But if Audrey is all grown up and a well-known editor by the disco era, I suppose early-70s it must be ...
― nabisco, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:14 (sixteen years ago) link
....not naming names but i think that somebodies need to rent the criterion editions and listen to the director commentaries...
― Steve Shasta, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:38 (sixteen years ago) link
someone with more free time and a longer attention span than me, clearly
― nabisco, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:40 (sixteen years ago) link
DVD commentaries: what the world never needed
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Metropolitan makes me want to vomit. I like Barcelona, but Last Days of Disco has to win. Perfect portrayal of that generation and class, with a killer soundtrack, and lots of amaaaazing one-liners. More than in his other movies, I think.
― the table is the table, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:44 (sixteen years ago) link
LDD is great. And it's got to be at least 1978 because of the speech at the end which mentions Travolta and Newton-John. I always assumed it was 1978 for some reason.
― Ned Trifle II, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:22 (sixteen years ago) link
pretty sure it is later than that.
i don't really understand how people can have such varying opinions of these movies. they seem of a piece to me.
― mizzell, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:33 (sixteen years ago) link
metropolitan=about girls
barcelona=about boys
― horseshoe, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:42 (sixteen years ago) link
ldd = about disco
― Ned Trifle II, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
Isn't there mention of yuppies? I might be wrong. When were yuppies anyway?
― Ned Trifle II, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:44 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah, there are 5 billion mentions of yuppies.
― horseshoe, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago) link
metropolitan = don't hate me because i'm rich barcelona = don't hate me because i'm american last days of disco = don't hate me because i like clubbing
(this may sound like i'm making fun, but i actually like the way stillman goes at this stuff, which tends to be complicated and aware and worthwhile)
― nabisco, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:47 (sixteen years ago) link
no that seems right. those three are all kind of the same thing.
― horseshoe, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:48 (sixteen years ago) link
maybe everyone on the "what class are you" thread should watch metropolitan
― max, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:49 (sixteen years ago) link
i mean, all three contain a lengthy speech in which someone defends himself on exactly those terms
xpost - i think Last Days of Disco specifically says something about "the very early 80s" -- although there is footage of the Chicago disco demolition in it (which was ... 78?), and I always thought the word "yuppies" didn't really explode until around the 84 election (but they were hip NYCers, they might have just been ahead of the curve)
― nabisco, Friday, 18 January 2008 21:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Isn't Metropolitan fairly ambiguous about when exactly it takes place, it just says like "Some time in the past" or something like that? It always seemed to me to be taking place in the late 60s/early 70s, so Audrey's age in LDoD worked fine for me.
When I spent a lot more time thinking about Whit Stillman than I do now, I figured that the reference to Averell Harriman's age (I think maybe Audrey says something about him being in his 70s) sets the film in the 60s. I think I remember reading Stillman say that he was thinking of the early 60s when he made it but wanted it to remain ambiguous.
― C0L1N B..., Friday, 18 January 2008 21:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Pretty sure LDD is supposed be, like, '81-82ish.
― C0L1N B..., Friday, 18 January 2008 21:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Also, nabsico is OTM about the hospital device in Barcelona. I never understood why LDD is supposed to be this big disappointment after Barcelona.
― C0L1N B..., Friday, 18 January 2008 21:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― ILX System, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― ILX System, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:01 (sixteen years ago) link
I assume that the endorsement of the flat-footed The Last Days of Disco implicitly comments on Whit Stillman fans' disdain for dancing.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:04 (sixteen years ago) link
i love last days of disco! but i did not vote in this poll. but i do love it best. my brother-in-law edited it! i like to mention that when the subject comes up. well, he's married to maria's sister. whatever that makes him to me.
― scott seward, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I keep getting Whit Stillman confused with Slim Whitman.
http://www.nndb.com/people/970/000022904/slim-whitman-crop.jpg
― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:23 (sixteen years ago) link
I couldn't bear "Last Days of Disco" as it basically implied that disco was a movement that catered exclusively to white, affluent, shitheads, which couldn't have been further from the truth.
― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:26 (sixteen years ago) link
Ok, but there's a difference between that and "lots of white, affluent shitheads liked disco", right?
― The Yellow Kid, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:32 (sixteen years ago) link
he wasn't making a friggin' documentary. he writes what he knows.
― scott seward, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:33 (sixteen years ago) link
"Oh, so you're one of those mass transit snobs."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 27 January 2008 00:35 (sixteen years ago) link
he writes what he knows.
In this instance, it seems more like he wrote what he wrongly assumed.
― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 27 January 2008 02:07 (sixteen years ago) link
This result came in in the wrong order.
― Alba, Sunday, 27 January 2008 02:21 (sixteen years ago) link
finally saw last days of disco last night - not bad. nabisco otm re: beckinsale being born for that kind of role. also rescreened ; ) metropolitan a couple of weeks back. awkward low-budget stuff and non-pro actors aside that holds up well.
― velko, Saturday, 14 November 2009 20:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Love all of these but I'm baffled by how Metropolitan, not just the best Whit Stillman movie but maybe the best movie of its kind, didn't leave Disco in the dust.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, 14 November 2009 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Metropolitan is a movie I can watch over and over and over.
― windy = white, carl = black (polyphonic), Saturday, 14 November 2009 21:26 (fourteen years ago) link
last days of disco is one of my favourite movies ever, also the soundtrack is maybe my most played album ever
― plaxico (I know, right?), Saturday, 14 November 2009 21:26 (fourteen years ago) link
i rewatched metropolitan & i had forgotten how sad and weird the last third of the movie is, partic the scene where charlie and tom talk about failure with the older uhb dude @ a bar
also the blank dismissal of fourier with "i wouldnt want to live on a farm" in the cab to southhampton, is ~amazing~
― Lamp, Tuesday, 13 July 2010 03:11 (thirteen years ago) link
Watched Metropolitan for the first time in maybe 20 years the other night, it's still very good. Eigeman and Taylor Nichols are both pricelessly funny, tho I find the sudden appearance of a weapon kind of inexplicable, psychologically.
talk about failure with the older uhb dude @ a bar
This is great, esp the way the guy accepts the existence of "ub?" as a term. I didn't find their convo particularly sad, just... realistic.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
"Where do they get off?"
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:12 (eleven years ago) link
I find the sudden appearance of a weapon kind of inexplicable, psychologically.
After many, many watchings of this movie I finally understood that this is the toy gun that Tom finds in the trash outside his childhood apartment. I think it's some kind of failure of direction that makes it read as a real gun.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 23:07 (eleven years ago) link
well I presumed it wasn't real, but I didn't recall a gun being seen in the toy box.
Anyway, it's funny how that actor's career disappeared, tho he 'only' played a noodge pretty well.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 3 May 2012 00:11 (eleven years ago) link
he's a priest or found god something, I think someone posted a youtube about it in this thread
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 3 May 2012 00:17 (eleven years ago) link
lol nm some other thread
The only dud is the actor who played Rick Von Slonaker is terrible -- Rick Von Surfer amirite
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 May 2012 01:16 (eleven years ago) link
Eigeman builds up the legend of Rick Von Slonaker so well that, whenever I rewatch, I always forget he actually appears in the movie.
― I serve at the pleasure of Dr. Dre and a team of Sorbonne scientists. (R Baez), Thursday, 3 May 2012 01:23 (eleven years ago) link
"It's a composite! Like New York magazine does."
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 3 May 2012 01:40 (eleven years ago) link
eigeman as nick smith is *dream city*
― horseshoe, Thursday, 3 May 2012 01:49 (eleven years ago) link
So YOU'RE one of those public transportation snobs!
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:00 (eleven years ago) link
Metropoliatee
― buzza, Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:03 (eleven years ago) link
sometime in her senior year, she started feeling depressed. now, part of it was finally becoming disillusioned with horses. but there were some real psychological problems too.
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:19 (eleven years ago) link
you're a slob, sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome, and lately you've gotten just weird.
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:22 (eleven years ago) link
lol snob, obv, chris eigeman is not a slob
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:23 (eleven years ago) link
i guess you could say it's extremely vulgar. i like it a lot.
― horseshoe, Thursday, 3 May 2012 02:23 (eleven years ago) link
― windy = white, carl = black (polyphonic)
especially at this time of year
― buzza, Monday, 13 December 2021 09:36 (two years ago) link
I watched Metropolitan for the first time since (maybe?) when it first came out (I've been revisiting some '80s / early '90s movies). It was cute and enjoyable – the dialogue is funny, without being too overbearing or precious (not an easy feat, considering the specifics). There are a few real laughs, and the screenplay was clearly polished.
It does have a few issues, though – the movie begins with a brief scene that suggests the rest of the story is a flashback, but the "framing narrative" doesn't come back up at the end(?). Also, the most interesting character disappears 2/3 of the way through. The movie ends somewhat abruptly, and feels like it needed at least one more scene to wrap up both these loose ends. Maybe it was an artistic choice (on both counts), but it leaves the impression that maybe they just ran out of money...
Also, the direction and "tech specs" are mighty ruff; just a few notches above a student film (that's a true indie, I guess). I assume Stillman's directing got better – I think I saw his next two films, but don't remember much about them. He does get good (if somewhat stilted) performances out of this cast, who seem to have been mostly amateurs.
― Linkin Bio (morrisp), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 20:25 (one year ago) link
You need to watch his last two films.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 20:26 (one year ago) link
What is it with Stillman's dialogue where specific scenes finally become hilarious the 10th or 11th time you hear them? The one from Barcelona is my current fave:
Ted Boynton: There's a lot of anti-NATO feeling here.
Fred: Anti what?
Ted Boynton: Anti-NATO.
Fred: ANTI-NATO?
Ted Boynton: Yeah... Well, actually here it's OTAN.
Fred: They're AGAINST OTAN?
― Front-loaded albums are musical gerrymandering (Prefecture), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 21:54 (one year ago) link
A friend of mine mildly admired Metropolitan until I told him that it is intended to be a period piece. He preferred it as the story of an anachronistic group of sheltered, cultured young people in the late 80s. Though I suspect Stillman is sloppy about chronology, the mention of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie would have to make it at least 1972.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 05:27 (one year ago) link
isn't there a boombox in one of the final scenes in metropolitan?
― Animal Bitrate (Raw Patrick), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 07:10 (one year ago) link
Stillman wanted to set the film in the past, possibly in the pre-Woodstock 1960s, but the budget did not allow for a strict period film to be made. Instead, he added period details to give the film an "aura of the past", like vintage Checker Cabs, and generally excluded anything too specific to the present day.
― flopson, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 08:34 (one year ago) link
that period ambiguity elevates the film to a classic, and also adds a surreal element that, for example, Damsels In Distress intentionally heightens
― imago, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 08:41 (one year ago) link
(which is also mandatory viewing)
Were there car-rental chains in the '60s?
There may be one or two vintage cabs (which I think were still on the road anyway?), but also regular, late-model taxis... nothing in the movie struck me as ambiguous in terms of time period. Also, the characters' central concerns – decline of their social status, changing social norms – seemed specific to the late '80s, and sync up well with the end of the Reagan era (recession is mentioned). But maybe people like that, to the extent they "really exist," would have had the same anxiety in the '60s. Maybe they still do today!
They're obviously a weird, cloistered sect but (IMO) it's almost more "fun" to imagine them existing like that in the '80s than it would be if Stillman had the $$$ to achieve a period setting.
― Linkin Bio (morrisp), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 14:27 (one year ago) link
There have been car rental chains for about as long as there have been cars. Hertz goes back to the 20s, at least.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 15:04 (one year ago) link
idk I took the timeline seriously. If the film came out in 1990, then the film is set in the early to mid '80s. The anachronism of deb balls coincides with the Reagan era's sudden interest in silly costumed customs.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 15:12 (one year ago) link
i put it (anachronisms aside) in the late 60s or so, to jibe with audrey rouget's appearance in the last days of disco. obviously the taylor nichols character in tldod and barcelona is a time traveler or djinn of some sort. this is now WSCU (whit stillman cinematic universe) canon.
― adam, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 15:26 (one year ago) link