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View Full Version : The Comedy (Rick Alverson)



eternity
10-30-2012, 06:43 AM
http://twitchfilm.com/assets_c/2012/09/the-comedy-poster-300-thumb-300xauto-28395.jpg

eternity
10-30-2012, 06:44 AM
No.

Boner M
10-30-2012, 07:12 AM
One of the year's best, actually.

This guy gets it. (http://www.boxoffice.com/reviews/2012-03-the-comedy)

Milky Joe
11-12-2012, 08:38 AM
Fantastic.

Boner M
11-12-2012, 11:45 AM
Fantastic.
Bump the rating up plz.

Milky Joe
11-13-2012, 12:37 AM
done. I thought the Yays and Nays were what contributed to the rating.

Anyway, Tim Heidecker is so friggin' good in this film. It's all in his face (and his gut). It's a shame that hardly anyone will recognize it.

Henry Gale
11-18-2012, 12:10 PM
I get what this movie is trying to do (and if I don't, I'm not sure how much I care), but that doesn't mean I appreciate it for occupying ninety minutes of my time.

If something is this deliberately empty, abrasively unpleasant, and simply crafted to reflect its subjects in that both are presented as entities with nothing meaningful or enjoyable to say or contribute to the world (which is something you can gather from its opening scenes, without any narrative direction or thematic purpose ever leading it anywhere), then why bother having watched it at all?

Some people (especially this group of aging Brooklyn hipsters) are inherently shitty, but they use dark humour as a defense mechanism to amuse one another! Thanks, movie. Oh, is that all?

Heidecker is very good in it, but at a certain point, how many scenes in a row of him acting like a drunken asshole or testing the boundaries of every social situation he's in are worth indulging in before it's no longer insightful or even a provocation of me as an audience member and just a meandering chore to sit through?

Unless the whole thing is actually just meant to be an ironic parody of bad indie dramas with terrible people wallowing in their comfy sorrows as protagonists. Then I guess it works on that level.

Milky Joe
11-18-2012, 11:31 PM
http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/2875/screenshot20121118at430.png

Ivan Drago
11-24-2012, 06:26 AM
A dark comedy starring Tim & Eric AND James Murphy. It's coming to my area soon, I can't wait to see it!

EvilShoe
11-25-2012, 06:37 AM
I thought this was very compelling, anchored by a terrific performance by Heidecker.

I can see how it's similar to Coppola's work, but I think this captures the ugliness of hollowness a lot better. The scene between Heidecker and the Indian cab driver has to be one of my favorites of the year.

EyesWideOpen
12-08-2012, 02:22 AM
This captures the awkwardness of Tim and Eric so much better then their own actual movie.

Rowland
12-13-2012, 02:55 PM
Almost a pass just for the Nick Nolte impression, which forced me to pause the film so I could clean up the drink I spit all over my screen. Contrary to many of the responses I've read, what hit me hardest wasn't the commonly cited incident on the boat towards the end, but rather the scene after that one featuring Eric's diversified family photo reel, which somehow left me inexplicably haunted.

On the whole however, these few peaks that leave a real impact are stifled by an otherwise tedious shell of a film that rarely deviates in any significant, let alone insightful or incisive, manner beyond the established method of the opening scenes. I felt like I took about as much away from the first ten minutes of this as I did when it was over, despite all the pushy musical cues emphasizing how pathetic and sad these characters are, and the closing scenes striving for a pathos that rang hollow to me.

That said, Heidecker is very good, and much of this is compulsively watchable just for discovering what seemingly improvisational bits of jazz-like riffing on the same core themes of social subversion and existential ennui that writer-director Alverson will cook up next. But as far as films featuring Tim and Eric are concerned, I marginally prefer their Billion Dollar Movie. I still catch myself singing this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrWRAJ5XQc) from time to time.

number8
04-12-2013, 01:42 AM
Huh. I didn't realize until it was over that the 4th friend was Neil Hamburger.

Qrazy
04-12-2013, 02:52 AM
This movie has a few moments but the shooting style made me physically nauseous.

Henry Gale
04-12-2013, 05:55 AM
Huh. I didn't realize until it was over that the 4th friend was Neil Hamburger.

He also does pretty great voice-work for things like Gravity Falls (watch this, people!) and Misadventures of Flapjack. But most importantly, I feel like not enough people know about this show:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_5-N9t26V8

Sxottlan
04-13-2013, 08:05 PM
I liked this, especially Heidecker's character living on a boat out in the river. Kind of an obvious metaphor, but I thought it worked. I enjoyed the brief glimpses of humanity he would show, mostly while in private (or around unconscious people) although it kind of veered close to pure animalistic curiosity (pulling the girl's eyelid).

I enjoyed the montage to Disintegration Loops. I'd download it, but I don't need an hour of it. He couldn't have done a "radio friendly" ten minute version perhaps? ;)

Izzy Black
04-19-2013, 02:28 AM
I don't agree with the criticism that we get everything the film has on offer in the first 10 minutes. There is a story and an arch here, even if it's a small and rather subtle one. For instance, there are (admittedly minor) substantive differences in Swanson's various games, such as his embarrassment when the nurse walks in on him later in the film. Most of this is communicated nonverbally of course through Heidecker's commanding performance. It's also true we get brief glimpses of humanity as they progress, and it's interesting that the more his antics escalate and the more outrageous he is, the more we get to see his human side through his awfulness. I also don't think the film is about using using irony as a defense mechanism for one's own amusement. There's some element of that, but it's more about a certain disenchanted cultural milieu where irony isn't merely a strategy to mask some deeper insecurity or emptiness, but is actually the inevitable result or consequence of a certain lifestyle, class privilege, and attitude about the world. The film looks at an exacerbated case of this, where postmodern self-awareness, or what some critics call "enlightened false consciousness," is a sort of perverse affliction of the mind of a narcissistic generation.

Plus, there are some pretty funny bits in here.

Ivan Drago
05-03-2013, 02:00 AM
I liked this, especially Heidecker's character living on a boat out in the river. Kind of an obvious metaphor, but I thought it worked. I enjoyed the brief glimpses of humanity he would show, mostly while in private (or around unconscious people) although it kind of veered close to pure animalistic curiosity (pulling the girl's eyelid).

I enjoyed the montage to Disintegration Loops. I'd download it, but I don't need an hour of it. He couldn't have done a "radio friendly" ten minute version perhaps? ;)

What was the metaphor of the boat? I didn't get it, to be honest.

And I don't know if you have Spotify, but there are two two-minute excerpts of the Disintegration Loops on it. That's all I can find.

number8
05-03-2013, 03:01 PM
What was the metaphor of the boat? I didn't get it, to be honest.

He's drifting and not grounded.