Author Topic: I don't get it/They don't get it  (Read 4725 times)

Will

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #20 on: January 04, 2018, 04:04:32 PM »
2017

...

I don't get it:

1. MOTHER! - Misogynist trash that seemingly gets a pass by critics for style.

2. I, TONYA - Meanspirited film that uses domestic violence for its punchlines that seemingly gets a pass by critics for its style.

3. BABY DRIVER - Film that isn't about anything nor does anything excitingly new seemingly gets a pass by critics for its style.

4. A GHOST STORY - A film about WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE LIFE which means it's about nothing at all and Lowery keeps resisting ever getting specific which leads to empty scenes of people being sad about how hard life is. It literally has a GARDEN STATE moment ("listen to this song") played for intense seriousness. So of course it seemingly gets a pass by critics for its style.

5. PHANTOM THREAD - A film that brings no new ideas to the table of a well-worn plot but seemingly gets a pass by critics for its style.

///

They didn't get it:

1. SONG TO SONG - I don't love this movie, but it gets a lot right about the messiness of romantic relationships that normal romance films avoid since it doesn't fit perfectly into a narrative structure. Strangely, it seems that most critics did not give a pass for its style here.

2. TRAINSPOTTING 2 - I love how it meditates on the way time has changed and not changed their lives between the two films. I definitely had problems but I feel critics just didn't care to find these ideas.

3. LOGAN - It probably shouldn't be on my list because it was well-loved, but I think it does to superhero films what THE DARK KNIGHT did for superhero films; evolve the subgenre by maturing with its audience in a more realistic way. I don't mean with the R-rating, but specifically how agonizingly sad this film is, how it talks about myth making, how it talks about how suicide, how it talks about killing - regardless of whether the victim is good or bad - is still a psychological toll someone takes on them... There's still a lot of casual deaths in MCU/DCEU whether its henchmen or citizen casualties. There's little thought given to killing in those franchises, but here it becomes deeply meaningful. Critics just seemed too worn out by superhero films to think deeply about this one.

oldkid

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #21 on: January 05, 2018, 02:47:51 AM »


I don't get it:

1. MOTHER! - Misogynist trash that seemingly gets a pass by critics for style. being the most thematically innovative movie that no single person sees the same as another.



And I need to see Logan.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #22 on: January 05, 2018, 12:36:21 PM »
1. MOTHER! - Misogynist trash that seemingly gets a pass by critics for style.

It's not misogynistic. Aronofsky is owning up to his treatment of his partner's. That part of the movie is a sort of mea culpa.

And I need to see Logan.

Logan is lit.

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Will

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2018, 03:40:44 PM »
Getting tired of people responding to "this is sexist" with "BUT THAT'S JUST YOUR INTERPRETATION."

I don't see it much different from someone calling out someone for being sexist and that person responding with "BUT I DIDN'T MEAN TO BE SEXIST" as if that's supposed to make their remark/behavior not sexist.

It just shows me that you can't argue against it being sexist. Movies that present themselves as thematic mysteries with all types of interpretations can still have problematic elements. If a woman being physically and emotionally tortured for the whole movie then getting her baby and herself killed and replaced by another woman for the whole cycle to repeat itself doesn't come of a little bit sexist to you, then I don't know what to tell you. I get that it's supposed to show how horrible the artistic process is - I don't know why we are forced to watch yet another woman to suffer through it in order for that point to be made. You call it "provocative", I call it tiring. I've seen it so many times before, WAY too many times before.

ETA: Would it be so shocking for me to say that if a fictional film presented one scene and that scene was a woman getting brutally beaten by a man to death that that film is misogynist? Would you... disagree? Because that's how I mostly felt about MOTHER!
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 03:45:32 PM by AliceGuyBlache »

Teproc

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #24 on: January 13, 2018, 04:33:19 PM »
It's not as much that as most people don't agree that Mother! is sexist. I can see where you're coming from, but I just don't agree. As for that theoretical example: I think it depends on how it's depicted.
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oldkid

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #25 on: January 14, 2018, 01:13:37 AM »
There is a difference between a film depicting sexism and being sexist.  I certainly see mother! as being the first one, not the second.  You can disagree, and I don't have a problem with that.  I hope you will allow me how I read the movie, as long as we both agree that sexism is being depicted.
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saltine

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #26 on: January 14, 2018, 01:56:18 AM »
Post of the day.
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Will

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #27 on: January 14, 2018, 04:42:01 AM »
There is a difference between a film depicting sexism and being sexist.  I certainly see mother! as being the first one, not the second.  You can disagree, and I don't have a problem with that.  I hope you will allow me how I read the movie, as long as we both agree that sexism is being depicted.

I just want to know why you think this instead of flat dismissal. Since you're the one who struck through my sentence and rewrote it, it isn't the question over me allowing you to do anything, it's you allowing me.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2018, 04:43:38 AM by AliceGuyBlache »

DarkeningHumour

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #28 on: January 14, 2018, 05:04:21 AM »
There is a difference between a film depicting sexism and being sexist.  I certainly see mother! as being the first one, not the second.  You can disagree, and I don't have a problem with that.  I hope you will allow me how I read the movie, as long as we both agree that sexism is being depicted.

I don't understand why we still need to make this point, not just about sexism, but any type of behaviour. Isn't it obvious that depicting something and condoning are not the same thing?

Getting tired of people responding to "this is sexist" with "BUT THAT'S JUST YOUR INTERPRETATION."

I don't see it much different from someone calling out someone for being sexist and that person responding with "BUT I DIDN'T MEAN TO BE SEXIST" as if that's supposed to make their remark/behavior not sexist.

This is literally the opposite of what I wrote. I said the movie knows full well Him is sexist. It is not subtle about it and it very much wants to show it. The whole point is to show what a horrible misogynistic monster Him is, and to criticise him for it. A movie that calls out someone on their treatment of women is the opposite of sexist. Otherwise, you'd have to say Do the Right Thing is on the side of the racists.
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philip918

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Re: I don't get it/They don't get it
« Reply #29 on: January 14, 2018, 02:31:15 PM »
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Every review I've read since seeing the film frame it as a story about redemption. I had the opposite takeaway: it's a story about not letting go, no matter what. McDormand's character isn't a good person. Rockwell's really isn't. They only pair up at the end because they've run out of options and are going on a foolish, hate-fueled mission based on the opinion of an idiot. They are doing all they can to hold onto their grief and rage, and they will take it out on anyone who gets in their way.