http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1817273/




Please tell me someone has seen this. It's playing at the indie theater up the block from me. First film i've given thought to going to see alone, hahaha.

4/24/2013 9:50:25 AM

It was really fucking good

4/24/2013 3:27:53 PM

I really wanna see this.

4/24/2013 3:48:39 PM

It was pretty good. A little different than I expected though. I'm not sure if it's best to give people a better idea of what it is or not.

So here's an overview of the film without spoiling actual plot...
..........
........
......
....
..
.

The movie is broken up into 3 acts (aren't they all?)... 3 distinct acts that focus on 3 different sets of characters that are all connected through the same story. Act 1 focuses on characters xyz, Characters a,b,c are introduced at the very end of act 1 when all of those characters cross paths, and then the focus shifts to characters a,b,c for the duration of act 2 and while the story is still related, it shifts quite a bit. Act 3 focuses on yet a different set, but very related set of characters.

.
..
....
......
........
..........




plot spoiler






I found the cop's son to be very annoying/distracting. He really took me out of the movie on several occasions. I get that he was supposed to sort of be a poser, "wanna be hard-ass" and what not... but it was weird. People in the theater were laughing because of it, which I really don't think was the intent. I wish that had been more toned down. It wasn't really necessary for the story. Even if it was meant to contrast how the bad guy's kid was actually an OK kid in general and the "good guys" kid was an asshole... I think they overdid it a bit.












/Spoiler

4/24/2013 7:53:17 PM

I mentioned it in another thread a couple weeks ago. We need a "New Movies" thread, by the way.

Anyway, I drove to the Rialto, but I was being a bitch to my dude, and we never actually made it in. If it hangs around, I'll probably end up going alone some time. It is impossible to convince people to spend money on movies that actually look good.

4/24/2013 8:43:42 PM

At Manor, Jeepin? I'll be your plus 1.

4/24/2013 10:09:24 PM

Yeah man. I'm down.

4/24/2013 11:13:30 PM

duro982, i agree it that it came on a little strong. I wonder if we were from upstate NY if this kind of act would sound/feel more common place. He partly came off as a caricature, but maybe it's truly not far off

4/27/2013 4:46:45 PM

I got invited to go tonight. I'm so pumped!

5/3/2013 8:28:51 PM

was alright. i liked a lot of parts of this movie, although i thought put together it turned into something a little bit too cheesy. i really enjoyed the first storyline, which was basically drive 2. and i really liked the ending, as in the last shot. the stuff in the middle was a little generic. i guess the ending was too, but i liked it.

[Edited on May 3, 2013 at 11:01 PM. Reason : i'd talk more about what i especially liked about the ending, but i don't want to spoil it.]

5/3/2013 10:58:44 PM

^On the surface, I think it was kind of cheesy: havin' a dad is good! There was so much going on though, and I'm still thinking about it...it's just not really new thought or reflection. I mean, the themes are timeless: class, poverty, fate/destiny, violence, impulse control, consequences, manhood, etc... And it definitely was about men, not just fathers and sons; I wondered a lot about some of the other dudes in the movie, like the boozy mechanic and the dirty cops. Anyway, some thoughts:

1. Ryan Gosling's pretty nose job can be a little distracting, especially when he's playing a carny.
2. What do you call southern Gothic texts that aren't set in the South?
3. Cinematography was captivating. Music was really good. Me and a jillion other people downloaded the Cryin' Shames' version of "Please Stay."

[Edited on May 5, 2013 at 8:47 PM. Reason : ]

5/5/2013 8:44:57 PM

*spoiler alert, don't read this post if you haven't seen the movie*




I loved this movie. To address the above point that the movie was about how "havin' a dad is good!," I don't think that's what this movie was about. I don't think it necessarily had a moral that it was trying to convey, despite the story being very moralistic (a lot of the story reminded me of Flannery O'Connor, especially at the end when Bradley Cooper's character apologizes and Luke's kid doesn't shoot him--this was very reminiscent of O'Connor's "moments of grace" in her stories).

I think that it was merely trying to tell an interesting story about an interesting group of characters, as opposed to having some sort of message or moral to the story. I don't think any of the characters were totally good or totally bad: Cooper's character seems like a generally good guy, but he definitely shot Luke first and was a little corrupt in getting the two kids out of legal trouble; Luke's character seems like a generally bad guy, but the only reason he was stealing money was to give to his kid because he felt he had no other way to properly provide for him, and he had to be urged into robbing banks by the mechanic; Bradley Cooper's kid seems like a shady kid, but it's clear that he has an overbearing father who has had a difficult time loving him his entire life because of his guilt from shooting and killing Luke, and so forth. Basically, I think this was a fully-fleshed-out human story as opposed to one that had some sort of didactic point it was trying to make.

And the cinematography was gorgeous, just gorgeous, especially in the dual scenes in which Luke and later his son ride on the road through the trees on the bike. And the acting jobs by both Gosling and Cooper were spot-the-fuck-on IMO. Really liked this movie.

EDIT:

Quote :

"2. What do you call southern Gothic texts that aren't set in the South?"

Haha, I posted that comment about Flannery O'Connor before reading this post. Guess I wasn't the only one who thought of southern Gothic stories/Flannery O'Connor while watching this.

[Edited on May 22, 2013 at 7:37 PM. Reason : .]

5/22/2013 7:35:46 PM

I don't know how you responded to my post before you read it. And I'm still not sure that you have read it.

Not mad or anything. I'm just confused.

[Edited on May 22, 2013 at 9:03 PM. Reason : LOL]

5/22/2013 9:01:01 PM

^haha...i read that first sentence and then hit "reply to topic." then i went back and read your whole post and noticed the line about it being a southern gothic story. my bad haha.

and i wasn't disagreeing with your post (because i hadn't read it), just giving my thoughts on the film/the thread in general

[Edited on May 22, 2013 at 9:13 PM. Reason : s]

5/22/2013 9:05:17 PM

I see now!

5/22/2013 9:47:12 PM

POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILERS BELOW********







I really enjoyed this flick and thought I posted in this thread, but it may have been a conversation I had with my film-buff buddy. I have some issues with it and I don't want to spoil, but I'm lazy and if I find the conversation I might post here for discussion, but I dunno if I want to type it all out again. Lol.

I don't think Cooper was as you described overbearing and I don't think the legal trouble get out of jail free card was his indicator for being pseudo-corrupt. It definitely started when he shot first and let everyone convince him he followed protocol when clearly he fucked up.

5/22/2013 10:23:24 PM

^He was never convinced that he was following protocol. He dealt with the guilt from the incident the rest of his life. In fact, I think that's why he decided to get into politics- to fight for some sort of justice (which becomes increasingly tainted as the movie goes on) in small part as recompense for the broken system he found himself in the middle of, but more importantly as a way to right his personal wrongs.

Just watched it. Loved it.

I was wondering, though, why do you think he was so adamant about his son staying away from Gosling's kid? Just so that they wouldn't uncover the past? Because he carried some sort of resentment against Gosling's family? I think it's because in a way he cared more about that kid than his own. His entire campaign was launched in large part because of and for this kid, and his own son was a screw-up. He didn't want his screw-up son screwing up what he was trying to make right.

[Edited on May 26, 2013 at 2:58 PM. Reason : ]

5/26/2013 2:57:41 PM

^I thought he was so adamant about it because he knew his son was a spoiled narcissist who hurt people. I don't think he cared more about Jason than his own son (very few people can manage that), but I'm sure he recognized how totally perverse it would be for them to get involved.

5/26/2013 9:21:25 PM

Watched it last night. Loved the movie. How the F did it not get any Oscar nominations?

Also wtf was up with Cross's son Luke having that fucked up accent? I've never been to Schenectady but I can't imagine that's how people talk there (have been to plenty of other areas upstate). Where did that shit come from?

2/6/2014 3:27:21 PM

Like the other kid in the movie said...he sounded like he was from Long Island.

Sounds like what a rich yankee kid think's the tough poor kids sound like. So he tries to copy it to be cool.


I just watched this movie the other night. Don't really know what to think about it. I liked it, and then I didn't. I though Cooper and Gosling were great...but there's something that I can't quite put my finger on that made me not like it. The part where all the cops go into Eva's house and get the money was off. The part with Cooper going in to rat on the cops, then following Ray Liota into the woods...and then his friend still asks him to steal some coke from the evidence room...that was off. Just a lot of shit they had to force through to keep the story line going.

And yeah...the kid's accent got to me as well. I still my explanation is where it comes from...but even then it was still a little too thick. And I just hate a thick, yankee accent.

[Edited on March 16, 2015 at 5:11 PM. Reason : .]

3/16/2015 5:03:42 PM

lol drunk and just realized i posted before so let me read what i said about it a year ago

Just pasting the original post back below with added commentary.
---

[Edited on March 16, 2015 at 10:11 PM. Reason : lol]

SPOILER ALERT JEEEZ

JK, as I think back to this movie it seems like I enjoyed it but I really was asking myself wow is this still going on? Can't exactly pinpoint when it was and definitely not against any long running pieces as we all have probably binged on our favorite Netflix funded programming but yeah there was a point where I asked myself is this going to wrap up?

Had completely forgotten about the movie until I saw the bump, but thinking back I told a few people to watch it based on my thoughts and RT % but I see no reason to watch again.

B+ ?

-----
New edit maybe I do need to re-watch it because I have no fucking idea what May 2013 Grandmaster was talking about. Also does the spoiler thing classify as a meta joke? *shrug*. Ask March 2016 me when he responds to the bump and forgets about both posts.

[Edited on March 16, 2015 at 10:17 PM. Reason : Internets.]

3/16/2015 10:04:51 PM

^^speaking as someone that's spent more time than I can quantify on LI, I'm gonna say that wasn't a long island accent.

[Edited on March 17, 2015 at 8:03 AM. Reason : k]

3/17/2015 8:02:45 AM

I dated some Long Island trash for about a year...that accent was very similar to her brother's and cousin's accents. That accent in the movie was a little bit thicker...but I think that comes from trying to hard.

3/17/2015 9:02:32 AM

ah, good explanation :thumbsup:

3/17/2015 12:30:51 PM