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Bip Roberts posted:The thing about that whole scene is it raised the possibility that the whole nature of the Bigfoot character was more or less a figment of Doc's creation. I wasn't sure if Bigfoot was a mentally ill cop on leave and manifested himself ala Tyler Durden to Doc. That last scene with Bigfoot didn't help our trust in the validity of the narrator. I'm not sure I understand your interpretation. Wouldn't this mean Sauncho was imaginary as well? He interacts with Bigfoot early in the film.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:48
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All characters in every film are imaginary.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:53
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The myth-like namesake does need unpacking, but I think you'd need more evidence than the weed-eating scene. Bigfoot eats Doc's weed because he's a caricature of a bad cop; he has to use authority in the most egregious way. The weed-eating is similar to his casual, throwaway line about performing "civil rights violations" earlier in the movie.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:57
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Well at the very least we are dealing with a well-less-than-reliable narrator here and the perception of Bigfoot as the living embodiment of Joe Friday might be a total creation. The fact that Bigfoot is a broken alcoholic at home, is on the outs with his lieutenant, is on a revenge kick for the murder of his partner make it seems that much of the Bigfoot character might be a projection of Doc.
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Jan 19, 2015 06:06
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He seemed like Doc's antithesis or even foil. Both are driven, stubborn detectives blindsided by the cultures they inhabit. They'd never call themselves partners, but they function as one for the purposes of the film.
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Jan 19, 2015 06:12
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It seemed to me like the wordless equivalent of Daniel Plainview's last monologue to Eli.
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Jan 19, 2015 06:32
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Bigfoot's scene felt to me like a way to visualize the historical arc that the story deals in; it's authority kicking in the door and literally consuming the culture. "Are you okay, brother?" "I'm not your brother." "But you could sure use a keeper." edit: And in that context I think it's interesting to note that Bigfoot both makes a point of taking a hit beforehand, and makes no attempt to hide the unpleasantness of eating Doc's weed. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 08:17
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Eggnogium posted:It seemed to me like the wordless equivalent of Daniel Plainview's last monologue to Eli. "I ate your weed. I ate it all up!"
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Jan 19, 2015 10:10
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Bigfoot's scene felt to me like a way to visualize the historical arc that the story deals in; it's authority kicking in the door and literally consuming the culture. It's just such a beautiful scene.
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Jan 19, 2015 11:52
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Eggnogium posted:It seemed to me like the wordless equivalent of Daniel Plainview's last monologue to Eli. I was more than half expecting that scene to end with Bigfoot gasping out, "I'm finished!" and then smash cut to credits.
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Jan 19, 2015 13:24
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This movie, in my opinion, was all style with no substance. The story was very hard for me to follow, and the pacing was not my cup of tea.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:20
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This might be one of my favorite novel adaptations ever. Apart from certain side plots needing to be truncated or erased for time (Las Vegas/Arrepentimiento/the whole boat chase) it felt remarkably faithful to the book and captured the feel of it perfectly, and in some cases the humor came out better (god those visual gags, I love how they didn't even bother explaining the absurdity behind the chocolate frozen bananas). And my straight-crush Joanna Newsom narrating and playing the effervescent sage Sortilege just topped off the cherry on the whole thing.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:46
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Leon Einstein posted:This movie, in my opinion, was all style with no substance. The story was very hard for me to follow, and the pacing was not my cup of tea. You should read this thread then.
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Jan 20, 2015 07:04
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I read the book a few months back, and was kind of expecting something a little more screwball. Like someone else pointed out, I don't think that the static camera helped things — it works great in The Master, where you can focus on the performances, but it deflates some of the better jokes here. I also wished they'd thrown in some of the surf rock Pynchon describes at length, but I've been listening to Vitamin C non-stop since last night so I guess I can't complain. On the whole I dug it, though, and want to catch it again.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:18
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Double-post, but any thoughts on the ending?
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Jan 20, 2015 18:38
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TrixRabbi posted:You should read this thread then.
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Jan 20, 2015 19:33
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Leon Einstein posted:A movie shouldn't require further reading to make sense. This is implying that no one can follow the movie.
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Jan 20, 2015 19:51
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loving media, referencing and being informed by other media.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:30
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Leon Einstein posted:A movie shouldn't require further reading to make sense. The movie (like the book) isn't supposed to make perfect sense. A great deal of Pynchon's work is like this, where the characters are always right on the edge of some vast conspiracy. So with Inherent Vice, you have the possibility of (A) An actual massive conspiracy or (B) A hippie's drug induced paranoia or (C) somewhere in between, with a probably unreliable narrator in the mix too. As far as movies adapted from books, this one is a home run in my mind. And it's not exactly easy to hit what Thomas Pynchon is throwing.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:47
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Leon Einstein posted:A movie shouldn't require further reading to make sense. That depends, because there are films like Mulholland Dr. that basically require multiple viewings and visual art like Dali's stuff that makes more sense if you study the context of the imagery he used. I'm glad that Lynch convinced me to re-watch Mullholland Dr. and I'm also glad that Dali didn't just paint plain old fruit baskets and flowers. InfiniteZero fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 21:15
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Leon Einstein posted:A movie shouldn't require further reading to make sense. Most of us have only seen it once and we've had good discussions about it, what happens, and what it all means. Just because you couldn't figure it out doesn't mean there's no substance.
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Jan 20, 2015 22:36
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There are in fact a number of substances in the movie, you were probably just focusing too much on the face-value conspiracy plot
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Jan 21, 2015 03:07
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Despite hating this movie, I'm a massive PTA and Pynchon fan and I'm eager to give it another watch on DVD to see if I like it the second time around, especially after having read this excellent thread.
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Jan 21, 2015 05:33
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On the subject of Inherent Twice. http://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/887-when-once-isnt-enough/
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Jan 21, 2015 09:05
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Went into this pretty much blind having never read Pynchon and also getting this and the trailer for "A Most Violent Year" confused. Ended up really enjoying it. I definitely got the sense that you can't take everything that happens at face value. The whole movie is somewhat disorienting with all these strange characters showing up and the huge amount of close up shots. The narration kind of gave me the feeling that you're supposed to be experiencing the story through that "doper's ESP" Definitely reminded me of Coen Brothers a little bit, at least in the way it could go from hilarious to dramatic without feeling forced. Josh Brolin in particular was incredibly funny. My biggest disappointment was that the approach to Girl Planet sequence was my favourite thing in the movie, but it's really early and nothing else like it happens again. The pacing was a bit off as well, definitely seemed long after Chasta returns, but the payoff of the movie is worth it. I also had a lot of trouble understanding Joaquin Phoenix in certain scenes, so that made the already convoluted plot even harder to follow. For me though that's just more incentive for a rewatch. Immediately went out and picked up some Pynchon novels. The Crying of Lot 49 has some weird similarities. The main character is pulled into a weird conspiracy involving a real estate mogul by the sudden reappearance of an ex (the details are different of course but it's kind of a strange parallel). It's also completely hilarious.
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Jan 21, 2015 21:10
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Looper posted:There are in fact a number of substances in the movie, you were probably just focusing too much on the face-value conspiracy plot
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Jan 21, 2015 22:57
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Leon Einstein posted:I guess if the disorientation is part of the experience, I understand it a lot more. I did like watching it, but I spent too much time trying to parse the plot. The experience you had is the experience of the protagonist. Doc was disoriented and trying to parse the plot. He ultimately fails to make sense of it all because all the apparent connections add up to nothing. As such, the film is more about the death of the hippies as a genuine cultural movement than it is about all the murders and kidnappings. The only real story that we follow beginning to end is Doc returning Coy to his family.
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Jan 21, 2015 23:25
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I really liked this movie. Is acid noir a genre? Because it should be now if it isn't. The plot was hard to follow but it didnt matter. Watching this movie was like being on drugs.
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Jan 22, 2015 07:59
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Bip Roberts posted:Well at the very least we are dealing with a well-less-than-reliable narrator here and the perception of Bigfoot as the living embodiment of Joe Friday might be a total creation. The fact that Bigfoot is a broken alcoholic at home, is on the outs with his lieutenant, is on a revenge kick for the murder of his partner make it seems that much of the Bigfoot character might be a projection of Doc. One of the few things I remember clearly about reading Inherent Vice is that I wanted so badly for it to be revealed that Doc was Bigfoot's 'murdered' partner. Their relationship is so intimate, it was one of the few things that made sense to me. But alas, it was not meant to be. Can't wait to see it. Madame Psychosis fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Jan 22, 2015 |
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Jan 22, 2015 08:06
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Trollipop posted:I really liked this movie. Is acid noir a genre? Because it should be now if it isn't. The plot was hard to follow but it didnt matter. Watching this movie was like being on drugs. We got Southland Tales, A Scanner Darkly, Repo Man what other moves are about incoherence from drugs and never really develop a cogent plot?
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Jan 23, 2015 06:04
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Frackie Robinson posted:when he goes to Wolfman's development and gets into trouble. Bigfoot makes some mention in his interview with Doc that Doc was there alone. You could make the argument that she just ran away, but I think PTA was very much trying to make Sortilege out as a part of Doc's imagination. Seaniqua posted:The links between Golden Fang, Puck Beaverton, and Adrian Prussia are still confusing to me. Was Adrian Prussia mentioned earlier in the movie and I just missed it? He seemed to show up super late. Who killed Glen Charlock and why? Adrian Prussia was an assassin working for the government, and the Golden Fang was largely a government organization around the time of the movie. Puck Beaverton was just one of Prussia's employees. Charlock was killed by either Prussia or Beaverton because Charlock told Doc about the Aryan Nation and Black Panthers' involvement with Wolfmann, which Doc told Bigfoot, who we can easily assume told his superiors. Having never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson movie or read a Thomas Pynchon novel or watched a single trailer for Inherent Vice, going into this movie as blind as you can get, Inherent Vice was a very enjoyable experience.
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Jan 23, 2015 09:09
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madeupfred posted:Having never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson movie Woah, this needs fixing, stat!
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Jan 23, 2015 09:11
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Lots of love for the final Bigfoot and Doc scene, but not enough of it for this line: "Bigfoot, man.... you kicked down my door......"
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Jan 23, 2015 13:22
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Professor Shark posted:Lots of love for the final Bigfoot and Doc scene, but not enough of it for this line: "Bigfoot, man.... you kicked down my door......" I'll bet that door really held the room together.
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Jan 23, 2015 18:44
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therattle posted:I'll bet that door really held the room together. Bigfoot smashing the glass on the door made that scene. And Josh Brolin is like the platonic ideal of "the man." Coffee And Pie fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 19:26
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Sprecherscrow posted:When I read the book, I viewed it as specifically a companion to the waves speech. The "high water mark" broke and fell back because the culture that pushed it contained an inherent vice insuring it's own failure. The sad truth is the hippies were never going to win. Which is one of the things I liked about it, that Pynchon isn't blinded by nostalgia. It's an honest book in that way. The hippies may not have won, but they didn't exactly lose either. I think you should look into the history of the counter culture movement if you really want to understand. The 60s are still inspiring people today, and even though our culture is in many was (arguably) worse than it was back then, many of the ideas that were first introduced to our culture in the 60s are more pertinent now they they were even back then.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:25
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Citation needed.
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Jan 25, 2015 01:33
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"Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski! Condolences! The bums lost! My advice is, do what your parents did! Get a job, sir! The bums will always lose, do you hear me, Lebowski? The bums will always lose!"
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Jan 25, 2015 05:46
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I've heard the Big Lebowski comparison a few times (and it's definitely apt), but was anyone else reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? It's got the same drug-addled viewpoint thing going on, and Fear and Loathing is also about the failures of the hippie movement.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:17
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Blisster posted:I've heard the Big Lebowski comparison a few times (and it's definitely apt), but was anyone else reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? It's got the same drug-addled viewpoint thing going on, and Fear and Loathing is also about the failures of the hippie movement. I don't see what Inherent Vice has to do with some film where Benecio Del Toro plays an insane lawyer.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:24
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