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I think one of the things I really liked about the movie is how it depicts the small tragedies and unexpected milestones of growing up. Ladybird's theater kid friend group, the gay boyfriend, her rich kid friend group, the theater teacher, and even her best friend come in fully realized and just exit the film with little fanfare. Meanwhile people like her brother's girlfriend who originally exist as two dimensional characters in the background clearly are going to become important anchors in Ladybird's life. Honestly, I feel like a lot of folks in this thread getting hung up on originality are missing the finer details of the film where the real joy and details come about. Shimrra Jamaane posted:Was there any particular reason why the film is set in 2003? Cellphones, for example, are used throughout the movie as a signifier of wealth. New York means something different in 2002/2003 as well. The Specter of another terrorist attack is present, but the common notion of New York as this hyper-gentrified place also doesn't exist yet. New York in 2002/2003 feels less safe. It's also worth remembering that "traditional values" was actually a big factor in the 2004 election. Not to diminish people's experiences today, but I think the weight and fear of being gay was definitely higher ten years ago. I don't think the film is particularly a statement on 2002/2003, but it uses the language of that time pretty effectively. zenintrude posted:I preferred this movie the first time I saw it when it was called Rushmore.
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# ? Dec 3, 2017 15:46 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:44 |
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Even though it was a throwaway scene the football coach as the drama teacher made me laugh really hard
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# ? Dec 4, 2017 06:24 |
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I thought it was a little cartoony in context of the rest of the movie, but it was still a decent gag.
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# ? Dec 4, 2017 15:39 |
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He was definitely the zaniest character, but he did remind me of my high school geometry professor who framed everything in terms of golf, because he was also the golf coach.
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# ? Dec 4, 2017 17:31 |
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zenintrude posted:I preferred this movie the first time I saw it when it was called Rushmore. I was thinking Rushmore throughout the film. They have the movie poster in her room in the movie so they must have known it was a female version of that. Movie was good, not great. I understand why the reviews are what they are but it did build it up to be better than it was. i am the bird posted:Also, Laurie Metcalf better get a best supporting actress nomination. I also really liked the dad. What has he been in? He plays small parts in a lot of stuff but I remember him from Homeland. He reminds me of James Cromwell.
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# ? Dec 4, 2017 23:40 |
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Timeless Appeal posted:The films barely have anything to do with one another. Ok, Napoleon Dynamite (but really, it's Rushmore + Pretty in Pink shot through a Gerwig stained-glass window)
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# ? Dec 5, 2017 22:56 |
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zenintrude posted:Ok, Napoleon Dynamite
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# ? Dec 6, 2017 03:45 |
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Lady Bird is a coming-of-age story about a high schooler learning to overcome their own egocentrism, and also it has jokes; therefore, it is exactly like Rushmore. Now, if it didn’t have jokes, maybe it would’ve been original.
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# ? Dec 6, 2017 14:58 |
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Rushmore and Lady Bird are almost nothing alike.
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# ? Dec 6, 2017 19:19 |
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Agreed. It’s definitely like Superbad blended with Juno, or like American Pie meets Election, or maybe like a working-class version of Clueless.
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# ? Dec 6, 2017 19:41 |
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Was anyone else expecting that during the scene where Lady Bird is in the car with Kyle and crew, she would be denied a ride to her friend's house and then throw herself out of the car like in the beginning? I realize in the larger context of the ending it probably wouldn't have worked. But boy was I waiting for it during that scene.
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# ? Dec 6, 2017 20:52 |
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Niwrad posted:I was thinking Rushmore throughout the film. They have the movie poster in her room in the movie so they must have known it was a female version of that. Reminds me of that guy who's in several Coen brothers movies Good movie, captured the feel of high school well
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# ? Dec 12, 2017 02:47 |
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there were a bunch of moments that really sent me right back to being a theater dork in high school. Lucas Hedges' audition song was one that I had practiced back when I was auditioning for musicals, the theater games and rehearsals, the group of high schoolers loving around at a diner after the show, the discussion and rationalizing of who gets what roles, etc. Made the scene with the JV football coach leading rehearsal really, really funny. also Kyle reading Howard Zinn is the most "super cool high school guy who is above it all" thing and I laughed very loudly when I caught it and I was the only one.
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# ? Dec 12, 2017 04:45 |
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DC Murderverse posted:there were a bunch of moments that really sent me right back to being a theater dork in high school. Lucas Hedges' audition song was one that I had practiced back when I was auditioning for musicals, the theater games and rehearsals, the group of high schoolers loving around at a diner after the show, the discussion and rationalizing of who gets what roles, etc. Made the scene with the JV football coach leading rehearsal really, really funny. The scene where he's at the party by himself smoking and reading by the swimming pool just made me laugh out loud because fuckin hell kid.
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# ? Dec 12, 2017 04:54 |
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I always try to be the most cynical person in the world, but I can never keep up with those monsters in Hollywood... https://twitter.com/ClickHole/status/944251755684130816
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# ? Dec 22, 2017 21:33 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Was there any particular reason why the film is set in 2003? The real reason is that the Mondavi Center wasn't built until 2002, and by no stretch of the imagination did Davis have a good theater prior to that. I mean the whole movie doesn't work without that line in there. This raises the question of why not later, but apparently the New Helvetia shut down in 2003, so there's a really small window of possible times to set the movie in. My own impression of the movie is that it's really well-written characters in a plot so cliched it almost seems a parody, but it is still quite entertaining. I feel I got a bit of nostalgic hit out of it, too, although this was just a bit after I got out of the area, but I still had friends in Sac that I'd visit until around 2001 or so. I really liked the attention to detail in the location shooting. One thing to realize is that these aren't desperate working-class people in a bad part of town - if they wanted to do that, there are other places they could have located the family. They're middle-class mixing with the upper middle-class; the houses do in fact look pretty much exactly like that in the real neighborhoods, and of course her family is on the downslope of economic mobility, but it does highlight how vast such a minor difference feels like to someone in that situation. The one minor nitpick I have on the location details is that they never brought up Sac State. They live literally blocks away from a state school, like it's probably closer than her high school, and it's never even mentioned. I thought her mom even suggested Sac City as an alternative to keep her in the neighborhood (but I may have that confused with what Jules was doing). Not that she'd even consider going there, but her mom not mentioning it is a possibility is a missed opportunity.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 09:17 |
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I just saw this, with my mother of course, and we both really liked it. I saw quite a lot of myself in Lady Bird, probably more than I would like. I agree with the people saying it doesn’t really do anything new or all that special, but I thought it was still pretty great for what it was. And I very much appreciated a female protagonist and the focus on her relationship with her mom. There’s a ton of male coming-of-age and father/son relationship movies, many of which I like, but not a whole lot of this type that I can recall. Rushmore was mentioned, which I love, but I definitely do not see this as a “female Rushmore”. I think that there aren’t exactly a ton of well-written teenage girl roles, so this was a welcome change. I also liked that the popular girl wasn’t actually a huge bitch, not any more than Lady Bird herself anyway. But man, this really reminded me of what a self-absorbed dumbass I was and how much poo poo I put my mom through. Saoirse Ronan was great as usual, but I thought Laurie Metcalf killed it. Basically everyone in it was pretty great.
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# ? Jan 28, 2018 03:30 |
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I rather enjoyed this movie until the last five to ten minutes brought everything crashing down. The acting was great; the cinematography was great; even the clichéd plot points/characters others have mentioned were done sufficiently well as to not get in the way. Then the final scenes had me pumping the brakes hard and re-evaluating whether the message I had taken away from all previous scenes was what the writer had intended. The mother had been emotionally abusive throughout the entire film, so the protagonist's attempt at reconciliation really took me aback. They did a great job of humanizing everyone and you could understand where the mother was coming from, but it just wasn't nearly enough to merit the ending monologue. It's particularly bad when coupled with the nun's line about attention and love being the same thing, which, while spoken in the context of the feelings the protagonist has toward the city, is clearly intended to parallel the mother's relationship with the daughter. That's exactly the kind of thinking that keeps victims of abuse trapped in bad relationships. That's not to say that Lady Bird wasn't, as the above poster pointed out, a The reconciliation, plus a heap of other bullshit at the end, really made it hard not to view the film's message as deeply conservative in nature: "Teens chafe under the institutions and norms that shape their lives, but part of becoming an adult is accepting the world as it is and coming to appreciate the circumstances you grew up in!"
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 04:09 |
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 04:11 |
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Kangra posted:The real reason is that the Mondavi Center wasn't built until 2002, and by no stretch of the imagination did Davis have a good theater prior to that. I mean the whole movie doesn't work without that line in there. How dare you impugn the honor of the Veterans Memorial Theater? It has a green room and a concessions area! Kangra posted:The one minor nitpick I have on the location details is that they never brought up Sac State. They live literally blocks away from a state school, like it's probably closer than her high school, and it's never even mentioned. I thought her mom even suggested Sac City as an alternative to keep her in the neighborhood (but I may have that confused with what Jules was doing). Not that she'd even consider going there, but her mom not mentioning it is a possibility is a missed opportunity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhrBHx2rGrI (early on: "You're not even worth State tuition, Christine." That's harsh, mom.)
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 04:26 |
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Mister Mind posted:(early on: "You're not even worth State tuition, Christine." That's harsh, mom.)
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 04:41 |
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If the movie's depiction of a mother-daughter relationship looks entirely healthy to you, right back atcha, I guess?
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 04:54 |
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Cugel the Clever posted:If the movie's depiction of a mother-daughter relationship looks entirely healthy to you, right back atcha, I guess? I don't know, sorry to come across as glib, but it doesn't seem like many people ITT or at large have watched the movie and gotten from it that the mother is irredeemably in the wrong. It just seems like to take that away from it you'd have to be bringing in some baggage to it. To each his own though.
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 05:24 |
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hathfallen posted:I don't think anything can top 29 year old Anna Paquin as a high schooler in Margaret. That was awful. yeah but margaret was the best american movie made in the last ten years. that should warrant a pass
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# ? Jan 30, 2018 07:44 |
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Potentially that's state tuition, not State tuition (that's what I assumed when I heard it). California public universities charges lower tuition for in-state students than for out of state residents, also known as "in-state tuition" or just "state tuition." Yeah, that also makes sense. Edit: this was, though, specifically a response to "why didn't they even suggest Lady Bird go to Sac State which was probably only blocks away?" Mom told her she ought to go to City College, then drop out, then go to jail, then back to City College. Yes, you could take "state" to mean "in-state tuition," but what - UCD? UCLA? I stand by my interpretation that Mom meant CSUS. Mister Mind fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Feb 1, 2018 |
# ? Feb 1, 2018 00:45 |
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General Dog posted:I don't know, sorry to come across as glib, but it doesn't seem like many people ITT or at large have watched the movie and gotten from it that the mother is irredeemably in the wrong. It just seems like to take that away from it you'd have to be bringing in some baggage to it. To each his own though. Yeah it's this. Lady Bird's mom's behaviour is definitely not irredeemable, nor is Lady Bird's own behaviour. They're two people who desperately want something out of the other person that they're too selfish to give based on what they think the other person thinks of them
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# ? Feb 2, 2018 20:38 |
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Just saw this movie- don't have a lot to add but I was a catholic high school student in Sacramento in 2002 (2 years behind Greta Gerwig but at a co-ed catholic school across town) and this was one of the most personal movie experiences I've ever had. Really, really enjoyed it.
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 09:29 |
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I get why not everyone is super wowed by this flick if you're expecting a truly original take on this type of movie, or it's not exactly your poo poo. However, this is EXACTLY my poo poo, and I think this is maybe the most well-written film of its kind I've ever seen. Coach aside, every character feels completely true to life in every single way. I definitely had some awkward feelings towards the mom, but in the end I think it was a very realistic depiction - she's not a great parent, but far from an awful one. It's not fair of her to put so much of her bitterness and frustration about finances onto her daughter, but imo it doesn't cross a line into abusive. Performances were great (I've never been QUITE sold on Lucas Hedges, but he's great here, and Ronan/Metcalf are at their absolute best), and while the direction and cinematography are good this movie's secret weapon is probably the editing. It's wonderfully-cut, with each character getting imo the perfect amount of screen time for their arc. holy poo poo you guys did i loving love this movie so much. probably my favourite of 2017.
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# ? Feb 13, 2018 23:39 |
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I saw this again tonight and it was easily 5x better on the second viewing. At first I thought it was "really good". Now I think it's masterful. There is more depth in the two second scene where Lady Bird looks at her jerky boyfriend's sleeping, cancer suffering dad than in most entire films.
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# ? Feb 18, 2018 05:17 |
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We might be on track to have a Lady Bird Cinematic Universe.
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# ? Mar 2, 2018 22:05 |
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Looking forward to 10 Lady Bird Lane and the Lady Bird Paradox.
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# ? Mar 6, 2018 12:35 |
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I saw this a couple of nights ago and I really enjoyed it. As someone who attended Sac State, I agree with Kangra about it being weird it wasn't really mentioned. That being said, I enjoyed my 3 years in Sacramento and really liked seeing the landmarks throughout the film.
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# ? Mar 29, 2018 07:41 |
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Rewatched this the other night, and it really feels like a film I can rewatch again and again and again. The thing that stuck out to me on 2nd viewing was how most of the characters felt like they actually lived in a world outside of the film. I think this can be attributed to both the strong writing and acting. It's why the relationship between Lady Bird and her mother is so effective, because we get to see scenes where Marion does normal motherly stuff. We can see her point-of-view, of a mother who is dealing with the stress of money, trying to support a family on one income, and why she feels disrespected when Lady Bird seems disgusted with her lower income upbringing. I don't think that's the main point of contention between the two characters, but I think it definitely adds to it. I also find linking the film to Napoleon Dynamite odd. One of the strengths of this film is that it features a teenage outcast, but she's neither precocious nor super quirky.
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# ? Mar 30, 2018 16:04 |
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Twin Cinema posted:I also find linking the film to Napoleon Dynamite odd. One of the strengths of this film is that it features a teenage outcast, but she's neither precocious nor super quirky. The only link I can see is that both Lady Bird and Napoleon are confident, rather than self-hating. I remember that feeling like a huge deal when Napoleon Dynamite came out. We were so used to those characters mirroring mainstream society's opinion of them. You can probably draw a direct line from that to Lil Xan.
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# ? Mar 31, 2018 04:43 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:44 |
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Finally watched this tonight. Really loved it for all the aforementioned reasons. But yeah, her mom is really abusive in a specifically passive aggressive way. Lady Bird's pleading after the silent treatment is a real giveaway that this relationship is incredibly unhealthy. The film doesn't solve this issue, which grated me at first but now I really like it. These kinds of relationships don't get solved that easily. But the film is so goddamn realistic that it leaves you imagining a future where the two actually do resolve their issues in a healthy, realistic way. We just aren't privileged to see it.
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# ? May 13, 2018 07:13 |