|
Post by countjohn on Dec 19, 2023 5:28:32 GMT
Wright is sharp and funny here and clearly deserves a nod. A lot of the casting for the white people is so spot on too because they look exactly like the kind of person who would say the dumb shit they're saying. Good script with witty dialog although maybe a bit like The Holdovers in that it's a lot more serious than the trailer would lead you to believe. A couple spoilerific thoughts- Having Tracee Ellis Ross be second billed and featured prominently in the trailers and then die in the first act was a great move that made her character death a shock. Wish more movies pulled stuff like that.
The fake endings were so funny and both just cutting to black at the awards show or having him get shot really (his life turns into the thing he's writing as in Adaptation) would have been great endings. They went more the subtle route instead. 8/10 for me. Solid and a definite top ten film this year. Also an important film since the people getting satirized here are in desperate need of being satirized.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 30, 2023 15:36:55 GMT
This board is the wrong place to talk about race - tbh, of all the dumb-ass things I read about on MAR that are dovetailed with race in the Arts - Denzel Washigton being "funny" - is he though ?- he must not be if we're reaching for Much Ado About Nothing and The Preacher's Wife ffs? ......Spike Lee being "all time" great to some - nah, he's not - where's your evidence?.......Nas being a poet .......well, yeah ok, obviously he is....... MAR's repetition of white guilt tropes some in those examples btw ^ - which we use to stand in for an actual discussion ON race in the Arts actually (no one buys tickets for Tajari P.Henson btw - sorry) - is a truth ......but not "the whole truth" and.......... THe "whole" truth is the key to your reaction to American Fiction ........a good, but not great film that looked like Tootsie from the trailer but ends up as closer to Hollywood Shuffle........the movie is not as funny as the trailer for one thing - all the best comic bits are there - in fact you are a full 45 minutes in until the plot kicks in.........and until the end which hangs together when you think it would fnck up are left to contemplate the movie's mixed messagng: * The opening is great ........wouldn't it have been greater if the student was black? Discuss * Great scenes (often not funny) are followed by preposterous dialog "You can really write female characters - they aren't hothouse flowers" - GTFO - name 1 line as eye-brow raising clunky as that in Past Lives or The Holdovers which on a screenplay level are both far above this and that's not the only line that rings false....... * The mother (Leslie Uggams) says "I'm glad you're not white" in a cheap joke.........and yet that is later quite deeply meant in relation to another character's backstory in a subtle way that you may not even recall it...........+1 * The (black) writer of pandering crap is revealed to be far deeper than Wright thinks and yet it is Wright who is the one with the most profound line which will be ignored by both the White and the Black media reviews of this film btw "No one reads Bukowski thinking it's the total of the White experience" (paraphrase)Indeed ^ Wright is stupendous - I'll write about him later I'm sure........the movie needs more and less eager to please venom in its bite - and more contradiction in its voice..........spend a week on MAR, I'll show you shit that's funnier on race tbh - and it really needs less family drama in mix of cultural satire / family study drama (sister, brother, ghost of a father, mother, illness, weddings - enough already ) 7 / 10
Why are his books in THIS section? Well.......it's the New Ghetto of course:
|
|
|
Post by countjohn on Dec 30, 2023 17:59:32 GMT
* The opening is great ........wouldn't it have been greater if the student was black? Discuss
Not at all, one of the central ideas of the film is that this stuff is driven by pandering to liberal white people and making them feel like they're "doing something" without actually doing something. It's about protecting the feelings of liberal white people, not black people. A white person getting offended when a black person uses the n-word is a perfect example of that. As is the scene where the jury awards the book in order to "listen to black voices" while ignoring the voices of the black people on the jury who didn't like it. The want to feel like they're listening to black voices, not actually listen to black voices.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 30, 2023 18:13:32 GMT
* The opening is great ........wouldn't it have been greater if the student was black? Discuss
Not at all, one of the central ideas of the film is that this stuff is driven by pandering to liberal white people and making them feel like they're "doing something" without actually doing something. It's about protecting the feelings of liberal white people, not black people. A white person getting offended when a black person uses the n-word is a perfect example of that. As is the scene where the jury awards the book in order to "listen to black voices" while ignoring the voices of the black people on the jury who didn't like it. The want to feel like they're listening to black voices, not actually listen to black voices. I am not sure I agree that isn't a trite point actually.......a black student being offended would suggest to Thelonius he's out of step - on some level - with a person of his own skin color - he goes pretty unchallenged in this film tbh........a white student asking that question is far safer and while it makes that central idea clear - it also makes a(n) obvious (to me) point that the film repeats (too) often..........is it challenging an audience or is it just getting everyone to agree with something everyone agrees on in the first place?
|
|
|
Post by countjohn on Dec 30, 2023 18:57:30 GMT
Not at all, one of the central ideas of the film is that this stuff is driven by pandering to liberal white people and making them feel like they're "doing something" without actually doing something. It's about protecting the feelings of liberal white people, not black people. A white person getting offended when a black person uses the n-word is a perfect example of that. As is the scene where the jury awards the book in order to "listen to black voices" while ignoring the voices of the black people on the jury who didn't like it. The want to feel like they're listening to black voices, not actually listen to black voices. I am not sure I agree that isn't a trite point actually.......a black student being offended would suggest to Thelonius he's out of step - on some level - with a person of his own skin color - he goes pretty unchallenged in this film tbh........a white student asking that question is far safer and while it makes that central idea clear - it also makes a(n) obvious (to me) point that the film repeats (too) often..........is it challenging an audience or is it just getting everyone to agree with something everyone agrees on in the first place? I think a black person getting offended by another black person using the n-word pushes plausibility, never once seen that happen. It didn't make me or you uncomfortable because we're not the kind of person being skewered here but the movie is definitely making a certain kind of white person very uncomfortable.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 30, 2023 19:28:53 GMT
I am not sure I agree that isn't a trite point actually.......a black student being offended would suggest to Thelonius he's out of step - on some level - with a person of his own skin color - he goes pretty unchallenged in this film tbh........a white student asking that question is far safer and while it makes that central idea clear - it also makes a(n) obvious (to me) point that the film repeats (too) often..........is it challenging an audience or is it just getting everyone to agree with something everyone agrees on in the first place? I think a black person getting offended by another black person using the n-word pushes plausibility, never once seen that happen. It didn't make me or you uncomfortable because we're not the kind of person being skewered here but the movie is definitely making a certain kind of white person very uncomfortable. Maybe - it is just close enough to plausible that it could which is all you need for it to have some real bite. Picture if Armond White was teaching this class - I think you would have students of every race calling for his head and it does add a layer the movie mostly misses that could have been even better: Like I said I think the movie works but in a"one rail" kind of way - when he's challenged it's only by really by another writer towards the end - in a way he's "forced" to listen there .......not by any (other) student (if not "the" first scene student) or academic colleague (again,white idiots) or his black gf which starts that way - but quickly devolves into a fight about his life situation which lets Thelonius - intellectually - off the hook...... I think I may be comparing it unfavorably with The Curse which is a superior satire in a day where those are rare (the actual world is a bad satire now) imo - where the Emma Stone / Nathan Fielder leads - attack themselves viciously self-aware - while getting attacked by everyone else ............and yet are still simultaneously ............clueless
|
|
|
Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jan 21, 2024 0:52:53 GMT
This was solid, though definitely more of a drama than I was expecting based on the trailer. Not sure if this will make my top ten of the year or anything, but it does have some gut-bustingly funny moments for sure (felt like my wife and I were the only ones laughing in our theater though ). I see a lot of people saying they wanted less of the family drama, but I think it’s rather integral to the film’s goals - weaving in portrayals of a Black American experience that Monk wishes were more present in literature, so the film’s drama is operating on that meta level. Not sure I get the criticism that Monk goes unchallenged throughout the movie. His sister calls him out for shirking his family responsibilities and being distant, his brother tells him that he’s always angry and shuts people out, and his family in general suggests how similar he is to his own father... and that’s not even including the conversation with the Issa Rae character.
|
|
|
Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 5, 2024 0:21:59 GMT
Really good stuff, at least for the first 3/4. Even with the shift and ending that I didn’t care for, I still quite liked this overall. Wright is fantastic and very deserving of his nomination. The supporting nom for Brown doesn’t feel warranted at all though.
|
|
|
Post by stabcaesar on Feb 8, 2024 9:25:00 GMT
* The opening is great ........wouldn't it have been greater if the student was black? Discuss
Not at all, one of the central ideas of the film is that this stuff is driven by pandering to liberal white people and making them feel like they're "doing something" without actually doing something. It's about protecting the feelings of liberal white people, not black people. A white person getting offended when a black person uses the n-word is a perfect example of that. As is the scene where the jury awards the book in order to "listen to black voices" while ignoring the voices of the black people on the jury who didn't like it. The want to feel like they're listening to black voices, not actually listen to black voices. That's exactly how I feel as a neither white nor black non-American. Anyway this was quite funny. Esp. the Literary Awards judging panel. Very on the nose but it works. And I think the ensemble is really strong overall ... except Brown, but of course he's the one who got nominated.
|
|
tep
Full Member
formerly known as Ban
Posts: 577
Likes: 149
|
Post by tep on Feb 8, 2024 14:23:21 GMT
There was a meandering quality to this that I really liked. Also appreciate the lack of neat resolutions. Performances were great (Wright especially), and funny as hell. 8/10.
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 8, 2024 14:28:40 GMT
I quite liked it. I was surprised it wasn't entirely on a satirical bent as the trailer made it out to be, but I feel like that could've worn thin after a while. I really appreciated the emotional arc of the story with the family and with Monk's dynamic with them and with his girlfriend. Honestly, you could've picked just about any supporting actress in this movie and they'd have made a better nominee than anyone in the Oscar competition not named Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Sterling K. Brown was good but I think I preferred John Ortiz overall, and Jeffrey Wright was excellent and I am very pleased he's finally an Oscar nominee.
|
|
|
Post by countjohn on Feb 8, 2024 18:56:25 GMT
I'll repost my review from my earlier thread that got buried- Wright is sharp and funny here and clearly deserves a nod. A lot of the casting for the white people is so spot on too because they look exactly like the kind of person who would say the dumb shit they're saying. Good script with witty dialog although maybe a bit like The Holdovers in that it's a lot more serious than the trailer would lead you to believe. A couple spoilerific thoughts- Having Tracee Ellis Ross be second billed and featured prominently in the trailers and then die in the first act was a great move that made her character death a shock. Wish more movies pulled stuff like that.
The fake endings were so funny and both just cutting to black at the awards show or having him get shot really (his life turns into the thing he's writing as in Adaptation) would have been great endings. They went more the subtle route instead. 8/10 for me. Solid and a definite top ten film this year. Also an important film since the people getting satirized here are in desperate need of being satirized.
|
|
|
Post by Pavan on Feb 27, 2024 19:09:09 GMT
An interesting and funny idea that turned into an important and entertaining film for the most part. It loses its bite sometimes, but Wright holds it well with his performance. I really liked his character. I also liked the ending.
|
|
|
Post by PromNightCarrie on Mar 10, 2024 17:43:27 GMT
I am just running through the rest of the Oscar films I haven't seen. This one came as a pleasant and welcome surprise. I was slightly worried after the trailer that it would keep playing that same comedic note all the way through, which would have grated on me after 5 minutes. Instead it went for something smarter, was observational in a non-schticky way (unlike what the trailer suggested), and we got a great new cinematic loner in Monk. What I like about it is it was able to have more going on than racial satire. There were layers there. What some might miss is it's as much about the struggle and disconnect a person like Monk feels - and that is universal. This is where the emphasis on how difficult it is for him to relate to people (hence the focus on his family dynamic) comes in. As his mother (played by the lovely Leslie Uggams) said, people with genius are lonely people (she would know having experienced his father). It does have moments that had me dying laughing. At certain parts, Monk reminded me a little of Ignatius J. Reilly. The title change scene made me laugh really hard. And the endings were so funny. While I don't think Sterling K. Brown - deserved an Oscar nomination (should have been the boy from AOAF ), Jeffrey Wright 100% deserves his. He was brilliant. I am glad to see him and this film recognized this year. Well-done. Next in line: Maestro and Holdovers. Well, if I have time.
|
|