CaB Film Club #2 - Ghostbox Cowboy

[greenman]

The second CaB filmclub choice from rastaspouse is John Maringouin's Ghostbox Cowboy...

[sponk]

4.6/10
IMDb
91%
Rotten Tomatoes
76%
Metacritic

wtf?

[rasta-spouse]

wtf?

well, as a review it's concise

[Avril Lavigne]

wtf?

Worth keeping in mind that anyone can rate a movie on IMDB. Anyone.

Edit for clarification: idiots.

[chveik]

Worth keeping in mind that anyone can rate a movie on IMDB. Anyone.

Edit for clarification: idiots.

well professional critics can be idiots too.

[Avril Lavigne]

well professional critics can be idiots too.

Very true, it's just that IMDB scores should always be taken with the consideration that the site's voters place 'The Dark Knight' as the 4th greatest film ever made.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I interpreted the question mark as asking if there is something about this film that would cause IMDB users to brigade it with low scores. Does it feature a Lady Ninja Turtle?

[sponk]

I've never seen this film. I was shocked by the huge disparity in the sites ratings. I've seen a few horror films at 6.something on imdb and 80 something on RT but never anything that stark before.

[Sin Agog]

Hit me up with a PM if you want the annoying poppy uppy putlocker link to this.  Will watch it later today if I'm free.

[Z]

Never heard of this one, looking forward to checking it out. Kinda sounds like a type of weirdo indie film that isn't made much anymore on the basis of the super short descriptions I've read.

Was away all last week so I didn't get to Last Year at Marienbad, I'll hopefully backtrack and bump the old thread when I do. Gonna make letterboxd lists for the chosen films and the full list of nominated ones

[Small Man Big Horse]

I hated this, it may be one of the worst films I've ever seen. I've read a fair bit about it to see if I was missing the point, but nope, it just seems to be an attack on capitalism (fair enough) and an exploration of the miserable life of this irritating idiot. Fucking awful stuff, but hey, at least I know now to never watch anything by this man again.

[Sin Agog]

Yeah, might just finish this some other time as I'm weathering some raging caffeine withdrawal, and this isn't helping.  I guess it's going for a Sherman's March essay film vibe, except with some flaky satirical tech millionaire plot.  The problem with pretending to be narcissistic arseholes, however, is it doesn't quite work if you're a whole 'nother type of narcissistic arsehole (the type who thinks they're way smarter than they are).  Will pick up where I left off later in the week and go into it with the headspace that I'm watching something by the Wisseau of mockumentary makers.  Might play better that way, but probably not.  Never been someone who irony-watches bad films.  I either genuinely love the scattershot ambition and weird atmosphere (Exorcist 2), or just move onto something I actually like.

[rasta-spouse]

Sad to hear people aren't enjoying it. But I have been itching to re-watch this for a while. Will elaborate more on why I think its tops soon.

[Sin Agog]

Sorry if I came across too scathing, man.  Think everything was exacerbated by that migraine.  Will go in again open-minded later this week.  I often way prefer movies once I've gotten over my pre-conceptions.

[rasta-spouse]

Don't worry about it, I think its better to be honest about how you hated it rather than write a review that tiptoes around it... I do think it's a divisive film.

[rasta-spouse]

just re-watched this....I guess what's noticeable the 2nd time round is the total lack of dimension of the main character, some of the absurdities stick out even more, but the main thing that sticks out is the route one nature of the story: guy has tech idea, guy goes to China and gets tech idea stolen, guy ends up slumming it but finally accepts the nature of international commerce. 


But then there's so much more to this than that. Just visually, it's a relentless bombardment of garish shakey-cam images depicting modern China as chaotic, beautifully strange, and a little frightening. The camera and pace slow down for the dialogue and general exposition, but I could watch most of this with the sound off and be happy. I haven't felt this immersed in a film for a long time (and Ghostbox isn't trying to be immersive, it's not user-friendly - it's absurd false teeth false hair tone causes a lot of difficult dissonance). The cumulative impact, especially on first watch, is so overwhelming that it gave me a very mild form of culture shock. I like that, having to come to terms with a film rather than it coming to you - maybe for some off-putting.

While watching it, at times the plot just disappeared for me. The camera was so on it. Von Trier's angry shift to Dogme 95 after Cannes only rewarded Europa with Prix du Jury was, I think, a move towards a raw purity of cinema (I say "I think", because he is a trickster filmmaker with a small emphasis on artistry). The shooting style here at Ghostbox lives up to that purity (not the direct terms of Trier's manifesto). For example, the end sequences where the broken Cowboy does a series of odd agency jobs just to stay afloat - he sings a few bars of music at a Chinese wedding to the puzzlement of all those in attendance (the realism here, and vicarious sense of discomfort, is potent). Or the part where he leads a camel around the ghost cities of Mongolia. But then again, that returning note of absurdity causes dissonance with the purity of the filmmaking - he swallows a pill with the Stars & Stripes design on it (such delightfully obvious symbolism). But, yes, purity doesn't necessarily equate to enjoyment. Why not watch an actual doc on modern China? Well, you could but it wouldn't be this variety of bananas.


It feels like someone has dumped a big mess of digital cinema on your lap, and said "deal with that"...  a grotesque mini-masterpiece. Like The Cowboy's marketing mantra: "the usefulness of a cup is not the clay but the empty space that holds the coffee... trying to be somebody is trying to be nobody...". Take a wild guess at what this film's trying to be.


Interestingly, of all the rated films last year this and Underneath the Silver Lake (which is also getting pretty mediocre reviews) are the only ones that really popped for me. Zama, Roma, Burning, 24 Frames, Cold War, The Favourite, Ash Purest White etc I see as all technically great (well, not really Roma) but left me cold.

[Z]

So I liked this overall, and they guy's earlier two films sound amazing so I'm very happy to have gotten the chance to see it.


I get the impression that it was seriously impacted by how much they could do on what was presumably a pretty guerilla style shoot. The whole film struck me as though they thought of a particular type of character that existed IN THAT VERY MOMENT (this was around the bitcoin peak, iirc?) and they just decided to go out there and figure it out largely on the fly.

As far as the point of the film, I really think it was far more an experiment of seeing whether they could make such and such a type of film as opposed to an attack on capitalism or anything like that, a whole bunch of ideas thrown at the wall in the hope it can fit into something that captures the moment in which a character like this may have existed.
I could see some young filmmakers coming out of this inspired to try something bold (and hopefully succeeding) even if they absolutely hated it.
I think a more seasoned fiction director could've gotten a lot more from the setting, but even what was gotten here was pretty damn good.

[Sin Agog]

Was that a planned act of synchronicity, or a total coincidence?  No posts for days, then two within five minutes of each other.

Still nae watched this fully, but the above two screeds will make my second merry go round much easier. Thanks!

[Z]

Coincidence!

RE your narcissistic arseholes comment, I really do think they're just trying to make what was presumably a heavily improvised film work rather than being narcissists. It might come across as obnoxiously overconfident but it's more an environment of outright desperation.

[Z]

Big River Man, by the same director, is a pretty fun bizarre doc. Looks like his other doc is never gonna see the light of day because his dad admits to murdering someone in it (according to IMDb trivia, at least)

[Avril Lavigne]

Finally got around to watching this today. I didn't hate it but I found that it picked up for me in the final third and overall I would have enjoyed it more if the earlier sections had been edited down to be tighter.  China doesn't do anything for me aesthetically and the characters were so thinly drawn and unsympathetic that there just wasn't a lot to hook me until things started really going to shit & getting surreal later on.