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

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