Image of the day, 11/01/10

7 Comments

• Jeff McMahon says:

  November 1, 2010 at 4:19 pm

  I just wish the end­ing was­n’t so garbled.

• Tom Russell says:

  November 1, 2010 at 4:46 pm

  @Jeff: What about the end­ing was “garbled”?

• John M says:

  November 1, 2010 at 5:42 pm

  Odd, but the thing I enjoyed least about the movie was its con­ceit. Seven iron­ic kung-fu fights does not a movie make. Wright worked very hard to inject intel­li­gence into a dumb con­ceit. (And not without success–the still above, for example. The visu­al wit on dis­play was rare, indeed.)
  As usu­al, I had trouble with the “funny Jason Schwartzman” concept. When someone’s funny, you laugh, right? Isn’t that the nor­mal reaction?

• Jaime says:

  November 1, 2010 at 9:57 pm

  @ John M: I don’t know if your ques­tion is rhet­or­ic­al or not, but while laughter is a nor­mal reac­tion, it’s not the only reac­tion. Tati is one of my favor­ite film­makers and his films are full of ingeni­ous gags, but I don’t laugh much at the Hulot films. I smile a lot, get a little misty at cer­tain points, but I nev­er bust a gut. I don’t need to – I am fully inves­ted in what he’s doing. Same thing with some Keatons. When I saw NEIGHBORS (my favor­ite of the shorts), I think I was mostly just try­ing not to scrape the floor with my chin.
  Yeah, humor is sub­ject­ive, and quite divis­ive as well. The man I sat next to at my SCOTT PILGRIM screen­ing (packed house, full-on audi­ence par­ti­cip­a­tion) barely moved a muscle except occa­sion­ally to grimace.

• Dan Coyle says:

  November 1, 2010 at 11:34 pm

  You know, I loved the movie, but I’m pretty sure I would have been unhappy with Ramona as a char­ac­ter if she was­n’t played by MEW, who can just show up and I’ll fall in love with her.

• John M says:

  November 2, 2010 at 1:42 am

  Jaime, it was mostly rhet­or­ic­al (and snarky TM), but I get your point. Schwartzman nev­er really seems to be shoot­ing for laughs, so maybe I should­n’t pile on him–I just find his pres­ence nev­er more than pleas­antly mild. Which is a vir­tue, of course. Still, if sheer pleas­ure’s the game, one longs for a Belmondo: Schwartzman often feels like he’s play­ing grown-up. One of the reas­ons Bored to Death is such a…erm…bore.
  I, as well, rarely laugh at Tati. Indeed watch­ing PLAYTIME in shim­mer­ing 70mm (some of you might wanna loose the hounds here), his metic­u­lous humor war-strategies made me laugh so little I grew bored, then aggrav­ated. I tend to prefer earli­er Tati–the world feels a bit more open-ended.

• Jaime says:

  November 2, 2010 at 10:42 am

  Of course we have to release the hounds, but we’ll give you a 30-second head start and some chew toys to con­fuse them.