Quasar Sniffer

Now that I mention Chris Evans, it just struck me that Steve Rogers probably listened to more jazz during his WWII days than 90% of modern Americans and might have something to talk to Seb about. Steve: Traditional Jazz? Oh, sure, I love jazz! Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellignton... Seb: NO, that's not what I- GAH! Steve: You know, I was listening to jazz on a perfect night when I should have kissed this girl named Peggy... Seb: Shit, I think we just became best friends. Do you like to look wistfully into the middle distance too? Let's be sad while I play piano.

And I know this movie was SUPPOSEDLY influenced by Jacques Demy's Umbrellas of Cherborg, but if that were the case, why isn't there ONE visual reference to this image of Demy? Damien Chazelle, I am calling you OUT!

Sorry I haven't been around since my initial post, but I am glad my question inspired discussion about the opening number. I am still of two minds about it. As for MBJ vs. Gosling in the role of Seb, I would love MBJ in the role, but I think it would need to be a different movie. Seb in La La Land always struck me as a supremely talented, deluded twat out of touch with his emotions and unable to connect with others emotionally. He only connects with music on a personal level, but has no cultural connection to it, which would definitely change if you were to cast a black actor in that role. I think he's a fascinating character either way because he's so passionate about the things he attempts, be it relationships or music, but he's so flawed that he's destined to crash and burn before he succeeds in anything. I mean, hell, when his sister tries to set him up with a woman on a date, and he asks "does she like jazz?" and his sister responds negatively, his reaction is, "then what are we gonna talk about?" THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE PERSON. This motherfucker thinks it'd be a good idea to name his club after the chicken-eating habits of Charlie Parker. By the end, I think he's able to see that he wasn't complete, and through the fantasy sequence, he can see all the forking paths his life could have taken, so he just has infinitely more perspective. Is he happy? Who knows? Who in LA is really "happy" anyway? And as a heterosexual male, I am hard pressed (real hard) to think of a more gorgeous man than Gosling. Maybe one of the Avengers Chrises? Sorry MBJ.

Oh man, I have so many thoughts about this film. Probably more than any other movie that I think is "rather very good," but not a landmark film or something magnificent (and certainly not reprehensible or anything like that). So do I have entire paragraphs on the opening five minutes of La La Land, YOU BET I DO! I know there was a lot of debate during production about the opening song, whether to include it in La La Land, or whether to even film it. Looking at the movie now, I see the strengths of the sequence, but if someone were to ask me before the movie's release if the number should be included in the film, if I saw it in a vacuum before La La Land became what it became, I think I would have voted to cut it. I get the whole theme of turning Los Angeles into "La La Land," a place where you can manifest your dreams into reality, but the perspective of the rest of the movie is very specific to our central characters, so expanding that the this traffic jam, to all of LA, seems thematically muddled. For example, the very next sequence is Mia going from being treated like grist for the mill as a barista, looked down upon by everyone from customers to her boss, just so she can afford to go audition and be treated like garbage there so then she can pretend to be someone she isn't at a party where she is treated like a non-person by other piles of human garbage. This is all broken up by a wonderful number between her and her roommates, who all have this dream of making it big in Los Angeles, so the song is playing on the same themes as the opening sequence, but it's more focused and relatable since it's with characters we know and like (or at least one character we know and like). The opening sequence is so big and so bright and shiny that it almost detracts from the impact of this number, which tells the audience what to expect from the film more effectively. It's a better "statement of purpose" song (like "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast). Plus, long, laborious, stressful commutes are one of the few subjective, provable ways that can detract from a person's happiness and overall mental well-being. To show this scrum of humanity, in the "City of Dreams" that inevitably turns those dreams into oily sludge to grease its wheels, in a massive happiness-sucking ouroboros, as a trigger for a song and dance number when the very next dance number does the same job telling a story, only better, just seems disingenuous. On the other hand, it's a fucking great piece of pure cinema. So I don't fucking know. Plus, I don't know if it makes the ending fantasy/Singin' in the Rain homage sequence weaker or stronger. Does the opening lay the groundwork for the audience accepting the pure fantasy of the ending fantasia, or does opening with a sequence of pure fantasy take away the power and surprise of the magical reverie that is the end? I. Don't. Know.

Great pic! This is a movie that I like and is good! Is it the best movie ever? No. It's greatness it certainly up for debate. But I really got my feathers ruffled when the backlash against this movie happened around the time of the Oscars. It's charming and fun, and not self-righteous in a way that other "greatness thrust upon them" films can be (see Crash). It's so easily watchable. Not deep, but even if it spends all it's time in the shallow end of the Film Pool, it's a beautiful, relaxing time.

Also, the gang frequently mocked this movie for its obsession over maps and charts, but maybe one of the reasons why I didn't dislike it is (I would never say I liked it) is that I have read this book and ENJOYED IT! Granted, it's not as engrossing as the other Simon Winchester book I've read, The Professor and the Madman (aka The Surgeon of Crawthorne), which deals with the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the involvement of Dr. W.C. Minor, an American Civil War Veteran who committed murder in England and was then committed to an insane asylum. It's both a crazy story and exceptionally English. Good times. I like minutia, you guys.

I... I'm just quoting this because I love it so much. Experts in cool fields: This message board HAS THEM!

Oh, I know, I'm being a bit disingenuous. I was just trying to give another example of a TV show or a movie where watching it just sort of.... feels nice. Thinking about it now, Downtown Abbey is a bad example because it's just better executed in its chosen format. I should save this for the show thread, but Sky Captain is a story probably better told serialized... like a serial. Maybe even in a video game where you can craft actual characters with CGI and further engage the viewers/players by giving them a feeling of control over those stock characters.

Hello movie-watching friends! Since you all enjoy both podcasts and movies, I thought, if you can forgive my boldness, I could plug my own latest podcast appearance here. I recently made my second appearance on the podcast Hellbent for Horror, this time as the only guest, where the host S.A Bradley and I talk about the intersection of horror fiction, reality, religion, politics, power dynamics, mental illness, and even a bit of Heavy Metal. I am pretty proud of it, so if that sounds up your alley, give it a listen! https://hellbentforhorror.com/2018/05/24/episode-071-defenders-of-the-faith/

So I just finished Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and, while it's certainly not the greatest movie, is pretty dull, and was doomed for commercial failure from the start, I think I.... like it. It gives me the same aesthetic pleasure as, say, watching Downton Abbey, where nothing bad is going to happen to the nice, well-meaning, well-dressed handsome people on screen as everyone is polite to everyone else. Except here, that aesthetic is faux-1930s serials rather than BBC period dramas.

I just took this as almost a gag or a running joke, in the same sphere as Spinal Tap treating their drummers like faceless, replaceable nobodies. Wyatt was treating Val like she was worthless with the capriciousness of a record executive who views all artists as replaceable pawns. So for him to treat Val with more cruelty than any other musician is totally nonsensical, and a joke to communicate his infinite disregard and lack of concern for the Pussycats. He COULD hate any musician (and he does), therefore his specific hate for any one musician is inherently ridiculous.

To me, punk is going to a show in Atlantic City to see a band you've only heard of because someone let you borrow their ep one time play on a five-band bill with four bands you've never heard of, blacking out before that band even plays, then waking up in an alley in Hoboken three days later between a dumpster and a raccoon eating a week-old sack of expired hamburger meat.

This was my favorite moment in the movie and something I legitimately loved. I also do think it was cool to see a music group composed of girls or women who actually wrote their own music. This was definitely an era where female musicians, at least in the larger pop culture landscape, were relegated to competing to be the next Brtiney Spears or Christina Aguilera, so we just had a flood of pre-fabricated teen sensations. Seeing the Pussycats do their own thing with their own music and have fun with it was definitely something the industry needed at the time, and still fun to see. Music should be fun and inspiring! We should enjoy making it, not just unwrapping it! YAY!

P.S. taylor anne...

I'm glad I'm not the only one. This movie just didn't appeal to me aesthetically or in its plot, music, or even the comedy. I actually think Rachael Leigh Cook is an underrated actress who just kind of got lost after she became a "Teen" sensation in this era of movies, so seeing her starring in something was fun. But the music though just reminded me of the Avril Lavigne-brand of pop punk that still irks me like fish hooks scraping my ear drums. So for me, seeing a satire of Du Jour as a prefabricated boy band, then presenting the Pussycats as "real," genuine musicians with integrity to be manipulated by Evil Executives seemed pretty disingenuous from the get-go. But Alan Cumming as a smarmy, suited villain chewing scenery? I will watch that. However, Parker Posey seemed like she thought she was in a Mad TV sketch or something. I kind of don't know what she was doing.

I have never seen this movie either, and being a 16 or 17 year old boy just getting into Iron Maiden and Nine Inch Nails when it came out, I was... not the Target™ demographic.

Well, now that you mention that scene, and to keep this thread from dying, let's get INTO IT. I think that scene is important because it's a signal early in the film that he's regressed sexually to a state of adolescence (or never evolved past that point in the first place). He's prone, in bed, unable to even pleasure himself (because of his arthritic hands), at the mercy of his capricious biology, despite his best efforts to spare his dignity. He cannot even enjoy the physical release, it's analogous to the humiliation of nocturnal emissions and uncontrollable erections in front of beautiful girls. He might as well be confined to his room as a little boy, listening to his mother's sexual exploits through the thin walls of their awful apartment.

I'm just going to jump in on the About Time love, because I feel like it's a movie not enough people know about so I take the opportunity to express how great it is any chance I get!

As far as the lip-synching goes, I think it is in-keeping with the themes presented with the rest of the fantasies in the Singing Detective novel. Dan Dark's whole life, his fantasy life and his real life, is all about surface perception. His detective novel writing is self-consciously formulaic and exploitative of genre tropes to such an extent that he himself described it as "trash." The same goes for the songs; they are the most surface-level representations of these cliche show tunes, no personal touches or interpretation necessary, just the barest modicum of lounge-singer rote behavior. His whole purpose in writing this way, in manifesting these songs in this manner, is to keep his psychological damage buried deep within himself, which is why he reacts so strongly when Gibson's psychiatrist points out that the characters in his writing are emerging through the surface into his writing, just like his psychological damage is bursting through the SURFACE of his skin as his arthritic psoriasis. This movie is exceptionally thematically consistent, but it does fall short in developing its narrative and characters enough to make the viewer engage with these themes in a truly meaningful way, in my opinion.

Since I think I'm one of the only people here who has seen the BBC miniseries, I do have to say it goes into far greater detail and depth into the characters, especially Dan Dark. The hospital narrative and the Singing Detective noir narrative coalesce much better and reflect back on Dark's psychological and psychosomatic problems. So having seen that as a base, I'm able to fill in the gaps that the movie really has a hard time getting across. Granted, this doesn't excuse this movie as a piece in and of itself, since all movies should stand on their own, but it helps me enjoy this movie and not be revolted by it. And make no mistake, Dan Dark is hella unlikable in the miniseries, but he still very engaging like so many of the later American middle-aged male anti-heroes that would come to populate US television a decade later.

I HAVE watched the miniseries starring Michael Gambon and being really affected by it and loving it, so much so that I checked out the film, despite its poor reputation. It's been ten years or so, but I remember liking it, but thinking that the richer or the miniseries story helped me fill in all the background info and emotional weight that may be gone from the film on its own. It will be interesting revisiting!

I think Lansbury's accent wasn't the problem, it's just that everything her character said and did was so damn infuriating, any sound that came out of the character's mouth would have sounded disingenuous. No slight on her, but she was not the most pleasant character to hear opinions come out of.

Real quick thing about old men calling their wives "Mother:" My grandfather, born in 1927, called his wife (my grandmother) that until the day she died. He didn't use it all the time, but it would usually manifest as her telling him to do something, and his steady, Midwestern response would be "Yes, Mother." It'd be similar if he had said, "yes, Dear" or "of course, honey." I think because he was born 59 years before me, he's just from a generation when that nomenclature just wasn't creepy. That obviously doesn't explain Mike Pence. And if my grandmother ever called my grandfather "Father" or "Daddy" instead of his name, Jack, I would have found it SUPER CREEPY. And I did BRIEFLY date a girl in high school who went for the "daddy/mommy" naming thing and.... yeeeesh. I was NOT INTO IT.

I think Breakfast at Tiffany's goes beyond You Only Live Twice and Othello (though not, obviously, Birth of a Nation), in that Rooney's performance is done with outright cruelty. Othello and Bond were done with a sort of dumb paternalism and "Orientalism" of other cultures, especially in regards to the leads playing other races, but they never, I don't think, approached the minstrel-show-level awfulness that Rooney's character injects into Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's all offensive though, to be sure.