Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - a Martin McDonagh film with McDormand, Harrelson, Rockwell, and SPOILERS

Gene Demby has been going off on this movie on Twitter and it makes me not want to see it.

a representative thread:

We literally see this cop beat someone to within an inch of his life; the fact that the he is revealed as “sad” is “moral complexity”? This is part of a broader problem: the way our culture values the interiorality of racists more than the actual destruction they’ve wrought. https://t.co/pD8XWIEpNG

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) November 25, 2017

also he calls it the new Crash, so...*shots*

good thread, thanks. it's very reassuring to learn today that this isn't just me feeling this - it seemed like the response was overwhelmingly positive. i do note that on rottentomatoes at least the "top critics" thumbnails seem to pretty much be white people which may also play a role here?

The Carter Burwell soundtrack completely ruins this movie for me.

Like the dialogue and plot plays like a good grindhousey revenge romp for the #woke era, full of snappy sitcommy dialogue – almost like a more grounded Django Unchained or a less ambitious Hell or High Water.

But Burwell is playing it for all this drippy sentimental pathos and people are reading it like some serious movie

Yeah, this movie's backlash is in full force. And I for one welcome it. Maitland McDonough is not a good filmmaker.

As someone else said, this is him doing Mystic River. I think that's harsh, but not terribly far off the mark.

To its credit, McDormand inhabits a really compelling caricature -- in this climate of non-stop blah movie villains, it would be easy to ignore the ineptness/laziness of the rest of the movie.

the trailer made this look like total dogshit.

She would have made for a better adversary in Thor: ragnarok.
Would have liked to have seen three billboards on bifrost outside Asgard

Pinkerton's skeptical take: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri-review/

... like his previous films could most succinctly be described with the vague appellation “black comedy,” being as it is a movie set in the aftermath of an act of ghastly violence that goes for big yuks by way of rapid-fire profane zingers and broad comedy. (Preparing to play a gormless hick deputy, Sam Rockwell seems to have devoured all 23 seasons of Hee Haw.)

Despite my earlier post, I liked this movie. It was engrossing the whole way. But there were definitely some hokey and/or bothersome aspects, some less benign than others.

McDormand's as good as promised but this left a really sour taste in my mouth. Hated Sam Rockwell, hated his character, hated (vague spoiler) how lazily and quickly the script "redeemed" him. Yuck.

Also the comic relief was really broad and tone def. Every time the 19-year-old girlfriend came on screen and said something silly during a tense scene I cringed

Yeah she seemed like she came from a completely different movie.

This is the time of year when Oscar Talk is most irresponsible. Like, why does Sam Rockwell "have Oscar buzz" when no one until a few days ago has seen the fucking thing? I know it happens every year, but I'm older.

No one? It was at Venice and TIFF and NYFF, no?

Tho, yes, Sam Rockwell doesn't do anything here that he didn't already do before and better when the AMPAS repeatedly didn't know him from Adam.

How would you fix this movie, casting, character, plot-wise?

I would get rid of all the cheap theatrics designed to get a rise out of the audience. She drills a hole in the dentist's thumb, really? Excellent cast and performances, though, and I was relieved by the ending.

McDormand’s oh-so-clever retort to the clergyman also reminded me of why I hated “Good Will Hunting" so much.

I would have the film either deal with the racial politics it was explicitly bringing up, or not be made. Wheeling the black supporting characters in and out of the movie at its convenience, while every white schmuck gets a whole backstory and home life, was sort of the worst possible way of doing this even before you add things like the coworker getting arrested with her entire ordeal kept offscreen. Such bad choices.

do you think the filmmaker could have done it in a non-hamfisted way?

Being hamfisted is basically what keeps the movie from being more ethically objectionable, I guess.

"how would you fix this film?"
"i would have it not be bad"
"do you think the filmmaker is capable of making a film that is not bad?"

Exactly. I would not fix this film.

I'll just not particularly like it, thanks.

The way it plays chicken shit with vigilantism at the end is grotesque.

meh

You're right about the score. Also wtf at the on-the-nose-ness of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," ho ho.

How would you fix this movie, casting, character, plot-wise?

― Philip Nunez,

Throw a Molotov cocktail at it.

I would rescore the whole movie with the Bug vs. Earth album

Haven't seen yet

Don't think anyone should watch mcdonagh to see wider societal complexities dealt with to their satisfaction

I definitely prefer McDonagh writing about Ireland than the U.S.

― ... (Eazy), Tuesday, November 28, 2017 12:50 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Now I'm only asking but how well do u know ireland

I've been wondering why a movie that has been getting so many raves sounds as gross as this one does, but then I finally realized that it was by the asshole who made In Bruges.

this movie is a heap of condescending trash

the negative reaction this movie is inspiring is making me want to see it

I guess there are worse ways to slum

this movie is so bad in every way it's utterly mystifying to me that anybody thinks it's good. it's not just that it's morally shitty or w/e. it is bad in every way a movie can be bad, except that it's got a bunch of good actors doing their best to make a terrible movie good

yeah I will admit that without this particular cast I would not be saying that

This movie does subvert the CSI paradigm of modern forensic science and/or a fortuitously overheard confession bringing a criminal to justice (see the term "competence porn"). Plus I liked seeing McDormand's character stand up to authority figures who evidently expect women and minorities to gloss over crimes against them in the name of the social order. But that doesn't mean that this movie is any good.

This guy has always sucked. His Irish plays were fucking terrible.

my lowlight of choice was the two black supporting characters hooking up on sight for no real reason

the only thing worse than McDonagh is his brother

a terrible bunch of lads

There was a good story in here somewhere I think but this was really lazily written and undeserving of the critical plaudits. What with this and Seven Psychopaths (which was worse, to be fair), seems like In Bruges may have been a fluke.

the only thing worse than McDonagh is his brother

a terrible bunch of lads

*this new film

quite funny how ben wheatley's tossed-off curio 'free fire' was basically a better mcdonagh movie

how is it meant to be incongruous that Hawkes is dating a decades-younger local who sees her world circumscribed by the borders of the town, but perfectly expected that Harrelson is married to a decades-younger Australian who doesn't even bring a country background / affinity for horses to her unexplained relocation

i heard a review that suggested that it was an intentional, fascinating choice that harrelson's wife (played by abbie cornish) would be a foreigner, that it helps suggest that he is somehow more worldly than you would expect, even as we see that they nonetheless choose to live in this town and that therefore this tells us things about these characters in a subtle way. i thought it was more like mcdonagh didn't understand that in america you really don't find a lot of sophisticated worldly australians living in middle-of-nowhere towns married to the local sheriff, and no one told him this would just be confusing.

also it is odd that harrelson's sophisticated worldliness has apparently not inspired him to purge his police department of violent brutalizing racist man-children. gentle mentoring, that's the thing they need. maybe the idea is that the australian wife is a virulent hatemonger who has disabused him of all his better instincts, off camera.

also how the fuck are the two comics that Rockwell likes a modern colour superhero series on Boom! by Mark Waid, and a wilfully-obscure Bob Burden B&W one-shot from the mid-80s on Renegade?

also it is odd that harrelson's sophisticated worldliness has apparently not inspired him to purge his police department of violent brutalizing racist man-children

no no, he specifically explains this in the film. this would leave only three police in the entire world, and those three would "hate the fags."

He will p much get to the stage where the casting is such lazy on the noseness that you will merely be introduced to the actors in the correct order and the plot can be inferred.

hi!

Um, I liked this film...

Ur name

what an incoherent mess

I cannot even stay awake reading the title of this movie

I literally don't know where the billboards are, because I fall asleep before I get to their location every time.

theres swear words on em

I like some of the satirical stuff in it (how everyone is out for revenge, mainly) and the honesty about every white person in middle american towns being racist. but oof at everything else.

i finally watched this last night.

my expert analysis is that i couldn't stop thinking about how none of the characters seemed like they were from missouri. which wouldn't necessarily be a problem except that it seemed like the supposed authenticity of the performances is part of the film's appeal. rockwell's character in particular was really dumb in every sense of the word (although his mother was maybe the only one who pulled off the missouri-vibe). they did a good job with the goddamn cussing, though.

I wonder if McDonagh intended it as a spot of deliciously witty wordplay - "ebbing misery."

Original title included "Idaho."

Ooo

I'll reserve broader thoughts for now, but note that I suspended my usual interest in realism and geographical specificity for a film about a clearly fictional place in the (imagined) sociological middle of the country. I don't think any 'authenticity' was intended even in that sense with characters who at least begin as (intentional?) caricatures.

No if you take it as a piece of McDonagh ouevre it's merely in keeping with his cultural tourism ignorance

is the dialogue good? is McDormand good? that's all i care about tbh

No. She's fine. What else?

i'll pass then. what's up with the dialogue?

Dialogue is very good McDormand is excellent when let and tbh the cast in general make a pleasing job of what they're given

I wonder if McDonagh intended it as a spot of deliciously witty wordplay - "ebbing misery."

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, March 1, 2018 10:37 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

livin it up at the joketell missouri

walked the fuck out, fight me

sending Sam Rockwell to kick your ass brb

Which part did you walk out on?

^ u&k

Reaction to this movie is insane IDKWTF everyone is so worked up about

Disbelief at critical adulation of a hamfisted film that was about as nuanced as batman.

from the director of Seven Psychopaths, no less

without wanting to spoil the movie for me in case i want to see it, i have this feeling that lots of critics, professional and otherwise, are carrying on under the mistaken impression that McDonagh's work has at any point been a species of social realism

I did not like the graphic design of the billboards.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-feel-good-fallacies-of-three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri

It's almost like this isn't a movie substantially about the ethics of vigilantism (in the context of police abuse) directed by a left-leaning anarchist (who grew up amidst IRA bombings) and starring at least one other (the estranged son of a contract killer).

Disbelief at critical adulation of a hamfisted film that was about as nuanced as batman.

― lana del boy (ledge), Friday, March 2, 2018 9:11 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't entirely disagree with the characterization but not sure it's inapplicable to the criticisms, nor am I familiar with adulation from anyone particularly respectable.

XP those are not inputs that make it any less pigshit stupid

I really think it's devolved into an argument about whether 3 Billboards is politically/ethically good or politically/ethically bad (or in internet terms EVERYTHING or TRASH) -- all of which has basically supplanted and overshadowed any potential conversation about whether it's actually a good movie or not. And discussing politically/ethically good vs politically/ethically bad — something that had heretofore been the concern of academia — has increasingly become the metric in which people decide whether a movie is good or bad in general.

Its two completely different and two completely valid modes of critical thought competing for their place in the conversation, which means like six camps of thought competing in a space where there's only two results

good filmmaking/good ethics = good movie
good filmmaking/bad ethics = good movie
good filmmaking/bad ethics = bad movie
bad filmmaking/good ethics = good movie
bad filmmaking/good ethics = bad move
bad filmmaking/bad ethics = bad movie

I don't think anyone is arguing for the other two

I might poll those

i guess for me it's not super important whether it's a good movie or whether it was created using good filmmaking. i resent the decision by the filmmaker to make the film the way he made it; it seems like an asshole decision on his part.

Vote Now, Doctor Casino!

POLL 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' Is...

I'm firmly in the camp of you can make a good racist vigilante movie

McDonagh hasn't, not because of ethics but because it's a cartoon that thinks it's ~~~~~~deep~~~~~

It wouldn't hold an episode of murder she wrote together

I'm firmly in the camp of you can make a good racist vigilante movie

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/0f/74/a60f74a89ee115e505e77ea4b50d8c6e.jpg

I meant black panther tbh

i kid I kid

the poll doesn't include my take as an option though :-/

I wonder if McDonagh intended it as a spot of deliciously witty wordplay - "ebbing misery."

― Doctor Casino

it's very clever if one has no idea how "missouri" is pronounced - so probably!

Dialogue is very good McDormand is excellent when let and tbh the cast in general make a pleasing job of what they're given

But it all felt so empty and pointless once the credits rolled. I think this reflects not just the total lack of grounding in recognizable human experience (remarked on above), but also the barrage of ultimately meaningless provocation. The similarly transgressive In Bruge works, I think, because it seems so perfectly content with ghoulishly clever black comedy as an end in itself. Here, McDonagh crudely flirty with hot-button social issues about which he has nothing to say, and he ramps up the horror for both cheap emotional effect and cheap shock value.

Worse, he doesn't even have the guts to follow his "provocative" ideas to their obvious conclusions. The violently racist (yet soulful!) moron flips out and assaults a white guy. Mildred's terrorism is spared a body count. It's like a defanged, shaggily aimless version of Dogville, the empty spaces stuffed with details cribbed from Fargo.

Strongly disagree with the conclusion that Rockwell is in any way compelling. He plays an imbecile sadist in an obvious way.

good analysis tbh

The best thing i can say about this slop is that it used a good Townes van Zandt song i don't think i knew.

MM constantly in "Aren't I so clever?" mode; well, no.

Sandy Martin, as Dixon's mother, gives the best performance in this. It's a shame she wasn't given more to do.

did not like this, but the "holding ladders" line destroyed me