movies

[lukethedrifter]

Last night some of the guys in the band were talking about that movie, Whiplash. After watching this cloddish potboiler about an aspiring drummer's experience in jazz school, the jazz players I know either go berserk with indignation and/or howl with derisive laughter. Many jazzers, including pianist Ethan Iverson and Richard Brody of the New Yorker, have written about this ignorant and mendacious film, so I won't belabor the point.

Suffice to say that Whiplash has nothing to do with actual jazz unless you consider it to be a species of martial arts, as Buddy Rich often did. It makes Paris Blues with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier look like a golden edifice of verisimilitude. I'm not saying Whiplash shouldn't be seen in theaters, though. It should, at midnight, along with Plan 9 from Outer Space and, especially, Glen or Glenda.



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[ghostrunner]

I haven't seen it yet, but "movie of X is not like the real X" is dumb criticism.

[Vidor]

I haven't seen it yet, but "movie of X is not like the real X" is dumb criticism.

Very much so.

[MrCrowesGarden]

I'd like to leave a cloddish potboiler for that writer. What a [expletive]-tastic couple of lines.

[33anda3rd]

Is it ok to praise a movie if it does get all the truths and nuances of the real thing?

[Famous Mortimer]

Speaking of Devil's Rejects makes me remember just how bad of a filmmaker that Rob Zombie is. His Halloween movies were absolutely terrible. I don't like how he felt like explaining why Michael Myers was doing what he was doing. That's best left unexplained.

Which is why all prequels (or remakes with extended prequel sections) are rubbish. Myers was given exactly as much backstory as he needed in the first Halloween movie.

Although...I'm currently watching all the Friday the 13ths, up to part 5, and there's a film series that could benefit from slightly more explanation. From living at the bottom of a lake for 20 years, he did pretty well for himself.

[ghostrunner]

Is it ok to praise a movie if it does get all the truths and nuances of the real thing?

Movies have different aims so I don't see why not.

[go birds]

I don't know why people care about movies that don't interest you. If you don't like comic book movies then the solution is to just not go see the movies. I don't care for American Idol, The Voice or any of those type of TV Shows but guess what I do about it, I just don't watch them. And then life goes on.

There are only so many screens even at a multiplex. When The Avengers is taking up four of them, something I'd like more is possibly being squeezed out.

Anyway. It Follows. My favorite horror movie since Black Swan, and maybe even since Lost Highway. I was a huge fan of Mitchell's previous effort, The Myth of the American Sleepover, a quiet coming-of-age ensemble film that perfectly captures the emotional flux of pubescence and the quiet warmth and stillness of suburbia. Kinda Sofia Coppola-ish, but with a more deliberate out-of-time/timeless feel (which is even more pronounced here, a universe in which some kind of weird clamshell e-reader exists but kids still watch old monster movies on floor-unit CRTs with knobs). The beauty of this one is that it maintains that same tone but transplants it to a horror film that plays like a mashup of Halloween and Charles Burns' Black Hole. A lot have read it as an analogy for sexually transmitted diseases, which is fair enough, but I took it more as a a general anxiety about sex as it pertains to a loss of youthful innocence, emotional maturation giving way to feelings of helplessness and mortality. It's one of the absolute best-looking films I've seen in some time, let alone horror films, and if there were any justice it would be a shoo-in for every Best Original Score award at the end of the year. Mitchell all but totally eschews jump scares, relying instead on the dread that comes with slow-approaching death, heading straight at you from the center of the screen. I've found myself checking over my shoulder more than a few times in the past few days. Can't imagine this will fall out of my year-end top five.

Is it follows in theaters or on VOD?


Caught The Imitation Game last night and i liked it. I think some here were a bit critical of it, but i dont really understand the criticism. Maybe im just not as harsh as some. Anyway, great acting in a very compelling story. Had no clue about the other story that was going on in the movie.

Also, benedict cumberbatch is one weird looking sob.

[lukethedrifter]

I haven't seen it yet, but "movie of X is not like the real X" is dumb criticism.

Very much so.

Can't a movie be a good movie then you learn more about the subject and you change your mind because you find that it treats that subject dishonestly?

Just a thought.

[33anda3rd]

Is it ok to praise a movie if it does get all the truths and nuances of the real thing?

Movies have different aims so I don't see why not.

Then why is it not ok to criticize a movie if it gets the reality of the thing wrong?