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This thread is real good. All the posts (except mine) are amazing. I'm very proud. I think a real depiction of poverty, where a subpar education and dying community become your cage and you can never escape, would be really tragic. People watch movies for escapism or something. A movie where a lone impoverished person in a struggling and cannibalizing family watches as all their class mates drop out, get arrested, get pregnant and disappear, or otherwise crash and burn and then when they try to get into college they don't even know enough math to pass the entry exam would probably make some people really depressed. Moving on. Should I watch Passengers? Because I have watched so many suspense movies and romantic comedies (and just movies in general) I am predicting that Chris Pratt is the actual creepy villain because there is no other human antagonist and the woman is always the survivor. Forgive me if that prediction is correct. I don't mean to be right and spoil a movie I haven't seen and have only watched one trailer for. The thing is, I don't really wanna see a movie about how a creepy man obsesses over a hot girl and sabotages a space ship before waking her up so they can bond over survival before being too suspicious and getting found out then going completely psycho. So um, without spoiling. Am I wrong? Am I right or rightish but trust me Jenner it's worth it? Should I see it?
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Jan 11, 2017 11:39
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Jenner posted:Should I watch Passengers? Ehh. Passengers had a loving awesome hook that was insultingly reduced. Your initial suspicions are wrong, but ultimately correct about the movie. Is it a spoiler if I mention the villain? the environment I don't think the movie is worth watching, but not simply because of the squandered potential you could see within it over the course of its showing. It's an interesting premise resolved into boilerplate, by the book poo poo. if you want a cool guy-in-space type movie just watch Moon or something. You've probably gotten most of the enjoyment from the movie from the trailer - maybe, 85% worth. Drifter fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 12:12
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It was apparently one of those scripts that was in development hell for a while, and what was conceived as a thriller and then softened considerably.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:26
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Jenner posted:This thread is real good. All the posts (except mine) are amazing. I'm very proud. I think it's more possible to show and do those sorts of things in books because it doesn't have to do it all visually. Like reading Vanity Fair, there is no way a movie can capture the whole scope of that book. I was googling around to see what romcoms are available for streaming and someone PUT BEE MOVIE ON THE LIST OF MOVIES TO WATCH!!! How broken is this person? Why?!!! Jenner, did you like Stardust? I can't recall if you posted about it
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Jan 11, 2017 17:33
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Drifter posted:Ehh. Passengers had a loving awesome hook that was insultingly reduced. I thought Passengers was at least decent up until the two-thirds point. Chris Pratt is lonely on a ship, does a lovely thing waking Jennifer Lawrence up, some great visuals on the ship, she finds out and has a suitable horrified response and that plays out for a bit... then Lawrence Fishbourne shows up and he not only basically serves solely to absolve Chris Pratt of guilt and tell J-Law to just try and see things from his perspective, but the whole thing becomes a standard by the numbers plot resolution.
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Jan 12, 2017 04:52
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The one thing I'll say about Passengers is that it does a very good job of displaying Pratt's spiral into near-madness and the way he grapples with the decision. He spends an entire year alone with zero chance of rescue, ever, and having another person with him is basically a button-press away the entire time. At one point he very nearly commits suicide. Sure, it's a horrible thing to do to a person, but the film earns it and treats his decision, at least up to that point, as wrong. By the end the film ends up saying his choice was okay, though.
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Jan 12, 2017 05:04
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Shirec posted:I think it's more possible to show and do those sorts of things in books because it doesn't have to do it all visually. Like reading Vanity Fair, there is no way a movie can capture the whole scope of that book. Please continue to talk about Bee Movie in this thread. Bee Movie is a romantic comedy. It has the nice boyfriend, the crazy woman, the nerdy I'm gonna link Pick's review of Bee Movie here when I find it. quote:
 I got the movie and the tissues and the chocolate* but my spouse wants to watch it with me and they are working too late and being too busy. I told them if we don't get around to it this weekend I'm watching it without them!*I ate most of the chocolate already. Excellent folks talking about Passengers posted:Good stuff. Hmm. I clicked on the spoilers because I decided I didn't want to see it and I'm really glad I was wrong but ick, mansplaining movie. No thanks. On one hand a realistic depiction of creepy guy obsessed with woman doing outrageous poo poo that we could point at and be like, "Look, see! You do this! You do this all the time and it is gross! Please stop!" Would be really good. On the other hand, it's a realistic depiction of creepy guy obsessed with woman doing outrageous poo poo. 💩 By the way, I believe a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Paul Rudd would be the Ultimate Romantic Comedy. Just pure, transcendent RomCom. The RomCom singularity. The only reason there hasn't been one (please tell me if there has been one I looked and did not find one) is because they would have to stop making romantic comedies forever after because nothing could surpass it.
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Jan 12, 2017 11:28
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Actually I think Rachel Bloom and Paul Rudd would cause the  death of the Universe.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:12
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Jenner posted:Please continue to talk about Bee Movie in this thread. Bee Movie is a romantic comedy. It has the nice boyfriend, the crazy woman, the nerdy Also, what the gently caress is up with that weirdly racist part where Chris Rock's mosquito character rants about how all the mosquito women only go for non-mosquito men?
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Jan 13, 2017 02:00
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Xealot posted:Also, what the gently caress is up with that weirdly racist part where Chris Rock's mosquito character rants about how all the mosquito women only go for non-mosquito men? It was so very racist. Chris Rock really needed that paycheck. Mosquito women also date non-mosquito women.  I found Pick's review of Bee Movie. It's a thing of beauty. While we haven't been able to schedule a time to watch When Harry Met Sally this month because we've all been so busy one of the Movie Watching Crew linked me to this hilarious podcast about romantic comedies today and I figured I'd share it. They talk about all the hosed up poo poo in romcoms and how creepy they are. They completely point out how seriously not okay Love Actually was and my gosh how did I miss it? Now I feel bad for liking it so much! Jenner fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 03:52
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My two favorite goon-written things are Two Gentlemen of Lebowski and Pick's Bee Movie Review. e: Love Actually has some gross stuff in the main plot but several of the subplots are fantastic, especially Martin Freeman's and Bill Nighy's.
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Jan 13, 2017 21:03
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Jenner posted:They talk about all the hosed up poo poo in romcoms and how creepy they are. They completely point out how seriously not okay Love Actually was and my gosh how did I miss it? Now I feel bad for liking it so much! Love Actually pretty much lives off its cast of mostly charming Brits, unlike Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve that try to do the same thing conceptually but fall apart from the word go (because Ashton Kutcher loving or hating a holiday can't carry a movie). Another movie that tries to do the "many intertwined vignettes of falling into or out of love": He's Just Not That Into You Edit: It's been a while since I've seen it but I feel the need, after listening to some of that podcast episode, to go to the bat for (500) Days of Summer as less a pure rom-com and more a(n at least) partial deconstruction of one. Yeah, it's dumb that Joseph Gordon-Levitt falls in immediate love/lust with Zooey Deschanel because she likes the Smiths, but the movie also goes out of its way to actually say that that's a dumb reason to think some girl is The One. It's not even indirect about it; I'm pretty sure JGL's sister at one point says something like, "Just because she likes the same weird poo poo as you doesn't mean you're in love." The ending might erase all the progress he could have made by going for the cutesy, "Ah ha! HER name is Autumn! Day 1 of Autumn!" but up to that point I think it does a decent job of showing the breakdown of a relationship that could have stemmed from any number of traditional rom-com setups. xeria fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 09:00
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500 Days of Summer is amazing and right at the very beginning it says "This is not a love story". It's really not a rom-com anymore than Eternal Sunshine is.
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Jan 14, 2017 20:34
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precision posted:500 Days of Summer is amazing and right at the very beginning it says "This is not a love story". It's really not a rom-com anymore than Eternal Sunshine is. It's more that a "love story" and a "romance" are overlapping but distinct. (500) is absolutely a rom-com in the same way as Annie Hall... or Fight Club, its two closest formal and thematic cousins
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Jan 14, 2017 20:58
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What about something like Out of Sight? IMO that is a 100% meet cute rom com.
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Jan 14, 2017 22:14
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I kind of draw a distinction, I guess, between the (500)s and Annie Halls of the world and, say, The Ugly Truth as the former seems actually trying to tell a fully realized story that happens to include love/romance/comedy/whatever and the latter being the movie equivalent of https://www.theyfightcrime.org/ only with "They fight crime!" replaced with "Eventually they gently caress".
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Jan 14, 2017 22:21
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Well, yeah, but it's important to not get hung up on reactionary pleasure/displeasure. We're talking genre, so it's incredibly weird to see folks claim that a comic film about a character swept up in romantic memories of his old flame isn't a romantic-comedy. Eternal Sunshine isn't going to get cooties from touching 50 First Dates - calling the films romantic-comedies is an accurate appraisal of the cultural and rhetorical concepts in which they're dealing.
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Jan 14, 2017 22:30
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K. Waste posted:Well, yeah, but it's important to not get hung up on reactionary pleasure/displeasure. We're talking genre, so it's incredibly weird to see folks claim that a comic film about a character swept up in romantic memories of his old flame isn't a romantic-comedy. Eternal Sunshine isn't going to get cooties from touching 50 First Dates - calling the films romantic-comedies is an accurate appraisal of the cultural and rhetorical concepts in which they're dealing. My point bringing up (500) was more within the context of the podcast Jenner linked bashing it for "This guy decides he's in love with this girl because she listens to the Smiths! That's so dumb!" when yes, that's what the movie itself is trying to say. It's less about 'cooties' and more that all "rom-coms" aren't created equal and they aren't all inherently creepy messes just by virtue of being tagged "rom-com".
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Jan 14, 2017 23:14
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I watched my first Mexican rom-com today, ¿Qué culpa tiene el niño?/Don't Blame the Kid starring Karla Souza. The basic plot outline is that a rich 30-something woman is at a friend's wedding, flirts heavily with a wedding crasher who is a poor 21 year old still in high school (though she doesn't know that at the time), drinks too much, wakes up the next morning with no memories of the evening before; cut to a month later, she's pregnant, confronts him about it, he says he wants to be the baby's father because his father walked out on his mother when he was born, her senator father is against it and tries to get her to get back with her rich handsome successful ex, typical romcom stuff happens... I'll put the ending in spoilers just in case: When the baby is born, turns out that it's not actually his, because the baby is actually Asian, and she realizes she never actually slept with him but rather with an Asian guy who was very briefly shown during the wedding party scene. But then it's shown through a montage of earlier scenes how the guy knew from the start that it wasn't his kid and all his comments about it and doing it "for your baby" can be read in that context, he just didn't want the kid to grow up without a father like he did. And while everyone else in her family and friends are horrified when the baby is brought out to be revealed that it's clearly of a different race, it doesn't impact him in the least and he accepts it fully and immediately starts to dote on it. There are some rather rough edges in the movie in its depiction of class and sexuality and race, also a bit that comes across as generally anti-abortion, even though I suppose most rom-coms dealing with pregnancies have to have the main character reject having an abortion, but it was an interesting look at a critique not only of the rom-com genre but also of telenovelas (it's pretty much the boilerplate storyline, with genders flipped) but also a critique of the socially conservative machismo view of relationships, even if it also doesn't fully escape them. It's on Netflix instant (at least in the US) if anyone is interested. Actually on the topic, are there any pro-abortion rom-coms?
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Jan 16, 2017 05:31
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Does Fast Times at Ridgemont High count? It's pro in the sense that girl isn't shamed or punished for having one, even if it's set into a kind of conservative "don't be a slut" narrative. Also that movie kind of reminds me of a Catherine Zeta Jones one where she catches her husband cheating, moves to the city with her kids after the divorce, and end up dating their 20-something nanny. The guy is a little to perfect and pitiable in some ways, but the actor had good chemistry with Jones that made up for the week characterization. I thought they did a good job of showing realistic obstacles for a relationship with a big age gap between and older woman and younger man. Big plot point spoiler. They end up breaking up over a pregnancy scare. He's a little panicked but quickly switches to being excited by the idea of being a dad because he always wanted kids. But she already has two children and is not interested in having any more so late in life. It makes them realize that they're just at different points in their lives and the relationship doesn't have anywhere to go that doesn't mean a big sacrifice for one or the other. But despite all that, the film has one serious flaw. I guess it was too short, because they added in like 10 minutes of nature stock footage towards to end for the flimsiest of reasons. It's ridiculous.
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Jan 16, 2017 07:17
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Chairman Capone posted:Actually on the topic, are there any pro-abortion rom-coms? Obvious Child. I'm glad (500) Days of Summer is getting its due in this thread. I assumed 1000% when it was released that it was another Garden State rom-com with an indie veneer slapped on, and I'm really glad I realized my error. The IKEA scene is brilliant, conceptually. This performed farce of domestic artifice inside literally artificial domestic tableaus. Except for JGL's character, who's absolutely kidding on the square.
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Jan 16, 2017 08:02
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there wolf posted:Does Fast Times at Ridgemont High count? It's pro in the sense that girl isn't shamed or punished for having one, even if it's set into a kind of conservative "don't be a slut" narrative. A recent article on Birth.Death.Movies went into this, but there's some fantastic A/B analysis to be made in the attitudes re sex between Fast Times and Clueless, especially since they were made by the same director ten years apart. Women have more agency in Clueless, but there's way more of a hangup regarding sexuality. It's kinda shocking to look at 80s/70s movies and how much it revolved around girls needing to fend off guys just trying to LOSE IT. That latter thing kinda died off in the 90s. Teenage sex romps got hella more juvenile tho (American Pie et al) but at least they didnt have a requisite scene of a women being trapped in a car and having to physically defend her virtue. EDIT: Speaking of Catherine Zeta Jones, No Reservations is a pretty good rom/com that is pretty heart warming. There's a little kid in it, but she's not too annoying.
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Jan 16, 2017 13:58
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Shageletic posted:A recent article on Birth.Death.Movies went into this, but there's some fantastic A/B analysis to be made in the attitudes re sex between Fast Times and Clueless, especially since they were made by the same director ten years apart. I'd love a link to that if you have it handy. American Pie only comes off more juvenile in comparison to the more conservative film period that proceeded it. It's pretty much on par with stuff like Hamburger the Movie or Porkey's which came out only a year before Fast Times.
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Jan 16, 2017 17:31
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American Pie is really interesting to me because I think there's a case to be made that it was a really really really proto 'Apatow-Era' romantic-comedy in that these young men are "allowed" to be emotional and learn lessons It's probably the first mainstream "male" teenage rom-com (putting asside High Fidelity and About A Boy because I think those are adult male rom-coms) Also 500 Days of Summer is absolutely a rom-com. If it's not, then When Harry Met Sally and Annie Hall aren't, which would be absurd. Commentary on and the taking down of dating-life bullshit and presumptions about the opposite gender don't mean it's not a rom-com IMO Waffles Inc. fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jan 16, 2017 |
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Jan 16, 2017 18:09
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there wolf posted:I'd love a link to that if you have it handy. http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/01/06/broad-cinema-amy-heckerlings-generation-leap With this being the key paragraph quote:There’s an evolution that happens between Fast Times and Clueless, between Stacy and Cher. Cher’s choosy about losing her virginity, and it’s a point of pride for her: “You see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet.” The power has shifted from the boys to the girls in 1995 Los Angeles. Cher can afford to shrug off every high school boy that slobbers on her or to jump out of Elton’s car when he makes unwanted advances, and she knows she isn’t going to get a reputation as an ice queen for standing her ground. It’s a luxury that Stacy’s lacking. She throws herself at Mark (Brian Backer) on their first date not necessarily because she wants to, but because she seems to think it’s expected of her.
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Jan 17, 2017 17:40
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Xealot posted:The IKEA scene is brilliant, conceptually. This performed farce of domestic artifice inside literally artificial domestic tableaus. Except for JGL's character, who's absolutely kidding on the square. The scene immediately before it is great too, where JGL is trying to force the same mood again and Summer just isn't having it. A lesser movie would have put that scene after the fun IKEA scene instead of before it.
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Jan 18, 2017 22:31
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Jenner posted:
1. This story was done with previous movies, but with pen-pals. I haven't seen the prior ones to compare to how they handled the stalker-ish aspects though. 2. I got the impression more that his first g/f was 'bad' because she didn't care about other people. Not just because she cared about her career. Sleepless in Seattle is another great one with those 2, and I always laugh at the Dirty Dozen and Bermuda Triangle jokes. The movie it's an homage to, An Affair to Remember, is pretty good (but mostly serious) and is even going to be in theaters for 1 or 2 days next month. The Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies are great and hilarious, and so is Down With Love, which is a modern amalgamation of them. (efb, but nobody mentioned the spectacular surprise cameo!) That Cameron Diaz/Kate Winslet house-swap holiday movie is mostly good too, iirc. But speaking of Jack Black and Cameron Diaz, I remember disliking Shallow Hal, can't remember why. 50 First Dates is charming to me though, I don't get the impression he's mind-raping her or whatever some people have said in the past. La La Land has an (imo) perfect handling of the rom/com. I won't spoil it but I love how it turns out at the end. Two Weeks Notice is more comedy than romance (and the romance is so-so believable and a little weird too) but it's worth a watch. I haven't seen While You Were Sleeping in a long time, dunno if it still holds up. The 1982 Conan is more actiony but has a real nice relationship in it. How long do you have to know someone before pledging your life to be together? Not every romance irl needs to take years, imo. Fools Rush In is pretty good and funny, worth a watch. Thomas Crown Affair (90's remake) is cool but a little odd. Another middle-aged romance is Bull Durham which I love rewatching when it's on tv. Jenner posted:/\/\ This is why I disliked the ending of Grease. Still an overall cool movie though :/ got any sevens fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 19:40
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(One of the crew is in her late 20s and asked, "What is that noise?" And we told her it was what the internet sounded like and felt so old.)
) -> The whole thing where Tom Hanks tries to befriend her happens -> Tom Hanks reveals his true identity to Meg Ryan and it's okay because she started to like him too. -> happily ever after.
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got any sevens posted:This is why I disliked the ending of Grease. Still an overall cool movie though :/ In my head, Grease ends with the makeover but she is like "Nah boy" and runs off with Rizzo
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Jan 20, 2017 20:36
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Shirec posted:In my head, Grease ends with the makeover but she is like "Nah boy" and runs off with Rizzo I'm just gonna make this canon. I have that power. Hello friends, I'm back and I still haven't watched Stardust because I got sucked into a vortex of activism. Sorry for neglecting my own awesome thread. But I come with content because I just saw Bend It Like Beckham on TV and I have opinions! First, depiction of religious minorities in a movie. Wow. And real cultural headbutting depicted without making them seem primitive or backwards. This is landmark. I loved Jess' family. Second, queerbaited again! I'll never learn!  But you know, that's way too harsh. It's not queerbaiting at all. The fact that they are mistaken to be lesbians is crucial to the plot. The fact that it's not treated like, "Wow, two chicks so hot" and instead really shows the stigma is really good.Third, their friendship is just so good and so precious and I love them. Kiera Knightley still too twiggy, frail, and thin-looking to be a real woman's soccer player. (Have you seen the US women's team? Gosh!) But it's fine, I'll suspend my disbelief because it's so good! Fourth, you fuckers! Why did you have to put in the crush on the coach storyline?! YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD. So gross! Ick! And those men they hook up with were garbage! I don't care that they're not gay together but they should have taste, drat it! Overall a really enjoyable movie! Really glad I watched it. And I swear, I am going to watch When Harry Met Sally with the crew and Stardust as soon as I can. I'm also in talks with someone and learning how to run a podcast so maybe I can make this a thing. If I do, I'll let you all know and probably try to recruit every last one of you to talk with me about romantic comedies and their ilk.
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Jan 29, 2017 10:50
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Nice. Romantic comedies that depict different cultures is the tops. I would suggest Slumdog Millionaire for a follow-up (the regular ol' heterosexual pairing it is). A podcast on this kind of stuff is a good idea, wonder if anyone has done it before. Don't think so.
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Feb 1, 2017 17:01
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Shageletic posted:Nice. Romantic comedies that depict different cultures is the tops. There's been at least one podcast centered specifically around rom-coms, though I don't think it's still running and I've listened to a few episodes and they weren't really that great to begin with. Re: Bend it like Beckham, I vaguely recall that the movie WAS supposed to have a gay romantic sub-plot between Jess and Jules originally, but something something nixed that in favor of having the romantic sub-plot be between Jess and Joe the coach instead.
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Feb 12, 2017 08:08
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Which is infinitely more problematic.
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Feb 18, 2017 19:23
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Shageletic posted:Which is infinitely more problematic. The whole idea that queer relationships are inherently more "adult" is extremely homophobic. The fact that a perfectly fine gay romance was replaced with a really uncomfortable power imbalance relationship is just the worst. I still haven't seen Stardust and I haven't watched anything that I could argue was somewhat of a romantic comedy lately. My apologies. I've been so caught up and my crew of romcom watchers appears to have dissolved. RIP. I'll just watch some on my own soon because this thread is really good.
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Mar 28, 2017 23:46
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