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Midsommar

Started by St_Eddie, March 06, 2019, 03:54:42 PM

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Glebe

Quote from: amoral on July 17, 2019, 11:06:21 PM
Haven seen this yet, but in a recent Reddit AMA the director named Chris Morris as one of his favorite working directors, specifically for Jam.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/cbxc8v/hi_im_ari_aster_writerdirector_of_midsommar_ama/etj5nka/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

Nice. Surprised he forgot Peter Greenway, who has mentioned as an influence in the past.

New Page Twat, soz.

Twit 2

Quote from: amoral on July 17, 2019, 11:06:21 PM
Haven seen this yet, but in a recent Reddit AMA the director named Chris Morris as one of his favorite working directors, specifically for Jam.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/cbxc8v/hi_im_ari_aster_writerdirector_of_midsommar_ama/etj5nka/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

I know it's pretty easy to namedrop, but that's an impressively diverse list.

Puce Moment

Quote from: Twit 2 on July 18, 2019, 12:11:14 AMI know it's pretty easy to namedrop, but that's an impressively diverse list.

I don't want to sound all arrogant about this, but if young horror film fans decide to go through that list they are going to be confused/annoyed/enlightened. I think there are only about 4 or 5 films that could be considered in the same general area as Aster. He also picks some really odd films for certain Directors.

Twit 2

Oh definitely. That he names a specific film from each saves it from being a pointless list of famous people, and I often agree with his choices. I am intrigued with what he does next, especially if it's non-horror.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Puce Moment on July 18, 2019, 02:55:45 PM
I don't want to sound all arrogant about this, but if young horror film fans decide to go through that list they are going to be confused/annoyed/enlightened. I think there are only about 4 or 5 films that could be considered in the same general area as Aster. He also picks some really odd films for certain Directors.

"Spielberg - A.I."

I like A.I. but Spielberg's best?  That's taking subjectivity to some serious extremes.  What a maverick!

garbed_attic

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 19, 2019, 02:08:57 AM
"Spielberg - A.I."

I like A.I. but Spielberg's best?  That's taking subjectivity to some serious extremes.  What a maverick!

I can see how it would influence a director interested producing queasy, uncanny effects though!

Puce Moment

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 19, 2019, 02:08:57 AM
"Spielberg - A.I."

I like A.I. but Spielberg's best?  That's taking subjectivity to some serious extremes.  What a maverick!

Ooof - that's a tricky one. The cunt was born in 1986 so his subjective experience of Spielberg would be very different to mine. Aster would have been around 15 when that came out, so it kind of makes sense. Perhaps I am being generous but I would like to think that if he was able to write a couple of lines he might say that the ending was dog-plops, and Jude Law and Robin Williams are terrible. It's not without faults - I liked the pool scene, melty face, real son meeting AI, the forest scene, and the advanced future robots at the end.

popcorn

A lot of people rate AI as a weird, counter-intuitive misunderstood thing. Mark Kermode, for example, personally apologised to Spielberg for giving it a bad review when it came out. But Mark Kermode is a fucking pansy.

Zetetic

Quote from: Pseudopath on July 10, 2019, 05:43:58 PM
You knows it. She was great in Lady Macbeth and Outlaw King too...and pretty much carried Fighting With My Family.
I'd would say it's worth adding The Little Drummer Girl to this.

When film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum published his top 1000 list the only Spielberg films that made the cut were AI and 1941. Sometimes you just don't respond to a director's more popular work.

Shit Good Nose

AI has aged (and is ageing) tremendously well, and as each year passes more and more critics and low level scumbags like us consider it as his masterpiece - above Jaws, above Raiders and, for the more serious Spielberg fans, above Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan (which those of us who aren't crazy know that, Omaha beach sequence aside, is a bit shit really).  Similarly, Catch Me If You Can has also been getting some mega bumps in the last few years.

Interestingly, although I did like AI when I saw it at the cinema when it came out, I've not seen it since then.  So I've seen it once, 18 years ago.  Really must get round to a rewatch. 

Also, I have a genuine non-guilty-pleasure soft spot for 1941.


The flip-side of all that is more and more people are going off Close Encounters (which, for me, is still one of his best films), mainly due to the fact Roy fucks off and leaves his family behind, seemingly without a care.

Puce Moment

For me it is those aspects of Close Encounters that fascinate me the most.

Spielberg's most common theme (arguably) is errant Fathers, and I do wonder whether Close Encounters is a sort of explanation of how life can make Fathers so shit. Or it is a negative judgement of the character.

The larger issue for me in that film is the fact that these alien cunts abducted people from Earth, then brought them back at the same age as when they took them, and everyone seems fine about it (or at least non-judgmentally in awe). Surely the fall-out would be colossal - people whose families died long ago not knowing what happened to their loved ones. People coming back to Earth to be told that their spouses died alone.

I mean, Maddie could have been abducted, and then in 80-years the aliens will bring her back with everyone else. "Soz for that, but we had to do some experiments on her. But look - we've brought her back as right as rain! She's even the same age! Take. Me. To. Your. Leader. LOL."

Shit Good Nose

Spielberg himself has long had a bit of a downer on Close Encounters and its family dynamic, and he made ET partly as a response/to make up for what he deemed as a "wrong" (his words, IIRC) resolution.

Although I've never experienced a broken family, separated parents, father having a mental breakdown, or fucking off with aliens, it always connected with me far more than ET ever did - even when I saw it (ET) at the cinema as a four year old I thought it laid on the schmaltz a tad too much.  Watching it now as a brow beaten father in current day England, it's absolutely sickmakingkly too much syrup.  Give me Close Encounters' depressing family and men in a room talking any day of the week.

Puce Moment

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on July 30, 2019, 04:40:51 PM
Spielberg himself has long had a bit of a downer on Close Encounters and its family dynamic, and he made ET partly as a response/to make up for what he deemed as a "wrong" (his words, IIRC) resolution.

Although I've never experienced a broken family, separated parents, father having a mental breakdown, or fucking off with aliens, it always connected with me far more than ET ever did - even when I saw it (ET) at the cinema as a four year old I thought it laid on the schmaltz a tad too much.  Watching it now as a brow beaten father in current day England, it's absolutely sickmakingkly too much syrup.  Give me Close Encounters' depressing family and men in a room talking any day of the week.

Gosh yes, and it was the favourite film of our late Taste-Master Serge. Case closed.

Harry Badger

Went on a second date to see this tonight after she told me on the first date that she loved horror films. I think she enjoyed it but was surprised it ended when it did (?).

I was a bit trepedatious beforehand about the running time as I feel too many films go on too long these days. However, it was perfectly paced and at no stage was it rushing to move the story on. It didn't feel like 140 minutes, though I had taken drink. The hallucinogenic effects were awesome, some barely noticeable, some more pronounced but never getting into silly Fear And Loathing territory.

As for the humour - I watched this at a surprisingly full screening and there was outright laughter at the sex scene, plus big guffaws at "I probably should have warned you better" after the suicides and the old guy going hysterical after matey boy pisses on the dead tree. I'm glad to learn this was intentional but I'm undecided whether this was a good thing or not. If say the LoG had made this I suppose I would be primed for the laughs.

I've heard there is a 3 hour cut and there is talk of giving that a limited release - possibly might tie up a few of the loose ends mentioned above.

Puce Moment

Quote from: Harry Badger on August 01, 2019, 12:08:21 AM
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I've heard there is a 3 hour cut and there is talk of giving that a limited release - possibly might tie up a few of the loose ends mentioned above.

I really want to see this - a Will Poulter skinning scene and perhaps old Swedish boy murdering the family.

MiddleRabbit

Just seen this, having reluctantly avoided reading this thread until I had.

I thought it looked superb in general and, as seems to the concensus, the hallucinatory effects were absolutely spot on: the gorgeous way of everything breathing in oneness with the universe was exactly what it looks like, tripping your tits off.

On the surface it's folk horror - whoever mentioned Robin Redbreast was dead right, it's more or exactly the same story as that.

I didn't think it was anti-Sweden, it could have been anywhere remote in Europe.  America's not really old enough for that kind of story.  It's anti-wilful stupidity if it's about anything.  It was about a group of people who'd fried their brains on mushrooms and decided that a mentally challenged child born of incest was onto something and they should do what he thinks.  Most of which is inevitably on the impressionistic side of explicit - the enormous hammer was one of the things he'd obviously made relatively plain.  As was the way the elders leaped from the cliff - like copying a child's drawing of peope jumping off a cliff.

Mindlessly copying was what went on in the (excellent) sex scene, same as the denouement  - the fully aware of pain, despite being told otherwise by their own elders - volunteers' screams were interpreted as coming from evil spirits and the rest of them just copied it, because that's all they ever did in response to anything.  Christian copied his mate's idea for the thesis, despite it being a shit idea in the first place for the reasons they explicitly stated earlier.

Maybe it's about the rise of people like Trump and Johnson.  Maybe it's the most beautiful anti drugs film in the world, despite its extraordinary representation of the hallucinogenic experience.

It was fab.  Mind you, the half wits behind me who were under the impression that they were on Catchphrase found it a bit much.  It's not really a mainstream film, in the same sort of way that 2001 isn't mainstream and the audience pissed me off because they were bored by it.  I wasn't bored, I thought it was great but struggled to immerse myself in it through the chewing, chuntering and commentary.


holyzombiejesus

Just seen it and feel a bit shaken. I think it was due to the accuracy of the hallucinogenic bits but I've had to come for a pint and a breather. Really enjoyed it but still processing.

Really don't think the cult had anything to do with the sister and parents' deaths.

The 'new blood' 's deaths were sealed the moment they entered the camp, weren't they? If so, their misdemeanours were irrelevant?


brat-sampson

Little bump as this is now, uh, available to view.

chveik


SteveDave

Hmmmm. I was mostly underwhelmed but thanks to being able to rewind I did see a face in the trees staring at Dani after she was crowned the May Queen and was being carried to the big dining table.

Junglist

I wasn't a fan of Hereditary, bar one superb scene. I'm normally quite skeptical of these new horror saviours.

This was by and far the best 'Hollywood' horror film since the original Blair Witch. A stunning blend of scope, cinematography, sound, psychedelia. Holy fuck what a film.

SteveDave

Quote from: SteveDave on September 24, 2019, 09:14:55 AM
Hmmmm. I was mostly underwhelmed but thanks to being able to rewind I did see a face in the trees staring at Dani after she was crowned the May Queen and was being carried to the big dining table.


Pseudopath

Quote from: SteveDave on September 26, 2019, 08:55:37 AM


Yeah...it's her sister with the hosepipe taped to her mouth. Her sister, mother and father also appear as Hårga during the May Queen festival.

Ari Aster is obviously a big fan of planting Easter eggs throughout his movies: https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3535054/hereditary-hidden-clues/

mjwilson

Assume I'm blind and/or stupid for a minute. Where am I meant to be looking?


Glebe


Puce Moment


mjwilson

Director's cut is coming to blu ray