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Author Topic: Top 100 Club: Bondo  (Read 21685 times)

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2018, 03:49:09 PM »
After Life and The Cabin in the Woods are the most attractive options for me here, but I won't get to either before late in the month.
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Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2018, 06:14:08 PM »
Re: Hypocrites

This is one I should revisit, and as I believe it is included in the five disc set of female-directed cinema from the first twenty years of film I should be getting by the end of the year from a kickstarter a few years ago, I'll have my chance. I've never been too bothered by heavy-handed moralism, and especially feel it fits in silent film where it sometimes needs to go more overt to overcome the lack of dialogue.

Re: Obvious Child

Is Jenny Slate's character supposed to be a good comedian? Mrs. Maisel is supposed to be a sensation, so it is important that they write her (and the actress deliver) to be actually funny. I suppose as the audience we'd like her to be really good because then the scenes are funnier and we enjoy ourselves more. But is that necessarily demanded or justified narratively? It's definitely a risky choice for the filmmakers to make.

I'd say the depth here is not in her story but those around her that give her strength to do what she knew was the right choice but is told by society shouldn't be so easy. Slate just published a story including the stories of a few women, including Dana Stevens, telling the story of their abortions, operating on the same theory. As I said in my initial review, a third of women get an abortion during their life but it is treated as a scarlet letter (which of course in its original context applied to something also done by a large minority of women). While I defend Juno as a valid part of a pro-choice film world, Obvious Child fills a vital representation gap.

oldkid

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2018, 07:03:40 PM »
Hypocrites: I'm all good with being moralistic.  But it's tough to be moralistic in a way that still strikes after a century.  I watched it here, but the copy wasn't very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGwfAitRdPw

Obvious Child:
I felt the focus was on her, but I will say the surprise was those around her, especially the wannabe beau.  When he comes walking up with flowers, I was cringing, but he was charming and cute and kinda perfect. 

I think Jenny is supposed to be a popular comedian in a small club, much as how Mrs. Maisel started.  Entertainment-wise, I prefer MM, but this approach worked well in OC.  I wouldn't want to watch a series on OC unless the comedy was punched up, I think.

The other pro-choice film is, of course, Vera Drake, where the sympathy with Vera is powerfully done.
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Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #13 on: August 03, 2018, 09:10:56 PM »
Bondo, I'm probably going to watch Innocence, The Barbarian Invasions and In the Loop.  :)

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #14 on: August 03, 2018, 10:01:03 PM »
I'm particularly interested to see what you think of Innocence but I think you'll appreciate the heart at the center of The Barbarian Invasions.

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #15 on: August 04, 2018, 01:01:11 AM »
Boy Meets Girl (2014)
★ ★ ★ – Very Good
Bondo's turn in the Top 100 Club has always been good to me, with Discoveries like Water Lillies, Cashback and Ruby Sparks. (I'll also throw in Leave it On the Floor, the big bang of successful Bondo recommendations.) This time around I get Boy Meets Girl, a film which takes my old-fashioned thinking of placing genders into one of two boxes and smashes it with Michelle Hendley's portrayal of Ricky.

As with most Bondo Discoveries, the acting is a little shaky, mostly with the smaller roles. However, it's a very likable film with people who can make up for their limitations with charm. (Bondo can forgive to a point how a LGBT film speaks if the message is so needed.) Also, because it's a a different kind of romance, the script can surprise us with characters who treat each other with humanity and acceptance and not just throw a bunch of questions like they're conducting a transgender science experiment.

Now for some SPOILER talk.
As a writer, I really admired the way they handled Francesca's army boyfriend, David. With everyone else being nice, his cruel slurs stood out for the hate speech they were, yet there's an honesty to someone thinking that way. I didn't want to hear Ricky talked about in this way, but it felt right. Then there's the garden party, and you think they're going to take his hatred too far, but Francesca's father makes a decisive move that instantly defuses the situation in equally strong terms. When David shows up at Ricky's house later, I was expecting some typical bad guy behavior, but the film surprised me once again (though they don't explain exactly what happened all those years ago, which brings up questions. Is David closet gay? Exactly what did happen between them? Am I still trying to apply labels to an intimate encounter that defies them?)

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #16 on: August 04, 2018, 10:28:26 AM »
Is [he] closet gay?...Am I still trying to apply labels to an intimate encounter that defies them?

The simple answer to the first question is no, he's a man, she's a woman. But the complex answer to the second question is yes. And I think that is the strength of the film. It breaks the gender binary and in doing so reveals that our standard approach to sexuality largely falls apart without a gender binary as the base.

There's a meme I saw that goes like this:
Quote
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GENDER? LOOSELY
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? WITH AN EHHHHH NOISE AND A SORT OF NONCOMMITTAL WIGGLEY HAND GESTURE

Setting aside bi/pansexuals, people who have one sexual orientation might either be attracted to gender with less regard to genitals or genitals with less regard to gender. Or maybe they require both to be in line with their expectations. But especially for men, society rounds anything but this latter interest into if not gay then certainly suspect. It can be a lot harder for a guy to be bisexual and it can be harder to process attraction to a trans person, in the case here. Like you said, this film doesn't let us settle for easy heroes or villains. Even the bad actions come from people burdened by societal expectations.

P.S. In the garden party when Ricky is chatting with the older ladies about how tough high school is, "And I was a boy, so that sucked." Great line or greatest line?

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2018, 11:37:38 AM »
Great Line. Greatest Delivery.


I'm sure I'll with whichever I'm feeling, but for me would you recommend In Time or Pariah?
« Last Edit: August 04, 2018, 11:39:44 AM by 1SO »

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2018, 04:20:33 PM »
I’d be more interested in you seeing In Time. Definitely more of a home run swing (and if you trust others, Miss).

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #19 on: August 05, 2018, 11:30:14 PM »


In Time (2011)
★ ★ ★ – Okay
That was my favorite moment of the movie, (and it has nothing to do with the hair color.) We are introduced to the rich man's wife, daughter and mother-in-law and they're all the SAME AGE! The worst review I found for the film complained that the concept was never explained, which is completely missing the point. It's not about how this happened, but what this one alteration to our reality does to our existence. What I liked most about the film was Andrew Niccol's thorough understanding of what would happen if the time we have left to live was the currency that ruled us. The day-to-day details were great. The bigger issues not so much.

I could see this was aiming to be about the widening divide between the haves and have nots, but much like Amanda Seyfried's wig, (and most of her performance) it was very obvious window dressing with little attachment. I also wasn't a fan of the action. I'm talking about maybe 10 minutes of a 109 minute movie, but it was dumbing down what was mostly intelligent sci-fy and none of it is excitingly staged. The one bit I did like was the arm fight, which had an extra bit of cool to it. I wish Niccol (or his producers) trusted the concept enough to ditch the small bits of action and social commentary.