President of the I Love The Paperboy Fanclub


Supply Boy


 

Last edited by crumbsroom (3/17/2023 11:44 pm)

The Nicole Kidman/Zac Efron one.

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

The Nicole Kidman/Zac Efron one.

I can see the inbred appeal.  Springer-esque.

Everyone needs representation

Rock wrote:

That’s the only Lee Daniels movie I’ve had any interest in ever seeing.

It's one of those films that seems mostly to have been written off by critics who find it too depraved for their tastes. And while I think it's fair to criticize it over whether or not it's deliberate sleaziness amounts to much (it might not), as a film where I think you are just supposed to bask in the slimy American underbelly it's showcasing, I think it works pretty well.

The only other Daniels I've seen was Previous, which I did not like. That had similarly queasy moments in it, but the fact that it seemed to revel in those moments to supply its main character with some kind of eventually redemption, made it grosser and not nearly as much fun.

Rock wrote:

Without having seen either movie, the impression I got from reviews and trailers is that The Paperboy is up front about being tawdry and sleazy, while Precious is no less tawdry and sleazy but wraps those elements up in cloying sentiment. Somehow the latter was better received.

Because shit critics are always looking for ways to absolve their voyeuristic tendencies. So if they are watching sleaze, they need some serious gestures towards social significance in order to admit appreciating such things. Otherwise, what kind of monsters would that make them.

Now there are probably lots and lots of good critical takes on why Paperboy sucks that raise fair points. It is, after all, mostly just a skeezy potboiler. But just from the tenor of the few critiques I skimmed through consistently reek of 'this movie is beneath me'. And I can't trust any critical consensus that seems shaped by not having a sense of humor or appreciation towards bad taste.

I chuckled at the trailer when it played before my showing of Full River Red, but I also found the lead actor unpleasant to look at. Sorry if that’s mean.

lol

Glad to know he’s ugly on the inside too.

Jinnistan wrote:

Speaking for myself, there's a difference between 'depraved' and 'trash'.  It shouldn't be confused with Salo

Or something can be both at the same time. Which is what The Paperboy sort of is. But my issue is more that when a films morality seems hazy, whether it be Salo or Gummo or this film or lots and lots of other films that have struggled to gain acceptance with any middle of the road type critic, the reflex for many seems to be it must be trash if it happens to be depraved. One signifies the other. It's a quick way to demonstrate one hasn't even engaged in the deplorabe morality that is on hand. To cut off any emotional or intellectual connection with the film out of a fear that one may affiliated themselves with some monstrous thing.

But that isn't to say these kinds of movies (and certainly this particular movie) should be found worthwhile by anyone. They should be criticized. Even the good ones. But I can't help but roll my eyes at critics who seem to position their review more as a blockade between their morality and the film they are talking about. That they have to make it clear that these sorts of films are beneath their contemplation. That they scorn the directors intents. That they refuse the company of anyone who might appreciate what is going on.

There is a performative element to these reviews that I don't find particularly distinguishable from the kind of Twitter outrages that have become more and more a part of supposed discourse over the last ten years. And much like with those, while I sometimes can understand the emotional sentiment or the ultimate disagreement some may have with a film that might have pushed a few of their buttons, it all about the way people explain their feelings. And those who are using their review more to clean their hands of the experience of a trashy film, then to actually talk about what they are cleaning off of their hands, I find deeply lacking in substance. It's like they think I give a shit how filthy their fingers might have once been, or how sparkling clean they have momentarily made them.

Jinnistan wrote:

and Daniels' has never shown anything like the sense of humor of a John Waters.

This is one of those comments that made me suddenly realize that over the course of The Paperboy, which I would have described as a relatively funny movie (in its way), that I don't actually think there was a single joke in the film. All of its perversity and weirdness and campy inflections is played completely straight. Which probably is a window into the intentions of Daniels, and how he likely believed this films was some kind of expose of some kind of something.

Jinnistan wrote:

Even among its peers, I wouldn't even put Paperboy on a depraved par as Killer Joe or something

I definitely prefer The Paperboy. I do think they are films with very strong surface similarities though.

Jinnistan wrote:

So I see it more as a sincere effort that, like a lot of similarly so-bad-it's-good dumps like Roadhouse, some may mistake the humor inherent in its earnest incompetence with high camp.

I think to approach the Paperboy with any hope of finding any kind of illumination regarding race relations in the south, or the perversity of justice and the moral quagmire of working in the legal system, or a comment on base human sexuality, might inevitably cause one to lean towards a verdict of 'incompetence'. And because this may have been Daniels' intent, maybe incompetence is a fair diagnosis.

But I'm find throwing Daniels' intents right into the garbage. I think your comments on what Daniels has done in his other films is on point. At least with Precious, which I found grotesque, for exactly the reasons you outlined. But my issues with that movie was that what Daniels is doing with that film, and how he wants it to effect his audience, are completely up front. And, because we can't unsee the intent of what he is doing with all of his emotionally manipulative bullshit, it sinks the film, regardless of that fact that outside of this I find it to be a fairly well made thing. It looks good, it has all sorts of grimy textures, he gets good performances from his actors and (even though I reject their intent) its harrowing moments still have punch, even though I'm leery of what they are trying to get out of me.

But because the Paperboy is so scattered in whatever it is trying to say, I was able to just appreciate this world he created, with these weird characters and their endlessly immoral behaviour. He's a director that shines the more we remove depth from his work. He's great when it comes to the surface pleasures of film. I think The Paperboy almost sparkles with its degeneracy. Which for me isn't an outcome of incompetence. Yes, whatever he is trying to say about America here sinks beneath the murk of all its surface grossness, but this particular failure is a gift since what it leaves behind is all texture, sweat and piss and humidity. And that isn't without value to me. And maybe Daniels' decision to take this material very seriously, even though it clearly doesn't deserve such kind of sincerity, is the mystery ingredient that makes it so fascinating.

Jinnistan wrote:

Sure the film may be fun to laugh at...because it's a piece of trash that isn't aware it's trash.  If Daniels and his producers knew it was trash, and accepted it as such, then they wouldn't have campaigned so hard to get award nominations.

The fact that he got lots of recognition for Precious, and gets reviled because of this film, is exactly what I find both funny and irritating. Because Precious gives us a character to root for as she is degraded over and over again, it somehow absolves itself of its trash issues. It becomes a contender. But because the Paperboy just leaves us with the degenerates, gives us no redemptive arcs to root for, no values to champion, simply forces us to be voyeurs when it comes to the disintegration of its characters lives, it is a critical sin to champion it.

Jinnistan wrote:

Rather than the contempt of the reviewers, I find contempt from Daniels towards his audience.  He doesn't rub our faces relentlessly into his films' depravity as a social comment, but because he doesn't trust us to have an emotional response without making his scenes as shrill as possible.

That sounds about right. But because The Paperboy is such an infantile provocation, I can live with Daniels audience contempt in that one.

Jinnistan wrote:

Precious might be the single most mainstream racist film of the decade, despite Oprah's imprimatur (she also championed The Help).  It's the kind of poverty-porn designed to make white audiences feel more comfortable about their condescensions (ala Lincoln's "poor creatures") and gratified for celebrating it.  The degradation of the character is not really used for social comment, but for audience titilation. 

yup

Jinnistan wrote:

The degradations in Paperboy are no different, but without the implied condescension, audiences are allowed to ignore Daniels' pretenses and simply enjoy the hysterical melodrama.

yup

Jinnistan wrote:

It's not camp, it's Daniels' need to root his films in the basest of his audiences instincts because he doesn't trust his audience (or clearly himself) to respond to more subtle cues.

For me this is almost a distinction without a difference. I think its very possible that Daniels does not see the camp in his own work. And while that makes him a bit of a dummy, and says  a lot regarding what he thinks he is actually saying, the end result is the film plays like a big sweaty hunk of artifice. Which is why camp matters. Treating film and acting and scripts as being inherently not-real. It changes how we watch something, regardless of whether or not it was the intention of the filmmaker.

Jinnistan wrote:

But without any of the racial/historical feigned significance of those other films, I guess Paperboy allows more leeway in setting any of his contrived intentions aside and just enjoy the salacious LCD wallowing.  But I can't ignore the fact that I know Daniels was working under the impression that he was making Tennessee Williams proud.

It's more than fair if one can't overlook the aspirations and the failure to meet them. I think you make it clear why you might take some issues with the film and how it is placed in Daniels' filmography. If only the critics of it who are getting paid to be critics had a similar ability. Didn't just immediately start fanning themselves from being subjected to the company of such an unscrupulous and sweat horny bunch of misfits as this movie peddles.

Jinnistan wrote:

Again, speaking for myself, I wasn't offended by the depraved morality of the film.  I was offended by its exploitative nature, which is what separates it from those other films.

I don't know. I think a pretty good case could be made for Gummo being fairly exploitative. It wouldn't be my argument, I think Korrine's embrace of outcasts is mostly a loving one. But I would never brush off the decent probability that he is choosing images of people with down syndrome and dwarfism and physical deformations due to their viscerally startling nature.  Their otherworldliness. The absurdism they heighten in his scenes. I don't think that is a by default bad thing, but I get the argument that it sort of is.

It could also be that, when viewed in tandem, the latter film reveals the surface titilation and manipulation of the former, and that the poor reviews were a hindsight reflection of some of these critics' guilty conscience for celebrating Precious in the first place.  (Has anyone even dared to put Precious on a top list for the last decade?  There are only a handful of other Oscar-nominated films that have fallen so quickly out of favor.)

Might be giving the critics too much credit. That they actually reflect on their terrible taste much at all. But I'd like to think this is true, this piece of obvious throwaway trash exposing the obvious skid mark on your soul rash that Precious also is.

To be clear, Paperboy is undoubtedly Daniels' best film.  In a way his purest film.  And even though I don't have a taste for his uncut nectar, the film is far less insulting than his attempts at significance.

Purest always goes a long way with me. A significance frequently stops me dead in my tracks. So this was a sweet spot for a director who seems mostly to be completely impure in his pursuit of mattering. I doubt he will ever go there again.

I disagree.  I'm still not much of a 'death of the author' acolyte.  Intentions are an integral part of understanding art.  Even if the inevitable result is to reject an artist's intention, it still should be understood. 

Intent is a window into understanding something. Not paying any heed to it at all is negligent. But even if Daniels' intent here was to say, I don't know, something. And even if the movies says, I don't know, nothing, for me there is still meaning in this failure. And not just in a way to laugh at the end result. I don't think at any point in Paperboy I laughed at Daniels making an embarrassment of himself. Regardless of his intentions, the weird vibe of the film (which is almost certainly a product of his misguided aspirations, his missing the mark, as well as the visceral impact of the scenes, performances and images the film supplies) is something uniquely him.

Now that isn't to say the Precious wasn't also uniquely him, which I can also appreciate at some distance (but not with any enthusiasm, the reasons for which we've already talked about). But the completely impossibility of taking The Paperboy even remotely seriously is what allows me to appreciate what he's probably done in all of his films, before sabotaging his vile and lead footed artistic impulses by trying to make the audience complicit in his intentions. The Paperboy, unlike Precious, is an almost complete emotional void. Almost pure style and audacity and bad taste. And even if that isn't what Daniels would have wanted it seen as, I at no point felt him missing any mark as I watched it. As you said, it's his purest film, which to me means it gave me the purest window into his identity as a filmmaker. And it was an engagingly warped place.

So does Baz Luhrmann

I would consider Luhrmann in a similar vein. I don't think his films hit me in the way they are meant to. I also think they are frequently an incomprehensible mess of pointless editing and a desperate need to show off how many cinematic ideas he can spray the audience with all at once. There is something almost pitiful about Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, or the opening of Elvis (I fell asleep pretty earely on), that really puts me off. But is also so singularly his, I often find compelling to watch. And the fact that there is such a silly emotional sincerity at the core of a number of his movies, it almost fuses with his puppy dog sensibilities as a filmmaker. There is a palpable neediness in how desperately he demands the audiences attention that sort of mirrors the grandiose spectacle of his films. So while I struggle not to call him a shitty (or at least annoying) director, I do sort of value the end product of what he makes.

So does Michael Bay

Bay is someone playing in a type of film I just don't respond to much (blockbuster loudness), and he is so unrelenting in this way I find his movies exhausting to watch, but I've always completely understood someone like MKS' appreciation of him. He's unique. He's influential. He is vaguely auteuristic.

I still think the Jerry Springer reference here is appropriate.

It is. But I don't see this as a bad thing. I think it's good to have some films both knowingly ape the de-evolution of society that Springer represents, as well as unknowingly fall into its trap of dumb spectacle. They both can illuminate. They both can have meaning.

 

Also, OC and Stiggs might have the worst opening 15 minutes I've ever seen from a movie made by a legit director. Might have the worst opening 15 minutes I've ever seen, period.

It was late, and I couldn't deal with it and turned it off, but there is no way an Altman film can actually be this bad. Yes, I know of its terrible reputation, but this seems at the level of almost scientific impossibility.