thread for Sean Baker since he allegedly doesn't belong in "ten greatest living American filmmakers" thread

Lol, soz I should have noted the emoticon!

I found The Florida Project agonizing for the exact reasons Alfred did. The movie gravely mistakes histrionics for drama; I suspect Baker's approach to directing the kids (and some of the adults) amounted to "just scream a lot and occasionally throw a tantrum and it'll be great." I liked Defoe well enough, though I have to wonder if I just appreciated the break his character provided from all the noise (the scene where he handles the creep hanging around the kids was good, the only moment in the film where I felt any real tension). The ending was laughable.

I'd say I'm baffled by the praise this film has been getting, but I'm not really: Baker scores points for being one of the very few American filmmakers these days to pay attention to poverty (I don't think the movie is condescending, exactly, just shrill to the point that empathy becomes nearly impossible). But this movie was so annoying that I actually might think less of Tangerine in retrospect.

Man, Red Rocket is one of <the> Texas movies. So grimy and gross and perfectly of its place.

Fun Fact: that donut shop isn't in Texas City, but actually about 100 miles west in a refinery city called Groves that's a little south of Beaumont/Port Arthur. It looked kinda familiar to me, so I dug a little deeper and it's just two blocks down from this old Cajun Dancehall & Seafood joint my Dad liked to day trip to see Swamp Pop bands.

This was a good fucking thread

100 miles west East

tracer hand with by far the best posts itt. the film nails the sickly quality of living poor on the outskirts of other people's dream vacation, stuck where other people go to escape. it would be unbearably corny if the characters talked about disney, outside of using it to run a scam. it also captures the ambivalence of knowing and living with people whose troubles are both unfairly thrust upon them and self-inflicted. just because you sympathize with poor people doesn't mean they can't be completely obnoxious, i should know i've been one. absolutely wild to me that anyone could come to the conclusion that the movie would be less condescending if the mom were less shrill, less grating, if she didn't lash out. imagine how fucking treacly TFP would have been if she were an angel beaten down by a hard life, if the irritants of her circumstances hadn't seeped into her. or if the kids with nothing to do and no supervision weren't innane little delinquents pouring stream of consciousness nonsense--and spit, and ice cream--from their mouths. so many little details rang true.. even the look of the pervert was perfect (i live a few miles from a waffle house that's across the street from an RV park imfamous for its sex pests.) but its not a perfect movie, dafoe's character was enjoyable but too soft. the ending was good tho, totally believable depiction of the desire for social mobility in the minds of children who don't know what class is but know that something is wrong

my only issue with tracer's take is that little kids absolutely do spit like that, hawking loogies is an acquired skill

yeah I actually watched TFP recently for the first time and thought it was pretty good

thank you karl...arlk. sadly i never learned how to hock a loogie but i'm a soft middle-class kid, i feel like these kids would know. but point taken

Watched this a week after Happy End and thought Haneke would get the mom to go on a killing spree at the nicer hotel -

The Cannes win today reminded me I’ve never watched a Sean Baker movie, so I just watched Tangerine — it’s good! Which seems to be the thread consensus on a quick scan. Obviously The Florida Project was uh divisive, I’ll give that a look at some point. Only one post itt about Red Rocket, more thoughts on that?

prob some micro-chat in here: Legend Of The Ten Zings - the 2021 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

I loved Tangerine! One of my favorite films. And that it was shot on an iPhone is astonishing.

I started watching The Florida Project with two friends, who both bailed when they realized it was a chaotic story about drug abusers and sex workers and their out-of-control children in a dismal motel outside of Disney World in Orlando. Seeing the unsupervised children run amok in that film almost did me in. Thankfully Willem Dafoe was there to look after them. Baker imagined a magical ending for them, which was kind of thrilling, but I wasn't convinced

Red Rocket was more mainstream and more comical maybe, but was ultimately about a lying aging porn star grifter. It was an interesting film, but I wasn't that sympathetic to the main character

The Florida Project is probably my favorite, but I haven't seen most of his work. (He's got eight features, at least a couple of shorts and quite a bit of TV work, and I personally don't know anything about them beyond his four most recent features, including the one that just won the Palme d'Or.) Thrilled for his win, hopefully this gives him even more opportunities. I know he's managed to thrive on incredibly low budgets and limited resources, but if he's got anything in mind that needs a whole lot more to make it happen, I hope this opens the door for him.

I liked Red Rocket but haven't seen anything else by him. My wife watched The Florida Project without me and liked it.

this should've been called Birth Control is a Right

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, December 6, 2017 8:48 PM

still lol at this

The Cannes win today

US director Sean Baker's Anora wins Palme d'Or at 2024 Cannes Film Festival

He dedicated the award "to all sex workers past, present and future," while also thanking the film's star, Mikey Madison, and Samantha Quan, his wife and producer.

...Jury president Greta Gerwig, the director behind the smash hit Barbie, called Anora an "incredibly human and humane film that captured our hearts" when announcing the award that was handed out by George Lucas, of Star Wars fame.

Yeah "human and humane" was definitely my feeling about Tangerine. The basic story could have been told in a way that just made everything about it seem awful, but it wasn't awful because there was a strong sense of agency for all of the characters. However fucked up they may have been, and however obviously marginalized in various ways (including the Armenian cabbie), they were all granted a sense of being complex and self-directed people at least within their circumstances. I wasn't expecting it to build to essentially a screwball comedy everybody-in-a-room-yelling ending, but it was legitimately funny and felt weirdly empowering to the characters to have it end that way rather than on some tragic note.

Also always a delight to see James Ransone, and interesting that the woman who played the Donut Time manager is co-producer on most of Baker's films.

Red Rocket was more mainstream and more comical maybe, but was ultimately about a lying aging porn star grifter.

...grooming a 17-year-old girl, among other things. What's amazing about it is how far he draws you in with that premise.

Some more Red Rocket talk starting here: Trump Films (the Best Films)

Plax comparing TFP to Busy Drag Queen was, in retrospect, a devastating blow

I've reread this thread and it's interesting to see all of the different points of view. Looking back, regardless of how I've felt about his films, they've all been memorable

I'm looking forward to Anora, it sounds like a leap forward