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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the brown bunny is a masterpiece btw, just in case anyone dismissed it. he fucks it up in the last act or thereabouts (iirc) but until then, its one of the best american indies of the past 20 years. totally underrated.

also, it has a great blowjob scene that manages to be more than just sexploitation 'cant believe theyre filming that' and is actually one of the most emotional scenes in the whole film. how many sex scenes can you say that about?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
^Brown Bunny is possibly the single worst film I've ever seen. meandering, pointless, self-indulgent to an laughable degree garbage. I do grant you the blowjob scene was neither exploitative or gratuitous, or at least any more gratuitous that than the other 90 minutes. ymmv I guess. Buffalo 66 isn't very good either.

however, I too agree w/the majority of those quotes, or at least the ones that aren't just personal attacks w/homophobic, anti-semitic, sexist etc overtones. there's no call to accuse Coppola of sleeping around, just validly criticize her on the basis of her terrible, terrible films. I'm on record as to the unredeemed shittiness of Korine, Wes Anderson is like the filmmaking avatar of Etsy complete with the hip white liberal's sketchy grasp of race and general ignorance of the world, Scorsese hasn't made a truly great film since the Last Temptation. never seen Kusturica's work. one other thing - Gallo's weird, Kerouac/Mailer-ish use of the word "soul" to decide the validity of other white directors, Gallo actually reminds of Kerouac that way, white working-class sons of immigrants who became part of seminal art scenes in NYC but surprised people by retaining conservative political views seemingly totally at odds with those scenes.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
it is seriously fucked up that gallo hasnt really done all that much lately. i think i read that he made a film that ended up getting scrapped. but youd think he would at least have some cult of personality cred to get funded more. if only so he could do more press, and then we could learn more of his excellent and highly accurate views on the rest of his peers. or is that his excellent and highly accurate views on his peers are exactly why no one wants to work with him/bankroll him anymore? of course it could just be that he has no more good ideas. i think thats fine actually, im fine with more directors retiring after their one great film (buffalo 66 in his case). its hard to continually have something to say.

brown bunny is a great, oddly sensitive and sometimes tender as well as occasionally moronic/suitably pathetic essay on a certain kind of male narcissicism/self-loathing and masculinity.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
As cutesy and quirky as they may be, I've enjoyed a lot of the Wes Anderson films I've seen - "Rushmore" and "Moonrise Kingdom'' especially. I think they're funny. I can see why people despise his films but they seem to work for me. I've never seen any of Gallo's films, is "The Brown Bunny" the one to check out?
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i used to hate wes anderson but have come round to his films since i saw darjeeling. hes a bit too obsessed with tone and style and look over all else -his films are basically like characters in little dollshouses - but hey, he is a great stylist. and there is a lot of love thats gone into them, even if they are also a bit smug and ironic at times. actually, im not sure if it is even irony, or if it is just trying to be too clever by half, and being afraid of real feeling. that last one, moonrise kindgom, about the two kids was really sweet though. id like to see him make a movie without big stars in it. it often seems like half the draw of them is just seeing a million big names all together, often against type (eg bruce willis), and acting very quirky.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I feel like a lot of really good directors have such a particular vision/style that they're bound to be deficient in certain areas - i.e. Kubrick, an absolute genius but undeniably something of a "cold" film-maker. What I mean to say is that you could look at Kubrick films (as many critics have e.g. Pauline Kael) and see nothing more than smug, over-intellectual pretentiousness. But if you're into what he does, this 'coldness' becomes a virtue.

Not to say Anderson's on Kubrick's level of course! Just that, while I can see that his films are very smug and self-conscious, I can accept that as part of his particular style because I enjoy other elements of it. In the same way that I might like a person despite their flaws.

Perhaps I'm just stating the obvious here - horses for courses blah blah blah

Re: Scorcese - does anybody think 'Wolf of Wall Street' is a return to form? I saw 'Goodfellas' recently and to me 'Wolf of Wall Street' is a very similar film. Brilliantly directed, full of energy and excitement (despite being 3 hours long) and memorable performances... morally, essentially quite superficial, even hollow. It's that same thing of portraying a disreputable lifestyle so kinetically that you can't help but end up wishing you were the gangster/stockbroker, which is obviously not supposed to be the point. But, then, do people consider 'Goodfellas' one of Scorcece's great films? I suppose the best film I've seen by him is 'Taxi Driver', though 'Raging Bull' is up there.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
i used to hate wes anderson but have come round to his films since i saw darjeeling. hes a bit too obsessed with tone and style and look over all else -his films are basically like characters in little dollshouses - but hey, he is a great stylist.

of course, this could equally be applied to kubrick!
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
in re Wes Anderson - the cloying tweeness, winking deadpan delivery, the stupid props (typewriters, rotary phones, encyclopedia sets, etc), Paul Simon soundtracks, etc are all irritating but forgivable. much less forgivable is the repeated use of non-white people as mute props and/or vehicles for white protagonists to further their emotional journeys, culminating in Darjeeling Ltd where India is a setting of strange/mute brown people in funny costumes for 3 cool white brothers to work out their emotional problems. and I'd actually dispute that he's ironic b/c for irony you need depth, multiple layers of meaning, which his work totally lacks. this is also where any comparison to Kubrick fails. both are stylists, true, but any Kubrick film is operating, successfully or not, on multiple psychological levels. unlike Anderson, there's something to parse underneath the style. I grant Rushmore is much better than the rest, I'd bet at least in part due to having autobiographical roots, which impart some heft to the usual relentless onslaught of whimsy.

in re Gallo - I think you're confusing commentary on narcissism w/actual narcissism, but again ymmv. I stick by what I said. Buffalo 66 is less stupid, if only b/c like Rushmore it has the autobiographical/origin story power going for it, a great cast besides Gallo and it harnesses - which I'm not sure English people can really get - the truly awesome pathos of not just Scott Norwood but the whole early 90s Jim Kelly/K-Gun Bills saga and Buffalo as a symbol. but ultimately Gallo is a much inferior Buscemi with better cheekbones and catty witticisms about other directors aside I doubt he has insights on anything besides how awesome Vincent Gallo is
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
which is obviously not supposed to be the point

actually, i think that IS the point.

i often think directors/stars (eg dicaprio) just say things like 'its not a glorification!' to protect their own backs. but they secretly know that it is just that and know people will get off on that kind of vicarious thrill. basically theyre having their cake and eating it. or it could just be one of those things where its so hard to actually be critical of something when society prizes these values that theres no way that cant seep into the film youre making as a 'critique'. makes me think of sam fuller walking out of full metal jacket as he was offended at the patriotism when kubrick was supposedly trying to make it an anti war movie.

like, when i last saw apocalypse now, i never saw it as an anti war movie. i saw it as a romantic movie about soldiers.

re: wolf of wall street (which i still have to see), ive yet to meet a woman who liked it.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
in re Wes Anderson - the cloying tweeness, winking deadpan delivery, the stupid props (typewriters, rotary phones, encyclopedia sets, etc), Paul Simon soundtracks, etc are all irritating but forgivable. much less forgivable is the repeated use of non-white people as mute props and/or vehicles for white protagonists to further their emotional journeys, culminating in Darjeeling Ltd where India is a setting of strange/mute brown people in funny costumes for 3 cool white brothers to work out their emotional problems. and I'd actually dispute that he's ironic b/c for irony you need depth, multiple layers of meaning, which his work totally lacks. this is also where any comparison to Kubrick fails. both are stylists, true, but any Kubrick film is operating, successfully or not, on multiple psychological levels. unlike Anderson, there's something to parse underneath the style. I grant Rushmore is much better than the rest, I'd bet at least in part due to having autobiographical roots, which impart some heft to the usual relentless onslaught of whimsy.

This is interesting, I'd like to engage with this more when I'm not at work. I think I lack the tools, though, since I've not seen many Anderson films and I can't recall any of those that I have seen using non-white people in the way you've described. As for "irony" I was really more referring to the "winking deadpan" delivery than any deeper sense of irony - can irony not be superficial? Perhaps what Anderson's films are providing is a simulacrum of real irony, just as they provide a simulacrum of real humanity? Like I said, I'd have to see more Anderson films to usefully comment. Kubrick's films are suffused with irony - "Barry Lyndon", one of my favourite films ever, practically rests on what is left unsaid/unexpressed. I see it as an expression of deep emotion encased tragically in strict formal structures (societal strictures, echoed by the aesthetic of the film).

Interestingly it occurs to me that Kubrick rarely used 'non-white' people in his films. In my recollection, the exception is Scatman thingymabob in 'The Shining' and I presume there must be black soldiers in 'Full Metal Jacket'.

re: Wolf of Wall Street: There are plenty of indications in the film that we are supposed to view the protagonist and his mates as stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist, greedy, animalistic twats. Perhaps its a sort of triumph for the film to leave people like me so excited and tittillated by the luxurious lifestyle these twats leave, because it replicates the lure of capitalism that Belfort entices the gullible audience to his public speaking events with, even though they have full knowledge of his criminal conviction. There are numerous problems with the film, I think two are 1. not much exploration of the negative impact the greed of the 'wolves' has on ordinary (even ordinary RICH) people, thus encouraging us to see belfort and co's behaviour as deplorable but semi-harmless (as if they're going wild in a cage for our amusement) 2. jonah hill. He is funny in the film but I think this is an interesting casting choice because hill is part of a group of comedians who have taught audiences to root for losers/bastards.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
^Kumar Pallana as Mr. Littlejeans in Rushmore and, especially, as Pagoda in The RT. Seu Jorge in Life Aquatic, and also the nameless Asian pirates. Virtually every Indian person in Darjeeling. there's more but those are the most egregious examples. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on things like Max's girlfriend in Rushmore or Danny Glover in RT, which are at least somewhat articulated characters. I'm hardly the 1st person to make this observation and tbf, Anderson's hardly the 1st director to do this - not that that makes it OK - but he does it so blatantly and flippantly that it becomes even more irritating than your standard Hollywood recourse to the "Magical Negro" plot device. and just in general his films are set in a world of quirky, affected white people and their problems, around which exotic others orbit on the fringes to provide color (literally) and plot points. tbc this isn't a rigid demand for all characters of all colors to be equally developed in all films, more just a general rule for thinking about art (which is also how I use the Bechtel Test). and Anderson's not the worst person in the world or something, but inescapably the way he deals w/race really diminishes his work.

what I mean about irony is that for irony there has to be an original meaning that you're subverting. the deadpan in his films doesn't play against anything. it's just affectation. that isn't of itself a bad thing, it's just not irony.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also, quickly on Kubrick - he mostly sticks to the characters in the source material. hence Scatman Crothers in The Shining is literally a Magic Negro - King is guilty of repeatedly using the trope in his work - but otoh you have the black gladiator in Spartacus who is arguably the most heroic character in the film. there are black marines in FMJ but I don't remember how well they correspond to the, iirc, single relatively major black character in the book. of course there is no Vietnamese POV represented but that's as the book - it's not a story about Vietnam but about Americans in relation to the war. also absence of people of color, which sometimes makes sense due to setting (i.e. Barry Lydon) and sometimes doesn't (I bet if he was making 2001 today the astronauts would be more diverse), is different from using them as props. not that Kubrick is perfect but it's not a good comparison, I think.

and let me once again make a plug for The Short-Timers (FMJ's source material) as much superior even to the film. there is also a possibly even better sequel, The Phantom Blooper in which Pvt Joker, among other things, is captured and then joins the Viet Cong. it's much rawer even than the 1st book, the most pain and bile filled account I've ever seen of the cancerous growth the war was on both the US and Vietnam. and unlike Short-Timers it's not just about Americans but the Vietnamese, thru Joker's deeply sympathetic POV. anyway, highly recommended.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"re: wolf of wall street (which i still have to see), ive yet to meet a woman who liked it."
One of my friends loved it so much she went to see it twice.
As for me. It was alright, it passed the time and was never boring but it didn't really get involving at any point. I think that the story whizzed past too fast to really give you any sense of rise and then decline and fall. It wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be either although I did laugh a lot at the scene when they take loads of qualudes.
Agree the whole thing was very similar to Goodfellas but either it wasn't as good or I just don't enjoy those things as much any more. In fact I saw Goodfellas again at Christmas and it is simply more involving. You feel for him as he comes down cos you're invested in him coming up.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't really feel any connection with Henry Hill in ''Goodfellas'', other than that created by Scorcese's technical wizardry. As far as I can recall, he never really shows himself to be anything other than greedy/ambitious.

I think its the FILM ITSELF I love with ''Goodfellas'', rather than any of the characters. Actually, that's not a bad thing given that the characters are all psychopathic murderers.
 

Leo

Well-known member
the sad news about bob hoskins (rip) brought to mind a film from maybe the early/mid-2000s about a guy who's head of a UK mob crew, he's sort of an aging gangster trying to manage in the new world of crime organizations. while not an outright comedy, the film is sort of a gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight tale.

can't think of the name of the film, thought i remembered hoskins in the lead role as mob boss but don't see anything like that on his IMDb.

anyone have a guess about what film i thinking of?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
the sad news about bob hoskins (rip) brought to mind a film from maybe the early/mid-2000s about a guy who's head of a UK mob crew, he's sort of an aging gangster trying to manage in the new world of crime organizations. while not an outright comedy, the film is sort of a gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight tale.
can't think of the name of the film, thought i remembered hoskins in the lead role as mob boss but don't see anything like that on his IMDb.
anyone have a guess about what film i thinking of?
The description sounds a bit like The Long Good Friday but that's not 2000s, it's 80s.
 

version

Well-known member
Gangster No.1? Although that's Paul Bettany, Malcolm McDowell and David Thewlis with no Hoskins.
 
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