matthewscott8 wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2023, 11:47 am
St. Gloede wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2023, 8:04 amJLG was the last.
JLG was an insta-watch for sure.
The "(condescending) prick" joke ties back to the intro. It is not about the reaction to hype, but looking down on/condescending to people who are susceptible to hype - and the joke rolled on from there.
Ah I got confused because growing up people would use it in the exact opposite way, i.e. if you were immune to hype you were a prick. Maybe I can also clear up what I am getting at here. I'm starting to try and not use non-descriptive insults. For example say I'm at a party talking to someone and I say, who is that who just walked in and they say, "oh that's Paul, he's an asshole, I wouldn't talk to him", now one thing we can be clear on, Paul is not this anatomical feature, what I'd prefer to hear is "oh that's Paul, he's got a short temper, and he doesn't like film people", or "oh that's Paul, he's a Bernie Sanders voter", because then I can make up my own mind whether I want to talk to the guy, in the former case probably not, in the latter case well I might well, because I don't share the belief that voting for Bernie makes someone an asshole. It's tangential to this thread, but I made the point somewhere else here recently as well, that these words are often obfuscatory. Let's say someone pulls me aside and points out how uncomfortable I make people feel when I make jokes about fat people, I'm angry that I haven't noticed, that I've been inconsiderate, and that someone is policing me so maybe I just decide that person is a "prick". Or maybe I describe someone as a prick, and what I mean is that they're a convicted sex offender, but the person I said that to might not take my opinion seriously because I'm describing someone using anatomy. As I think I said elsewhere, use of those words often let's the real issue off the hook. This has got very tangential now, basically I'm on a campaign to convince people to stop using these words!
I never knew there was a basis of calling people pricks related to hype
it was just an arbitrary self-inflicted slur that was not too crass, could have been anything.
In terms of going with specific reasons why you have an issue with people, that is very valuable and I would definitely co-sign that, though for comedic purposes that would not really have worked here.
Now that's unexpected, was not planning on seeing this one. Might now.
Probably worth me being clear about why I was so into Glass Onion, I'll aim to be tantalizing without spoiling it. I am a complete 10 Little Indians nut, I have seen so many of the adaptations of this story. The Glass Onion, flirts with 10LI, takes it out for a tango, gets it home before the coach turns into a pumpkin, drinks champagne from the glass slipper. It's a glorious cross-fertilization. I have googled this, and whilst this was patently obvious to me from very early on in the film, only a few very niche review sites have picked up on it. It's just beautiful to see someone make 10LI so fecund again.
But also what I will say is that I think this is a movie made about this era, in this era. It's a real memorandum on everything that's wrong about now, the idolizing of toxic idiots (since I've watched the movie Andrew Tate is in cuffs), the emperors new clothes of cryptocurrency (SBF in cuffs not long after the release of the movie), the hocus pocus techno babble and techno-religion that has come from Musk and his cack-brained projects (no Neuralink is not going to save the world, Musk is just torturing monkeys and pigs). It's really rare for a movie to tackle all the big issues of an era within the era, it's front and centre of the movie, it's one of the two meanings of the metaphor The Glass Onion.
This is nectar to me.[/quote]
Got you, thanks. Have to admit I have never read 10 Little Indians, though I have seen the 1945 adaptation, which is a pretty great film.
Hmmmm, maybe indeed.
I guess it's worth me giving a take on My Blueberry Nights here. My belief is that one of the things people in the West like about watching Wong films, or really any film not in English-language is its "otherness". There's a question of, if Wong or say Refn remade In The Mood For Love in English-language, would people actually like the result. Or is there an exotic element that's critical to the love, the different food, the different clothes, the unfamiliar language and places. Well with My Blueberry Nights we know what a Wong movie in the west looks like, and people didn't seem all that interested. What I can say is that I still felt the sense of atmospheric desire-drenched melancholy, and I remember a week spent floating home in the dark on my way back from work, with the theme tune playing in my mind.
And I ask myself, do the same people who think "My Blueberry Nights" is a generic uninspiring name think that "The Scent of Green Papaya" sounds really exotic and inspiring? And do the same people who find the characters in MBN "wooden", find the characters in Chungking Express "alluringly inscrutable".
Hmmm, the otherness/exotic factor may definitely be a feature in why many are drawn to "foreign" films, or indeed older films as well. Brett and I did a podcast on Burkina Faso where we talked about why so many similar films (in terms of scenery/setting) were the ones to be promoted in the west, and the "otherness"/using the scenery for what it is worth is definitely a part of why they stand out to me as well (I wish Norway did the same with our nature). And indeed customs, clothing, and architecture all plays a part. I can't fully imagine how Ozu would handle a move to the US or Briain stylistically for instance, he'd likely have to make changes to where his films are shot from or just stop people from sitting on chairs
In terms of the title being uninspiring compared to The Scent of Green Papaya, I don't know if that's a frequent critique, I think it is an interesting choice, but for the characters and language, the transition is not always easy or a 1 to 1. One film I saw recently (which beyond being great with strong insights into two completely different approaches to filmmaking) was Chytilova vs. Forman, in which Forman says he can be the original writer of a film in America, he can only adapt, as he did not have an American childhood and even if he had lived there for a decade was still missing certain cultural clues. He may have been commenting on a personal shortcoming or maybe just misplaced feeling of inauthenticity that he could not tell stories of/from another culture, many clearly can - but it is also something people struggle with.
I remember when it was first released one of the critics on At the Movies compared it to Zabriske Point in terms of how the acting/dialogue felt and that it came off as more wooden, and we do see this in many cases of people coming into the US from other cultures. Interestingly, the South Koreans seem to be doing fairly well, i.e. Bong's Snowpiercer and Park's Stoker, but there is often this sense that the director is not quite sure how to work within X language/culture and that things start to feel a little off.
And then there is also the language barrier, i.e. fans of a director may miss certain details in their stylization of language on both good and bad. I remember French users explaining that if you don't speak French you can never fully appreciate the wordplay of Michel Audiard scripts for instance, while in other cases there may be muted elements to acting/dialogue that people were either not prepared for or which may even not work as well in all languages.
Anyhow, I will need to seek out My Blueberry Nights to know for sure now.
(The Grandmaster, the only WKW film made after, is likely my least favourite from him though)
), but I tend to wonder what I'm doing wrong in my treatment of some classics that didn't work much for me. Of course their "hypes" and best-of lists from yesteryear and the canon are a totally different hype than something like Barbarian or Zack Snyder's Just League.
