ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

Recommended Posts

That trailer is pretty much exactly what a film version of Gatsby should be. Whoever gave it to Baz Luhrmann needs to be in charge of more things.

Although there are probably exceptions, I find the approach of setting a period piece to modern music to be really lazy and cheap. You're basically just getting emotional resonance with a modern audience for free, because you're tapping into existing associations people have with stuff that we recognize as cool in this specific era. It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response, almost as if it's saying "Look I know this stuff is totally OLD but it's actually really RAD because there's a sweet techno-rock track in there." It reminds me of sadvertisements for games like Gears of War where they just pick a track to layer over the top as a shortcut to a certain response, although obviously those are slightly different in that they're working from less nuanced narrative source material.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

From a visual standpoint, I always pictured the story to be very yellow, hazy, washed-out because of the heat. Suddenly seeing all this color is a little jarring, but hey, I'll give it a shot.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Although there are probably exceptions, I find the approach of setting a period piece to modern music to be really lazy and cheap. You're basically just getting emotional resonance with a modern audience for free, because you're tapping into existing associations people have with stuff that we recognize as cool in this specific era. It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response, almost as if it's saying "Look I know this stuff is totally OLD but it's actually really RAD because there's a sweet techno-rock track in there." It reminds me of sadvertisements for games like Gears of War where they just pick a track to layer over the top as a shortcut to a certain response, although obviously those are slightly different in that they're working from less nuanced narrative source material.

While that track choice is my least favourite part of the Gunsby trailer, I don't think using modern music in a period piece always lazy, I think using music unbelievably literally (as in madworld) is a more usual and bigger problem. Also,

It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response,

Man, if the same music is used in the film itself, there could be some fucking fun readings to be done on how the film creates an opinion on Gasby without him being anywhere in the narrative.

Edit- I apparently posted this 4 times in a row, is hiding the same as deleting?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Although there are probably exceptions, I find the approach of setting a period piece to modern music to be really lazy and cheap. You're basically just getting emotional resonance with a modern audience for free, because you're tapping into existing associations people have with stuff that we recognize as cool in this specific era. It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response, almost as if it's saying "Look I know this stuff is totally OLD but it's actually really RAD because there's a sweet techno-rock track in there." It reminds me of sadvertisements for games like Gears of War where they just pick a track to layer over the top as a shortcut to a certain response, although obviously those are slightly different in that they're working from less nuanced narrative source material.

I think that's a little unfair. The period music of the time would have the same emotional resonance for those who lived in those times, that contemporary music does for us. I always thought that A Knight's Tale used modern music in this capacity brilliantly. Nobody in the audience is going to feel the same level of excitement at hearing a piece of lute music that someone in those times would have.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I think using music unbelievably literally (as in madworld) is a more usual and bigger problem.

The Gears of War trailer was, of course, brilliant -- I literally bought the game from that trailer alone, and the director of that trailer has moved into features, etc, etc. But I watched it a few more times and noticed that used the lyrics literally, as you say, and I couldn't believe how horrible and cheap it felt. I still like to think it was an accident... although I know it probably wasn't.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Although there are probably exceptions, I find the approach of setting a period piece to modern music to be really lazy and cheap. You're basically just getting emotional resonance with a modern audience for free, because you're tapping into existing associations people have with stuff that we recognize as cool in this specific era. It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response, almost as if it's saying "Look I know this stuff is totally OLD but it's actually really RAD because there's a sweet techno-rock track in there." It reminds me of sadvertisements for games like Gears of War where they just pick a track to layer over the top as a shortcut to a certain response, although obviously those are slightly different in that they're working from less nuanced narrative source material.

On Chris Remo's Deadwood...

Ian McShane: Goddamn! Jesus Christ! Hell's bells!

:fart:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Although there are probably exceptions, I find the approach of setting a period piece to modern music to be really lazy and cheap. You're basically just getting emotional resonance with a modern audience for free, because you're tapping into existing associations people have with stuff that we recognize as cool in this specific era. It just seems like a very surface level way to get an emotional response, almost as if it's saying "Look I know this stuff is totally OLD but it's actually really RAD because there's a sweet techno-rock track in there." It reminds me of sadvertisements for games like Gears of War where they just pick a track to layer over the top as a shortcut to a certain response, although obviously those are slightly different in that they're working from less nuanced narrative source material.

Have you checked out Marie Antoinette? It's a totally awesome tone poem of a movie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Since Plunkett & Macleane came out, I've always thought it would be great for a film to create a modern score such as Armstrong's for that film (electronica, rock guitar etc) with period instruments.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

On Chris Remo's Deadwood...

Ian McShane: Goddamn! Jesus Christ! Hell's bells!

:fart:

This was the first thing I thought of too, but my reaction the The Great Gatsby: Mad Props; Autotuned Edition is still basically:

:spiraldy:

I think making something culturally relevant and hopping on a trend are very different things. I'm not sure I'll do a good job of making the distinction.

In this case, I think the big band music of the 1920s is close enough to what we have, and have had in recent decades, that it can be used to do the kind of percussive decadence portrayed in that part of the trailer. Deadwood's swearing isn't really a fair comparison. Dang and heck were bad language in the real Deadwood, and would sound hilarious today. Similarly, Mad Men tends not to show much print advertising of the era, and when it does, it often seems dissonant with the power games and decisiveness of the characters. I don't think an authentic soundtrack for the Great Gatsby would seem naive in the same the way at all.

Also, the CGI cars: Big :tdown:

Edit: I don't think Romeo and Juliet is a very good comparison either. A great many things were updated in that, including the entire setting. Not so for the Great Gatsby. When so much of the design is so firmly back in the 1920s, a contemporary soundtrack sticks out like… like a big fake dong hanging off it.

(Sadvertising is very good coinage for Dead Island and Gears of War type trailers).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I basically agree, I think 20s music would have worked fine, especially since they're not updating much else (which is a good point vs. Rome + Juliet or even A Knight's Tale as someone mentioned upthread).

I wasn't really aware this movie was being made and I don't have any particular investment in a good Gatsby adaptation, so my reaction to the trailer was mostly WTF in an enjoyable way.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ah, I didn't pick up that your WTF was also enjoyment :)

a big fake dong

Speaking of which, after typing that I watched Hit & Miss, in which Chloë Sevigny plays a transsexual hitwoman named Mia. It is pretty good, coupling some quiet and understated film making with a wholly ridiculous premise (

Mia is named legal guardian of four children in a rural community, and then it gets more ridiculous

). It has violence, but not really action; nearly all of the tension is social. It's a very unusual show.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ah, I didn't pick up that your WTF was also enjoyment :)

Speaking of which, after typing that I watched Hit & Miss, in which Chloë Sevigny plays a transsexual hitwoman named Mia. It is pretty good, coupling some quiet and understated film making with a wholly ridiculous premise (

Mia is named legal guardian of four children in a rural community, and then it gets more ridiculous

). It has violence, but not really action; nearly all of the tension is social. It's a very unusual show.

The was a neat piece in the grauniad the other day by a trans woman who auditioned for the role, she talked to actress who ended up playing the part.

Edit. Found it, my mistake, she didn't actually speak to Chloë Sevigny.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks. I'd wondered about that as an issue, and feel very unqualified to talk about it.

Today, someone pointed me to part 1 of Wrong Cops:

https://vimeo.com/42578780

After watching Rubber and now this, I don't think Dupieux is a particularly good film maker, but there are bits of both I find very funny. Rubber pitched headlong into artwank by the end, and Wrong Cops kind of feels like it's threatening to.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just watched Headhunters, a Norwegian film about a recruitment guy who find top level executives. But he's also an art thief, who needs to steal high value paintings to keep his mrs in the way that she is accustomed. She is tall and beautiful, he is short with a massive chip on his shoulder. Enter stage left Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jamie Lannister) and tall, suave good looking dude, ex-special forces, who has nice piece of art. There are a few plot holes, but by and large it's a fun film. Worth a watch if you can put up with subs.

I imagine our Toblix will be along at some point to offer something far more penetrating about the film. You may have gathered that I do not in any way possess any kind of critical eye for many things media, and am a fairly simplistic viewer who tends to take things at face value. (I read some of the stuff you lot talk about and sometimes my gast is well and truly flabbered as to how it is analysed. :))

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You sound surprised. Or did you like the previous movies?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fuck me! The Dictator sucked!

Moonrise Kingdom wasn't bad, though.

Sorry, did you think his other movies were funny? The man is an imbecile.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Uhuh.

Sorry, let me be more specific. SBC as a person may be as intelligent as they come, I couldn't say. His movies aren't funny, which leads me to believe he isn't funny or intelligent either. Then again, Will Farrel does terrible movies on a regular basis and is a great guy, so who can say.

E: Me and Elmuerte agreeing seems like a dangerous thing for the continuity of the universe.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

How about TP and me agreeing? Bruno and Borat are brilliant. I've had my fears about The Dictator. From the trailers it seemed not at all what I was hoping for.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I enjoyed Borat and what I saw of Da Ali G show, but the trailers for The Dictator have just looked awful to me. Baron Cohen did an interview on Fresh Air this week and he comes off as extremely intelligent and well-spoken, but man The Dictator sure makes itself seem like one hell of a dumb, unfunny movie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I enjoyed Borat and what I saw of Da Ali G show, but the trailers for The Dictator have just looked awful to me. Baron Cohen did an interview on Fresh Air this week and he comes off as extremely intelligent and well-spoken, but man The Dictator sure makes itself seem like one hell of a dumb, unfunny movie.

I have the same problem re: Jackass and Johnny Knoxville as I have with Will Farrel. Smart guys doing really unfunny/stupid things. Though I'll admit Jackass has grown on me over the years, fearful a thought as that may be.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have the same problem re: Jackass and Johnny Knoxville as I have with Will Farrel. Smart guys doing really unfunny/stupid things. Though I'll admit Jackass has grown on me over the years, fearful a thought as that may be.

I absolutely can't stand Will Ferrell's movies, and the entire genre they've spawned. But yeah, when I see him out of character, he always comes off as someone who is intelligent and of good taste. I feel the same way about Ben Stiller. It's too bad.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now