I’m decidedly mixed on Drive, for reasons I articulate in my upcoming review for MSN Movies, and as such I’m a little more impatient than I’d normally be with the utterly breathless and increasingly relentless unwarranted dribbling over the film and its admittedly talented director Nicolas Winding Refn. I hit a bit of a Twitter wall with it earlier today when one Industry Tweeter™ chimed in “Drive Director Refn Talks Scouting Gritty Los Angeles Locations.” Ooooh, I thought. Refn went to gritty places to scout. No other director does that. So I tweeted some imaginary Refn headlines. They were:
Drive Director Refn Heals Lame, Makes Blind See, Raises The Dead
Drive Director Refn Successfully Negotiates Middle East Peace Treaty; Tears It Up & Throws It In Your Face, Just For A Laugh
“Please Have Violent Sex With My Wife/Girlfriend,” Dozens Of 30-Something Male Film Critics Beg Of Drive Director Refn
Drive Director Refn Allows Lars von Trier To “Kill” Him, Destroying Final Nazi Horcrux
Can you top these? Do you want to? Am I overreacting?
Have a delightful Labor Day Weekend.
Drive is a perfect example of a certain type of movie done well.
It doesn’t reinvent cinema. It’s just solid.
The problem at hand is that most movies are so bad that when one comes along that isn’t, it gets over-hyped.
Watching the extra features on the Nicholas Winding Refn film Bronson elicits the information that, instead of the more usual “Action!”, Refn prefers to shout “Let’s FUCK!”. I bet that doesn’t get at all wearisome up around slate 164.
I have to say, I’ve interviewed Refn a couple of times, and he’s a really engaging, fun interview – and a real film buff to boot, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the cult canon. So I guess I can understand why people are so eager to get Q&As with him.
Well, Bilge, I have no problem with people wanting to do Q&As with him, except insofar as I have a problem with people wanting to do ANYTHING, which runs up against my own inclinations, which increasingly are all about taking long naps and turning my nose up at the very notion of “doing” “things”. No, I object to this chugging, apt-to-jump-the-tracks-at-any-minute notion that Refn is you-know-who climbing down from the you-know-what. A little perspective is all I ask. Now, I am sleeeeepy.
I basically like Refn, but I recently read the James Sallis novel on which DRIVE is based, a novel that was similarly hyped (though that hype was, as in this case, pitched at a fairly narrow audience) and I found it to be perfectly, you know…fine. By which I mean it was good, but I didn’t really give a shit that it was. So at this point, the only thing that has me amped for the film is Albert Brooks.
I don’t know, I was decidedly not a Nicholas Winding Refn fan until I caught his self-described “Tarkovsky/viking movie” VALHALLA RISING, the doldrums sequence of which is one of the greatest bits of cinema I’ve seen this year, worthy of comparison to Dreyer and Bergman and the Biblical imagery that no doubt inspired it. Also, a little birdie told me one of his favorite films is SIXTEEN CANDLES, which he’s up to watch anytime. Do with that what you will. So the above and the quality of the James Sallis book on which DRIVE is based has me totally psyched to see it. Just because people fall all over themselves to over hype something doesn’t always mean it’s not actually worthy.
I liked the trailer, but like Bill, the prospect of a villainous Albert Brooks has me particularly excited to see this (I enjoyed Valhalla Rising, but Bronson was a little “tour-de-force” for my tastes). The fact that every woman I know apparently wants to sleep with Ryan Gosling has no effect on my feelings about this film either way.
I’m not entirely sold on Refn either, having been underwhelmed by BRONSON and the first PUSHER movie (I admittedly haven’t seen VALHALLA RISING yet, which my co-worker assures me is awesome; of course, he also loved PUSHER, so I don’t know), but I liked the Sallis novel a lot (sorry, Bill), and the cast is very appealing (not just Albert Brooks playing a villain, but Christina Hendricks as part of a robbery crew), so while it’s not on my “must-see” list, I will see it.
“VALHALLA RISING, the doldrums sequence of which is one of the greatest bits of cinema I’ve seen this year, worthy of comparison to Dreyer and Bergman”
Valhalla Rising is pretty good, but doesn’t have anything in it worthy of comparison to Dreyer or Bergman. Looking forward to seeing Drive when it opens, not expecting a masterpiece from it though.
Nicolas Winding Refn speaks in tongues, cures cancer, poops gold nuggets and make films glorifying a psychopathic, recidivist, hostage-taking thug so shallow and narcissistic he changed his name to that of a movie star.
Critic Kenny Feigns: “So Over Nicolas Winding Refn Already.”
Ooh, snap.Hey, I can’t be “over” anything I was never on. Refn’s a capable and occasionally inspired filmmaker, but I don’t even rate him that far above a smart genre technician like Neil Marshall. You want the guy, you’re welcome to him. But I’m not bowing.
Glenn, that Nazi Horcrux line made me laugh OJ up my nose. Absolutely fucking hilarious.
“Refn’s a capable and occasionally inspired filmmaker, but I don’t even rate him that far above a smart genre technician like Neil Marshall.”
I’ll take Neil Marshall any day…
I like Marshall, too, but boy, he’s this close to being Beverly overrated. The guy’s only 2 out of 4 by my count.
“Severely”…damn you, autocorrect!!!!!!!
Glenn, if you interviewed Refn yourself, maybe you’d see the light – especially if you let him lay his hand upon you, or perhaps touch the hem of his garment.
I haven’t seen any of his films, but the Cannes win and the presence of Brooks will get me to DRIVE.
Didn’t know the word “horcrux,” felt dumb. Googled it. Now I don’t quite feel so dumb (or do I?)
Saw the first Pusher movie, was unimpressed, skipped the second and third. Popped Bronson out of the DVD player about 10 minutes in, maybe sooner. Saw Valhalla Rising and fucking LOVED it; wrote about it for MSN, in fact:
http://on-msn.com/eP04BA
I’m planning on seeing Drive because I like Gosling and I love Walter Hill’s The Driver. The presence of Albert Brooks is only a plus because I liked him in Out Of Sight; I don’t find him funny at all.
@Glenn Kenny: “Can you top these? Do you want to? Am I overreacting?”
I would guess you are. The question is: would you be as ‘impatient’ if you had found DRIVE to be a masterpiece, whatever that means, or if you thought Refn was, is, well, special? I mean, I’m myself pretty anxious to see the thing, loved VALHALLA RISING, BRONSON and PUSHER, Albert Brooks is in it, ordered the novel as soon as I read some good reviews from Cannes by critics I respect, found it, the novel, to be excellent if a bit self-concious and post-noir and I guess that’s what there is to it now because we can’t have originals like Thompson or Willeford anymore and anyway I’ve ordered more by Sallis so far so good, and judging by the trailer some things are gonna be quite different, which is not necessarily a bad thing, I prefer a film that stands on its own than a lifeless adaptation, I’m more of a THE BIG SLEEP guy than a THE MALTESE FALCON guy, film-wise, novel-wise is the other way around… but the point I was trying to make, if it was that, a point, I was trying to make, or do, was, I’m very excited about DRIVE based on previous NWR-DjangoStar-Whatever films and the novel and a handful of promising reviews from critics who certainly know their shit so to speak and aren’t trying to sell it like the second coming of the second Melville and anyway are more taken by THE TURIN HORSE, a film I would be even more excited to see except for the harsh realities of international film distribution and Hungarian politics , BUT I’m staying fucking nautical miles away from the opinions of the professional hypers and next-big-thing sellers and their kin, don’t have a Twitter account, don’t follow other Twitter accounts if that’s the way to phrase it and wasn’t even sure what Twitter was and I’ve always found pleasantly amusing yet disturbingly accurate your own coined term ‘The Twitterific Kids’, and this is kind of liking Tarantino films, which I usually like, and lots of other people like or dislike Tarantino films for perfectly sound reasons, but then it seems even more people like or dislike Tarantino films for moronic reasons, and whenever a new QT film looms over the horizon you have the hypers telling IT IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE AND TARANTINO IS THE GREATEST DIRECTOR EVER AND UNTIL YOU GET A CHANCE TO SEE IT YOU MUST STAY WIRED TO OUR SEEMINGLY LIVE FEED CONSTANTLY REMINDING YOU HOW GREAT IT IS, and, well, I for one get queasy and to tell the truth a part of me almost wishes for the thing to suck just to not agree with these bastards, so the better to avoid them.
So, my question: would you be as tired of the hype if you had liked the movie? And, is it better to stay away from evil social networks or to keep watch just to throw one of these admittedly funny tirades?
Oh, and my contribution:
‑Drive director Refn issues 12-hour deadline to Gadafi to shave creepy moustache, reprisals not disclosed.
‑Drive director Refn concludes ardous negotiations with Satan, saves Henry Kissinger’s soul, somehow.
‑Drive director Refn conclusively proves Spanish and Italian to be one and the same language, credits some Hibbert dude for inspiration.
Phil, please tell me you saw MODERN ROMANCE and LOST IN AMERICA before deciding Brooks isn’t funny. I’d still disagree with you, but at least I’d know you made a real effort.
“The presence of Albert Brooks is only a plus because I liked him in Out Of Sight; I don’t find him funny at all.”
…
I.B.: Fair enough. It’s not just the hype itself but the thinking, such as it is, that informs it; the self-congratulation of the droolers who “get” all of the film’s various references, as if their ability to parse each aspect of the film’s pastiche elements is sufficient to prove the film’s greatness. I also thought it was pretty funny to see critics who, having missed about a third of the content of “Tree of Life,” pronounced the Malick film pretentious, and then fell over each other dribbling over a movie that portentuosly and uselessly rehashes “Scorpion and Frog,” for God’s sake.
Oh please tell me “Scorpion and Frog” doesn’t REALLY get rehashed in DRIVE.
“You’re not going to rehash ‘Scorpion and Frog’ in your movie, are you? Because I won’t like that, I’ll suffer, and when my review savages it for rehashing ‘Scorpion and Frog’, your movie will suffer, so we’ll both suffer.”
“I promise you, I won’t rehash ‘Scorpion and Frog’ in my movie.”
.
.
.
.
.
“ARRGGGHHHH!!!!! Why did you rehash ‘Scorpion and Frog’ in your movie?!”
“It’s my nature.”
I haven’t really developed an opinion on Refn yet because I’ve only seen Bronson, which was alright, but what has Neil Marshall done that makes him worthy of mention? Other than ripping off every film he’s ever liked and slapping some blood and gore in to make it his own, the guy’s a fanboy-wanking genre hack. Glad he found his niche, but…
I’m holding out for Refn’s remake of LOGAN’S RUN with Gosling. Although if the goal was remaking a Michael Anderson film, QUILLER MEMORANDUM would get my vote.
I try to get outside myself a lot more when I watch a film like DRIVE, which is difficult since it pretty much pushes all of my buttons. I adored it, the thing set my little head on fire. But I agree with you, Glenn, that it’s been somewhat overhyped. I don’t really think it takes many significant steps beyond THE DRIVER, but on the other hand I was quite taken with the introduction of the almost primal romantic motivation for Gosling. Those emotional stakes, that fullness of feeling, that’s something that I personally don’t often find in films like THE DRIVER or LE SAMOURAI, which tend to work in terms of icy professionalism (this is by no means a shot at Hill or Melville). In DRIVE, this element does suffer from the somewhat rote characterization of Mulligan’s character, but without going into spoilers I can’t really discuss what mitigated that flaw for me.
A friend of mine recently started getting into Michael Mann, partly at my insistence, and he told me that after loving THIEF, he found THE DRIVER coming up short, that it was too pretentious. I’m not sure he’s wrong, but I’m also not sure that it bothers me. I think both DRIVE and THE DRIVER are after the sort of broad mythmaking gestures you might find in, say, THE ROAD WARRIOR, and that the stuff that seems pretentious is simply sincere enthusiasm.
I’m also not sure I’m making any sense. Sorry for all that rambling.
I may be all alone on this one, but I found DRIVE thoroughly offensive and disgusting, and it made me reflect afterwards that Albert Brooks must be desperate for money, what with a family to support and all. (Too bad you can’t outsource acting–or can you?) Maybe it’s my old age, but as the years pass, I find the most repellent violence in movies to be the kind that pretends (or even half-pretends) to be moralistic and “sensitive”–maybe in part because it reminds me too much of our foreign occupations. In any case, now that I’m no longer a reviewer, I felt in retrospect that I was a fool for going to see this.
Jonathan: I do not think your reaction has anything to do with old age. You have always been alert to how violence appears on screen and is perceived/appreciated by audiences (your review of THE GODFATHER PART III is still one of the rare critiques I know that begins to do justice to this film). What is curious is how few filmmakers who incorporate violence in their aesthetic are able to progress to an increasingly nuanced engagement with it.
“I do not think your reaction has anything to do with old age.”
No, but it does have to do with being a pussy.
Cinematic violence RULES ALL, and anyone squeamish enough that they can’t handle it because it reminds them of our “REAL WORLD OCCUPATION OF FOREIGN LANDS” should commit some violence of your own… on yourself. God, how do people like this get through life? Some Puerto Rican kid cuts the line at Starbucks, do you throw your hands up blubbering in terror?
In the words of Phil Anselmo, you all know you want to kill people. Violent movies allow a fun visceral catharsis for our impulses. I don’t trust anyone who says they don’t groove on fictional violence as some kind of release. Especially against the poor and stupid people of the world.
Be a man.
Of all the possible turns this thread could have taken, I did not envision that it would encompass Lex G indirectly calling Jonathan Rosenbaum a “pussy.”
Incivility of language aside, I see what Lex is getting at. I’m tempted to quote Otter in “Animal House” re Bluto. Oh hell, I’ll just do it: “Psychotic, but right.” I mean, in a film-historical sense, I’ve always believed that sensation, and unhealthy sensation in particular, has always been cinema’s birthright, its blessing/curse. I generally cite the “shooting into the audience” bit in 1903’s “The Great Train Robbery” as evidence in favor of this argument. That said, the oft-meretricious violence in “Drive” is not without its troubling aspects, but I’d have to say its stylization is more in keeping with otsensibly edgy European films than with Hollywood projects, which is one reason it didn’t remind ME of American occupation of foreign lands but of…well, a brand of effete posturing.
As far as the “be a man” crack is concerned, from what I know I’d have to say that over the course of his life Mr. Rosenbaum has frequently acted with more genuine courage and integrity than Lex has ever once even been even asked to contemplate exercising. Grow up.
“Be a man.”
Yes Lex, I’m sure if Red Adair, Ernest Hemmingway and William Wellman were alive today they’d be clamouring to toil alongside you in the testosterone-sodden pursuit that is telecine calibration.
Back off, Lexi. Read Mr. Rosenbaum’s comment, consider what he’s ACTUALLY saying, and ponder the differences between these two characters and how their violent acs are depicted:
‑That fucker in ‘Saving private Ryan’ who cries in fear and is unable to save his friend upstairs being knifed by a German, whose life is spared by said German, and who later shoots the German when the German has surrendered and is UNARMED, and then looks all stern and serious and johnwilliamsinized and low-angled (if I remember correctly) and we’re supposed to take he is now wise in the ways of the world and he’s done the right, if sad, thing.
‑Paul Muni gleefully shooting a Thompson SMG in full auto into a room full of people just for the fun of it, and then enthusiastically exiting the frame to unleash on the viewer another vertiginous, glorious montage of vicious mayhem and gang-slayings.
Tell me which of the two gets portrayed more dishonestly, in the most morally repugnant way.
P.D.:And, by the way, I don’t think the ‘poor’ people of the world are also the ‘stupid’ people of the world. The two groups may overlap in spots, but are not the same. And, anyway, it’s always been funnier to watch the ‘rich and stupid’ being slaughtered than the ‘poor and stupid’.
(Also, tell me whom is the most fun to watch)
Thank you, Glenn, Oliver, and I.B.
And Brian too.
Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.
I promised myself I wasn’t going to get involved, but I.B., your reading of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN has been pretty badly derailed by your failure to note who Jeremy Davies actually shoots at the end. Hint: it’s not the guy who stabs Adam Goldberg.
Violent movies allow a fun visceral catharsis for our impulses.”
Too general to be true. For me, I have no desire, cathartic or otherwise, to indulge any violent impulses. As a victim of bashing, I have no need in this area, but also admit the possibility that those who (potentially) grip the other end of the bat may possess different impulses requiring expression/validation.
“I mean, in a film-historical sense, I’ve always believed that sensation, and unhealthy sensation in particular, has always been cinema’s birthright, its blessing/curse.”
Whose birthright? Cinema (as with all art forms) was born naked into this world and only becomes imbued with a “temporary” birthright from those who use its forms to express their understanding of their own inheritance. Change the user, change the birthright.
“Be a man”
If you spend any time reading his website, you would realize that Jonathan Rosenbaum has spent his life (in part) analyzing what that seemingly simple sentences means, and, as a result, has brought considerable clarity to its pluralistic/contradictory confusion.
Are you sure? It’s been like seven years or so, but I remember 1) the German who gets spared by the platoon, 2) the German who stabs “the token Jewish guy for historic/ironical effect in the platoon”, and 3) the German who jokingly pleads mercy of Davies’ character, being 1,2,3 the same (tall, short hair grown after being shaved). Are you saying 1 and 3 are the same (3 knows Davies’ character name), but not 2?
Does it change it so much? Davies’ character’s life STILL gets spared by a German, he STILL fails to save Goldberg’s character, and he STILL shoots an unarmed prisoner.
It’s a cunt move, shooting a guy who’s just surrendered, AFTER you’ve been unable to act in combat, when you were supposed to act, and show it like it is some kind of regretable but necessary moral victory. And don’t tell me it comes from a Sam Fuller story, ’cause yes, I remember that one about checking the clip of the rifle of the guy who surrenders after having been shooting at you, and if there are more bullets to let him go but if it’s empty the sergeant blows his brains out, BUT this is different ’cause Davies’ character, after being a coward in combat, which may or may not be something to be judged about, proves to be an UNDISPUTED CUNT pulling the trigger after winning. And to shoot it, the scene, like “behold, he’s matured from his foolish idealism!”, rather than “this shit actually happens in wars” (Fuller’s view), just goes on to show what I take as Señor Spielbergo’s dishonesty in this particular case.
P.D.: BTW, 1 and 3 may not be German at all, maybe Waffen SS or something. I shoulda have used ‘Nazi!!!’ to avoid misunderstandings.
I never read that scene as anything other than another facet of Davies’ cowardice/lack of integrity.
On a less hyperbolic note:
At the point you’re declaring that cinematic violence makes you uncomfortable because of real-life violence, where does that path end? Why watch football, because it might encourage a patriarchy; Why read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” because there’s real-life hate crimes; Hell, why leave the fucking house at all, long as there’s so much injustice and pain in the world? Why watch movies on your fat ass in a theater for a living, when there’s innocent people suffering in Darfur? It’s an absurdly extreme argument. It also makes one wonder how a person can make it through 40, 50, 60 years of life, to say nothing of MOVIEGOING, if they’re so put off by the concept of CONFLICT and VIOLENCE as a central form of artistic manipulation in storytelling. It’s always seemed to me, if you’re that squeamish about violence, maybe movies just aren’t for you. It’s like being a homophobe who chooses to work in Broadway.
Also, not to go all John Nolte, but can’t help observe Mr. Rosenbaum’s objection is about “our” foreign occupations. Guess some phony Ryan Gosling bludgeonings would be A‑OK if America were an entirely neutral, non-hawklike country. It just smacks of typical sheltered, phony limo-progressive “hate the hometeam” mentality… Would violent movies go down easier if it was just the Burmese or Africans or some brown people off your radar half a globe away committing atrocities against one another? JR’s main objection seems to be that AMERICA is some EVIL RAPING OCCUPIER, so some dumb movie doesn’t sit well with him in the face of that. Shit, move to any other country and see how much they’ll pay you to review fucking movies.
(And also, no one should be thanking Oliver_C for anything, anywhere… he’s the most historically witless regular on this or any other board, bringing nothing of value to any conversation beyond hostility and his own certitude that collecting a few random movies with a “Criterion Collection” label propels him to something beyond the unfunny and bluntly stupid station he occupies in life.)
“At the point you’re declaring that cinematic violence makes you uncomfortable because of real-life violence, where does that path end?”
It ends with me. Another viewer will have a different reaction to screen violence (as I noted in a previous post). The absurdity of your statement lies in the assertion that violence is cathartic for “our” impulses. You falsely totalized something through an unproven/unprovable assertion of an essential human nature.
Also, I made no comment about conflict. My comment was restricted to your notion that all human beings have a need to experience violence in a cathartic way. Also, there can be conflict without violence, and storytelling without either.
“At the point you’re declaring that cinematic violence makes you uncomfortable because of real-life violence, where does that path end? Why watch football, because it might encourage a patriarchy; Why read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” because there’s real-life hate crimes; Hell, why leave the fucking house at all, long as there’s so much injustice and pain in the world? Why watch movies on your fat ass in a theater for a living, when there’s innocent people suffering in Darfur? It’s an absurdly extreme argument.”
“A tracking shot is a moral matter”, Jean-Luc Godard.
There’s violence in Shakespeare, Mr. Dauth. Guess he’s off-putting to you as well. Guess you don’t read most classic literature either, or just sticking to film, guess you can’t watch film noir, or Howard Hawks, or John Ford, or any Western, or any war film, or any police procedural… Might be you uncomfortable with all those phony gunshots and squib hits.
VIOLENCE RULES.
I.B. – I’m positive; 1 and 3 is one guy, 2 is a different guy. Now, as to what it all means…it’s quite possible, regardless of your life philosophy, to read Upham’s execuation of the prisoner as laithtippler does. I certainly don’t watch that scene and think “Now he is a real soldier.” I also have no doubt that some sense of growth, or at least a hardening of spirit, is meant to be taken away from that moment. But the execution ties in less to the moment when Upham’s cowardice cost Mellish his life, but more to the part where Upham, you know, argued, basically all on his own, in favor of sparing that very Nazi’s life. If you remember, the options were to kill him or let him go, and the argument for killing him, or the practical argument for it anyway, was that if the Nazi was released, he would merely be picked up by another German platoon, and go back to killing Americans in battle. Which is exactly what happened! So, from Upham’s point of view, his mercy was thrown back in his face, and he’s not about to make that same mistake again. The point being made is, in war a certain cold-heartedness is simply pragmatic.
Hey, Dauth and Rosenbaum… If you caught some thuggish piece of human garbage breaking into your car to steal the radio, would you also hand him the keys to the whole thing, and the address of your house so he could go rob it too? Maybe volunteer your wife to them, too, as a sex slave? Yeah, just hand over your wife and daughter, too… You wouldn’t wanna be make a moral judgment on a poor person, nor engage in any sort of human conflict.
PUH-lease. Guarantee any of you guys so much as get a jury summons that interrupts your busy day of reading, typing on the web and watching movies, you’re ready to lead up on assault weapons like Paul fucking Kersey. Don’t ANYONE ever give me this shit that you’ve never entertained, for one second, a revenge fantasy against someone who’s wronged you.
Also, my favorite stories are the ones with no conflict at all. I like it best when everybody is nice to each other, and the question the hero must ask is, should I hug my friend, or just shake his hand warmly?
Bill?
Kill yourself.
Thanks.
Hey Lex, that thing you said earlier about Oliver C being the most witless commenter? You’re giving him a real run for his money all of a sudden.
For Christ’s sake. How obvious does a joke have to be before people get it these days? In your case, really, super fucking obvious.
I had a feeling this wasn’t gonna end well.
Okay. I’m going to see Keith Rowe at The Stone (Google ’em; that might keep you busy for a bit), and this is musical entertainment that requires some concentration, so what I’m trying to say is don’t make me come in there. Thanks, much appreciated.
To me, Lex, your thuggish behavior and the tone in your posts resembles in some ways the kind of movies I don’t like (or at least why I don’t like them)–although I admit that you don’t make the same sort of moral excuses for your violence that DRIVE does. Your argument appears to be that, hey, we’re all thugs anyway, so why not admit it and enjoy it? Why not start by finding all the rapists in sight and torturing them to death?
If watching movies that make fake excuses for violence makes you feel good and masculine and tingly all over, that’s your perfect right, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a pussy if I don’t. Anyway, you obviously don’t know how to read, because I never said that “cinematic violence makes [me] uncomfortable because of real-life violence”, or even anything remotely like that. Nor did I say I only object to “our” foreign occupations.
Here’s what I said: “I find the most repellent violence in movies to be the kind that pretends (or even half-pretends) to be moralistic and ‘sensitive’–maybe in part because it reminds me too much of our foreign occupations.” (This doesn’t mean that I don’t object to other foreign occupations–only that the moralistic jive of DRIVE doesn’t specifically remind me of them “too much”. Maybe they should–especially if they are also gussied up with hypocritical excuses and pseudo-moralistic alibis, as I suppose they sometimes are–but they don’t. So I stand convicted–like it or lump it–or being reminded by a stupid movie of American excuses for occupying Iraq, including its phony claims that it’s fighting a war. Maybe I should also be reminded of, say, the German occupation of France or, for that matter, by the American occupation of Japan, but excuse me if I don’t. I just can’t help it.
The reason why I said “our” is that I’m American and therefore I feel implicated in the hypocritically moralistic or pseudo-moralistic pretenses made about a couple of recent American occupations, and when I find movies that are similarly hypocritical in their moralistic or pseudo-moralistic excuses for violence, they remind me of stupid and meaningless phrases like “war on terrorism”. They don’t have to remind you or anyone else (including you, Glenn) of that–I’m only speaking for myself. And I’m certainly not objecting to depictions of violence per se; I love Hawks’s SCARFACE as much as I.B. does, and I especially love its lack of moralistic excuses or its sentimentality about the violence it shows. At least its honesty about meaningless violence is entertaining, which I don’t find true of your own theorizing on the subject. Maybe if you found a way of making your verbal violence more aesthetically pleasing to me, I’d feel differently about it.
P.S. Who ever said I don’t ever harbor any revenge fantasies? Not me. Au contraire. I’ve just tried to fulfill one.
Review the movie not the hype. It’s better that way.
I love how in all the fawning over Refn as the overnight enfant terrible second coming (a full fifteen years after the first his amazing PUSHER films), mainly due to the abrasive, overly stylized, wannabe-Kubrickisms of the atypical (for him) BRONSON, everyone seems to forget that he already did a film in America in the wake of his early triumphs – FEAR X with John Turturro – and it sank like a stone. Who said there are no second acts in the film biz?
Yeah, in the interests of bringing it back on topic and non-confrontational:
A couple of my very best and most trusted friends have told me I would worship Valhalla Rising, and Drive couldn’t possibly be more up my alley (violence, cars, Mann/Hill/Friedkin homage)…
But the one and only Refn movie I (just) saw is Bronson, which I thought was truly, almost insanely AWFUL, wretched, obnoxious, pointless, LAME, and one-note. So it’s sort of ironic, I guess, that this is oh-so-looked-forward-to DRIVE is by a director whose one movie I’ve seen I actively despised.
Yeah, Lex, and I jerk off to furry porn as well!
The BEST THING EVER was OLIVER COOMBS registering as some phony troll on HE, then Wells banning him, then FORWARDING ME the email, which connecting to this LOSER’S Flickr page.
What a DOUCHE. God, yeah, keep the FURRY joke going. GUARANTEE, GUARANTEE YOU, Glenn thinks you suck a TRILLION times worse than me, Coombsy.
Lex can’t even get my surname right! Are you going to start stalking me like Wells did with that Criterion employee?
I don’t give a shit about your surname, it’s been a while and I’m not a total loser, so I don’t remember and don’t care. All I know is I’m sick to fuck of creepos who ALL stem from the Criterion Forums running me down, talking shit, being general assholes all over the movie blogs. NEWS FLASH BITCH, a “film education” born of Netflix and the Criterion Collection is about as legit as a fucking ASU diploma, so you little pleased-with-yourself cocksuckers can fuck right on off with your phony-ass “learned” collection of movies, just the same as any goatee‑o who thinks his BLUE UNDERGROUND library makes him some kind of expert.
But more to the point, why is every, EVERY Criterion collector OCD job some SUPER hostile movie-Nazi cockprick jerk who thinks they have some moral high ground? To a TEE, every web stalker I’ve had is some “art art art!” quasi-pretentious libertarian stoner jerkoff who frequents the CC boards and thinks they’re some fucking genius. What, are they giving out Ozu DVDs with Mexican Emo Bullet Belts these days? ‘Cause everyone’s also some faux-tough-guy running their mouth, all because they NETFLIXED some movie from before their birthdate and watched it once. POSEUR. POSEURS.
OLIVER FAG is like the KING of this, but you can add in half the populace of HE, all the BITCHES like TOOLOZ GRAY and PHANTASMATA and that psycho fuck who emails Wells THREATS about me from craigslistestatesale@gmail.com All of them CREEPY AS FUCK wannabe ART WORLD COKEHEAD STALKING PSYCHOS, HOSTILE AS FUCK, and
THEY ARE THE SAME GUY who THREATENED GLENN KENNY, NO BULLSHIT, I have PROOF it’s the SAME FUCKING GUY, and OLIVER C is somehow related to ALL this, GLENN EMAIL ME, I will LAY IT OUT FOR YOU, so fucking BAN this OLIVER CREEPO, he’s in the SAME CIRCLE as the guy who said they’d seen you around, even though he’s a BRITISH BITCH.
Oliver BITCH.
And now for the punchline…
I actually got banned from the Criterion Collection Forum months ago. 😀
Riveting.
Nobody gives a fuck. Ever notice NOBODY has ever responded to any of your posts here or on HE?
Except for my dumb ass, apparently.
You said it!
(PS: Get some sleep. Busy telecine day ahead of you, boy!)
No, but seriously, douche, I say this with UTMOST CERTITUDE:
Glenn Kenny doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re stupid as fuck.
GUARANTEE IT.
Jeffrey doesn’t like me… Kenny hates me… The Criterion Collection can’t stand me…
To think Orson was only 25 when he made ‘Citizen Kane’, and I’m already 40…
(*sobs profusely*)
Well, this has certainly been, um, educational. Really. I’ll admit it: I had totally forgotten that “fear X” ever existed, too. And that fucking thing had PEDIGREE—screenplay co-written by Hubert Selby, Jr., for heaven’s sake. You gotta love a groupie with good taste, I always say.
Lex is right (again!); those “art” pushers are the WORST. Look how far around the bend they drove that poor Kois fella.
Most annoying comment (so far): the “review the movie not the hype” crack. Yawn.
Now to get back on topic:
Drive director Refn insists his surname is Winding Refn, unleashes army of art-film buffs, instigates nasty flame war on SCR comment boards.
It’s times like this that I’m glad my blog is not popular.
And I’d also forgotten about FEAR X. That movie was terrible. Not very violent, either.
To paraphrase THE WONDER BOYS:
If nobody reads your blog, why were you writing it? The weirdest thing EVER is all these MOTORMOUTHS writing these blogs that NOBODY comments on; Like FUCK A BLOG, but in general, if THE LEXMAN– and I am a TOTAL LOSER– gets written up in The Guardian and shit, WHY are you writing a BLOG that NOBODY IS READING? It’s like masturbation without the fun; If you have a blog that DOESN’T GET 40–50 COMMENTS per posting, CALL IT A DAY and take a walk. POINTLESS BEHAVIOR.
As Judd Nelson says in ST ELMO’S FIRE: WASTED LIFE.
It’s cute when you talk like you know anything at all. It’s like you think you’re people.
I am relatively new to this blog and don’t comment much. I have no background history with or baggage about any of you. Aside from Glenn (obviously) and Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose name I recognize as a former professional critic, I don’t know who any of you are. However, from an outsider perspective, I feel it needs to be said that Lex, whoever you are and however old you may be (from your writings, I would peg you at 15–16), you’re behaving like an obnoxious ass and you really need to find something more productive to do with your life than harrass people on the internet.
Honestly, from this thread alone, I’m not sure why this behavior would be condoned and why Lex wouldn’t have already been banned. Abusive ranting and raving like this does nothing to further the conversation, and will only serve to discourage other interested readers from joining the comments.
Having 40–50 comments per posting (which Lex seems to find an impressive statistic) means nothing when there’s little intelligent being said in so many of them.
My $.02. Glenn can take it or leave it. I will go back to lurking now, and likely not bother to read the comments on any more posts.
FEAR X was a very good movie.
I’m 40, motherfucker and I got THREE DEGREES:
FILM STUDIES. JOURNALISM. ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Yahooooo, ya motherfucker! Go back to lurking, fag.
@ Lex:
“If you caught some thuggish piece of human garbage breaking into your car to steal the radio, would you also hand him the keys to the whole thing, and the address of your house so he could go rob it too?”
The problem is that you pose all situations as simplified binaries where you oppose the factor under consideration with a ridiculous one. Another example:
“Don’t ANYONE ever give me this shit that you’ve never entertained, for one second, a revenge fantasy against someone who’s wronged you.”
Again, you seem to believe that the limitations of your understanding/imagination impose hard restrictions on my existence, as if I can only behave within the confines of what you are capable imagining human beings doing.
@ Bill:
Another false binary:
“Also, my favorite stories are the ones with no conflict at all. I like it best when everybody is nice to each other, and the question the hero must ask is, should I hug my friend, or just shake his hand warmly?”
There are other models of human psychology and aesthetic engagement than the Freudian conflict model. For example, Buddhist aesthetics and psychology (which possesses a longer and richer heritage and history than the much more recent Freudian approach) propose a different model. A person is free to choose the model that works best for her, but realize it is just one of many choices.
“Another false binary”
Or, you know, Bill could be using hyperbole to make a “joke,” a dying construct which I’m pretty sure exists in both the Buddhist AND Freudian philosophical spheres.
God, there was this fleeting moment when Lex seemed to be making a decent point, albeit in a fake-drug-crazed style, but then he started credentializing and really is there anything less interesting than that?
Apart from that Lex, did you enjoy my photographs?
I want to know more about the Brit threatener who is somehow tied with Oliver_C in a tremendously complex and mysterious plot to achieve blog dominance and about whom the Lexman can provide precious intel as long as they don’t contract Dillon the Bartender to do a hit on him.
Link, Lex. I’m not patronizing. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I enjoy these bizarre Internet dramas, as long as they stay bizarre and short and we can get back on topic soon.
On FEAR X: It is a film I would really want to like more, or to simply like, but… no, I just can’t. Take almost any scene, individually, and it’s pretty well directed; Refn is very good with actors and moods. Take the whole, and it’s NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S POOCHIE EPISODE REBOOT: WITHOUT POOCHIE. Half an hour in, you already know they will never get to the fireworks factory, and you’re relieved because it would be unbelievably dumb (all that hoopla for a THE STAR CHAMBER conspiracy? Really?).
Well, I could tell you I.B. but then, of course, I’d have to, er… post a malcontented comment on your blog?
This has certainly been loads of fun to “watch”. I would like to add a few cents now as well. 1) I do disagree with Mr. Rosenbaum on violence in films, but as every human being is different I would not expect us all to have the same reactions to cinema (or any art for that matter). 2) this bashing from Lex (really, your are 40? I seriously cannot believe that after reading your obviously childish rants) is certainly uncalled for but isn’t that what the internet (and their lurkers) is all about. 3) Glenn – isn’t it fun having a blog? As Bill said, perhaps it is good to have a site that isn’t that popular. No Lex, I do not get 40–50 comments per post, but hopefully someday I can be as famous as Mr. Kenny and receive comment threads like this one. 4) I too forgot all about Fear X (see, I can get back on thread).
Lex: What’s a “Mexican Emo Bullet Belt”? Is no one else baffled by this?
We finally got the kid to sleep – a page without a post from Lex – and you’re asking him to elaborate? Here’s hoping some online pharmacy starts throttling this thread and derails it once and for all.
I was also gonna say that while the late Mr. Selby was untouchable in crafting prose ABOUT the state of mind-self-eating paranoia and anxiety, I wouldn’t necessarily leave it to him to concoct a movie-movie-type rationale for said state. Although that whole “star chamber” thing could have been…wait for it…Winding Refn’s idea, anyway.
A “Mexican Emo Bullet Belt” is simply a belt, worn by those weird Latino kids who reside mostly in the Eastern San Fernando Valley and affect some sort of half-screamo, half-Larry Clark street kid movie, half-1983 James Hetfield look (“That’s three halves,” TM Robert Stack.) It’s seen on olive-skinned kids with shaggy hair, black skinny jeans, semi-ironic metal shirt, black hoodie and usually a black-and-hot-pink checkered flat brim hat. It’s a belt made of fake, cheap-ass plastic bullets, like some Latin skater kid is Rob fucking Halford. Go to the mall in Burbank and you’ll see seven million bullet belts.
I miss when all the Latino kids just dressed like Mike Muir instead of this.
Thanks for explaining. I know exactly the style you’re talking about, especially the shaggy hair, skinny jeans, and hoodies, but I’ve never noticed the belt. It hasn’t caught on among the Persian-Jewish kids in my L.A. neighborhood.
@Lex: And I miss the Zoot Suit Riots! But, man, I’m intrigued by the threatening guy. Did he take on Glenn after he dissed a Harry Potter movie or something? Is there a link? Was he Joe Swanberg (ugh, I’ve watched ‘Kissing on the mouth’ in spots, and the most ofensive thing about the shower scene is definitely the cliched editing to the song)? And do you still have a link to those Youtube videos you made and voiced of hand-drawn film-critics? Am I going to be the only one who’s gonna congratulate you for the… huh… brilliantly insane bent of those?
@Glenn Kenny: certainly, ultimate blame for the FEAR X plot catastrofuck is on Refn; this was not a project imposed on him (“Seijun-san, we have another yakuza-betrayed-by-his-boss never-heard-before-story for you!”), but one he chose to develop, and then again chose Selby to develop with, and then went ahead and did before sorting certain things out, or giving Deborah Kara Unger SOMETHING to do. In a way, BLEEDER is troubling in the same way: solid scene in itself after solid scene in itself, well acted and shot, ‘meh’ taken together. Still way better, though, but a huge step back after PUSHER (which I consider as one of the very best crime films of the 90’s, thanks in no small part to Kim Bodnia’s ’empty’ performance).
‑Drive director REFN ROTFL ASAP LOL MILF BTW WTF LMAO AWOL NAMBLA, withdraws meaning until bets close.
@Lex, congratulations on your alleged three college degrees, if they really exist. It’s just a shame that in your alleged 40 years on this Earth, you never learned how to hold a civil conversation like an adult. What a better society this would be if grade schools required all children to take classes in How Not to Be an Asshole from their earliest days.
@Glenn, if you’re reading this, I am really amazed that you haven’t banned this jerk and purged all of his comments. I guess when I came here, I expected a level of discourse somewhat higher than Ain’t It Cool News. Perhaps I was mistaken.
Refn’s OK – The PUSHER trilogy gets better and better as its chapters move forward (I’d love to see the South-continental – not to say Bollywood – remake of Chapter 1 with the Muslim angle whose trailer was an extra on the DVD) and I confess to have been something approaching a sucker for the black-metal diasporadics of VALHALLA RISING, though I wouldn’t recommend it to Jonathan Rosenbaum for any Revenge Fulfillment Night he may have planned. Not like the man (Refn) walks on auto-existential water or anything. Like, say, Walter Hill or Monte Hellman.
How was Keith Rowe?
@ James: Mr. Rowe, in tandem with Christian Wolff (for the first time, Jon Abbey informed me) was pretty great. The Stone was at capacity (60 souls) and because they were recording the gig and because their music has a dynamic range that sometimes dips under what we refer to as audibility, the A/C and all fans were turned off, which created a sweatbox atmosphere that, while conventionally uncomfortable, did really focus the mind in an interesting way. There was a good deal of buzz and static and stones dropped into finger cymbals poised above the pickups of a Strat (Wolff’s; Rowe’s “guitar” these days is basically a little less than half of a neck), and things got only a trifle more tonal when Wolff sat at the piano for a bit. That audience was so purposefully attentive and quiet that you really COULD have heard a pin drop, had the duo decided that dropping pins was their bag. And of course the miracle that eventually occurred was nothing more or less than the entirety of the performance. I’ll be checking out more shows in the series as I can.
Refn just beat up all of Jack Palance’s children.
I’ve basically sworn off the Stone (even with “AC”) in August, which properly speaking really runs through Labor Day weekend, but if anything could’ve brought me out it would’ve been prospect of Keef rocking his half-neck with a major figure of NY School composition. Unfortunately, I was otherwise engaged upriver. More to come, certainly, and my man Herr Gottschalk has a fine cover/feature interview with the accomplished expectation-frustrator and surely future Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in the current NYC Jazz Record.
[[rises from deep sleep; yawns.]] DRIVE is OK, I guess. Nicely directed and all that, but mighty pleased with itself and pointless.
[[long pause; looks around.]] ??? Never mind.
[[goes back to sleep.]]
They were gonna name a street after Nicholas Winding Refn in his hometown, but they decided against it. Because no man crosses Nick Refn and lives.
Dan: Was it to be called the Long and Winding Refn?
Sorry.
Messrs. Coyle and jbryant wins the thread.
Last night me and the mrs. watched Nemesis, a Miss Marple directed by Mr. Refn, and it is obviously the work of someone with talent, even when just a hired hand. It’s the darkest Christie adaptation I’ve ever seen with lots of camera movement and unusual but not-overtly-self-conscious compositions. Refn demonstrates that even with limitations placed upon him, he can make violence unsettling.
I agree with the original poster about the inexplicable way Davies gets rewarded for being a creep in Private Ryan. Davies plays the most repugnant character in the recent second season of Justified. That he is still alive at the end might be interpreted as a comment on his fate in Ryan.