Cameron H.

He specifically says he didn’t get married because of her. I *think* he’s supposed to be quite a bit older than her. At least, he tells her he “raised” her at one point. I think their parents died when she was pretty young and he took care of her and there’s a lot of resentment. He blames her, like he blames everyone, for his shitty lot in life. My only problem with this as I feel like Rocky says at one point he and Paulie “grew up together.” But we also know both Rocky and Adrian are ~30, so who knows. I don’t think we learn much more about Paulie in the sequels except for he’s a chronic leech and disaster waiting to happen.

The Monkees’ Christmas Album (Christmas Party-Available Now) is great. There’s no denying that. Everyone should buy it.

Drown it out with Hanson’s “Finally, it’s Christmas” (I’m acting as Hanson’s street team this Holiday Season. You will be hearing me mention them a lot.)

I love the fact that this is your White Whale

I agree, but I also feel like that’s intentional. She’s specially written to have no agency and her journey is to retake it - which she does when she finally snaps at Paulie and moves out. She goes from this mumbling, caged bird, to this woman that’s willing to push and scream her way through a crowd to get what she wants. Granted, it’s not perfect since the thing she wants, as well as the source of her new found confidence, is a man, but it’s still something she wants for herself and actively works toward. I guess I personally feel like it’s that intention separates it from other movies that treat women like straight props.

Sorry, I haven’t listened to the episode yet so I’m not sure what they said, but I think this is right. I would say, while Rocky may not be intellectually smart, he’s got high emotional intelligence. He knows she’s too shy to talk about herself, so he talks about himself to set her at ease. No, it’s not the most romantic approach, but with these two, traditional romance wasn’t ever really in the cards. If he were to ask her questions about herself, at best, all he’s going to get are “yes/no” answers. Most likely, it would be unintelligible mutterings and quiet nods - which would be far more awkward and uncomfortable. Like he tells Paulie, they have gaps and they fit together. She gets him and he gets her. You just kind of have to accept that. So, yeah, I agree. I feel like their relationship is realistic in the sense that most real life romances are awkward and stupid.

And I’m fine with artistic license, but it should serve a greater theme. Something I think FFJ tries to do, but doesn’t really nail. It might be a bit cliche, but I think I would have started the movie with her recital for President Hayes. It would show how much true promise she truly had, and how that promise got taken away from her. This way, playing Carnegie at the end would feel like a more impactful moment than just enabling the delusions of a wealthy socialite.

Whoever voted for Joyful Noise just went and threw their vote away on a third party candidate...

I noticed this too. At first it didn't bother me, as I was just glad people weren't being erased altogether, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like presenting a false history is kind of dangerous. It allows dumb-ass racists to look at a period piece and think, "See, it wasn't that bad. Everyone got along back then. It's so much worse now. Thanks, Nobama!" It feels like a tough nut to crack, though. I think the idea was to show that Foster appealed to all types of people, but I don't think the movie wanted the audience (i.e. us) to be distracted by the negative image of a segregated section when racism wasn't really an issue the movie was ready, or trying, to tackle. Honestly, I'm really not sure what the answer is - if there even is one.

Chives?

Another thing that kind of bugged me was how the movie ends on this vaguely triumphant note, where she sees herself as a beautiful singer, but then kind of throws up some kind of depressing cards about what happened to St Clair and Cosme. Like, why even include the fact that Cosme never enjoyed success as a pianist again or that St Clair struggled for the rest of his life? I believe it said St. Clair helped continue to support the arts “as best he could” despite his “modest” means. I mean, if I were really interested, I’d Wiki it. Those cards felt like something you’d put up for the villains of your movie. If your central character didn’t inspire the other characters to greatness, then do we really need to know that Cosme became a weightlifting judge?

I think what I would have liked more is if the movie had been more from her point of view. In a way, this movie was more about St Clair and Cosme than her. Maybe they were trying to make her a more mysterious figure (i.e., interesting) but it didn't land for me. We never actually know how she felt. We would just get glimpses when she would let her guard down. Not only would we get a little more insight into what made her tick, but I think it would have been absolutely gut-wrenching if we were to witness the reveal of her lack of talent talent through her eyes. Like what if all the performances were performed as it had in her head on her death bed? And through her eyes, we would see her (apparently) killing it, and then the movie could change focus and we would realize the people aren't really cheering her on, but laughing at her. I'm not really sure if that would jibe with the how in real life she was aware she wasn't a great singer, but this movie wants to pretend she didn't know that until the very end either, so whatever.

From what I’ve heard, Chris was chosen because his speaking voice sounded close to Danny Elfman’s singing voice. He was probably trying to match Danny’s voice in his performance. It did blow my mind to see him Child’s Play this year.

In case anyone is interested....

When I was a kid, my best friend's mother kept her ex-husband's last name. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's just easier than changing it again or maybe it was so it would be consistent with her kids' names. But, I get it for a celebrity. Susan Sarandon kept Chris' name. I think sometimes it's just the name you get known by and it's easier than trying to get everyone to recognize you by a different name...

I think my biggest issue with this movie - and as a fan of HDTGM, MST3K, And Rifftrax, I recognize the hypocrisy of what I’m about to say - is that it felt like it wanted you to laugh *at* Jenkins. There was almost a cruelty in that it was basically presented as buffoonery. But then, without warning, it wanted you to suddenly sympathize with her - which never felt wholly earned. Also, I never got why people seemed to genuinely like her. Like, in a MST3K way, I got why the soldiers ended up digging it, but not the people at the Verdi Club. Things are hinted at (e.g. pretension of bourgeois, deafness of the audience, etc), but the movie never really settles on anything. And maybe that was the point. Maybe the writer was like, “I don’t really know,” but I felt it kind of weak not to at least speculate. And since it doesn’t commit to anything, in my opinion, the movie lacks a strong point of view. Orherwise, it was enjoyable, just not entirely satisfying.

I love Rocky, but word on the street is, Paul thinks it's boring. I better brew us up a pot of coffee. It's going to be a long week

I feel like it's glorifying because it's unnecessary. You don't need to have an extended scene of gang rape when you can achieve the same effect through implication. It's like Snake said about the shower scene in Psycho. You almost feel the knife stabbing Marion, but you never actually see anything. Another movie scene I've been thinking about is the "What's in the box?" scene in Seven. We never see what's in the box. We don't need to. We already know what's happened and it's absolutely horrifying. When you actually show it - not only show it, but linger on it - you're treading into exploitation territory. I just feel like when there are other, perhaps better, options available to you - options that you know won't automatically alienate a large portion of your audience - isn't that the better choice in the long run? Unless of course your message - whatever it might be - isn't actually for all people, just some people.

Hmmm...I see what you’re saying and it honestly wasn’t my intention to try and silence anyone. I apologize if that’s how it came off. However, overall, I still stand by my point. I’m not trying to say that being able to discuss the artistic merits of ACO makes you a sociopath, only that we should recognize that there is a certain level of privilege there. I guess for me, it would be like a group of white people praising and clinically dissecting the racism in DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation , especially if it seemed like the only people praising it - or, at least, a disproportionate amount of those people praising it - were white. I’m not saying that those people aren’t capable of empathizing while also enjoying whatever else it is they’re getting from it, but it’s not really the best look. At least, not in my opinion. I feel like I should say something else simply because I might be silencing again. I swear to God, I'm honestly not trying to. I guess I just want to add perspective. I'm not saying anyone needs to be shut up, but I think everyone needs to be able to listen. Say your peace but make room for other voices that might be getting drowned out.

100%

I’m pretty sure I only brought up anecdotal evidence that one time - and I was immediately willing to dismiss it. Regardless, you can like the film or not not. You can agree with me or not. My only point is it always seems like it’s men defending the movie, which seems to be the case here. I’m not trying to paint people as “un-woke.” I’m just stating my feelings about the movie which you are free to disagree with or ignore. I really only want to hear from more women. We’ve heard from two (that I know of ) and both of them hated it. In terms of the movie being about Ultraviolence, my argument has always been that I don’t believe we necessarily need a movie about Ultraviolence. And if we do, I think it can be done better. If I’m being at all unreasonable, I apologize. I didn’t mean to anger or upset anyone with my words. Please don’t take offense, and if anyone has, I’m truly sorry.

Who said I wasn't?

Oh, I admitted that there are probably many women who like this movie. I'm just saying I've never personally encountered one. Nor did I assume there would be that many - which was more or less my point. What I meant was, I see a lot of men defending this movie, now and throughout my life, and that defense, at least in part, comes from a place of detachment borne out of privilege. When they watch an unnecessarily long rape scene, they can sit back and think, "Oh my, how dreadful. This really makes me think..." but they're probably not experiencing that scene from the woman's perspective. Statistically, they have probably never had to worry once in their life about being viciously gang raped. (Hell, they'll probably never even have to experience it as an actor.) For lack of a better word, this isn't "real" for them. Hell, even in the scene with the writer and his wife, most men are probably more likely to place themselves in the position of the writer than the wife. So, it's not so much "How terrible it would be to be raped?" but "How terrible it would be to be beaten up and watch my wife get raped?" We don't linger on closeups of her face, but on his. The women in each of these scenes are merely props. Their rapes are merely to serve to the men in the audience - to allow them to quietly ponder the complexities of morality. And because of the safety afforded by their privilege, they are able to view these scenes as horrifying yet "engaging." As I've said before, I simply don't feel like the underlying questions are really as deep or as interesting as defenders try to make them out to be. Certainly not to the extent that that they require much of what's presented to us in the film. If you need to see these things so graphically spelled out for you in order to consider these moral quandaries, then I really don't know what to say. However, I'm going go ahead and let the topic drop as I feel I'm teetering outside of my depth. (I want to be an ally, but I don't want to be presumptuous or speak out of turn) Really, I would love to hear from more women in general. And, if they like, it, I would love to hear why and what they respond to.

I get that, and this is kind of getting out of the gender issue a bit, but I feel like, in this case, if we are looking at the IMDb Top 250, the film's quality and the film's popularity have to somewhat go hand in hand. If we look at something like Shawshank and we say, "Yes, it's clearly popular. However, these people aren't professional critics. Many of them simply don't have the breadth of film knowledge to rate this movie appropriately. Popularity doesn't necessarily mean quality" then we can't exactly turn around and take another movie, and using the same pool of people we just suggested are incapable of evaluating a movie's quality, and say, "Look at how popular/unpopular it is with them! Look how these numbers compare!" I mean, I guess you can, but at best all you're really saying is, "Let's compare the popularity of this movie between two groups of people I personally don't believe know what the Hell they're talking about." Which is kind of like, um, okay...? We would either have to accept that the people rating Shawshank 10-stars are capable of rating a movie based on its quality, or we have to accept that it's an uniformed populist vote. And whatever is true about Shawshank, it's logical to assume that the same applies to A Clockwork Orange. Which is why I'm of the mind of disregarding those numbers altogether. All I see is that 13% of the 665,000 people, who are the specific type of movie nerd to go onto IMDb and rate movies, many of whom may or may not really know what they're actually talking about, more or less agreed with the other 87%. That's pretty much it.