Author Topic: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 395737 times)

Bondo

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1920 on: April 01, 2013, 07:56:39 PM »
Et tu Smirnoff? I've discarded more than my share of JR's stinkers in this bracket but I am one of the main proponents of Out of the Blue. Probably something about Linda Manz/teen girls. Also, N. Ray gave us Rebel Without A Cause, which is marvelous, even if his Noir is no good.

smirnoff

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1921 on: April 01, 2013, 08:00:52 PM »
About the only way in for me in regards to OOTB was the trucking/CB radio thing (My dad drove truck, and I rode along many summers). Unfortunately they made even that small detail unlikable by exaggerating it to an absurd level.

I'm glad the Manz angle worked for you. It probably lives or dies by getting on board with her.

mañana

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1922 on: April 04, 2013, 11:21:06 AM »
@smirnoff
I know you watched the film quite a while ago, so I’m not expecting a lot of detail or anything, but I’m wondering what it was that you hated about Out of the Blue. Was it the bleak story? Something about the filmmaking style? A combination of those things? Something else?
There's no deceit in the cauliflower.

smirnoff

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1923 on: April 04, 2013, 01:18:33 PM »
It's always tough to pinpoint the root of dislike, but my working theory is that it stems from failing to connect with Cebe. And that in turn begs the question, why. The obvious answer would be that she's a belligerent punk, but I think my problem has more to do with what she isn't than what she is. We're introduced to her character in the brief moments leading up to the disaster, but before it happens there's already a sense that things are off. Here's a kid dressed up as a clown, which in my mind is child's Halloween costume, but the dialogue is anything but childish. It's raunchy enough that you gather Cebe is more mature than the costume would indicate. The scene to me was anything but endearing. The whole time it just felt weird.

In the next scene we jump ahead however many years and Cebe is doing her Gorgeous shtick, which is also not at all endearing, just weird... and now antagonistic too. And all the scenes that follow that, for me, were varying degrees of the same attitude.

This, I think, was the first hurdle. A lack of... hmm, not redeeming moments, but simply moments that were not self-destructive or destructive to somebody else. A glimpse of Cebe's repressed humanity. A bit of her old self shining through the scarred exterior of her current persona.  In a sense it's as if Hopper lopped off the first 15 minutes of the film, leaving a character arc that starts at bad and gets worse. We're left to guess when things started to go wrong. In that way the "tragedy" of Cebe had no impact on me. I never knew that which was lost, so how can I be sad about having lost it?

Scenes became redundant because of this. They seemed to serve no purpose but reinforce my opinion of the character (belligerent, weird). I did not have a sense of what Cebe was struggling for, or struggling towards, or what she wanted from people or from herself. She seemed committed to her own self-destruction. So having only ever known her to be a nasty person I could hardly bring myself to lament that trajectory.

In the end I struggled to imagine what the message of it all was. The sins of the father are passed on to the daughter? That's an idea worth expressing, certainly, but the way it was presented was very repetitive for me. Rather than a story it felt like a series of examples with verying degrees of potency, and little to no through-line. I can only speculate as to whether the storytelling was unconventional by design or by mistake, but either way it was not effective (for me). :-\



I get the sense you did not find Cebe quite so unforgivable as I did. Would that be accurate? Did you sense some goodness in her that I did not?
« Last Edit: April 04, 2013, 01:20:30 PM by smirnoff »

mañana

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1924 on: April 04, 2013, 06:14:23 PM »
Fair enough. I think I have a stronger affinity for belligerent and weird.  :)
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smirnoff

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1925 on: April 06, 2013, 12:17:14 PM »
Any other movies come to mind that feel like they're in the same thematic ballpark as Out of the Blue? Or characters that Cebe reminds you of?

jbissell

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1926 on: April 07, 2013, 01:11:44 AM »
I was not familiar with Ray before I watched this film, but I'll certainly avoid him now (such is the taint).

Well that's just plain silly. Ray is responsible for quite a bit of greatness.

smirnoff

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1927 on: April 07, 2013, 01:57:37 PM »
I was not familiar with Ray before I watched this film, but I'll certainly avoid him now (such is the taint).

Well that's just plain silly. Ray is responsible for quite a bit of greatness.

How silly is it really? Do you suggest Rosenbaum's kiss of death is a frivolous, made-up impediment on my part? Or that film experiences happen in a laboratory free of contaminants?

Would that it were so! But just as a new car never realizes the advertised mpg (which were achieved under ideal conditions), so to are film experiences influenced by real world conditions.

If I knew how to un-poison this well I would do it. But I don't.

Of course there's always the option of saying "screw Rosenbaum, I'm going to watch this anyways", but why would I disregard the advice of such a reliable compass? His words are like a forhorn, warning my ship away from unnavigable waters.

jbissell

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1928 on: April 07, 2013, 05:47:43 PM »
I was not familiar with Ray before I watched this film, but I'll certainly avoid him now (such is the taint).

Well that's just plain silly. Ray is responsible for quite a bit of greatness.

How silly is it really? Do you suggest Rosenbaum's kiss of death is a frivolous, made-up impediment on my part? Or that film experiences happen in a laboratory free of contaminants?

Would that it were so! But just as a new car never realizes the advertised mpg (which were achieved under ideal conditions), so to are film experiences influenced by real world conditions.

If I knew how to un-poison this well I would do it. But I don't.

Of course there's always the option of saying "screw Rosenbaum, I'm going to watch this anyways", but why would I disregard the advice of such a reliable compass? His words are like a forhorn, warning my ship away from unnavigable waters.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes?

I would say that enough people on the boards with a wide variety of opinions have good things to say about Ray that you shouldn't let Rosenbaum deter you. Of course there's also the possibility that Rosenbaum is off in comparing Hopper's work to Ray's (I haven't seen OofB, so I have no opinion). I would say you should at least check out Rebel and/or In a Lonely Place.

1SO

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Re: 1980s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1929 on: April 07, 2013, 06:52:30 PM »
I also tend to dislike Rosenbaum recommendations, but he's not wrong 100% of the time. (It only seems like it.) His list of essentials include many of the usuals like The Shining, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, The Maltese Falcon and Groundhog Day. While I see how a comment like that taints your attitude towards Ray, it does seem like taking your dislike one step beyond reason. As for me, I did not like Out of the Blue, love In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without a Cause and wouldn't think to paint them all with the same brush.