The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

I just got passes for a screening on Monday. I loved Drive but didn't really like Only God Forgives.

Hoping I'll like this one.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2016 09:06

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:19

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Josh Lyman posted:

I just got passes for a screening on Monday. I loved Drive but didn't really like Only God Forgives.

Hoping I'll like this one.

Saw it earlier tonight. Most of the people in the theater were freeloaders who just wanted to see a free movie and had audible reactions like plebeian scum.

I liked it a LOT more than Only God Forgives. Very excellent.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2016 07:40

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

General Dog posted:

It's supposed to be weird that everybody who meets Elle Fanning is so enraptured with her, right? I know beauty is subjective, but it's hard for me to look at her, and look at everyone else in the movie and think "this girl is objectively next-level, otherworldly beautiful". I don't think I'm meant to. So what is it that they see in her? Is she really just fresh meat?

I saw it in a free screening so it was full of ignorant plebs, and in the scene where she tries out for the catwalk gig, someone a couple rows behind me loudly proclaimed, "I don't get it."

Anal Surgery posted:

I took it to be that people obsessed over her youth rather than her beauty. So much of the film revolves around fear of aging and mortality that I thought it was Elle's babyish face that was hooking people

One thing that kept turning over in my head is that the other 2 models, they would generally be considered very attractive models.

Elle, while certainly attractive, doesn't have that stereotypical model look. And maybe that's part of her allure?

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 03:04

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Cardboard Box A posted:

Youth and innocence. They wish to corrupt and/or devour her because of it.

But then what makes her different from any other 16-year-old model?

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 05:18

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Rageaholic Monkey posted:

Jesse isn't really all that special, no more so than the other models, except for the fact that she's fresh blood and super naive. But she's told she's special, and she believes it so much that it goes to her head and corrupts her.

I was under the impression she had it in her head before she moved to LA. When the other model says "that feeling when you walk into a room", presumably Elle has more experience with that than just a week.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 22:05

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Rageaholic Monkey posted:

Well when she's talking to Dean up on the hill at night, she says she's from Georgia. So I assumed she fled from Georgia to LA to become a model, and Dean contacts her online and says he wants to take pictures of her, so she could've just made her way out there for that because she saw it as an in. Her parents are dead and she knows she's pretty and she can profit from it, so she's quick to jump on any opportunity she can related to that, no matter how predatory those opportunities seem. But I didn't really get the feeling from Fanning's portrayal that she had done this before. She may have turned some heads because of her girl next door look back in Georgia, but I doubt she'd ever done what the other models had. She plays it so awkwardly, and she transforms throughout the course of the film, but even by the end, I still thought she was just a kid and was in over her head.

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.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 23:28

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

THORIUM posted:

Still not sure why everyone is so sold on witchcraft having to do with anything here? Did they light a bunch of candles and make a ritualistic sacrifice? No. They just ate the girl.

Agreed. It never occurred to me while watching and I think it's an incorrect reading.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 16:29

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.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 21:17

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.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 10:27

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Peter Travers called it "a special kind of awful" which is a pretty glowing endorsement if you ask me.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 20:53

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

It really baffles me how terrible goons can be at watching movies. I'm pretty bad and even I never confused any of the characters.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2016 22:21

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Is it so strange to collect movies of someone you like? I mean, it's a little different than liking a director but not so crazy.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 10:11

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Magic Hate Ball posted:

By foot size, surely.

Hey now, there's nothing wrong with having a foot fetish. Even the head coach of the Buffalo Bills has it

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 02:06

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Glad to see another movie where the lesbian is a psycho rapist.

Why can't she be pan sexual?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 19:28

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Halloween Jack posted:

Guys, I told you, Keanu is the one who fucks the mountain lion.

The 13 year old next door was actually the mountain lion tranquilized.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 19:39

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

So she's getting hosed by the wild (cougar)?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 20:14

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Paragon8 posted:

I would have liked to see the supernatural elements coalesce a little more. I kind of wish the movie ended with Sarah saying "I ate her"

That would work great as a season finale on Lost but for a movie, we needed time to digest the fact they didn't simply kill her, which was at least my understanding until then.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2016 22:24

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

I bet he set it in LA just so he could have that stupid cougar scene.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2016 23:24

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 13:19

Josh Lyman: May 24, 2009

Now whenever I see Abbey Lee, the one who ate the eyeball at the end, I get this feeling of sickness in the back of my throat.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2016 11:41

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn