Posts by northerncrane4

Mark White11 said:Man, if you had actually gone, we would've just laughed our heads off when you stormed out of the theater all pissed off 😁
Plus, you would've had to sit through the whole damn thing! 🎉

I get it. But even if I did go, I wouldn't stick around until the credits—I'd rather just take a walk up the hill back in town.

bluebison8 said:It's not woke. For it to be woke, the central theme would have to be her daughter's relationship with that girl, but that's not what's being proven—especially since even after the mother finds the courage to tell her own father, her daughter still hasn't found peace.
Not to mention that by the end of the film, she adapts and recognizes her husband's value, rather than the other way around. If this were standard woke Hollywood, the men would always be losers and the women would always be right.

The actual "woke" trope is the idea that everyone—except the dominant white hetero male—has valid reasons for being who they are. I might agree with that on a phenomenological level, sure, but as a dramatic device, it’s completely flat, uninteresting, and the foundation of a bad movie.

bluebison8 said:Not to mention how she adapts by the end and recognizes her husband's value instead of the other way around—which would be the standard woke Hollywood formula where men are always losers and women are always right.

You aren't grasping anything here. Of course the protagonist is going to accept the worth of her beta-minority husband. How is that not "cram-it-down-your-throat" woke, other than the fact that you don't understand the basic postulates of wokeness?

Mark White11 said:So you basically watched thirty minutes of the movie? You're talking to me like we're brothers here, man, but that's hardly enough time to start getting all worked up about it—honestly, it’s a little unfair.

Fine, let me be precise for you—58 minutes and 34 seconds. If you think fifty-eight and a half minutes of two-hour-long moussaka consisting of woke inclusiveness, mindless kung-fu, jackassery, and a teenage understanding of quantum mechanics isn't enough for me to realize it's garbage, then you probably think I'm a bigger idiot than this film is.

Mark White11 said:So, you actually sat through the whole thing?

Yes—I watched it through to the exact point I mentioned in my previous post.

Kimberly Rodriguez4 said:We haven't seen a mainstream flick this raw and unhinged since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Seriously, you rarely stumble upon something this wildly different from the usual garbage. Forget Marvel and their $200m multiverse nonsense... this was pulled off for a measly $25m.

At its core, it’s just a drama about four family members trying to fix their messy relationships. But the way the movie handles those "fixes" is totally out there. There isn't a single predictable beat in the whole thing. It starts slow, then suddenly pivots into directions you won't see coming, no matter how much you try to guess.

I get why some people found it overwhelming. The way the movie just keeps bombarding you with scenes as it builds toward the end can be a lot to stomach. Honestly, if that's too much for you, feel free to go back to your predictable Marvel sludge. This is built different. What starts as a drama basically morphs into an action-fantasy comedy with a heavy dramatic finish.

It's original, trippy, unpredictable, fun, wild, and stays with you. If only modern Hollywood actually had a few more fresh ideas like this.

8/10

The plot is actually incredibly predictable—it’s just your typical woke family drama. What you *can't* predict is what the next scene will be, because they are completely random. Real unpredictability requires some kind of causality—something skillfully hidden from the viewer that becomes clear upon revelation. That isn't happening here. It's just a series of random clips thrown into the most obvious story about acceptance imaginable. And some of those clips drag on for an eternity. As for that misinterpreted pop-science philosophy about the multiverse being triggered by individual choices? It's even more idiotic than the idea that Earth is the center of the universe.

electriccanyon26 said:I mean, I really don't know what you were expecting here. It’s a film that everyone is hailing as some kind of masterpiece before anyone has even seen it. I haven't actually sat down to watch it yet, by the way. 😁

What do I know? Some kind of "Groundhog Day" for this generation? Please—this is "Scott Pilgrim." At least "Scott Pilgrim" was honest about it, since the protagonists were just dim-witted teenagers; here, they're acting like half-baked adults—don't give me that crap! 😵

God, what kind of hipster TikTok idiocy is this? It cut off right during the hot-dog-fingers universe. 👎👎👎👎👎

Patrick Martin said:You’re clearly too much of a seasoned pro to miss the point—that first third is essentially just an overture, designed to act as a counterbalance to the remaining two-thirds of pure fury.

I guarantee that the effect you're praising wouldn't even land—not without that one-third part you find so tedious.

Those fractions just don't work. The first two-thirds are a slog—completely uninspired—while only that final third holds any interest. I suppose calling that tedious two-thirds intro "innovative" is technically true, but definitely not in a good way.

Patrick Martin said:I don't know—calling a film this inventive (both technically and conceptually) "boring" feels a bit overly critical. Maybe you just aren't a fan of the genre or the subject matter.

If we were pretending to be major players in the global film industry, I might find it more acceptable to dismiss someone else's hard work so easily—but doing it like this feels pretentious (acting high and mighty without any actual basis)

This single movie has more creative effort, vision, and execution—and I'm not even counting the budget—than our entire annual domestic film production combined. I'll stand by that.☕

Did you actually read my entire post? Yes, the first two-thirds are tedious—I see nothing inventive about them (aside from one visually striking high-angle tracking shot). The final third gets interesting in a certain trashy way, but frankly, I doubt we'll ever know if that was the director's intention or just a mistake.

Boring, boring, boring—and then comes that twist which is just so preposterous. It’s not even the concept itself, but rather the visual execution and the resulting action that makes the whole thing suddenly fun because of how ridiculous it is.

Amy Vaughn12 said:You've got some free time tomorrow and the day after in Rijeka 😁

https://www.art-kino.org/hr/film/sve-u-isto-vrijeme

I can't get out of the city before next Friday—but if it's scheduled after that, I'll definitely be there. 👍

It’s honestly bizarre that this isn't even available on streaming yet—not counting those low-quality CAM versions—and there's zero sign of a theatrical release here in the States. There's an unsynchronized screening playing in Austin on May 20th, and I've been debating whether to make the trip, but I likely won't be able to pull it off by then.

Dennis Martin6 said:Look, personally, I didn't find the director's choice regarding those monologues to be uncinematic at all. If anything, most of them were hypnotic—partly because they maintained a sense of temporal and spatial unity. It feels like the director is systematically stripping away visualizations and flashbacks to force a linear progression, which aligns with the message in that final monologue (and honestly, it’s quite an odd move for a film centered on grief, especially when the lead is clearly "stuck" in the past).

I agree with everything here. My only issue is that, in the end, three hours just doesn't sit right with me. Who knows—maybe if it were shorter, the confessions in the third hour would lose some of that hypnotic pull? But I doubt it. There is a theatrical technique called shrtih, and I think he could have leaned on that a bit more often. 😁

Dennis Martin6 said:I think they gave a pretty mundane reason for why he hired the driver, and honestly, I bought it—given that whole mess with the other director earlier. But purely through association, I can’t stop linking it to the story his wife is writing—that bit about the girl walking into her friend's room—and how surveillance cameras show up in the final version of that tale. I don't have some logical, airtight explanation for why those two things connect, aside from the obvious visual symbolism. Maybe it's just a continuation of that tension between subjective belief—what you personally perceive—and objective truth—the automated way the world sees us. It feels like an extension of his wife Oto's and Kafuku's obsession with reconciling those two planes of reality... basically, trying to accept what's actually there. (By the way, Oto literally means "sound.")😁So she loved him AND was cheating at the same time? Real smooth.

Look, this is totally subjective and I get where you're coming from, but I actually loved that idea of handling dialogue through monologue. There are probably a million ways to read into it, but here’s what jumped out at me: there’s this specific thing about the Japanese language where the verb always lands at the end of the sentence. Practically speaking, if you want to know exactly what someone is trying to say, you're basically forced to let them finish their thought. That’s how these characters talk—it’s actually what makes it feel realistic—but then it gets stylized into these occasionally massive, extreme soliloquies. It's the total opposite of how American or European films handle "realistic" dialogue, where "realism" usually just means people constantly cutting each other off and overlapping. This feels more like an Altman extreme—taking that concept and turning it into a legit signature style.

Plus, I’m a huge fan of that relentless, obsessive style of storytelling—you know, where the monologue just swallows everything else whole. Characters, plot, psychology... it all gets devoured. Take Thomas Bernhard, for example; his stuff is basically one massive, crushing monologue. I haven't picked up Rachel Cusk yet, but apparently she does a milder version of that same thing—she recently put out that "Outline" trilogy.

Sure, they gave him a reason, but I was trying to look at the whole thing through a more nuanced lens. It made me wonder if there’s some deeper truth they aren't telling us, though the film doesn't really offer anything in that direction.

Dennis Martin6 said:There are probably other interpretations; my first thought was this linguistic quirk in Japanese where the verb always comes at the end of the sentence. Practically speaking, if you want to know exactly what someone intends to say, you’re forced—almost compelled—to let them finish their thought.

👍 Yeah, that's the kind of insight I was aiming for. Interesting—though it still doesn't justify it for me...

Dennis Martin6 said:That’s actually how the characters talk here, which is part of the realism, even if it’s stylized into those occasionally extreme, long monologues. It’s the opposite of how European or American films handle "realistic" dialogue—usually, that means lots of interruptions and overlapping speech. Take someone like Altman, for instance; he takes that concept and turns it into a signature style.

It isn't the fact that the dialogues are monologues that bothers me; it's that these monologues are *exclusively* monologues. The camera just sits there filming an actor delivering a speech. To me, that feels incredibly uncinematic. I would love for there to be a deeper reason than it's a film about the process of staging a play, so it uses a theatrical way of conveying information. Because, first off, it isn't really a film about the process of creating theater (that process is depicted in a very rudimentary, almost isolated way in this movie). And second, if you're making a film, you should use cinematic tools. If you're going to insist on telling rather than showing, at least give me a compelling reason and—for God's sake—keep it brief! Instead, we get a film that refuses to act like a film for a shallow reason, only to have it placed on a pedestal through major awards and nominations. It feels a bit shady to me.

Dennis Martin6 said:Plus, I’m a fan of that kind of narrative style in literature. Thomas Bernhard is a great example where the monologue swallows everything else—characters, narration, psychology. I haven't read her yet, but apparently Rachel Cusk wrote her 'Outline' trilogy in a somewhat milder version of that same way fairly recently.

(I finished the first part of the Cuskin trilogy, but the next two didn't grab me—and they won't.) Look, literature doesn't quite work that way—a written sentence remains a written sentence, even if it's presented as a monologue (which is, essentially, the "I" form).

@electriccanyon26, those monologues would still be monologues even if they were staged. Actually, a story about a girl breaking into a house would be incredibly interesting to see, rather than just hearing it through the perspective of the wife, then the husband, and finally the lover. One could argue the narrators in all those monologues serve as cinematic canvases, but that feels like a bit of a director's easy way out.

Dennis Martin6 said:Oh, please—that scene is actually great! 😁 Sure, it doesn't serve much of a narrative, psychological, or symbolic purpose, but life isn't all about being utilitarian. People are just hanging out—the silent woman is essentially "talking" to herself in her own way, the driver is messing around with the dog, they're having a good time. Plus, it’s a killer contrast to the first half of the film, where the husband and wife are so detached that their communication is basically reduced to this weird fetishized interaction mediated by pre-recorded dialogue (which are really just monologues anyway).

I caught that Finnish candidate movie, Compartment No. 6, about a young Finnish woman traveling by train toward the remote Russian north. It's like a millennial version of 'Brief Encounter' for the 21st-century digital age—people who are nostalgic for the analog vibes of the '80s and are pretty sexually fluid. 😁
The characters are a bit—well, as electriccanyon26 would put it—basic. I wasn't a fan of the whole "thug turns into a sensitive soul" transformation, and that sneaky Finn guy? Total cringe. Generally, it felt like the short film's metaphor was just "hug and smile, distance and closeness." They needed more of that old lady who only counts redheaded Irishmen. 😁 It ends up being just okay.

It also adds some much-needed weight to that character, which makes sense since the sequence right before the epilogue belongs to her. There’s plenty of other stuff to pick apart here. First off, that 40-minute exposition could have been cut short! For instance, the crash and his glaucoma feel completely redundant—unless the director was trying to suggest that the theater in Hiroshima somehow had access to his medical records and forced this specific driver on him, but even if that were the case—so what?

Dennis Martin6, are you seriously arguing for the total dismantling of cinematic storytelling? Every one of those monologue segments is actually a fascinating little film within a film, yet we're denied them and forced to just stare at people reciting lines. It's the exact opposite of what a movie should be. Do you think there's a deeper reason for this, or is it just lazy?

"Drive My Car". Japan

electriccanyon26 said:Drive My Car (2021)

The film really drives, even with its hefty three-hour runtime. It calls to mind Bergman because it relies so heavily on dialogue, but unlike my usual experience with Bergman, this feels like a smooth, comfortable ride where you actually have space to breathe and absorb the moments. Given how the plot unfolds, it also reminds me of Three Colors: Blue. There’s this idea that we can’t fully process experiences while they’re happening; we need time for everything to settle. In a way, that’s the actors' job—to live with the text for months just so they can truly "react." Then there are those who have the luxury of wasting too much time trying to reconcile the irreconcilable—fools, really...

It offers something more than the hundredth recycled story about emotional repression and avoidance (if I’d just read the synopsis, I probably would have skipped it), and it’s worth a second look. But man, three hours... Still, since the core concept is solid and leaves you with something tangible at the end, if that requires three hours, I'll take it. My only real gripe is the female driver; the way her character is written and resolved feels a bit basic.

Mda. Honestly, it's borderline rude to run for three hours. Fine—if you can stomach the first two, there's a bit of a payoff in the third hour; it still drags through those monologue sequences, but sure, it carries some weight. But there is absolutely no reason for it to hit the three-hour mark—none at all. The pacing wouldn't feel any faster even if everything were condensed into two hours; it would still have that slow, deliberate crawl, so I can't help but complain about the runtime. Is there a psychological term for temporal abuse? 😁

frozenskipper12 said:The film is alright—it looks great, sure—but his best animated work still holds the crown. Pick an animal.

I caught an interview with a director of photography recently—he mentioned that after *Mr. Fox*, the CIA doesn't even bother with standard storyboards for their live-action features. Instead, they shoot the entire thing in rough claymation first, then film the actual actors to ensure everything mirrors that clay version as closely as possible.

Grace Sanders24 said:Look, there's a chance—even if I was sitting near the exit, I figure they'd wake me up when they passed by.

So, where were you watching it—on a bus?

Joshua Smith5 said:There—fixed that for you. 😁

Fair enough.

goldenhound32 said:@northerncrane4/">@@northerncrane4
Look—you can't honestly claim all three are equal when the first one is clearly superior. I don't mind that Wes Anderson sticks to a specific style, but The Grand Budapest Hotel was a much better film.

The story in "The New York Times" works—it makes for an excellent film. Personally, I’d say The Grand Budapest Hotel is his weakest work.

Grace Sanders24 said:Fine. I didn't quite catch your drift—there were at least thirty people there yesterday, and nobody stayed until the credits rolled. 🍿

Maybe they slipped out while you were busy staring blankly at the screen. 🤷