I don’t think Rex Reed is going to see Mother:
From the idiotic drug-addict hokum Requiem for a Dream to the overrated, overwrought and over-hyped Black Swan, which I called “a lavishly staged Repulsion in toe shoes,” the films of wack job Darren Aronofsky have shown a dark passion for exploring twisted souls in torment. But nothing he’s done before to poison the ozone layer prepared me for mother!, an exercise in torture and hysteria so over the top that I didn’t know whether to scream or laugh out loud. Stealing ideas from Polanski, Fellini and Kubrick, he’s jerrybuilt an absurd Freudian nightmare that is more wet dream than bad dream, with the subtlety of a chainsaw.
It gets better from there.
SiubhanDuinne
I honestly had no idea that Rex Reed was still alive. Thought he had died years ago.
Betty Cracker
Had me at “Repulsion in toe shoes.” ?
Mnemosyne
Meh. Rex Reed is one of those critics who makes a point of hating everything. It makes sense, since that’s what his forte is as a writer, but no one who co-starred in Myra Breckinridge gets to mount his high horse about other people’s pretentious movies.
(I’m not joking about him being a co-star. Follow the link.)
cwmoss
Rex has always been a hot take machine, way back before “hot take” was even a thing.
Baud
OT. From GOS on that Red Sox racism banner.
trollhattan
“Why do reviewers not understand the wry comedy of ‘mother!’?”
I’m watching for that review.
trollhattan
@Baud:
So, James O’Keefe understudies? Just ducky.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen a lot of bad press for this movie, which kind of bums me out cause I like the cast and haven’t seen a good horror movie in a long time
in other matters: Anyone know if alarms are going off outside the liberal blogosphere?
Major Major Major Major
Darren Aronofsky’s movies were better when they were Satoshi Kon’s movies.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I don’t dare go over there anymore: is the GOS commetariat pro or anit Antifa?
Raven
Requiem for a Dream is one nasty motherfucking movie.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I couldn’t handle Shireen’s fate so this one gets a hard pass from me. Sounds like a cross of “Eyes Wide Shut” and a snuff movie.
efgoldman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Between this, and the punishing blue Medicaid states under Little Linsay’s amendment, the RWNJs in the senate apparently are larding up this sack of pig shit with every shitty thing they can think of; I’d guess their plan is to “compromise” by dropping things one by one in markup until they get to more or less clean repeal.
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
That’s Hubert Selby Jr. for you — he wrote the novel it was based on and co-wrote the screenplay.
Last Exit to Brooklyn is even more depressing.
donnah
Jeremy Jahns is a young movie reviewer on youtube and my son and I trust him on reviews. He had a tough time in his initial review of Mother because he doesn’t do spoilers until after a film is released, then he does a full review. In his “preview” he said that this is not a horror film, nor is it meant to be a thriller. He said the commercial previews mischaracterize it.
He said that if you’re familiar with this director then you might like the movie, but he said it’s a giant metaphor and he isn’t sure it’s a movie for everyone. He said the acting is excellent, but there are scenes that made him uncomfortable.
I probably will skip this one.
Raven
@Mnemosyne: Ellen Burstyn and the refrigerator should have won oscars!
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
One on my friends wrote TEN, which was made into a Lifetime movie that’s on tonight. It’s a retelling of Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” in which ten teenagers go to a family’s beach house while the parents are out of town and start dropping like flies. The writer is in shock that this is actually happening.
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): interesting, though that would require a total rewrite of the motive for the murders…
Pharniel
MovieBob basically said this was the hardest movie for him to watch, and if you knew something harder he didn’t want to know.
He also said it does exactly what the director wants to do.
It’s not for me, so I won’t see it, but it’ll be interesting to see the Movies with Mikey that eventually comes out for this one.
Lalophobia
@Major Major Major Major:
Seriously, watch Satoshi Kon movies instead. I have my problems with them, but I’ve always found them to be worth watching. Black Swan was kind of interesting to me just because I’m a sucker for a look at the Madonna/Whore Complex, but the movie didn’t have much else going for it for me and I just generally don’t like Darren Aronofsky that much.
mother! was spoiled for me and given the contents of the spoilers I’m really glad it was. Yuck. Sounds both too gross and too pretentious for my tastes.
Raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I heard someone is making an all-female Lord of the Flies.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
What is this markup of which you speak? Is that part of the mythical “regular order”? I thought the new “regular order” was whatever Mitch McConnell says it is.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Considering all the complains about CGI spectacle movies I would think Reed would view “an exercise in torture and hysteria so over the top that I didn’t know whether to scream or laugh out loud” as a step up.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Raven: I saw commentary on that saying that Lord of the Flies was explicitly about hyper masculinity, so an all female cast made no sense unless they decided to cooperate.
Major Major Major Major
@Lalophobia: Paprika is also better than Inception. It’s too bad he died, otherwise we could keep seeing white people’s daring visionary blockbusters years before they came out.
Lapassionara
@SiubhanDuinne: ditto
ThresherK
@Raven: Wake me for the all-female Tompkinson’s School Days.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I don’t think they have time for this kind of stunt. I think they’re flailing.
Raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I report, you decide
Raven
@ThresherK: or “IF”.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: I have seen some suggestion this is directly related to the Medicare for All bill being introduced. That “analysis” makes me tear my hair out. They’re trying to save themselves with Dolt45’s base and have virtually nothing to show for this fiscal year on their promises. And they’ve had this promise for seven years and are still failing on it. Let them.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Oh God. This was the one moment in the show that I absolutely could not watch, even through my fingers. The rape scenes got a lot of criticism, most of which I think was overwrought, considering the atmosphere of violence in the entire show. But this was the moment that was completely beyond for me (even if it was plausible character development). So, so horrible.
ThresherK
@Raven: Heehee.
Before the Internet: I had an inkling that Spousal Ms ThresherK was the one for me when I grabbed four Ripping Yarns VHSs at a video store, sight unseen, and she roared as much as I did.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t flailing the best they’ve ever done?
Major Major Major Major
@Yutsano: the people making that analysis are also flailing, for a narrative in which things make sense and politics are normal.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Raven: I didn’t know that Lord of the Flies was supposed to be about masculinity, so it was news to me.
PsiFighter37
I really liked Requiem for a Dream and Pi, but Aronofsky’s not for everyone, and some of his films (like ‘The Fountain’) seem compelling but simply don’t work. Not sure if I’ll see his latest entree unless it makes it onto an airplane (which is where I end up watching movies nowadays).
Raven
@PsiFighter37: Yea, shootin smack into an abscess was really cool!
mainmata
@SiubhanDuinne: Me too. I thought he would have been at least 110 and dead. Turns out he is only 78 and obviously still working. I think it’s his old-fashioned name.
Frankensteinbeck
@efgoldman:
I don’t understand how they plan to pass this, and if they don’t plan to pass it, why they’re bothering. There are three Republican Senators who won’t vote for Medicaid cuts, period, Paul probably won’t vote for anything that uniquely punishes Kentucky without giving him his ‘full repeal’ triumph, and I know there were more who wouldn’t vote for anything that kills the pre-existing condition protection. It’s like they’re trying to pack everything they know they can’t pass into one bill. Yes, we need to deluge them with angry phone calls and keep them afraid, but what is even their game plan here?
clay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I saw IT last night. I thought it was pretty good, and the kid actors were phenomenal.
Citizen Alan
I lost all respect for and interest in Rex Reed when he gave a review of “Cabin in the Woods” that strongly implied that he either slept through most of the movie or didn’t attend it at all and just made up a review from the trailers. His review indicated that he completely failed to understand the basic premise of the movie. It was on par with watching Citizen Kane, going to the bathroom during the scene where young Charlie is playing with his sled, and then complaining that the last scene came out of nowhere and didn’t make any sense at all.
PsiFighter37
@Raven: Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not…
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Right? And now Melisandre’s shame seems limited to “Welp, that didn’t work so now I got nothin’.” Wasn’t sure I could continue with the show.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
They don’t need to pass it and probably don’t actually want to. They just need to have someone to blame for not passing repeal of the ACA and they get votes and money so that they can have another chance. I think they put up a bill they know that they will never get enough votes for so they don’t have to vote on straight appeal. Keep clogging the system with stuff like this so that they don’t have to be responsible for doing what their constituents think they want.
Raven
@PsiFighter37: Did you enjoy It?
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: my guess too, and Mitch is just shrugging and letting them go ahead and try.
Lalophobia
@Major Major Major Major: Actually, Paprika was based on a book. And it’s one of the rare cases where the movie was widely judged as better than the book, mostly because the latter was much more homophobic. My main problem with it is the conflict between Paprika and Chiba seems to come out of nowhere at the last minute, but otherwise it’s a very compelling film.
@Suzanne: To be fair, it seems that one of the biggest problems people had with some of the rape scenes is that they were added in and weren’t in the books. Which is weird when the books were full of other nasty things that didn’t make it into the show. This is actually the case with Shireen as well. If she’s getting burned in the books it hasn’t happened yet.
PsiFighter37
@Raven: I enjoyed the movie more for the underlying message being conveyed. It’s been a long time since I watched it, so I don’t remember the exact ways in which Jared Leto’s character was shooting up during the movie. All I remember is he lost his arm at the end.
Major Major Major Major
@Lalophobia: yeah but I don’t think Nolan got his ideas from the book, and certainly not the scenes he reproduced shot for shot.
efgoldman
@Citizen Alan:
We know for a fact that a major paper critic wrote a review without ever having attended the concert.
His tickets were never pickled up, and his seats stayed empty
ThresherK
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I thought it was about the effects of how the English schoolboy was raised, in all his glory.
“Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,” (i forget who), and this is that turned a very little bit sideways.
DesertFriar
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll second that Last Exit to Brooklyn is a deeply depressing novel. The thing that makes it so depressing is that it is so believable. You can believe that the characters could behave like that in real life. That’s the depressing part.
SiubhanDuinne
@ThresherK:
Attributed to Wellington himself.
HeleninEire
@SiubhanDuinne: Me too. He and Liz Smith made NYC living fabulous when NYC living SUCKED.
In a good way.
ThresherK
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for the quote.
Lalophobia
@Major Major Major Major: I’m just saying that Satoshi Kon wasn’t the originator of the idea, is all. That doesn’t make his work on the film any less incredible, nor does it make Nolan’s copying any less blatant or annoying.
Major Major Major Major
@Lalophobia: gotcha.
kindness
When I see the commercials for Mother! it makes me think I’d feel like I did when I saw The Shining the first time. Not sure what’s going on and scared as hell. Not a fan of getting scared movies really. But who could say no to Jack Nicholson?
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
It works in a backhanded sort of way. They get to fool their supporters with bullshit, which is all they have in any event, but they don’t have to tell them that. They get to tell their money bags and voters they tried and give their voters what they need, without giving them what they want.
eemom
@Citizen Alan:
I’ve read a number of reviews by mainstream critics that misrepresented major plot developments of the subject film. It used to surprise and distress me, but now that the entire world is going to shit it’s not much of a priority.
Also, I too thought Rex Reed was long gone, he having been around in my long gone youth.
Surely Judith Crist, at least, is gone….? Pauline Kael? ?
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: The Politico story from earlier in the week seems to indicate that lots of things might be going on behind the scenes:
(Emphasis added.)
“Regular order? What’s that?”
I don’t trust public statements from the GOP enough to think that they can’t pass this if they want.
But what about this Alexander – Murray bill? Could this all be a head-fake to pass it instead? I don’t see anything after early August about it.
McConnell apparently is in on Graham-Cassidy and asked the CBO to hurry up, but that piece says there are still ways it could die (including Democratic death-by-a-thousand-amendments in vote-a-rama).
Experts on Twitter are screaming (e.g. Topher Spiro retweeted on LOLGOP) that G-C is intended to force massive cuts down the road (no doubt with a big helping of tax cuts along the way).
What will happen with G-C? I dunno, but we can’t take any chances.
WHTFTESD.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Go see It. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
I think you could make it work if you took the basic premise- kids stuck on an island and their attempt to form a viable society descends into horrid violence- but flipped it by having it fail in some way that’s distinctly the way girls are awful to each other. It’s not as if groups of teenage girls are noted for getting along without any friction.
Bobby Thomson
Cole, what does this mean, exactly? He reviewed the movie already. (And for the “Rex doesn’t see the movies anyway” crowd, he didn’t say “I don’t think Rex Reed saw Mother.”)
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
Jeez, that was such a bleak film.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Marianne Wiggins (Rusdhie’s ex) wrote “John Dollar” which was basically Lord of the Flies with schoolgirls. She wrote much better books than this one.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
And I was just thinking Black Swan was overrated.