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jivjov posted:Saw this at Alamo tonight...I'll try to formulate up some deeper thoughts later...but man, it's was just a brutal film. I felt physically drained after watching it. Highly recommended when I first saw it at a film festival a month back, I described it as the funniest movie that'll leave you completely shaken by the end.
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Nov 22, 2017 15:49
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I've never seen an audience go from laughing to dead silent so fast as when they cut right to the pictures of the daughter's body in the case file. Yeah that's a really well-timed cut, it got gasps both times I saw it. This ending for me is the new No Country for Old Men ending, where I feel like half the people who see it are gonna hate it but you can safely disregard those people.
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Nov 23, 2017 00:55
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Magic Hate Ball posted:That scene didn't work for the audience I was with at all because everyone laughed when it happened. ngl that is a very strange audience reaction
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Nov 27, 2017 22:04
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Different audiences have different energies. For sure, that's still bizarre though. I saw the movie twice with two very different audiences (a film festival crowd and a general release art house crowd - film festival crowd was way better) and both times that bit got gasps.
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Nov 27, 2017 22:18
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It’s not bizarre if you have an audience that’s really enjoying the black comedy elements, and it can easily scan as a moment of shocking, dark hilarity. You seem to be taking this scene really personally. Film festival audience was super into the black comedy bits. Not sure where you're going with the "you seem to be taking this personally" thing, I'm just observing that laughter is a weird reaction to that scene.
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Nov 27, 2017 22:25
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It's a less extreme example but it just reminds me of stuff like all the stories of people cracking up at Hateful Eight showings when JJL got punched in the face or people dropped racial slurs on Samuel Jackson. Which is to say, I can see it in a "nervous laughter" type way but not a "now that's funny!" type way. I guess i have been in crowds where if a movie has a lot of jokes, they get so into laughing that they also laugh at ings that aren't jokes.
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Nov 27, 2017 22:35
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Equating laughing at a dark comedy scene with laughing at a racial slur is really loving weird of you, ngl. Okay dude I apologize for calling your audience weird, willing to entertain the possibility that I am also weird
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Nov 27, 2017 22:41
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Well, it's interesting because I think that's why the film's turns towards more earnest drama fell flat for me, because that key scene in particular failed to act as a signal that the story would be shifting its genres. I'd kinda like to see it again because it might land better with a different audience - the whole second half felt incoherent, and someone behind me said "oh..." in a really puzzled voice when the credits came up. I do earnestly think that this film needed another script pass to trim it down and assemble itself better, particularly in organizing its own allegiances for and against its characters. McDonagh cripples himself by playing so fast and loose with an ensemble cast, which makes the turns of character that could be dramatic feel simply like comical flip-flops and muddles the ending. Or at least it did for the audience of psychopaths I saw it with. I can definitely see how it plays different with a different audience. Like I said, the general release audience I saw it with was way less fun than the film festival audience - it was a very art-house crowd and they seemed to be treating it as a Very Serious Movie with some jokes as opposed to the caustic black comedy that it is. Disagree on the second half feeling incoherent though. I'm curious what you mean by "allegiances for and against its characters". I don't really see the film as having any, or needing any. That's part of what I like about it actually, although I can see why it turns some people off.
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Nov 28, 2017 02:15
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I was going to write something less productive but actually I'd really prefer just to hear your interpretation of the last half. How are we meant to take her decision to decide, on the road, whether or not to kill the rapist? Is the soft-hearted drama meant to be funny, or sad? My sense was that McDonagh was aiming to trick the audience by making them think she was on her way to redemption, before pulling the rug out and saying "haha, just kidding, she learned the wrong lesson and now she's a misguided vigilante. I just couldn't tell why we were assaulted with multiple soft-country interludes, if they weren't meant to be parodic. Aaaack most of my reply got deleted but lemme try and more or less recreate it: Like most of McDonagh's stuff, particularly his movies, it's supposed to be both funny and sad. I don't think McDonagh is trying to trick the audience at all. I do think that he is pointedly denying the audience the catharsis they want or expect not just from the mystery, which isn't solved, but from the revenge, which not only do we not get to see and take part in, we don't even know if it occurs at all - clearly neither Dixon or Mildred really have their hearts in it at the end, and it seems equally likely they'll turn around and call it off as go out in a Rolling Thunder style blaze of glory. If I had to pin it down to one thesis or statement (which I don't really wanna do, because I like the ambiguity of it), it's that if someone is dealing with a loss so great, you really can't say for them what's the right way or the wrong way to deal with it As far as the country interludes, I didn't catch this on my first viewing, but they take place at the beginning and end and are both different versions of the same Townes Van Zandt song, one which deals heavily with feelings of losing someone and how the singer is dealing with those feelings or failing to, so I think they make nice bookends to the movie and to Mildred's shifting feelings on losing her daughter. At any rate, I think they're sincere. Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Nov 28, 2017 |
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Nov 28, 2017 04:16
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Tumble posted:I don't think the ending was quite as ambiguous as people are making it out to be. The guy they're driving to Idaho to possibly murder was the same guy that came into the store to threaten Mildred and make a suspicious remark to her, and he really had no reason for even being in town other than being triggered by the billboards. Sure, the DNA didn't match that guy, but Angela was lit on fire so it could just mean his DNA was destroyed. Also, his CO could just be covering for him or even in on it too. Dixon is also known to use violence to get his answers; thematically I think it makes sense for their trip to Idaho to be correct - I think it's implied that Dixon is going to beat a confession out of the guy. The implication is that he raped, tortured and murdered someone in Iraq or Afghanistan and the military covered it up (or, like a lot of crimes during wartime, it went uninvestigated) Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 15:16
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Tumble posted:Sure, but why was he in town to threaten Mildred at all? Dude lived in Idaho. Also, during the bar scene, I'm pretty sure he mentions that he committed his crimes with a group of friends. Anyways, I'm not necessarily trying to say that this guy 100% raped Angela, I just think that there is more ambiguity there than there is as to whether or not the alleged rapist guy is in trouble. I think there is a pretty decent implication that Mr. Idaho is a whole heap of trouble from those two. Why would his friends being there rule it out? Also, and this part is hard to catch on a first viewing, but they foreshadow the war crime reveal in the scene where Rockwell overhears them in the bar. When he comes back from checking the license plate, you overhear the guy saying something like "I'm not going down for that, not when I'm so close to coming home."
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Dec 3, 2017 16:10
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For me at least, the idea that they were able to get confirmation that he wasn't in the country at the time is something I think we're supposed to take at face value, and coupled with the overheard bit in the bar, the "unrelated war crime" conclusion is the only conclusion that really makes sense to me. You are of course entitled to your reading, though.
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Dec 3, 2017 16:43
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Tumble posted:No, I do get that and I do kind of agree with you, I just don't get why they have the guy actually visit Mildred at work and taunt her. Why would he be in town and what would possibly motivate him to do that? That seems like a bit too complex of an interaction for them to have and then just hand-wave away like that. I feel like I'm supposed to question his initial alibi a lot more. my take: he does it because he's a gross rapist that likes scaring and hurting women
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Dec 3, 2017 16:56
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Inspector 34 posted:I thought it a little odd because the dude obviously had spent enough time in town to know and care about Mildred's daughter, but he's also painted as just a dude from Idaho passing through. I get that some people are assholes, but this guy actually knew the story, knew who Mildred was, and knew where he could find her. Bear in mind that within the movie, this story was a big news item and is now back in the news in a big way. For all intents and purposes, the guy could've been in a bar where the news story was playing on TV. This is something the movie was driving at that a lot of police procedurals do too (I'm thinking in particular of the Homicide episode "Three Men and Adena"). Just because someone is a huge piece of poo poo, and they fit the profile for the case, and you might really want them to be the guy you're looking for, it doesn't make it so. Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 20:16
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Power of Pecota posted:I totally missed the "coming home" thing that you mentioned, but leaving the theater I thought they were mirroring false alibis with Dixon's "Well, who the hell else would it be?" re: Mildred firebombing the station even with her cover story + the viewer fairly sure that the guy from Idaho (between his confrontation with Mildred, especially knowing he was passing through and wouldn't have a strong connection to Willoughby + what Dixon overheard at the bar) was the guy even though he's clear on paper. I still lean towards him being the culprit (although I don't believe for a second they're actually going to kill him at the end), but maybe it's a serial thing and he was talking about an unrelated case on deployment? idk He's "pretty clearly the guy" if you're going by like, Ebert's Law of the Conservation of Characters, but beyond that, what evidence do we have to go by? He behaves threateningly towards Mildred, and is overheard obliquely describing a crime that sounds like the one in question but is then given an alibi and an alternate explanation for. That's about it. There's not really all that much pointing to him except that we - and the characters - want him to be the guy.
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Dec 3, 2017 20:36
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Tumble posted:well his first interaction with Mildred is him kind of hinting that maybe he was the one that did it, but then he backtracks and says he's a fan of the chief except he's from Idaho and is in the military so that kind of seems like bullshit as well - i mean why would he actually give a poo poo about the lawman in the first place? especially when more of his character is revealed later on... The "maybe I'm a friend of Willoughby's" thing is clearly bullshit, yeah. Of course that brings up the thornier issue: if this guy is a bullshit artist, how do we know he really did anything other than act like a creepy weirdo? His whole story in the bar could've been bullshit too. I don't think that's necessarily the conclusion that the movie wants us to draw, but I do think it's noteworthy that Mildred & Dixon have no real evidence of any kind. This is part of why the criticisms of the movie saying that we're supposed to see it as a racist cop's redemption story ring false to me. Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 22:27
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wyoming posted:I quite liked this. I love her laugh there
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Dec 20, 2017 19:15
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worth it for "I read it... on a bookmark?" imo
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Jan 23, 2018 19:20
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Franchescanado posted:Can you elaborate on this? Cuz I don't really ever remember the film putting Dixon on the same level as his victims or condoning him as a symptom of the system. I can see it both in how the police force is basically the only place for a violent racist fuckup like him and also in the focus on how bad his mom hosed him up. I don't think it ever condones his actions though (not that I think that's what MHB is saying though)
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Jan 23, 2018 19:47
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Authoritarian left: Mildred Hayes Authoritarian right: Officer Dixon Libertarian left: Red Welby Libertarian right: Chief Willoughby
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Jan 23, 2018 20:38
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from genchat:therattle posted:I thought that was really clumsy and implausible. Even if you’re angry with your daughter you wouldn’t yell that back. It’s done to make us feel more sympathy and for her to feel even guiltier. as someone who has seen some pretty vicious mother-daughter screaming matches irl, i completely bought it i similarly saw someone on twitter saying "the word 'oval office' doesn't get thrown around in family arguments" which, again, maybe you just haven't seen the caliber of family arguments i have.
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Jan 23, 2018 23:36
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Magic Hate Ball posted:For this movie it's a redemption - there are loads and loads of people who never approach that level of self-awareness and desire to change. If you approach redemption as some kind of epic biblical saved-eternal concept, then no, he does not experience redemption, but within the limitations of the film's narrative he absolutely does. this is a tautology. it counts as a redemption for this film for no other reason than because you say so. granted you're not the only one that came to this conclusion, but it seems like people came to it because of the expectations they brought in for how these movies are supposed to work, not on the evidence of the movie itself. Uncle Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jan 24, 2018 |
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Jan 24, 2018 00:07
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yeah for all I've bitched about the controversy surrounding the movie, part of me is glad for it. it's a button-pushing movie, it wouldn't be very good at that if it didn't push people's buttons. i do agree with the criticism that the black characters could've been more fleshed out. i really wanted more of the guy that helps put up the billboards, granted he's tangential to the story but i thought he could've been a cool character.
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Jan 24, 2018 00:23
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Franchescanado posted:Yeah, I was hoping we'd get more of both him and Mildred's friend once they met each other, and I'm sad that the story didn't include them more. it would've been a bit of a tangent but no more so than Peter Dinklage's subplot really, and probably would've bolstered the main plot more.
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Jan 24, 2018 00:44
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It’s a fairly literal arc of redemption - he undergoes a change of values that saves him from a life of sin. the second part seems pretty up in the air
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Jan 24, 2018 01:46
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bewilderment posted:The real moral of the story is that rural dying towns are irredeemable, with bad people or people willing to stand by and do nothing outweighing the good. For every Willoughby who is genuinely trying to make the best of a bad situation and do right by his family and the town with the crappy resources he has, there's a bunch of messed up unlikable folks who nobody would miss if they were gone. now THIS is a hot take
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Jan 25, 2018 15:00
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Maarak posted:Was Willoughby genuinely trying to help? He seemed to content to let his police station be a refuge for shitheads with no interest in justice while he lived in a nice country house and tended to his horses. He has a face-turn midway through of course but let's also not forget that his plan to get Mildred tied up in legal fees so she can't pay for the billboards was pretty devious
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Jan 25, 2018 18:22
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Magic Hate Ball posted:There are other movie boards? just the three outside Ebbing, Missouri iirc
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Mar 29, 2018 13:35
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