Feast of Love definitely deserves a hearing in the court of Gabe. It is a terrible, terrible movie. It tries SO HARD to be good, but it's not. It comes close to "pretentious rich white nonsense," but that's not it's problem. The problem is that it is genuinely terrible storytelling--I dare you to even figure out what is going on in that movie in the third act.
I, too, dislike Wes Anderson films for the most part, and I too am very ostracized in this community for those sorts of comments. I feel your pain, but you are not alone! Let us unite against boring films with purposefully unlikeable characters and undersaturated color schemes!
You don't have to feel weird about it, rskva. As much as we all like to agree with each other, this reviews conclusions are far from self-evident. Garden State has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes (cue everyone mocking me for referencing a populist aggregator), so this is a far cry from the obvious and cloying awfulness that is The Darjeeling Limited and other nonsense that Gabe somehow compares favorably to this movie.
Even after weeding through the the review's obvious personal vendettas against Zach Braff and Natalie Portman, the embarrassing misreading of the main character as a successful Hollywood actor (I suppose the opening scene at the chinese restaurant was blocked from memory for being too fake), and the awkward, ongoing defense of Wes Anderson's biennial trash heaps, you can see that this is a review more about the audience than the material. Don't take it personally--or maybe do, but don't take it seriously.
I don't fully understand the outrage/controversy about his decision to go into rehab. I mean, yes, it's a contrived story of helplessness and redemption dreamt up and paid for by Dr. Phil's producers, but I mean, the man's going into rehab... in an effort to get his life straight... so he can deal with and maintain his new success and not screw up his second chance at life. Isn't that a good thing? I know America loves nothing more than to get morally outraged, and thus Ted Williams should be a clean and sober angel, but given the fact that he is human and has faults, isn't this the next best thing?
I don't get it? Like, is the THIRD Jackass movie in a row really the most interesting and original film of the year? Is this haha-so-funny-movies-are-goofy, or does Gabe's penchant for nonfiction really skew that far into parody? Admittedly, some good movies are included, but was Step Up 3D really a bigger "oh, they're just having fun, movies are goofy" win than Ironman 2 or Transformers 3 or whatever? (I am literally asking, because I didn't see any of them). And also admittedly, 2010 was not a great year for movies. Avatar came out last year and it was still the only movie with any buzz this year, and it was not great in the first place. And admittedly finally, all of the "best movies" tend to come out in December/January bbbbbuuuuutttttttt stilllllllllll... this is weird. I liked it anyway, though!
My favorite part was the end, when they realized the fort had gone too far and they had to pull the Special Failsafe Socks that would bring the whole thing down. Very funny. Very L O S T.
Hey! Grad students happen to be *very* intelligent. Too intelligent, in fact, which was kind of my point. I regretted the above post almost immediately because the tone is definitely more angry than I actually am. Not sure why it came out that way, aside from Gabe's challenge that "I don't care about arguments against this movie because they are patently wrong," but I do think that it is a poorly done movie with an overt and distracting facade of deeper meaning. I do not, however, think that people who like it are dumb. In fact, I really love the first 25 minutes or so, and the cinematography is beautiful, as is the wonderful slow burn of the pacing. The story and its plotting are what bother me. Quite a bit.
I think it's extremely telling that all arguments for this movie's "goodness," including Gabe's, hinge upon the meta-argument the filmmaker is supposedly making about violence and audiences. But, um, this isn't even Cronenberg's work? It's based very carefully upon a graphic novel telling an interesting story in a violent way, as they all do? And it is nothing more than a thinly veiled meditation on the cliche of how you can't wash your hands of blood?
I mean, there are two sets of people, as Gabe notes: People who wanted to see a well-crafted and compelling film, vs. people who would like to over-analyze a simplistic story that is so simplistic it demands a slathering of analyzation just to make it feel worthwhile. I mean, two serial killers walk into a diner randomly and get owned by the owner, suddenly some Philly mobsters hear about it hundreds of miles away because its NATIONAL NEWS, so they come to harass the owner because he learned his murdering skills from them, so he murders THEM, then decides to drive across the country to kill a mob boss of a brother who ONLY APPEARS in the last 14 minutes of the movie, then goes home and sits down at dinner "symbolizing" that everything will be okay? PLEASE. If this coincidence-based movie were directed by Kevin Smith, this whole site would mock it into oblivion. And the half-baked story of a nerdy son who IMMEDIATELY turns to violence at school once his father kills some SERIAL KILLERS in self defense? But only now he's not nerdy, he's really incredibly angry at his father? Yet, oh so deeply, he is just like his father...
See, what I'm saying is, this is four poorly done movies rolled into one mishmash of a wannabe intellectual exploitation film that has no discernible story, no motivation for its characters, and a completely busted logic when it comes to cause-and-effect. Why did critics in Cannes boo at this film? Because anyone who's not in grad school can see that it's a poorly plotted film feigning deep subtext as an excuse for bland storytelling.
It feels weird to be the guy defending Jersey Shore, but they definitely did not set up a fake account and send an anonymous email. They just typed a poorly worded letter ("written only by the light of day" - Gob Bluth), printed it out, and like stuck it in her dresser. A terrible idea, yes, but less labor intensive.
Actually, the concept of "angry Hollywood powerbroker" is something that is far too common. Ari Gold, Rob Lowe in "Thank You for Smoking," Kevin Spacey in "Swimming with Sharks," most characters in the movies made by the "For Your Consideration" folks -- they LOVE angry, incompetent power brokers in Hollywood. (And the only thing better than them being played by regular actors is them being played by insane actors covered in face puddy and wearing a fat suit. Am I right, Eddie Murphy? That's how you make things better!)
That said, the line "Hitler killed six million Jews in the Holocaust, but one got away..." was a massive deposit in my annual LOLK.
I write for video games, among other things, and I can tell you that any shortcomings games might have vs. movies in terms of plot, character, dialog, etc., are almost exclusively production-based. Until recently, game companies just didn't care about the writing, or the plot. They really did not think it mattered. Their focus was, and remains, on user experience -- and it should be.
That said, it's a bit unfair to say that games are "sub par" when compared to movies. Red Dead Redemption is better than many western-themed films in both plot and characterization (and it goes places that they cannot); Uncharted 2 is better than the new Indiana Jones movie; and COD: Modern Warfare is better than most seasons of 24. It seems that a lot of the experience with games you referenced comes with outdated games and/or games in the "Nintendo Mold," which shirks plot almost entirely in exchange for all-ages accessibility. But as games have become more cinematic over the last 3 to 5 years, their plot and execution has grown by leaps and bounds -- beyond the capability of the average Hollywood blockbuster, in some cases.
Oh, I wanted the Silent Hill movie to be great so very, very badly. And it did have some stunning visuals and great sound. But the story... so choppy, so gross, so over-the-top.
I do find it super weird that there hasn't been a knock-out film based on a video game yet. There are plenty of good candidates out there.
I hear what you're saying Douche Juice. (that's an interesting sentence). I personally feel that the purgatory LA/chuch/heaven arc is obnoxious and irrelevant to the actual show, which is about the island. I feel like the producers left the island behind when they started introducing a bunch of light holes and magic spells as "solutions" to our questions about it.
To me, the writers were being too cute by half. They knew there was a strong undercurrent in the fan base theorizing that the island was purgatory and all of the characters died (or at least there once was), so they made the final season about "actual" purgatory and the characters "actually" dying. This was a deliberate reference to the fact that the island *seemed* like purgatory, and a deliberate attempt to put that concept to rest while simultaneously honoring it. But you know what else it was? A serious distraction from the actual events of the series, which was about living characters on a real life crazy island, not about the journey toward death.
Nah, there were no "what you just saw is not real" moments. People are scared to death that there might've been a hint that what we just saw is not real, but in reality they are EXPLICIT that everything that happens in the series is "real."
So enjoy the ride. The first three seasons (well, the second half of the third and the first half of the fourth) are magnificent. The 5th and 6th seasons, I think it's not too outrageous to say, are kind of a different show entirely.
It's not a reference that they all died because there are explicit signs of their life around the wreckage. You see tents, a table, laundry, and footprints around the wreckage. It's just empty because it was a shot of the original set for nostalgia's sake, a bookend to the production, not to the story. I also heard that the producers did not put that shot in, that the series ends with the LOST logo, and ABC added those shots of production for their own dumb reasons, thus confusing everyone during an emotionally fragile time and making them wonder for a second if they were dead all along, which is just mean! Inadvertent, but mean.
The producers have stated repeatedly that the first season was literally just making stuff up because they didn't know how far they'd be able to take it. So yes, the smoke monster, initially, was probably just a "regular" monster. We all know JJ Abrams loves regular monsters. But that being said, I think they did an impressive job tying it all together, not just in the finale, but of the last couple of seasons.
The storylines they neglected piss me off to no end -- the entire Dharma initiative, Walt and Michael, Eloise and even to some extent Desmond (who just seems to be a Deus Ex Desmond device designed to allow them a solution to whatever problem they have), is annoying, sloppy writing, and always will be. But they did do some things well, and right. A lot more things than I thought they would.
Someone on another forum mentioned to me that the light was analogous to "Jacob's ladder," discussed in the bible as a bridge between Earth and the afterlife. It seems the producers were hinting pretty strongly at that symbolism by naming Jacob Jacob.
So I agree with you that the ending, while obnoxious in its religiosity, is fairly cohesive -- not only did they finally make to the place they were apparently protecting, but the fact that they can get there presumably indicates that Hurley did his job well and found a replacement to keep the light after him, allowing safe passage for all of them.
@applscruff -- it's not about wanting "answers." People say they want answers, but that's just shorthand for needing JUSTIFICATION of everything they've watched and been though. What happened when Desmond turned the key but somehow avoided being crushed under the imploded hatch without his clothes? Why did Eloise Hawking know everything about every reality? What was the point of Walt being so important to the Others?
These aren't "magical fiction" elements that we're supposed to accept and enjoy like a magic ring. THEY THREW THE RING INTO MOUNT DOOM -- thus justifying it's existence and wrapping up its storyline. Where is Eloise Hawking's Mount Doom?
That quote is great, but dare I say it is not as good as this attention-starved bomb from James Cameron's publicist:
"Meanwhile, "Avatar" director James Cameron has said that he would make his underwater vessels available"
Um, thanks? I mean yes, thank you for helping. But also really? Your fleet of underwater vessels?
#2 is unfair. The island, for most of the series, was not "magical." It was weird -- polar bears, scientific experiments, a mechanical-sounding "monster", electromagnetism, etc -- but "magic" was distinctly NOT a part of what was going on. Now, there are golden light-holes, immortality wine, and shape-shifters.
I've heard this shift elegantly explained by someone who pointed out that we used to be dealing with the island on modern, scientific terms, but now the flashbacks are mostly going back to hundreds of years ago, so more stuff seems "magical" because no one is there to explain it. I disagree. I think the show is deliberately moving from quirky and unusual, where explanations seemed to be just around the corner, to magical and unrealistic, where the explanations themselves are "it's magic. Get over it." And that's sad.
Best.Joke.Ever
To take the sappy Bible quotes that people read at weddings and flip the concept on its head -- showing how much crazy nonsense is actually in that book? Genius.
This is by far the least offensive thing GP has done lately. She's given multiple interviews in which she said horrible things, such as:
- Nashville makes you fat
- It's horrible to be told you're not allowed to work out because you look too good
- She's glad Madonna's trainer left her
- She harbors hateful revenge fantasies at all times
I would link to any of these articles, but I don't want to give web traffic to anything related to GP's yammering (except our Gabe).
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