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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwgUesU1pz4 Dir: David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, The Myth of the American Sleepover) Stars: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough Sam (Garfield) is a loser less than a week away from eviction. When his mysterious neighbor Sarah (Keough) befriends him only to disappear without a trace, he goes on a quest to find her that leads him through secret societies, coded messages, pop culture, a skunk, cryptids, casual sex, and a mysterious dog murderer. Not unlike The Big Lebowski, Inherent Vice, or any number of neo-noirs, the plot is fairly convoluted, but on purpose. Best to just go with it, really. This was supposed to have a proper release but after a poor reaction at Cannes it was unceremoniously dumped on VOD, where you can watch it right now! Here’s my immediate reaction: Coffee And Pie posted:Finally got around to Under the Silver Lake. Hooboy that probably isn’t a movie for everybody but damned if it didn’t hit the spot. Andrew Garfield, my boyfriend, gives a great performance. The runtime might raise eyebrows, and it’s a very slow 140 minutes, but I’ll tell ya I enjoyed all of them. Lots of what the gently caress moments, my favorite being the introduction of a sexy cryptid and a delightful sequence where a crusty old man behind a piano in a giant matte painting mansion reveals through a medley that he wrote every major pop hit since the 50s, including Smells Like Teen Spirit, which leads to the old man pulling a pistol and Garfield beating his head in with Kurt Cobain’s guitar in a scene that might beat the head crushing scene from Drive for shocking brutality. In essence, if the idea of a sad looking Andrew Garfield moping and smoking and loving his way through LA and cracking codes hidden in pop culture appeals to you, check it out. Think Big Lebowski meets It Follows meets Wes Anderson meets The Neon Demon. I discovered after the fact that there are also coded messages in the movie, but for more on that I would recommend looking at the subreddit, r/underthesilverlake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmpdwxW9Lw
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May 5, 2019 19:22
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I'd loving pounce on that movie like nothing else, even more so after your review, so sad it never got a proper release. Hoping to catch it on streaming. Is this gonna end Mitchell's career before it even started properly? edit: Aparently Canadian Prime has it streaming, why did I move south???? married but discreet fucked around with this message at 02:02 on May 6, 2019 |
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May 6, 2019 00:24
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this movie was a gigantic mess but i loved every second of it
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May 6, 2019 00:49
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married but discreet posted:I'd loving pounce on that movie like nothing else, even more so after your review, so sad it never got a proper release. Hoping to catch it on streaming. Pretty much everywhere has it available to treat for :5bux: it looks like
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May 6, 2019 17:32
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This like Laslow nemes sunset doesn’t work because in order to enjoy a movie of a person stumbling through a Byzantine Plot you have to find the protagonist likeable in some degree
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May 8, 2019 19:13
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I saw this movie a while back and still think about it a lot. It's definitely slow and a bit boring at points, but oddly compelling pretty much all the way through. It's like if someone made a movie of the Strangers and Freaks missions in Grand Theft Auto 5. The songwriter scene owns.
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May 21, 2019 11:53
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This was one of my favorite movies of last year. If you had told me I'd prefer a knockoff Inherent Vice to the actual Inherent Vice film before I saw both of them, I'd have been quite skeptical, but that's exactly what happened.
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May 21, 2019 15:56
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I thought the movie was close to wrapping up and checked the time elapsed only to find that there was a crushing 85 minutes of runtime remaining. That said, I enjoyed the movie overall.
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May 21, 2019 16:37
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Under the Silver Lake is my new favourite movie. Secret occult messages in free vinyl records (like the 3 I’ve got this month, thanks Pablo Andres), Zelda and Spider-Man, zines, a gimmick band with dancing girls like my old band, the hidden history of pop music, Unknown Armies, stoner vibes.. really male gazey but otherwise perfect. I can talk about this movie forever. I’m gonna get stoned and watch it on repeat for days.
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May 30, 2019 12:16
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Count Chocula posted:Under the Silver Lake is my new favourite movie. Secret occult messages in free vinyl records (like the 3 I’ve got this month, thanks Pablo Andres), Zelda and Spider-Man, zines, a gimmick band with dancing girls like my old band, the hidden history of pop music, Unknown Armies, stoner vibes.. really male gazey but otherwise perfect. Does Mitchell continue to show his Tarantino level horniness for bare feet in this one
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May 30, 2019 19:08
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I've been reading a lot of Pynchon lately, so that made this feel extremely familiar.
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May 30, 2019 19:10
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This movie is the lovechild of The Big Lebowski and Mulholland Drive. The guy behind It Follows wrote and directed it, and he continues his themes of dread and uncomfortable uncertainty through the underground occult of L.A. It's the best movie David Lynch never made. I went in with low expectations (how it was marketed) and came out very pleasantly surprised.
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May 30, 2019 19:55
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My friend ordered a White Russian after seeing it.DeimosRising posted:Does Mitchell continue to show his Tarantino level horniness for bare feet in this one Yes, bare feet and foot fetishism are a big motif. There’s odd John Wick parallels: the dog killer, the homeless king. My friend said it’s about lonely people looking for messages in music, which is literally most of my life. For fans of the tabletop RPG Unknown Armies there’s 3 main references: True King, Max Attax, 333 Everything parallels my life: zine fandom, secret messages in records, Zelda, even going to a pub called Silverlake. I don’t understand not loving this movie. I want the zines for real. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 01:05 on May 31, 2019 |
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May 31, 2019 00:42
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Count Chocula posted:Under the Silver Lake is my new favourite movie. Secret occult messages in free vinyl records (like the 3 I’ve got this month, thanks Pablo Andres), Zelda and Spider-Man, zines, a gimmick band with dancing girls like my old band, the hidden history of pop music, Unknown Armies, stoner vibes.. really male gazey but otherwise perfect. It's super male gazey but also explicitly and intentionally so? Like, a character literally says a line about "women wilting under the male gaze" about 20 minutes in. In fact the entire thing is incredibly obvious and lampshadey about its messaging. It's like the dream movie 18-year-old me would have made. Gorgeously shot though.
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May 31, 2019 17:14
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So... He's the Dog Killer, right ? Really cool (and weird) movie
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Jun 1, 2019 00:01
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That’s the vibe I got. Even tho international audiences hated it, it’s getting another theatrical run in Australia from June 20.
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Jun 1, 2019 05:32
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I very rarely buy Blu Rays and basically never buy them for new movies but I got $25 set aside for this.
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Jun 1, 2019 06:27
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ZZZorcerer posted:So... He's the Dog Killer, right ? No question in my mind
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Jun 1, 2019 13:30
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It hits Redbox on June 18th. I never buy Blu-Rays sight unseen, but I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and it looks extremely like my poo poo. I love L.A. neo-noir, and it already looks like it belongs in a film festival with The Long Goodbye, The Big Lebowski, and Inherent Vice. Someone above comparing it to Mulholland Dr. and calling it the best movie Lynch never made literally filled me with excitement.
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Jun 1, 2019 15:05
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so I watched this with a friend today and a couple hours after we finished I realized that, like there actually is no connection between the progress of the A Plot (that "ends" with the piano and the guitar) and the B Plot (that almost just starts when the wristband gets decoded)? I chirped this at my Film Buddy I watched it with and he started sputtering and now, a few hours later, still can't think of how the actual resolution/mystery of the movie is tied to the music plotline it seems to me like they're two totally distinct threads, almost? like the music stuff, while excellent, is actually totally incidental to the protagonist figuring out what he's trying to figure out? or are they tied together more directly in a way I didn't notice/forget, I'm unwilling to rewatch this two and a half hour movie I only sorta liked any time soon and Film Buddy is threatening to rewatch it and take notes but I doubt he will any time soon either, someone do my thinking for me
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Jun 2, 2019 06:05
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I can’t imagine living a life where this movie doesn’t make perfect sense. ‘Plot’ is meaningless, in art as in life. There is only beautiful images and connections between everything. I want to make a Room 237 style movie about this movie. I want to start a whole website devoted to it. If they won’t issue a real version of the zine, i’ll commission my zine friends to make one. Like the Owl Woman is explained by a Australian twee pop song from 2003, The Owls Go [QUOTE]Don't hide the treasures you've found in a hole in the ground How 'bout the tree back your house where the owls go (owls go) Or in between the attic and the basement Somewhere where it's not dark, dark, dark, dark Attic in a basement with a knife serrated, I'll protect you Attic in a basement with a knife serrated, I'll protect you[/URL]
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Jun 2, 2019 11:08
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crawlkill posted:so I watched this with a friend today and a couple hours after we finished I realized that, like The music plot was to show that his totally unhinged seemingly schizophrenic view of the world was actually accurate. That everything around him was actually a bunch of omens and codes that he could decode. The specific fact he found about music didn't matter. He uncovered that he was correct in the view that the world should be understood as a puzzle where everything he randomly saw was intended and part of a larger picture, instead of just being chaos.
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Jun 2, 2019 16:21
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:The music plot was to show that his totally unhinged seemingly schizophrenic view of the world was actually accurate. That everything around him was actually a bunch of omens and codes that he could decode. The specific fact he found about music didn't matter. He uncovered that he was correct in the view that the world should be understood as a puzzle where everything he randomly saw was intended and part of a larger picture, instead of just being chaos. I mean, yeah! so like I said--the A plot and B plot had nothing to do with each other, right?
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Jun 2, 2019 20:45
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One pedantic, music nerd point about the music plotline: Smells like Teen Spirit isn’t original! It’s a mashup of More Than A Feeling, a deodorant ad, and trying to be The Pixies. Any fan would know that, i’m not a fan and I know that. Cobain admitted it! Why was he so mad? Notice he destroys the Songwriter’s head like Cobain’s. https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/04/18/male-rage-and-getting-ghosted-in-burning-and-under-the-silver-lake Anyone else seen Burning? It’s very similar, as this article describes.
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Jun 3, 2019 00:56
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Count Chocula posted:One pedantic, music nerd point about the music plotline: Smells like Teen Spirit isn’t original! It’s a mashup of More Than A Feeling, a deodorant ad, and trying to be The Pixies. Any fan would know that, i’m not a fan and I know that. Cobain admitted it! Why was he so mad? Notice he destroys the Songwriter’s head like Cobain’s. So he refused some of his older work, he’s just earning his paycheck
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Jun 3, 2019 01:26
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The masturbation scene is activating a hypersigil. Grant Morrison explains it in this essay - you create a significant symbol from myth & culture & wank over it. He embedded one in his The Invisibles comic, like the zine in the movie.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:43
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ZZZorcerer posted:So... He's the Dog Killer, right ? He's definitely not. That's the whole point of the confrontation at the end and it's pretty explicit.
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Jun 5, 2019 03:22
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friendly 2 da void posted:He's definitely not. That's the whole point of the confrontation at the end and it's pretty explicit. How do you figure that?
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Jun 5, 2019 21:58
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Count Chocula posted:
I am absolutely frustrated by this article. Burning looks good, though. quote:Both films tackle the kind of male rage associated with ‘Red Pill’ types, men whose brains have rotted from a belief that there is some kind of conspiracy being led by women against them, thrown in with some nonsense beliefs about alpha and beta males I watched this and did not get any of that. The conspiracy wasn't being led by women - it was being led by wealthy men. Women were the soldiers and sex workers of the story (potentially even the Owl Woman was under the command of the ascension scheme, who knows). It's wealth and power that oppress Sam. His ex-girlfriend, Sarah, his car, his apartment, his heroes, 'his' dog are taken from him because he "can't measure up". At no point did I think he feels targeted by women. quote:Sam gets to solve his mystery, but there’s no real catharsis There's catharsis in the ending. One of the first scenes and then the last scene involve desire for the bird lady, then the attainment of that desire. Then he sees the eviction from afar, looking back on his old life and experiencing release. I like the scenes of the women barking at Sam. Is it feeling uncomfortable with and confronted by his sexuality? Is LA society The Dog Killer, taking what people love most? The Lost Dog ads are similar to the photo of Sarah that Sam shows to everyone he meets. She herself says that he needs a little unconditional love - he has been chasing after it for the whole movie.
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Jun 11, 2019 06:29
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friendly 2 da void posted:He's definitely not. That's the whole point of the confrontation at the end and it's pretty explicit. I got the impression that Garfield's character was full of poo poo and didn't find his explanation very convincing. His character seemed like a liar. When he mentioned the skunk in the beginning of the film, I thought he was just making an excuse for this room being dirty and smelling bad (so I was kinda surprised when an actual skunk appeared). That being said, I think it was meant to be somewhat ambiguous. Maybe he is, maybe he's not. It's not really that important. Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice and some of my favorite movies so I loved this film. I loved the LA mythology, the look of the film and the soundtrack. I always appreciate when a movie takes time to create its own world, which is something this does in many ways. I don't think the things that didn't get resolved really needed resolving (i.e. the dog killer or the owl lady). The film was about Garfield's character looking for the girl and that did get resolved in a convoluted, but easy to follow fashion. I also really liked Garfield's character - a good looking, charismatic guy, who also happens to be really weird and shady. The movie kinda answers the question of what happens to slackers like him who bum around, don't work and yet have a place to live in similar movies - they get evicted. Would probably happen to the Dude sooner or later. Captain Jesus fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 11:43
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Some theory I read somewhere came up with the idea of Sam being the guy who got one role in a movie, made a bunch of money, moved to LA and never worked again. Wrathtor posted:I am absolutely frustrated by this article. Burning looks good, though. The one place that narrative really fits is the ending with Sarah showing she’s in the vault by choice, and I guess also the voyeuristic stuff (him with the binoculars, Topher Grace’s drone).
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Jun 11, 2019 12:13
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Coffee And Pie posted:Some theory I read somewhere came up with the idea of Sam being the guy who got one role in a movie, made a bunch of money, moved to LA and never worked again. My guess would be that he was something like a programmer (collection of Nintendo Power Magazines, duh) who at some point gave up on his job and burned through the money he had left (which probably included money from parents). He didn't strike me as an actor.
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Jun 11, 2019 13:09
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This movie reminds me a bit of Southland Tales. Not half as clever as it thinks it is, but it still just kind of bowls you over with its sheer audacity.
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Jun 11, 2019 15:50
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crawlkill posted:I mean, yeah! so like I said--the A plot and B plot had nothing to do with each other, right? I don't agree. Not even getting into the fact that thematic linkage is still real linkage, those two plotlines absolutely do intersect in a tangible clue-based way as well. The main plot throughline is his search for Sarah. That search leads him to hear that the music of Jesus and the Brides of Dracula supposedly contains a hidden message, and his decoding of just such a message leads him to the underground burial chamber. He doesn't understand what the underground area is at that time, so he tries to get info out of Jesus, which leads to him confronting the old songwriter. The old songwriter doesn't know what the messages are, he just puts them into the songs - so that is a bit of a dead end, and he could have just refrained from visiting the songwriter and would still have the exact same amount of Sarah-related information (though that confrontation with the songwriter is an important aspect of the film's metatextual throughline). But the hidden message leading him to the underground area is clearly directly related to Sarah's predicament. Maybe one could argue that he could have never learned any of that knowledge and still somehow winded up in that hut and videophoned Sarah based just upon the Zine guy and the bracelet. But I think that's a weird way to look at a plot. A plot isn't written as "the most direct route for the main character to solve the mystery." Red herrings and partial dead-ends and full-on dead-ends are all common parts of mystery plots, and all are true to the real-life process of investigation. To label these two things as "plot A" and "plot B" really misses the mark, in my opinion. That terminology, to me, invokes different characters on totally separate quests that may or may not intersect at some point in the movie - not two different aspects of one character's singular investigative goal.
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Jun 13, 2019 23:12
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Riptor posted:this movie was a gigantic mess but i loved every second of it This is my review in a nutshell. It was just a clusterfuck of genre and narrative but afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking about it. After mulling it over, I'm calling it the late-2010s MULHOLLAND DRIVE. It's more or less about some of the same things (fame and wealth, failure to succeed in Hollywood, obsession, fixating on illusions to escape the poo poo reality one lives in) and it has some of the same idiosyncrasies, like plot elements that don't resolve cleanly, or set pieces that evoke mood rather than advance the story. I think Mulholland Drive is a better film, but UTSL made me feel the same way. I think my favorite scenes were Sam Confronts the Car Vandals and Sam Confronts the Piano Guy. That Dang Dad fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 14:05
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Just watched it. Nothing really to add beyond what's already been said, but I absolutely loved it. I am a big fan of It Follows but the mixed reviews to this made me a bit wary, but I had no reason to be. Loved it and need to watch it again, though the runtime is a bit of a downer in that regard.
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Jul 4, 2019 06:22
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I paid to rent this movie two weeks ago, but they added it to free Amazon Prime streaming at the beginning of July, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet or wants to revisit it.
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Jul 5, 2019 08:21
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Wrathtor posted:There's catharsis in the ending. One of the first scenes and then the last scene involve desire for the bird lady, then the attainment of that desire. Then he sees the eviction from afar, looking back on his old life and experiencing release. There are a lot of Rear Window references in the movie, including the ending.
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Jul 7, 2019 16:46
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Saw this and finished The Name of the Rose within a day of each other. I'm not the guy to write a big thing tying them together but I do like how the climax to both is roughly 'yeah great job Robert Langdon what of it'
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Aug 9, 2019 19:42
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I loved this movie and it was on my wavelength so hard that I immediately realized that Sam's ringtone was from "The Last Ninja", an blockbuster Commodore 64 game from 1987. I especially love the Owl Killer being scared out of the entire movie by a gun. "Oh poo poo! Welp, bye y'all!" *is never seen again*
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Sep 30, 2019 17:19
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