My youngest sister makes a point to see every movie nominated in every major category, & while I admire her devotion to the art of filmmaking I just can't give myself up to so much calculated emotion-wringing, narrative manipulation, & these kind of cynical plays for Quality(tm).
I saw no other new movie other than The Green Knight, & though I loved it, I'm indifferent if it wins anything. (I see it's not nominated for any major category, oh well...)
I have two perfect antidotes for all feel-good movies: "Tess" and "Che Part 2" Just as you think it can't possibly get any worse for our hero...it does.
I saw "Tess" the day I graduated from college. The realization was growing that the good times were over and I hadda git a job. (Yes, a boomer with first-world problems.) Then I sat through that world class downer. It put me straight into a scary funk. Even at the time, I had to give Polanski and Klaus's kid credit for generating such shear misery.
OMG. Roy. You are a Saint Who Walks The Street of Movies. (Notice I say “movies” here, not “films.”) I absolutely detest movies a) about living people and b) about uplifting stuff. (Come to think of it, I hate movies about dead people, too. See—or not—Nicole Kidman with a fake nose playing Virginia Woolf.) I don’t know how you got yourself to watch these. Holy biopic!
No idea whether I am right about this, because I have never heard of CODA and will certainly not be watching it. But it sounds suspiciously like an American remake (because Americans must remake every goddamn thing) of a French film that was a mild succès a few years ago, also about a working-class deaf family with that one hearing daughter who turns out to be a phenomenally gifted singer.
I hated it. It was Inspiring *and* Heartwarming. The sort of film that generates one big soundtrack hit (like that other French film from a couple of years earlier, which I also hated though the scenery was nice, about the boy from the troubled background who gets sent to a prestigious boys’ choir school and, wouldn’t you know it, turns out to have the voice of an angel). But the sort of film my wife loves and I will watch with her because by doing so I’m good for at least five vampire, zombie and/or predatory alien movies.
I guess I’ll have to hand in my curmudgeon card. Instead of antidepressants, I take Hallmark Christmas movies and Disney uplifters. If it brings in tears, it wins and I can face reality for another day. So bring on inspiration and manipulation, I’m wired for it, I guess.
This made me think of how Hollywood has TWICE taken Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" -- a devastating portrait of a bitter, lonely man who will always be bitter and lonely, and who uses the daydream to take an impotent fantasy vengeance on those he so furiously resents -- and turned it into a feel-good story of how the ordinary guy uses the creative imagination to Rise to the Occasion.
(The best Walter Mitty movie ever was The Black Mirror's "U.S.S. Callister," where we see that if Mitty ever gets the chance to realize his fantasies, he won't hesitate to throw your kid out an air locker to get you to kiss his feet.)
I've probably mentioned it before, but ever since my child self saw that tear roll down Dumbo's mother's trunk through the bars of the mad elephant wagon just before she was taken away forever (post facto spoiler alert!) I knew I was going to be shamelessly manipulated by movies the rest of my life. I especially hate the biopics that want to have an emotional death scene but also want to end on a high note so they bring the dead guy back at the end for one magnificent performance or the Nobel Prize or a grateful town's recognition, as long as there are moist eyes and a standing ovation just before the closing credits.
That said, I'm a sucker for these things so I'll probably watch both of them. I can still remember a terrific TV movie (which actually was a Hallmark production) called "Love Is Never Silent," (from a book with a better title) with Mare Winningham as the hearing daughter of deaf parents just struggling to live her own life. Sid Caesar plays the wizened old philosopher! How could it not be good?
(Just my opinion, but I'm gonna cut "King Richard" a little slack here. When you have an entire society built around keeping your neck under its boot, those who fight that for the benefit of their children deserve to be commemorated.)
…. (This is an interesting show in the same way the L.A. "Times" used tp be interesting when it did entertainment news in its 'Business' section much as it would if tgey were a Detroit paper writing about cars.)
So if I get the energy, a scene-snippet–by–scene-snippet video comparison of "CODA" and "The Jazz Singer"? Orthodox Judaism has never to my knowledge been directly compared to deafness, blindness repeatedly in European cathedral art, but not deafness….
Maybe it's age, but I find myself increasingly subject to being overwhelmed by processed entertainment product I know to be cheap. Pot is anti-help, especially the day after when (e.g.) the pitches in scammy Medigap product ads can make me weep, viz the desperate-seeming Joe Namath.
That moment when you realize you're being manipulated and there's nothing that you can do about it-
My youngest sister makes a point to see every movie nominated in every major category, & while I admire her devotion to the art of filmmaking I just can't give myself up to so much calculated emotion-wringing, narrative manipulation, & these kind of cynical plays for Quality(tm).
I saw no other new movie other than The Green Knight, & though I loved it, I'm indifferent if it wins anything. (I see it's not nominated for any major category, oh well...)
I have two perfect antidotes for all feel-good movies: "Tess" and "Che Part 2" Just as you think it can't possibly get any worse for our hero...it does.
I saw "Tess" the day I graduated from college. The realization was growing that the good times were over and I hadda git a job. (Yes, a boomer with first-world problems.) Then I sat through that world class downer. It put me straight into a scary funk. Even at the time, I had to give Polanski and Klaus's kid credit for generating such shear misery.
OMG. Roy. You are a Saint Who Walks The Street of Movies. (Notice I say “movies” here, not “films.”) I absolutely detest movies a) about living people and b) about uplifting stuff. (Come to think of it, I hate movies about dead people, too. See—or not—Nicole Kidman with a fake nose playing Virginia Woolf.) I don’t know how you got yourself to watch these. Holy biopic!
No idea whether I am right about this, because I have never heard of CODA and will certainly not be watching it. But it sounds suspiciously like an American remake (because Americans must remake every goddamn thing) of a French film that was a mild succès a few years ago, also about a working-class deaf family with that one hearing daughter who turns out to be a phenomenally gifted singer.
I hated it. It was Inspiring *and* Heartwarming. The sort of film that generates one big soundtrack hit (like that other French film from a couple of years earlier, which I also hated though the scenery was nice, about the boy from the troubled background who gets sent to a prestigious boys’ choir school and, wouldn’t you know it, turns out to have the voice of an angel). But the sort of film my wife loves and I will watch with her because by doing so I’m good for at least five vampire, zombie and/or predatory alien movies.
I guess I’ll have to hand in my curmudgeon card. Instead of antidepressants, I take Hallmark Christmas movies and Disney uplifters. If it brings in tears, it wins and I can face reality for another day. So bring on inspiration and manipulation, I’m wired for it, I guess.
Don't like inspiring movies, eh? Well, brace yourself for the inevitable Zelensky Biopic.
This made me think of how Hollywood has TWICE taken Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" -- a devastating portrait of a bitter, lonely man who will always be bitter and lonely, and who uses the daydream to take an impotent fantasy vengeance on those he so furiously resents -- and turned it into a feel-good story of how the ordinary guy uses the creative imagination to Rise to the Occasion.
(The best Walter Mitty movie ever was The Black Mirror's "U.S.S. Callister," where we see that if Mitty ever gets the chance to realize his fantasies, he won't hesitate to throw your kid out an air locker to get you to kiss his feet.)
If the marketing calls it "A triumph" or "Triumphant," I'm probably not going to like it much.
I've probably mentioned it before, but ever since my child self saw that tear roll down Dumbo's mother's trunk through the bars of the mad elephant wagon just before she was taken away forever (post facto spoiler alert!) I knew I was going to be shamelessly manipulated by movies the rest of my life. I especially hate the biopics that want to have an emotional death scene but also want to end on a high note so they bring the dead guy back at the end for one magnificent performance or the Nobel Prize or a grateful town's recognition, as long as there are moist eyes and a standing ovation just before the closing credits.
That said, I'm a sucker for these things so I'll probably watch both of them. I can still remember a terrific TV movie (which actually was a Hallmark production) called "Love Is Never Silent," (from a book with a better title) with Mare Winningham as the hearing daughter of deaf parents just struggling to live her own life. Sid Caesar plays the wizened old philosopher! How could it not be good?
Awww, I loved the last sentence. I share your frustration with inspirationals.
(Just my opinion, but I'm gonna cut "King Richard" a little slack here. When you have an entire society built around keeping your neck under its boot, those who fight that for the benefit of their children deserve to be commemorated.)
For what it's worth, an interview with R.M. Green:
https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-business/king-richard-director-academy-awards/reinaldo-marcus-green
…. (This is an interesting show in the same way the L.A. "Times" used tp be interesting when it did entertainment news in its 'Business' section much as it would if tgey were a Detroit paper writing about cars.)
So if I get the energy, a scene-snippet–by–scene-snippet video comparison of "CODA" and "The Jazz Singer"? Orthodox Judaism has never to my knowledge been directly compared to deafness, blindness repeatedly in European cathedral art, but not deafness….
Maybe it's age, but I find myself increasingly subject to being overwhelmed by processed entertainment product I know to be cheap. Pot is anti-help, especially the day after when (e.g.) the pitches in scammy Medigap product ads can make me weep, viz the desperate-seeming Joe Namath.