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| jeremy |
 Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:22 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Marc,
I think your right on all three counts.
Isn't Holy Motors a surreal fantasy in French. I offer that observation by way of answer to your question as to why the film can't find a distributor. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:56 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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Jeremy,
Holy Motors has a distributor. The film is opening slowly across the States. It was a huge hit at Cannes, NYFF and Fantastic Fest. It won best picture at the Chicago Film Festival. It's on the cover of the current issue of Sight and Sound. Rolling Stone gave it a rave. I guarantee it will be on dozens of 10 best lists. It's from a director with a pedigree, Leos Carax (a favorite of Scorsese). His film Lovers On The Bridge is a masterpiece. But with all that going for the film, no one is paying to see it.
My theory:
the days of people going to adventurous and challenging films is over. If Fellini, Godard or Antonioni appeared on the scene for the first time today, they'd be ignored by everyone but the critics. Young people are longer interested in going to foreign films. No one wants to read subtitles. A film like Holy Motors would have had drawn tons of curious film fans back in the Sixties and Seventies. Even the Eighties. Remember the Stateside successes of Diva, Amarcord and Breathless. Those days are over. Even indie films with English dialogue are struggling. The Sessions hasn't even managed to gross a million bucks. And it's a crowd pleaser! Most independent andforeign films are going direct to DVD or Netflix streaming before getting a USA theatrical release. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:39 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Cosmopolis -- Lordy, did I dislike that film. Had to replace the batteries in my bullshit detector thrice during the run time. It's kind of American Psycho with some goofy 12 Monkey style anarchy in the background, with elements of Pulp Fiction fiction and other stuff ground into the mix. A large part of the film involves a young billionaire hanging out in a stretch limo which is his command center, with various women coming in for chats and sex, along with frequent bodyguard warnings about plots and dangers. They also throw around terms such as cyber-capitalism and the value of the Chinese currency to make it seem cool and ultra-contemporary. You'd think if a master of the universe was sophisticated enough to bet billions on Chinese currency that he'd at least have learned how to pronounce Yuan.
The whole enterprise seemed awfully childish to me.
The kind of thing you might think is cool when you're a 14 or 15 year old boy. I don't think girls fall for this nonsense.
Unfortunately they based the film around Delillo's hokey, empty, pseudo-profound dialogue from the source material. So if you have trouble getting past the artificial, contradictory jargon/b/s-laden dialogue, the whole film is rather a struggle from beginning to end. Pattison's line deliveries didn't help. I was so uninvolved in the film that I actually fell asleep during the final climactic scene, two or three minutes before the film ended. It was a bit late, the scene was overlong ...zzz.
Really not my kind of film. It all seemed so phony and silly.
The cast is interesting: Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton. And the rather unlikely poet/wife character was played by a hot young Canadian actress who will be getting more parts real soon. Her character in the film was some nonsense fantasy, and in the extra interviews her mouth goes a bit crooked when she speaks in a somewhat annoyingly pitched voice. But Sarah Gadon will definitely be getting more film work. |
Last edited by gromit on Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:53 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Crones has lost his mojo. Huge disappointment for a fan. And IMO DeLillo books should not be screen adapted. Cosmopolis is boring and empty - I'd rather watch surgery being performed on an asymmetrical prostate. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:04 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I find DeLillo trite, chaotic, and basically unreadable.
Cronenberg's pretty hit or miss for me.
When I popped in the disc, I had forgotten it was based on DeLillo, but that dialogue is the heart of the film, and more distinctive than even Wallace Shawn or Mamet -- but in this case, that's not a good thing. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:26 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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gromit wrote: I find DeLillo trite, chaotic, and basically unreadable.
Agree. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:45 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: gromit wrote: I find DeLillo trite, chaotic, and basically unreadable.
Agree.
A-three. With the last adjective at least. Haven't been able to get into the books enough to decide about the first two. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: gromit wrote: I find DeLillo trite, chaotic, and basically unreadable.
Agree.
A-three. With the last adjective at least. Haven't been able to get into the books enough to decide about the first two. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:29 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I think I struggled through the end of White Noise.
I didn't get that far into Mao ii.
Didn't try anything else.
Really disliked his style. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:16 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Quote: I rather liked Libra, and the first 30 pages or so of Underworld was a truly great short story. But beyond that - and in Underworld's case, 1000 pages beyond that, A-four.
That was my experience of Underworld. And Falling Man was just tedious; couldn't finish it, and it's one of his shortest novels. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:35 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Saw Cloud Atlas, liked it. The six different narratives weave together well and aren't hard to follow, in terms of following the basic personalities and themes of freedom/oppression. Enjoyed Jim Broadbent's 2012 segment, with the hommage to "Cuckoo's Nest" and humorous reference to "Soylent Green." Had no sense of an overbearing or trite Message that some critics harped on...the theme of freedom and the ongoing human struggle to be an authentic person was a warm pulse felt throughout the film and did not detract from the action. Perhaps the film does anticipate its cold critical reception, as an early scene does show a critic (and I don't think this is a spoiler) being hurled from a rooftop by the object of his poisoned pen. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:17 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Spielberg's "Lincoln" is exactly what I expected it to be: thoughtful, well-crafted, beautifully acted and boring. The cinematic equivalent of a Classics Illustrated comic book. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:20 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Boring??
Even when he rammed that wooden stake through the vampire's eye?!?
Oh, wait ... |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Spielberg's "Lincoln" is exactly what I expected it to be: thoughtful, well-crafted, beautifully acted and boring. The cinematic equivalent of a Classics Illustrated comic book.
This is what I was afraid of. Doesn't mean I'll agree, however. In fact, since I devoutly believe that Daniel Day-Lewis is the most egregiously overrated of actors, I'm fully expecting to detest his performance. I'm frothing at the mouth for Sally Field's Mary Todd Lincoln, however. Please tell me she's amazing. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:06 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
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Nothing?
Hey, it's not like a current film thread requires contentiousness, but I sort of hoped a "yes" vote for the much-reviled Cloud Atlas would be worth the time to type it.
If people are wondering about the population drop around here, this might be a clue.
Cloud Atlas is an interesting film, no matter what your genre tastes or stance on narrative structure. It's worth seeing in a theater, and it's worth talking about. My 2 cents worth. And I guess I've priced it accurately. |
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