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Post by stephen on Aug 11, 2018 22:43:57 GMT
There's not a whole lot I can really say about this one. It's handsomely shot and evokes the era of 1969 quite well, and Jason Clarke is extremely well-cast as Ted Kennedy. I kinda applaud the film for trying to straddle the middle on a story like this, trying to show both the seedy nature of the whole situation and the way that the Kennedys tried to close ranks and manage the entire narrative, but at the same time seeing how it affects Kennedy himself and making you wonder whether he did indeed feel guilt and needed to be assuaged of it, only to be confronted by the harsh reality that he was his family's "last hope" for greatness. But I don't feel the film went the extra mile in either respect, failing to indict or to acquit, and we're left really with very little to go on except to see how one of the greatest political dynasties collapsed not with the bang of an assassin's bullet, but the splash of a car tipping into a river.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 11, 2018 23:51:15 GMT
I think honestly its the best film I've seen this year in a theater and it's only a 7.5 but it was at least cogent and not muddled in what it was saying (which I can not say about Hereditary (which I liked) and BlacKkKlansman (so-so) - I haven't seen a lot so far obviously).
I liked the aspect of Teddy as a haunted character seen through his family and the Ed Helms character - a guy who has seen and felt tragedy with Joe and John and Bobby - but this time he's caused tragedy and he is ill equipped to handle that on any level. Not as a husband, a politician, a man............. Maybe I'm being too lenient but I thought it was achingly sad in the respect and stuck with me.
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Post by Viced on Aug 12, 2018 0:48:35 GMT
Probably the most underrated movie of the year so far. It does an extremely good job of doing what it set out to do... Clarke is excellent, Ed Helms (who I usually don't like much even when he's in his wheelhouse) was shockingly good...
And emo-Ted with the fake neck brace on was some of the funniest shit I've seen in a while.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 12, 2018 12:35:57 GMT
When I saw BlacKkKlansman I was reminded of Chappaquidick because so few American films address politics at all (and never class, we leave that to Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, in America we're all rich and of equal class. Sarcasm.)
One film took a very famous incident and used it to tell a very specific story with relatively few thematic tangents - the onset of modern political/TV "spin" and how we now see that all time time was addressed in Chappaquidick. The other film, BlacKkKlansman took a relatively obscure by comparison true event and used it to not just talk about race but also as a launching pad for digressions into race in American film (from the first scene), anti-semitism, and the responsibility of discussing race in personal relationships too.
One film maybe doesn't try to do enough, the other maybe tries to do too much depending on your POV.
It would be nice to see a contemporary political film instead of ones set in the past that tries to fit our own time - although in lieu of that, both kinds are better than none.
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