dazed
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Post by dazed on Feb 6, 2021 4:44:18 GMT
God damn this was great. I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish thanks to the sharp/energetic dialogue and powerhouse of acting. Zendaya was great throughout and had an an amazing monologue near the end, but holy shit JDW steals the show here. Not only one of the best performances of the year, but one of the best performances of the last ten years. The movie is beautiful to look at too, thanks to Levinson and Rév. As well as the production design. Also loved how much this movie went off on critics and liberal twitter.
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Post by pupdurcs on Feb 6, 2021 5:06:49 GMT
Yeah, my main takeaway from this is John David Washington is absolutely fucking incredible. This is a major, major performance, and I honestly would love to see it nominated for Best Actor (who to kick out though? What an incredible year for this category). Zendaya is very, very good in this, though her character comes off needlessly whiney and unsympathetic much of the time. But I think JDW easily steals the show. I can see BAFTA nominating him first just to troll his dad . But at this rate, he's going to win an Oscar in the next few years Cinematography is terrific, as is Levinson' s direction. The movie started with a flat out attack of film critics, so I can see why so many of them turned on it. Poor sensitive souls. LOL! But for a super-talky script, it was very engaging.
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Post by mhynson27 on Feb 6, 2021 5:09:06 GMT
Yeah, my main takeaway from this is John David Washington is absolutely fucking incredible. This is a major, major performance, and I honestly would love to see it nominated for Best Actor (who to kick out though? What an incredible year for this category). Zendaya is very, very good in this, though her character comes off needlessly whiney and unsympathetic much of the time. But I think JDW easily steals the show. I can see BAFTA nominating him first just to troll his dad . But at this rate, he's going to win an Oscar in the next few years Cinematography is terrific, as is Levinson' s direction. The movie started with a flat out attack of film critics, so I can see why so many of them turned on it. But for a super-talky script, it was very engaging. He could very well win Supporting next year for the David O. Russell joint.
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LaraQ
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English Rose
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Post by LaraQ on Feb 6, 2021 12:54:30 GMT
God damn this was great. I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish thanks to the sharp/energetic dialogue and powerhouse of acting. Zendaya was great throughout and had an an amazing monologue near the end, but holy shit JDW steals the show here. Not only one of the best performances of the year, but one of the best performances of the last ten years. The movie is beautiful to look at too, thanks to Levinson and Rév. As well as the production design. Also loved how much this movie went off on critics and liberal twitter. He was fantastic,the best he's ever been.Liked this way more than I thought I would.Zendaya was good but JDW was great.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Feb 6, 2021 13:37:10 GMT
Good cast but this movie bored me to death. Looked great and the two lead actors are surely the next big things in Hollywood but I really didn't care for what the movie wanted to show about these two characters and their arguments. And it was 30 mins too long for me. Like, shut up and have sex already!
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 6, 2021 15:06:42 GMT
It was ok. I didn’t hate but didn’t love it either. Doubt I’ll revisit this. Both performances were very good. I preferred JDW at first but by the end thought Zendaya stole the movie. I also found big stretched of the dialogue to be pretty bad tbh.
And the thing that bothered me the most was how long it took JDW to take off his tie, It’s 2am...at a minimum he’d loosen it up, c,mon!
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 6, 2021 15:09:03 GMT
Also, I’m not predicting it but with how long there is left for Oscar voting it’s wouldn’t be the biggest shock if either of the lead managed a surprise nom.
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Drish
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Post by Drish on Feb 6, 2021 15:14:00 GMT
And the thing that bothered me the most was how long it took JDW to take off his tie, It’s 2am...at a minimum he’d loosen it up, c,mon! Haha. Omg I had the same thing on my mind the entire time. 😂
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 6, 2021 15:37:47 GMT
6+/10 - Surprised by the mixed reviews here - this is pretty clearly an honorable failure - to me anyway......and it's a Cassavetes-lite too. This film feels VERRRRRRRRRRRRY long at less than 2 hours - at times this is bordering on unwatchable and more than that - to me it was unlistenable with way too much blah blah blah that reveals neither character or intent.
If you cut it down and just made it tighter - it would work far better. The acting is fine - good even - but not great - basically because this feels like a stunt - like neither of these people existed prior to this movie starting or has ever spent a single day which was just, you know, kind of normal.......and won't exist ever again. There's good stuff here but this is a formless and shapeless piece of work to me.
I like the idea here but this ain't Rowlands and Marley in Faces......then again if you haven't seen Rowlands and Marley in Faces you may not know what this movie is pretty clearly copping from.
A near miss imo....
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Post by quetee on Feb 6, 2021 23:27:23 GMT
Yeah, my main takeaway from this is John David Washington is absolutely fucking incredible. This is a major, major performance, and I honestly would love to see it nominated for Best Actor (who to kick out though? What an incredible year for this category). Zendaya is very, very good in this, though her character comes off needlessly whiney and unsympathetic much of the time. But I think JDW easily steals the show. I can see BAFTA nominating him first just to troll his dad . But at this rate, he's going to win an Oscar in the next few years Cinematography is terrific, as is Levinson' s direction. The movie started with a flat out attack of film critics, so I can see why so many of them turned on it. Poor sensitive souls. LOL! But for a super-talky script, it was very engaging. I remember people saying the same thing about BlacKKKlansman. I hope they do it just to show they petty AF.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 8, 2021 15:33:51 GMT
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Post by quetee on Feb 8, 2021 15:57:25 GMT
OMG that was funny.
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Post by quetee on Feb 8, 2021 16:54:18 GMT
Trending #3 on Netflix.
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Post by michael128 on Feb 8, 2021 21:01:27 GMT
Liked this a lot more than I thought I would. Also a little perplexed at the majority of people calling Zendaya the MVP? Are people being turned off by the character he’s playing perhaps? I thought JDW was absolutely fantastic whereas Zendaya was very good, but she had a handful of moments that were straight up amateur.
Also felt a little long. Could’ve shaved off about 15 mins.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 10, 2021 11:18:11 GMT
The whole movie I was like: I thought it was a lot of fun. It's a bit limited (by design) and a bit cyclical but very entertaning and quite well written. For a pandemic movie which was put together rather quickly, this actually felt like a fully realized, solid piece of work and not some sloppy hackjob slapped together hastily to cash in on the 'made during Covid' gimmick. A well-rounded, biting movie with sharp teeth, interesting thoughts and a very good dynamic between its fighting duo. Zendaya was very good but I found John David Washington to be just absolutely incredible. He's the one who should be in the thick of awards talk this prolonged season because this is a total tour-de-force. His rant about the LA Times reviews is something of EPIC proportions. I feel like he provides most of the film's humor too and does it ever so brilliantly. Such a great performance.
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Post by wilcinema on Feb 13, 2021 17:13:11 GMT
I hated it, from start to finish. I hated its pretentious ranting about art and film criticism and authenticity and whatever else it talked about, I hated that it wanted to make this grand statement in the style of Cassavetes (lol) and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf (a movie I intensely dislike but that was miles better than this shit), I even hated JDW's acting (where I saw his father's worst tendency of occasional chewing scenery), and I hated, hated, HATED that I pictured the director jerking off to his own film, because that's what it ultimately felt like to me.
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Post by michael128 on Feb 13, 2021 17:41:28 GMT
I hated it, from start to finish. I hated its pretentious ranting about art and film criticism and authenticity and whatever else it talked about, I hated that it wanted to make this grand statement in the style of Cassavetes (lol) and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf (a movie I intensely dislike but that was miles better than this shit), I even hated JDW's acting (where I saw his father's worst tendency of occasional chewing scenery), and I hated, hated, HATED that I pictured the director jerking off to his own film, because that's what it ultimately felt like to me. Then why did you picture him doing that??
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 15, 2021 0:52:42 GMT
Exhausting in the worst way. Two wholly unlikable characters doing nothing but spitting bile, taking gigantic leaps of faith to conclusions (that the film validates), and spewing some dime-store BS pop psychology.
I won't get into the oft-talked about issue of Levinson using writer's ventriloquism to have a black man voice fatigue over how his identity is the prism through which his art is most viewed. Or how male gaze-y a lot of the angles of Zendaya, legs on full display, lens near crotch-level, fucking having it the sole subject of a reflection whenever. Given the nature of this project, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of collaboration involved regarding the writing and the trust built with Zendaya specifically even if the buck ultimately stops with Levinson, so idk whose words or feelings are what or if it really is a matter of the artist dreaming of what others' lives may be like as the film puts it.
What I will directly criticize, though, is the film spending a good bit talking about mystery, intrigue, the stuff that makes art and relationships vibrant and alive while this movie does everything it can to shout out and underline every single line eighteen times. Could we get a few more passes on this script, please? Something to actually make the audience lean in? No, we need a soliloquy on how Marie is self-sabotaging and Malcolm is narcissistic. Then a kiss, someone leaves the room, rinse and repeat. How terribly uncinematic.
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Feb 15, 2021 10:38:59 GMT
This was absolutely excruciating. Sam Levinson is such an insufferable nepotism baby hack. I absolutely hated Assassination Nation and found Euphoria to be mostly a mess (the recent Christmas special with Zendaya is good) and that was due to Levinson's all-over-the-place over directing, his relentless male gazey fetishization of his underage characters, particularly trans characters (Assassination Nation and Euphoria have this in common). This fetishization continues with Zendaya here, who despite being in her 20s, comes off as being a teenager due to her extremely limited (and frankly bafflingly overpraised) acting skills and I never believed her character. I could mostly believe Zendaya as a lived drug user in Euphoria but the same can't be said of here. I found that backstory extremely unconvincing and handled poorly. John David Washington is certainly the better actor of the two but his Malcolm is so unlikeable and I suppose he embodies Levinson's text perfectly but I too thought he often rang false and was just completely overbearing.
This writing was just horrible. It was exhausting. The dialog was extremely on-the-nose, repetitive and quite frankly bad. And dialog is 99% of the damn film! Levinson sure thinks he's got something profound to say, but this was self-congratulatory, self-masturbatory and just frankly all out bad. He just keeps beating you over the head with same beats again and again and again. It feels like a student film extended into a feature length.
In short, I absolutely loathed it.
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Post by michael128 on Feb 17, 2021 5:09:33 GMT
Do characters have to be likeable for you to enjoy a film?? Such a bizarre sentiment I’ve seen expressed at least twice in this thread.
Sounds like most of you just have a problem with the director. Here’s a tip: get off Twitter. What does his race have to do with the end product? I wasn’t aware of his race when I watched it and I thought it was a great film.
Since everyone seems to be so interested in skin colour, the film was executively produced by two black humans. It’s also my understanding that the director wrote this movie alongside Zendaya. (She’s black, for those keeping score)
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Post by michael128 on Feb 17, 2021 5:09:53 GMT
Zendaya did suck though.
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Post by michael128 on Feb 17, 2021 5:28:35 GMT
Exhausting in the worst way. Two wholly unlikable characters doing nothing but spitting bile, taking gigantic leaps of faith to conclusions (that the film validates), and spewing some dime-store BS pop psychology. I won't get into the oft-talked about issue of Levinson using writer's ventriloquism to have a black man voice fatigue over how his identity is the prism through which his art is most viewed. Or how male gaze-y a lot of the angles of Zendaya, legs on full display, lens near crotch-level, fucking having it the sole subject of a reflection whenever. Given the nature of this project, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of collaboration involved regarding the writing and the trust built with Zendaya specifically even if the buck ultimately stops with Levinson, so idk whose words or feelings are what or if it really is a matter of the artist dreaming of what others' lives may be like as the film puts it. What I will directly criticize, though, is the film spending a good bit talking about mystery, intrigue, the stuff that makes art and relationships vibrant and alive while this movie does everything it can to shout out and underline every single line eighteen times. Could we get a few more passes on this script, please? Something to actually make the audience lean in? No, we need a soliloquy on how Marie is self-sabotaging and Malcolm is narcissistic. Then a kiss, someone leaves the room, rinse and repeat. How terribly uncinematic. What. The. Fuck. Zendaya is a grown ass woman capable of making her own choices. Do you have any evidence to support your incredibly misogynistic claims? From what I’ve seen she has been nothing but supportive of the end product THAT SHE PRODUCED. God forbid a black woman express her sexuality. I hate Zendaya but I just couldn’t stand by and let your revolting post go unopposed like that.
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Post by michael128 on Feb 17, 2021 5:32:06 GMT
Exhausting in the worst way. Two wholly unlikable characters doing nothing but spitting bile, taking gigantic leaps of faith to conclusions (that the film validates), and spewing some dime-store BS pop psychology. I won't get into the oft-talked about issue of Levinson using writer's ventriloquism to have a black man voice fatigue over how his identity is the prism through which his art is most viewed. Or how male gaze-y a lot of the angles of Zendaya, legs on full display, lens near crotch-level, fucking having it the sole subject of a reflection whenever. Given the nature of this project, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of collaboration involved regarding the writing and the trust built with Zendaya specifically even if the buck ultimately stops with Levinson, so idk whose words or feelings are what or if it really is a matter of the artist dreaming of what others' lives may be like as the film puts it. What I will directly criticize, though, is the film spending a good bit talking about mystery, intrigue, the stuff that makes art and relationships vibrant and alive while this movie does everything it can to shout out and underline every single line eighteen times. Could we get a few more passes on this script, please? Something to actually make the audience lean in? No, we need a soliloquy on how Marie is self-sabotaging and Malcolm is narcissistic. Then a kiss, someone leaves the room, rinse and repeat. How terribly uncinematic. You “won’t get into” a discussion regarding serious issues such as race and sexism, yet the longest paragraph of your post is a superficial take on those subjects. Get outta here
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 17, 2021 12:00:50 GMT
michael128 I gave Levinson an out on allegations of sexism and racism that I've seen others lay on the film specifically because I assumed Zendaya and probably Washington as well provided their own input on the direction of the final product, even if Levinson by virtue of being writer/director/producer ultimately had more say. And if he didn't, then the film forgot to thank its co-creators for all they've done.
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