|
08-13-2010, 06:24 AM | #5626 | |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Some Dude's asshole
Casino cash: $8021398
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 3,834
|
08-13-2010, 07:03 AM | #5627 | |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 33,369
|
08-13-2010, 07:20 AM | #5628 |
Feelin' Alright
Join Date: Aug 2004
Casino cash: $10004900
|
Lull would be a good word. I chose "fell apart" because the ending was just as abrupt as Ghost Writer. It was like, "well guys, we made a hilarious movie for 1 hour 30 minutes but the last 20 we ran out of < END >."
__________________
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Then remember that half the people in the world are stupider than that." --George Carlin Last edited by irishjayhawk; 08-13-2010 at 07:29 AM.. |
Posts: 16,887
|
08-13-2010, 08:23 AM | #5629 |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Some Dude's asshole
Casino cash: $8021398
|
Okay. New day. Clear (ish) head.
Let's pick this back up. First of all, Reaper, I apologize for calling your argument absurd. Clearly, many others have made the same observations. While I don't agree, it was wrong of me to call it absurd. I also, again, publicly apologize for being condescending. I honestly didn't intend to be, but I see how it came across that way. I'm sorry. I wonder if the people who are seeing rampant, hateful anti-semitism in An Education are predisposed or biased in some way. It's not surprising that most of the descent has come from the Jewish community. Of course it has. However, perhaps it is worth noting that most (if not all) of the major reviews for the film make little to no mention of this issue. The New York Times, Variety, USA Today, Time-Out New York, The Telegraph etc, make little to no mention of this. Why? It seems like hyper sensitive sources like some of these would jump at the opportunity to pull the film apart for such an insensitive reason, if it were so blatant, obvious and/or intentional. Is it that the broader (non Jewish) community is really oblivious to it's anti-semitism? Do they really just not realize what they're doing - how insensitive they are? Is it that unconscious and ingrained? Or is the Jewish community approaching this from a biased point of view? Are they blowing it out of proportion? Both? I certainly don't know. I can only speak for myself, and my impression. |
Posts: 3,834
|
08-13-2010, 08:44 AM | #5630 | |||
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Some Dude's asshole
Casino cash: $8021398
|
I found some quotes from Nick Hornby that address some of the specfic concerns mentioned about the film:
Quote:
Nick Hornby: First of all, in the memoir, he was. Why I kept him Jewish was that in my childhood, there were memories of discovering that an awful lot of my elders and betters were anti-semitic and racist in various ways. I realized that it had been part of Britiain's cultural history at that point. The other thing that interested me was the mention of the name Peter Rachman, which is touched on very very slightly in the movie but who was a kind of big Jewish landlord gangster of the late 50s and early 60s, and whose treatment of his tenants was so dispicable that it resulted in a change of the law. We still use the word Rachmannism, Rachmannism being a kind of particularly exploitative landlord. There was this sort of Jewish gangster underclass at the end of the 50s beginning of the 60s that I've never seen on film before. Quote:
Nick Hornby: This was my first, and it obviously caused a great deal of anxiety. I developed the script, originally, with a Jewish director. We talked about whether or not to keep him Jewish, and we decided that it would probably be more offensive to excise his Judaism from the piece. Some of the things he does are not good, but it never occurred to me that it was stereotyping. I mean picking up girls at bus stops is not necessarily something that I associate with Judaism. It wasn’t so much the picking up a girl at a bus stop that some have taken issue with, but rather the portrayal of the Jewish character as greedy and underhanded. Nick Hornby: Well, I don’t think he’s greedy; I think he’s a petty criminal. This seemed to be an important part of the subculture of the late 1950s and early 1960s. A couple of the people he hangs out with — particularly someone who’s mentioned in the script, called [Peter] Rachman, who was a big Jewish gangster at the time — were part of the British subcultural life, so it felt accurate to me. I hope we’re beyond the point where you can only show ethnic and religious groups in a positive light. The other issue is that there are a couple of characters that make antisemitic remarks in the film. And I can only think that some people are upset because we didn’t kill the characters that make antisemitic remarks — that they’re not actually punished within the film. … I think that people are not used to the idea that people go unpunished in movies. I think they might be more used to it in books. You mentioned that you considered writing the Jewish character’s Jewishness out of the script. Why? Nick Hornby:In a 90-minute movie, when you’re trying to deal with other things as well, you know that you’re going to have to be concise and elliptical about certain issues that are complicated and you just hope that people understand it. I mean clearly I got that wrong to a certain extent in that some people have taken offense. Quote:
Nick Hornby: To the Jews? Oh my God, no. He’s talking about him and Danny. I’m very surprised that some people think that the “we” refers to the Jews, and I can see that that’s offensive. Of course, I regret that. http://www.forward.com/articles/121166/ http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Inter...nby-15167.html Also, I was thinking about Danny in the film (Danny is David's friend/partner in crime). Is mention ever made of Danny's religious and/or cultural background? Is he Jewish? |
|||
Posts: 3,834
|
08-13-2010, 03:39 PM | #5631 | |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 33,369
|
08-13-2010, 03:42 PM | #5632 |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Some Dude's asshole
Casino cash: $8021398
|
|
Posts: 3,834
|
08-13-2010, 03:47 PM | #5633 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Just came back from Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. It isn't without numerous flaws - the whole series of fights against the seven evil ex's as a narrative thread perhaps chief among them - but it is super-fun. A stylistic triumph. Some good takeaway messages for teenagers, too.
|
Posts: 33,369
|
08-13-2010, 03:53 PM | #5634 | |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Some Dude's asshole
Casino cash: $8021398
|
Quote:
What, if anything, do you imagine RS meant by calling this film a "game changer." |
|
Posts: 3,834
|
08-13-2010, 04:08 PM | #5635 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
I imagine it might be referring to how films in the future will totally rip off Scott Pilgrim. We're going to suffer some terrible imitations of this richly unique film. Visually unique, that is. The heart of the film reminds me a whole lot of last year's (500) Days of Summer. Indeed, Daniel Feinberg from HitFix.com brilliantly nicknamed it "(500) Days of Street Fighter." The dream-girl character of Ramona is a rip-off of the Kate Winslet's Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But visually (and in the funny aspects of the screenplay) the film is a breath of fresh air.
|
Posts: 33,369
|
08-14-2010, 01:26 PM | #5636 |
MVP
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Dallas, TX
Casino cash: $292400
|
|
Posts: 14,532
|
08-14-2010, 08:47 PM | #5637 |
Feelin' Alright
Join Date: Aug 2004
Casino cash: $10004900
|
__________________
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Then remember that half the people in the world are stupider than that." --George Carlin |
Posts: 16,887
|
08-14-2010, 10:53 PM | #5638 |
Agree to Disagree
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: The State of Euphoria
Casino cash: $10026612
|
Went to see Dinner for Schmucks tonight at the Fork and Spoon. Then came home and watched The Goods (Jeremy Piven). The were both meh. DfS had some funny parts, but it didn't really meet expectations for me (somewhat high). The Goods was about what I expected, a few funny parts but some bad attempts at humor.
|
Posts: 14,446
|
08-15-2010, 08:32 AM | #5639 |
Scarlett Johansson's boytoy
Join Date: Nov 2006
Casino cash: $9555998
|
Expendables 6.5/10 It is what it is. And that's OK.
|
Posts: 12,526
|
08-15-2010, 11:18 PM | #5640 |
Now you've pissed me off!
Join Date: Jan 2006
Casino cash: $7749572
|
Got back from "The Other Guys" about an hour ago.
That was a letdown.
__________________
"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln |
Posts: 74,932
|
|
|