SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (dir. Boots Riley, 2018)

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (153 of them)

Man, this was an ugly mess. Interesting, audacious, but ugly. Repo Man comparisons OFFTM. The satire was second-rate Harrison Bergeron in subtlety, and the interesting unionizing stuff got trounced under dirty heehaw bits.

rb (soda), Saturday, 4 August 2018 00:35 (five years ago) link

https://t.co/QaWznaVsuo

— Nicky Smith (@nickyotissmith) August 5, 2018

flappy bird, Sunday, 5 August 2018 22:32 (five years ago) link

they're... not really the same

Nhex, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 20:29 (five years ago) link

they're both set in Oakland, case closed

16, 35, DCP, Go! (sic), Tuesday, 7 August 2018 21:08 (five years ago) link

i didn't get the sense the movie was interested in world building as much as it was trying to show what present day oakland looks like.

flappy bird, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link

-Philip Nunez
Posted: July 17, 2018 at 12:19:47 AM

flappy bird, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link

Blindspotting is the fleshed out sociopolitical realism that STBY veers into in between the heavily stylized genre stuff

flappy bird, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 21:48 (five years ago) link

the humour and satire were really bad, but visually it seemed p inspired

flopson, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 22:10 (five years ago) link

in terms of the political critique it felt like it could have come out before 2008

flopson, Tuesday, 7 August 2018 22:12 (five years ago) link

Boots did say he wrote it during the 1st Obama Admin

Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Tuesday, 7 August 2018 23:57 (five years ago) link

likewise with Blindspotting, which was written by the two stars over a decade ago

flappy bird, Wednesday, 8 August 2018 00:17 (five years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Basically the same reaction as the Joaquin Phoenix film earlier this year: "What the hell did I just see?" Intriguing, to say the least (and pretty amazing for a director's debut, whatever you think about it). I think it might be a Trump film, but I don't know--want to go back and read some reviews now.

clemenza, Monday, 27 August 2018 13:41 (five years ago) link

Just noticed the two comments above. I guess any connection to Trump--I had Armie Hammer in mind, obviously, but just kind of reflexively, without a great deal of thought--would be purely accidental.

clemenza, Monday, 27 August 2018 13:45 (five years ago) link

Trump is a byproduct of the same economic and social conditions that drove this film. I see above that Riley wrote the screenplay during the Obama administration, but when did this movie go into production?

Accattony! Accattoni! Accattoné! (j.lu), Monday, 27 August 2018 13:49 (five years ago) link

Principal photography began on June 22, 2017, in Oakland, California and concluded on July 30, 2017.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 13:52 (five years ago) link

Met a (white, decently well-off) lady this weekend who hated this movie for how "dystopian" and "negative" it was, lol

wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Monday, 27 August 2018 14:45 (five years ago) link

since Riley is saying in interviews "Trump has already pushed Dems to the right" I don't think he tailored this to who's in office.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 August 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link

But the equisapiens were just about to kill the bad guy--it's very uplifting. (xpost)

clemenza, Monday, 27 August 2018 14:50 (five years ago) link

Maybe she thought Armie was the good guy.

wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Monday, 27 August 2018 14:51 (five years ago) link

Armie is very definitely an on-the-nose portrayal of a certain type of startup dude who goes to Burning Man every year

Uhura Mazda (lukas), Monday, 27 August 2018 17:03 (five years ago) link

more like up the nose right

flappy bird, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 01:58 (five years ago) link

finally caught this last night, theater was pretty full!

lots of good one-liners throughout... "that's CLEARLY an OLIVE door"

the strongest callback/influence I felt in it was the movie How To Get Ahead In Advertising, same uncomfortable mix of dead end capitalism and horror/surrealism

sleeve, Sunday, 9 September 2018 17:48 (five years ago) link

"maybe the artist is being literal"

difficult listening hour, Monday, 10 September 2018 06:39 (five years ago) link

one month passes...

Tonally it's a mess isn't even criticism anymore -- it's description. The social protest scenes were written, not felt too. Armie Hammer was simultaneously perfectly cast and too on-the-nose, although his nose was perfect for the coke sequence (directed too broadly too; many of the performances could've benefited from hitting the obvious notes). Didn't care for the early office politics scenes: too familiar, especially the De Bauchery joke, har har.

But the connections between telemarketing and an plutocratic global Octopus made sense, and the fantasy stuff >>> realist scenes.

You like queer? I like queer. Still like queer. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 02:07 (five years ago) link

should have put "tonally it's a mess" in scare quotes

You like queer? I like queer. Still like queer. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 02:07 (five years ago) link

yknow I liked STBY but I'm mostly excited about the fact that it seems to have done well enough that Boots and maybe some other filmmakers of the far left will actually manage to get shit funded a little more often. ultimately I found the politics more resonant than the filmmaking, though it's not totally graceless or anything

wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 13:59 (five years ago) link

i loved this

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 November 2018 00:30 (five years ago) link

this was really good.

the equisapiens freaked me out

( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 8 November 2018 18:35 (five years ago) link

it needed more wildcard moves like the equisapiens, instead of the umpteenth parody of performance art.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 8 November 2018 18:37 (five years ago) link

the performance art is significant for the contrast with direct action also carried out by Detroit, and each one's potential for changing minds (in various directions)

Sing The Mighty Beat (sic), Thursday, 8 November 2018 18:58 (five years ago) link

the union/labor stuff was the most banal and should've been excised or tackled differently

flappy bird, Thursday, 8 November 2018 19:15 (five years ago) link

How much time/money was spent on the Michel Dongry short? That was great.

dinnerboat, Thursday, 8 November 2018 19:21 (five years ago) link

A beautiful mess of a movie, probably my favorite thing I've seen this year. I even kind of like how unfocused and underdeveloped some of the ideas are

Vinnie, Friday, 9 November 2018 01:40 (five years ago) link

Anybody else catch “Both Sides Convenience Store”?

― devops mom (silby), Tuesday, July 17, 2018 9:17 AM (three months ago

That is actually the name of the store. It is called that because it has entrances on two streets. I bought cigarettes there on the reg at my old job

sarahell, Friday, 9 November 2018 03:03 (five years ago) link

oh that's awesome, I assumed it was a Repo Man style world-building detail

sleeve, Friday, 9 November 2018 03:08 (five years ago) link

Lol no. Inconveniently, it doesn't sell alcohol, but I think it's partly due to licensing issues and also the people who run it are Muslim

sarahell, Friday, 9 November 2018 03:10 (five years ago) link

A while back (like 10-15 yrs ago iirc) there was a series of incidents where Black Muslims would go into Arab Muslim-owned convenience stores that sold liquor and like threaten them and criticize them for selling alcohol and poisoning the local black community

sarahell, Friday, 9 November 2018 03:12 (five years ago) link

three weeks pass...

How much time/money was spent on the Michel Dongry short? That was great.

It was, but it completely horrified me! That part where the view pans up and you get a Simpsons-esque view of between the floors, and it just looks like flesh and bone...ugh. Such a little detail but important. The whole film seems to be about flesh in one way or another, pretty obvious given it’s about capitalism. The most popular tv show is about people being subjected to horrific physical abuse, the Worryfree system is buying whole families of people to farm out for labour, Detroit’s piece involves her exposing her body while the audience injure and stain it. The equisapiens are designed to improve on the inherent weakness of human flesh etc.

I’m going to feel really silly if I get this on Blu-ray and find out that’s not what it was meant to be at all!

Other things I liked:
- obvious but still funny shot of Lift with both republicans and democrats, just to rub it in
- the worryfree ads increase in scale and frequency to where they’re telling people to sign their whole families up. Maybe children are better at putting together high end electronics? It reminded me of that black mirror episode about the bike farms where families are separated.
- lift says worryfree isn’t slavery because there’s no coercion or violence but cassius’s uncle is considering signing up in desperation he’s going to be made homeless and his diabetes is playing up.
- the cribs parody with the dead-eyed workers was great and reminded me of those creepy fake amazon worker twitter accounts
- whole film looked amazing

Anyway this comes out this week in the UK I think?

gyac, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 10:00 (five years ago) link

Looks like it. Kermode loved it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQkloGDZjSY

flappy bird, Friday, 7 December 2018 22:26 (five years ago) link

Liked this a lot.

Kermode's review is so plodding, drawn-out, obvious and lifeless. Was he always like this?

Luna Schlosser, Sunday, 9 December 2018 12:45 (five years ago) link

one month passes...

Blindspotting is the fleshed out sociopolitical realism that STBY veers into in between the heavily stylized genre stuff

Really? Including the magical-realist ending of rapping at a killer cop while you're holding a gun on him?

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 9 January 2019 15:21 (five years ago) link

Well not that part lol.

One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 9 January 2019 15:49 (five years ago) link

I was too charitable to Blindspotting, which no one will remember... it is milquetoast in comparison to STBY, which remains a mess, but a memorable one, and it hits highs that Blindspotting never does.

flappy bird, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 16:53 (five years ago) link

four years pass...

"I'm a Virgo" out on Prime today - looks weird!

na (NA), Friday, 23 June 2023 17:21 (nine months ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyKhFwEo7c

na (NA), Friday, 23 June 2023 17:21 (nine months ago) link

Watched the first episode. The attention to detail in the little burger boxes, Cootie's stitched-together clothes, the innocent, Ted-Theodore-Logan way he talks, it's all great. The only thing giving me pause is that I'm sure something terrible is going to happen and I don't want it to.

trishyb, Sunday, 25 June 2023 15:06 (nine months ago) link

Weird, I was just watching Carmen Ejogo in True Detective (s3) so looked her up seeing her in this trailer - had no idea she was British and previously married to Tricky!

kinder, Sunday, 25 June 2023 15:23 (nine months ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.