2020 Vision ... at the Movies!

24

Comments

  • Thanks for the detail. My favourite horror is one that is built on atmosphere. So standouts for me are The Babadook and the only The Wicker Man. I have deliberately avoided learning about the film for the opportunity to watch Midsommar as unspoiled as possible. So I have avoided your spoilers - which was tricky as when I quoted your post it revealed all you had written so I averted my gaze very quickly!

    Oh, if you like atmosphere, you'll likely LOVE Midsommar. Or at least be very interested in what it tries to do, successfully or otherwise.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    Richard Jewell

    (No spolier alerts, since this story is based closely on well-known events.)

    About the security guard who was falsely accused of the 1996 Olympic bombings.

    First off, it's Clint-directed, and while I was, as usual, impressed with the man's choice of subject matter, this, also as usual, isn't particularly innovative or memorable in regards to craftsmanship. (Can anyone name ONE scene in a film directed by but not starring Eastwood that has gone down as cinematic iconography?)

    That said, the subject matter is interesting, as is the casting. Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser, who also played the guy who arranged the knee-capping of Nancy Kerrigan in I, Tonya. Looks like the actor might be in danger of typecasting, as loser law-enforcement wannabes.

    With the difference being, that this time around the loser fake-cop is, of course, a genuine hero, despite how he's portrayed by the media and police. On that score, I guess it's easy to read this as a dig at establishment liberalism, though that's possibly going by my real-world knowledge of the director's politics. And, to be fair, it doesn't hold back on highlighting the easily mocked aspects of Jewell's character. (In case it's not clear from what I've written, he was one of those guys with no official job in law enforcement, but likes to give off the impression that he's a real cop). The script basically says "Yeah, this is the kind of guy you sophisticates all love to make fun of, but, like it or not, he saved lives, and got thoroughly shafted as his reward."

    Sam Rockwell is pretty good as Jewell's friend and reluctant attorney, as frustrated with his client as he is with the conniving railroaders in the media and the Bureau. And Cathy Bates does a credible turn as his mother, though I do wonder if the scrtipt was possibly exaggerating the whole "momma's boy" thing, to conform to the stereotype. (Jewell actually seems a lot like the guy in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop", who is supposed to be a stock-comedy figure.)

    One more thing on the politics: while the film lambastes the FBI for going after Jewell partly on the basis of his supposed right-wing views, it neglects to mention that the man eventually convicted of the bombing, Eric Rudolph, was also a right-winger, who acted out of ideological motivations. Make of that what you will.
  • ^ Just to clarify, Eric Rudolph's brand of conservativism was off-the-charts white-supremacy and anti-abortion terrorism. There's nothing I've seen to indicate that Jewell held to those particular views, but it remains the case that the FBI were, perhaps inadvertantly, correct about the general ideological ballpark of the perpetrator.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I am looking forward to seeing TWBB because, Orfeo, you are still way ahead of me.

    But a 5 min SNL skit with Adam Driver riffing on the film made me laugh:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7HD2xG92-0

    Not available in my country...

    I don't know why they bother doing that, but SNL is one of the providers that tends to do that.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    I've just been reading through the end of last year's film thread, and found this comment by lilbuddha, written as a reply to one of mine.

    Star Wars was visually impressive for its time and pulled from from literary, cinematic and cultural sources. It involved world building and became a fantasy that one could imagine oneself being a part of.
    Superman was a mediocre film about a comic book character that added nothing to either the character or the culture. Visually, it was meh. It was a predictable love story, adequately written, set on a comic book backdrop.


    Yeah, that's my basic view of the 1978 Superman film as well.

    And when you think about it, it's probably destined to be forgotten: a whole bunch of other comic books, radio serials, movies, and TV shows had already established the basic template, so it wasn't introducing anything new into the mix. And it came too early to coast on the Cinematic Universe thingamabob we've got going now.

    So yeah, basically an unremarkable film, followed by a bunch of REALLY unremarkable sequels. (Granted, I've never seen anything after Two, but let's face it, casting a post-explosion Richard Pryor for a film doesn't exactly scream top-tier.)

  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    I was reading about the fight choreography in the Star Wars prequels, arranged by the same William Hobbes who arranged the fights in Rob Roy, also starring Liam Neeson - who therefore could do rather more than the four basic moves that light saber battles tended to be, and kept throwing in real sword moves.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    Eigon wrote: »
    I was reading about the fight choreography in the Star Wars prequels, arranged by the same William Hobbes who arranged the fights in Rob Roy, also starring Liam Neeson - who therefore could do rather more than the four basic moves that light saber battles tended to be, and kept throwing in real sword moves.
    The key phrase there is 'throwing in'. Star Wars lightsaber battles, especially as the franchise moves through time, are horribly unrealistic. Other than the spin move that Obi Wan does, and the pacing of the fight, his battle Darth Vader is not as unrealistic as most of the cool moves in later fights.
    One can hand wave in "Jedi powers" or "the Force", but real fighting with bladed weapons is not as pretty as film fighting. And adding in that the lightsaber "blade" is equally dangerous at every point of contact, I'm guessing the technique would be even less acrobatic.
    But don't take my word for it.
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    Finally seen Little Women and loved it. I grew up on that book, I can still quote chunks of it. And those are the characters I know and love.

    Granted, my familiarity with the material meant that the parallel storytelling was not a problem. I can see how it would be confusing (memories of trying to watch La Vie En Rose with subtitles, non-linear storytelling and an unfamiliarity with Piaf’s life - we struggled,)

    This felt more like a conversation with long-standing friends, full of ‘Remember that time when...?’

    Yes, Bhaer was too young, too handsome and looked more Italian than German to me. But his character was right.

    I understand the reason for the ending and felt it honoured Alcott’s original intentions without slapping down the romantics.

    Nobody was one-dimensional (even Mr March, who can be a bit of a cipher). Beth wasn’t too saintly, Aunt March wasn’t too bitchy... they were real people.

    The thing that will remain with me is the sense of happy chaos and everyone talking over each other. So many versions of this story have prim and proper characters all standing around waiting for each other to speak.

    Oh, and I loved the Pickwick Club!
  • Joker

    A comic book film for people who don't like comic books. Arguably, the film is even better for those who neither know nor care about the comics. I say arguably because the non-canonical and nuanced treatment of canonical characters makes this interesting for open minded comic fans.
    Should be no spoiler is saying this is about the downward spiral of a troubled person. It is a well written and well crafted film. Although the portrayal of mental is certainly not the worst and they do appear to make an effort, it is still problematic. However, I'm not certain one could thread that needle without nullifying the nature of the character.
    The film is heavily inspired by 1970's film and whilst it rises above the cinematic style problems of that era, is cannot help but reflect them a bit. If that bothers you, it might affect your enjoyment of it.
    The absolute best part of the film is the nuanced way characters are written. Other than the titular character who is by necessity larger than life, the rest of the people are fairly realistically written.
    Speaking of bothering, it is violent. Some of the violence is muted, as is typical of the genre, but some is graphically depicted. Whilst I think it adds to the film, not everyone will want to see that level of violence.
    And because the film deals with mental illness, some might wish to avoid it for that reason as well.
    All in all, a more worthy contender than many for the Best Picture nod.
    One of the more impressive feats is the way the film blends delusion with reality to the point where there is no way to be certain what is real and what is imagined.
    Especially the way his "girlfriend" is depicted. The utterly normal, other than their meeting and a particular kiss, their relationship is utterly mundane and seems real.
    The way Thomas Wayne, Batman's father, is portrayed is as far as I know, quite unique. Whilst he seems a bit of a dick, that is understandable in the circumstances. A much more realistic portrayal than the archetypal "good man" as is canon.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Joker
    The film is heavily inspired by 1970's film and whilst it rises above the cinematic style problems of that era, is cannot help but reflect them a bit. If that bothers you, it might affect your enjoyment of it.
    Well, The King Of Comedy, which Joker quotes extensively, is from the early '80s, not the 70s, and reflects more of an 80s sensibility than a 70s one. But yeah, mostly a late 70s vibe.

    I am curious, though: what do you think are the "cinematic style problems of that era"?



  • stetson wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Joker
    The film is heavily inspired by 1970's film and whilst it rises above the cinematic style problems of that era, is cannot help but reflect them a bit. If that bothers you, it might affect your enjoyment of it.
    Well, The King Of Comedy, which Joker quotes extensively, is from the early '80s, not the 70s, and reflects more of an 80s sensibility than a 70s one. But yeah, mostly a late 70s vibe.

    I am curious, though: what do you think are the "cinematic style problems of that era"?


    Flat, dead lighting and flat, dead acting. Life as seen through a light fog and low doses of Valium.
    ISTM this was a reaction to the saturation of the previous era(s).


  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Joker
    The film is heavily inspired by 1970's film and whilst it rises above the cinematic style problems of that era, is cannot help but reflect them a bit. If that bothers you, it might affect your enjoyment of it.
    Well, The King Of Comedy, which Joker quotes extensively, is from the early '80s, not the 70s, and reflects more of an 80s sensibility than a 70s one. But yeah, mostly a late 70s vibe.

    I am curious, though: what do you think are the "cinematic style problems of that era"?


    Flat, dead lighting and flat, dead acting. Life as seen through a light fog and low doses of Valium.
    ISTM this was a reaction to the saturation of the previous era(s).


    Thanks. Yeah, I tend to think of everything associated with the 1970s, the aesthetics, the politics, the social mores etc, as a hangover from the party of the 1960s. Even just comparing the "dark stuff" of one decade to the "dark stuff" of the other, the 1960s dark stuff somehow seems more invigorating than that of the 70s.
  • Nightmare Alley

    1947 noir about a fraudulent carnival psychic who hits the big time in Chicago. Fairly accessible plot, though a few of the situations seem a little artifical.

    I suppose this might take on some added relevance in a year or so, if and when Guillermo Del Toro's re-make is released. Not sure why Del Toro was interested in this, as the plot and motifs are not all that fantastical or mystical, though I suppose some of the sideshow and seance stuff could be creatively expanded upon.

    I think this is the first film I've ever seen with Tyrone Power. I gather he was a big deal in swashbuclers, and died young.

  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    If you want to see Tyrone Power in swashbucklers, Zorro is in black and white, and The Black Swan is in glorious technicolour (and he shows off his chest a lot more!). I understand he was disappointed that he wasn't taken seriously as a character actor, as in films like Nightmare Alley. During the Second World War he joined the Marine Corps and served as a pilot. He died on the set of Solomon and Sheba, and was replaced by Yul Brynner.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    My mother was a big fan of Tyrone Power, mainly because she reckoned that my father was a look-a-like for him. Indeed it is clear from old photos that my father as a young man (in the 1940s) was tall, dark and handsome like most filmstars of that era, and his facial features did resemble those of Power. (None of those descriptors fit me; at best I look like a "character actor"!) So I bought her a few DVDs of Power films, which I now have after her death.

    Power was indeed not a bad actor, and at least some of his films are still worth a look. My favourite is Johnny Apollo, in which he becomes a mobster in order to make enough money to pay lawyers to get his corrupt father out of jail.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    Meanwhile in modern cinema, the hottest summer ever in Australia encourages us to seek out an air-conditioned cinema, the more so since (except on really bad days), the cinema is also free of the bushfire smoke that hangs round outside.

    Two good films we have seen lately are :

    The Truth .
    A French film directed by a Korean , about an older French film star and her relations with here daughter (also a film star in her own right, but mainly in Hollywood now). The older actress is played by Catherine Deneuve (in real life a physically well preserved older actress, though not - one hopes - as bitchy and self-centred as the role she plays) . The younger actress is Juliette Binoche, who as the film unfolds points out that her mother's recently published autobiography greatly stretches the truth in describing herself as loving and caring mother. Many a scene is stolen by the questioning young grand-daughter (Clementine Grenier, aged about 10 in the film).
    Well worth a look, though unlikely to "play in Peoria".

    Seberg
    Also about an actress, and worth a look. The film centres on the hounding by the 1960s FBI of young American actress Jean Seberg for being too friendly with black activists and thus, according to J Edgar Hoover, a clear threat to to the American way of life. The FBI by bugging her bedside and other conversations and spreading malicious gossip managed to drive her out of Hollywood and eventually to suicide. That is undoubtedly true and and would be loved by Trump's police state and by Australia's Obersturmfuhrer Dutton (minister for our police state).
    A key role of the film - and the only part that is not directly factual - traces the part played by the particular white male FBI operative assigned to harass and surveil Seberg. He is portrayed as having pangs of conscience as he sees her destroyed.
  • Eigon wrote: »
    If you want to see Tyrone Power in swashbucklers...

    Which I don't, because swashbucklers are one genre I have zero interest in. But thank you to yourself and Tukai for enhancing my film-knowledge with info on Power.

    And that's a charming family anecdote, Tukai.

  • As for swashbucklers, I don't dislike them, but I don't seek them out. That said, as a curiosity, I'd recommend Alatriste, a Spanish language film (2006) starring Viggo Mortensen (who is fluent in Spanish) as the title character, taking place in 17thC Europe. As a film there is a lot of swash, and the production values are very high, but narratively it's quite loose, and I wonder whether that's because it's based on a series of novels. It's worth a look.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    That sounds fascinating, Pangoline Guerre! I once bought a DVD of The Sons of the Musketeers, starring Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara in Spanish, by accident. It was hilarious, and I did understand enough to follow the plot (such as it was!).
  • I like pirate films, even the old ones. Partly because of the swordplay, but partly because of the unintentional hilarity of some of them.
    The Black Pirate, for instance. The costumes were very camp and this "manly man" Douglas Fairbanks acted out what would be very camp theatre in today's world.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    The Black Pirate is such fun (that stunt where he slides down the sail with his knife!), but the plot makes No Sense At All!
    One of the things I love about the Black Swan is that the plot was very carefully constructed to appeal to men (the adventure part of it) and women (the archetypal women's romance plot of the woman mis-understanding the man's motives but finally falling for him).
  • Last night I went to see David Copperfield. It's a good film, and I enjoyed it, but it is odd. It never pretends to be naturalistic; scenes change when a back wall is pulled away like a curtain. That bit I liked. What I'm not sure about is the incredible racial mix of the cast. While I applaud the motive, I did find that distracting.
  • I get that the unfamiliar can be jarring, but how would race changes affect that film?
  • There is a commendable / bewildering array of racial types within the cast. To the extent that a Chinese father has a black daughter; a black mother a white son. The friends I saw the film with weren't worried at all by this. Maybe I'm not as "woke" as I'd like to be.
  • There is a commendable / bewildering array of racial types within the cast. To the extent that a Chinese father has a black daughter; a black mother a white son. The friends I saw the film with weren't worried at all by this. Maybe I'm not as "woke" as I'd like to be.
    Possibly. However, with no offence intended, age might be part of this. We humans like things to remain the same. And the older people get, the longer things have been like they were and the harder it is to ignore things that are different regardless of judgement. Older people have more investment in the ways of the past.
    But it is the investment that is key, IMO. Take the superhero films or the Bond films. Some of the resistance to changes in gender or race is straight up prejudice. But some of it is investment in the characters. X character has always had this set of characteristics, therefore they always should because that is how I see them. Dr Who is a good example. One's preferred Doctor is most often the actor with whom one first became acquainted.

  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    I haven't seen the film (but am kind of more intrigued by what you've said about it), but I think the degree of realism attempted is important here. If a filmmaker was attempting to make a completely realistic film of David Copperfield the goal of which was to accurately reflect English society in the era in which the book is set, then I think that racial diversity in the cast would be jarring -- because you wouldn't have that level of diversity within those social classes in England at the time, and the fact that children were of an obviously different race from their parents would be unrealistic.

    But if the way the film is structured is not intended to be high realism anyway -- if, as you say, scenes change when a back wall is pulled away like a curtain -- then why, in a world where this is possible, couldn't a Chinese father also have a black daughter? Since it's not attempting to be realistic?

    To me it's a bit like when musicals add more racial diversity to the cast -- like in Hamilton where all the American founding fathers are people of colour, or versions of Les Mis with a black Jean Valjean. If people say "It's not historically accurate or realistic for that place and time!" my question would be ""Is it somehow LESS accurate or realistic than people bursting into song whenever they have anything important to say?" (or indeed in the case of those two particular musics, anything AT ALL to say!). We're already suspending disbelief quite a lot when we watch that kind of stage show or movie -- so why not a bit more, to visualize the characters differently?
  • That's a very fair point. The friends who saw the film with me said it was highly cinematic, rather than naturalistic, and used the possibilities of the medium fully. Anyway, I would commend it to anyone who enjoys movies. Apparently the cast is full of famous names; as always I only identified a couple.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    The estate of Edward Albee sued a theatre company in Oregon to stop them from staging Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf? with a black actor as the young professor. (The play is about two academic couples who get into a night of drunken debauchery.)

    The estate justified their lawsuit by saying that Albee's notes for the play specifically state that the character is supposed to look like the Nazi ideal of Aryanism. Combined with the fact that a black professor trying to seduce an older white woman in the 1950s would have a VERY different dynamic than a white professor doing the same, I can kind of see the estate's point.

    That said, a white actor of southern Italian descent probably wouldn't fit the Nazi ideal either, but I can't imagine that the estate thoroughly scrutinizes photos of every community-theatre actor who wants to play that role, to ensure sufficiently blonde hair and blue eyes.
  • Loads of characters are described, but the attributes don't have any relation to the story. Though I have not read the play, nothing in the synopsis indicates that the casting would be a problem. The timeline is not the point of the play. It is set in the 1960's because it was written in the 1960's, but it isn't a period peice and the point is about relationships.
    A black actor could even add depth to the situation.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Loads of characters are described, but the attributes don't have any relation to the story. Though I have not read the play, nothing in the synopsis indicates that the casting would be a problem. The timeline is not the point of the play. It is set in the 1960's because it was written in the 1960's, but it isn't a period peice and the point is about relationships.
    A black actor could even add depth to the situation.

    I have read the play, and from what I recall, it does at least partly depend for its themes on being set in the mid-20th Century. For example, the older man is a History prof, the younger man a Biology prof, and at one point the older man harangues the younger man with a lecture about how science is leading the world to ruin. It seems to me that an anti-science rant is going to be delivered somewhat differently in the year 2017, than it would have been in the year 1962.

    Though admittedly there is the generic anti-science rant that's always kind of the same, eg. "Who are we to play God?" has been around since at least Mary Shelley's day. Not sure how much detail the old man's rant has in the play, or if it's something that could have been said at any time.

    I also think that, if the performance IS meant to to be understood as taking place in the USA 1962, having a black man seducing a white woman will do a bit more than just "add depth to the situation": this is a time when "miscegnation" was actually still illegal in a number of US states. Not that it wouldn't neccessarily happen at a debauched drinking party, but it would definitely be an aspect of the situation that would come up in the conversation among the people involved.

  • There is a commendable / bewildering array of racial types within the cast. To the extent that a Chinese father has a black daughter; a black mother a white son. The friends I saw the film with weren't worried at all by this. Maybe I'm not as "woke" as I'd like to be.
    It rather strikes me that somebody has done what I have often wanted to see somebody do: before casting roles, put a number of racial types into a hat and then randomly select a race for each of the characters. After doing that, THEN cast the film. I agree with @Trudy , your description intrigues me and I may make an effort to see the film.

    For Christmas, I got Kino Lorber's set of "Pioneers of African-American Cinema." It would be too facile to say that black filmmakers made films with black actors for black audiences, although many of the films contained in the set were meant for black audiences (segregation laws being still in force when these were made). However, as always, it is more ambiguous. For example, the Ebony Film Corporation was white-owned, although the producer was African-American. And some of the films did have white actors for white roles (although, in some cases, a black actor would put on "whiteface" to play a white role--a bit of subversion to the practice of blackface).

    Oscar Micheaux is strongly represented in the collection, including his 1920 silent film "Within Our Gates" that directly addresses the color line with dark-skinned black, mixed raced characters, light-skinned blacks "passing" for white (and in some cases hating blacks as part of their attempts to pass), all forming a commentary on the color line and the effect it has.

    Micheaux had particular contempt for black preachers/ministers who preach to their congregation to accept their lots. "Within Our Gates" includes a powerful scene involving one such character:
    He is seen in a room with a number of white men, promising to keep up his practice of preaching submission to his black congregation--to the delight of the white men, who give him money. With them, he is a smiling buffoon, but the moment he leaves them, he becomes gravely serious and condemns himself. "Black and whites are equal. I have sold my birthright and am surely going to hell."
    "Within Our Gates" is a difficult film to follow as it is told in a number of flashback sequences (almost every character seems to have one, regardless of how important the character is to the overall story), and sometimes there are flashbacks within flashbacks. You really have to pay close attention throughout, but it is well worth the effort.

    The most recent film I watched was an early talkie by Micheaux: "The Darktown Review"--an 18 minute short that presents as a traditional minstrel show. It includes another black minister presenting a charismatic sermon--except that it is gibberish. In fact, much of it is just a dramatic recitation of the alphabet ("HIJK! LM--I say LM!!! NOPQR!" and so on). But the subversive twist that Micheaux gives to this is that the black actor is clearly wearing blackface--the standard black greasepaint and ridiculous lighter lips that white actors employ. That twist has made me add Oscar Micheaux to my list of people I want to have a drink with in the afterlife.
  • Black actors in roles where we're used to white is usually a good thing quickly adapted to, but it doesn't work well in every case. PBS just finished airing the four part series of Howards End with a black actress in the role of Jacky. E M Forster wrote Jacky as a blowsy, 33 year-old prostitute obsessively focused on getting her 20 year old lover to marry her. That is why his family is against the relationship and why the Wilcox family is shocked when she shows up at a wedding. Now, all the young viewers think everyone dislikes her because they are racists when it's really all about class and morality. It's such a good adaptation, closer to the original source than the movie, but the actress playing Jacky mars it a little.
  • JoJo Rabbit

    It was okay, but I thought the fantasy sequeneces with Hitler were a little forced, and seemed as if they were consciously trying to elicit gasps from the audience. The shock-value of Hitler presented as an everyday comic figure probably died with Southpark some time in the late 90s.

    And, on that note, as I've railed about before, the holocaust as a theme now seems largely intended as lazy short-hand for Very Profound Issues, even in a film like this, with its use of anachronistic music and other devices to signal that it's supposedly not taking itself entirely seriously.

    On the positive side, Sam Rockwell was good as the heart-not-entirely-in-it Hitler Youth leader, and the scene with the gestapo was pretty well executed. But Scarlett Johansson's anti-Nazi mother character was a bit of a political screenwriter's Magic Pixie Dream girl. Just so perfect in every way, even though we have no real idea what her ideology is, beyond that she doesn't like the Nazis(so I guess we're free to impose whatever viewpoint we want on her).

  • Twilight wrote: »
    Black actors in roles where we're used to white is usually a good thing quickly adapted to, but it doesn't work well in every case. PBS just finished airing the four part series of Howards End with a black actress in the role of Jacky. E M Forster wrote Jacky as a blowsy, 33 year-old prostitute obsessively focused on getting her 20 year old lover to marry her. That is why his family is against the relationship and why the Wilcox family is shocked when she shows up at a wedding. Now, all the young viewers think everyone dislikes her because they are racists when it's really all about class and morality. It's such a good adaptation, closer to the original source than the movie, but the actress playing Jacky mars it a little.
    I can see that. However, casting both actors as black, or having a completely mixed cast, would change the focus back to the original intent.
  • stetson wrote: »
    JoJo Rabbit

    It was okay, but I thought the fantasy sequeneces with Hitler were a little forced, and seemed as if they were consciously trying to elicit gasps from the audience. The shock-value of Hitler presented as an everyday comic figure probably died with Southpark some time in the late 90s.

    And, on that note, as I've railed about before, the holocaust as a theme now seems largely intended as lazy short-hand for Very Profound Issues, even in a film like this, with its use of anachronistic music and other devices to signal that it's supposedly not taking itself entirely seriously.

    On the positive side, Sam Rockwell was good as the heart-not-entirely-in-it Hitler Youth leader, and the scene with the gestapo was pretty well executed. But Scarlett Johansson's anti-Nazi mother character was a bit of a political screenwriter's Magic Pixie Dream girl. Just so perfect in every way, even though we have no real idea what her ideology is, beyond that she doesn't like the Nazis(so I guess we're free to impose whatever viewpoint we want on her).
    I have not seen the film yet and do not want to discuss the particulars.
    However, your description indicates Johansson might be a Stock Character, but she is not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    JoJo Rabbit

    It was okay, but I thought the fantasy sequeneces with Hitler were a little forced, and seemed as if they were consciously trying to elicit gasps from the audience. The shock-value of Hitler presented as an everyday comic figure probably died with Southpark some time in the late 90s.

    And, on that note, as I've railed about before, the holocaust as a theme now seems largely intended as lazy short-hand for Very Profound Issues, even in a film like this, with its use of anachronistic music and other devices to signal that it's supposedly not taking itself entirely seriously.

    On the positive side, Sam Rockwell was good as the heart-not-entirely-in-it Hitler Youth leader, and the scene with the gestapo was pretty well executed. But Scarlett Johansson's anti-Nazi mother character was a bit of a political screenwriter's Magic Pixie Dream girl. Just so perfect in every way, even though we have no real idea what her ideology is, beyond that she doesn't like the Nazis(so I guess we're free to impose whatever viewpoint we want on her).
    I have not seen the film yet and do not want to discuss the particulars.
    However, your description indicates Johansson might be a Stock Character, but she is not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

    Yeah, MPDG wasn't the right stock character, since, for one thing, she's not particulary manic, and the issue isn't really that she's breaking the kind of social norms usually seen in those movies.

    But she's an idealized, free-spirited mother figure, with the kind of political opinions that everyone can agree with, and played by an actor generally considered physically attractive. Sort of "Boy, if I had been a kid in Nazi Germany, she'd be the coolest mother to have!"
    And it's probably telling that her political views are left almost entirely undefined, beyond that she hates the Nazis(like almost everyone else in the year 2020). We don't know if she's a Communist, some other kind of leftist, a Christian pacifist, a free-ranging humanitarian, or what. Even though she is shown distributing political pamphlets at one point, we have no idea what sort of group she might belong to.

    (^ Not a major spoiler, just describes the mother's political views.)

  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Hurrah for "Parasite"!

    (I could have sworn I posted on it when I saw it. Maybe I did in December. It is probably in Oblivion.)
  • Best comment so far: How could Parasite win the Oscars without a host?
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    :D
  • Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
    If you like comic book, superhero,¹ anti-hero, heist, action, buddy comedy² films³ with interesting characters that are well acted, well written, well directed with actions scenes that are exciting and easy to follow, with good cinematography and a solid plot; watch this film.
    Seriously, it should be doing way better at the box office than it is. It is way better than most of the DC dreck and kicks a number of Marvel efforts to the curb.
    There is violence and though it is less gruesome in depiction than it could be, it is not for the sensitive.
    The film kicks arse and if it had been a bunch of boys, it would be raining dead presidents at the box office.
    It is a comic book film, so some of the characters are comic book ones. But some are not and the film manages to balance those portrayals very well.
    It jumps back and forth in time, but it is not at all confusing nor is it intended to be. I think it was done to tie segments that overlap in time and to add interest. It is a comic book film, after all and few of those have great depth.
    Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is delightful, And I love the clueless portrayal of Huntress. A bad arse assassin, bent on avenging her families deaths. So much so, she has little understanding of interpersonal relations.
    I liked Rosie Perez' tough cop and Jurnee Smollett-Bell as the world-weary, reluctant hero Black Canary is terrific.
    Best of all, no Jared Leto

    ¹ish, mixed with Anti-villians
    ²not precisely, but sorta-kinda
    ³I know, that sounds like an over-ambitions set of complications, but I promise it works
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Hedgehog wrote: »
    There is a commendable / bewildering array of racial types within the cast. To the extent that a Chinese father has a black daughter; a black mother a white son. The friends I saw the film with weren't worried at all by this. Maybe I'm not as "woke" as I'd like to be.
    It rather strikes me that somebody has done what I have often wanted to see somebody do: before casting roles, put a number of racial types into a hat and then randomly select a race for each of the characters. After doing that, THEN cast the film. I agree with @Trudy , your description intrigues me and I may make an effort to see the film.

    Except this isn't how biology actually works.

    Granted there are (a) cases where the connection between a parent and biological child might not seem obvious until both parents are observed, and (b) adoption and other cases where a parent/child relationship isn't based on biology.

    But a "bewildering" array of racial types in the name of equality is exactly that: bewildering if it doesn't match our actual understanding of how genes are inherited. If you expect an audience to understand that character X is the child of character Y, and you deliberately cast in such a way that people are going to struggle to figure out the parent-child relationship because it doesn't match how these relationships work in reality, you're not enhancing your storytelling. You're actually getting in the way of it.

    We've all encountered movies where you miss substantial chunks of the plot in the early stages because too much of your brain is trying to figure out who the characters are supposed to be.

    There are plenty of situations where a racially diverse cast should readily occur because the race of the characters is totally irrelevant to the plot. But a story involving genetic relationships is not one of them.

  • orfeo wrote: »
    Hedgehog wrote: »
    There is a commendable / bewildering array of racial types within the cast. To the extent that a Chinese father has a black daughter; a black mother a white son. The friends I saw the film with weren't worried at all by this. Maybe I'm not as "woke" as I'd like to be.
    It rather strikes me that somebody has done what I have often wanted to see somebody do: before casting roles, put a number of racial types into a hat and then randomly select a race for each of the characters. After doing that, THEN cast the film. I agree with @Trudy , your description intrigues me and I may make an effort to see the film.

    Except this isn't how biology actually works.

    Granted there are (a) cases where the connection between a parent and biological child might not seem obvious until both parents are observed, and (b) adoption and other cases where a parent/child relationship isn't based on biology.

    But a "bewildering" array of racial types in the name of equality is exactly that: bewildering if it doesn't match our actual understanding of how genes are inherited. If you expect an audience to understand that character X is the child of character Y, and you deliberately cast in such a way that people are going to struggle to figure out the parent-child relationship because it doesn't match how these relationships work in reality, you're not enhancing your storytelling. You're actually getting in the way of it.

    We've all encountered movies where you miss substantial chunks of the plot in the early stages because too much of your brain is trying to figure out who the characters are supposed to be.
    Except that is not the actual source of the objections. Film children who don't look like their film parents are the norm and have been for the history of film.¹ People who do not meet the characteristics of the characters they play are, and have been, the norm for the entirety of the history of film.¹
    Not knowing who the characters are is a sign of poor writing, not diverse casting.
    orfeo wrote: »
    There are plenty of situations where a racially diverse cast should readily occur because the race of the characters is totally irrelevant to the plot. But a story involving genetic relationships is not one of them.
    Only when the genetic relationships are a plot point. The general "Those people are a genetically related family" isn't typically a plot point. No one sees two blue-eyed parents with a brown-eyed child and says "Oh noes! That is not how genetics works!"³ Or become too fussed when the children look nothing like their parents.
    Most of the objections to diverse casting is because of racism. Not in the if you have a problem with it, you are a racist sense, but that racism has made white the default and inconsistencies and problems are most often ignored if that default is maintained. Stepping across that boundary has been so rare because of racism that it can be notable and jarring even to non-racists.

    All that said, if every film were cast like Hamilton, I don't think it would work well and isn't really the point of diversity casting. But David Copperfield, the film which began this sub-thread, is more a filmed play than a typical film. Few people are going into it blind, so whether the casting is distracting or not will depend one one's view going in.

    ¹And especially theatre, but only when they are all white
    ²Leslie Howard was 42 when he played Romeo. Fucking hell, how is that not a distraction?
    This is a still of the titular characters in a 2015 production
    ³It is possible for that situation to happen, just fairly unlikely. However, anyone with enough understanding of genetics to know the odds is likely to understand heritability more than the average film goer.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    In the stage version of Jane Eyre I saw, five members of the cast played all the characters, which meant that the man with a full beard who played Mr Rochester also played one of the schoolgirls when Jane was a child, and it all worked very well, because the audience was aware that this was a play, and not meant to be naturalistic.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes, I've seen a production of Julius Caesar done the same way with three actors playing all the roles -- it works because you know going in what kind of production you're seeing, and that realism is not the point.
  • Realism isn't the point of loads of films either. IMO, acceptance of the less conventional on stage is an historical artefact borne of necessity. But, yes, theatre can be pushed differently to film and still be generally accepted. But playing with race does not typically fall into the same category
  • Playing with race hasn't taken place in the past, but I wonder if that is changing. I say this as the person who found the scale of it in Copperfield distracting, but I remember a good BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit some years. The wonderful Frema Agylma (sp?) played Tattycorum, who would not have been black, and I had no problem with that at all.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Freema Agyeman.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Freema Agyeman.

    Thank you. I could watch her for hours, but her name defeats me.
  • Playing with race hasn't taken place in the past,
    Actually, it has. Almost always in one direction: white people playing people of colour.
    Though playing isn’t the verb I’d use for most of that...
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Were they playing them as white, or were they made up? (I am going out on a limb here, to risk saying that the day will come when we have healthier attitudes to race, and "blacking up" won't be seen as a racist act.)
This discussion has been closed.