movies

[JoeMcKim]

Speaking of driving movies I recorded a movie from the '70's starring Peter Fonda called Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry which is kind of a cult classic movie.

[go birds]

So drive isn't anything like gone in 60 seconds at all?

the original or remake?

i actually had no idea gone in 60 seconds (the newer one) was a remake. when i got it at the video store like 10 years ago, i got about 30 minutes in wondering where the [expletive] nicolas cage was. oh, i picked up the wrong one.

Yea it was and for the record i liked gone in 60 seconds, but it SEEMED like the same premise from the preview i saw of Drive the other day.

But...i saw another preview which totally changes my perspective of it and yea it does look at good as everyone is saying.

[thrill]

Drive was really interesting. Slow paced with eruptions of intense violence. Gosling played it super understated and you get the sense that if you could hear his inner monologue, it'd be disturbed, but his expressions and body language were like a blank slate. A man who's emotional highs were a small smile or pure violent rage but 99% of the time was blank. Very much like a young, even less talkative William Munny. The music, direction, cinematography were all 80's noir influenced.

I think I loved it. I'm not sure. Need to stew on it. There was very little back story for most of the characters and none for the main character. I wanted more Christina Hendricks but her character's conclusion was the rising action of the movie.

Btw, could not be less like Gone In 60 Seconds. This was not a "fun" or even all that action-packed movie.

[MrSaigon]

Btw, could not be less like Gone In 60 Seconds. This was not a "fun" or even all that action-packed movie.

Well, I certainly misread the trailers.

[The Third Man]

Drive was really interesting. Slow paced with eruptions of intense violence. Gosling played it super understated and you get the sense that if you could hear his inner monologue, it'd be disturbed, but his expressions and body language were like a blank slate. A man who's emotional highs were a small smile or pure violent rage but 99% of the time was blank.

A poster on another forum referred to him as both a "grown-up version of David from A.I. Artificial Intelligence" and a "creepy, sexless Ken doll," both of which I think nail it. He's like an uncanny valley human; in an average movie, he'd be a sleek mysterious badass - and, to Carey Mulligan's character, a knight in shining armor - but here, he's a broken, twisted loner with no merits besides his boyish good looks and driving ability. The scene where

[SHOW]

he stomps that guy's face in, and Carey Mulligan walks off while he just stands there in the elevator unsure how to react

basically sums up the movie. The whole thing has the same weird vibe his character gives off, that unnerving sincerity.

[The Third Man]

Some more at-length thoughts:


Drive was awesome. It takes a familiar trope - the stoicloner/mysterious badass - and flips it on its head. It reminds me a lot of Shane (in which Alan Ladd plays a psychologically disturbed heroic gunman), though whereas I found that film devoid of any real surface pleasure, Drive is lean and mean and slick as hell in every aspect of its production. It's the most airtight film I've seen in theaters in a while, probably since No Country for Old Men four years ago.

Gosling fits the title character like a glove. It becomes clear pretty early on that "the Driver" is a bit off somehow or other - he's not quite a blank slate (though he is often expressionless and unreactive), but his emotions are repressed and even delayed: he often hesitates to respond to other's words and actions, like he's working out a response since they don't come naturally to him. He's like a human who's veered slightly into the uncanny valley; a poster on SA referred to him as a "grown-up version of David from A.I. Artificial Intelligence," which is pretty apt particularly in the film's first half. He's very reminiscent of those first scenes with David, before the mother kickstarts the "love" program and he's walking around simulating human emotion in odd and offputting ways.

[SHOW]

As the film goes on, it only becomes clearer that, instead of a stoic hero, Driver is a [expletive]-up, disturbed excuse for a human, as his actions become erratic, illogical, and in a few cases, excessively violent to the point of sociopathy/psychopathy/whatever. He veers back and forth between an explosive, menacing presence to a disquietingly blank exterior - in the film's defining scene, he disarms a would-be assassin in an elevator with his meet-cute neighbor, and then, taking a moment to collect himself, calmly and relentlessly stomps his face in until it's nothing but a puddle. Disturbed, the neighbor - a would-be love interest - exits the elevator slowly, while Driver looks on with a curiously blank expression on his face, belying the fact that he has [expletive]-up notions of his own heroism and that he's completely unmoved by his own capability for brutality.

This is interesting enough on its own - and Gosling sells the whole thing perfectly - but what really makes the whole film hum is how in tune with the character the rest of the film is. The pristine digital cinematography and the sleek electro-pop soundtrack give the film its surface slickness, but are continually at friction with the film's brutal, unflinching violence and the jarring use of camera angles/framing/close-ups/et al. It's a well-oiled machine on the surface with unsettling [expletive] happening underneath. One of the film's characters at one point refers to a racecar stating "It's what's underneath that counts," which pretty much sums it up. Me and another poster had a lengthy (and laughably heated) discussion of the movie earlier, but for whatever our disagreements, he's right in that it's very comparable to both A History of Violence (in its portrayal of its lead character's intrinsic capability for violence) and Mulholland Drive (in its unnerving tone and subversion of Hollywood and genre tropes/notions). It would also make a great companion piece to Collateral - this movie basically evokes everything Vincent says L.A. is.

Also, this song rules:

[/youtube]

[thrill]

Trailer for J. Edgar, which I await with great anticipation: http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2011/09/j-e ... an-hee-hee

[thrill]

I also watched Cedar Rapids last night. Really enjoyed it. Laughed out loud multiple times. John C Reilly's performance was a tour de force.

[Cole Burns]

...it's very comparable to both A History of Violence (in its portrayal of its lead character's intrinsic capability for violence)...

The source material seemed to flesh out more of the character, I felt, than the movie did. The changed ending definitely bears that out, but even throughout he seems more fearful and repulsed by that intrinsic capacity rather than just seething underneath and waiting to let it come to the surface. Even if you're not into comic books it's still worth a read I think.

[Maclowery]

I also watched Cedar Rapids last night. Really enjoyed it. Laughed out loud multiple times. John C Reilly's performance was a tour de force.

I'm glad someone else enjoyed it. It was such bizarre humor. I know a bunch of people that saw it (it got decent press in Iowa, obviously) who thought it was going to be a sophomoric romp, standard R-rated stoner movie kind of deal. It was much more nuanced. Then again, I was also quite Bob Marley'ed upon watching.