arr it be The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) - Pattinson, Dafoe, sea shanties

This movie about two men drinking and masturbating in a lighthouse does NOT pass the Bechdel Test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3-mjqQ6BIc

Me da just dropped this on me:

So Andrew tell me: why would there even be an ax at that lighthouse????

For chopping firewood?

All the stoves I saw were burning coal ...

duh for chopping up old salts

axes are standard equipment for firefighting on ships, and presumably in lighthouses too

* the two monologues where they go off on each other and their respective laconic responses

I'm not sure I can pin down exactly why, but I think this was my least favourite part. The sarcastic reactions, that is. The monologues are funny on their own, without the movie doing the job of demolishing them for us. Maybe it was the repetition of the same beat that made it stick out and feel hackneyed.

agreed, I too saw those coming a mile away, should have left them out

That style of gag is so overdone in the 2010s, I’m always annoyed to see ppl still deploying it, espec in period stuff bc it takes me out of it

Also an axe would totally be an essential tool for daily use with them building and repairing stuff, working with big heavy ropes & lines, etc

Dumb-smart fun for smart-dumb people (me). As much as I have grown to hate how handy #OnePerfectShot is as a slam, Nick P. is so not off the mark deploying it here. I definitely felt the spell it had over me evaporate when Pattinson started flailing his limbs around and swilling ambergris, or whatever. And it never actually hands over subjectivity from the director's head to Pattinson's. But I tilt slightly toward the "pro" camp and all my reservations will probably melt away with time.

ty for dn

re: ahab -- what if ahab is an actual famous captain in this story?
what if this... is in the moby cinematic dickaverse?

i haven't seen this, but i have to say that all the professional movie reviewers on here make me want to just love every single movie that you hate. talk about fucking snobbery.

and that's how we got Trump!

Upside is you’re going to love every single movie ever going forward.

lol, that's the dumbest response I've ever heard, Alfred.

poptimism disappears when it comes to films, for some reason that i can't fathom.

oh, you were serious? I thought we were joshing.

poptimism disappears when it comes to films, for some reason that i can't fathom.

I've no idea what this means. Anyway, this is a message board. If you wanna discuss the movie, by all means, but don't be catty.

i mean, i'm only sort of joshing.

it's just that for films, there always seems to be a pile-on here (and elsewhere) of very snotty critics pooh-poohing the latest "arthouse" thing that popular audiences are excited about. of course, some of these movies might actually suck, but the tone that Morbz (and let's say KJB, for example) takes is just awash in utter snobbery that makes it seem like there are no good movies left. i don't think i've read something from Morbz *liking* a movie since i've been on this site, tbh.

it means that in a lot of film threads that i lurk on, there seems to be universal disdain for a lot of "popular" films, whereas the same disdain isn't directed at "popular" music in the same manner. i just don't get it.

anyway, sorry, i actually really like reading yr opinions on many things, not trying to be a turdmuffin, though obviously am, so i step away.

Actually, he liked Marriage Story and The Irishman iirc, but he can defend himself.

With all due respect, tabes, you're not around much anymore. KJB is gone. Most film discussions these days (when they happen) tend to be pretty good.

I get where tabes is coming from tho.

I wished I hadn't stayed up late to watch this rubbish. If the non-comedy captain birdseye accent and ropy improvised dialogue + gratuitous masturbation aren't embarrassing enough, it's just a nothing movie - both the horror and the psychodrama elements are piss weak and go nowhere. All involved should feel embarrassed.

I think there there was another so so Lighthouse movie from a few years ago that was still better than this shite.

spilling beans itt

lol... and that capt ahab reference didn't quite glisten like the pecker of a sperm whale.. who get's paid for doing this stuff?

hahaha fuck this was so fucking good. It's been a while since I've seen a good midnight cult movie ala Eraserhead. This will stick with me for a long time. I hope either of these guys gets an Oscar nom.

Looked good, was tedious. Eggers has yet to "wow" me. His films seem to be reaching for some sort of thing - primal horror? - that I just don't think he's able to deliver.

I'll take Ben Wheatley in horror-mode over this guy any day.

I like some Wheatley, but hasn't captured the horror of awaiting the winter with a failed crop.

The Witch is doing a lot of things that haven't been as well done in the horror genre before. Most notably in period production design, but also in period daily concerns. Your 17th and 18th century farming ancestors had a very real chance of slowly starving to death, and by the end of harvest they'd know whether they'd survive the next 6 months or be reduced to beggars.

Yet to see The Lighthouse, but if Eggers ouvre remains period films with slowly growing dread, leading to his characters finally cracking, that's something new.

... and also timely. We're all watching the same news of the collapsing world, and some days its all I can do to stop myself screaming naked down the street. We're surrounded by others pacified with political propaganda, like having credulous neighbors in Jonestown (now there's a film I'd love to see a docu-psychological horror). A horror cinema of this sense of glacially encroaching dread, that its all falling apart and we're doubtless doomed, but which focuses on the psychological tension of the struggle to stay presentable... that's something I can identify with.

I liked The Witch quite a lot. I think its stature will only grow.

I was expecting something more tepid reading takes on this here. This was convincingly possessed and demented. Loved it.

I'll take Ben Wheatley in horror-mode over this guy any day.

I’m more of an Amy Jump fan

when the two actors started autocritiquing the movie via each other's performances {You're a PARODY of an old salt!) i lost all hope

basically a Corman movie with drunken comedy and Prometheus baggage; nice-looking tho

i'll send tabes a list of the many movies i liked this year btw

Dafoe really makes Lionel Barrymore look like the king of Bressonian understatement in this

xp it better be a list of pop movies you liked this year or else his point is proven

i think Little Women, Ad Astra, Irishman and Dolemite count on that score

Also, a lot more pop than this movie tbh.

People are suckers for Grand Guignol when it's black and white.

nice-looking tho

nice-sounding too

Hell yeah we are xp

and most successful when it's a comedy (again, the Corman-Price-Lorre films)

This is not a genre of movie https://t.co/pVnlAl3mVk

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 28, 2020

yeah I had that argument in 2011 when The Artist wowed too many people ("Silent movies aren't a genre").

So what tho

I saw this on Valentine's Day - I can't off the top of my head think of a film more likely to put people off sex afterwards.

A lot of weird authenticity when you read around about it - they built the lighthouse, a lot of century-old film lenses, they built the light and the foghorn (and most of the weather is natural) - but in the service of very keyed-up and unnatural performances. Which is great!

The real anachronism is that the song they're singing before they don't kiss was written in the 1980s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpWWWhc9QzI