a2lette), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:54 (twenty years ago) link
― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:56 (twenty years ago) link
Jane Clark: Why should we believe you over Rick? We know you're a hypocrite. We know your "Polly Perkins" story was a fabrication--- Nick Smith: A composite. Jane Clark: ---that you're completely impossible and out of control, with some sort of drug problem and a fixation on what you consider Rick Von Sloneker's wickedness. You're a snob, a sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome. And lately you've gotten just weird. Why should we believe anything you say? Nick Smith: I'm not "tiresome."
― Ernest P. (ernestp), Friday, 4 July 2003 06:14 (twenty years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 July 2003 07:06 (twenty years ago) link
Fred: They're calling us pigs. That's meant to hurt!
Montserrat: I think you are too sensitive. Fred: Oh great, now we're too sensitive. Fred: I think it's well-known that anti-Americanism has its roots in sexual impotence, at least in Europe.
Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and - Ted: Really? Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext? Ted: The text. Fred: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.
Seeing Barcelona again is suddenly urgent and in a very real sense, key.
― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 July 2003 07:17 (twenty years ago) link
― NA (Nick A.), Sunday, 15 February 2004 17:36 (twenty years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link
This probably means I should see all the films again, and kind of want to, but I recall them kind of depressing me while watching, and they seem too long because of that, which makes me always reject the idea. It's a conundrum. Maybe if he just made 25 minute shorts? A specialty-channel tv show? Dear Whit, that would be good.
― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:53 (eighteen years ago) link
I feel kind of guilty for how much I enjoy Stillman movies, too, but I think Metropolitan is genuinely good.
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link
And Chris Eigmann [sic] is awesome in anything: "I thought the surealists were just a bunch of social climbers."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:14 (eighteen years ago) link
Will wait for life to settle down and try again in a different mood, since everyone I love loves Whit Stillman.
― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:41 (eighteen years ago) link
I've heard about a million different projects he's supposed to be working on, all of them v. diff-sounding--a Thomas Jefferson thing, a Cultural Revoltion one and, most recently, something set in Jamaica.
― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I mean this, from Variety in 2003:
Five years after his last movie, "The Last Days of Disco," American writer-director Whit Stillman is developing a Jane Austen project with Brit producer Stephen Evans. Paris-based Stillman, who first found fame with his Austen-esque comedies of preppy manners "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona," is adapting two unfinished Austen novels, "The Watsons" and "Sanditon," into a single script, titled "Winchester Races."
His script merges the character of Emma Watson, a girl returning to her family after a long absence being brought up by her aunt, and that of Charlotte Hayward from "Sanditon," an attractive country girl taken up by a family of comically optimistic real-estate speculators.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:09 (eighteen years ago) link
Chris Eigeman is indeed awesome. I love his Whitman characters' rants about things, esp. in Barcelona on anti-Americanism and shaving.
He reminds me of TOMBOT.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― youn, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 01:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 01:21 (eighteen years ago) link
WS: And these internet things like “whatever happened to Whit Stillman?” (laughs) I wonder the same thing myself.
ha ha.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 09:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 09:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 11:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 11:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 12:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 15:09 (eighteen years ago) link
I wrote a pilot for Chris Eigeman, feature player in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Barcelona, and Last Days of Disco. The network loved the script but wouldn't let Chris star in it. (And that is the TV business, folks.)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link
Meanwhile, Krush Groove, which featured Jonah's brother, is the story of the birth of Def Jam Records, an event for which I was present, as label founder and producing legend Rick Rubin was one of my best friends at NYU. (I actually, ahem, play bass on the first two releases of the seminal hip-hop label.)
Warren Bell as Bernard Edwards!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― the bellefox, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
What does this mean? You are put off them because you perceive them as "trendy"? You feel as though they are not meant for you because you are not trendy enough? What are you on about, man?
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― the bellefox, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link
The first is snobbish and the second is insecure.
What it is about them that you think is trendy? The fact that they are spoken highly of by some on people on ILE?
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 23 February 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link
At some work thing he told me he used to come to London in the mid-70s just as punk was spunking, due to family friends, but he misspent his time with sockless jet trash at Tramp and Annabel's instead (as you do). I thought he was great.
― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 23 February 2006 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link
was gonna say it's deep cuz it's in his blood since his grandfather invented the term "WASP." but turns out with quick search it was just his godfather. but still...
― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 23 February 2006 17:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Sunday, 12 March 2006 01:46 (eighteen years ago) link
Totally OTM. He made a movie about society preps, about as far from "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" as imaginable. Adapting Jane Austen for NYC debs in the 70s, casting a redhead lead(!), a film about the "UHB" made on a shoestring budget.
The commentary (Stillman, Nichols, Eigeman, plus the editor) is highly recommended. Stillman mentions that his impetus was wanting to make a film set in the present where everyone were dressed formally like in the golden age of cinema (38-45) and the story extended from that thought.
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link
Stillman mentions Carolyn (and others) being typecast in her attempts to continue her career... She was a gal from Queens working a makeup counter from pretty modest background before Stillman's wife found her and brought her to Whit's attention. She "wore" a Manhattan accent for the film. Same with Clements (who had to hide his Canadian accent).
Even Taylor Nichols still gets typecast as a New York preppy, in the commentary he mentions he was born in Kentucky and raised in Michigan until he moved to New York in his mid-twenties.
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link
yes, Stillman's uncoolness was why people paid so much attention to Metropolitan (though, by Disco, he had become, or at least adopted/been adopted by, cool), but I have a feeling that teh pinefox meant that it has become trendy to like him.
At the time they came out, I was pleased by Metropolitan and then very disappointed by Barcelona, but the latter seems maybe the best in retrospect.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― A|ex P@reene (Pareene), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 14:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 May 2006 14:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 May 2006 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link
no.
last days was no good, i agree. -- s1ocki (slytus...), March 13th, 2006.
and no!
― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 5 May 2006 16:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link
reading (upthread) of him selling their new york appartment for $50,000 raised a laugh.
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 5 May 2006 17:35 (seventeen years ago) link
He writes for the Guardian today, explaining what he's been up to.
― Alba (Alba), Friday, 12 May 2006 09:03 (seventeen years ago) link
"A screenplay I am working on," said Stillman, "is a college-girl comedy inspired by the Kate Beckinsale character in 'Last Days of Disco.' That character is the leader of a pack in a fictional college in Pennsylvania, a Susquehanna kind of area, not exactly Philadelphia. It will be squeaky- clean. PG-13. She is a gossip fanatic who reads the columns.
"She has a crisis and becomes very depressed, maybe one of her coterie becomes pregnant. Keep the baby is my motto. She is obsessed with the Tattle column, she is a regular reader of the Daily News
From the Philadelphia Daily News
― Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:40 (sixteen years ago) link
sorry - cut off the end of that quote:
and she ends up feeding important items to the Tattle column about the university president."
Imagine him and Wes Anderson doing their version of Grindhouse.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
Funnily enough, I think he and Tarantino have a fair bit in common, both having made flights of conversational fancy a hallmark of their work at a time when talkiness was unfashionable.
― Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 21:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Imagine him and Wes Anderson doing their version of Grindhouse
Awesome - someone get them a meeting.
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 1 November 2007 10:36 (sixteen years ago) link
-- Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 9:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link
lol!
― s1ocki, Thursday, 1 November 2007 21:20 (sixteen years ago) link
[Spanish Woman: You can't say Americans are not more violent than other people. Fred: No. Spanish Woman: All those people killed in shootings in America? Fred: Oh, shootings, yes. But that doesn't mean Americans are more violent than other people. We're just better shots.]
Am I ever going to get a chance to see this film?
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 12:29 (sixteen years ago) link
See, I've already waited too long
I think I was wrong to say, years ago, that Stillman was too trendy for me. Maybe it was just the fact that N. liked him so much that made me think that. Or maybe LDD had changed my perception of who liked him. In fact, I saw and loved Metropolitan way back when I was 16, so I shouldn't have had any qualms about continuing to love it - as I do.
N. was quite right to say that Stillman and Tarantino have things in common: the Lady & The Tramp discussion in LDD is probably the clearest example (I have seen) of this.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 12:33 (sixteen years ago) link
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2267966,00.html
Jesus - this clown has got a whole book out of a 15-second throwaway speech in The Last Days of Disco! Even in the film it feels a bit tired.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 13:11 (sixteen years ago) link
In fact - book this clown.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 25 March 2008 13:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Long interview. He's neither a Fourierist nor a Buckleyite.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 14 August 2008 14:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Criterion Last Days of Disco
If you have a copy of the first-run DVD, ebay that shit NOW.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Thursday, 21 May 2009 13:57 (fourteen years ago) link
NOW NOW MOVE SOLDIER!!!
― s1ocki, Thursday, 21 May 2009 15:26 (fourteen years ago) link
u can watch this on hulu u know
― just sayin, Thursday, 21 May 2009 15:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Woot!
― Brandy Frotte and Reel De La St-Jean (Ned Trifle II), Thursday, 21 May 2009 15:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Wow. The Last Days of Disco remains a total disappointment. What a waste.
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 01:27 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels that way...
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 01:27 (fourteen years ago) link
It's so fucking leaden. The Scrooge McDuck shit is the worst thing he's ever written.
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 01:28 (fourteen years ago) link
i love last days of disco so much.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:09 (fourteen years ago) link
such a great movie.
oh, scott...let's go dancing.
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:10 (fourteen years ago) link
i only dance to latin freestyle and hi-nrg. just so you know. but you are in florida, no? that shouldn't be a problem there!
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, pretty sure I'll never see a Walt Stillman film.
― irreconcilable aesthetic criteria (Eric H.), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:45 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:45 (fourteen years ago) link
by far my favorite of his films. Partly bcz there isn't much disco in it.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:54 (fourteen years ago) link
as opposed to his other disco-packed dancefloor romps?
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Screening at Lincoln Center on Thursday, with Stillman there.
― Poxy Fule Of Kryptonite (The Yellow Kid), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:55 (fourteen years ago) link
There's plenty of disco in TLDOD -- he just doesn't have an ear for it or a sense of what to do with the damn tunes.
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 02:59 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, it's not really about disco. hate to break it to you!
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 03:02 (fourteen years ago) link
― irreconcilable aesthetic criteria (Eric H.), Tuesday, August 25, 2009 9:45 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Tuesday, August 25, 2009 9:45 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Yeah, pretty sure I'll never see another film again in my entire life.
― irreconcilable aesthetic criteria (Eric H.), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 03:03 (fourteen years ago) link
i wish there was a last days of disco t.v. show i could watch every week. forever. until i die. gilmore girls was as close as i ever came. (omg i can't wait to get first season of thirtysomething on dvd!!!! i told maria to get it for my birthday. so, i have to wait until october. oh sweet agony of waiting...)
― scott seward, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 03:07 (fourteen years ago) link
just impulse-bought the criterion edition last night. i only have a vhs copy currently...
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 03:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Huh. Well, Last Days of Disco was the first one I saw (unless you count half of Metropolitan on PBS, which I kind of don't), and I was definitely into it, but it's possible it was just that Halcyon Summer of Indie Films (1998) that found me running to the cinema to see Buffalo 66 and The Opposite of Sex and Love! Valour! Compassion! and Whatever and Pecker and Slums of Beverly Hills and Henry Fool and Your Friends and Neighbors and High Art and The Spanish Prisoner. So, you know...
― jaymc, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 03:57 (fourteen years ago) link
well, he's back and the US and not really doing muchhttp://www.villagevoice.com/2009-08-25/film/whit-stillman-speaks-eleven-years-after-his-last-film/
― velko, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 04:04 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah there's really no disco vibe at all in Last Days, but i like the film. now Barcelona, that one was boring and dissapointing (Metropolitan easily being his best)
― Ludo, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 07:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Really? I like Barcelona much more than Last Days.
― or have I become completely absurd? (kenan), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 07:29 (fourteen years ago) link
barcelona is my favorite, though i could probably stand to watch all three again
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 12:30 (fourteen years ago) link
metropolitan was the only one i liked, but i've not seen any of them since Last Days came out
― feed them to the (Linden Ave) lions (will), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 12:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Barcelona had this strange violent twist and unlike the other 2 (but I guess mainly Metropolitan) it's trying a little too hard. it reminded me of L'Auberge Espagnole.
― Ludo, Wednesday, 26 August 2009 13:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Well now. Look at who's fancy. :)
― or have I become completely absurd? (kenan), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 13:50 (fourteen years ago) link
i like the first 1/2 of metropolitan
a bit of barcelona
and this was a letdown.
he tends have really nice ideas for... i don't know... let's say, "settings" for films. and a good sense of how to communicate those times and places' vibe, and what actors to populate them with. but i don't think he's really capable of that much more.
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 14:01 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm not being entirely fair there, he does have a pretty good way with dialogue and simple conversation scenes... which is nothing to sneeze at.
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 14:04 (fourteen years ago) link
A friend went to his NYC appearance at screening/Criterion party, said someone in autograph line had a copy of Whit's novelization of Last Days of Disco.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 August 2009 15:55 (fourteen years ago) link
i would kind of... expect that? at a signing?
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Friday, 28 August 2009 15:57 (fourteen years ago) link
i didn't know there was a novelization!
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 August 2009 15:58 (fourteen years ago) link
"I find that a good novelization is more effective. That way you get to enjoy the writer's prose without watching the film."
http://ellenandjim.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/90metaudreytomeveryonedislikesfanny.jpg
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 August 2009 15:59 (fourteen years ago) link
ha.
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Friday, 28 August 2009 16:00 (fourteen years ago) link
only seen Metropolitan but it made me want to murder everyone involved. do not want
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 August 2009 16:00 (fourteen years ago) link
are you sure you weren't just in a murdery mood?
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Friday, 28 August 2009 16:01 (fourteen years ago) link
there's an interview in gothamist where he says that he hangs out in dunkin donuts, writing. i didnt expect that.
― just sayin, Friday, 28 August 2009 16:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh so YOU'RE one of those public transportation snobs!
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 August 2009 16:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Shakey, you don't have to like the characters in films, just like ILX
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 August 2009 16:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Shakey was a great enemy of that response when I said similar stuff about Sopranos and Calvin & Hobbes!
Anyway one thing that's sort of interesting (but maybe not entirely brought out) about the amount of disco in the movie is that, kinda unusually, it's basically looking at a club culture from the POV of some of its squarer participants -- not really wealthy enough to be catered to, but prim and upscale and uncool enough that they're barely tolerated (and definitely discouraged from bringing more of their kind). But that is the experience of the thing, for them. (This is a pretty weird POV, and I really appreciate that Stillman has this way of unselfconsciously looking at the experience of a social class that's rarefied and privileged and in a lot of quarters found pretty hateable.) I sorta think that it is, in some ways, about disco, and about the club; it just happens to be about the social experience of those things by people who participated in them in a specific way.
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 17:55 (fourteen years ago) link
unselfconscious is not a word I would use to describe Stillman's ouevre
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 August 2009 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
(also sorry nabisco yr dislike of C&H will always be inexplicable to me)
spaceman spiff storylines were sooooo tired. in fact, it was too much like what a little kid would come up with. thus, completely boring.
― scott seward, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
sorry, i've been waiting YEARS to get that off my chest.
― scott seward, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
I don't believe I used the word "unselfconscious" to describe Stillman's oeuvre!
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:07 (fourteen years ago) link
I think his characters and writing are conscious (and occasionally self-conscious) about class, but I like that he as a filmmaker seems pretty honest and straightforward and non-vexed about telling stories from within this world of "urban haute bourgeoisie"; he's not all sweaty or weird or apologetic about it, he's not interested in glamorizing it or using it in an aspirational way nor is he interested in lambasting it or making huge social points out of it; he seems pretty comfortable and confident about that just being his territory, the thing he knows and writes about, you know?
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:14 (fourteen years ago) link
he strikes me as being very defensive about it
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 August 2009 18:15 (fourteen years ago) link
ya isn't metropolitan as much an elaborate defense of that class as a stinging pisstake on it?
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Friday, 28 August 2009 18:16 (fourteen years ago) link
i think that anxiety actually makes the film more interesting
hmmm, i don't remember it being either, really, but it's been a while. i think i see him pretty much as nabisco doesxpost
― velko, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:17 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean there is some "i'm not going to feel guilty about being in this class" but it's sort of matter-of-fact, not overtly defensive
― velko, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I see a difference between class being something the characters/film deal with (at length) and class as something the filmmaker is defensive about or trying to evade. I mean, I guess I find it hard to imagine a guy who's all that defensive about class making a film about upper-class kids sitting around talking about their own class position, or two other films about markedly upper-class people just being markedly upper-class. You know? He seems casually/curiously interested in it, and then at other points just unstressed about presenting this particular world -- this seems like a guy who just knows his own experience and doesn't feel weird about just speaking what he knows.
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:24 (fourteen years ago) link
He seems casually/curiously interested in it,
seeing as it is his SOLE topic I think he's more obsessed with it than casual/curious
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 August 2009 18:39 (fourteen years ago) link
dude you just said you'd only seen Metropolitan, so I have no idea what you're talking about with "sole topic"
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 18:49 (fourteen years ago) link
busted!!!
― Miss Fitzhenry (s1ocki), Friday, 28 August 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
I am aware of what his other movies are about. I've seen bits of the last days of disco (sucker for Chloe Sevigny *sigh*). Haven't seen Barcelona.
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 August 2009 18:50 (fourteen years ago) link
Barcelona is about some Americans in Spain, mostly, which is similar to the class stuff but is now more about culture and politics. Last Days of Disco is far more about the socializing and social organization of young people, though it does include a sorta Marxist publishing peon who gets on people's case about class, mostly amusingly. (One recurring type with him; another's the cool-guy womanizer his main characters tend to obsess over.)
I think my point is this: I would consider him self-conscious about or "obsessed with" class if he, e.g., seemed uncomfortable with the class of his characters, or tried to evade it, or felt a responsibility to caricature or lambaste it, or made big earnest statements about class, or polemics, or avoided the issue entirely and made crime thrillers, or a lot of other things. But it seems to me that he just writes upper-class characters who are meant to be likable or not pretty much as they are. It's not portrayed as aspirational (like Gossip Girl or films about "normal" people with expensive stuff) or as foreign and despicable (like, I dunno, Law & Order episodes about prep-school kids). Class is obviously something the guy and his characters are aware of and interested in, and they talk about it a lot, usually in a sort of wry and funny way; not passionately or earnestly, but like people who know they're in a rarefied position (upper-class, or "Americans in Spain") and are interested in what that means and what they're supposed to do about it. Sometimes it's an anxiety. But it seems like it comes from someone within that world who's comfortable writing about what he knows and thinks about, and isn't neurotic about just letting those characters be who they are. Someone who's very interested in the background of those characters and how that works, yes, but someone who's comfortable having the characters talk that stuff out up-front, pretty casually.
I wrote that this was unusual because it seems to me that it is, just statistically. I think it's a contrast between Stillman and any number of directors who'd probably be nervous about making their characters too obviously privileged, and definitely nervous about acknowledging it or having them discuss it. Between him and any number of writers/directors who might feel weird making films about acknowledged haute-bourgeoisie without having some polemical point to it or calling out its hidden evils or something. Stillman's haute-bourgeoisie don't seem like a point about class, they seem like who he knows and sorta what he's used to, with all the attendant anxieties about class that might come with that.
(Anyway, he strikes me as way more interested in like socializing and how it works than class itself.)
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 19:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Haha I guess the short version of that is that his films aren't like "here are the distant wealthy and here is the thing about them" -- they feel more, to me, like "here is the world I happen to know well, which happens to be wealthy, and sometimes wonders about that"
― nabisco, Friday, 28 August 2009 19:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Part of my larger problem with Stillman, despite the immense charm of his first two films, is the thinness of their textures. I'm not expecting vicious satire, but I do expect other signifiers of haute bourgeoisie besides tuxes, Averril Harriman allusions, and shots of the Plaza.
― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 August 2009 19:28 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.whitstillman.org/2010/06/03/damsels/
:0
― Stevie T, Friday, 18 June 2010 09:06 (thirteen years ago) link
crosspost with the "affectations" thread?
― DJ Mittelschmerz (get bent), Friday, 18 June 2010 09:26 (thirteen years ago) link
My friend went to a fancy banquet and was seated next to him, didn't even know who he was. (Later she was like, "So this guy is...do people know him? I mean his movies? Should I watch them?" So cute.) I think he gave her the script to read(?!?!?).
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:11 (thirteen years ago) link
He is very approachable and friendly; I didn't find him at all standoffish. BUT I HAVE LOST HIS EMAIL ADDRESS. Gah.
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:15 (thirteen years ago) link
yay!
― horseshoe, Friday, 18 June 2010 13:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh, fuck you: srsly.
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:45 (thirteen years ago) link
I think she might have been saying yay! about a new Whit Stillman movie just FYI
― congratulations (n/a), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:45 (thirteen years ago) link
Suzy, I think you've confused horseshoe with someone else. No way she would be yay-ing about you losing an email, and I get the impression that's what you responded to.
― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:47 (thirteen years ago) link
I am suspicious of this as a story idea, but still, Whit Stillman, so yay.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 18 June 2010 13:47 (thirteen years ago) link
OK fine, sorry - retracted, but HEY the value of x-post, huh?
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:49 (thirteen years ago) link
oh sorry suzy, yeah, i was just happy about the movie! that was dumb of me.
― horseshoe, Friday, 18 June 2010 13:51 (thirteen years ago) link
suzy surely u now someone who knows him though
― plax (ico), Friday, 18 June 2010 13:57 (thirteen years ago) link
yeahhhhh but I always manaña asking for friends to resubmit contact details. 'Lost' in this case means on the hard drive I last saw at a friend's place five years ago.
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Friday, 18 June 2010 14:04 (thirteen years ago) link
New interview!
― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 19 November 2010 02:22 (thirteen years ago) link
I like how a couple of the comments are essentially saying "Hey this doesn't have anything to do with theocons!"
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 November 2010 02:37 (thirteen years ago) link
great interview! i know stuff but i'm not allowed to talk. about the movie. can't wait!
― scott seward, Friday, 19 November 2010 03:20 (thirteen years ago) link
You're the newest star! We always knew.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 November 2010 03:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Driver...follow that pedestrian.
― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 19 November 2010 03:33 (thirteen years ago) link
― scott seward, Thursday, November 18, 2010 10:20 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
omg!
― horseshoe, Friday, 19 November 2010 03:35 (thirteen years ago) link
i wish i was in it. i am sworn to secrecy though. if you read this thread you would be able to figure out why. anyway, again, can't wait!
― scott seward, Friday, 19 November 2010 03:52 (thirteen years ago) link
okay i read the thread and omg!
― horseshoe, Friday, 19 November 2010 04:03 (thirteen years ago) link
love that interview
excited!
― just sayin, Friday, 19 November 2010 09:06 (thirteen years ago) link
"I like how a couple of the comments are essentially saying "Hey this doesn't have anything to do with theocons!"
Yeah, some of the comments are truly weird - and I admit I read First Things often.Anyway, very happy to see Stillman back at work.
― Marco Damiani, Friday, 19 November 2010 09:36 (thirteen years ago) link
“And light,” she says. “Everyone always says you’re always running out of light.”
“For my past films, we were always running out of night.”
Love it. Want to watch TLDOD again right now. In fact I might just do that. Fuck the ironing.
― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Friday, 19 November 2010 10:49 (thirteen years ago) link
So depressing though how much difficulty he has had getting the money together to make another film, and also confused as to how he actually has made a living over the last 12 years. Living in Paris isn't cheap.
― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Friday, 19 November 2010 10:51 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i was just wondering how he affords his lifestyle
― just sayin, Friday, 19 November 2010 10:54 (thirteen years ago) link
At one point he mentions doing some adverts in Jamaica for a chocloate company. Perhaps they paid really well?
― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Friday, 19 November 2010 11:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Sorry, meant Jakarta (but he travlled to Jamaica).
― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Friday, 19 November 2010 11:05 (thirteen years ago) link
The mundane reasons are that you can actually live here better, cheaper than in New York. I got priced out of New York, I lost my loft in Soho and schools were getting very expensive and actually the situation here is much better in the macro scale. I think when people go to cafés they think it’s all very expensive, but when you’re paying tuitions and rent it’s much cheaper. The more you get.
but yeah sort of wonder how he affords tuitions and rent and everything else. suppose he had that last days of disco novel published ten years ago?
― conrad, Friday, 19 November 2010 11:35 (thirteen years ago) link
v excited about a new w stillman movie
85 Minutes with Whit Stillman
― Gukbe, Monday, 22 November 2010 04:17 (thirteen years ago) link
watching metropolitan again recently, it kind of amazed me how rough so much of the acting and filmmaking was... still charming though.
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:18 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^ had same reaction when i *rescreened* it year or so ago
― buzza, Monday, 22 November 2010 04:20 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean, for a movie that's so dialogue-driven, the fact that only one actor really "came out of it" into any kind of career (eigeman), kinda says something
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:34 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0166221/
:/
taylor nichols has done all right, but yeah
― horseshoe, Monday, 22 November 2010 04:42 (thirteen years ago) link
slox: http://www.queenswaycathedral.com/pastoralteam.html
is that near you?
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:45 (thirteen years ago) link
it looks like it's in toronto?
i'm not sure i 'get it'
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:46 (thirteen years ago) link
take another looky
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:47 (thirteen years ago) link
whoa is that
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:49 (thirteen years ago) link
maybe he'd be up for a "where are they now?". i'd read it.
dude sounds like he's got a pretty interesting life from what it looks like
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:50 (thirteen years ago) link
he skydived!
how did you find that??
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Allison Rutledge-Parisi is an attorney, the chief administrative officer for Kaplan, Inc., and a former actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Jane Clark in Whit Stillman's critically acclaimed film Metropolitan (1990).
bizarre
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:52 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.google.com/search?&q=toronto+pastor+clements
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:53 (thirteen years ago) link
haha ya but how did you find out he was a toronto pastor??!
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Carolyn Farina is so cute in metropolitan, wasn't she like a sales girl at macy's or something when she got the part?
― buzza, Monday, 22 November 2010 04:55 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah she's great in it imo
― horseshoe, Monday, 22 November 2010 04:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh haha, on his imdb page msg board you linked, someone said he became quickly disenfranchised with the entertainment industry and has been a pastor in toronto for almost 20 years.
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:57 (thirteen years ago) link
ahhhhhhhh
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 04:58 (thirteen years ago) link
stillman's commentary where he talks about the casting process makes me forgive the roughness (amateurism?) of the cast and performances, i think he was aiming for talent with less experience for better or worse. it's a crazy first film, almost a dare that held up on my last ~*rescreen*~.
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 05:00 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6uBlj1OBZg
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 05:00 (thirteen years ago) link
kind of intriguing interview... on a canadian christian tv show
― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 22 November 2010 05:02 (thirteen years ago) link
man i remember reading some interview forever ago w/ whit stillman where talking about the cast of metropolitan he mentioned that one of the cast members was not doing so well and for some reason i just assumed it was tom townshend. so glad he turned out ok! somehow 'found god, moved to canada' is the perfect american graffiti/hot for teacher epilogue. maybe whitman was making some veiled jibe at mind of the married man.
last days of disco is my fave i think (it's got disco) but metropolitan is definitely always going to be the one that meant most to me. huge movie for me in high school, i'm almost afraid to revisit it now. love it when audrey rouget pops up in last days and kate beckinsale talking about her. love you forever ms. farina!
― balls, Monday, 22 November 2010 05:15 (thirteen years ago) link
whoa! thanks for the link i watched the whole damn thing.
also, JB, dude didn't move to Canada, that was a home for him (I always wondered how an UWSider had that Canadian accent going on).
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 05:24 (thirteen years ago) link
is that the mom from that 70s show he's talking with?
― balls, Monday, 22 November 2010 05:31 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH98-0MNsN8&feature=player_embedded
― balls, Monday, 22 November 2010 05:46 (thirteen years ago) link
Eigeman is looking like Floyd Landis lol
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Monday, 22 November 2010 05:58 (thirteen years ago) link
"So depressing though how much difficulty he has had getting the money together to make another film, and also confused as to how he actually has made a living over the last 12 years. Living in Paris isn't cheap."
I saw a great interview with a poet where the interviewer said, "This is not a get-rich-quick field, is it." To which the poet replied, "It's not a get-rich-slow field, either." Amazing for example that Kurosawa took ten years to make "Ran" and "Kagemusha" (with five year gaps between each) because he couldn't get funding for them... this must have been twenty years after "Seven Samurai"...
― jeevves, Monday, 22 November 2010 06:10 (thirteen years ago) link
i know this is heresy, mayhaps, but 'Metropolitan' was...like...ugh. i can't watch it at all. 'LDOD,' on the other hand, is probably in my top 20 of the 90s.
― Honey, I squirted jizz all over the baby (the table is the table), Monday, 22 November 2010 07:36 (thirteen years ago) link
Stillman's Criterion top 10.
― An Artily Shot Sesame Street (Eazy), Thursday, 27 January 2011 17:36 (thirteen years ago) link
i've never seen big deal on madonna street. or black orpheus.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 January 2011 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
man notorious is the best thing ever
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 27 January 2011 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
heh now i see Lombard as the Chloe Sevigny of My Man Godfrey.
― Ludo, Thursday, 27 January 2011 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah that BJ she gives William Powell at the end of the movie is epic.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 January 2011 20:42 (thirteen years ago) link
"cast of archetypal beauty" otm on notorious
― horseshoe, Friday, 28 January 2011 00:42 (thirteen years ago) link
I can watch My Man Godfrey anytime anyplace.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 January 2011 00:43 (thirteen years ago) link
lol @ 'my gosh it's long'
― Lamp, Friday, 28 January 2011 07:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Hmmm:
Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they will release Oscar nominated Whit Stillman’s latest film Violet Wister's DAMSELS IN DISTRESS worldwide. Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer produced alongside Stillman, who also wrote the screenplay.The film stars Greta Gerwig (GREENBERG, upcoming ARTHUR remake), Adam Brody (THE ROMANTICS, upcoming SCREAM 4) and Analeigh Tipton (CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE with Steve Carrell, America’s Next Top Model).Violet Wister's DAMSELS IN DISTRESS is a comedy that follows a trio of beautiful girls who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast university – the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Gerwig), principled Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and sexy Heather (Carrie MacLemore). They welcome transfer student Lily (Tipton) into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good scent and musical dance numbers. The girls become romantically entangled with a series of men --including slick Charlie (Brody), dreamboat Xavier (Hugo Becker) and the mad frat pack of Frank (Ryan Metcalf) and Thor (Billy Magnussen)—who threaten the girls’ friendship and sanity.
The film stars Greta Gerwig (GREENBERG, upcoming ARTHUR remake), Adam Brody (THE ROMANTICS, upcoming SCREAM 4) and Analeigh Tipton (CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE with Steve Carrell, America’s Next Top Model).
Violet Wister's DAMSELS IN DISTRESS is a comedy that follows a trio of beautiful girls who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast university – the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Gerwig), principled Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and sexy Heather (Carrie MacLemore). They welcome transfer student Lily (Tipton) into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good scent and musical dance numbers. The girls become romantically entangled with a series of men --including slick Charlie (Brody), dreamboat Xavier (Hugo Becker) and the mad frat pack of Frank (Ryan Metcalf) and Thor (Billy Magnussen)—who threaten the girls’ friendship and sanity.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 29 March 2011 14:42 (thirteen years ago) link
sounds like an updated version of The Group.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 March 2011 14:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Damsels premiering at closing night of Venice Film Fest.
― First it's the schwa, but then what? (Eazy), Friday, 29 July 2011 06:35 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/newsandviews/festivals/blog/venice-2011-09-10-eccentricities-american-college-life.php
i only skimmed, to avoid plot, but s&s seems to be digging it
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Monday, 12 September 2011 10:33 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zh8oEU3DdE
― buzza, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:10 (twelve years ago) link
i wanna see this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXNEHcyuu80
― buzza, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:13 (twelve years ago) link
is that..... a person of color?!?!?!?
― max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:19 (twelve years ago) link
i went to a party for this but did not watch it
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:20 (twelve years ago) link
i wanted to stay true to the spirit of metropolitan
he still wants to make his Jamaica movie at some point, too
xxp
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:21 (twelve years ago) link
Do people talk like that?
― bamcquern, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:25 (twelve years ago) link
nah, people talk like Henry James characters.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:26 (twelve years ago) link
very excited/nervous about this
― balls, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:39 (twelve years ago) link
I like Whit Stillman, but they're speaking even more manneredly than Henry James characters. Here's a random James excerpt:
If there was something serious in Nanda and something blank in their companion, there was, superficially at least, nothing in Mr. Mitchett but his usual flush of gaiety. "Did she really send you off this way alone?" Then while the girl's face met his own with the clear confession of it: "Isn't she too splendid for anything?" he asked with immense enjoyment. "What do you suppose is her idea?" Nanda's eyes had now turned to Mr. Longdon, whom she fixed with her mild straightness; which led to Mitchy's carrying on and repeating the appeal. "Isn't Mrs. Brook charming? What do you suppose is her idea?"
I get that people talk about the kinds of things the Stillman characters are talking about, but the way they're saying them is also very unusual. It's been years since I've seen a Stillman movie. Maybe I've put up a wall since then.
― bamcquern, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 22:58 (twelve years ago) link
a very small subset of young ppl talk sort of like whit stillman characters irl imo iirc
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:02 (twelve years ago) link
sort of covering the fact that its usually less fluid and successful irl
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:03 (twelve years ago) link
the job of movies is not to depict the way people talk irl
― max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:08 (twelve years ago) link
Neither is it the job of novels.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:09 (twelve years ago) link
It's their job to accurately depict how well the people filmed or written about talk.
mumblecore
― buzza, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:10 (twelve years ago) link
person of colour but with ridiculously over-enunciated british toff vowels. he's prob trying to make a point here.
― jed_, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:12 (twelve years ago) link
adam brody's in this? of course. of course he is.
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:17 (twelve years ago) link
no suzy but he totally tried to sleep w/ my friend last night it was p lol
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:20 (twelve years ago) link
anyway if i can get up early enough i think ill go see this tomorrow
!!!
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:21 (twelve years ago) link
While doing press for his latest, which closes the Venice Film Festival this weekend, Stillman told Variety that he would still like to make the Jamaica-set “Dancing Mood.” We told you way back in 2008 that he was considering directing this drama, set within the church music scene of Kingston, Jamaica in the years 1962 to 1966, but it seemed as if he was focusing all his attention on ‘Damsels’ at that moment.
Stillman says that if he can’t, “set it up via traditional methods, we’ll use our own resources, do the film on a small budget.” Considering that he hasn’t directed a film since the Criterion-certified “Last Days of Disco” in 1998, we’re guessing that any potential financiers are probably waiting to see how Venice audiences respond to “Damsels” first. Frankly, it’s been so long, we’re hoping the picture, already scooped up by Sony Pictures Classics (a good sign) goes over like gangbusters. On the aforementioned Criterion disc, Stillman said work on “Dancing Mood” began during his discovery of reggae and dub during the making of ‘Disco.’ He called it a spiritual film, but one with fantastical elements as well, that could prove to be expensive. “So the script has angels and demons and it turns out I picked about the hardest film there is to get financed in the world,” he said.
― buzza, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:23 (twelve years ago) link
super-excited about Dancing Mood tbh i hope he gets to make it. even if it's terrible.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:24 (twelve years ago) link
yeah that sounds amazing
― runaway (Matt P), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:27 (twelve years ago) link
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:20 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark
man or woman?
― jed_, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 23:29 (twelve years ago) link
no suzy lol
― conrad, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 00:00 (twelve years ago) link
hear this ends in a musical number
― Gukbe, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 01:24 (twelve years ago) link
xps well duh, but it's something people talk about and criticize when they talk about movies and books.
― bamcquern, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 05:00 (twelve years ago) link
So I saw Damsels in Distress (2011). There's something about the fact that THIS is what we get after 13 years that makes it even funnier, like that bit in The Big Lebowski with the doodle, crossed with Jack Torrence's typewriter. You could find much fault with the the direction, and the film sure does sag badly in places. And ultimately I wanted more of Violet and a bit less of most of the others. But A++ for the laughs from all those things that had made Whit chuckle to himself and scribble down in a notepad. Bear in mind I found Be Kind Rewind the funniest film of 2008.
― Alba, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 23:13 (twelve years ago) link
(I can confirm it ends in a musical number)
bring on the dancing mood
― conrad, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 23:28 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.whitstillman.org/2011/12/28/metropolitan-2/
― buzza, Wednesday, 4 January 2012 22:56 (twelve years ago) link
No objection to the event at all but:
If you want something to remind you of Metropolitan‘s magic, James Wolcott has just written for Vanity Fair about it being “the movie that best captures the mood of Christmas”.
Yeah I'll take my A Christmas Story marathons, thanks.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 4 January 2012 22:57 (twelve years ago) link
so did this come out? is it on dvd yet?
― akm, Wednesday, 4 January 2012 23:34 (twelve years ago) link
i think its only played festivals so far but iirc i got picked up for distro by sony classics so im sure itll be out in 10 months or so
― sulks (Lamp), Wednesday, 4 January 2012 23:36 (twelve years ago) link
― buzza, Wednesday, 4 January 2012 22:56 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
kinda unforgivable to tease METROPOLITAN II: ROGUE JUSTICE in the url when in fact it's a webstream of plain ol' metropolitan one
― quick brown fox triangle (schlump), Wednesday, 4 January 2012 23:38 (twelve years ago) link
I loved the Wolcott post on Metropolitan actually -- and he's right that the movie's ideal during Xmas time.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 4 January 2012 23:44 (twelve years ago) link
schlump otm, I was expecting Metropolitan 2: Revenge of the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie.
― nickn, Thursday, 5 January 2012 00:48 (twelve years ago) link
starring Rick Von Slonecker and an Uzi.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 5 January 2012 01:02 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.avclub.com/articles/damsels-in-distress,69310/
― Waxahachie Swap (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 03:46 (twelve years ago) link
does he have family money? wtf does one do for 13 years? he's like the terrence malick of modest behaviorist indie filmmakers.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 05:49 (twelve years ago) link
i would imagine that would be fairly likely, all things consids
― the jazz zinger (s1ocki), Wednesday, 15 February 2012 06:31 (twelve years ago) link
I am too young to have watched this guy's films in the 90s but the Damsels in Distress trailer is somehow intriguing to me despite the fact that I'm not sure exactly what it will be like
90% chance I'm interested because of Greta Gerwig's sad, sad eyes
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Saturday, 18 February 2012 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
Hasn't he sometimes claimed he made some money doing various translations? Which would actually fit with the wealthy family thing.
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 18 February 2012 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
does one actually make money doing translations?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 18 February 2012 23:42 (twelve years ago) link
I suppose some do, but anecdotally I associate it with a certain strain of trustafarianism
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:08 (twelve years ago) link
I sort of doubt Dalkey Archive is paying the big bucks exactly
― tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:10 (twelve years ago) link
If only Momus were still around to fill us in on that.
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:20 (twelve years ago) link
does he translate stuff into WASP?
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:35 (twelve years ago) link
this movie looks horrible!
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:36 (twelve years ago) link
did i mention that my brother-in-law edited this movie? hahaha! i did already 5 times. yeah, i've heard mixed stuff about it, but i'm sure there will be stuff in it that i would like. there's gotta be.
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:37 (twelve years ago) link
i think momus translates into ponce
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 12:49 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark
a guy who wrote and shot 'metropolitan' probably has family money, yeah
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY (dayo), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100382150
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:40 (twelve years ago) link
cool. did anyone here read it?
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:42 (twelve years ago) link
skot, I've been meaning to ask you for a while now, how come you always seem to have the inside dope on Whit Stilliman's goings on?
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:44 (twelve years ago) link
Haven't read it, but not out of animosity towards the author, just that I have a big pile of other Dalkey Archive titles that I haven't got around to reading yet.
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:47 (twelve years ago) link
i don't really know much about him! i'm just a fan of the first three and my bro-in-law edited two of the four. but he has never really told me anything juicy about him. i'd like to meet him!
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:51 (twelve years ago) link
andy is married to maria's sister. he's great. i love hanging out with both those guys. we will be staying with them in march during the EMP thing at NYU. he only edits arty things. he did Bully. and Ken Park. and some other arty stuff. but it was kind of a blast when i met him to find out that he worked on last days of disco cuz i love that movie. some people hate it.
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 00:54 (twelve years ago) link
Who doesn't like Last Days of Disco? Oh, I see upthread. I liked the first three fine, resisted Barcelona when it came out, now I'm OK with it.
Don't know where I got the translation thing from, maybe misremembered. What he did do was act in Spanish movies and help sell Spanish movies overseas.
― Dalai Mixture (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 19 February 2012 01:01 (twelve years ago) link
I really love the three other Stillmans, but DAMSELS is seriously one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
― C0L1N B..., Sunday, 19 February 2012 01:10 (twelve years ago) link
i thought stillman made a lot of money on wall street or smth
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, 19 February 2012 01:30 (twelve years ago) link
it kinda looks weird enough for me to like. even if its bad. but i could see how it could be bad. and there are people who like his other stuff, but don't like this. i still will see it when i can. i have no idea when! i doubt it will play around here. maybe in amherst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0RrTl3tA1w
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 02:17 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1istTQm8hE
― scott seward, Sunday, 19 February 2012 02:26 (twelve years ago) link
Whoa: an old interview with none other than Kathryn Jean Lopez
― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:48 (twelve years ago) link
broken link
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:54 (twelve years ago) link
nm
Lopez: Your club experience as portrayed in the movie was different than the caricature of it, in other movies like Ice Storm, wasn't it?
Stillman: Yeah, I hated that movie, Ice Storm. I thought that was a typical cliché version of the period. It just didn't ring true to me. I didn't believe it.
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:57 (twelve years ago) link
Song called "The Last Days of Disco" on the new Saint Etienne album.
― timellison, Thursday, 15 March 2012 05:10 (twelve years ago) link
he was selling yachts.
I met him when I dj'd an afterparty for a Metropolitan screening but not when I dj'd an afterparty for a Last Days of Disco screening.
I saw him recoil his hand when someone went to shake it and I thought "oh snap!" but then he did it to me and said he had a cold.
I had printed out lists of the songs I brought because I was djing off iPods and he took it from me, grabbed a pen and put stars next to the songs he really approved of.
― dan selzer, Thursday, 15 March 2012 07:17 (twelve years ago) link
years ago my wife worked for someone who went to school (probably prep school) with whit and this guy really had disdain for him. i think it was sort of political (stillman is sort of blue blood yankee republican, no?) but maybe also that stillman was just a slacker type, idk. anyway i love metropolitan, think last days is pretty solid, have mixed feelings about barcelona although i need to *rescreen* it since i haven't seen it since its original release. i will seek out his new one for sure, regardless.
― buzza, Thursday, 15 March 2012 07:26 (twelve years ago) link
Long story in the NYT magazine
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 18 March 2012 11:56 (twelve years ago) link
going to an advance screening of this tonight (if i can get in). the trailer looks adorable. i am very pro-gerwig, being the one person on ilx who really liked greenberg.
― the kids of boris midney high (get bent), Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:25 (twelve years ago) link
i thought greenberg was fine.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:25 (twelve years ago) link
Can't stand Gerwig's line readings, and this looks like a Whit Stillman parody by the woman who wrote Gilmore Girls. Love the last three movies, but will wait for Netflix on this one.
― 誤訳侮辱, Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:39 (twelve years ago) link
i don't think you can really learn very much about a film by its trailer, no?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
you can if that film is 2 Fast 2 Furious.
― scott seward, Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:56 (twelve years ago) link
i really liked greenberg too
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA3Om9WjgpQ
― buzza, Sunday, 18 March 2012 19:07 (twelve years ago) link
i really like gerwig in everything shes been in
― max, Sunday, 18 March 2012 19:51 (twelve years ago) link
no strings attached shoulda been about her
― max, Sunday, 18 March 2012 19:52 (twelve years ago) link
can't believe Last Days of Disco is still in the red.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 06:17 (twelve years ago) link
i was thinking the other night that gerwig was born to be in a whit stillman film someday
― althea and (donna rouge), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 06:19 (twelve years ago) link
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Wednesday, March 21, 2012 1:17 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
wait waht
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 09:57 (twelve years ago) link
can't believe LDoD cost $8 M (I guess Beckinsale, Sevigny & RS Leonard were still 'hot')
wait, max, you watch mumblecore movies?
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:04 (twelve years ago) link
WAIT
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
HOLD the PHONE
― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:30 (twelve years ago) link
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RwdH5DTKRas/TO1Wb_ys1WI/AAAAAAAADlo/64A_HcTpWkM/s400/stop+the+presses.jpg
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
I can see max having LOL or Nights and Weekends on if he's walking around the apartment while his gf makes dinner, maybe
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:34 (twelve years ago) link
in the nude
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:36 (twelve years ago) link
malcolmcore
― buzza, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
nah just kidding ive never actually seen a movie
― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
... w/ a $72 budget.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:40 (twelve years ago) link
no i only watch tv
― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:41 (twelve years ago) link
on my iphone
nice, most convenient way 2 do it!!
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:09 (twelve years ago) link
waiting to see Joe Swanberg's first film in Farsi on my wristwatch
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-03-28/film/whit-stillman-in-distress/
He sounds pretty bummed.
― America's Mobile, Wednesday, 28 March 2012 05:46 (twelve years ago) link
I enjoyed this!
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 30 March 2012 04:42 (twelve years ago) link
whit stillman is a very youthful 60
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 30 March 2012 06:32 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, he didn't look that old at all.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 30 March 2012 06:32 (twelve years ago) link
nb I had to ditch most of the Q & A tonight but I saw the first bit. I wish I could have stuck around. Utopianism is a good entry point for this film, and that's what he was talking about when I left.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 30 March 2012 06:33 (twelve years ago) link
plenty of NY appearances next couple days
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/whit-stillman-in-new-york
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 April 2012 19:49 (twelve years ago) link
I'm going tomorrow, apparently! Me! To a film thing!
― how did I get here? why am I in the whiskey aisle? this is all so (Laurel), Wednesday, 4 April 2012 19:52 (twelve years ago) link
I may go too
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 April 2012 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
I'll be there tonight and tomorrow.
― Virginia Plain, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 20:11 (twelve years ago) link
I'm guessing Laurel means Brooklyn and VP Astoria?
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 April 2012 21:19 (twelve years ago) link
Ah, laurel should come to bk to see the whit in person. Omg, I just realized Chris Eigeman will be present tonight.
― Virginia Plain, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 21:58 (twelve years ago) link
The Siren interviews Stillman
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Friday, 6 April 2012 07:12 (twelve years ago) link
I believe Stillman was in both places, directors work it when stuff opens.
A fan of Big Deal on Madonna Street:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/damsels_in_distress/news/1924873/five_favorite_films_with_whit_stillman/#newsletter
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 April 2012 12:02 (twelve years ago) link
This was pretty good. Loved Greta Gerwig referring to Real McCoy's "Another Night" as a "golden oldie."
― get me bloodied (Eric H.), Friday, 6 April 2012 12:04 (twelve years ago) link
i am very pro-gerwig, being the one person on ilx who really liked greenberg.
Nah, I loved Greenberg.
― Cuba Pudding, Jr. (jaymc), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:02 (twelve years ago) link
whatever i disliked about greenberg, it had nothing to do w/ gerwig
― max, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:03 (twelve years ago) link
indeed
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:18 (twelve years ago) link
i dug gerberg
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:56 (twelve years ago) link
nyt review is mostly positive.
― scott seward, Friday, 6 April 2012 20:10 (twelve years ago) link
but its not a rave or anything.
still, it makes you want to see it. if you read movie reviews in the nyt.
― scott seward, Friday, 6 April 2012 20:11 (twelve years ago) link
same w/ new yorker review. loved greenberg, LOVE gerwig. stoked for this.
― balls, Friday, 6 April 2012 23:08 (twelve years ago) link
Once I got accustomed to its...idiosyncracies...I really liked it.
Even though that scene reminds me of Fat Girl and that's weird.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Saturday, 7 April 2012 02:03 (twelve years ago) link
the one where the girl is raped by the guy who kills her mother and sister?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 8 April 2012 05:53 (twelve years ago) link
spoiler alert
http://gothamist.com/2012/04/06/wtf_happened_at_that_lena_dunham_wh.php
― buzza, Monday, 9 April 2012 03:24 (twelve years ago) link
well i missed something 'scandalous'
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 April 2012 03:37 (twelve years ago) link
luv that pic, looks like LD was about to go full "g"
― Raymond Dubious Davies (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 9 April 2012 04:18 (twelve years ago) link
I enjoyed watching it in the same way I might enjoy watching Mean Girls and reading Myra Breckenridge at the same time. what most excited me though is the hope that stillman might become active again, which I guess means I didn't think it was great. he introduced the film so that was neat (sadly, he is not quite a whit stillman character himself), and It's definitely fun if you don't work too hard trying to resolve the politics of the thing.
― snack, Monday, 9 April 2012 23:11 (twelve years ago) link
nobody told me duquan from the wire was in damsels!!!
gerwig was great and it was really funny. kind of felt unfinished; my sister said she thought it was more like a bunch of short stories than a full narrative.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 05:05 (twelve years ago) link
agree that it felt unfinished. his films have always had an oddly-paced, episodic feel with lots of plot threads left untied, but this didn't quite meld with Damsel's campy, almost bubblegum sheen. like, when you end a movie with consecutive song-and-dance numbers, you expect this is because everything has suddenly become resolved (ala Hairspray lol).
― snack, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 07:07 (twelve years ago) link
Glenn Kenny has thoughts on The Last Days of Disco, and how Lena Dunham's assessment of it (and her Tiny Furniture) relates:
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2012/04/disco-mystic-and-the-dunham-variation.html
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
yeah it was a funny way to phrase dunham's question, given how horrible charlotte is. but i take it to be a big concern of hers, depictions of female friendship, which i dig. stillman's non-response was pretty annoying tbh but i still love him.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 17:49 (twelve years ago) link
Was just telling NY/Buffalo crowd that I'd never seen a Stillman movie, ended up seeing this at the Landmark Sunshine the following night. At first I thought it was clunky and embarrassing and I wasn't sure what it was aiming for, but then it suddenly took off and became a lot of fun.
― ljubljana, Wednesday, 11 April 2012 00:40 (twelve years ago) link
what a weird movie
― blossom smulch (schlump), Sunday, 29 April 2012 14:26 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UCVmNb05Rw
― Stars on 45 Fell on Alabama (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 April 2012 00:14 (eleven years ago) link
damsels is ok. its really cute and amusing, but maybe not funny. there were parts where i didnt really understand what he was doing. glad hes making stuff again though
― Hungry4Ass, Monday, 21 May 2012 00:43 (eleven years ago) link
yea i didnt think it was funny really at all. kinda thought it was a waste of time for everyone involved including me watching it
― johnny crunch, Monday, 21 May 2012 01:00 (eleven years ago) link
i was lollin
― flopson, Monday, 21 May 2012 01:04 (eleven years ago) link
I found it deeply strange but also warm and charming.
― Simon H., Monday, 21 May 2012 01:15 (eleven years ago) link
I walked out of the theater disappointed that it wasn't a masterpiece like Metropolitan or Last Days of Disco, but a few days later I feel very warmly towards it in retrospect -- it is such a rare thing for a movie to be authentically strange! This one was. I am grateful Stillman is in the world and making movies. Like, I saw the Avengers this week too, which is I guess a "better-made" movie in some sense, but Damsels will stay with me longer, for sure.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 21 May 2012 01:54 (eleven years ago) link
"authentically strange" sounds about right to me. Apparently that isn't true about the Cathars. Violet's OCD and depression and ambiguous possible aborted suicide attempt were the most effective bits of the movie for me. Don't know if I enjoyed the movie enough though to watch it again and try to follow Violet's thread a little more closely.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Monday, 21 May 2012 03:25 (eleven years ago) link
Like, I saw the Avengers this week too, which is I guess a "better-made" movie in some sense, but Damsels will stay with me longer, for sure.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, May 20, 2012 9:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark
thats funny because i was thinking while watching it that it was going to be one of those movies where x years down the line i will be incapable of remembering if i even saw it
― Hungry4Ass, Monday, 21 May 2012 04:03 (eleven years ago) link
― johnny crunch, Sunday, May 20, 2012 8:00 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this.
i thought it was also kind of poorly made.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 04:46 (eleven years ago) link
like, mistimed reaction shots and awkward framings and actors kind stranded on occasion.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 04:47 (eleven years ago) link
Was the sound mixing bad too or was shit in my theater just going wrong?
― raw feel vegan (silby), Monday, 21 May 2012 05:11 (eleven years ago) link
'actors stranded' otm - the guy who played frank seemed like he was crying out to be, y'know, directed
― Hungry4Ass, Monday, 21 May 2012 05:42 (eleven years ago) link
i feel that way about his earlier films, too. some great performances but also some ones that are just kind of floating there.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 07:47 (eleven years ago) link
see, and i thought frank was amazing, one of the most note-perfect performances i've seen in any recent movie.
in some ways i think this is stillman's "dazed and confused" (another movie I love much more than most people do) in its commitment to vignettism as a representation of the way it feels to be young and unmoored
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 21 May 2012 14:13 (eleven years ago) link
I thought most of ILX was cool with D&C.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 May 2012 14:17 (eleven years ago) link
everyone loves dazed and confused. but yeah, i liked frank and thought damsels was funny. the thing amateurist describes just seems like a stillman movie thing.
― horseshoe, Monday, 21 May 2012 14:22 (eleven years ago) link
all of dude's movies are pretty "poorly made" tbh
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Monday, 21 May 2012 14:49 (eleven years ago) link
or, what everyone else said
i wouldn't go quite that far, but he isn't some filmmaking genius that's for sure. his films have a lot of charm though.
i remember back in the early-mid 1990s when everybody was lumping him in w/ hal hartley (because of... stylized dialogue?) and i was thinking, "um, hal hartley is actually a really really confident and sophisticated filmmaker."
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 15:57 (eleven years ago) link
i think he's a total filmmaking genius for sure!
― flopson, Monday, 21 May 2012 15:59 (eleven years ago) link
on what level?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 16:01 (eleven years ago) link
i dont know, like i think his movies are perfect. i can see how someone who values different things could see them as lacking but for me he nails everything that counts
― flopson, Monday, 21 May 2012 16:07 (eleven years ago) link
i like his movies too, i just don't think he's very accomplished as a visual storyteller or whatever.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 21 May 2012 16:11 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i don't know, i guess i don't really know what that means to be accomplished as a visual storyteller. no film is a success when judged by all criteria, but great films succeed on their own terms. whit stillman films aren't visual spectacles and usually look modest, but they are visually appealing (actors & actresses in them are generally attractive, settings are usually nice) enough so as not to distract from the dialogue. i mean, i definitely don't wish that his movies looked more like wes anderson's
― flopson, Monday, 21 May 2012 19:27 (eleven years ago) link
I'm with amateurist. I like Manhattan despite missed visual and verbal cues (of which there are plenty). Sometimes his setups are worse than TV.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 May 2012 19:31 (eleven years ago) link
er, Metropolitan
Ô_o
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Monday, 21 May 2012 19:56 (eleven years ago) link
Metropolitan is really well edited. It moves swiftly toward a fully formed gestalt while remaining more or less plotless until the third act. Christopher Tellefsen pulled off the same thing in Kids, which is otherwise dreadful. (Weird trivia: Tellefsen and Andrew Hafitz, the only other editor Stillman has worked with, have both done two movies with Larry Clark). The visuals are nothing special, but it looks pretty good, the lighting especially, given the constraints. It's hard to argue the formal virtues of Barcelona and Last Days. They're both clunky, but Damsels seems downright incompetent.
He's always had problems with blocking, but I think that most of the performances in the first three are impressive: it's hard to sell all that dialogue in an at least nominally naturalistic fashion. Almost every actor in Damsels seems like they had been directed for different movies.
― C0L1N B..., Monday, 21 May 2012 22:26 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/08/trust_me_on_this_abbey_road/
― Mordy, Friday, 8 June 2012 09:36 (eleven years ago) link
Great article!
“Certainly some things are better than other things, right? And really, yes, I am saying you’re an idiot, that’s true, but it’s for your own good. Cry as much as you like, but you need to know these things.”
Pretty sure this quote could be posted on just about every ilx thread ever.
― Moodles, Friday, 8 June 2012 14:29 (eleven years ago) link
I hadn't realized from skimming reviews of DiD that its style was magical/neo-Shakespearean comedy, especially all the identity-hiding and switching. The scene like the one where Violet passes the soap around at the diner -- it's almost like A Mid-Semester Night's Dream. In the last third it's a little more strained than funny, though.
This is the most polished Gerwig comedy performance I've seen.
Also Adam Brody's character OTM on homosexuality.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 02:55 (eleven years ago) link
my sister said she thought it was more like a bunch of short stories than a full narrative.
oh for sure, and not a problen.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 02:58 (eleven years ago) link
so worth seeing? it was playing at the local theater here for like 5 days and by the time i convinced myself to go despite the poor reviews it was replaced by some jason seigel comedy
― Mordy, Monday, 11 June 2012 02:59 (eleven years ago) link
The reviews weren't exactly "poor." A little divided, which non-cookiecutter style will draw.
Had no problem w/ the guy playing Frank btw. From Miriam Bale's Slant review:
As noted in the press notes, this is the first film for Ryan Metcalf, who plays Violet's idiotic former beau. ("Do you mind if I try a version that's a little broad?" Stillman remembers Metcalf saying of the moment when the role clicked.) Stillman doesn't get a Chris Eigeman-type to play dumb because that would have been condescending. But the amateur playing broad comedy opens up some breathing room in Stillman's highly enunciated, dense comedy. The clash of styles in this film is bewildering and then disarming.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:11 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, I'm pretty fond of this one in fits and starts.
― Björk lied (Eric H.), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:14 (eleven years ago) link
i didnt think he was bad, but i just felt like he was flailing around in his scenes, which were mostly unfunny
― Hamburger Hitler (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:15 (eleven years ago) link
i think thats the directors fault btw.
sorry, I lol'd at him and other stuff
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:17 (eleven years ago) link
maybe it was more the movie's timing that i was responding to, i dunno
― Hamburger Hitler (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:18 (eleven years ago) link
I remembered that 'golden oldie' too! Memorably atrocious even for a dance hit.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 June 2012 03:19 (eleven years ago) link
Stillman said that the "golden oldie" was going to be Cher's "Believe," but it was too expensive to license.
― Björk lied (Eric H.), Monday, 11 June 2012 04:22 (eleven years ago) link
Would've made for a hysterically incongruous frat party soundtrack, tho.
― Björk lied (Eric H.), Monday, 11 June 2012 04:23 (eleven years ago) link
I had forgotten what a hilarious monster Kate Beckinsale is in Disco. Also maybe the funniest and most pathetic Eigeman character.
Many of the club scenes were shot in the Loews movie palace in Jersey City, which I've been to several times now.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 24 June 2012 18:15 (eleven years ago) link
damsels in distress was super!
― Mordy, Wednesday, 22 August 2012 02:49 (eleven years ago) link
it's easy to do!
...
do the cha cha cha for two step.
and so on.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 22 August 2012 02:52 (eleven years ago) link
ah...cha-cha
― conrad, Wednesday, 22 August 2012 06:06 (eleven years ago) link
<3 A Conversation With Whit Stillman About The Script Of 'Metropolitan'
― just sayin, Thursday, 23 August 2012 13:11 (eleven years ago) link
Just last week listened to the Treatment interview with Stillman--good stuff.
― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Thursday, 23 August 2012 13:24 (eleven years ago) link
One of the criticisms I get of the film is that all its energy goes out once Nick Smith leaves. I can see how people react that way, because you're getting a lot of the fun and comedy from Nick. A lot of these things, frankly, I did not catch as the writer of the script. People had to bring it to my attention.
― flopson, Thursday, 23 August 2012 17:11 (eleven years ago) link
I loved DID. Adam Brody fit perfectly in this world.
― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 September 2012 21:28 (eleven years ago) link
as did gerwig i thought! my liberal pc self might've blanched at brody on homosexuality if i hadn't heard the same thing for years from some of my older queer friends (see also paris hilton on grinder for that matter). was so happy to see dookie from the wire pop up in this, in some part of my brain it means 'he got out' like w/ michael on 90210 or randy on suburgatory.
― balls, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:07 (eleven years ago) link
and Wallace faked his own death and turned into a high school football star!
― Number None, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:10 (eleven years ago) link
haha! as long as that little shit kenard doesn't pop up in anything.
― balls, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:16 (eleven years ago) link
DiD made me laugh a lot more than I thought it would. Pretty uneven, yes, but I think "the clash of styles in this film is bewildering and then disarming" pretty much sums up how I eventually felt. I want to watch it again, too, which is odd for this kind of movie.
― Yam, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:16 (eleven years ago) link
The last twenty minutes are bewildering.
― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:17 (eleven years ago) link
I'm not even sure why but i quite liked it too. It's oddly charming
― Number None, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:19 (eleven years ago) link
I need to watch again to remember. Iirc it did lose its way and fumbled towards a resolution (which it didn't even really need). I was surprised the musical numbers weren't as effective as I thought they'd be.
Yes "oddly charming" was about how I was going to describe it, too. That, or charmingly surreal.
― Yam, Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:20 (eleven years ago) link
This is the sort of movie for which adverbs are redundant.
― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:24 (eleven years ago) link
ha i haven't watched the last 20 minutes yet (wife wanted to go to sleep) but i'm loving this so far. really funny.
― congratulations (n/a), Sunday, 30 September 2012 04:36 (eleven years ago) link
I loved it.
― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 30 September 2012 12:11 (eleven years ago) link
who can doubt that class and erudition have generally vanished from 'homosexual life'? and I haven't even seen Glee.
― kizz my hairy irish azz (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 30 September 2012 13:44 (eleven years ago) link
The march toward equality takes no prisoners. Except femmes.
― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Sunday, 30 September 2012 15:13 (eleven years ago) link
Just got done with Metropolitan and now after six or so weeks can call myself a Stillman completest. How A-dorable was Carolyn Farina? "You really think I'm flat-chested?" Easily his least movie tho: as noted upthread the acting is uneven and the transitions suck.
Would Rank: Barcelona>The Last Days of Disco>>Damsels In Distress>>>Metropolitan
― 50 Shades of Greil (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 04:33 (eleven years ago) link
that rank cray
― bell biv devo (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 13:48 (eleven years ago) link
you nuts, metropolitan the platonic ideal of which the rest are shadows
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 14:18 (eleven years ago) link
ok, maybe that's not quite fair, last days of disco is kind of its own thing which over the years has been creeping ever closer to metropolitan in my estimation
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 14:19 (eleven years ago) link
I'm close to thinking DID is his best.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 14:20 (eleven years ago) link
something about whit stillman breeds challops like tulips in may
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 15:03 (eleven years ago) link
I haven't seen LDoD since it came out, but with that in mind:
Barcelona > Metropolitan > Damsels In Distress > The Last Days of Disco
― Alba, Tuesday, 9 October 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
Barfelona
― bell biv devo (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
Metropolitenoutoften
― bell biv devo (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 17:49 (eleven years ago) link
Chris Eightoutoften
― 50 Shades of Greil (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 18:22 (eleven years ago) link
just had a very nice, semi-lengthy conversation with none other than T@ylor Nich0ls (unnece$$@ry g00glepr00fing)
super nice guy, talked a lot about whit and why whit never made it to the "big leagues"
shook my hand when he left and complimented me! A+ barroom chat, would hang with again
― buzza, Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:14 (eleven years ago) link
i haven't seen DiD but i am glad people are repping for barcelona which i mean i dunno if i was having a weird night or something but i completely loved it, whereas as great as metropolitan is i don't think i've ever had as much fun watching it as i've had reciting lines from it; it is me and writer friends' holy grail. i don't mean holy grail like the object of a quest.
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:19 (eleven years ago) link
i brought up barcelona and he rates it higher than metropolitan fwiw
― buzza, Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:20 (eleven years ago) link
dude. awesome.
― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:31 (eleven years ago) link
my inveterate barfly ways finally paid off
― buzza, Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:34 (eleven years ago) link
he probably rates Barcelona higher cos he's the main character
― Number None, Tuesday, 16 October 2012 09:07 (eleven years ago) link
Did you ask Nich0ls about UHB?
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 10:51 (eleven years ago) link
Does T4ylor Nich0ls talk like an ordinary guy?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 12:09 (eleven years ago) link
that was the funny part, his voice and slight stutter are so distinctive, I was totally having flashbacks to metropolitan. it was cool how he and the bartenders were talking acting, one of them had done a lot of acting in Chicago and knew the Mamet regulars pretty well. they asked me who he was when he left, one had seen him in Barcelona but the other didn't know who he was.
― buzza, Tuesday, 16 October 2012 14:30 (eleven years ago) link
he was in a "Murder, She Wrote" episode in the early nineties as a museum curator or something.
― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 14:30 (eleven years ago) link
Good Grief, according to imdb, he was on "Murder, She Wrote" four times in the space of four years, playing a different character each time.
He also played Custer on an episode of "Dr. Quinn".
― 50 Shades of Greil (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 16 October 2012 17:07 (eleven years ago) link
where the hell is the Barcelona DVD reissue/Criterion treatment
― Master of Treacle, Monday, 29 October 2012 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
Warner reissued it as a Warner Archive DVDr. I actually just broke down and got the disc for my birthday. It's a straight port of the old oop pressed disc, with all of the extras (commentary, deleted scenes etc) intact.
Supposedly a few years ago Criterion had struck a deal w/Warners to get ahold of some of their indie-type stuff, including Barcelona and Linklater's subURbia, but nothing was ever really confirmed. A poster on the criterionforum sight got to ask Stillman about it during the press tour for Damsels... and he said that he'd tried to persuade Warners to license it out, but no dice and that he'd felt the moment had passed for them to change their mind.
HOWEVER, Kim Hendrickson of the CC recently confirmed a deal of some sorts has finally been struck w/the WB. Badlands is coming, along with "a pre-code" title and possible some other films they can't talk about yet. Add to that a posting on the WB Archive Facebook page re:their reissue of once-pressed titles wherein they said to not count out future pressed bluray editions of those films (which, in addition to the Stillman, include Victor/Victoria & the og Get Carter amongst others), so...
hold out hope?
― 50 Shades of Greil (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 29 October 2012 19:50 (eleven years ago) link
whoa, barcelona is print-on-demand? thats weird! i guess that's how things go with back catalog these days?
― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Monday, 29 October 2012 22:56 (eleven years ago) link
That's how Warner does it.
― Gukbe, Monday, 29 October 2012 23:01 (eleven years ago) link
Shit Stillman.
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 29 October 2012 23:07 (eleven years ago) link
i like how the whit stillman and hal hartley threads are currently neck and neck. it's like 1992 all over again!
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 29 October 2012 23:10 (eleven years ago) link
I watched damsels in distress on the plane last night, so funny! I was lolin out loud
― lag∞n, Thursday, 1 November 2012 15:57 (eleven years ago) link
Damsels in Distress was great. Very funny. I love how you slowly begin to realize that what you're seeing onscreen may not be objectively portrayed and then you begin to wonder what is real and what is peer-group reality-bubble - much like the experience of adolescent social life itself.
― o. nate, Monday, 3 December 2012 20:33 (eleven years ago) link
interview with my brother in law about editing and whit and other things:
http://spoileralertradio.libsyn.com/andrew-hafitz
― scott seward, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 22:26 (eleven years ago) link
already posted elsewhere -
Absolutely adored DID. A rare example of a movie that got better and better and better the more it went on, to the extent where I'm obsessing over it now. I see very few films that create and sustain their own reality like this - I would even describe it as one of the few genuinely surrealistic American films of recent years. A gentler, more polite, more naively prone to snobbery yes perhaps but more compassionate reality, where the impossibility of all the characters - the nobly dumb fratboys, the perpetually self-possessed (even in despair) damsels, especially Violet, whose brazen, luminous impossibility is allowed to tear through the fabric of our given reality by that glorious ending. So yes - a film with no obligation to fulfil any logic but its own.
― imago, Thursday, 17 January 2013 20:26 (eleven years ago) link
remember when that guy didn't know colors?
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 17 January 2013 21:10 (eleven years ago) link
A rare example of a movie that got better and better and better the more it went on,
I noted the same thing but then realized I had to reacquaint myself with his rhythms.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 17 January 2013 21:12 (eleven years ago) link
Whit Stillman @WhitStillmanYes thx we didn't have a prayer but “@adam_the_k: I hope list of Top 10 Oscar Snubs consoles @WhitStillman: http://nextprojection.com/2013/02/12/top-ten-2012-oscar-snubs/ …”
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Tuesday, 12 February 2013 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
adam_the_k has a rather stillmanesque surname
― Black Sabbath - violence, religious obscurantism (imago), Tuesday, 12 February 2013 23:02 (eleven years ago) link
ha this just happened again, such a nice guy!
middle-aged dads be *makes drinky-drinky hand gesture*
― buzza, Monday, 7 October 2013 01:12 (ten years ago) link
SO JEALOUS
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 7 October 2013 02:42 (ten years ago) link
Ha, I rescreened both Metropolitan & Barcelona in the last couple weeks.
― A Made Man In The Mellow Mafia (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 7 October 2013 02:52 (ten years ago) link
Feel like it is approaching the time for my semi-decadal sighting of Chris Eigeman.
― Gallucci Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 7 October 2013 03:25 (ten years ago) link
http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/amazon-eyes-comedy-pilot-from-whit-stillman-drama-from-shaun-cassidy/
― ...out of that weakness, out of that envy, out of that fear.. (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 30 January 2014 05:43 (ten years ago) link
I thought for a minute the title meant it was the Metropolitan cast decamped to Paris, but then I realised they'd be a bit old.
― Alba, Thursday, 30 January 2014 10:10 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyGHb53-Fs
I just watched the Metropolitan trailer for the first time in over 20 years. It used to play before every film at my university film society for a while.
― Alba, Thursday, 30 January 2014 10:45 (ten years ago) link
I don't understand the TV business well enough to read that link properly -- does it mean there's a 10% chance I get a Whit Stillman sitcom, or a 90% chance I get a Whit Stillman sitcom?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 30 January 2014 12:05 (ten years ago) link
where's suzy when you need her
― conrad, Thursday, 30 January 2014 12:07 (ten years ago) link
Can't say I'm still in touch with Whit. But I am friends with someone who'd know a ton about Amazon Studios.
― baked beings on toast (suzy), Thursday, 30 January 2014 12:49 (ten years ago) link
come on you could say you were still in touch with whit
― conrad, Thursday, 30 January 2014 12:59 (ten years ago) link
whit's a big armond white fan I found out via his twitter
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Thursday, 30 January 2014 17:53 (ten years ago) link
From the URL, thought Stillman was creating a show about Shaun Cassidy.
― tbd (Eazy), Thursday, 30 January 2014 19:52 (ten years ago) link
I'd think closer to 90% than 10%
― the slow death of America's rich pastoral heritage (silby), Friday, 31 January 2014 18:50 (ten years ago) link
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, 31 January 2014 19:17 (ten years ago) link
has a novel coming... Love & Friendship: An Adaptation of Jane Austen’s Unfinished Novella Concerning the Beautiful Lady Susan Vernon, Her Loves and Friendships, and the Strange Antagonism of the DeCourcy Family
http://www.thewrap.com/whit-stillman-writing-jane-austen-inspired-novel
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 31 January 2014 20:02 (ten years ago) link
and now it's a movie, set to shoot this summer so this looks like it's actually happening - http://www.screendaily.com/news/austen-comedy-lands-at-efm/5066432.article
― balls, Monday, 10 February 2014 00:43 (ten years ago) link
:D
― conrad, Monday, 10 February 2014 09:58 (ten years ago) link
A letter Whit Stillman wrote to the New York Times in 1974.
http://i.imgur.com/Gvz0431.png
― Alba, Thursday, 24 April 2014 00:33 (ten years ago) link
The most Whit Stillman-esque Whit Stillman letter ever
― Master of Treacle, Thursday, 24 April 2014 01:42 (ten years ago) link
That post, like the tiny record shop thread and geeshie wiley discussion before it, made my day.
― Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 April 2014 01:49 (ten years ago) link
It's great, isn't it? It's as if it comes straight from one of his scripts.
― Alba, Thursday, 24 April 2014 11:30 (ten years ago) link
Good job there, guy
https://twitter.com/WhitStillman/status/472040503522127872
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 May 2014 16:15 (nine years ago) link
A$AP Chris L @brittonlowe 10m
“@WhitStillman: Death to Hip-hop” Aw c'mon, Stillmatic.
― That's So (Eazy), Thursday, 29 May 2014 16:31 (nine years ago) link
404
― axe douche for men (silby), Saturday, 31 May 2014 00:53 (nine years ago) link
yeah whatever that was it's gone now. ned, care to fill us in?
― display name changed. (amateurist), Saturday, 31 May 2014 06:17 (nine years ago) link
Stillman tweeted "Death To Hip Hop", and several ilxors hard sonned him (kudos to JBR for "The Notorious U.H.B.")
― Damnit Janet Weiss & The Riot Grrriel (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 31 May 2014 06:26 (nine years ago) link
For some reason I can still see the tweet minus the responses on my phone.
― Damnit Janet Weiss & The Riot Grrriel (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 31 May 2014 06:28 (nine years ago) link
Twit Stillman
― display name changed. (amateurist), Saturday, 31 May 2014 06:28 (nine years ago) link
Chloë Sevigny and Whit Stillman on Their Amazon Pilot The Cosmopolitans
― ambient yacht god (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 13 August 2014 14:08 (nine years ago) link
omg
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 14:10 (nine years ago) link
IKR! Psyched!
― ambient yacht god (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 13 August 2014 14:12 (nine years ago) link
Whoa!!!
― DERE is no DERE DERE (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 13 August 2014 15:03 (nine years ago) link
!!!!
― Mordy, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 17:58 (nine years ago) link
oh of fucking course whit stillman's too aspirational for netflix
(!!!)
― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, 13 August 2014 18:25 (nine years ago) link
It's live! It's free! Everyone go watch it!!!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MR9WT7Y
― Gay Fire Beautiful Dong (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 28 August 2014 14:40 (nine years ago) link
did anyone watch it
― lag∞n, Thursday, 28 August 2014 14:43 (nine years ago) link
So even a free first episode can't be watched in Europe? Fuck that.
― ambient yacht god (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 28 August 2014 14:51 (nine years ago) link
Milksops, pipsqueaks, oh this is the stuff. <3
Free version of VPNReactor gave me the 30 mins of US proxy time I needed.
― Alba, Thursday, 28 August 2014 15:28 (nine years ago) link
Finally remembered to watch "The Cosmopolitans" pilot. Liked it alot and sent positive feedback. Nice to hear Stillman loading the soundtrack with Uptown Soul. He's kind of underrated as a soundtrack director.
― You and Dad's Army? (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 14 September 2014 04:44 (nine years ago) link
I love this man very much, thats all
― Master of Treacle, Sunday, 14 September 2014 05:24 (nine years ago) link
i loved the pilot. i will watch this show faithfully.
― Mordy, Monday, 15 September 2014 15:52 (nine years ago) link
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/15/whit_stillman_if_racism_is_not_socially_acceptable_why_is_class_prejudice/
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 September 2014 16:26 (nine years ago) link
Trying to imagine what a Stillman-authored ep of Sanford & Son would look like.
― You and Dad's Army? (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 15 September 2014 18:43 (nine years ago) link
It’s a problem, of course, because I think racism is not acceptable, but having class prejudice, people can pat themselves on the back for. It’s reverse class prejudice. Millions of people have been killed for being bourgeois. Should there be consciousness about that? How much of the hatred of anti-Semitism was a class thing, because the Jews of Germany were successful economically? Categorizing people economically and hating them because you think they’re this way is a prejudice.
:/ :\
― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Monday, 15 September 2014 18:55 (nine years ago) link
Millions of people have been killed for being bourgeois.
if Whit's keeping score he seems to have missed a salient point here
― Daphnis Celesta, Monday, 15 September 2014 20:45 (nine years ago) link
“They’re not embarrassed about being prejudiced if they’re being prejudiced upward,” Stillman said. “You should be embarrassed if you’re bigoted, no matter which way the bigotry runs.”
lol this guy
― Οὖτις, Monday, 15 September 2014 20:58 (nine years ago) link
How much of the hatred of anti-Semitism was a class thing, because the Jews of Germany were successful economically?
and this man I can't even
― Οὖτις, Monday, 15 September 2014 20:59 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveW9Tw2JKE
― Daphnis Celesta, Monday, 15 September 2014 21:00 (nine years ago) link
I've only seen one of his movies
I am completely unsurprised by that pullquote
― 龜, Monday, 15 September 2014 21:04 (nine years ago) link
i love his films and the dialogue of his characters
i don't have a lot invested in either his political or historical opinions
― Mordy, Monday, 15 September 2014 21:06 (nine years ago) link
I like the movies I've seen (Metropolitan and the Last Days of Disco) okay, he does write funny dialogue
but yeah this is totally unsurprising
― Οὖτις, Monday, 15 September 2014 21:17 (nine years ago) link
He's always been a relatively conservative guy fighting for the rights of the rich. That's what Metropolitan is all about! It mourns the tragic passing of American aristocracy. Doesn't mean I don't love it, though.
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:02 (nine years ago) link
Although it's not the point he's making necessarily, I do think that the wealthy have a perspective and stories to tell etc..., and that a film or show or whatnot is not intrinsically bad because it's about the problems of people of the upper class.
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:03 (nine years ago) link
The Surrealists were just a buncha social climbers.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:04 (nine years ago) link
I think he had a point when he was talking about people just lazily assuming the characters are "aimless" because they're shown in a single day of leisure.
― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:06 (nine years ago) link
for a "smart" guy whit stillman is awfully dumb
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:12 (nine years ago) link
unless he's aspiring to lars van trier-like levels of trolling
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 03:13 (nine years ago) link
I do think that the wealthy have a perspective and stories to tell etc..., and that a film or show or whatnot is not intrinsically bad because it's about the problems of people of the upper class.
yes, sure, absolutely. the interview is silly because the aristocracy shd never whine.
― Daphnis Celesta, Tuesday, 16 September 2014 06:11 (nine years ago) link
still witless
― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 18:21 (nine years ago) link
all whit, no wit
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 19 September 2014 05:43 (nine years ago) link
TBF I enjoyed Metropolitan (which is what I watched) but on the whole it was like a John Hughes movie with less humor and slapstick
― 龜, Friday, 19 September 2014 11:44 (nine years ago) link
whoa
― imago, Friday, 19 September 2014 11:47 (nine years ago) link
anyway this episode is basically redolent of john irving losing it at the rich being discriminated against. good artists can say dumb things when fighting perceived inverse discrimination
― imago, Friday, 19 September 2014 11:48 (nine years ago) link
anyone who's ever paid attention to his movies can not possibly be surprised by this
― socki (s1ocki), Friday, 19 September 2014 14:03 (nine years ago) link
his movies, tbf, while set in bourgie milieux, are more imo about universals of fellowship & empathy, and espouse what is often a subversively surreal methodology
― imago, Friday, 19 September 2014 14:18 (nine years ago) link
this is coming from someone with a hair-trigger response to unexamined bourgie presumptuousness
― imago, Friday, 19 September 2014 14:20 (nine years ago) link
for reasons of lamentable overexposure obv before u all start zinging
*doesn't comment*
― socki (s1ocki), Friday, 19 September 2014 16:36 (nine years ago) link
Amazon orders scripts, not episodes for Cosmopolitans
― You and Dad's Army? (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 7 October 2014 06:32 (nine years ago) link
I've made it deeper into Cosmopolitans than I did Metropolitan, but I think that might just be that I like Chloe Sevigny and the guy from the OC. Still kind of awful.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 10 October 2014 23:35 (nine years ago) link
Just saw Taylor Nichols on an ep of Newsradio playing the representative from Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor.
― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 13 October 2014 02:37 (nine years ago) link
adapting Jane Austen’s Lady Susan as Love and Friendship, with Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny:
“Beckinsale will portray the widow Lady Susan Vernon, who has come to the estate of her in-laws to wait out rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society. She decides to secure a husband for herself and her rather reluctant debutante daughter. The cast includes Xavier Samuel and Stephen Fry, the long-suffering husband to Lady Susan’s friend and confidante, portrayed by Sevigny. Filming begins in Ireland this month.”
http://variety.com/2015/film/news/kate-beckinsale-chloe-sevigny-reunite-in-love-and-friendship-1201421435/
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
zzzzzzz
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 February 2015 00:54 (nine years ago) link
WELL!
Stillman doing a Jane Austen... next thing Tarantino will be doing a snuff film and Chris Nolan a 3D IMAX adap of the phone book.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 3 February 2015 02:00 (nine years ago) link
yeah, white on white, so to speak.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 February 2015 15:32 (nine years ago) link
Perhaps he should have challenged himself by adapting and filming criticism of Jane Austen instead.
― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 3 February 2015 16:55 (nine years ago) link
https://mobile.twitter.com/WhitStillman/status/649332929194233858
― Love, Wilco (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 3 October 2015 22:05 (eight years ago) link
https://www.criterion.com/films/28691-barcelona
― "Damn the Taquitos" (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 15 January 2016 22:53 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MaSK3POHI0
get hype motherfuckers
― adam, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 19:30 (eight years ago) link
beckinsale 4ever
― scott seward, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 19:56 (eight years ago) link
The Last Days of Disco prequel we always wanted.
― Now I Know How Joan of Arcadia Felt (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 23 March 2016 19:58 (eight years ago) link
I don't see Chris Eigemann in there anywhere. I don't know about this.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, 23 March 2016 20:04 (eight years ago) link
stephen fry :(
― conrad, Wednesday, 23 March 2016 20:22 (eight years ago) link
Stilton doing an Austen riff in period-appropriate drag feels a bit too on the nose to me, as his films were already covert Austen adaptations.
This does remind me, though, that I still need to see Damsels in Distress.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 24 March 2016 02:22 (eight years ago) link
*Stillman
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 24 March 2016 02:23 (eight years ago) link
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
― 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.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 24 March 2016 02:48 (eight years ago) link
someone should re-score that trailer to li'l jon
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 24 March 2016 02:49 (eight years ago) link
Love & Friendship was really wonderful!
― sexy dander (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 23 May 2016 00:09 (seven years ago) link
A Thread for Whit Stillman's "Love & Friendship"
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 May 2016 00:11 (seven years ago) link
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?
― the pinefox, Monday, 17 April 2017 23:01 (seven years ago) link
I love Love and Friendship! I've watched it several times, as it feels like the most comforting movie in a long time
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Monday, 17 April 2017 23:40 (seven years ago) link
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.
― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 18 April 2017 02:23 (seven years ago) link
"Damsels In Distress" was good. Refreshing to see a depressive person imbued with a mean streak (Gerwig). Not always the usual fare in movies.
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Tuesday, 18 April 2017 06:06 (seven years ago) link
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.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 18 April 2017 08:37 (seven years ago) link
Love & Friendship was superior in every way, yeah. Especially like how it opens with a nod to Kubrick with the scoring.
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Tuesday, 18 April 2017 19:07 (seven years ago) link
DiD made me laugh about five times as hard as L&F, which counts for something in a comedy, I suppose.
― Alba, Tuesday, 18 April 2017 19:25 (seven years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 19 April 2017 00:35 (seven years ago) link
I've avoided seeing it precisely because of Gerwig.
― Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Violent J (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, 19 April 2017 00:46 (seven years ago) link
I don't love her in everything, but I thought it was kind of a perfect part for her.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 19 April 2017 00:55 (seven years ago) link
Gerwig was perfect yeah
― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Wednesday, 19 April 2017 00:59 (seven years ago) link
The Amazon pilot is getting rebooted into a spy series.
https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/whit-stillman-the-cosmopolitans.html
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 20:36 (four years ago) link
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!
― Alba, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 22:17 (four years ago) link
And he's still hoping to make his Jamaican film.
― Alba, Wednesday, 4 December 2019 22:27 (four years ago) link
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.).
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 22:43 (four years ago) link
I'd been fearing just this. pic.twitter.com/dLLH5HVkfC— Whit Stillman (@WhitStillman) June 24, 2020
― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Friday, 26 June 2020 00:47 (three years ago) link
Stillman on Twitter is really leaning into "lifetime white-shoe Republican repulsed at what his party has become"
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 9 March 2022 21:47 (two years ago) link
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.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 8 January 2024 18:34 (three months ago) link
and the Cosmopolitans pilot while they're at it.
― bulb after bulb, Monday, 8 January 2024 18:46 (three months ago) link
Oh yeah, that's not officially available<anywhere>
Except there's a epk promo on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Il8Xc8UYPA
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 8 January 2024 19:05 (three months ago) link