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Post by helrunar on Oct 26, 2021 19:20:41 GMT
Andreas, I agree 100 percent about Midsommar. Gorgeous locations and costumes but all to no purpose whatsoever. I felt numb and bored about 45 minutes in, starting with the ritual suicide/murder of the old couple.
I only watched it because so many people I'm friendly with loved and praised it. But I'm now at the point in my life where spending time kvetching about a bad film just feels even more pointless than watching it in the first place.
I did quite like the two Robert Eggers films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, which I think you said you didn't care for. I'm thinking of watching Gretel and Hansel, directed by one Oz Perkins and released early in 2020, on a "streaming" thing to which I now have access. I do have better hopes for that one, at least somewhat. I pretty much knew going in that Midsommar was going to be a big old stinkeroo.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 26, 2021 19:26:00 GMT
I think the director is wildly overrated, but I liked the Chekhovian bear in this. And did you notice the "blood eagle"?
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Post by Middoth on Oct 26, 2021 19:41:37 GMT
The director presents the Swedes in a very interesting way, even if we assume that they are sectarians. Why the Swedes are dressed in Bulgarian peasant costumes, this is a great mystery
And the death of parents at the beginning of the film as a prologue to the heroine's personal drama is very bad taste. the death of parents ... or children in the opening credits has long been a cliché And the world has changed so much that no one thinks that the girl from "Hereditary" looks to put it mildly ... strange
Anyone waiting for "Nightmare Alley"?
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Post by andydecker on Oct 26, 2021 19:59:31 GMT
I think the director is wildly overrated, but I liked the Chekovian bear in this. And did you notice the "blood eagle"? I guess I must have missed the Chekovian bear when it was introduced in the first act. The blood eagle was nicely realized, but frankly this was the first relatable nordic myth which made the rest even more puzzling. Andreas, I agree 100 percent about Midsommar.I did quite like the two Robert Eggers films, The Witch and The Lighthouse, which I think you said you didn't care for. I still haven't seen The Lighthouse. But I remember I had my reservations against The Witch. So nowadays it is called Gretel and Hansel? O tempora, o mores!
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Post by andydecker on Oct 26, 2021 20:04:39 GMT
The director presents the Swedes in a very interesting way, even if we assume that they are sectarians. Why the Swedes are dressed in Bulgarian peasant costumes, this is a great mystery
Frankly until a few minutes ago I didn't even knew that Nightmare Alley existed :-) Wow, big star cast. Another reason to mourn the aborted At the Mountains of Madness.
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Post by helrunar on Oct 26, 2021 20:45:36 GMT
The original 1947 film Nightmare Alley is well worth checking out. Very seedy, down-at-heels noir atmosphere. It had a very downbeat ending.
I hope the new film isn't as bloated as the information on the internet about it seems to imply, but it's most likely inevitable that it will be yet another "big box" movie.
H.
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Post by helrunar on Oct 26, 2021 20:46:24 GMT
Middoth, it's hard for me to stop giggling at your observation that the Swedish peasants in Midsommar wear Bulgarian folk costumes. LOLOL!
Saluting, Hel
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Post by bluetomb on Oct 26, 2021 20:48:58 GMT
Midsommar (2019) Finally was able to catch it on some channel for free. A lot of people here in the Vault liked it. I tried to, but at the end I couldn't. I thought the script underdeveloped in every regard that was important. It is of course okay to do a new version of The Wicker Man. But some innovations or new interpretions of the established story-beats would have been nice. The biggest problem I had with the script was the undefined pagan faith which failed to establish a strong story-fundament. In Hardy's and Shaffer's movie the roots of the paganism and the mystery it offered were easy to comprehend. Without any spoon-fed exposition the viewer understands what this is about. Ordinary people with a different belief who kill people to kickstart their export. In Midaommar there was no mystery, the moment you see the sect you know how this will end. No grey tones here, just a town full of nutters in uniform.
(And frankly I thought the non-existant reaction of our heroes to the suicide/murder so preposterous that I couldn't take the rest seriously. Hey, they just bashed a head of an oldtimer in, but it is their belief, so we are not to judge. Yeah, right.)
But more problematic IMHO was that even at the end I didn't understand what the belief of the sect was about. Why the may queen stuff, why the bear? Weirdness for weirdness sake, which is seldom a good thing. The whole belief-system seemed fake and made-up, which made this unrelatable and arbitrary. At least you knew why Lord Summerisle did what he did. The photography looked nice, but the movie was too long. I was bored and a few times tempted to switch the channel. Glad I didn't buy the DVD. I found the reversal of the standard comedy-black-comedy-horror genre progression trope sort of neat, and the maximalism, that is to say from the start I was wondering whether it was going to be the lured for sacrifice, lured for child-bearing or lured to be a new leader kind of cult horror, and then it went ahead and was a bit of all three. Was also very taken by the long swoop and flip shot following the car as they passed into the region, and as a small note thought it handled taking illicit substances in a place of outstanding natural beauty pretty accurately. But for all that I was impressed at the cinema I haven't felt a need to revisit and think The Lighthouse was the far better major horror of 2019. Aster seems clever and talented to me, but I don't know that he has the love. Will watch whatever he comes up with next, but if it's more shock gore, emotional distress and cleverness again my interest may be about used up. On a tangentially related note I recommend the made for TV chiller Sommarens tolv manader (1988) to fans of things that are Swedish, summery, and weird and eerie. Very slow burning and enigmatic but I think it does earn its little cult fandom.
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Post by Swampirella on Oct 26, 2021 20:50:50 GMT
Andreas, I agree 100 percent about Midsommar. Gorgeous locations and costumes but all to no purpose whatsoever. I felt numb and bored about 45 minutes in, starting with the ritual suicide/murder of the old couple. I only watched it because so many people I'm friendly with loved and praised it. But I'm now at the point in my life where spending time kvetching about a bad film just feels even more pointless than watching it in the first place. cheers, Steve I also only saw it because of the media hype; it was ok for me, just about.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 26, 2021 21:18:43 GMT
Andreas, I agree 100 percent about Midsommar. Gorgeous locations and costumes but all to no purpose whatsoever. I felt numb and bored about 45 minutes in, starting with the ritual suicide/murder of the old couple. I only watched it because so many people I'm friendly with loved and praised it. But I'm now at the point in my life where spending time kvetching about a bad film just feels even more pointless than watching it in the first place. cheers, Steve I also only saw it because of the media hype; it was ok for me, just about. Same here. I was happy enough to have seen it, but it really didn't do anything strikingly different from a dozen other films I'd seen before. Neither did Hereditary, I suppose, but I thought that was a much better horror film. Here's a fun dissection of the good and bad in Midsommar - screenrant.com/reasons-midsommar-best-worst-horror-movies-2019-good-bad-overrated/
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 26, 2021 22:38:29 GMT
Midsommar (2019) Finally was able to catch it on some channel for free. A lot of people here in the Vault liked it. I tried to, but at the end I couldn't. I thought the script underdeveloped in every regard that was important. It is of course okay to do a new version of The Wicker Man. But some innovations or new interpretions of the established story-beats would have been nice. The biggest problem I had with the script was the undefined pagan faith which failed to establish a strong story-fundament. In Hardy's and Shaffer's movie the roots of the paganism and the mystery it offered were easy to comprehend. Without any spoon-fed exposition the viewer understands what this is about. Ordinary people with a different belief who kill people to kickstart their export. In Midaommar there was no mystery, the moment you see the sect you know how this will end. No grey tones here, just a town full of nutters in uniform. (And frankly I thought the non-existant reaction of our heroes to the suicide/murder so preposterous that I couldn't take the rest seriously. Hey, they just bashed a head of an oldtimer in, but it is their belief, so we are not to judge. Yeah, right.) But more problematic IMHO was that even at the end I didn't understand what the belief of the sect was about. Why the may queen stuff, why the bear? Weirdness for weirdness sake, which is seldom a good thing. The whole belief-system seemed fake and made-up, which made this unrelatable and arbitrary. At least you knew why Lord Summerisle did what he did. The photography looked nice, but the movie was too long. I was bored and a few times tempted to switch the channel. Glad I didn't buy the DVD. I tried to watch this movie three times, which shows what a glutton for punishment I am, but on none of these occasions could I last the course. I'm afraid my tolerance for boring movies is very low these days.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 26, 2021 23:05:15 GMT
Aster seems clever and talented to me, but I don't know that he has the love. Will watch whatever he comes up with next, but if it's more shock gore, emotional distress and cleverness again my interest may be about used up. Apparently he has started filming something called Disappointment Blvd. with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead, but is being very secretive about genre and plot. He has been quoted as saying it will be "a 4-hour long nightmare comedy", which I am hoping is some sort of joke.
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Post by bluetomb on Oct 26, 2021 23:41:27 GMT
Aster seems clever and talented to me, but I don't know that he has the love. Will watch whatever he comes up with next, but if it's more shock gore, emotional distress and cleverness again my interest may be about used up. Apparently he has started filming something called Disappointment Blvd. with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead, but is being very secretive about genre and plot. He has been quoted as saying it will be "a 4-hour long nightmare comedy", which I am hoping is some sort of joke. Crumbs, me too. I mean, I do love a nightmare comedy and as far as I know Joaquin Phoenix can act, but 4-hours is a long time to sustain any genre, let alone one that can come off perfectly well in a fraction of the time.
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Post by helrunar on Oct 27, 2021 1:07:01 GMT
David, I know I would never have gotten through the film had I been watching at home. I found the early scenes of the neurotic heroine being patronized by her boyfriend's grad student buddies so rote and knee-jerk I doubt I would have continued beyond that point.
There's a screening of Kwaidan happening Friday evening at the campus Film Archive theatre, and I just may attend. I last saw a film in the theatre back in Feb. 2020. Another rep cinema in the town where I work (Cambridge, Mass) was screening some of the old classics. I saw Mad Love, the 1932 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Island of Lost Souls. All wonderful.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 27, 2021 8:37:10 GMT
as far as I know Joaquin Phoenix can act He is brilliant (and terrifying) in Joker (which is emphatically not a "superhero movie", by any definition - comparisons with Taxi Driver are entirely apt, though a strong case can be made for it being "horror"). He totally deserved the Best Actor Oscar.
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