WINTER'S BONE

grim.

in a good way? got solid reviews

yeah it's good, i really liked it.

http://www.wintersbonemovie.com/

john hawkes is great. everybody in it's pretty great! but lemme tell you, grim.

I saw lots of teary eyes emerging from it at the local.

liked this a lot

I was gonna see this a couple weeks ago, but I couldn't bring myself to get into the mood for it. (Went to see Get Him to the Greek instead, lol.) I want to see it eventually, though.

it's not really a downer, tbh, didn't move me to tears. the subject matter and everything is hella bleak but it's not on some fake ass von trier kind of shit.

it's a mystery, so it has a lot of forward motion. there's not a lot of wallowing.

This was the best new movie I've seen in years. At least that was the thought I had while walking out of the theater.

is it a mystery? there wasn't much pushing it forward, i thought. the one deadline kind of came and went without anything happening.
overall i found the dialogue (which was apparently adlibbed) stiff, and the tone a bit too ponderous. wanted to like it more than i did.

Yeah it's a mystery in that we're trying to figure out where her father went/what happened to him. It might not be textbook mystery, but I think there's a good bit of mystery as to what is going on with this extended family. It's some kind of rural southern noir, at least that's how I appreciated it. The deadline came and went because the movie resolved that deadline. I don't know how to talk about that without spoilers.

haha, goole also started the thread on miracle at st anna, which was part 2 of my beat the heat double header yesterday. it, like winter's bone, was disapointing but better than being outside.

? is that still in theaters? or did you d/l winter's bone?? OR WHAT???

it (and she's gotta have it) played at the brooklyn acadmey of music yesterday, where they show first run and repertory films.

lol nyc, the streets paved with film cans...

pretty bad movie, that one, btw

i thought this was pretty good, not great. except john hawkes - he was great. agree with mizzell that the noir mystery elements didn't really add up to much. i guess you could argue that's true of a lot of classic noir too though, so maybe i missed the point. there were def some good images along the way.

tbh my favorite scenes were ree teaching the kids to kill squirrels and eat them and stuff like that.

yeah as a straight mystory or 'noir' it's not exactly high-tension or anything. imo the movie works on two mysteries at the same time, and doesn't have very conclusive answers for either one: "what happened to my dad" and "why the hell is life like this here"

More or less agree with salsa - lots of great elements, not a truly compelling whole. V. curious to see what Granik does next, mind.

john hawkes is great in this. kinda blew my mind when i realized that i recognized him from eastbound and down. very solid movie.

oh this is that movie set in the ozarks right? i want to see this. i'm a big ozarks fan.

haha

you'll like this then. ozarks are the star of the movie. and squirrels.

Young lead is real good, John Hawkes too.

liked this quite a bit

lead was very good!

squirrel cleanin' scenes second-to-none

This movie wins a few Indie Spirit awards and fried squirrel comes to Williamsburg

saw this. loved it. almost seemed to be the opposite of the noirish movies South America has been putting out -- very low key, grim atmosphere, and a lack of likable characters outside of the main protagonist family.

I almost watched it this afternoon but I made the mistake of reading Stephanie Zacharek's review first: she was not very impressed with how it wallows in darkness as a sign of its seriousness.

Instead I hung out by the pool.

I loved this. Really good.

Seeing a screening of it this week, looking forward to it.

Loved this. It's gonna haunt me for a while though, definitely grim stuff. I mean, jeez, you wanna talk about coming of age.

she was not very impressed with how it wallows in darkness as a sign of its seriousness.

that's just stupid. the movie is very much a "country-noir" kind of flick, and the story IS pretty dark. it didn't feel like it was "wallowing" in anything!

Otm. It felt more like a matter-of-fact portrayal of a hard way of life. The girl, Ree (?) spent the whole movie trying to keep things from getting worse! "Wallow" my ass.

don't really agree that it was a matter-of-fact portrayal... i think it's like latebloomer says, a more stylized noir kinda thing.

This was pretty good. Loved the old biddy who plays the closest thing to a villain.

She was great! She played the town hooker in My Name Is Earl.

Didn't recognize Sheryl Lee!

I didn't either! Wow.

Laura Palmer was in this?! Who did she play?

She's in one scene, as the woman Jessup was having an affair with.

ohhhh ok! damn!

agree w/ Soto on that supporting actress

Recognized that actress as the meth head from that episode of Breaking Bad w/ the ATM. Didn't recognize Sheryl Lee at all.

it was good, but i expected more. a little overrated.

that's true, but i'll take what I can in the current American environment.

i thought this was great. it could have been improved by seeing a little more humanity among all the folks that ree has to deal with - everyone's either a monster or a brooding shut-in or both. country people are usually a lot funnier. i was also thrown by a lot of music that i think of as appalachian ("farther along", "high on a mountain") but i guess hillbilly country extends farther than i'd imagined.

it's not a noir in the classic sense though, right, because the protag isn't someone who made bad decisions that are now coming back to haunt her? i feel like noir protags are usually morally compromised somehow.. anyway, nice tidy story, great acting, especially (as has been said) john hawkes and the lead actress. had no idea hawkes could be so intimidating.

i was a little confused by the money at the end. i'd like to talk about it but maybe a SPOILER tag would be in order..

I was confused for a second too until I remembered that, even though we don't know the full story, we know enough of it to have a pretty good idea.

yeah my poet friends love this movie. fuckin' poets.

hardly melodrama or anything that's gonna leave you shell shocked

I'd definitely say that's true. I didn't cry at any point but was really out bummed for a while last night. I think the "real lyfe shyt" it's on is what makes it so bleak. It's just really . . . grim. That said it was awesome and you should watch it just maybe plan to go to the circus or sniff some babies heads afterward or something.

Maybe you should see it and then analyze it afterward.

― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic), Monday, May 9, 2011 3:35 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

chill winston

I have "issues" w/r/t the unremitting bleakness of it but that's my own baggage - what it's doing totally works.

Yeah John Hawkes, what can you say really? There are so many incredible actors and actresses that Hollywood is just too dumb - too retrograde - to figure out how to use.

chill winston

If I wanted to read people pontificate about films they haven't seen I'd delete my Dr. Morbius greasemonkey script.

Given the amount of real life shit in, you know, real life, I'd be pretty sad if it took this movie to bum you out. Can't remember its name, but there was a great PBS (?) doc out several years ago that focused on two high school kids in rural, poor, mountain Arkansas, and the struggles they went through just to go to school each day.

Think it was "Country Boys," and it was set in dirt-poor rural Tennessee, but same idea.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/

Shit, I mean Kentucky. Anyway, this is real-life "Winter's Bone" and available at that site online.

I have "issues" w/r/t the unremitting bleakness of it but that's my own baggage - what it's doing totally works.

otm

Yeah John Hawkes, what can you say really? There are so many incredible actors and actresses that Hollywood is just too dumb - too retrograde - to figure out how to use.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, May 9, 2011 11:16 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

lol he gets run over by a truck 2 minutes after his character gets introduced in Miami Vice

he's gonna be a lot more noticeable soon thanks to that new flick where he plays a cult leader, methinks.

xp haha, wow, sad

i've been saying "cut them thirty year o' timber down to nuuubs" to myself for a couple days now

Thump was creepy as hell in this movie

When you finally see him he looks like a backup bass player in the Charlie Daniels band and somehow that makes him even scarier.

hahaha YES

lol

come to think of it there really wasn't one character other than Ree in the movie where I looked at them and said "y'know, this person has their head on their shoulders, really upstanding individual"...

Her neighbor.

The ones who apparently sit around mournfully singing "Farther Along" to each other all day long??

/RAGE

(sorry)

Wait which ones where that? I meant the lady who took the horse in an brought her the deer meat and vegetables.

Did she sing?

Oh I think you mean the one's who were having a birthday party when they went to talk to Jessup's ex.

I'm going to read this thread later cause I can't stop thinking about this movie.

the lady who took the horse in an brought her the deer meat and vegetables

Oh yeah, forgot about her.

me too. I think it was because with the way the movie would go, i half expected her to turn into a villain and then forgot about her when she disappeared from the movie.

posted these comments in bits and pieces in another thread several months ago. always meant to assemble them here, so...

this is one of the best recent american genre films i've seen. winter's bone aims primarily to capture and, in a way, to honor, focusing on the details that characterize a way of life - and on the sorts of lives that might be lived within that characterization. the film's strength is largely dependent on place and texture, on careful observation more than wild imagination, and for that reason it might not appeal to viewers who demand sleeker and more aggressive thrills.

winter's bone builds its central mystery up from a good documentarian's directness and self-effacement, and i liked the relationship between that approach and the more genre-bound mystery plotting. i loved this movie for its richness, humanism and empathic integrity. i loved too its evocation of the bonds that entwine families and communities, both strong and weak, clear and subtle, the way such bonds both define and contend with our sense of moral obligation. the deliberately rough, pseudo-documentary style might seem superficially flat, but the film's off-the-cuff naturalism allows for an offhand beauty that never feels self-indulgent or showy.

we don't necessarily expect an unusual depth & subtlety of character & theme in a mystery story, or a strikingly personal relationship with place & culture, but that's what i felt i got here. i liked the things this film chooses to pay attention to and the way it pays attention to them. it contrasts the poignancy and fragility of domestic affection - the foolish bubble of innocence and joy we try to build around our families - with the fundamental threat and uncaringness of the larger world in which family exists. i liked that and feel that i don't see it explored anywhere near enough in american cinema. i liked, too, the way winter's bone balances its empathic streak with a hard-eyed look at the sacrifices that this sort of domestic maintenance can require.

this is on netflix instant! its pretty good!

Just finished it. Wow, i fucking loved this movie. Cried like 5 times but then I'm weak that way. Must find book.

i was also thrown by a lot of music that i think of as appalachian ("farther along", "high on a mountain") but i guess hillbilly country extends farther than i'd imagined.

No, my family all come from the South Dakota prairie and my mom and her sibs sing most of these same songs when they get together.

yeah gonna rewatch this in netflix. there's another on there as well by the same director, 'down to the bone'

its "funny," for a drug plague that is reportedly pretty devastating it doesnt seem like there are a lot of meth movies out there. this and breaking bad and...? or am i just not paying attention to the burgeoning meth movie scene

Loved this film, incredibly atmospheric and A+ performances all round.

>Must find book.

My wife bought me the book as a gift, inspired by my raving about the film. It's superb, totally recommend it.

i liked 'down to the bone', the portrayal of heroin addiction here isn't ott like in most films, so it ends up evoking more empathy than gross-out. and vera farmiga is hot.

its "funny," for a drug plague that is reportedly pretty devastating it doesnt seem like there are a lot of meth movies out there. this and breaking bad and...? or am i just not paying attention to the burgeoning meth movie scene

Well, there's Spun and...yeah. Meth's not a sexy or funny drug.

neither is crack, though

i mean youd at least think thered be movies about meth _gangs_ or something

i liked 'down to the bone', the portrayal of heroin addiction here isn't ott like in most films, so it ends up evoking more empathy than gross-out. and vera farmiga is hot.

i think i remember finding post-OD mia wallace uma thurman v attractive in pulp fiction, & am glad that vera farmiga apparently maintained being v attractive even throughout her character's addiction arc in this movie

this movie is a mess structurally and its depiction of poor rural arkansas is pretty ridic. C-

i liked this line from A.S. Hamrah: "In Winter’s Bone, people are poor and dangerous, which is to say they have dignity."

it's rural Missouri, but just across the line from AR.

ozarks whatever

pfft whatever D+

p.s. you're a mess structurally!

:]

so when she gives the hands to the sheriff she says someone dumped them on her porch. why didn't they actually do that? i mean do they just make her fish him out to fuck with her? i feel like i'm missing a plot point here.

they make her fish him out to fuck with her

they didn't give a shit about her losing her home (iirc that was why she needed the body?) - probably couldn't be bothered

feel like this could've been more visually interesting with mise-en-scene and stuff. most of the time it was kind of uninteresting visually, then there were some really incredible shots that underscored how boring the rest was.

the scene where she's at the - idk slaughterhouse? and running across the beams after the guy: i often find myself remembering it

Debra Granik's new film at Sundance

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5309-the-daily-sundance-2018-debra-granik-s-leave-no-trace