Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

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Mescal
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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2181 Post by Mescal » Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:19 pm

Bandit72 wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:55 am
I watched Gran Torino last night. Hmmmmmmmm.....wasn't that impressed. Not sure if I've ever been a big Clint 'fan'. Is Million Dollar Baby any good?
Wasn't a big fan of Gran Torino either.

Million dollar baby was pretty good though ....

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2182 Post by chaos » Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:54 pm

Bandit72 wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:55 am
I watched Gran Torino last night. Hmmmmmmmm.....wasn't that impressed. Not sure if I've ever been a big Clint 'fan'. Is Million Dollar Baby any good?
I haven't seen many of his movies. I liked him in The Beguiled, 70s version (the remake is terrible).

Million Dollar Baby is really good. I almost didn't watch it because I thought it was going to be primarily boxing movie. It's not.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2183 Post by tvrec » Sun Sep 06, 2020 2:14 pm

I'm in agreement: Grand Torino is a weird one that I take to be a kind of vanity project for Eastwood in that he constructs an idea of himself--which is increasingly hard to differentiate from his characters--as a curmudgeon with a heart of gold, open to minorities as long as they display the proper kind of American Grit. MDB is far stronger, and I'm still a sucker for The Unforgiven.

I'm looking to tee-up the new Charlie Kaufman film on Netflix after the Lakers game tonight:


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2184 Post by Bandit72 » Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:39 am

chaos wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:54 pm
Million Dollar Baby is really good. I almost didn't watch it because I thought it was going to be primarily boxing movie. It's not.
Yeh the fact that it looks as if it's set around boxing was what was putting me off watching it. And the fact that Clint is in it too :lol:

I may give it a watch after what you've said.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2185 Post by clickie » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:36 pm


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2186 Post by clickie » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:50 pm


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2187 Post by SR » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:48 am

Always impressed with Sorkin and a major bummer of Covid was the impossibility of his To Kill a Mockingbird migrating west. My wife got to see it in NY...lucky gal; she loved it. This was very good, but not great with some not so subtle jabs at the current resident on Penn Ave.


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2188 Post by mockbee » Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:24 pm


Image
Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright's Modern Masterpiece
is a new film by Lauren Levine that is narrated by Brad Pitt. Streaming October 30th to November 15th, the documentary will look deeply into Wright's first public commission in the early 1900s and the efforts to restore it 100 years later.

From the film website: The dedicated team of historians, craftspeople, members of the Unitarian congregation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation reveal the history of one of Wright’s most innovative buildings that merged his love of architecture with his own spiritual values.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/460315229
Artemis, you'll probably appreciate this. :cool:

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Bandit72
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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2189 Post by Bandit72 » Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:37 am

Watched this last night, what an incredible film. Just shows what can happen to someone so quickly when something involving children is incredibly misunderstood.

Image

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2106476/

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chaos
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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2190 Post by chaos » Sun Oct 25, 2020 2:56 pm

^I saw this film several years ago via Netflix (disc). Good film. Well acted, compelling script.

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Artemis
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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2191 Post by Artemis » Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:28 pm

mockbee wrote:
Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:24 pm

Image
Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright's Modern Masterpiece
is a new film by Lauren Levine that is narrated by Brad Pitt. Streaming October 30th to November 15th, the documentary will look deeply into Wright's first public commission in the early 1900s and the efforts to restore it 100 years later.

From the film website: The dedicated team of historians, craftspeople, members of the Unitarian congregation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation reveal the history of one of Wright’s most innovative buildings that merged his love of architecture with his own spiritual values.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/460315229
Artemis, you'll probably appreciate this. :cool:
:cool: Thanks for the tip! I will check it out. The temple is stunning- wow! The "couple thousand panels" sounds like nightmare to organize.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2192 Post by clickie » Tue Nov 03, 2020 7:17 am


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2193 Post by clickie » Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:52 am


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2194 Post by clickie » Tue Nov 03, 2020 7:11 pm

What can I say I'm a Christian Bale fan

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2195 Post by chaos » Sun Nov 08, 2020 3:13 pm

Hillbilly Elegy releases on Netflix on November 24th.

I really enjoyed the book (memoir).


J.D. Vance (Gabriel Basso), a former Marine from southern Ohio and current Yale Law student, is on the verge of landing his dream job when a family crisis forces him to return to the home he’s tried to forget. J.D. must navigate the complex dynamics of his Appalachian family, including his volatile relationship with his mother Bev (Amy Adams), who’s struggling with addiction. Fueled by memories of his grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close), the resilient and whip-smart woman who raised him, J.D. comes to embrace his family’s indelible imprint on his own personal journey.

Based on J.D. Vance’s #1 New York Times Bestseller and directed by Academy Award winner Ron Howard, HILLBILLY ELEGY is a powerful personal memoir that offers a window into one family’s personal journey of survival and triumph. By following three colorful generations through their unique struggles, J.D.’s family story explores the highs and lows that define his family’s experience.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2196 Post by chaos » Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:05 am

^So today I have read nothing but scathing reviews of Hillbilly Elegy. Poor Ron Howard. (The movie is never as good as the book. :lol: ) I may watch it anyway.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2197 Post by mockbee » Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:40 pm

chaos wrote:
Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:05 am
^So today I have read nothing but scathing reviews of Hillbilly Elegy. Poor Ron Howard. (The movie is never as good as the book. :lol: ) I may watch it anyway.
I hope you watch the movie Chaos. I too was put off by the bad reviews. I have not seen the film, but absolutely plan on seeing it now based on the review below. I have experienced many times where critical acclaim (or lack thereof) is an about face from what I experience when watching a movie. This movie sounds so apt for the time. I actually had no interest in reading the book based on the rave reviews (and scathing reviews, like the one below)

Did you watch it already? I'll let you know what I think..... if I like it. :lol: :wink:




Commentary: Critics Love the Book, Hate the Movie. What Gives with ‘Hillbilly Elegy’?

Four years ago, the chattering class couldn't get enough of J.D. Vance's bootstrap philosophy. Now, movie critics say Ron Howard's more personal retelling of the book is "poverty porn." Could it be that urban elites can't stand to watch something that treats poor whites with sympathy?
https://dailyyonder.com/commentary-cri ... b2ea623929


by Lisa R. Pruitt December 4, 2020

There's a disconnect between popular and critical response to the film "Hillbilly Elegy." The critic score on Rotten Tomatoes was 27, while its audience score was 82. (Lacey Terrell/Netflix)

Film critics have had nary a good word to say about Netflix’s new movie “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Reviewers varyingly called it “Oscar-Season B.S.,” “woefully misguided,” “Yokel Hokum,” “laughably bad” and simply “awful.”

I admit to delight when I read professional critics trashing the film, which is based on J.D. Vance’s widely praised memoir detailing his dramatic class migration from a midsize city in Ohio to the hallowed halls of Yale Law School. I was expecting the worst based on my dislike of the book, and these reviews confirmed my expectations.

But once I saw the film, I felt it had been harshly judged by the chattering classes – the folks who write the reviews and seek to create meaning for the rest of us. In fact, the film is an earnest depiction of the most dramatic parts of the book: a lower-middle-class family caught in the throes of addiction.

Everyday viewers seem to find the film enjoyable enough – it has solid audience reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.

So why the big gap between the critical response and audience reaction? Could it be yet another sign of the country’s steadily growing class divide?

The film’s negative reviews are an about-face from critics’ warm embrace of the book, which was published in 2016, when Vance was just 31.

In telling his story of overcoming his mother’s addiction and attendant familial and economic precarity, Vance credits his Mamaw and Papaw, along with luck and hard work.

Fair enough. But he gives no nod to the government structures – K-12 schools, the military and the GI bill, the public university where he earned his B.A – that greased the skids of his sharp ascension into the ruling class. Worse still, Vance expressly blames laziness as the culprit of those left behind, with only cursory attention to the impact of policies that encouraged the offshoring of manufacturing jobs and weakening of the social safety net.

The book is not subtle in its message: Working-class grunts are to blame for their own struggles. If they’d just get off their duffs, go to church and stay married, everything would be OK.

Yet commentators from across the political spectrum greeted the book with a big wet kiss. Published months before Donald Trump’s election, it was perfectly timed for the zeitgeist, and Vance’s extended personal anecdote suddenly became the authoritative text about enigmatic working-class whites, all presumptive Trump supporters. The New York Times fawned over its “discerning sociological analysis,” overlooking Vance’s one-sided invocation of data and scholarly literature, while prestigious think tanks like the Brookings Institution elevated Vance to expert status.

I was one of few progressive elites to push back against the media’s early, broad embrace of the book. Admittedly, I was moved by Vance’s compelling biography, which featured many of the hallmarks of my own: hillbilly roots, addicted parent, family violence and – ultimately – a dramatic class leap into elite legal circles.

But I was put off by Vance’s singular focus on personal responsibility and use of his story to advance an agenda antagonistic to the social safety net. Many of Vance’s positions run contrary to my own scholarly work about the white working class and rural America.

Vance also suggests that his family – in both its best and worst manifestations – is representative of Appalachia. Yet like all families, Vance’s is typical in some ways but not in others. And that’s what got so many Appalachians up in arms when the book came out. Not all of them are drug addicted any more than they’re all coal miners. Further, not all Appalachians are white. Many lead boring lives.

From Curiosity to Disdain

I wasn’t happy when Ron Howard and Netflix paid $45 million for the movie rights, because I didn’t want the book to get an even wider audience. But the film leaves Vance’s politics aside and instead focuses on three generations worth of Vance family saga. That means the positive potential I saw in the book is at the heart of the film.

For one, working-class white people can see themselves on screen. When I read the book, I initially laughed out loud – but also cried – over the ways Vance’s hillbilly grandparents reminded me of my own extended family. I also related to his “fish out of water” experiences in elite law firms.

The four-year span between the book and the film neatly coincided with the beginning and end of Trump’s presidency. During that same period, what started as progressive elites’ curiosity about the white working class gave way to bald disdain and fury.

Second, the story is a reminder that white skin is no magic bullet. Folks where I live and work in California often use “white privilege” as synonymous with “you’re white, you’ll be all right.” Members of the Vance family are white, but they are clearly not all right. The movie has the potential to foster empathy between the two worlds J.D. Vance straddles – the ones I also straddle – between working class and professional class.

Yet to some critics, the film amounted to no more than “poverty porn.” They lamented a lack of complexity, nuance, motivation and internal conflict in the film’s characters.

Really? Those reviewers must have looked right past the trauma both Mamaw and Bev experienced in their early lives – the former as a child bride, the latter as a child raised in the violent home of that child bride. J.D. is a product of both.

There are surely other reasons, too, that the film world has turned a cold shoulder to this cinematic packaging of Vance’s book. I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that the four-year span between the book and the film neatly coincided with the beginning and end of Trump’s presidency. During that same period, what started as progressive elites’ curiosity about the white working class gave way to bald disdain and fury.

Nowadays, my Twitter feed is awash with resentment every time “mainstream media” run a story about white Trump supporters.

The woke whine that such coverage implies that these are the “real Americans” who we should try to understand, while overlooking other marginalized subsets of the population. Film critic negativity about “Hillbilly Elegy” may reflect similar attitudes – a mix of exasperation and boredom with a pet topic for media outlets since the 2016 election.
Audiences Have a Different Response

To me, the real pity is that so many coastal elites know so few working-class folks of any color, let alone the hillbilly subset of them. Indeed, studies show that, increasingly, people from different socioeconomic strata no longer mix even within the same metro areas.

The crummy reviews ultimately evince this profound and persistent disconnect between those who write the reviews and “regular” folks.

A week after its release, the film’s critic score on Rotten Tomatoes was 27, while its audience score was 82. That’s a massive spread, and one that may align with the yawning chasm cutting across our national electorate.

The cosmopolitan set can’t believe viewers would want to watch “those people” – and may even be able to relate to them – any more than we can believe so many people voted for Donald Trump.

When critic Sarah Jones, an Appalachian by upbringing, argues that “Hillbilly Elegy” wasn’t made for hillbilly viewers, I’m not convinced. Jones places “Hillbilly Elegy” among “an old and ignoble genre” that “caricatures the hillbilly for an audience’s titillation.”

Maybe. But there are far worse depictions of rural folks and other hillbilly types. Look no further than this appalling scene from “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” or the 1972 classic “Deliverance.”

Howard and screenwriter Vanessa Taylor certainly took liberties in condensing and dramatizing decades of Vance family dysfunction, but we shouldn’t pretend that families like these don’t exist. I know people like them – heck, I’m even related to some.

Many viewers will relate to “Hillbilly Elegy” simply because addiction is such a shockingly common phenomenon, one that touches many families and every community. Others will appreciate the film because it presents J.D. Vance achieving the “American dream.” It’s an ideal many find irresistible in spite of the fact that – or, indeed, because – upward mobility is more elusive than ever.

With Vance’s politics tucked out of sight, can we simply judge the film for its entertainment value? Can we acknowledge that we don’t all like the same things?

After all, there may be a few things elites don’t “get.” And that could be because the movie wasn’t made for them in the first place.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2198 Post by mockbee » Fri Dec 04, 2020 10:58 pm

Did you watch it already? I'll let you know what I think..... if I like it.
Okay.....the verdict is in. I want those 2 hours back. :lol:

Glen Close was great as the grandma and Adams as the mom. But the story goes all over the place and the kid is dumb as rocks, which is normal, but no clue how he got into Yale.... :noclue: :lol:

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2199 Post by Artemis » Sat Dec 05, 2020 12:05 pm

mockbee wrote:
Fri Dec 04, 2020 10:58 pm
Did you watch it already? I'll let you know what I think..... if I like it.
Okay.....the verdict is in. I want those 2 hours back. :lol:

Glen Close was great as the grandma and Adams as the mom. But the story goes all over the place and the kid is dumb as rocks, which is normal, but no clue how he got into Yale.... :noclue: :lol:
I'm probably going to watch it today or tomorrow. I haven't read the book, just the bad reviews. Quite a few of my Facebook friends who watched it commented that they liked it. :noclue:

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2200 Post by mockbee » Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:13 am

Artemis wrote:
Sat Dec 05, 2020 12:05 pm

I'm probably going to watch it today or tomorrow. I haven't read the book, just the bad reviews. Quite a few of my Facebook friends who watched it commented that they liked it. :noclue:
:noclue:

So.....? What's your impressions? :waits: :lol:



I think there are many important angles to this story that would explain a lot about this country, but I don't think the movie could decide what it was trying to say. It didn't pick a story, it just tried to touch on all sorts of tangents without trying to develop a story around any of them. (except maybe the grandma, but even then I was wanting to know way more of her story. The movie definitely wasn't about the boy.)

The movie could have been about...

1. How JD got from a factory town, whose family had a hillbilly past, to Yale. (tired trope)
2. How JD's relationship with his mom and grandma shaped him. (I think the writers/Howard thought this was what they were saying, but I didn't get that at all)
3. How his mom's life was shaped by his grandma and her past. (good story)
4. How JD copes with his hillbilly past in his newfound elite setting. (tired trope)
5. How the elite setting views this hillbilly. (tired trope)

It touched, sort of - rather shallow though, on all those themes, but was about none of them. :noclue:

At the end I really disliked the kid...and liked the grandma.


Now I might have to read the book. :banghead:

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2201 Post by Artemis » Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:56 pm

mockbee wrote:
Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:13 am
Artemis wrote:
Sat Dec 05, 2020 12:05 pm

I'm probably going to watch it today or tomorrow. I haven't read the book, just the bad reviews. Quite a few of my Facebook friends who watched it commented that they liked it. :noclue:
:noclue:

So.....? What's your impressions? :waits: :lol:



I think there are many important angles to this story that would explain a lot about this country, but I don't think the movie could decide what it was trying to say. It didn't pick a story, it just tried to touch on all sorts of tangents without trying to develop a story around any of them. (except maybe the grandma, but even then I was wanting to know way more of her story. The movie definitely wasn't about the boy.)

The movie could have been about...

1. How JD got from a factory town, whose family had a hillbilly past, to Yale. (tired trope)
2. How JD's relationship with his mom and grandma shaped him. (I think the writers/Howard thought this was what they were saying, but I didn't get that at all)
3. How his mom's life was shaped by his grandma and her past. (good story)
4. How JD copes with his hillbilly past in his newfound elite setting. (tired trope)
5. How the elite setting views this hillbilly. (tired trope)

It touched, sort of - rather shallow though, on all those themes, but was about none of them. :noclue:

At the end I really disliked the kid...and liked the grandma.


Now I might have to read the book. :banghead:
So, I watched it yesterday and thought it was okay. It seemed familiar because of the tired tropes you mention above. I thought Amy Adams and Glen Close did a great acting job with a mediocre script.

The movie's portrayal of addiction seemed kind of lite to me, could have been grittier and more in your face about how destructive and devastating addiction is to families.

On poverty, the movie tried to show the generational cycle that makes getting out so hard. As you said earlier, the movie didn't really go into many details or show how JD suddenly(seemed like suddenly, poor pacing of movie) got to Yale. We learn he joins the military which is how he was able to go to college. I guess from that it's implied that for poor people in the USA, post-secondary education is only possible by joining the army. Hard work, discipline and structure suddenly seems to come to JD when his grandma splits her Meals on Wheels dinner with him. He seems to snap out of being a carefree, lazy teenager to responsible and driven.
Also, the lack of healthcare in America is also highlighted when JD tried to get his mom into rehab and uses his credit cards to pay for her first 2 weeks. This also keeps the cycle of poverty going because those who want help can't access it because they can'y pay, keeping the cycle going.

I thought the grandma was the most interesting and likable. Even though she seemed harsh,she had a heart. She recognized that for JD to have a chance of getting out of poverty, she had to step in to replace her daughter and be the mother because her daughter was unable to be a mother due to her drug addiction and unresolved childhood trauma. I guess it was a second chance for Mamaw to be the mother she couldn't be to her daughter. I thought the movie was mainly about the grandmother.

I doubt I'll read the book. :lol:

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2202 Post by mockbee » Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:27 pm

Thanks! :thumb:

Yeah, I think the grandma has the most interesting story, leaving kentucky when she was 13 and pregnant and (I think) staying with her husband!

Glen Close did a great job, especially seeing the home video footage of the Mamaw at the end.

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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2203 Post by clickie » Thu Dec 31, 2020 12:37 am

I haven't watched Three Days the documentary in a long time. I have it on vhs but I don't own a vhs player anymore.



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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2204 Post by Bandit72 » Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:17 am

So I'm a late comer to the film Whiplash. I've watched it 3 times in the last 3 weeks it's THAT good. Then I found this clip of the tune Caravan by Charly Antolini. Holy fuck.


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Re: Movies or "the breakdown of jasper"

#2205 Post by SR » Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:18 am

If you're interested in masters on drums check out Nate Smith, Eric Moore, Chris Daddy Dave, and Ilan Rubin on IG. Q Drums too as they often have myriad artists perform on their kits (which are absolute works of art).

The first 3 are transfixing. Rubin is excellent, but approaches drums with an acute alternate intelligence that is mesmerizing in it's own way.

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