I believe it was Clerks 2 that gave us this amazing review of the Lord of the Rings movies as just being 3 movies of people walking places, and I love the LotR trilogy, but yeah. To quote: Even the fucking trees walked in those movies.
This is like me reading The Great Gatsby in high school. "An asshole throws some parties, then another asshole runs someone over with their car. No one learns anything from this."
I don't think they were supposed to learn anything, except possibly Nick's recognition that your past is always dragging at you. I think it was more to show a snapshot of the nouveau riche/high society and the valley of ashes that sustains them. The character interaction just gives a way into those worlds.
My son is a devoted cinephile and film studies major and he often references a genre he calls "People in rooms talking." He gets particularly irritated when it's just their heads, and the background is blurred, destroying any connection to time or place.
He also hates period pieces with actors who have "iPhone Face," meaning that they have a face that you know has seen an iPhone, even when in character.
He's bummed about Matt Damon as Odysseus, because "he looks like a guy from Boston, not an ancient Greek general."
Movie stars think it's funny that their kids don't see them as anything special. Matt Damon talks about walking into a room where his daughter and her friends were watching this movie, and he said "Hey! Watcha watching?", proud that his daughter was showing her friends one of his movies.
"The Wall," she said.
"The GREAT Wall," he corrected her.
And his daughter replied, in front of her friends, "Dad, there's NOTHING Great about this movie."
What pulls me out is modern Californian-accented actors in period pieces. Leonardo DiCaprio is a bad choice for Jay Gatsby. Can’t say “old sport” convincingly. Give me Daniel day Lewis.
Exactly! Big budget movies need big budget actors to attract crowds and that kills the immersion. They could cast Mediterranean actors with their distinct english accent but no one would be willing to invest hundreds of millions in such a film. On the other end you could do a modern interpretation of the story with stars but then you loose the pull of the classic. Can't have it all I guess.
I think that is the reason why I prefer smaller budget international production. Why would I want to watch Damon, DiCaprio, Hathaway in the first place?
i saw it said somewhere, i think some random youtube essay, that actors aren't really allowed to be "ugly" these days.
Everyone's gotta be pretty, everyone's gotta be a marketable individual who can do ads for stuff.
There's a place for the big name actors, but that place is stuff like Morgan Freeman playing the role of god, or jim carrey being in a comedy movie.
Star trek characters can go anywhere as long as it's something that can be built in a soundstage in Burbank, California, or an alien planet that looks suspiciously like a color graded place in Burbank, California.
I think the way Jane Austen is subversive is lost on modern audiences, because it requires cultural context which doesn't exist. It's actually dry as fuck. Like not as in a "well you just don't get it" sort of way, but the narrative is actually just super fucking basic without the companion commentary explaining the historical context. Nobody in the modern era who picks up the books appreciates this without that background education, and a huge number of fans like them unironically as romantic period dramas.
The subversion about women's rights and self determination aren't really why people like the book today though. Nor is it because of the subtle social clues oh high society that we just don't pick up, like the timing of their breakfast.
It's because the characters are so real, and their growth is them turning from a real person into an also real person, while being likeable (well except maybe for Darcy at first) all the way. They're also quite smart and funny along the way, even if most of the jokes are rather nuanced and hard to spot by modern eyes.
But honestly, I found the book extremely boring as well. They're excellent characters who do absolutely nothing interesting.
That's what I didn't like about Wharton's Age of Innocence, because I'm sure it was subversive in the 1920s, but reading it almost 100 years later it was just like "Oh, a woman flouts the rules of her rigid social class. Big fucking deal." I don't know what my HS English teacher was thinking assigning it and not really addressing it as a period piece, because the themes were really boring on their face.
I did enjoy Austen's Northanger Abbey in college though. I think we read it as an examination of the Gothic genre though, so it wasn't just reading it in a vacuum.
It’s more engaging and consuming now. That’s the point. Take it away and most people will seek each other out. Even the most introverted needs people, that’s our wiring. Helps when everyone around you is trying to do the same.
i see it like food: stuffing yourself with greasy pizza is lovely, but if you do it for every single meal then you end up spherical and in somewhat suboptimal spirits.
It's not that modern stuff is inherently bad, we just also need the old stuff to keep us "calibrated" so to say.
Online interaction isn’t the same either. I’ve done it. Playing an mmorpg with strangers and siblings. Even the sibling interactions aren’t the same as going their houses and such.
It gives you “hits”, sure, which lends itself to the addictive factor, but it’s not the real thing. Even the sibling interactions aren’t quite real.
Video chat is pretty good. The closest we have. But again.
45 replies
I believe it was Clerks 2 that gave us this amazing review of the Lord of the Rings movies as just being 3 movies of people walking places, and I love the LotR trilogy, but yeah. To quote: Even the fucking trees walked in those movies.
truly tolkien is the patron saint of modern urbanists, he hated cars and wrote entire books about people walking.
Of course the trees were walking. Their wives left them, and they were sick of touching their own wood.
Period dramas and the original novels they are based on are old timey soap operas.
You can't change my mind
Humans love drama
That's literally right. The "soap" in Soap Opera was about the ads for household cleaning products to hit target demos in the early TV decades.
It's that soap operas are period dramas adapted to a new period.
This is like me reading The Great Gatsby in high school. "An asshole throws some parties, then another asshole runs someone over with their car. No one learns anything from this."
I don't think they were supposed to learn anything, except possibly Nick's recognition that your past is always dragging at you. I think it was more to show a snapshot of the nouveau riche/high society and the valley of ashes that sustains them. The character interaction just gives a way into those worlds.
omg
My son is a devoted cinephile and film studies major and he often references a genre he calls "People in rooms talking." He gets particularly irritated when it's just their heads, and the background is blurred, destroying any connection to time or place.
He also hates period pieces with actors who have "iPhone Face," meaning that they have a face that you know has seen an iPhone, even when in character.
He's bummed about Matt Damon as Odysseus, because "he looks like a guy from Boston, not an ancient Greek general."
I'm guessing he didn't like Damon hanging out in ancient China either
Movie stars think it's funny that their kids don't see them as anything special. Matt Damon talks about walking into a room where his daughter and her friends were watching this movie, and he said "Hey! Watcha watching?", proud that his daughter was showing her friends one of his movies.
"The Wall," she said.
"The GREAT Wall," he corrected her.
And his daughter replied, in front of her friends, "Dad, there's NOTHING Great about this movie."
I don't think anyone liked that one
What pulls me out is modern Californian-accented actors in period pieces. Leonardo DiCaprio is a bad choice for Jay Gatsby. Can’t say “old sport” convincingly. Give me Daniel day Lewis.
Exactly! Big budget movies need big budget actors to attract crowds and that kills the immersion. They could cast Mediterranean actors with their distinct english accent but no one would be willing to invest hundreds of millions in such a film. On the other end you could do a modern interpretation of the story with stars but then you loose the pull of the classic. Can't have it all I guess.
I think that is the reason why I prefer smaller budget international production. Why would I want to watch Damon, DiCaprio, Hathaway in the first place?
i saw it said somewhere, i think some random youtube essay, that actors aren't really allowed to be "ugly" these days.
Everyone's gotta be pretty, everyone's gotta be a marketable individual who can do ads for stuff.
There's a place for the big name actors, but that place is stuff like Morgan Freeman playing the role of god, or jim carrey being in a comedy movie.
I defy anyone to watch Jeanne d'Arc and not be profoundly moved and astonished https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_Joan_of_Arc
That's one of my son's favorite films.
Somebody once told me that Star Trek was just “People walking through doors and talking” and I could never argue that point.
that's not true, sometimes things explode for no good reason
Star trek characters can go anywhere as long as it's something that can be built in a soundstage in Burbank, California, or an alien planet that looks suspiciously like a color graded place in Burbank, California.
Aren't you forgetting the third Star Trek location?
Caves
I think the way Jane Austen is subversive is lost on modern audiences, because it requires cultural context which doesn't exist. It's actually dry as fuck. Like not as in a "well you just don't get it" sort of way, but the narrative is actually just super fucking basic without the companion commentary explaining the historical context. Nobody in the modern era who picks up the books appreciates this without that background education, and a huge number of fans like them unironically as romantic period dramas.
The subversion about women's rights and self determination aren't really why people like the book today though. Nor is it because of the subtle social clues oh high society that we just don't pick up, like the timing of their breakfast.
It's because the characters are so real, and their growth is them turning from a real person into an also real person, while being likeable (well except maybe for Darcy at first) all the way. They're also quite smart and funny along the way, even if most of the jokes are rather nuanced and hard to spot by modern eyes.
But honestly, I found the book extremely boring as well. They're excellent characters who do absolutely nothing interesting.
That's what I didn't like about Wharton's Age of Innocence, because I'm sure it was subversive in the 1920s, but reading it almost 100 years later it was just like "Oh, a woman flouts the rules of her rigid social class. Big fucking deal." I don't know what my HS English teacher was thinking assigning it and not really addressing it as a period piece, because the themes were really boring on their face.
I did enjoy Austen's Northanger Abbey in college though. I think we read it as an examination of the Gothic genre though, so it wasn't just reading it in a vacuum.
Maybe if they added zombies or something
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
I was the perfect demographic for this book when it came out, a young teenager in the throes of the zombie trend, but I just could not get through it.
For me, it was "Lost in Translation". Just a millionaire who is bored in a hotel.
If you've ever been in that severely-jet-lagged-in-a-foreign-place state, this movie nails that feeling perfectly.
B-but there's ennui
(I get what the movie is going for but it didn't grip me either)
Lip my stocking, then.
I watched that. And that's literally all I remember of it
I remember the opening shot of ScarJo's butt.
My then-wife said "the director is clearly a lesbian".
Your wife died?
That's a pretty rude question.
My bad big guy
"What is it Sebastian? I'm arranging matches."
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjC3R6jOtUo
Still one of the best standup bits ever.
In the 80s, as kids, we did that too, even though there were 4 channels on tv, Atari, and books.
Going to a friends house and meeting new people regularly is valid entertainment.
TV, game consoles and PCs with games were multiplayer!
It’s more engaging and consuming now. That’s the point. Take it away and most people will seek each other out. Even the most introverted needs people, that’s our wiring. Helps when everyone around you is trying to do the same.
i see it like food: stuffing yourself with greasy pizza is lovely, but if you do it for every single meal then you end up spherical and in somewhat suboptimal spirits.
It's not that modern stuff is inherently bad, we just also need the old stuff to keep us "calibrated" so to say.
Online interaction isn’t the same either. I’ve done it. Playing an mmorpg with strangers and siblings. Even the sibling interactions aren’t the same as going their houses and such.
It gives you “hits”, sure, which lends itself to the addictive factor, but it’s not the real thing. Even the sibling interactions aren’t quite real.
Video chat is pretty good. The closest we have. But again.
Brutal, but true.