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joylessdivision posted:Yeah I seem to remember Bowers sidelines him pretty soon after the group comes together. And I think it happens at Mike's house, but I could be wrong. Yeah, it's a super loving crazy sequence and I want to see it.
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Sep 14, 2017 07:28
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deoju posted:Mine too. I was the only one in the theater laughing. Somebody in front of me turned around to give me the stink eye. It's so loving over the top macabre I couldn't handle it. Really? C'mon, how could anyone fault you for chuckling at that? I know I did, just like I chuckled at Pennywise mocking the poo poo out of Eddie after his arm got snapped. I mean yeah it's dark and hosed up but if you can't find humor in Pennywise taking mocking pretend bites of Eddie's hand then you're watching the wrong movie 
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Sep 14, 2017 12:22
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Him making fun of Eddie's asthma was great. Pennywise is such a huge rear end in a top hat. I love 'em!
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Sep 14, 2017 12:31
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Like one of the big criticisms I've heard so far is that it's tonally all over the place but I honestly think that was part of the fun, going from 'hehe oh man that's messed up' to 'jeeeeeeeesus christ' in the span of a minute.
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Sep 14, 2017 12:44
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Is "we all float down here" seriously that hard to parse? Dead bodies of children + being in sewers = floating in sewage. Yeah, it's also a metaphor but it's a pretty basic message and over analyzing it seems silly.
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Sep 14, 2017 17:08
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NiceGuy posted:Like one of the big criticisms I've heard so far is that it's tonally all over the place but I honestly think that was part of the fun, going from 'hehe oh man that's messed up' to 'jeeeeeeeesus christ' in the span of a minute. My only complaint was that the rock fight seemed excessively cartoonish and Richie didn't need to make a snappy comment after every instance of horror. I liked the blending elsewhere, particularly in the Spooky House. "NOT SCARY AT ALL"
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Sep 14, 2017 17:29
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BiggerBoat posted:Is "we all float down here" seriously that hard to parse? As sometimes frustrating as it is, choosing to engage with IT here in the forums has been educational for me. There are some painfully specific things about IT that I wouldn't expect a lot of folks to get but I've been heartened at how sympathetic some responses have been. Other things - like the conversations around asthma, grounding techniques, "we all float down here", "Hi-oh Silver", and so on - I've made the mistake of assuming are part of...I guess general human awareness? Basically, I've made some assumptions about folks' information set that I probably shouldn't have. Like, I'm really familiar with the Lone Ranger, but I also could have recalled how poorly Verbinski's version did at the box office for a general idea of how out in the woods that piece of entertainment history is now. Edit: Magic Hate Ball posted:My only complaint was that the rock fight seemed excessively cartoonish and Richie didn't need to make a snappy comment after every instance of horror. I liked the blending elsewhere, particularly in the Spooky House. "NOT SCARY AT ALL" The rock fight felt off to me from the sound. Much of the earlier abuse/confrontations had strong sound cues that nauseated and/or terrified me. I kept expecting a stronger "thunk" of rocks hitting flesh, but it was more amped up with the kickin' rad song. I still dug it a lot, but I think that's where some of the disconnect between primal fear and constructed story comes into play that SMG was talking about. This is a key moment in the kids building their own mythology so of course it's a bit more celebratory, but that doesn't keep it from feeling a tad at odds with what came before and much of what comes after. Punch Drunk Drewsky fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 17:29
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I've been watching a bunch of South Korean films lately so "tonal whiplash" has been extremely my poo poo.
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Sep 14, 2017 17:56
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Punch Drunk Drewsky posted:Not sold on how/why those images Hundu talks about are insufficient outside of "technically there." I'm curious to an elaboration if you're up for it. What I mean is that you can eventually decipher the jittery clown images by supplementing these non-evocative visuals with the exposition - so, for example, we can safely say that the fear sequence with Mike at the butcher shop's door represents how he blames himself for the death of his parents. Mike's fantasy/nightmare is that they will come back from the dead to punish him for his failure to help. (This is why he's hesitant to kill the sheep, then imagines a butchered sheep transforming into Pennywise...) Therefore Mike secretly agrees with both the racist kids and his uncle (who has internalized the racism), that he's a bad person and 'doesn't belong here' - resigning himself to being homeschooled outside the community. And so-on. But why bother with this compulsory-rear end homework assignment, when I can just watch a complete movie with clear visual storytelling? When I say IT is technically well-made, I mean so is fuckin' Hearts In Atlantis. And I will not hesitate to say Hearts is the better film. Hundu's wrote that the movie needs exposition because the bulk of it is dream sequences. But why can't the dream sequences stand on their own? The need for exposition points to a deficiency in the storytelling. The dream sequences are not expressive enough, telling us very little about the characters' psychologies. I don't even like It Follows or Nightmare On Elm Street, but both make a point of having the exposition be contradicted by the visuals. Nancy in Elm Street claims that, according to the rules of the Freddy urban legend, she can't be hurt if she isn't afraid - but then she's stabbed in the back, and dies. Exposition in the 'Elm Street' genre is used to highlight the gap between what the kids believe and what is truly happening, while the dream sequences are used to highlight the difference between truth and mere factuality IT is no exception, but the execution is sloppy. Dream sequences are frequently just expository, while expository dialogue is often used to convey objective fact, etc. Derry remains a sketch; there are few traces of authenticity. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 18:06
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Nroo posted:I've been watching a bunch of South Korean films lately so "tonal whiplash" has been extremely my poo poo. hell yeah, which ones?
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Sep 14, 2017 18:18
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:IT is no exception, but the execution is sloppy. Dream sequences are frequently just expository, while expository dialogue is often used to convey objective fact, etc. Derry remains a sketch; there are few traces of authenticity. Definitely feel differently, like I enjoy the juxtaposition of Mike's objective fact dialogue with the menace of the town parade or the television motif, but yeah - the dream sequences are relatively straightforward. So, don't agree, and my reaction would have been less intense if it was more abstracted or "properly" dream-like, but I appreciate where you're coming from. I think your Hearts In Atlantis comparison is good there. The book, second to Misery and Pet Sematary, is my favorite King. The movie works great as a heart tugging coming-of-age flick, and Anton Yelchin's aces in it, but I hold out hope someone does a no holds barred deep dive into the decades long pain of the failed hippie philosophy.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:22
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Just saw the movie, thought it was pretty good. Certainly some areas that seemed cut down or rushed for time, but I'm not really sure what else could be done with a two hour limit. Something longer a la Stranger Things would have been ideal, but this was enjoyable.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:42
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:hell yeah, which ones? The Handmaiden* (prob the first movie I was surprised to learn was shot on digital) The Wailing The President's Last Bang The Age of Shadows New World* A Tale of Two Sisters I Saw the Devil Train to Busan Oki's Movie Barking Dog's Never Bite All were very-good to great. *Same DoP as It.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:53
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The Wailing is one of my favorite movies and has my favorite line of dialogue ever: "what kind of fucker murders somebody?"
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Sep 14, 2017 19:31
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Punch Drunk Drewsky posted:Definitely feel differently, like I enjoy the juxtaposition of Mike's objective fact dialogue with the menace of the town parade or the television motif, but yeah - the dream sequences are relatively straightforward. So, don't agree, and my reaction would have been less intense if it was more abstracted or "properly" dream-like, but I appreciate where you're coming from. Mike's dialogue is a good example of what I'm talking about, because it's not objective fact. The part where he says "I tried to help them, but the door was too hot..." (or whatever) is an excuse that he tells himself. The truth is that he was simply too scared to help. Of course he was; he must have been, like, 5. It's just that, in a better/complete film, we would have a triad of the subjective, the objective, and the truth beyond mere objectivity. In Mike's case, this would entail an objective account of the fire (police reports, crime scene photos, whatever), the subjective firsthand account (Mike's story, combined with his dreams about the demon clown), and the painful truth (there was no actual demon; Mike let his parents die because he was afraid, and what he really needs is to confess and to feel forgiven). In the actual film, we only have the middle part: the subjective. There is no official version of what happened. Did Mike's parents even die in a fire, or is he conflating events from his childhood with the history of The Black Spot? The Paul Bunyan hints that all the stuff about skeletal hands is just another tall tale. This is why Mike is has some of the weakest characterization, while Beverley has the strongest: we have the father's 'objective' point of view (there is no blood, he's a good father, Bev is acting weird), Beverley's subjective point of view (DAD IS A DEMON! BLOOD EVERYWHERE! AAAA!), and then the unspoken (but fairly obvious) truth that her dad is just an unexceptional human idiot who molested his daughter when she was a toddler and then carried on with his life assuming that she forgot.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:03
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I thought the thing about Bev's dad (in the book, at least) was that he was beginning to entertain the notion of molesting her because she was starting to look like her mother, but was sublimating that desire with other sorts of abuse because he knew it was wrong. IT just pushed him over the edge.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:08
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:It's just that, in a better/complete film, we would have a triad of the subjective, the objective, and the truth beyond mere objectivity. This observation in particular makes me want to dive back into my Lacan. I don't take an overt-theory approach to my writing but you've made me think there's some drat fertile ground that might supplement my thoughts.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:19
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The Handmaiden was really intense when I realized they were going full lesbo.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:26
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MisterBibs posted:I thought the thing about Bev's dad (in the book, at least) was that he was beginning to entertain the notion of molesting her because she was starting to look like her mother, but was sublimating that desire with other sorts of abuse because he knew it was wrong. IT just pushed him over the edge. Yeah, I just finished the book and it's made pretty clear that he's never actually done anything to her but he was getting extremely touchy with her and IT taking him over pushed him into full blown rapist. He was having thoughts about it prior though, that's made very clear in the book. For me the biggest problem was Patrick Hocksetter. His entire scene/death was the scene I was most looking forward to and to see him get probably the lamest death in the movie really loving blew.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:34
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T Bowl posted:The Handmadien was really intense when I realized they were going full lesbo. This statement is a deep hole of innuendo
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Sep 14, 2017 20:38
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I don't know if could handle that farting scene. So I never thought they'd actually do Patrick's original death.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:58
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Mike's dialogue is a good example of what I'm talking about, because it's not objective fact. The part where he says "I tried to help them, but the door was too hot..." (or whatever) is an excuse that he tells himself. The truth is that he was simply too scared to help. Of course he was; he must have been, like, 5. See, this is good poo poo. The stuff about a demon invoked by play is really on point. SuperMechagodzilla posted:This is why Mike is has some of the weakest characterization, while Beverley has the strongest: we have the father's 'objective' point of view (there is no blood, he's a good father, Bev is acting weird), Beverley's subjective point of view (DAD IS A DEMON! BLOOD EVERYWHERE! AAAA!), and then the unspoken (but fairly obvious) truth that her dad is just an unexceptional human idiot who molested his daughter when she was a toddler and then carried on with his life assuming that she forgot. You're missing stuff from this, in the vein of noting that the film opens in the clouds ala the Simpsons, in the storm made for Georgie. Georgie disappears because, like you say, no one was looking out for him. Bill gave him a walkie talkie and all that, but when he runs down to get the wax out of the basement, he passes by his mother, who neither acknowledges nor addresses him. Both times we see her, she's totally obscured. This is completely weird and abstract but doesn't seem like an accident or anything like that. For example, during That Scene, there's no real indication that Bev's dad is going to molest her. He's physically violent, sadistic and controlling, but that's not necessarily the same thing. However, there's a brief shot of him taking Bev's hand in his (refusing to let it go) where we can clearly see the wedding band on his finger matching her rings. Talking to Bill, she emphasizes she's only been kissed once. The film implies something quite different about Bev's relationship to her dad, something much more traumatic. Henry Bowers would've been a better character to flesh out in that regard because he's obviously suffering something much worse than his cop dad smacking him around a bit. That's what's missing, there is no objective or subjective, the film doesn't really bother with either. In the City Of Lost Children trash heap/throne, if you look up at the top, there's a grate that looks like the one they pass down by the barrens, but obviously, in the real world, it's realistically proportioned, and in the cistern, it's a portal of indeterminate size. When Mike is telling his story about something being wrong with Derry, in the background, two cops are hovering around him, noticeably passing by twice. It seems even more off than normal, that adults aren't even part of the same world. There's all this weird stuff just hanging out in the movie with no attempt at an explanation other than some people noting that the film seems cut down.
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Sep 14, 2017 21:06
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Yeah the entire Henry Bowers scene with his dad seemed really crammed in there. Like, there needed to be at least one other scene that at least shows that Bowers is terrified of his dad. Like in the book he's angry at Ben for not letting him cheat and therefore making him repeat a grade which will make his dad beat the poo poo out of him. That one scene being there and IMMEDIATELY leading into Bowers breakdown felt like the filmmakers were like "gently caress, we're running too long....just shove the Bowers dad scene here, gently caress it"
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Sep 14, 2017 21:19
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BiggerBoat posted:Is "we all float down here" seriously that hard to parse? I don't think it's hard to parse at all. It's more that it's a cool, effective line because it can mean or hint at multiple things at once.
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Sep 14, 2017 21:22
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OldTennisCourt posted:Yeah the entire Henry Bowers scene with his dad seemed really crammed in there. Like, there needed to be at least one other scene that at least shows that Bowers is terrified of his dad. Like in the book he's angry at Ben for not letting him cheat and therefore making him repeat a grade which will make his dad beat the poo poo out of him. Bowers' first scene has him physically intimidating Bill, then looking over to see his dad staring at him (though at that point the audience only sees him as the cop next to Betty Ripsom's mother) and he quickly runs off. So there was at least one other scene.
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Sep 14, 2017 21:27
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Punch Drunk Drewsky posted:As sometimes frustrating as it is, choosing to engage with IT here in the forums has been educational for me. There are some painfully specific things about IT that I wouldn't expect a lot of folks to get but I've been heartened at how sympathetic some responses have been. Nah, dude. You're posting good poo poo about a really good movie based on a really good book that, on its face, is almost unfilmable, especially if one were to try to get EVERYTHING crammed in there. Book is very complex but I just thought it was funny that "we all float down here" was singled out as something open to interpretation given how much other stuff is covered in the novel.
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Sep 14, 2017 21:49
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The most disappointing omission for me was how the kids' natural traits were magnified as their occupations in adulthood in the original story, and the film takes away so much of their characterisation that (apart from Ritchie and Stan) it's hard to see how they'll have narratively fulfilling occupations now. Gone is Bill the Storyteller who becomes a novelist, instead what now, a theme park ride designer? Ben the no-longer architect, now Ben the boy band member? Mike the historian/librarian becomes a... fireman? Bev who had to mend her own clothes because she was so poor but went on to be a fashion designer, there's no build to that in the film - maybe she can grow up to be Ronda Rousey? Eddie spent his childhood in thrall to his mother and went on to become a professional servant to the stars (limo driver) could still go down that path but I feel the movie would rather he become a gigolo in part 2. The film wasn't bad, it just taunted book fans with enough nods to the source material to make you think it was going to be a faithful adaptation, and then it said gently caress it and gave us a movie about Bev and her friends learning about the power of friendship. It's hard not to be disappointed.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:04
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I don't think they necessarily needed to set up what each kid's eventual career will be, but they definitely put some stuff in leading to Ben still being an architect. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Bill an artist instead of an author though.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:11
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yo somebody hit me with that proper Lacanian analysis of the film edit: Punch Drunk Drewsky posted:This observation in particular makes me want to dive back into my Lacan. I don't take an overt-theory approach to my writing but you've made me think there's some drat fertile ground that might supplement my thoughts. hell yeah, post that poo poo when you're done
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Sep 14, 2017 22:11
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The dance was loving incredible.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:17
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poptart_fairy posted:The dance was loving incredible. Binged IT EXCEPT Pennywise Dances to Anything and now I'm floating.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:34
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Overall I really liked the film. But they did themselves a huge disservice in marketing and leaning into the modern horror demographic. (By disservice, I mean artistically, obviously they made loving bank cash money dolla). The classic 80s King style horror really doesn't gel with 'everything is incredibly loud and grim and we will startle the everloving poo poo out of you' attitude that the kids these days enjoy. It felt like they had a really good, consistent script for a spooky adventure film but at the last minute someone asked 'but why are there only two jump scares? What's all this subtlety there for?' A lot of the time it felt like two entirely different movies spliced together. The end result just means big chunks of the film were too intense for losers like me to fully enjoy, but too half-hearted for the Annabelle: Creation demographic to get much out of. Half the screening didn't seem overly impressed by the last 20 minutes of the film. But yeah, it was good. stev fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 22:53
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:yo somebody hit me with that proper Lacanian analysis of the film Dug my Ecrits out and I gotta see if I can find seminar write-ups now that I'm without my university access. May just be a looooooooooooong time before I get something up though. Between writing my It review, playing through then recording / editing feelings on a Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice podcast, then doing the same thing for a podcast on Twin Peaks: The Return, I am so thoroughly burnt out on trauma-related media that I had to just -stop- and play Stardew Valley for the last day or so. The next big thing I wanna get done I need to finish before Justice League launches. Going to take a deep dive into Debra Snyder's work behind-the-scenes of all Zack's movies in a big appreciation piece. The Lacanian It will be next on the slate, and I really appreciate the interest 'cause I'm a big self-motivator but knowing there's already an audience for that does my heart some good.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:56
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Saul Goode posted:The most disappointing omission for me was how the kids' natural traits were magnified as their occupations in adulthood in the original story, and the film takes away so much of their characterisation that (apart from Ritchie and Stan) it's hard to see how they'll have narratively fulfilling occupations now. Small correction on Eddie's part, as a kid he could always find he way around the barrens for them, and was the one who had to lead them through the sewers so his sense of direction and navigating is the lead in to his running a limo service.
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Sep 14, 2017 23:33
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Nroo posted:Bowers' first scene has him physically intimidating Bill, then looking over to see his dad staring at him (though at that point the audience only sees him as the cop next to Betty Ripsom's mother) and he quickly runs off. There's also a mention of "my dad's gonna kill me" for losing his knife after Ben gets away, and I presume he did get punished. Isn't this the knife IT sends him later? So the knife is associated both with anger at the Losers and the wrath of his father, and it comes to him at his lowest point when his mind is just ready to break. I can see it feeling rushed to fans of the book but as an uninformed viewer it came through pretty clear to me.
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Sep 14, 2017 23:50
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There is turtle wallpaper in Georgie's room. Just FYI.
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Sep 15, 2017 00:09
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Steve2911 posted:It felt like they had a really good, consistent script for a spooky adventure film but at the last minute someone asked 'but why are there only two jump scares? What's all this subtlety there for?' A lot of the time it felt like two entirely different movies spliced together. I felt that sort of played to its strength in a lot of ways because the tonal shifts were so jarring. One minute, it was a Stand By Me coming of age film and then IT abruptly shifted gears. Obviously, the film makers had to pare down the book a tad and, overall, I think most of the decisions they made were wise and generally served to drive the story. Almost anything that the film's detractors are citing comes down almost entirely to nitpicking and sacred cows from the book that they think are important. The fact that even make a movie out of this god damned book at all, let alone one this good, is a testament the actors and the director. Very very few people have called IT an outright piece of trash, which I think speaks to IT's quality because, jesus christ, this is a hard book to translate to film. Reminds me of Watchmen in that regard.
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Sep 15, 2017 00:15
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I really like the way they hinted at the manifestations of It being parts of a large creature. The way Pennywise moved, especially whenever he was fleeing or chasing, made him look like he was at the end of a giant invisible tentacle. I can totally imagine the 'true form' in this version being some sort of gigantic Eldritch octopus that can reach anywhere and everywhere in Derry at once. ^ Agreed, but Watchmen is trash simply by the virtue of trying.
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Sep 15, 2017 00:19
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Saul Goode posted:The most disappointing omission for me was how the kids' natural traits were magnified as their occupations in adulthood in the original story, and the film takes away so much of their characterisation that (apart from Ritchie and Stan) it's hard to see how they'll have narratively fulfilling occupations now.
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Sep 15, 2017 00:25
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:You're missing stuff from this, in the vein of noting that the film opens in the clouds ala the Simpsons, in the storm made for Georgie. Georgie disappears because, like you say, no one was looking out for him. Bill gave him a walkie talkie and all that, but when he runs down to get the wax out of the basement, he passes by his mother, who neither acknowledges nor addresses him. Both times we see her, she's totally obscured. This is completely weird and abstract but doesn't seem like an accident or anything like that. It's a question of point of view: The joke of the opening scene - "Bill's gonna kill me if I lose the boat!" - is that Bill of course did kill Georgie. He sent Georgie out into a rainstorm knowing it was dangerous - gravely warning him to be careful, but supplying him with only a raincoat and a walkie-talkie that's ultimately never used. Whose perspective is this? We get Georgie's adventure in the basement, and obviously the neighbour and her cat get a couple POV shots. But the fact is that these perspectives don't allign with anybody in particular. It's Bill's reconstruction of events based on his personal mix of memory, fantasy, and hearsay. The presence of Pennywise at the start, before he's invented, firmly establishes that this is a flashback - part of the game. But even that isn't fully accurate, is it? Nobody thinks the way this opening scene works. Nobody dreams like this. Not a twelve year old, and not the fortysomething adult he will become. When you cut from a huge closeup of the tiny, mutilated kid's crying face to the top-down view of the scene from the perspective of an indifferent God, that puts us firmly in arch exploitation-movie territory. It's adult filmmakers not-really-trying to capture what being a kid is like, a telephone-game distortion like one of Dave Devries' paintings:  All the ostensible 'dream sequences' in the film are not actually that; they don't actually match any characters' points of view, except kind of tangentially. As I wrote earlier, they are closest to the fantasy play sequence at the start of Toy Story 3 - which represents how the boy's mom imagines that he must play.
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Sep 15, 2017 00:32
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