Aint No Right

chaos wrote:I saw this on the Syfy Channel in the wee hours of the morning the other night. It was pretty good.



From Netflix:

Eight-year-old genius Joshua Cairn (Jacob Kogan) is used to being in the limelight -- by himself. When his parents (Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga) bring the boy's new baby sister home from the hospital, the envious youngster's scheming threatens to rip the family apart. Sibling rivalry rears its jealous head in this psychological thriller directed by George Ratliff. The cast also includes Celia Weston and Michael McKean.

Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be the Place "stars Sean Penn — an amalgam of Dorothy Michaels from Tootsie, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the titular mentally challenged man the actor played in I Am Sam — as Cheyenne, a fey, retired goth rock star who leaves his home in Ireland to return to the US to track down the man who tormented his estranged father in Auschwitz. Unbearably sentimental — one colleague likened it to this year's Life Is Beautiful — and consistently ridiculous, Sorrentino's movie was inexplicably met with warm applause (and, as far as I could tell, no boos). There's no arguing taste (or cultural differences or festival exhaustion), but figuring out the appeal of a film that includes a Holocaust slide show, Penn's aggressive scenery chewing ('Not having kids has really, really screwed me over!' he weeps at one point), and every lazy American stereotype (fatties, guns, tattooed hillbillies) will remain forever beyond my ken."

"For his technique, ambition and reach, 40-year-old Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is justifiably considered an emerging master of modern cinema, crucially nurtured here at Cannes," writes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. This new film "has superbly elegant and distinctive forms: looming camera movements, bursts of pop, deadpan comedy, quasi-hallucinatory perspective lines in landscapes in which singular figures look vulnerably isolated. There's an awful lot to enjoy here and yet I couldn't help feeling that… the film becomes derivative and Wim Wenders-ish. And a final twist-reveal gestures at some kind of equivalence between the suffering of Jews and their Nazi captors. Now, perhaps it's the lingering unease that Lars von Trier has left behind him here at the festival, but I found that a slightly uncomfortable conceit." And by the way: "Cheyenne's American odyssey reaches its peak with a wonderful cameo from David Byrne, who plays 'This Must Be the Place' in concert and has a great scene with Penn. Getting Byrne in front of the camera was clearly a labor of pure fan-love for Sorrentino."

The issue here "has nothing to do with whether it makes light of the Holocaust," argues indieWIRE's Eric Kohn. "That might be a worthy debate if it didn't face other problems. Chief among them: An uber-campy Sean Penn performance, a gratingly quirky soul-searching plot, and character motives that barely make any sense. It's far too much of a godawful mess to merit serious moral scrutiny."

Writing for the Playlist, James Rocchi admits that he'd been expecting a disaster and now finds it "somewhat sad to report, then, that Sorrentino's film is not nearly as bad as one might fear, or, alternately, one might hope. A rambling, ragged road-trip shaggy dog story, it starts with Penn's aging rocker Cheyenne puttering about his country estate in Ireland — dazed and confused, going down to the market to shop and blurting out sentence fragments like 'Why is Lady Gaga?' Cheyenne is supported by his loving and patient wife of 35 years (Frances McDormand, plucky and implausible) and friends with the gothically-styled Mary (Eve Hewson)…. Sorrentino's very title suggests someone who doesn't have the most well-defined sense of where they ultimately want to wind up; as goes the Talking Heads song, so goes the movie."

"I admire what Sorrentino and Penn are trying to accomplish with This Must Be the Place, especially in the visually inventive early moments set in New York City," writes Glenn Heath Jr at the House Next Door. "But the narrative is so flimsy and dialogue beyond allegorical that it's hard to take any of Cheyenne's arc completely seriously. Even when the conversations between Cheyenne and a cross-section of American personalities signify nothing other than tangential ideas, there's a sentimental undercurrent that is particularly worrisome. This single-mindedness comes to a head in the film's final sequence of retribution."

"This Must Be The Place is wry and sometimes affecting," finds Time Out London's Dave Calhoun, "but it has a sluggish momentum compared to the Fellini-esque, cutting musical carnival of Sorrentino's terrific last film, Il Divo…. It's always a curious and imaginative film. Penn is fun to watch and Sorrentino is a bold storyteller, unafraid of diversions in story and tone – Harry Dean Stanton has a great cameo in one scene as a guy who claims to have invented the suitcase with wheels. But the momentum of the film stops and starts and you feel you know less, not more, about Cheyenne as time goes on and his behavior becomes less convincing."

ant wrote:
I cannot take Sean Penn seriously dressed up as Robert Smith.

Artemis wrote:

ant wrote:
I cannot take Sean Penn seriously dressed up as Robert Smith.

You get used to it. You really want to hug him while watching the movie. He seems so weak but there's some strength there.

This description is really perfect:


"an amalgam of Dorothy Michaels from Tootsie, the Cure's Robert Smith, and the titular mentally challenged man the actor played in I Am Sam — as Cheyenne, a fey, retired goth rock star "

A rock and roll vampire comedy about a down and out band, The Winners, who will do anything for a record deal. When their disgruntled manager (Dave Foley) tells them that they are getting long in the tooth, he doesnt know that his words are truly prophetic. During a road trip, their humdrum image radically changes when Jennifer (Jessica Paré), the bass player, disappears one night with a hip vampire (Dimitri Coats). She emerges with a sexually charged charisma that drives the audiences wild.

As the band members succumb, one by one, to blood lust, their gimmick launches them into the limelight. Following an incident on a national radio show with Rockn Roger (Henry Rollins), they hit mega-stardom beyond their wildest dreams. Joey (Rob Stefaniuk), the lead singer, is haunted by an eerie bartender (Alice Cooper), who turns out to be much more. Meanwhile, legendary vampire hunter, Eddie Van Helsig (Malcolm McDowell), is tracking them down, despite his fear of the dark. When a veteran music producer (Iggy Pop) calls them on becoming a vampire freak show, they begin to realize that fame is not what its cracked up to be.

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

creep wrote:

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

i can't really support that guy no matter how good his movies may be.

Artemis wrote: Suck

A rock and roll vampire comedy about a down and out band, The Winners, who will do anything for a record deal. When their disgruntled manager (Dave Foley) tells them that they are getting long in the tooth, he doesnt know that his words are truly prophetic. During a road trip, their humdrum image radically changes when Jennifer (Jessica Paré), the bass player, disappears one night with a hip vampire (Dimitri Coats). She emerges with a sexually charged charisma that drives the audiences wild.

As the band members succumb, one by one, to blood lust, their gimmick launches them into the limelight. Following an incident on a national radio show with Rockn Roger (Henry Rollins), they hit mega-stardom beyond their wildest dreams. Joey (Rob Stefaniuk), the lead singer, is haunted by an eerie bartender (Alice Cooper), who turns out to be much more. Meanwhile, legendary vampire hunter, Eddie Van Helsig (Malcolm McDowell), is tracking them down, despite his fear of the dark. When a veteran music producer (Iggy Pop) calls them on becoming a vampire freak show, they begin to realize that fame is not what its cracked up to be.

Artemis wrote:

creep wrote:

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

i can't really support that guy no matter how good his movies may be.

I understand why people don't.

Six7Six7 wrote:

Artemis wrote:

creep wrote:

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

i can't really support that guy no matter how good his movies may be.

I understand why people don't.

I don't.

Someone explain to me why his films aren't good without including any comments on his sexual history.

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

Six7Six7 wrote:

Artemis wrote:

creep wrote:

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

i can't really support that guy no matter how good his movies may be.

I understand why people don't.

I don't.

Someone explain to me why his films aren't good without including any comments on his sexual history.

I think you agree with Creep, since he didn't say the movies aren't good, he just said he can't support the guy (whether or not the movies are good). I might say, in a more extreme case, that some brutal axe-murderer created a great work of art, and I might support the preservation of the piece itself, but I may find myself conflicted about supporting the artist in the sense of adding to his livelihood, increasing his comfort in life, and so on. Not because that makes it somehow more likely that he'll keep doing bad things, or that it somehow tacitly supports the bad things he did, but because we have a strong sense of 'justice' that tells us that people who do bad things shouldn't succeed in life (this just *feels* wrong). The strongest arguments against this end up having really weird consequences.

Artemis wrote:

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

Six7Six7 wrote:

Artemis wrote:

creep wrote:

Artemis wrote:I saw Carnage. Roman Polansky's latest...really enjoyed it.

i can't really support that guy no matter how good his movies may be.

I understand why people don't.

I don't.

Someone explain to me why his films aren't good without including any comments on his sexual history.

I think you agree with Creep, since he didn't say the movies aren't good, he just said he can't support the guy (whether or not the movies are good). I might say, in a more extreme case, that some brutal axe-murderer created a great work of art, and I might support the preservation of the piece itself, but I may find myself conflicted about supporting the artist in the sense of adding to his livelihood, increasing his comfort in life, and so on. Not because that makes it somehow more likely that he'll keep doing bad things, or that it somehow tacitly supports the bad things he did, but because we have a strong sense of 'justice' that tells us that people who do bad things shouldn't succeed in life (this just *feels* wrong). The strongest arguments against this end up having really weird consequences.

@six7...i think the reason is what spina just explained here.

for me, i view his films as art. i judge the work for its own merit and not the artist.
that's not always easy to do, i know.

Matz wrote:
That's the opposite of what Dave does collecting those paintings by that serial killer, Gacy I think his name is. Dave buys them because Gacy's this super crippled, coldblooded maniac and it fascinates Dave what art he comes up with. If he'd been normal he wouldn't have bought any

Regarding Polanski, I think it could be fair to say that he's paid his debt for what he did with that girl. He's had to live with that image for a lot of years now and will always to live with it. Must be a pretty fucked up situation

Matz wrote: I think it could be fair to say that he's paid his debt for what he did with that girl. He's had to live with that image for a lot of years now and will always to live with it. Must be a pretty fucked up situation

creep wrote:

Matz wrote: I think it could be fair to say that he's paid his debt for what he did with that girl. He's had to live with that image for a lot of years now and will always to live with it. Must be a pretty fucked up situation

that's the thing...he was convicted and he did not pay. that is my issue with him. if he had served his time then i would have no problem with him being a filmmaker. i don't care how tough life was growing up...he was my age (43) and he fucked a 13yr old girl.

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

creep wrote:

Matz wrote: I think it could be fair to say that he's paid his debt for what he did with that girl. He's had to live with that image for a lot of years now and will always to live with it. Must be a pretty fucked up situation

that's the thing...he was convicted and he did not pay. that is my issue with him. if he had served his time then i would have no problem with him being a filmmaker. i don't care how tough life was growing up...he was my age (43) and he fucked a 13yr old girl.

You subscribe to a punitive model of justice, then. I find that interesting.

Artemis wrote:

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

creep wrote:

Matz wrote: I think it could be fair to say that he's paid his debt for what he did with that girl. He's had to live with that image for a lot of years now and will always to live with it. Must be a pretty fucked up situation

that's the thing...he was convicted and he did not pay. that is my issue with him. if he had served his time then i would have no problem with him being a filmmaker. i don't care how tough life was growing up...he was my age (43) and he fucked a 13yr old girl.

You subscribe to a punitive model of justice, then. I find that interesting.

It's interesting that you find that interesting.

It's not really surprising since the American justice system is rooted in a punitive model and approaches crime that way.

nausearockpig wrote:
I watched Battleground: Los Angeles (or whatever it's called). God that was boring rubbish that should have been well wicked.

nausearockpig wrote:
FFS people, learn to make a good alien action movie.. sigh..

creep wrote:

nausearockpig wrote:
I watched Battleground: Los Angeles (or whatever it's called). God that was boring rubbish that should have been well wicked.

weird...i tried watching this today. i made it through 20 minutes.

nausearockpig wrote:
FFS people, learn to make a good alien action movie.. sigh..

i'm not a big alien movie guy but i really liked district 9