wonky
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Post by wonky on Jan 21, 2024 6:45:42 GMT
I already knew it after Dogtooth and The Lobster but Yorgos just ain't my cuppa unfortunately. A lot of it is the animal shit tbh. I see a toad and know he can't wait to make it jelly and serve it up. Or I see a dog and I can't be like "Oh a dog" like any other movie, I just think "Well somebody's either about to abuse this dog or say how much they want to abuse this dog" cue Ruffalo "I'm gonna kick this fucking dog." It gets tiresome predicting the next animal to absolutely eat shit. I'm not the most macabre/sicko cinephile in general, though. Sometimes, but not with this guy.
And I just kinda know already what it's like to watch the grownups act like toddlers, he's done it before. I know there'll be piss and shit and puke, just being erratic from the beginning, pounding that piano. I find with movies about unpredictable behavior, they either put me on the edge of my seat or they quickly condition me to be unsurprised by anything.
I'm not really sure what makes the difference but I find his way of doing things more distracting than invigorating, it's not for me. I can appreciate that he's finding more and more room to do this stuff and it looks cool and everything.
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Post by countjohn on Jan 22, 2024 3:38:10 GMT
And I just kinda know already what it's like to watch the grownups act like toddlers, he's done it before. I know there'll be piss and shit and puke, just being erratic from the beginning, pounding that piano. I find with movies about unpredictable behavior, they either put me on the edge of my seat or they quickly condition me to be unsurprised by anything. I'm not really sure what makes the difference but I find his way of doing things more distracting than invigorating Pretty much how I felt in fewer words, it just got so monotonous after a while and felt like cheap shock value. Like lower tier Aronofsky but even worse.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jan 28, 2024 5:50:40 GMT
I agree that the ending gets to be somewhat redundant (and a bit heavyhanded), but I still quite enjoyed this overall. It’s been fun seeing the different reactions to this from people irl - I have an aunt who REALLY loved it, a couple friends (around my age) who absolutely hated it and wanted to walk out, my younger brother didn’t like it at all and also wanted to walk out, my wife sort of liked it but doesn’t get the critical acclaim... I love when movies have that all-over-the-map effect. Might be my favorite Lanthimos, but it’s close with The Favourite (which I’ve only seen once and need to rewatch). It’s a knockout even just on a tech level... though after a while there didn’t really seem to be any rhyme or reason to the use of fish-eye lens and it began to just feel arbitrary, but that was the only thing that bugged me. The humor that comes out of Bella’s interactions with the world around her reminded me of the Strange Planet comic by Nathan Pyle... Bella might as well be one of those aliens. This is kind of random, but I recently rewatched Louis Malle’s The Fire Within, and it was interesting watching this soon after because one feels almost like the inverse of the other in some ways – two characters on an odyssey of the self, meeting people with a variety of worldviews along the way, but one ultimately rejects life while the other opens herself up to it. Both characters are naively idealistic, but that causes one to lose his thirst for life while her thirst for life only intensifies as she is hopelessly optimistic about “fixing” the world. One character is the subject of critique as he interacts with the world around him, while she exists to critique the world around her, highlighting its absurdity.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 28, 2024 12:51:41 GMT
"two characters on an odyssey of the self, meeting people with a variety of worldviews along the way, but one ultimately rejects life while the other opens herself up to it." A movie I thought of - in that way - when watching Poor Things was Wanda which fits this ^ - has a mother / child metaphor (ie Wanda loses her kids an becomes a "child" like Bella is thrown into the world as a child) and Wanda comes up against - cruel, exploitative, selfish men specifically......its sort of the dark side of Poor Things thematically ...........also The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser is a bit like Poor Things too .......in some ways in how society sees him / her
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Feb 4, 2024 18:46:22 GMT
Thought this was a winning fantasy for a good long time. Lanthimos seems to have finally found his style--even that fisheye lens of him is organic here, and I loved the silent-film inspiration and the way he moves the camera. His style has limits, though. The sets, great as they are, rarely look like anything other than sets that no one could possibly inhabit, and fake, hyped-up Lisbon/Paris/London with those big digital skies get claustrophobic pretty quickly. But who cares when someone is as good as Emma Stone is here? I confess I was a Stone agnostic up to this film--clearly a talented actress, but always on, always in a state of super activity that I found off-putting. Well she’s more than on here—devourer of cities, mood, feeling, thought. She combines, somehow, the stupefied enchantment of a toddler with Dionysian delirium, and mocks her own orgiastic tendencies in the process. She could play a nun, or a saint--thinking back to Redgrave in The Devils. She makes curiosity seem terrifying, all-consuming. She’s magnificent—-free and singular in a way the movie rarely is.
I found those maligned brothel scenes to be one of the high points of the movie—-they’re kind of the key to the whole thing. When it works, this isn’t a movie about empowerment—-it’s more of a Dada parody of freedom, a big carnival, and Bella, free of prejudices and of judgment, will inevitably accept depravity, humiliation and depersonalization as long as these things provide her with new experiences, which they do. She’s an empirical little monster—-she has to try out each new thing and explore them for herself. I found it totally believable that she’d became enamored of socialism as this rising new thing. What isn’t believable is that she’d stick to it—-instead of trying out every other philosophy under the sun. (This is where the movie starts to go wrong). The liberating thing about the narrative is that she’s not some victim rebelling against an oppressive system. She’s constitutionally free, a tabula rasa with no moral or behavioral constraints (her only prison is spatial: her house)... or, how "Woman" might've been like if there had been no Eve and no sin. She’s free because she’s incapable of being otherwise--newborn--free and stunted go together is half the movie’s joke.
But when we head back to London and the husband from a previous life enters the picture, the movie dies. Suddenly, Bella is an oppressed victim of the patriarchy and it turns into the princess versus the ogre. In the movie’s final scenes, Bella is Barbie all over again. What will Bella-Barbie do, audiences wonder? Become an acclaimed surgeon, perhaps, or award-winning novelist? One thing’s for sure: whoring is out of the question, so Bella-Barbie can become a proper role model for little girls who won’t be watching this film. Dud of an ending, and it contaminates the whole film. The logical ending might’ve been for prodigious Bella to look at science as an amoral new frontier, full of tasty empirical potential. Could’ve been the scariest, funniest ending of the year—-that would have been empowering, alright. Instead, Bella is domesticated, suitable for educational/inspirational distribution purposes. Is Lanthimos really that much of a softie at heart, or just a sellout?
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Post by stephen on Feb 4, 2024 19:01:37 GMT
But when we head back to London and the husband from a previous life enters the picture, the movie dies. Suddenly, Bella is an oppressed victim of the patriarchy and it turns into the princess versus the ogre. In the movie’s final scenes, Bella is Barbie all over again. What will Bella-Barbie do, audiences wonder? Become an acclaimed surgeon, perhaps, or award-winning novelist? One thing’s for sure: whoring is out of the question, so Bella-Barbie can become a proper role model for little girls who won’t be watching this film. Dud of an ending, and it contaminates the whole film. The logical ending might’ve been for prodigious Bella to look at science as an amoral new frontier, full of tasty empirical potential. Could’ve been the scariest, funniest ending of the year—- that would have been empowering, alright. Instead, Bella is domesticated, suitable for educational/inspirational distribution purposes. Is Lanthimos really that much of a softie at heart, or just a sellout? While I do agree that the film loses its freewheeling gusto a bit when Christopher Abbott shows up (nothing against him or his performance), I don't necessarily agree that it's because Bella becomes an oppressed victim of the patriarchy. I do see the patriarchal character trying to oppress her for sure but we've spent so long with Bella by this point that I never felt afraid for her, or felt she was helpless against him. It's not a princess/ogre dynamic, although it seems like it would be at first glance. We've seen Bella dismantle masculine ideals of femininity throughout the film that this feels more like the final obstacle for her, as well as her way of reckoning with the person who caused her prior self/mother to end her life. And I don't think the film tries to portray Bella as a palatable role model like Barbie does; Bella is her own woman, free to do what she wants with whom she wants, and while sex work may not be her future career, the fact that she did it and rightly felt no shame about it is a worthy and empowering message. I don't think Bella is "domesticated", either. She's no one's woman but her own, but she found a chosen family rather than one that was forced onto her, and I don't think that "tamed" her in any way.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Feb 4, 2024 19:25:20 GMT
But when we head back to London and the husband from a previous life enters the picture, the movie dies. Suddenly, Bella is an oppressed victim of the patriarchy and it turns into the princess versus the ogre. In the movie’s final scenes, Bella is Barbie all over again. What will Bella-Barbie do, audiences wonder? Become an acclaimed surgeon, perhaps, or award-winning novelist? One thing’s for sure: whoring is out of the question, so Bella-Barbie can become a proper role model for little girls who won’t be watching this film. Dud of an ending, and it contaminates the whole film. The logical ending might’ve been for prodigious Bella to look at science as an amoral new frontier, full of tasty empirical potential. Could’ve been the scariest, funniest ending of the year—- that would have been empowering, alright. Instead, Bella is domesticated, suitable for educational/inspirational distribution purposes. Is Lanthimos really that much of a softie at heart, or just a sellout? While I do agree that the film loses its freewheeling gusto a bit when Christopher Abbott shows up (nothing against him or his performance), I don't necessarily agree that it's because Bella becomes an oppressed victim of the patriarchy. I do see the patriarchal character trying to oppress her for sure but we've spent so long with Bella by this point that I never felt afraid for her, or felt she was helpless against him. It's not a princess/ogre dynamic, although it seems like it would be at first glance. We've seen Bella dismantle masculine ideals of femininity throughout the film that this feels more like the final obstacle for her, as well as her way of reckoning with the person who caused her prior self/mother to end her life. And I don't think the film tries to portray Bella as a palatable role model like Barbie does; Bella is her own woman, free to do what she wants with whom she wants, and while sex work may not be her future career, the fact that she did it and rightly felt no shame about it is a worthy and empowering message. I don't think Bella is "domesticated", either. She's no one's woman but her own, but she found a chosen family rather than one that was forced onto her, and I don't think that "tamed" her in any way. Domesticated is my way of saying she's reduced to a standard heroine. She vanquishes the big bad guy--for the first time in the movie, there's an outright villain, and the evil needs to be defeated. As far as I can see, there's no irony to this fairy-tale resolution. It just enters the picture uninvited. Also, the continued presence of her socialist girlfriend suggests she has actually adopted socialism as a cause--the socially accepted, "progressive" way from a modern POV. She seems to be reduced to a set of expected banalities, whereas for the first 90 minutes of the film, it was impossible to reduce her to anything or to classify her in any way. I felt there was no edge and no danger to the Bella of the end, as if the script had made utterly sure she couldn't surprise us anymore. She becomes "fixed"--which, considering the highly original character they had here, is almost criminal imo.
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Post by countjohn on Feb 4, 2024 23:23:12 GMT
I found those maligned brothel scenes to be one of the high points of the movie—-they’re kind of the key to the whole thing. When it works, this isn’t a movie about empowerment—-it’s more of a Dada parody of freedom, a big carnival, and Bella, free of prejudices and of judgment, will inevitably accept depravity, humiliation and depersonalization as long as these things provide her with new experiences, which they do. She’s an empirical little monster—-she has to try out each new thing and explore them for herself. I found it totally believable that she’d became enamored of socialism as this rising new thing. What isn’t believable is that she’d stick to it—-instead of trying out every other philosophy under the sun. (This is where the movie starts to go wrong). The liberating thing about the narrative is that she’s not some victim rebelling against an oppressive system. She’s constitutionally free, a tabula rasa with no moral or behavioral constraints (her only prison is spatial: her house)... or, how "Woman" might've been like if there had been no Eve and no sin. She’s free because she’s incapable of being otherwise--newborn--free and stunted go together is half the movie’s joke. But when we head back to London and the husband from a previous life enters the picture, the movie dies. Suddenly, Bella is an oppressed victim of the patriarchy and it turns into the princess versus the ogre. In the movie’s final scenes, Bella is Barbie all over again. What will Bella-Barbie do, audiences wonder? Become an acclaimed surgeon, perhaps, or award-winning novelist? One thing’s for sure: whoring is out of the question, so Bella-Barbie can become a proper role model for little girls who won’t be watching this film. Dud of an ending, and it contaminates the whole film. The logical ending might’ve been for prodigious Bella to look at science as an amoral new frontier, full of tasty empirical potential. Could’ve been the scariest, funniest ending of the year—- that would have been empowering, alright. Instead, Bella is domesticated, suitable for educational/inspirational distribution purposes. Is Lanthimos really that much of a softie at heart, or just a sellout? I don't know man, the first paragraph sounds like a good movie but I wasn't getting that from it at all. You might have wished that's what it was going for, but I think what I bolded in the last paragraph is actually what Lanthimos was going for all along. I just didn't think it was smart or nuanced enough to go for what you're describing. I found her abrupt conversion to socialism similarly ridiculous and it's the kind of thing that would have been ripe for the kind of satire you're describing. In the vibrant philosophical world of 19th century Europe she goes all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing. If they'd cut like 5 or 6 of the repetitive sex scenes they would have had room in the movie for things like that. But Lanthimos just seemed to be playing it completely straight and earnestly without any irony which is why it ends the way it does. The premise has a lot of potential (and people with good taste like the novel so I'll reserve judgement on that) but the movie just squanders it on yet another girlboss movie and trying to get Emma Stone into as many sex positions as possible. Agree with you on the PD and visuals. That's the one aspect of the movie I can sort of get behind but everything feels so fake and confined. Which made sense early in the film but when it shifts to "Bella running wild and free in the real world" that seems like the complete wrong approach.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Feb 4, 2024 23:51:05 GMT
I found those maligned brothel scenes to be one of the high points of the movie—-they’re kind of the key to the whole thing. When it works, this isn’t a movie about empowerment—-it’s more of a Dada parody of freedom, a big carnival, and Bella, free of prejudices and of judgment, will inevitably accept depravity, humiliation and depersonalization as long as these things provide her with new experiences, which they do. She’s an empirical little monster—-she has to try out each new thing and explore them for herself. I found it totally believable that she’d became enamored of socialism as this rising new thing. What isn’t believable is that she’d stick to it—-instead of trying out every other philosophy under the sun. (This is where the movie starts to go wrong). The liberating thing about the narrative is that she’s not some victim rebelling against an oppressive system. She’s constitutionally free, a tabula rasa with no moral or behavioral constraints (her only prison is spatial: her house)... or, how "Woman" might've been like if there had been no Eve and no sin. She’s free because she’s incapable of being otherwise--newborn--free and stunted go together is half the movie’s joke. But when we head back to London and the husband from a previous life enters the picture, the movie dies. Suddenly, Bella is an oppressed victim of the patriarchy and it turns into the princess versus the ogre. In the movie’s final scenes, Bella is Barbie all over again. What will Bella-Barbie do, audiences wonder? Become an acclaimed surgeon, perhaps, or award-winning novelist? One thing’s for sure: whoring is out of the question, so Bella-Barbie can become a proper role model for little girls who won’t be watching this film. Dud of an ending, and it contaminates the whole film. The logical ending might’ve been for prodigious Bella to look at science as an amoral new frontier, full of tasty empirical potential. Could’ve been the scariest, funniest ending of the year—- that would have been empowering, alright. Instead, Bella is domesticated, suitable for educational/inspirational distribution purposes. Is Lanthimos really that much of a softie at heart, or just a sellout? I don't know man, the first paragraph sounds like a good movie but I wasn't getting that from it at all. You might have wished that's what it was going for, but I think what I bolded in the last paragraph is actually what Lanthimos was going for all along. I just didn't think it was smart or nuanced enough to go for what you're describing. I found her abrupt conversion to socialism similarly ridiculous and it's the kind of thing that would have been ripe for the kind of satire you're describing. In the vibrant philosophical world of 19th century Europe she goes all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing. If they'd cut like 5 or 6 of the repetitive sex scenes they would have had room in the movie for things like that. But Lanthimos just seemed to be playing it completely straight and earnestly without any irony which is why it ends the way it does. The premise has a lot of potential (and people with good taste like the novel so I'll reserve judgement on that) but the movie just squanders it on yet another girlboss movie and trying to get Emma Stone into as many sex positions as possible. Agree with you on the PD and visuals. That's the one aspect of the movie I can sort of get behind but everything feels so fake and confined. Which made sense early in the film but when it shifts to "Bella running wild and free in the real world" that seems like the complete wrong approach. I thought about this myself Did I dream the first part of the movie was so good? There's a major disconnect between beginning and ending. If Lanthimos' aim was to make a cliched account of female oppression all along, I think he failed--happily, I might add. I never saw a less oppressed female character. Despite the flaws, I was really into it, and the movie had an internal logic going. There are concerning signs, it's true... all that mysterious talk about progress and parts of the Alexandria chapter... mood-killers. But the episode with the former husband is a whole new level of crap. Has anyone here read the novel? It'd be great to hear from people who read the book, cos the more I think about it, the more it feels like something central is missing. EDIT: Well, seems the ending is not from the book at all. From Collider: "Aside from the design of the novel, one of the major shifts from the book to the film is the ending, which feels drastic yet more than appropriate in the final form. Writer Tony McNamara adds an entire sequence where Bella is finally about to wed McCandless, but it is interrupted by her former partner Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) and Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott). Wedderburn brings attention to the wedding with Alfie because he feels betrayed and tossed aside from Bella despite overseeing his own abusive traits. He naturally turns to Blessington out of spite, who turns out to be the former husband of Bella from her past life as Victoria."
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Post by paulgallo on Feb 5, 2024 20:26:41 GMT
I don't know man, the first paragraph sounds like a good movie but I wasn't getting that from it at all. You might have wished that's what it was going for, but I think what I bolded in the last paragraph is actually what Lanthimos was going for all along. I just didn't think it was smart or nuanced enough to go for what you're describing. I found her abrupt conversion to socialism similarly ridiculous and it's the kind of thing that would have been ripe for the kind of satire you're describing. In the vibrant philosophical world of 19th century Europe she goes all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing. If they'd cut like 5 or 6 of the repetitive sex scenes they would have had room in the movie for things like that. But Lanthimos just seemed to be playing it completely straight and earnestly without any irony which is why it ends the way it does. The premise has a lot of potential (and people with good taste like the novel so I'll reserve judgement on that) but the movie just squanders it on yet another girlboss movie and trying to get Emma Stone into as many sex positions as possible. Agree with you on the PD and visuals. That's the one aspect of the movie I can sort of get behind but everything feels so fake and confined. Which made sense early in the film but when it shifts to "Bella running wild and free in the real world" that seems like the complete wrong approach. I thought about this myself Did I dream the first part of the movie was so good? There's a major disconnect between beginning and ending. If Lanthimos' aim was to make a cliched account of female oppression all along, I think he failed--happily, I might add. I never saw a less oppressed female character. Despite the flaws, I was really into it, and the movie had an internal logic going. There are concerning signs, it's true... all that mysterious talk about progress and parts of the Alexandria chapter... mood-killers. But the episode with the former husband is a whole new level of crap. Has anyone here read the novel? It'd be great to hear from people who read the book, cos the more I think about it, the more it feels like something central is missing. EDIT: Well, seems the ending is not from the book at all. From Collider: "Aside from the design of the novel, one of the major shifts from the book to the film is the ending, which feels drastic yet more than appropriate in the final form. Writer Tony McNamara adds an entire sequence where Bella is finally about to wed McCandless, but it is interrupted by her former partner Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) and Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott). Wedderburn brings attention to the wedding with Alfie because he feels betrayed and tossed aside from Bella despite overseeing his own abusive traits. He naturally turns to Blessington out of spite, who turns out to be the former husband of Bella from her past life as Victoria."The part with the husband is McNamara's invention but the conclusion is still pretty much the same, and the book goes even more into detail depicting her "domesticated" life as a doctor helping other women so what you see as the big "flaw" was already in the novel.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 6, 2024 5:32:09 GMT
I don't know man, the first paragraph sounds like a good movie but I wasn't getting that from it at all. You might have wished that's what it was going for, but I think what I bolded in the last paragraph is actually what Lanthimos was going for all along. I just didn't think it was smart or nuanced enough to go for what you're describing. I found her abrupt conversion to socialism similarly ridiculous and it's the kind of thing that would have been ripe for the kind of satire you're describing. In the vibrant philosophical world of 19th century Europe she goes all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing. If they'd cut like 5 or 6 of the repetitive sex scenes they would have had room in the movie for things like that. But Lanthimos just seemed to be playing it completely straight and earnestly without any irony which is why it ends the way it does. The premise has a lot of potential (and people with good taste like the novel so I'll reserve judgement on that) but the movie just squanders it on yet another girlboss movie and trying to get Emma Stone into as many sex positions as possible. Agree with you on the PD and visuals. That's the one aspect of the movie I can sort of get behind but everything feels so fake and confined. Which made sense early in the film but when it shifts to "Bella running wild and free in the real world" that seems like the complete wrong approach. I didn’t really find it abrupt because to me it seemed like a logical development to the distress she expresses earlier over class divisions and wanting to give away money to the poor in Alexandria. I don’t think it would be true to her character for her to “go all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing” - her conversion to socialism is rather organic to the specific worldview that she is beginning to develop, and isn’t something that she arbitrarily chooses to embrace (as shown in the Alexandria scene). Regarding the PD and visuals, I think everything feeling “fake and confined” still feels appropriate later on because even though Bella is free in the real world, there’s so much about it that is “unnatural” to her (the societal expectations placed on her in big and small ways), so we’re seeing the world through her eyes in a way – a claustrophobically absurd world that sees her as the absurd one.
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Post by countjohn on Feb 6, 2024 21:02:29 GMT
I don't know man, the first paragraph sounds like a good movie but I wasn't getting that from it at all. You might have wished that's what it was going for, but I think what I bolded in the last paragraph is actually what Lanthimos was going for all along. I just didn't think it was smart or nuanced enough to go for what you're describing. I found her abrupt conversion to socialism similarly ridiculous and it's the kind of thing that would have been ripe for the kind of satire you're describing. In the vibrant philosophical world of 19th century Europe she goes all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing. If they'd cut like 5 or 6 of the repetitive sex scenes they would have had room in the movie for things like that. But Lanthimos just seemed to be playing it completely straight and earnestly without any irony which is why it ends the way it does. The premise has a lot of potential (and people with good taste like the novel so I'll reserve judgement on that) but the movie just squanders it on yet another girlboss movie and trying to get Emma Stone into as many sex positions as possible. Agree with you on the PD and visuals. That's the one aspect of the movie I can sort of get behind but everything feels so fake and confined. Which made sense early in the film but when it shifts to "Bella running wild and free in the real world" that seems like the complete wrong approach. I didn’t really find it abrupt because to me it seemed like a logical development to the distress she expresses earlier over class divisions and wanting to give away money to the poor in Alexandria. I don’t think it would be true to her character for her to “go all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing” - her conversion to socialism is rather organic to the specific worldview that she is beginning to develop, and isn’t something that she arbitrarily chooses to embrace (as shown in the Alexandria scene). Well that's what I found abrupt. She was completely unfeeling before that. She sincerely wanted to punch the baby for crying before that for instance. So I don't really buy that she's going to go to pieces and change her life because she sees some raggedy looking people.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 6, 2024 21:22:32 GMT
I didn’t really find it abrupt because to me it seemed like a logical development to the distress she expresses earlier over class divisions and wanting to give away money to the poor in Alexandria. I don’t think it would be true to her character for her to “go all in for whatever new system of thought she hears about next until she finds the next thing” - her conversion to socialism is rather organic to the specific worldview that she is beginning to develop, and isn’t something that she arbitrarily chooses to embrace (as shown in the Alexandria scene). Well that's what I found abrupt. She was completely unfeeling before that. She sincerely wanted to punch the baby for crying before that for instance. So I don't really buy that she's going to go to pieces and change her life because she sees some raggedy looking people. I mean I don’t think her humorously failing to understand social customs by wanting to punch a baby because it was annoying her and expressing distress over the poor are necessarily contradictory aspects of her behavior. I don’t see it as her being “unfeeling” initially, it’s more like her just being ignorant about what’s socially acceptable behavior.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 27, 2024 21:02:12 GMT
Wonderful, almost as terrific as The Favourite. Or maybe without the "almost". Or maybe even better. I just wish there was a way to tighten up the Paris segment a little (not by cutting the sex scenes though - wtf is up with the prudishness I see from some on here? What are you, zoomers?) because it did start to feel just a tad baggy. But all in all this was fantastic - imaginative, ridiculous, visually stunning, funny, bizarre. Just like life itself (lazy cliché intended). But seriously, just as Paris, Texas gave me the feeling of wanting to just drop everything and start walking with the destination unknown, Poor Things really awakened an often dormant desire to try as many new experiences as possible. Brothels ahoy!
I've long believed Emma Stone to be the best actress of her generation but with this and The Curse she has pretty much catapulted into the stratosphere. "Holy shit" is the phrase that comes to mind. And it's a joy to see Mark Ruffalo give the best performance of his career too. Down with the boring Ruffalo, yay to the nincompoop! Stone gives the best turn in the film, Ruffalo gives the funniest. A fair deal, especially when the winners are ultimately us.
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Post by stabcaesar on Feb 28, 2024 13:12:04 GMT
I guess my expectations were too high riding on the high of The Favourite, I thought this was kind of merely solid. Emma Stone is great and the direction is deft and fun, but I don't find the film narratively very interesting. The crafts are spectacular, with The Zone of Interest snubbed in production design and cinematography, this definitely should win in those categories, and the costumes, score and makeup are all vastly superior to the other nominees, too. The script though I think is trying too hard. The notion of sex being the definitive sensation for anyone's coming-of-age is very far-fetched to me, and in the film it just kind of came out of nowhere. One minute Bella is throwing a tantrum about ice cream, then one morning she wakes up and starts masturbating the shit out of her clit???? K....
What I find the most overrated about this film is Ruffalo. I don't find him funny, and the idea that he's a philandering sex god is simply not convincing. Not that I find him ugly or anything as I do think he's quite hot in a "office manager you secretly fuck in the supply closet" kind of way, and his hairy dadbod is delicious, but it just doesn't work in this context. They should have gotten someone more conventionally attractive. Besides, his English accent is atrocious. I'm surprised that people consider him worthy of any accolades.
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rhodoraonline
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Your Generosity Hides Something Dirtier and Meaner
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Post by rhodoraonline on Feb 28, 2024 17:23:07 GMT
I guess my expectations were too high riding on the high of The Favourite, I thought this was kind of merely solid. Emma Stone is great and the direction is deft and fun, but I don't find the film narratively very interesting. The crafts are spectacular, with The Zone of Interest snubbed in production design and cinematography, this definitely should win in those categories, and the costumes, score and makeup are all vastly superior to the other nominees, too. The script though I think is trying too hard. The notion of sex being the definitive sensation for anyone's coming-of-age is very far-fetched to me, and in the film it just kind of came out of nowhere. One minute Bella is throwing a tantrum about ice cream, then one morning she wakes up and starts masturbating the shit out of her clit???? K.... What I find the most overrated about this film is Ruffalo. I don't find him funny, and the idea that he's a philandering sex god is simply not convincing. Not that I find him ugly or anything as I do think he's quite hot in a "office manager you secretly fuck in the supply closet" kind of way, and his hairy dadbod is delicious, but it just doesn't work in this context. They should have gotten someone more conventionally attractive. Besides, his English accent is atrocious. I'm surprised that people consider him worthy of any accolades. That's the biggest beef I'm having with this movie too. Her awakening is too unrealistic and does not make sense at all. She is not even speaking properly yet, and WITH A FULL GROWN WOMAN's BODY she is not even walking properly yet. We know where sexual awakening lies in the order of physical maturation, even a basic biology bachelors will tell you that. Its super unrealistic and that along with the extremely distracting, unnecessary, and thematically irrelevant fishlens vision really keeps throwing me off.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 28, 2024 18:52:51 GMT
I guess my expectations were too high riding on the high of The Favourite, I thought this was kind of merely solid. Emma Stone is great and the direction is deft and fun, but I don't find the film narratively very interesting. The crafts are spectacular, with The Zone of Interest snubbed in production design and cinematography, this definitely should win in those categories, and the costumes, score and makeup are all vastly superior to the other nominees, too. The script though I think is trying too hard. The notion of sex being the definitive sensation for anyone's coming-of-age is very far-fetched to me, and in the film it just kind of came out of nowhere. One minute Bella is throwing a tantrum about ice cream, then one morning she wakes up and starts masturbating the shit out of her clit???? K.... What I find the most overrated about this film is Ruffalo. I don't find him funny, and the idea that he's a philandering sex god is simply not convincing. Not that I find him ugly or anything as I do think he's quite hot in a "office manager you secretly fuck in the supply closet" kind of way, and his hairy dadbod is delicious, but it just doesn't work in this context. They should have gotten someone more conventionally attractive. Besides, his English accent is atrocious. I'm surprised that people consider him worthy of any accolades. That's the biggest beef I'm having with this movie too. Her awakening is too unrealistic and does not make sense at all. She is not even speaking properly yet, and WITH A FULL GROWN WOMAN's BODY she is not even walking properly yet. We know where sexual awakening lies in the order of physical maturation, even a basic biology bachelors will tell you that. Its super unrealistic and that along with the extremely distracting, unnecessary, and thematically irrelevant fishlens vision really keeps throwing me off. Yes, we know where sexual awakening lies in physical maturation, but part of the point here is she is already at physical maturation. The thing that is not matured is her psychology, but physically if she messes around with her pussy then it will have its natural physical response. And idk if you've seen kids, but their curiosity at a young age often does extend to their genitals. Sure, the movie is taking some shortcuts in its development or at the very least some ellipses - we don't get a concrete timeline on how many days Ramy Youssef is there before she starts getting more coordinated in her movement and how long before she starts masturbating, but I find it an odd critique to chastise the realism there when talking about what is essentially Frankenstein.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 28, 2024 19:13:37 GMT
That's the biggest beef I'm having with this movie too. Her awakening is too unrealistic and does not make sense at all. She is not even speaking properly yet, and WITH A FULL GROWN WOMAN's BODY she is not even walking properly yet. We know where sexual awakening lies in the order of physical maturation, even a basic biology bachelors will tell you that. Its super unrealistic and that along with the extremely distracting, unnecessary, and thematically irrelevant fishlens vision really keeps throwing me off. Yes, we know where sexual awakening lies in physical maturation, but part of the point here is she is already at physical maturation. The thing that is not matured is her psychology, but physically if she messes around with her pussy then it will have its natural physical response. And idk if you've seen kids, but their curiosity at a young age often does extend to their genitals. Sure, the movie is taking some shortcuts in its development or at the very least some ellipses - we don't get a concrete timeline on how many days Ramy Youssef is there before she starts getting more coordinated in her movement and how long before she starts masturbating, but I find it an odd critique to chastise the realism there when talking about what is essentially Frankenstein. Agree with this take. Seemed to make perfect sense to me that she can physically have an orgasm and it feels amazing so she’d want to experience that compulsively.
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Post by JangoB on Mar 2, 2024 13:53:13 GMT
That's the biggest beef I'm having with this movie too. Her awakening is too unrealistic and does not make sense at all. She is not even speaking properly yet, and WITH A FULL GROWN WOMAN's BODY she is not even walking properly yet. We know where sexual awakening lies in the order of physical maturation, even a basic biology bachelors will tell you that. Its super unrealistic and that along with the extremely distracting, unnecessary, and thematically irrelevant fishlens vision really keeps throwing me off. Yes, we know where sexual awakening lies in physical maturation, but part of the point here is she is already at physical maturation. The thing that is not matured is her psychology, but physically if she messes around with her pussy then it will have its natural physical response. And idk if you've seen kids, but their curiosity at a young age often does extend to their genitals. Sure, the movie is taking some shortcuts in its development or at the very least some ellipses - we don't get a concrete timeline on how many days Ramy Youssef is there before she starts getting more coordinated in her movement and how long before she starts masturbating, but I find it an odd critique to chastise the realism there when talking about what is essentially Frankenstein. I think another highly important thing - actually one of the key things about the film - is that Bella is absolutely her own creature, defying any "realistic" explanations or comparisons. Early on Dafoe's character establishes that she develops at a very accelerated rate but we never know the exact details of how that works. And I think that's great precisely because it severs Bella from our standard notions of development or maturation. I guess some folks would've preferred the movie to throw in title cards in the vein of "BELLA. MENTAL AGE: 16" at any given scene? Spending your watch asking "How old is she supposed to be at this moment?" is just the wrong approach to it as the viewer is supposed (I think) to abandon all those preconceived ideas. It's also a cool way for the film, which is decidedly not a message movie, to smuggle a message about self-acceptance: you watch Bella's idiosyncratic transformations and get inspired by how non-judgmental she is about herself which hopefully makes you feel less bad about you taking your time to discover something or discovering something too quickly. That's the beauty of Stone's performance too: she's given a chance to depict Bella's arc in completely unique ways because the character progresses and changes on her own terms. What's so great about Stone is that at the end, after all her experiences and evolution through them, she still remains none other than Bella Baxter. She's not merely become a grown woman, she's showing us a blossomed version of that particular character. It's about as complete a portrayal as I can imagine.
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Mar 2, 2024 18:05:04 GMT
Wonderful, almost as terrific as The Favourite. Or maybe without the "almost". Or maybe even better. I just wish there was a way to tighten up the Paris segment a little ( not by cutting the sex scenes though - wtf is up with the prudishness I see from some on here? What are you, zoomers?) because it did start to feel just a tad baggy. But all in all this was fantastic - imaginative, ridiculous, visually stunning, funny, bizarre. Just like life itself (lazy cliché intended). But seriously, just as Paris, Texas gave me the feeling of wanting to just drop everything and start walking with the destination unknown, Poor Things really awakened an often dormant desire to try as many new experiences as possible. Brothels ahoy! I've long believed Emma Stone to be the best actress of her generation but with this and The Curse she has pretty much catapulted into the stratosphere. "Holy shit" is the phrase that comes to mind. And it's a joy to see Mark Ruffalo give the best performance of his career too. Down with the boring Ruffalo, yay to the nincompoop! Stone gives the best turn in the film, Ruffalo gives the funniest. A fair deal, especially when the winners are ultimately us. Seriously. Very zoomer-like. I am puzzled by the complaints about the sex scenes, saying they should be cut down. Why? Because it offends you? It never once seemed out of place to me when I watched the movie, so you may as well complain to me about fight scenes in an action film. Anyway, I loved the Favourite when I saw it, but outside of Colmann's brilliant performance, I don't think it has been nearly as memorable as this film will be. I absolutely loved it. Stone was great. Ruffalo was hilarious. But above all that, such amazing directorial work by Yorgos Lanthimos. It was naughty, inventive fun. I think it has replay value too. This is what we want out of movies today - fresh ideas, concepts, and new worlds.
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Post by sophiefox on Mar 5, 2024 23:30:00 GMT
Wonderful, almost as terrific as The Favourite. Or maybe without the "almost". Or maybe even better. I just wish there was a way to tighten up the Paris segment a little ( not by cutting the sex scenes though - wtf is up with the prudishness I see from some on here? What are you, zoomers?) because it did start to feel just a tad baggy. But all in all this was fantastic - imaginative, ridiculous, visually stunning, funny, bizarre. Just like life itself (lazy cliché intended). But seriously, just as Paris, Texas gave me the feeling of wanting to just drop everything and start walking with the destination unknown, Poor Things really awakened an often dormant desire to try as many new experiences as possible. Brothels ahoy! I've long believed Emma Stone to be the best actress of her generation but with this and The Curse she has pretty much catapulted into the stratosphere. "Holy shit" is the phrase that comes to mind. And it's a joy to see Mark Ruffalo give the best performance of his career too. Down with the boring Ruffalo, yay to the nincompoop! Stone gives the best turn in the film, Ruffalo gives the funniest. A fair deal, especially when the winners are ultimately us. Seriously. Very zoomer-like. I am puzzled by the complaints about the sex scenes, saying they should be cut down. Why? Because it offends you? It never once seemed out of place to me when I watched the movie, so you may as well complain to me about fight scenes in an action film. Anyway, I loved the Favourite when I saw it, but outside of Colmann's brilliant performance, I don't think it has been nearly as memorable as this film will be. I absolutely loved it. Stone was great. Ruffalo was hilarious. But above all that, such amazing directorial work by Yorgos Lanthimos. It was naughty, inventive fun. I think it has replay value too. This is what we want out of movies today - fresh ideas, concepts, and new worlds. yeah this, regarding the criticism of the sex scenes in this film. Bella's awakening to the world, to her own self and to her place in it is a complex one and of course, it's also going to be about her sexuality which just is an essential part of life. in this film, we see how Bella learns about all aspects of human life, interaction, relationship, love, grief, science, politics and how she approaches sex and sexuality in the same way she approaches everything in life - with a free spirit and an independent mind. she doesn't feel ashamed of her body and is not embarrassed of showing it. and once she encountered sex and how her body reacts to it, she just has so much fun having sex. why wouldn't she? sex is supposed to be fun and amazing. the entire human experience is so fascinating to her - and sex is an essential part of this very experience, not only for Bella on her very own personal journey, but for each and everyone of us, the audience. if Lanthimos had decided to cut down on the sex scenes, due to the moralistic fallacy that ignores sex as part of the human experience, it would have been not only a betrayal to the character of Bella and to crucial points of the story, but also a betrayal to everything Lanthimos' work at this point stands for, thematically, artistically and intellectually. that's why, yes, you put it so perfectly and i can't stress that enough: complaining about the sex scenes here in Lanthimos' life-affirming ode to humanity would be like complaining about fight scenes in action movies. it just doesn't make any sense.
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Post by Pavan on Mar 8, 2024 19:54:22 GMT
As far as self-discovery films go, this is a unique and mostly well fashioned film. It got me into its world very early and i was enjoying the journey, but the film becomes a little tedious in the middle portion but comes together as a rounded film albeit not very well. The lensing was disorienting at times but it fits the world here. It also gave the production design an otherworldly quality. Emma Stone is fantastic and i liked Dafoe but i'm not crazy on Ruffalo. He is meh. Overall i liked the film a lot minus its runtime (at least 10 min too long), tedious middle portion and occasionally dialed up tone.
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avnermoriarti
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Post by avnermoriarti on Mar 8, 2024 20:17:22 GMT
is the gender of the baby ever mentioned ?
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Post by ibbi on Mar 8, 2024 22:04:02 GMT
is the gender of the baby ever mentioned ? Never.
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avnermoriarti
Badass
Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
Posts: 2,390
Likes: 1,274
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Post by avnermoriarti on Mar 9, 2024 5:47:50 GMT
just rewatch it and true, is never adressed the gender of the baby, which for me kind of brings a whole new perspective to Bella as a whole. Here and everywhere I've seen comparisons to Barbie and how the film is what the other never could and all that but actually I think Poor Things is aiming for something different, while there's feminism on display, I think the (strongest) points of focus are more primal and presented in a primitive way (the countless and never sexy sex scenes are bringing new information). Somehow I think this has more in common with Titane rather than Barbie as Bella is presented as her own thing while navigating this fantasy utopia.
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