darren aronofsky's mother!

I agree with you, Alfred. I said as much.

I know. I did appreciate Aronofsky's playing with The Exterminating Angel tropes.

yeah! I was thinking about that, too. the house was very cool & imposing

Except that She had a very near-complete monopoly on the perspective of the movie (nearly half the movie is literally first-person!) as well as our empathy.

Same goes for Justine by Marquis de Sade, which mother! reminded me of. Doesn't make it a feminist text at all. Just relentless abuse in the service of... what?

hey Whiney's the one arguing it's feminist, I'm just not convinced it's misogynist

Rex Reed's review is the funniest but this is the most convincing I've seen

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/wjx8zb/mother-tries-very-hard-to-be-more-than-a-disturbing-abusive-movie

This type of stuff is getting ridiculous post-LaLaLand

"viewers start to question what more Aronofsky is trying to say here, except, "That's bad.""

Like, it's perfectly OK to have a shallow reading of a movie, but stuff like this assumes the director had a shallow vision

hated this but I had just yacked from nausea due to a hangover an hour beforehand so idk that I was in the greatest place to receive this

The fuck would you ever go see Aronofsky with a hangover to start with! And I say that as someone who likes much of his work.

yeah that sounds like a nightmare

needed to kill a few hours and at the time I bought the tickets, I wasn't nauseous. bumpy Uber ride on the way there changed that pretty quickly

This sounds exactly like the kind of movie that I suspect that I won't like, will finally be compelled to check out months from now, and then will end up not liking.

The Bunuel comparisons have popped up in everything I've read on it so far, but I kind of suspect this film lacks anything like Bunuel's playfulness.

I agree, there's nothing Bunuelian in Aronofsky. the parallels with Exterminating Angel are strictly superficial

This, from a review from my favourite working film critic (who loved the film) is a big red flag for me:

It's unpleasant to the point of unwatchability--an instant entry into the films maudit hall of fame, predicting a popular failure and critical evisceration that are at least in part something Aronofsky must have expected, given how dedicated mother! is to destroying pleasure

(its the "dedicated to destroying pleasure" that scares me off, I should note, not necessarily the unpleasantness)

so what's the over/under on the total number of jokes about this at the Globes+Oscars

Won't Lawrence get a nom?

absolutely not

I guess I shouldn't say that, they love her, but I don't see it happening.

The Bunuel comparisons have popped up in everything I've read on it so far, but I kind of suspect this film lacks anything like Bunuel's playfulness.

― the general theme of STUFF (cryptosicko), Saturday, September 16, 2017 11:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, there's nothing Bunuelian in Aronofsky. the parallels with Exterminating Angel are strictly superficial

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Sunday, September 17, 2017 12:05 AM

agreed

No idea if it's going to actually get nominated, but I was completely enthralled with the sound design

"Dedicated to destroying pleasure" doesn't describe my experience. The action of the movie is so theatrical and nested in its own allegorical world that I never found it seriously disturbing or unpleasant.

I've never minded babies getting eviscerated in the hands of a mob.

I agree in theory that an artist's self-loathing is not really an interesting subject but I found this pretty effective for what it was

I think ppl are underselling the Rosemary's Baby style black comedy aspect - a huge proportion of this is basically escalating a classic what about bob? type premise

He spells it out: http://ew.com/movies/2017/09/17/mother-darren-aronofsky-burning-questions-answered/

End credits song should have been "Get Out of My House."

i'm going to see this tonight... is it bad or good

it sucks but you should still go

the very polarized reactions and takes itt and elsewhere would compel me to see it more than anything

Okay, but what was that bloody thing in the toilet?

lol, I was wondering about that all weekend.

Anyone know what he's talking about with the yellow powder?

Like most movies it's neither terrible nor great. Don't let yourself be polarized!

it sucks but you should still go

― flappy bird, Sunday, September 17, 2017 8:02 PM

I assume thats a reference to Charlotte Gilmans Yellow Wallpaper. A few other reviews have mentioned it too.

(xposts - re the yellow powder)

thx. i am going to go to it

only reason I could justify seeing this is for Pfeiffer

worth it

saw it at the weekend. For me it's an allegory about the nightmare that is DIY

This was of the worst movies I have ever seen.

first half (with the family who invite themselves in) was a good surreal black comedy, second half (by the time kirsten wiig was instructing a militia to shoot fans of javier bardem's poetry in the face, i mean) was the worst movie i've ever seen. i now think daron aaronovfsky is a deeply stupid person (maybe i should have thought that a long time ago, but it's been a long time since i last saw a film of his). it's actually a feat how much the ending spoils whatever goodwill it had built up in me. sound design was cool (nailed the feel of a creaky echoey old house)

*one of

xp to myself

It's like it was written by a fifth grader.

Some of the first half was okay (Michelle Pfeiffer's performance especially) but the characters are all so flat it's hard to give a shit about any of them.

saw it at the weekend. For me it's an allegory about the nightmare that is DIY

― André Ryu (Neil S), Sunday, September 17, 2017 8:42 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hearty lol @ this btw

what were the bible allegories i am too stupid and unlearned to catch them

ya pfeiff was the best thing about it hands down

xp Vice reviewer was otm. She mentions that mother could be mother *nature*, which makes the poet the godlike figure, and humanity's abuse of mother nature the allegory. But if that's the case, then the movie sort of glosses over it in favor of secondary themes like womanhood and the suffering artist, and it's a mess.

I realized how much I'd missed Pfeiffer the last 25 years.

what were the bible allegories i am too stupid and unlearned to catch them

I haven't seen the film but, based on the plot synopsis I read, the allegories seem to have been very, very blatant so I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic

Awards blogger-racist nitwit Jeffrey Wells is calling this the new L'Age d'Or