morton
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Greta
Mar 1, 2019 4:28:38 GMT
Post by morton on Mar 1, 2019 4:28:38 GMT
I wasn't going to start a thread on this, but then I read Mattsby's post in the Movie News subforum. I just wanted to say that the film isn't nearly as fun as the marketing campaign is for it. It would be a lot better if it was, but I think it takes itself too seriously for the most part only really letting lose a few times. It's basically like Misery with a few differences, but again it's not nearly as great as that film was. Usually I'm not a fan of these type of movies because I'm a wimp, but I saw that Isabelle Huppert had gotten good ink even though the rest of the movie was panned, and with nothing else at the theater closest to me opening this week that I wanted to see, I went for it. I actually wasn't that impressed though. Maybe it's because of the Misery comparison, and she's not nearly as iconic and memorable as Kathy Bates was, or maybe it was because the film didn't really let her get that unhinged. She had a few moments, but they were few and far between. Plus, I kept rolling my eyes at some of the plot points. It doesn't bother me usually as long as the film is entertaining enough, but this was pretty slow for the most part and I really didn't feel anything for any of the characters except maybe Maika Monroe's character who was the only character that actually felt somewhat more than just a one dimensional character, and that was only at the end. Well that and the dog!!! WTF is up with killing dogs this year!!! This was almost the second time in a row that I went to see a movie where it happened. Also I'm very angry that the dog's name was Morton!!! How dare they!!! Anyhow about the eye rolling moments, good old Greta has the box of crazy that all films like this seem to have; although, in this case it was a bag. And instead of looking up what happened to the others whose names were written on the bags, Chloe Grace Moretz's character Frances just ignores it. Later on after that there's a chase, but it's so ridiculous that I couldn't take it seriously. Then, after Greta goes completely wacko where Frances works and has to be taken in by the police, Frances's roommate actually suggests that Frances lie to Greta and try to convince Greta that Frances is the problem not Greta that way Greta will move on to someone else!?! I don't know in what universe would that actually be an idea that someone would suggest in good faith and then actually take. And poor Stephen Rea plays a detective who is barely in the film, and not only is he barely in it, but he's like the world's dumbest detective. A far cry from Richard Farnsworth's Sheriff in Misery. Finally, at the end instead of tying Greta up or calling the police right away, Greta of course bounces back after the tables are turned on her, but it's okay because by that time she's so weak that she's barely standing up. It just didn't make sense to me as well as pretty much everything else in the film. They should have let Huppert really ham it up and get campy with this film but instead it's pretty boring, imo.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 3, 2019 20:33:34 GMT
Posting this here too
******************************************************************************************************************************* ~6/10 but a glorious Huppert - that not many will get - and a sort of impressive handling of her too by Neil Jordan (its negligible as a film but he has his moments too - and it's better than Unsane same time last year).
People always say ridiculous stuff regarding acting - oh Brando was so great in On The Waterfront - yeah, great insight, thanks - if you want to see why he's great see him in material that any other actor would not be vivid in at all - The Chase or Night Of the Following Day - that's where you learn about actors in their lesser work (that btw is not him "raising the material" - which doesn't happen near as much as you'd think or people claim, that's actually BS).
Huppert here is a marvel - she's not "just" OTT - she's engaging clearly in what George C. Scott used to call the joy in the performance. Almost no one has that - Jake Gyllenaal didn't in Velvet Buzzsaw, he was fine, but was there "joy" there? Nope, I don't think there was......
But the very best actors do this - and every little shift in the gradations here that shape this characterization is on point with this performers history. The way she pets her leg when talking to Moretz on the phone - as if she's stroking her and it's comforting to herself too - the way she does not blink when assessing and judging Moretz, and the way her smile and her frown look eerily similar too.
Lots of people will hate it but lots of people want something more literal too and that's not in play here - she's not on that plain. To use her phrase in this film she is not giving a "euphemism" of a performance but rather a specific one. The one she's giving is not only rooted in her filmography (not too different from her Law & Order SVU turn actually!) and rooted in English language horror history (not too different from Vincent Price, who could teach a thing or two about joy in performance to sullen killjoys actually).
I literally could watch this movie be like 10 hours and its not that good anyway. There is a scene late in this film where she meets Stephen Rea that is some of her most sly and wittiest acting you'll come across and will really make the IRS seem more horrifying than ever - in her words Death and Taxes.
In my words Death. Taxes. The greatness of Huppert......
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Mar 3, 2019 20:45:23 GMT
Honestly, I thought it could have gone further. Huppert was brilliant, and clearly relishing the venom and pitch black comedy, but she wasn’t so much aiding the film’s bonkers vibes, than she was single-handedly elevating it from what is otherwise incredibly safe and rote. It could have been more WTF than it actually was.
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Greta
Mar 5, 2019 3:08:05 GMT
Post by stephen on Mar 5, 2019 3:08:05 GMT
Greta is the sort of delicious pulp people claim that Brian de Palma is good at (but actually isn’t). Neil Jordan’s on-tilt psychological thriller doesn’t lean too far into the austere as to become charmless, nor does it wallow so much in its campiness to become trashy nonsense. It is, at once, a pair of films running simultaneously, and it seems that both of its leading ladies were given different notes on what the movie was. Chloe Grace Moretz plays it as a straight horror flick, and Isabelle Huppert is so keyed in on the wackadoo nature of the story that she winds up playing it deadly-serious. It doesn’t exactly do much to take the genre into new directions (there are sequences cribbed from the likes of Psycho and I Know What You Did Last Summer, among others), but it skillfully remixes it enough to the point that you can’t help but wonder if Jordan is going to adhere to the trope or cleverly subvert it.
There are a few nagging questions of logic I have with it that knock it down a peg or two, and of course the most frustrating elements of the film are how the police department and especially Moretz's fucking boss take almost zero precautions . . . but for the most part, it played pretty damn smoothly. Honestly, I genuinely think this film's moral is to not be a good Samaritan and if you find a purse just take the money and have an asparagus colonic.
Oh, and Maika Monroe is MVP, even as Huppert does her absolute damnedest to dominate the film.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Mar 5, 2019 3:33:07 GMT
Oh, and Maika Monroe is MVP, even as Huppert does her absolute damnedest to dominate the film. I want to see a spin-off that’s entirely from her perspective. Erica becoming an amateur PI would be a killer follow-up.
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Post by stephen on Mar 5, 2019 3:34:39 GMT
Oh, and Maika Monroe is MVP, even as Huppert does her absolute damnedest to dominate the film. I want to see a spin-off that’s entirely from her perspective. Erica as an amateur PI is something I’d pay to see. I'd watch that. Still, how the fuck are you not going to recognize the woman you stalked and took countless photos of (and who you presumably saw pictures of on Moretz's FB and in their apartment) in a wig and a bad Texas accent? Bad form, movie.
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morton
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Post by morton on Mar 5, 2019 4:13:08 GMT
I want to see a spin-off that’s entirely from her perspective. Erica as an amateur PI is something I’d pay to see. I'd watch that. Still, how the fuck are you not going to recognize the woman you stalked and took countless photos of (and who you presumably saw pictures of on Moretz's FB and in their apartment) in a wig and a bad Texas accent? Bad form, movie. I knew that there couldn't be much time left, so I figured that it was going to turn out to be the roommate at the end. Like almost everything else from this movie though, it didn't make much sense for the reasons you mentioned.
Still there were so many other nonsensical moments that this one was way down on the list for me.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 24, 2019 18:43:58 GMT
6.5/10 -- Really buoyed by Huppert, all lonely, lovely, hilariously wicked. She has all the standout scenes. Neil Jordan retrofit the role for her - originally written more somberly and for an even older woman. Huppert improvised and added a lot, like throwing the table, or the psychotic twirly dance she does which specifically recalls Huppert’s physically frenzied perf in Malina from ’91 for those who’ve seen. (Seeing this, Malina, and off-broadway The Mother, all so close to each other -- and they are complementary roles -- proved to me all over again that Huppert is La Reine, the greatest ever) I love her gum-chewing moment, where she seems glazed over by some new horrifying confidence. And totally agree with pacinoyes , the scene later on with Stephen Rea is both a highlight for Huppert and a truly great scene from Neil Jordan too in terms of construction and cutting. Jordan is not untalented, usually quite a good director (I love Mona Lisa and quite like Angel, Crying Game, Vampire, etc), but a lot of his recent stuff suffers from his heavy hand and bad instinct. Here you wish he could see the potential of pushing the camp, meeting Huppert at the brilliant level she’s operating at, bc everything aside of Huppert feels comparatively plodding and lacking spark in the writing and execution. Moretz isn’t a very good protagonist - Maika Monroe next to her is 10x more interesting and fresher - and this is the second recent perf I’ve seen after Cameron Post where I thought she was a little off and inert, and lacking in the dramatic scenes. In fact, for a second I thought they were going to bait-and-switch Moretz (there are already Psycho refs) and then we’d follow Monroe, motivated, searching for Huppert who is herself searching for her next victim, voila!! This comes in later but it's like a glance, instead of being the focus Re the marketing and Neil Jordan's intentions - there was deliberate promotion of the film as campy and "grotesquely comic" (his words), they cross-marketed the table-throwing scene with some reality show, they had Huppert mutilating stuffed animals (lmao), and etc. I bet if Jordan could go back he'd create something more go-for-broke bc this deranged, campy quality they sold wasn't entirely there, not that we should put so much stock in angled promos, but I mean you hear "wild, silly psychodrama" and "twisted fairy tale" - you can't help settling into that expectation.
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Post by thomasjerome on Mar 24, 2019 18:54:59 GMT
I saw this the other day and just wanna say that Maika Monroe really deserves to be a bigger star.
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Post by bob-coppola on May 17, 2019 21:44:18 GMT
Not entirely the delicious dark comedy that I was promised, but I can see more than bits of it through the movie, and I love it. Every scene with Isabelle Huppert is hilarious and over the top, wish the movie carried that tone more consistently instead of trying to be a Fatal Attraction 2.0. Anyways, it's really fun and Huppert is excellent.
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Post by MsMovieStar on May 17, 2019 22:09:46 GMT
Oh honey, It reminded me of one of those silly Seventies Grand Guignol movies starring yesteryears big movie stars. Pure schlock. Shame to see the La Grand Huppert's talents exploited in such parody. She played it superbly though. I absolutely loved the restaurant scene. 5/10
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Post by MsMovieStar on May 17, 2019 22:25:27 GMT
Posting this here too ******************************************************************************************************************************* ~6/10 but a glorious Huppert - that not many will get - and a sort of impressive handling of her too by Neil Jordan (its negligible as a film but he has his moments too - and it's better than Unsane same time last year). People always say ridiculous stuff regarding acting - oh Brando was so great in On he Waterfront - yeah, great insight, thanks - if you want to see why he's great see him in material that any other actor would not be vivid in at all - The Chase or Night Of the Following Day - that's where you learn about actors in their lesser work (that btw is not him "raising the material" - which doesn't happen near as much as you'd think or people claim, that's actually BS). Huppert here is a marvel - she's not "just" OTT - she's engaging clearly in what George C. Scott used to call the joy in the performance. Almost no one has that - Jake Gyllenaal didn't in Velvet Buzzsaw, he was fine, but was there "joy" there? Nope, I don't think there was......But the very best actors do this - and every little shift in the gradations here that shape this characterization is on point with this performers history. The way she pets her leg when talking to Moretz on the phone - as if she's stroking her and it's comforting to herself too - the way she does not blink when assessing and judging Moretz, and the way her smile and her frown look eerily similar too. Lots of people will hate it but lots of people want something more literal too and that's not in play here - she's not on that plain. To use her phrase in this film she is not giving a "euphemism" of a performance but rather a specific one. The one she's giving is not only rooted in her filmography (not too different from her Law & Order SVU turn actually!) and rooted in English language horror history (not too different from Vincent Price, who could teach a thing or two about joy in performance to sullen killjoys actually). I literally could watch this movie be like 10 hours and its not that good anyway. There is a scene late in this film where she meets Stephen Rea that is some of her most sly and wittiest acting you'll come across and will really make the IRS seem more horrifying than ever - in her words Death and Taxes. In my words Death. Taxes. The greatness of Huppert...... Oh honey, joy in the performance?... Like Judy Davis in A Little Thing Called Murder?... That was an exquisitely turned out romp of a performance! Thrilling but scary at times.
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magdafr
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Post by magdafr on May 18, 2019 19:38:20 GMT
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in ages.
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Sarah
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Post by Sarah on May 18, 2019 19:42:57 GMT
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in ages. Thanks for info but I´ll watch anyway because Huppert is in it.
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Post by cheesecake on May 18, 2019 20:46:44 GMT
I wish it had taken the ridiculousness to eleven but I still had fun. I think about Huppert and Rea chimney sweep/tax man exchange weekly and it makes me really happy.
I've thought about doing a Neil Jordan montage and it would be truly bonkers.
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Post by Viced on May 21, 2019 4:49:26 GMT
Liked it a lot, tbh... Without Huppert, it's probably crap... but thanks to her absolutely batshit riveting performance I was totally into this. And even a little creeped out by her (mainly when she was standing in the street outside the restaurant). Moretz was solid ( )..... Monroe would have arguably been MVP if she was in it more (but I loved her character). Stephen slandered the god Brian De Palma in a ban-worthy statement above... but I definitely got De Palma vibes on more than one occasion (and of course the movie would have been better if he directed it). I mean... the double dream sequence fake-out is De Palma 101. The main problem with Jordan's direction is that the whole movie is kind of a tonal disaster. Was never really sure whether I was supposed to be laughing, scared, freaked out, or all of the above. The finger chopping scene comes to mind... really dunno how I was supposed to process the way that was handled. But screw it, I was entertained throughout. 7.5/10
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Aug 29, 2019 7:15:51 GMT
This didn't quite work for me, but thankfully while teetering between good trash and bad trash, it just held out as good trash.
Huppert was a joy, but she's no Jennifer Jason Leigh. Moretz was just fine, and I still generally don't get why so many people seem to dislike her. Monroe was very good, and as someone else said, she should be a bigger star. I do hold out hope though.
Rubbish script held this back for me.
5/10
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LaraQ
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Post by LaraQ on Aug 29, 2019 11:28:19 GMT
Without Huppert this is basically just a Lifetime movie.
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Post by stinkybritches on Aug 30, 2019 18:23:02 GMT
Without Huppert this is basically just a Lifetime movie. exactly. a big letdown coming off of Byzantium, which was some pretty good stuff.
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Post by ibbi on Apr 5, 2021 19:43:32 GMT
SORRY TO BUMP THIS THREAD TWO YEARS LATER, BUT HOLY SHIT, IT WAS TOO STUPID EVEN TO REALLY APPRECIATE AS A STUPID MOVIE. HOW DOES SHE FIND ONE OF THESE GIRLS WRAPPED UP IN THE BASEMENT AND KNOW WHO SHE IS? DID I MISS SOMETHING?
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Greta
Apr 5, 2021 19:51:32 GMT
Javi likes this
Post by wallsofjericho on Apr 5, 2021 19:51:32 GMT
Saw this at the weekend for the first time. Huppert was so insane and watchable. She's easily the best part of the film for me.
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