the Whit Stillman Poll

ldd = about disco

pretty sure it is later than that.

Isn't there mention of yuppies? I might be wrong. When were yuppies anyway?

yeah, there are 5 billion mentions of yuppies.

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)

no that seems right. those three are all kind of the same thing.

maybe everyone on the "what class are you" thread should watch metropolitan

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)

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.

Pretty sure LDD is supposed be, like, '81-82ish.

Also, nabsico is OTM about the hospital device in Barcelona. I never understood why LDD is supposed to be this big disappointment after Barcelona.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I assume that the endorsement of the flat-footed The Last Days of Disco implicitly comments on Whit Stillman fans' disdain for dancing.

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.

I keep getting Whit Stillman confused with Slim Whitman.

http://www.nndb.com/people/970/000022904/slim-whitman-crop.jpg

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.

Ok, but there's a difference between that and "lots of white, affluent shitheads liked disco", right?

he wasn't making a friggin' documentary. he writes what he knows.

"Oh, so you're one of those mass transit snobs."

he writes what he knows.

In this instance, it seems more like he wrote what he wrongly assumed.

This result came in in the wrong order.

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.

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.

Metropolitan is a movie I can watch over and over and over.

last days of disco is one of my favourite movies ever, also the soundtrack is maybe my most played album ever

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~

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.

"Where do they get off?"

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.

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.

he's a priest or found god something, I think someone posted a youtube about it in this thread

lol nm some other thread

The only dud is the actor who played Rick Von Slonaker is terrible -- Rick Von Surfer amirite

Eigeman builds up the legend of Rick Von Slonaker so well that, whenever I rewatch, I always forget he actually appears in the movie.

"It's a composite! Like New York magazine does."

eigeman as nick smith is *dream city*

So YOU'RE one of those public transportation snobs!

Metropoliatee

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.

you're a slob, sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome, and lately you've gotten just weird.

lol snob, obv, chris eigeman is not a slob

i guess you could say it's extremely vulgar. i like it a lot.

i am not tiresome!

i guess you could say it's extremely vulgar. i like it a lot.

Eigeman can do no wrong in this movie, but his delivery of this line just flattens everything else.

Driver. Follow that pedestrian.

He's a considerate and selfish man. The rest is just a superficial game, a facade -- which you've obviously been taken in by.

soto, morbs: new one opens here friday - i'm damn near camping out, catching the first show at five whatever. do i need to temper my expectations? is it a mess? does he still have the 'eye of the tiger'?

I haven't watched it yet -- tomorrow night mehopes

i am not soto or morbs but the new one is very funny and kind of diffuse. gerwig is tremendous. it feels unfinished. not as good as metropolitan, for sure.

upset that i did not see it when i had the shot

(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.

There have been car rental chains for about as long as there have been cars. Hertz goes back to the 20s, at least.

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.

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.