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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!
Now that I think about it, Bava's early work was also confusing with regard to the whole "Is she a witch or a vampire or both and maybe also a ghost or something?" issue.

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Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames
I don't think they were witches. I just think they were hosed up, sadistic people.

Hahaha this is awful, but when leaving the theater, the first thing my buddy says is, "They should have just named it 'Cunts: The Movie'."

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


THORIUM posted:

I don't think they were witches. I just think they were hosed up, sadistic people.

Hahaha this is awful, but when leaving the theater, the first thing my buddy says is, "They should have just named it 'Cunts: The Movie'."
Probably would have gotten more controvery/publicity that way.

GonSmithe
Apr 25, 2010

Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space.

THORIUM posted:

I don't think they were witches. I just think they were hosed up, sadistic people.

Hahaha this is awful, but when leaving the theater, the first thing my buddy says is, "They should have just named it 'Cunts: The Movie'."

It doesn't matter if they were actual witches or not, the imagery and the way they ritualistically eat her is evocative of witchcraft.

GonSmithe fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 28, 2016

Magic Hate Ball
May 6, 2007

ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this
Three older women killing a new girl and eating her/bathing in her blood to acquire her youthful essence is like, the stock standard witch story.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames
Witch stories aren't scary though.

Magic Hate Ball
May 6, 2007

ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this
In a deleted scene, we see them signing a form with the Neon Demon, thus qualifying them legally in the state of Dream California that they are, indeed, registered witches and not fake witches.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames
Witches aren't hot as poo poo and they don't take lezzy showers together, blood covered or not.

Vegetable
Oct 22, 2010

The screenplay for this movie is so loving bad. Some of the lines, my god.

Refn should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

That Dang Dad
Apr 23, 2003

Well I am
over-fucking-whelmed...
Young Orc
So, do you think the end of the film has kind of a Hegelian thing going on? (sorry everyone, I'm being that guy)


The three gals consume Jesse to steal her youth and beauty or whatever. Or just to continue the way things have always been in Los Angeles.

Sarah is the Thesis, consuming the young and becoming more beautiful and noticed by the photographer, propping up the system as it is.
Gigi is the Antithesis, unable to handle having Jesse inside of her, unable to hold it together trying to get rid of Jesse, eventually killing herself.
Ruby would then be the Synthesis, consuming the young, but letting it pass through her peacefully on a moonlit night. Is this a "new way"?


If that reading holds (and I'm still working on it), it makes me wonder what the "synthesis" means for the denizens of Los Angeles. It feels like Ruby would represent a hopeful step forward, but the Neon Demon doesn't strike me as a hopeful film.

(My knowledge of Hegel is limited to Philosophize This podcasts and Zizek videos, so feel free to call me out on that!)

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Vegetable posted:

The screenplay for this movie is so loving bad. Some of the lines, my god.

Refn should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

*in Maude Lebowski voice* The story is ludicrous

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!

Anal Surgery posted:

So, do you think the end of the film has kind of a Hegelian thing going on? (sorry everyone, I'm being that guy)


The three gals consume Jesse to steal her youth and beauty or whatever. Or just to continue the way things have always been in Los Angeles.

Sarah is the Thesis, consuming the young and becoming more beautiful and noticed by the photographer, propping up the system as it is.
Gigi is the Antithesis, unable to handle having Jesse inside of her, unable to hold it together trying to get rid of Jesse, eventually killing herself.
Ruby would then be the Synthesis, consuming the young, but letting it pass through her peacefully on a moonlit night. Is this a "new way"?


If that reading holds (and I'm still working on it), it makes me wonder what the "synthesis" means for the denizens of Los Angeles. It feels like Ruby would represent a hopeful step forward, but the Neon Demon doesn't strike me as a hopeful film.

(My knowledge of Hegel is limited to Philosophize This podcasts and Zizek videos, so feel free to call me out on that!)
The world the characters operate in is buoyed by a steady supply of women like Jesse to defile and consume. The differences between how Sarah, Gigi, and Ruby deal with it are hopeful for Ruby, perhaps, but not for the future of the world.

GonSmithe
Apr 25, 2010

Perhaps it's in the nature of television. Just waves in space.
Can we all agree the best part of the movie is the lip twitch at the end? Because that was loving hilarious.

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender

THORIUM posted:

Witches aren't hot as poo poo and they don't take lezzy showers together, blood covered or not.

Um excuse me

justlikedunkirk
Dec 24, 2006

Josh Lyman posted:

My only complaint coming out of the film was a disconnect between movie time and real time. Jesse definitely seemed like an ingenue at the beginning, but her transformation, specifically in that scene where she shruggs off her "boyfriend" at the restaurant, seemed to happen too quickly from the viewer's perspective, like there needed to be 15 minutes of scenes in between.

I thought this was pretty obvious. She's this doe-eyed, innocent virgin who doesn't understand the ruthlessness of the business or how good-looking she is. The photoshoot with the creepy Terry Richardson guy makes her start becoming aware of her own beauty/power, which gets followed by the audition for that designer (her attempt to be supportive/sympathetic is met with getting her hand sliced open and Sarah trying to drink her blood). Once she does the fashion show with Gigi and gets picked to close, she sees the triangles (I guess this is the neon demon in the title?), sees herself in them making out with her own reflection, and then switches over to the 'darker' personality (which is symbolized with the shift from blue to red in the film's colours). At that point she becomes fully aware/accepting of her power, and turns into the narcissistic/icy personality for the rest of the movie.

I didn't think this was done too quickly, they dedicated an entire ridiculous sequence to it and started that build from the beginning of the movie. I think the issue is that it doesn't feel earned or "natural" (hard to use that word given how hyperstylized all of it is, but I'm talking about the progression).

Yoshifan823
Feb 19, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

GonSmithe posted:

Can we all agree the best part of the movie is the lip twitch at the end? Because that was loving hilarious.

Best part? No. Hilarious? Hell yeah.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames

Yoshifan823 posted:

Best part? No. Hilarious? Hell yeah.

Best part was Special Agent Utah hassling the pedobro the shower scene

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

Vegetable posted:

The screenplay for this movie is so loving bad. Some of the lines, my god.

Refn should stick to directing other people's screenplays.

"Are you food, or sex?" is my favorite line in a movie in a long time. Also everything Keanu Reeves says. And "Beauty isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing" is really funny in a Refn movie. I didn't love the movie, but it's got some spectacular lines.

GonSmithe posted:

Can we all agree the best part of the movie is the lip twitch at the end? Because that was loving hilarious.
Best visual joke definitely.

Carly Gay Dead Son
Aug 27, 2007

Bonus.
I dug this, Suspiria meets Dorian Gray meets 3 Women kind of thing.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!
Dorian Gray, the Dallamano version? I've been meaning to see that. The library here has a surprising collection of Italian 60s and 70s stuff.

Carly Gay Dead Son
Aug 27, 2007

Bonus.

Halloween Jack posted:

Dorian Gray, the Dallamano version? I've been meaning to see that. The library here has a surprising collection of Italian 60s and 70s stuff.

Nah I just meant the book, which I read maybe 60% of in high school.

eats-almonds
Jun 30, 2016
I saw this the other night and because no one was going to see it, they threw it up in theatre 7 with the broken bass speaker, ugh.

I haven't yet seen any of Refn's other movies, I have a real bad habit of never seeing movies with a lot of hype.

Reading this thread did help me with the catwalk scene, which kinda went over my head, and does sort of help put into perspective the weird pacing when Jessie becomes mean, the scene could have definitely conveyed a passage of time, as well as the change in Jessie

I also didn't think I was going to like this because I have a hard time liking movies when characters aren't relatable, and I don't relate to the fashion world AT ALL. But I can tell I'm growing out of that, it offered alot of good stuff on beauty and how it relates to purity. Maybe a bit heavy handed but still, real nice.

Mechafunkzilla
Sep 11, 2006

If you want a vision of the future...
I did not particularly enjoy watching this film, but I did like it. It functions well as a misanthropic fable.

Easily my least favorite Refn film, though. There wasn't much to any of the characters.

Mechafunkzilla
Sep 11, 2006

If you want a vision of the future...
What I really want now is a Pusher-style film about Keanu's character.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames

Mechafunkzilla posted:

There wasn't much to any of the characters.

I feel like this was due to the incredibly accurate portrayal of individuals who work in the fashion world.

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender
Ahaha I just learned Refn is colourblind.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

IM_DA_DECIDER posted:

Ahaha I just learned Refn is colourblind.

When I learned this, everything about the way all of his movies looks makes perfect sense.

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum
I believe a direct quote from him was something like "if I didn't make movies with so much contrast I wouldn't be able to see them"

Kaedric
Sep 5, 2000

Hm, I usually love NWR but I felt kind of bored with this one (and I loved Valhalla Rising) for about the last third of the movie. Also the loud rear end punching sound from the other model whacking her at the end was really jarring and a little comical. Not to mention the (I felt) over the top 'squishy'/gross sounds during the necro scene and with the eyeball. I am not grossed out by stuff, it's just that it sounded too fake, like someone stuck their hand in a bowl of spaghetti. Maybe my theater's sound was up too loud?

I really liked Ruby.

EDIT: Oh and the song during the credits owned.

King Vidiot
Feb 17, 2007

You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

MinibarMatchman posted:

Keanu Reeves assaults the 13 yr old next door .

I got to thinking about that part after watching it today, and I thought that there was a possibility that that wasn't actually Keanu assaulting her, it was the photographer that Jesse snubbed earlier.

Yes, we see Keanu assaulting Jesse in a dream just before that but in the dream he quietly unlocks the door with the key he has. Compare that to how it occurs in reality, the intruder struggles with just the lock on the knob, and then Jesse goes to latch the deadbolt which was not latched. If it were Keanu, then he'd have quietly unlocked the non-deadbolted door or at least tried his key first before struggling with the doorknob.

It wasn't necessarily the photographer but I don't think it was Keanu either.

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender

King Vidiot posted:

I got to thinking about that part after watching it today, and I thought that there was a possibility that that wasn't actually Keanu assaulting her, it was the photographer that Jesse snubbed earlier.

Yes, we see Keanu assaulting Jesse in a dream just before that but in the dream he quietly unlocks the door with the key he has. Compare that to how it occurs in reality, the intruder struggles with just the lock on the knob, and then Jesse goes to latch the deadbolt which was not latched. If it were Keanu, then he'd have quietly unlocked the non-deadbolted door or at least tried his key first before struggling with the doorknob.

It wasn't necessarily the photographer but I don't think it was Keanu either.

I had the same thought , there's really no indication that Keanu is doing anything wrong. The photographer doesn't seem like a violent predator, so my guess is random cannibal fashion witch.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

King Vidiot posted:

I got to thinking about that part after watching it today, and I thought that there was a possibility that that wasn't actually Keanu assaulting her, it was the photographer that Jesse snubbed earlier.

Yes, we see Keanu assaulting Jesse in a dream just before that but in the dream he quietly unlocks the door with the key he has. Compare that to how it occurs in reality, the intruder struggles with just the lock on the knob, and then Jesse goes to latch the deadbolt which was not latched. If it were Keanu, then he'd have quietly unlocked the non-deadbolted door or at least tried his key first before struggling with the doorknob.

It wasn't necessarily the photographer but I don't think it was Keanu either.

As seen earlier in the film, he's really, really bad at opening doors.

Preston Waters
May 21, 2010

by VideoGames
So I don't think the following reviewer would like that alt title I mentioned, "Cunts: The Movie."

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12024924/neon-demon-review-refn-necrophilia-scene

That One Girl in Undergrad posted:

The Neon Demon tries to both fetishize and vilify young girls. It fails.
It's a film about women, made by a man, that misunderstands and misrepresents women on every level.
Updated by Kayleigh Hughes on June 25, 2016, 9:30 a.m. ET


Viewers first encounter the protagonist of The Neon Demon in a precarious position. The young girl, thin and pale and blank, lays prone on a chaise longue, drenched in blood. She is wearing a party dress. Her throat is slit, the blood coagulating thick and dark, and the camera takes its time sliding across her body and zooming out. There is loud electronic music.

The girl is 16-year-old Jessie, played with a soft and steadfast confidence by Elle Fanning. She is not dead but rather modeling, and the film follows her dark journey through the Los Angeles fashion industry, where she quickly learns that her natural beauty is the rare kind that will open all the right doors and turn all the right heads — as well as the wrong ones.
The film comes from director Nicolas Winding Refn, known most widely for 2011’s stylish and adrenaline-fueled surprise hit Drive. With this latest effort, Refn paints a lurid, confused portrait of girlhood and the fashion industry that is flashy, loud, and gory but unfortunately fails at all turns to touch on anything close to truth.

During a recent roundtable interview, Refn spoke with me about how The Neon Demon subverts traditional expectations of men and women. He told me that "the males were written as the girlfriends of other movies." And in an interview with Vulture, he declared the film "beyond feminist" because it is "all about women."

The problem with this statement is that neither The Neon Demon nor Refn seems to actually understand women. At all.

In addition to Jessie, who feels more like a wounded male’s idea of a 16-year-old girl — pure, soft-spoken and alluring, calculated and threatening in her self-awareness — the film also introduces us to Jena Malone’s Ruby, a gentle but intense and secretive makeup artist who immediately develops a strong interest in the young girl. As the film progresses, Ruby makes a series of less and less realistic decisions that undermine her character work while doing some notable damage to queer representation in media.

Elsewhere, Christina Hendricks is a bright spot, giving a solid, satirical take on an agent, but her expository scene is all too brief. Finally, we have a bevy of models jealous of how easily Jessie rises through the ranks of the industry. These bitter, beautiful people, scowling and slithering, are pure stereotype, their dialogue sounding like nothing I’ve ever heard come out of a real woman’s mouth.

A film made by a man that is entirely about men but understands its characters and represents them accurately — both as members of their gender and as unique individuals — is much less a failure to women than a film about women, made by a man, which misunderstands and misrepresents women on every level, repulsively warping the ways they engage with the world and why.

At one point in The Neon Demon, Jessie tells a story about how her mother used to call her "a dangerous girl." She was right, Jessie says, "I am dangerous."

It’s a common narrative. Young girls are raised to believe that their appearance makes them dangerous. That they "look like trouble." That their bare shoulders will distract boys from learning. That ungluing their knees from one another when they are sitting is both a threat to men and an invitation. These are lies. But The Neon Demon believes they are universal truths, which makes it difficult to take seriously.

What makes Refn’s best work (see: Drive) so successful is a combination of energy and well-modulated tone. Certainly his direction has always been notable for its emphasis on style, but as he would surely say himself, style can be awfully empty. If a film’s only goal is to be stylish, it might as well be a music video, and that’s what most of The Neon Demon feels like: a collection of flashy, colorful, high-concept music videos for songs that are dragged down by at least a couple of minutes of dull, self-satisfied noodling instrumental filler.

At one minute shy of two hours, the film is far too long and indulgent; the narrative is a meandering, joyless mess. During the roundtable, Refn admitted to that, in a sense, explaining that the protagonist and antagonist switch at the halfway point — which also marks the switch from "melodrama" to "horror film" — but that doesn’t make the tonal and narrative transitions any more graceful or, frankly, logical.

The result is a series of disconnected vignettes. In one moment, The Neon Demon is a bloated, hallucinatory prep session for a runway show; then it’s a smiley face with Xs for eyes being resentfully scrawled onto a mirror with lipstick. (Refn’s female characters spend an inordinate amount of time gazing into mirrors.) All of a sudden, we’re supposed to be invested in side characters who, just like that, have become sadistic protagonists.

Meanwhile, the thread of Keanu Reeves’s motel owner character, a grotesque individual who makes vile sexual noises at Jessie and encourages her boyfriend to direct his attention to a 13-year-old girl in the next room ("real Lolita poo poo," he says), is mysteriously dropped in favor of brutalizing girl-on-girl body horror, right around the time he escalates his behavior to far more terrifyingly villainous acts. (You’d be tempted to call him a caricature, if not for the upsetting truth that men exactly like him are plentiful in the real world.)

Whatever horrors men can inflict on women, The Neon Demon tells us, are no match for what cruelties women will commit against each other because they’re pretty and narcissistic.

If you’ve seen the film’s trailer or know anything about Refn as a director, you know there’s going to be blood. Refn is giddy for shock tactics, positively gleeful over the reaction this film — with its "cannibalism," "lesbian necrophilia" and "deep-throating [of] a knife" — has received so far.

However, the only truly shocking thing about The Neon Demon is how Refn, a middle-aged straight white man with wealth, power, and influence, can be so absolutely convinced that it’s young girls who are the real threat in today’s beauty-obsessed society.

.........

This entire review absolutely slays me. She is so so very angry, and she doesn't understand the film at all -- only superficially (hint hint).

eats-almonds
Jun 30, 2016

THORIUM posted:

So I don't think the following reviewer would like that alt title I mentioned, "Cunts: The Movie."

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12024924/neon-demon-review-refn-necrophilia-scene


This entire review absolutely slays me. She is so so very angry, and she doesn't understand the film at all -- only superficially (hint hint).

I don't agree that this film is beyond feminist, or at least I'm confused by what that means... But ya this person is kind of a dumb dumb. If it was actually Refn's intention to paint all women with the same brush of narcissism and whatnot then, yes, he is a douche bag. But I'm very sure that's not the case, and I'm very sure the person misread the film. Its sort of confusing to me that people confuse media or art that contains sexist content as sexist itself. We live in a sexist world, and it only makes sense that it would be reflected in our media and art.

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


When content needs to drive clicks in an outrage culture, it can be hard to tell who's facetious, sincere, or just stupid.

That Dang Dad
Apr 23, 2003

Well I am
over-fucking-whelmed...
Young Orc

eats-almonds posted:

I don't agree that this film is beyond feminist, or at least I'm confused by what that means... But ya this person is kind of a dumb dumb. If it was actually Refn's intention to paint all women with the same brush of narcissism and whatnot then, yes, he is a douche bag. But I'm very sure that's not the case, and I'm very sure the person misread the film. Its sort of confusing to me that people confuse media or art that contains sexist content as sexist itself. We live in a sexist world, and it only makes sense that it would be reflected in our media and art.

Yeah, I thought the entire film highlighted just how toxic the male gaze was, how it twisted and warped and destroyed things. That was kind of the cheeky irony of making it about lesbian vampire models: the real dark poo poo was the men making it all possible.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

"a series of less and less realistic decisions" is pretty funny.

DLC Inc
Jun 1, 2011

that's not the best written review ever but I can understand why people would be upset at this movie if the director said it was "beyond feminist" because lol at that designation. "Men are just the boyfriends" is a hollow line especially once the girl in the motel gets assaulted after the dream about Keanu Reeves. If anything it shows that both sexes are equally dangerous to Jessie.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!

THORIUM posted:

So I don't think the following reviewer would like that alt title I mentioned, "Cunts: The Movie."

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12024924/neon-demon-review-refn-necrophilia-scene


This entire review absolutely slays me. She is so so very angry, and she doesn't understand the film at all -- only superficially (hint hint).
Reading this review is like watching someone stare at a door with an exit sign over it, blink a few times in confusion, then turn 90 degrees and run as fast as they can face-first into a concrete wall.

So tonight I'm going to show my wife The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

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King Vidiot
Feb 17, 2007

You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

A True Jar Jar Fan posted:

As seen earlier in the film, he's really, really bad at opening doors.

Yeah, you're right. The fact that it's that door in particular giving him problems would suggest that it's him.

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