chuck

Have you read Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide? He’s not writing straight genre fiction, his tongue is planted firmly in cheek. You might as well rip on Real Ultimate Power for the same things as World War Z.

“There is a breaking point though, at which it just becomes something that is there to appear as something artful when in fact it feels to most like just running the film because they have extra celluloid to burn and then they’ll just call it “contemplative” for the final product.”

See for me I always felt there was part of Gerry that WAS just fucking with people, and I’m okay with that. I like assuming I’m in on the joke. Van Sant is an odd duck and not entirely a ‘my feelings!’ director. I watch his films and feel like I get it, and that some scenes have purposes in direct conflict with the movie as a whole. Elephant has one of the ultimate darkly comedic moments in it with the girl who keeps her mouth shut when she runs into the washroom, breaking tone with everything else, so sarcastic. Its one of my favorite ‘what would you do?’ kind of scenes.

Malick (to date, I havent given him much of a chance to be honest) on the other hand, has done absolutely nothing for me. Thin Red Line is one of my least favorite films for a number of reasons. I like war movies and I can like the nature art and reflection of Andy Goldsworthy’s art, but give me a “poetry” war movie and a copy of Thoreau’s Walden and I am asleep. Don’t give a fuck, and the way they handle these things specifically don’t register with me at all.

I think TRL may also be my Andrew James-ish “bait and switch” angry movie. You gotta be honest, the way they toss all those names on the box only to give them nothing to do is annoying as shit. I dont get why he even packed that movie with names to begin with, theres a reason why some movies are better to be cast with no-names.

This movie is part of a fucking “George Clooney Collection” box set, and the Cloon isnt even in it til the last 10 minutes and doesnt really do anything noteworthy. If anyone bought that set expecting to get a Clooney war movie and got that, I’d grant them the right to be upset. There is no justifiable reason for half of those names to be on that box.

Wrong. I love Gerry.

I could try and explain my dislike of the Road away as “nothing happens” or “I dont like books where characters have no names (I dont like Heart of Darkness either)” but that that would just be leading down a Kurt/Gamble “Well I dont like books with characters who have no names which are set on boats” reductive weirdness.

Maybe the writing style.
The writing style of the book.
The book called The Road.
Did not do it for me.
At all.

But maybe a book with that style may come along and I’ll like it. All the elements just didnt come together for me viscerally into something I wanted to stick around with.

I’m certain you can find a lot of people who love the Road who don’t like Gerry.

Rot, are we really gonna carry on this bickering in two different unrelated threads?! C’mon, those are all Gus Van Sant movies and you said you wanted to see him direct the movie. It’s just a joke! I need you to meet half way on this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

that would be something to see…

something to see…

to see… to see.. to see…

FADE IN.

pretty 15 year old hipster boy in with dreamy gold locks frolicks in a post apocaylptic medow of snow.

PRETTY BOY
Now that everyone I know is dead I have much more time to reflect on my inner emotions.

He walks in a giant cirlce four times.

PRETTY BOY
Sometimes I miss my parents n’ stuff. But I’m glad I dont’ have to do my homework anymore. I get go skate boarding all day.

Some other pretty 15 year old hipsters approach on the horizon. They have weapons and are bandits.

PRETTY BOY
What do you guys want. I hope you’re not here to corrupt my innocence.

BANDITS
Lets take ecstasy and explore our burgeoning sexualities… or else.

GIRL BANDIT
Also give us all your stuff

PRETTY BOY
All I have is this diary of my inner most thoughts that I could never tell anyone.

GIRL
Give it me so I can read it.

PRETTY BOY
I always hoped someone would ask me that. But no one ever did. I felt so alone.

MONTAGE:

Drugs.

Uncomfortable close ups on the pouty lips of pubescent boys.

The exact amount of underaged nudity you can show without going to jail.

Some emo / tripnotica fussion song of impossible beauty explodes on the soundtrack. It is so awesome that no one has ever heard of it before. It is like heroin orgasms.

FADE OUT.

….

Well that was pretty interesting.

many books and movies are made with ‘wide audience’ not in mind. Gerry is certainly one of those, as is THE ROAD.

Says the guy who hasn’t even seen the movie yet.

Perhaps you two might actually judge the film on what it is rather then what you claim it will be.

For me if you are going to go slow, it cannot be about conveying ideas, it cannot be conceptual, it has to be about addressing life directly. The scene in Silent Light is not didactic, its immediate, its about experiencing the fullness of morning, its quasi-spiritual in its directness, in how it doesn’t waver from giving you the event. That too is a successful use of extended duration.

I think Tarkovsky is the worst at using this technique, his use is almost always to be clever, to link conceptual ideas, and I get your anger Andrew when it is used in this context.