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11/26/2022 11:44 pm  #261


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

I'd like to post a gif, but it'd probably be a spoiler.

Information about any element of that movie is pretty much a spoiler. I'm glad I knew virtually nothing about it.

 

11/27/2022 3:20 pm  #262


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

I'm going to do it anyway.  Look away, Rock!


 

11/27/2022 3:45 pm  #263


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

🐸 👊


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11/27/2022 5:36 pm  #264


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Yeah, I guess most people already know about the Frog by now.  Still, I'm glad I didn't when I saw it.


 

11/27/2022 7:45 pm  #265


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

Yeah, I guess most people already know about the Frog by now.  Still, I'm glad I didn't when I saw it.

I knew there was some kind of frog surprise, but I was still no prepared for the greatness.

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12/03/2022 9:55 pm  #266


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

I dont' know why I put off watching that Tilda Swinton Kevin movie for so long.
I loved the shit our of it.
 

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12/04/2022 12:51 pm  #267


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

That Tilda Swinton Kevin movie also has a killer soundtrack.

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12/05/2022 4:53 pm  #268


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

crumbsroom wrote:

I dont' know why I put off watching that Tilda Swinton Kevin movie for so long.
I loved the shit our of it.
 

Urgh.  I was not a fan.

Swinton wasn't the problem.  I didn't find any of the relationships to be convincing, mostly because the kid is just such an elemental existential evil like Damian or something, that it undercut the promising subject matter that it touched on.  I would point to Ezra Miller's performance (which was awful), but I think the main issue is the limitations in the script.  Swinton does a good job showing the strains of post-partum depression and maternal emotional indifference, but the extent to which this has shaped or influenced Kevin's sadism is vague.  I'm sure that the film was trying to portray this as a "what if a normal mother just happens to have a really bad kid", and Kevin is supposed to be almost like an alien presence or something, but I have a problem with that kind of relationship vacuum.

Maybe seeing the film shortly after Sandy Hook didn't help.  I thought the film was a fairly poor examination of the "school shooter" phenomenon and how such shooters are "made" or enabled.  Is it worse than Elephant?  Same ballpark, imo.


 

12/05/2022 5:14 pm  #269


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Man, Tilda is such a babe

I haven’t seen the movie, btw


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12/06/2022 10:28 am  #270


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

I dont' know why I put off watching that Tilda Swinton Kevin movie for so long.
I loved the shit our of it.
 

Urgh.  I was not a fan.

Swinton wasn't the problem.  I didn't find any of the relationships to be convincing, mostly because the kid is just such an elemental existential evil like Damian or something, that it undercut the promising subject matter that it touched on.  I would point to Ezra Miller's performance (which was awful), but I think the main issue is the limitations in the script.  Swinton does a good job showing the strains of post-partum depression and maternal emotional indifference, but the extent to which this has shaped or influenced Kevin's sadism is vague.  I'm sure that the film was trying to portray this as a "what if a normal mother just happens to have a really bad kid", and Kevin is supposed to be almost like an alien presence or something, but I have a problem with that kind of relationship vacuum.

Maybe seeing the film shortly after Sandy Hook didn't help.  I thought the film was a fairly poor examination of the "school shooter" phenomenon and how such shooters are "made" or enabled.  Is it worse than Elephant?  Same ballpark, imo.

I think because of the subject matter the film gets saddled with the notion that it is an examination of the school shooter, but I don't think that is what it is. I don't think it is even pretending to have any insight into the matter of what makes these things happen. Nothing is really tethered in enough of a reality for us to apply it to the real world. The child is some kind of omniscient evil. The husband is an unhelpful buffoon beyond belief. The people in the town are all shadowy and conspiratorial enemies. Every kind of parental anxiety has been plumped up to such a grotesque state, Swinton has become complete lost in its labyrinth of finger pointing, to the point where she can't help but wonder if she is to blame. If it is completely fair for her to absorb all the abuse and shame, even though it is clear that everyone else failed her.

The film, more than anything, is more just a anxious mood piece, a textural approximation of guilt and loss and alienation. The school shooting part is just an after thought to hang it all on. At most, a way to zone in on what must feel like one of the most vulnerable and scrutinized jobs one can have--motherhood. I don't think it has any grande statement to make. I think more than anything it should be viewed as a horror film, but one that is all just precursor and aftermath. And we can only watch as Swinton is beaten down into wondering if she was responsible for the horror that lives at the films heart, and that we never really even see.

Also, it seems to be continually overlooked, that it is fitfully very funny. Which is a feat considering how unbearably grim the whole thing is.

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12/06/2022 7:36 pm  #271


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

I definitely missed the humor.  I thought it was miserable.

I'm not exactly eager to give a rewatch any time soon (I already have an unbearable queue and lots on my plate keeping me from it), but I am willing to acknowledge that I was influenced by the various real-world types of adolescent shootings going on, and I'm also influenced by my own fascination with the phenomena of the psychology involved, especially including the psychological environment provided (or neglected) by the parents.  Although the film may be set on its own terms as a situation where we have an almost supernaturally occuring evil, completely separate from the character and conditions of "normal" parents, as a way to focus on the mother's guilt-complex (where she is actually suffering guiltlessly), this situation is so removed from any of the real-life examples that I wasn't willing to make the disconnect, even theoretically.  Inescapably, we find in these real-life occurances that the adolescents who turn to violence are not simply acting on their own mental health issues in a vacuum, and that there tends to be a foundation of emotional turmoil at the domestic root, including frequently the parent's own mental health issues.  This film presents an intriguing notion at one point, is it possible that a mother's frustrations, depression, indifference could create such a sociopath?  This is the guilt that Tilda struggles with.  The problem is that the film rather unambiguously lets us know that, no, the kid is simply evil, born bad, despite his nuturing environment.  And let's ask, what if the parents didn't put their heads in the sand and recognized Kevin's mental health issues, would it have made a difference?  Nothing in the film suggests that any amount of support could have redeemed him in the end.  Just evil.  Maybe this is good as a horror film of sorts, but I believe that Lynne Ramsey is intending to also address the larger sociocultural aspects. 

I'm going to hate on Ezra a little more though.  I'd be more interested in reading the novel on which the film is based, which is 1st person from the mother's POV.  I'd be curious how Kevin is depicted and develops in that context.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Ezra Miller may have something to do with the character's one-dimensionality.
 


 

12/07/2022 12:39 am  #272


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

I definitely missed the humor.  I thought it was miserable.

John C Reilly's voice constantly in the background as Kevin does increasingly horrifying things, explaining it away by saying 'he's so sweet, he's just being a boy, what do you expect'. Even as what he is doing becomes more and more obviously beyond something you can just shrug off.  There was just something about the  completely oblivious tone of his voice, and the look of despair on Swinton's face as he says it over and over, that always made me laugh.

Also, the look of almost ecstatic relief on Tilda Swinton's face as the sound of construction drowns out the crying of her baby, which is then followed by a hard cut to her standing with a carriage probably no more than three feet from a jackhammer kicking up chunks of road. Absurd and relatable and hilarious.

There are more but I can't recall of the top of my head. They all generally prey on how hopeless Swinton's situation is, and my laughing always felt deeply uncomfortable, but the way they are framed and set up always made it clear to be they were meant to be moments of grim levity in this most bleak of bleak movies.


I'm not exactly eager to give a rewatch any time soon (I already have an unbearable queue and lots on my plate keeping me from it), but I am willing to acknowledge that I was influenced by the various real-world types of adolescent shootings going on, and I'm also influenced by my own fascination with the phenomena of the psychology involved, especially including the psychological environment provided (or neglected) by the parents.  Although the film may be set on its own terms as a situation where we have an almost supernaturally occuring evil, completely separate from the character and conditions of "normal" parents, as a way to focus on the mother's guilt-complex (where she is actually suffering guiltlessly), this situation is so removed from any of the real-life examples that I wasn't willing to make the disconnect, even theoretically.  Inescapably, we find in these real-life occurances that the adolescents who turn to violence are not simply acting on their own mental health issues in a vacuum, and that there tends to be a foundation of emotional turmoil at the domestic root, including frequently the parent's own mental health issues.  This film presents an intriguing notion at one point, is it possible that a mother's frustrations, depression, indifference could create such a sociopath?  This is the guilt that Tilda struggles with.  The problem is that the film rather unambiguously lets us know that, no, the kid is simply evil, born bad, despite his nuturing environment.  And let's ask, what if the parents didn't put their heads in the sand and recognized Kevin's mental health issues, would it have made a difference?  Nothing in the film suggests that any amount of support could have redeemed him in the end.  Just evil.  Maybe this is good as a horror film of sorts, but I believe that Lynne Ramsey is intending to also address the larger sociocultural aspects. 

I'm going to hate on Ezra a little more though.  I'd be more interested in reading the novel on which the film is based, which is 1st person from the mother's POV.  I'd be curious how Kevin is depicted and develops in that context.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Ezra Miller may have something to do with the character's one-dimensionality.
 

I thought to myself as I watched it that it must be an absolutely unbearable thing to sit through if anyone was  expecting it to have any substance in addressing the matter at hand. And I can understand expecting that, as I certainly did...which is one reason I didn't really want to watch it. But the fact that it shrugs off any kind of attempt at rationalizing what is happening from the beginning--showing nothing of Kevin's life outside of the home to even suggest there are other factors at play, making Swinton's hesitancy towards motherhood pretty consistently benign throughout the entire film, making the kid as one dimensionally evil as possible--that I find it hard to believe Ramsay thought she was making a remotely thoughtful piece of school shootings. There is virtually nothing there to indicate the director is trying to talk about this issue at all, at least not beyond the occassional motherhood missteps Swinton (always understandably) makes along the way. Now this isn't to say there isn't more than a fair share of blame being doled out in the film itself. But it is always piled on Swintong, in the most grotesque and absurd mannesr possible, and over and over again nd she just accepts it. So I think the more important question the movie poses is, why does she so completely own the failure of her parenting when clearly, by everything we see in the movie at least, she bears little to no blame for what her son does. Her passive acceptance of the blame is where so much of the films horror lies.

Now this doesn't mean I think anyone should rewatch it if they hated it. It is, even with the moments of very black humor littered throughout, a miserable experience. The whole thing made me deeply uncomfortable. But I also have an affinity for any movie that can make the flesh sluff off my bones. So this was very much tailored to me. Especially considering how incredible the movie is at capturing a paranoid hostile despairing terrifying mood. It looks amazing. It sounds amazing. It moves amazingly.

I think its a completely misunderstood gem of a movie. But I also think it very much sets itself up to be misunderstood.

I think the last time I felt this much of a gulf between the general sentiments towards a film and my own feelings, was Marie Antoinette. And that was one where I don't think anyone seemed to pick up on how despairing and dark it is, because there was too many scenes of girls shopping for Converse in the Louvre (or something like that...I don't remember fucking anything about it now)



 

Last edited by crumbsroom (12/07/2022 12:50 am)

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12/07/2022 3:02 am  #273


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

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12/09/2022 9:20 pm  #274


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

crumbsroom wrote:

I think its a completely misunderstood gem of a movie.

Is it?  I thought my opinion of it was more out of line with the consensus.  I remember it being a critical darling on release, was a fixture in the award-season that year.  The film most definitely has its fans.


 

12/10/2022 12:41 am  #275


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

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12/10/2022 12:42 am  #276


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

I think its a completely misunderstood gem of a movie.

Is it?  I thought my opinion of it was more out of line with the consensus.  I remember it being a critical darling on release, was a fixture in the award-season that year.  The film most definitely has its fans.

I remember it being there and then disappearing. And aggravating a lot of people along the way.

Yes, it does have it's fans. But it seems to be a very much love it or hate it kind of deal for many.
 

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12/10/2022 1:12 am  #277


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

After working myself to death for two weeks, and on the cusp of four days with nothing to do at all, time to load my brain full of mushrooms and whiskey and, apparently, some delicate and restrained animation of fathers hacking off their daughters hands with an axe.

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12/10/2022 1:30 am  #278


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

crumbsroom wrote:

After working myself to death for two weeks, and on the cusp of four days with nothing to do at all, time to load my brain full of mushrooms and whiskey and, apparently, some delicate and restrained animation of fathers hacking off their daughters hands with an axe.

Belladonna of Sadness?


 

12/10/2022 1:32 am  #279


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Oh this is a recent French animation film, 2016.


 

12/10/2022 1:32 am  #280


Re: Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

After working myself to death for two weeks, and on the cusp of four days with nothing to do at all, time to load my brain full of mushrooms and whiskey and, apparently, some delicate and restrained animation of fathers hacking off their daughters hands with an axe.

Belladonna of Sadness?

The Girl Without Hands.

And it very much reminded me of BoS

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