Red Mosquito

tragabigzanda wrote:

epilogue wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:Promising Young Woman.

Fucking phenomenal. And miles better than Nomadland, which was good, but come on...

Since this, I've seen:

The Limey (rewatch)
Oldboy (2003)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (rewatch)

I LOVE Hollywood, but I'll be damned if I'm not still thinking about PYW over a week later.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:What didn’t you like about the ending? I thought it was perfect.

Spoiler: show

The cops responding to the SMS of the video by showing up at the wedding and arresting the guy without an investigation. It felt bolted on after the fact to make sure she wins.

My interpretation of the movie was a giant, blaring "times up" siren aimed at society telling them to look at themselves, their actions, and be better. No excuses. Don't let the motivating event happen. Ever. Her post-death triumph over the patriarchy rings hollow in that sense because it puts the weight back on women to act, to threaten and inspire fear in these men and their enablers, instead of making it clear that it's everyone's moral responsibility to not create this situation in the first place.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:

oasisfan35 wrote:

Monkey_Driven wrote:Aliens

I enjoy the Alien series quite a bit but every time I think of Aliens all I see in my head is James Cameron saying "we gotta take this to eleven."

Same. I think it’s vastly inferior to the original. “Get away from her youuuu biiitch!” Ugh.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Bi_3 wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:What didn’t you like about the ending? I thought it was perfect.

Spoiler: show

The cops responding to the SMS of the video by showing up at the wedding and arresting the guy without an investigation. It felt bolted on after the fact to make sure she wins.

My interpretation of the movie was a giant, blaring "times up" siren aimed at society telling them to look at themselves, their actions, and be better. No excuses. Don't let the motivating event happen. Ever. Her post-death triumph over the patriarchy rings hollow in that sense because it puts the weight back on women to act, to threaten and inspire fear in these men and their enablers, instead of making it clear that it's everyone's moral responsibility to not create this situation in the first place.

Spoiler: show

LOVE this reading of it, and I can see why that ending doesn't work for you in that regard. FWIW, the ending WAS tacked on, after the studio gave the writer/director notes.

I personally liked the ending, but I wasn't reading too deeply into the real-world ramifications; as a narrative yarn, it worked perfectly for me.

Spoiler: show

i.e. that the movie problematically reinscribes state power/the cops as the arbiters of and solution to sexual violence

Spoiler: show

The fantasy that PYW sells itself on is, what if you could actually get revenge on the specific people who have ruined the lives of others by way of sexual violence (keeping in mind the critique, of course, that this movie centers only one way that victims respond to sexual violence)? What if you could localize systemic problems in individuals and eliminate them? And so in my reading, the ending says, sure, okay, you can do that, but only through the magic of film where you get narrative resolution after death.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Mickey wrote:I should put it this way:

Spoiler: show

The fantasy that PYW sells itself on is, what if you could actually get revenge on the specific people who have ruined the lives of others by way of sexual violence (keeping in mind the critique, of course, that this movie centers only one way that victims respond to sexual violence)? What if you could localize systemic problems in individuals and eliminate them? And so in my reading, the ending says, sure, okay, you can do that, but only through the magic of film where you get narrative resolution after death.

Again, I think all this is totally there to be read from the film. But I am skeptical the writer/director was trying to make any sort of concrete commentary about sexual violence rather than just trying to tell a provocative story.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.