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IT: Chapter 2

Started by Goldentony, May 09, 2019, 05:14:15 PM

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Cerys

Quote from: Cuellar on September 30, 2019, 11:03:09 PM
I thought it was hammy. The way he says 'I'm Pennywise, the DANCING CLOWN' in the first film when he's in the drain is cringe tier.

I think that's deliberate.  He's trying to lure Georgie, and what's cringeworthy to an adult tends to be just silly and funny to a small child.

H-O-W-L

The bit in the bleachers scene where he just goes still and drools for a bit is ace.

SteveDave

My friend went to see this in his local cinema in Blackwood (or somewhere near there...I'm not his biographer) and it was stopped after 30 minutes because a small riot broke out. At the time he heard it was because people were making noise and other people started shouting at them.

Today he found out the fighting was started because someone asked a couple to tone down their love making.

Cerys

So they were at IT...?

SteveDave

They all float down there.

That doesn't work but you get the gist.

Cuellar

Quote from: Cerys on October 01, 2019, 12:49:07 AM
I think that's deliberate.  He's trying to lure Georgie, and what's cringeworthy to an adult tends to be just silly and funny to a small child.

I think that's a generous interpretation :)

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Cuellar on October 01, 2019, 01:26:56 PM
I think that's a generous interpretation :)

You thought it was unintentional? It's a clown talking to children.

Cuellar

I thought it was shit.

Cuellar

Let me add, I think he played exactly as he meant to. Shitly.

Noodle Lizard

I don't recall the book well enough, but I preferred Tim Curry's Pennywise to Skarsgard's, even though I'm sure the book didn't describe him as looking like a middle-aged man in clownface. I thought it worked better for him not to be so blatantly and immediately grotesque - you can imagine a child being lured in by him, which seems to be his MO (for the kids he actually manages to kill anyway). If a child saw Bill Skarsgard's clown lurking in the sewer or underneath the bleachers, acting the way he does, surely they'd absolutely shit their stupid little pants. I know we're talking about various depictions of a fictional horror clown here, but I found the interactions in the miniseries a lot more "believable".

up_the_hampipe

I'm not sure, but I feel like I'd be more fascinated by the supernatural aura of Skasgard's Pennywise. Curry just looked like a local nonce.

Regardless, the kids are frightened when they see it anyway, it's only when Pennywise talks to them that they're convinced to stay.

H-O-W-L

If I remember well the novel described Bonkycunt far more generously and added intimations of him having a sort of preternatural pull to him, like a literal aura that made his proto-noncery easier.

Cuellar

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on October 01, 2019, 09:09:01 PM
I'm not sure, but I feel like I'd be more fascinated by the supernatural aura of Skasgard's Pennywise. Curry just looked like a local nonce.


I think I prefer that. Makes it more sinister in my view. Not the nonce angle necessarily, but the uncertainty about who/what he is. Is he just a mad man, or is he supernatural.

Jumblegraws

I would have liked for Pennywise to have been reimagined more radically rather than the overtly monstrous design they chose. Skasgard is great in the role all the same.

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 12, 2019, 07:08:56 PM
It's not a refernece to either, it's a self-contained bit of peculiarity. Though the leper vomming is a reference to the fact the leper voms on him in the sewer in Part 1, triggering him into a furious rage and making him start the murdering of the clown.
According to Screen Rant, it's an oblique reference to King's The Longiliers wherein a character would play the song on loop during binge drinking sessions. https://screenrant.com/it-2-movie-easter-eggs-cameos-references/

BritishHobo

I just watched the original TV movies for the first time ever, and while my main reaction was just how much I miss John Ritter, it's interesting to see how different the Pennywises are. Pennywii. I really really love Skarsgård's performance (and I think he's great in the scene with Georgie, for what it's worth - lovely balance between inviting and creepy, although I will concede that any kid worth his brain would have scarpered the moment he clocked that weirdly grinning clown face in a sewer, boat or no boat), but he's never really a clown in the way that Curry is. I suppose the closest he gets is fucking with Richie in the second film, but there's nothing like the just mad extended pissing about that Curry does throughout. But there's a proper malevolence with Skarsgård that I didn't get with Curry - he really really feels like just a truly fucking nasty bastard.

Twit 2

Just watched this. It's not a film, it's just nothing, or at best some stuff. Native American bit was good, brilliant even, the rest chuck in a sewer.

colacentral

Quote from: BritishHobo on October 02, 2019, 05:51:03 PM
I just watched the original TV movies for the first time ever, and while my main reaction was just how much I miss John Ritter, it's interesting to see how different the Pennywises are. Pennywii. I really really love Skarsgård's performance (and I think he's great in the scene with Georgie, for what it's worth - lovely balance between inviting and creepy, although I will concede that any kid worth his brain would have scarpered the moment he clocked that weirdly grinning clown face in a sewer, boat or no boat), but he's never really a clown in the way that Curry is. I suppose the closest he gets is fucking with Richie in the second film, but there's nothing like the just mad extended pissing about that Curry does throughout. But there's a proper malevolence with Skarsgård that I didn't get with Curry - he really really feels like just a truly fucking nasty bastard.

I think the idea of Pennywise in the book and the miniseries that clowns, real clowns, are inherently scary. There's no need to make the clown be a weird zombie monster clown, that's too much. What I like about Curry's scenes is that he is a normal clown, but in a sewer for some reason. It's the incongruity that's unsettling. And then the transformation into the monster as he rips Georgie's arm off is the payoff as it hints at what he really is.

What is also I think more scary about that version of Pennywise (and how the book describes him) is that it taps into a fear of real child molesters and murderers rather than a fear of monsters.

What the miniseries does excellently over the films is evoke a creepy atmosphere - think of Ben's dad (or is it Eddie's?) standing in the water off in the distance, for instance. It isn't all jump scares. The scene with the little girl in the washing lines is great, as is much of the adult Mike stuff. I love the music too. It's severely underrated I think.

H-O-W-L

I think the production values and cheap, realistic shooting methods of the TV movie also really help create an air of unearthly unease that it wouldn't have otherwise. I actually am loathe to make this comparison since I think the TV movie is heinously dated in a negative way, but it really reminds me of how they intentionally shot large swathes of Twin Peaks in a very intentionally period-accurate way with lots of flat and dry angles to create a soapy unease.

Goldentony

yeah IT and Twin Peaks look like the same thing, always thought that. Hazy, low fidelity rain soaked miserable Northern/Canadian soap opera with horrifying creepy FM synth.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Goldentony on October 03, 2019, 05:43:08 PM
yeah IT and Twin Peaks look like the same thing, always thought that. Hazy, low fidelity rain soaked miserable Northern/Canadian soap opera with horrifying creepy FM synth.

Agreed on that last part. IT-1990 deserves the emmy it won for its sound design. The circus music is so perfectly wrong without being "creepy clown music".

Glebe

Saw this on Monday, only arsed getting around to giving me two cents now... not doing the annoying transparent text, so *SPOILER WARNING*...

It's a pretty frustrating film, there's some very entertaining sequences, but to echo what others have said, it's feels quite disjointed and has some odd tonal shifts. Hader is good value for money (sneaking his Jabba impersonation in there!), there are some fun scenes with Eddie and a bit of emotional development going on, but I felt like the actors were constrained at times by some of the sillier lines of dialogue. There are some amusing scenes and some proper scares, but it's all a bit unfocused, particularly around the middle.

I'm pretty sure Andy Muschietti or somebody suggested that'd we learn more about Pennywise's background, but there's nothing beyond the glimpses in the trailer... I wish they've have focused on him a bit more, he feels a bit sidelined at times. The The Thing homage was a bit on the nose... apparently they had to de-age the kids to look a few years younger for the newly-filmed flashbacks, anyone else notice something slightly off about their faces at times (particularly Ben's chubby face)?

There's some attempt to make up for Mike getting short-shrift in the first movie, but his character isn't given a whole lot to do other than explain what's going on to everybody... admittedly I only read about 300 pages of the book, but there's a scene where he goes to the Derry ironworks and gets chased by a giant bird which is rather bizarre and unsettling... I was actually expecting they'd include that when they had those scenes when everyone gets their token thing... Mike's token is a stone, I think? We don't see him acquire it, so maybe there'll be an extended cut scene? Ben falling into the underground clubhouse is maybe a nod to Mike falling in the ruins of the ironworks in the book (which again, I only read about 300 pages of)... H-O-W-L also mentioned the bird in the native's ritual... is that what that thing is?

Apparently Stephen King asked them to include the Paul Bunyan statue coming to life. Anyway, overall I thought it was a real missed opportunity... there's potentially a really good movie in their, if only they'd have tightened up the script and cut out some of the extraneous silliness.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Glebe on October 04, 2019, 02:10:03 PM
There's some attempt to make up for Mike getting short-shrift in the first movie, but his character isn't given a whole lot to do other than explain what's going on to everybody... admittedly I only read about 300 pages of the book, but there's a scene where he goes to the Derry ironworks and gets chased by a giant bird which is rather bizarre and unsettling... I was actually expecting they'd include that when they had those scenes when everyone gets their token thing.

He had a whole fuckin' scene of his own getting his token, you can see it in the trailer, there's bits where Hookytook's pursuing Mike through a burnt-out building and walks upside-down out of a charred window. Another thing I'm sure they'll put in the supercut that will be 9 hours long.

Fuck this movie really did not need to be 2hr 49 with how little they actually put into it. It seems like they fire axed out huge important chunks of the story in exchange for... what? I can't actually remember what the bulk of the time was wasted on, but I feel like it's mostly the additional kids shit (which is doubtlessly in there because of how well the kids tested with audiences in the first movie.)

Glebe

Quote from: H-O-W-L on October 04, 2019, 02:14:28 PMHe had a whole fuckin' scene of his own getting his token, you can see it in the trailer, there's bits where Hookytook's pursuing Mike through a burnt-out building and walks upside-down out of a charred window.

Oh fuck yeah forgot about that clip! That's a right pain in the arse, we could have gotten that instead of skateboard kid popping up annoyingly and all that shit.

Also, why were his parents changed from good honest farm folk to junkies living in a hotel or summit? And the sequence with Bill in the basement, with the cattlegun... seems an odd choice, given that they had Mike working in an abattoir in the first movie and wielding one of those.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Glebe on October 04, 2019, 02:22:22 PM
Also, why were his parents changed from good honest farm folk to junkies living in a hotel or summit? And the sequence with Bill in the basement, with the cattlegun... seems an odd choice, given that they had Mike working in an abattoir in the first movie and wielding one of those.

They weren't junkies, they were just slightly down-on-their-luck people who died in an electrical fire. The junkie side is something Hickydick made up to toy with him. His relative (grandfather, uncle?) is the farmer you see in Part 1. The gun is there because Bill used it to "kill" Georgie in part 1 and start the murder of Lickycrunk.

Glebe

Quote from: H-O-W-L on October 04, 2019, 02:37:24 PM
They weren't junkies, they were just slightly down-on-their-luck people who died in an electrical fire. The junkie side is something Hickydick made up to toy with him. His relative (grandfather, uncle?) is the farmer you see in Part 1. The gun is there because Bill used it to "kill" Georgie in part 1 and start the murder of Lickycrunk.

Ah right, thought they really were junkies or whatever. Yeah, I knew that was supposed to be his granddaddy or summit in the first one - just to clear that up, when I said 'they' had Mike working in an abbatoir in the first one, I meant the scriptwriters, not his parents! oh yeah, forgot about Bill using it to kill the fake Georgie.

Twit 2

The cosmic horror of the book, mixed with the intense evocation of place is the closet King comes to a kind of Lovecraftian/Ligottian tale, albeit bloated by a coked up twat.  The sense of dread he conveys in the encounters between IT and the children, and the meticulous psychogeography of Derry combines to create the intended impression of the town itself being haunted to superb effect. The bits with Mike going into the cycles and the history is chilling. Then there's the utter harrowing, realistic bleakness of the deprivation and abuse in many of the victims' lives. And of course the Bildungsroman aspect is extremely touching. The film gestured towards some of these things but ultimately was just a load of generic wank, a truly dismal adaptation of the source material. Imagine if Kinky Fuckawanga, or whatever he's called, had been allowed his pop at it.

Glebe

Of course there's been a bit of fuss over the 'gay bashing' opening sequence... Simon Mayo suggests, during Mark Kermode's excellent summing-up on the Kermode and Mayo show, that the scene is particularly offensive because it's not an essential plot-point that's followed up on...  it is a little gratuitous and could maybe have been handled with a little more finesse, but the homophobia theme is actually kept running via Richie's closeted homosexuality (which was invented for the movie?) and Pennywise's mocking of it as his "dirty little secret", with the appearance of a zombie Adrian Mellon.

The Peter Bogdanavich cameo is an odd one... I liked that King is wearing a Neil Young Harvest tee!

Couple of other little bits gleaned from Wiki/IMDb and that... Muschietti wanted Guillermo del Toro to cameo as the school janitor in Ben's vision, but he couldn't do it... Muschietti himself makes an appearance in the pharmacy... I'm not aware of his work, but Adrian Mellon is played by director Xavier Dolan... Brandon Crane, who played young Ben in the miniseries, cameos as the guy standing up at the table at Ben's company... RE: the The Thing nod, Richard Masur, who played adult Stan in the miniseries, played Clark (the guy who looks after the dogs) in that film... this is apparently King's first big-screen cameo since Thinner... the licence plate of the titular car in Christine appears in the junk store.

Oh yeah, and apparently Pennywise is only onscreen for ten minutes, ffs.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Glebe on October 05, 2019, 11:12:58 AM
Of course there's been a bit of fuss over the 'gay bashing' opening sequence... Simon Mayo suggests, during Mark Kermode's excellent summing-up on the Kermode and Mayo show, that the scene is particularly offensive because it's not an essential plot-point that's followed up on...  it is a little gratuitous and could maybe have been handled with a little more finesse, but the homophobia theme is actually kept running via Richie's closeted homosexuality (which was invented for the movie?) and Pennywise's mocking of it as his "dirty little secret", with the appearance of a zombie Adrian Mellon.

I keep nattering on about this fucking clown movie, but the intro has more weight in the original structure of the story where it is made explicitly clear that the murder of Adrian by the gaybashing loons is a result of Pennywise poisoning the well of Derry for so long and literally sickening its people into violent, apathetic, nihilist bastards (Bowers was just one-of-a-generation, for example) and Adrian's murder itself is the big, horrific event that heralds the return of Honkycunt.

The movies don't really go into it but the timeline of Derry in the book is long enough to actually make It an everlurking presence, and it works thus: 27 years, Hookycrook sleeps. Then it awakens with a sudden outburst of incredible pain and violence in and around Derry, both that it inflicts itself and that it causes the townsfolk to perform. It's left ambiguous as to whether the townsfolk are causing it to wake up  on schedule by committing violence, which is what I lean on the side of because I love the symbiotic relationship it creates, or if Tinkytonk's awakening is what causes the violence itself.

In the novel it's made pretty clear that Adrian being brutally murdered is a truly horrific event, the climax of which that shakes everyone who witnesses it (even the gaybashers, who, in the novel, see Hangytang bite his ribs out) to their core, even though they don't know what it means. In the movie it's just sort-of forgotten after the start, which frustrates me both as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and as a fan of the work.

Pennywise is really trying to scare the absolute shit out of everyone present with the obvious, gruesome murder of Adrian after he's already been beaten into a pulp, and he doesn't pick sides, he just wants to scare everyone involved and feed.

Custard

But I thought he only eats kids?

Or maybe it's cos they're smaller, and thus quicker to eat?

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Shameless Custard on October 06, 2019, 11:18:17 PM
But I thought he only eats kids?

Or maybe it's cos they're smaller, and thus quicker to eat?

He eats fucking anyone in the book. I've been re-reading it and there are large interludes that explain the history of Derry. One of the biggest points of it is that the original settlement, some 300-strong, mysteriously disappeared without a trace, and it's heavily implied that Crinkleballs ate them all when awakening for the first time.

He hunts children because they're more fearful and the taste of fear makes his honking clown cock hard.