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TGM
10-25-2013, 07:07 PM
The Counselor

Director: Ridley Scott

imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193215/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

http://f-cdn.filmjunkies.de/film/1214/poster/poster_counselor-64982.jpg

TGM
10-25-2013, 08:06 PM
So I didn't expect much from it, but this actually turned out to be quite the pleasant surprise I felt.

plain
10-26-2013, 02:36 AM
A lot of fun to be had here even if that feeling feels slightly diminished as soon as the lights come up. Pretty mean and consistently hilarious throughout, though it's at its clear best when it hasn't yet revealed its hand. This is much more reliant on McCarthy's text than Ridley (probably his best since Matchstick Men, this probably isn't saying much though) being behind the camera. The narrative is super thin, with most of the jolts coming from the performances of Bardem, Pitt, and maybe Diaz? She doesn't quite shoulder the heft she's supposed to, but it works. Fassbender is predictably fine. The funniest thing is the odd casting of Edgar Ramirez as a priest. The masses will loathe the self-serious line deliveries and dialogue which roam throughout, most of which serve as the damning text in this brutal and fatalistic world. Weak, but ballsy final scene IMO.

TGM
10-26-2013, 02:53 AM
I dunno, the more this sinks in, the more I find myself really loving this movie. I dug the hell out of this thing.

wigwam
10-27-2013, 08:52 AM
:|

TGM
10-28-2013, 01:11 AM
My review. (http://cwiddop.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-counselor.html)

Rowland
10-29-2013, 12:30 PM
So boring...

TGM
10-29-2013, 10:11 PM
So I saw this again last night, and I liked it even more the second time around. Sure, it's not everyone's cup of tea, and I can certainly understand most of the criticisms its been getting (hell, even the ticket lady tried to dissuade me from seeing it, which, btw, bitch probably needs to just do her job and mind her own damn business...), but I found it to be absolutely brilliant, and definitely one of the year's best.

Boner M
10-30-2013, 06:31 PM
Kept wondering if this wouldn't have been so deathly dull (with the exception of its several-ish money shots) with literally any other director.

Rowland
10-31-2013, 03:00 AM
I'm kind of shocked by how many of the people I follow on letterboxd are enjoying this, with only one out of twenty-one ratings so far being less than two-and-a-half stars... I'm giving it one. I feel so mainstream. :|

Boner M
10-31-2013, 03:45 AM
I'm kind of shocked by how many of the people I follow on letterboxd are enjoying this, with only one out of twenty-one ratings so far being less than two-and-a-half stars... I'm giving it one. I feel so mainstream. :|
Of the defenses I've read, I haven't seen one yet that describes the film on the screen as opposed to the film on the page. And even a critic friend that I was talking to last night who hated it, conceded that it's been made with complete confidence in itself, which also baffles me. It's one of the most insensately-made films in recent memort, w/r/t the chasmic gap between the tonal execution that its writing requires of it vs. that which it's been rendered with.

TGM
10-31-2013, 03:54 AM
Outside of my friend I saw this with the second time around (I dragged him out 'cause I knew this movie would be right up his alley), only a single movie blogger I follow, and Brad Jones, I haven't heard a single positive word about this thing from anyone. And it's not just bad, the way people are talking about this movie is absolutely scathing. I mean, I know it's not for everyone, but damn...

Personally I feel this movie would go over particularly well with the theater-going crowd more so than your average movie buff, as the film is certainly not structured like your typical movie, playing out almost more like a stage production, or, as others have mentioned, sort of like watching a book on screen, which I personally loved about it, but, eh...

TGM
10-31-2013, 03:58 AM
it's been made with complete confidence in itself, which also baffles me.

But it was, which is why I felt it worked so damn well. Filmed by anyone else who didn't have the appreciation, understanding, and respect for the script like Ridley Scott did, and I could see this film turning into an absolutely cluttered mess.

Though, then again, depending on who you ask, that's precisely what happened anyways. :rolleyes:

Rowland
10-31-2013, 04:10 AM
Of the defenses I've read, I haven't seen one yet that describes the film on the screen as opposed to the film on the page. And even a critic friend that I was talking to last night who hated it, conceded that it's been made with complete confidence in itself, which also baffles me. It's one of the most insensately-made films in recent memort, w/r/t the chasmic gap between the tonal execution that its writing requires of it vs. that which it's been rendered with.Most of the writing isn't even good either, but the vacuous, flat, and inert execution makes it that much more punishing to sit through. If nothing else, it makes me respect what the Coens did with NCFOM even more.

MadMan
10-31-2013, 09:51 AM
Based on what I've been reading about this movie I'm guessing I'll give it an 81/100. As the resident Ridley Scott fanboy I'm compelled to see this in theaters next week.

Ezee E
11-02-2013, 05:11 AM
I don't think Cormac McCarthy is the saving grace.

It's Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Michael Fassbender that make it work to me. Anytime those four are on screen, something interesting is going on for me. I kind of wish Cruz and Diaz switched roles. Cruz is just a far better talent, and a role like Diaz's needed a little more going on with it.

There's some crazy pieces that go on here, and I can't help but say I was enjoying it the whole way.

dreamdead
11-03-2013, 01:07 AM
This is kinda interesting in how fluid it is narratively, extending past the normal limitations of a single protagonist to explore the drug trade from multiple perspectives. In actuality, many of the scenes without Fassbender, et al, but just covering the mercenary treatment of anyone involved in moving drugs were the best part. I like how the film kept going past the initial sense of loss, and how the Pitt and Cruz perspectives were concluded.

It takes a special skill to make dialogue as interesting as McCarthy's not feel arch, and everyone in the cast struggles at times to allow it to not feel forced. That said, I didn't find the script lacking so much as the direction completely bland and anonymous. I think P.T. Anderson and several others could have done interesting things visually with this material. As is, it's interesting if never altogether successful.

Rowland
11-04-2013, 06:43 PM
Anyone else follow the trends of online critical circles? (:lol:)

Watching this develop from a critically lambasted bomb after its opening weekend to an underdog that many online critics are falling over themselves to anoint a misunderstood gem over the last week has been fascinating, and more than a bit befuddling. Vadim Rizov (who really liked the movie as well while acknowledging some of its more indefensible flaws) responded to this trend here (http://letterboxd.com/vrizov/film/the-counselor/):



("Blog band" is a term presumably no longer in currency, but the general life cycle — dizzying escalation from obscurity to totemic ubiquity spiraling into backlash at the overkill within 10 days — probably now applies to the increasingly obscure Hollywood film maudit. This went from unanticipated dumping-ground title to Talking Point Must-See in under a week, with much more speed and consensus than Elizabethtown or Speed Racer. No complaints.

Chuck Bowen responds in further detail here (http://www.fandor.com/blog/the-film-in-the-shadows-ridley-scott-vs-claire-denis?utm_medium=header_panel&utm_source=fandor#respond):


The Counselor has barely been out a week and it’s already been critically hyper-digested in a fashion that might have taken a year back in the day, barely imaginable now, before the Internet was our god. The film initially received poisonous reviews that generally claimed, correctly, that the film was a nasty, fashionably cynical muddle; a movie that represented the worst impulses of its primary auteurs, director Ridley Scott and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist-turned-screenwriter Cormac McCarthy. Unfortunately, many of these reviews were too poisonous, and these instances of hyperbole have probably emboldened The Counselor’s inevitable and eventual status as a misunderstood masterpiece within enthusiastic circles that unquestioningly accept Scott’s, and particularly, McCarthy’s artistic sainthood. To react so strongly, even negatively, to The Counselor is to weirdly overrate it, as it’s just a bad movie—a dull bit of hokum puffed up with its creators’ delusions of grandeur.

eternity
11-07-2013, 11:08 PM
That was fun, I guess.

dreamdead
11-10-2013, 01:40 PM
Critics love to pull the whole Blade Runner example for Scott too early whenever one of his films underperforms critically. This one, however, leaves Fassbender as far too much of a blank to leave any impact, and the ultimate script is too unwieldy for the cast to pull off convincingly. I like that it has a particular tone in the dialogue, but it's odd and feels too matter-of-fact, when that same lyricism could be integrated into the visual framing (aka, man, is Scott's aesthetic boring).

I've never read All the Pretty Horses or the rest of the Border Trilogy, so I'm unsure over whether or not the critiques of misogyny matter so much here... it certainly doesn't have the same impact of Blood Meridian or The Road.

Pop Trash
11-10-2013, 11:49 PM
Critics love to pull the whole Blade Runner example for Scott too early whenever one of his films underperforms critically.

But has Scott really done a "misunderstood masterpiece" since Blade Runner? I guess the d.c. of Kingdom of Heaven sorta counts (I haven't seen it) but even putting that up with Blade Runner is a bit much. Most of his films since BR were either very popular from the getgo (Thelma & Louise and Gladiator) or generally still considered pretty lousy (GI Jane, Robin Hood, A Good Year, what-have-you).

eternity
11-11-2013, 06:03 AM
Once I get around to reading the script (it's pretty indecipherable on first viewing), I can see myself thinking this is a great movie. At the very least, it's a fun, crazy little thing.

Raiders
11-12-2013, 01:06 PM
I've never read All the Pretty Horses or the rest of the Border Trilogy

Too bad for you, I guess? Seems a strange thing to just write off.

This film however, fails so miserably under the weight of self-seriousness that it was excrutiating. McCarthy isn't doing any favors in pitching such a bizarre, tonally incoherent script, but much of his over-boiled and crudely poetic style is just incapable of being understood in any proper context by Scott who treats this like he is filming some kind of Michael Mann epic instead of a nasty and perverse crime riff.

It may seem random, but I actually thought of someone like Wayne Kramer making this work while I was watching.

dreamdead
11-12-2013, 01:13 PM
Too bad for you, I guess? Seems a strange thing to just write off.


Oh, I should clarify. I'm not intentionally avoiding those novels; just haven't gotten to them yet. I've got a copy of AtPH upstairs, and expect to read it next year. I find his prose writing incredibly evocative even if I'm hesitant on how to ever teach them (Blood Meridian to a gen ed Masterpieces of American Literature class flamed out).

I do intend to study him more, as I think his early writing especially will be up my alley.

Raiders
11-12-2013, 01:34 PM
Oh, damn. Sorry. I read that as "I'll never read" not "I've never read." My bad. Sorry for the somewhat rude response.

Pop Trash
11-15-2013, 06:14 PM
I haven't seen it but I find it interesting that outside of Match-Cut there seems to be a Margaret/Killing Them Softly-style critical wagon circle for this film. My local indie art house that rarely plays Hollywood stuff is even bringing this back for a week.

Incidentally I loved Margaret but couldn't stand Killing Them Softly.

Ezee E
11-15-2013, 08:11 PM
I haven't seen it but I find it interesting that outside of Match-Cut there seems to be a Margaret/Killing Them Softly-style critical wagon circle for this film. My local indie art house that rarely plays Hollywood stuff is even bringing this back for a week.

Incidentally I loved Margaret but couldn't stand Killing Them Softly.

I think people were hoping for more No Country for Old Men, and got a Tony Scott version of it, directed by Ridley Scott.

I bet the script reads nice. I'd like to watch again, but I really wish they could've worked with Diaz a little more on her role. Or have someone like Charlize Theron instead.

eternity
11-16-2013, 03:06 AM
I loved Diaz in that role. Someone else could have done it better maybe, but it was an inspired choice. In this role especially, but in everything else she's in, she is always toeing the line between posh and pondscum.

Morris Schæffer
11-16-2013, 07:52 AM
Nope, not yet sure how I'm supposed to defend this thing, but I found myself far more engaged than I thought I was gonna be. It's trying to pull off that anti-mainstream thing Similar to NCFOM. Here the protagonist is once more pretty dang useless, bardem has weird hair, there's a final scene that seems to mean nothing and we cut to black, there's a really memorable weapon in this thing too(that Scene was breathtakingly horrific!). This is a confident movie with some really portentous dialogue.

dreamdead
01-08-2014, 10:18 PM
And the car scene (http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/96990/8-questions-about-this-news-story-about-cormac-mccarthys-ex-wife-pulling-a-gun-out-of-her-vagina-during-a-fight-about-aliens) makes more sense now... leave it to reality to make that scene not seem as outrageous.

Ezee E
01-08-2014, 10:28 PM
I really didn't think that scene seemed that outrageous. I mean, it made sense with the characters in play that is.

eternity
01-09-2014, 02:38 AM
And the car scene (http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/96990/8-questions-about-this-news-story-about-cormac-mccarthys-ex-wife-pulling-a-gun-out-of-her-vagina-during-a-fight-about-aliens) makes more sense now... leave it to reality to make that scene not seem as outrageous.
I can't stop laughing about this. It's been ten minutes and I can't stop laughing.

dreamdead
01-09-2014, 01:23 PM
I really didn't think that scene seemed that outrageous. I mean, it made sense with the characters in play that is.

Oh, absolutely. The character is meant to be a deranged femme fatale. That quality needs expression somewhere before the finale, and Bardem's reaction is marvelous. I don't think that Diaz was quite right for the role (someone like Charlize Theron or Marion Cotillard would have played it to a hilt), but the problem isn't in the role so much as Scott's monotonous framing and Diaz's offscreen persona.

Skitch
01-10-2014, 08:51 PM
Holy shit was this bad. I'm a defender of Scott, but ugh, this was painful. I know it probably won't make me popular here, but McCarthy's dialogue is a damn cheese grater on my shin. It may work as a novel, but it just feels so damn unnatural when spoken. I'm starting to think the only thing he can write well is a creative death of a character. Irritating, because the plot points of the story itself were interesting, but the overly-vague philosophizing sucked the life out of it. The Bardem/Fassbinder recount of the Diaz/car sex scene was worth the price of admission, though.

EDIT: I should try to read one of McCarthy's novels to see how I feel about it.

Grouchy
02-10-2014, 01:00 AM
I really enjoyed this. Maybe it wasn't what I'd call engrossing, and you can tell the writer comes from literature because the themes are discussed in the actual dialogue more often than not, but with this cast and some pretty much unforgettable scenes (car fucking, both Bardem and Pitt's deaths), it's an above average... anti-thriller?

I don't know, it certainly left me with more questions than answers (like... whose body is in that barrel again? does it even matter?), but I can't write it off.

Also, Cormac, those things you mention in the script that gauchos used are actually called boleadoras, not bolos.

Mr. McGibblets
02-10-2014, 08:34 PM
I can't really put my finger on what makes a dialogue scene boringly directed, but the dialogue scenes in this movie are incredibly boringly directed. This film is completely lifeless unless something crazy is going on.

Milky Joe
06-26-2014, 05:22 AM
This was brilliant. People called this fun? What the fuck is wrong with people? This is one of the grimmest, nastiest films I've ever seen. I loved it. I can't blame people for being repulsed, but I find it amusing that Scott was praised to high heaven for the POS Prometheus but lambasted for this fine, icy, uncompromising film.

At least one guy got it. (http://variety.com/2013/film/columns/the-counselor-rearview-ridley-scott-1200770790/)

baby doll
06-26-2014, 06:49 PM
Insofar as I could follow the plot, I don't think it makes any sense. If the drugs are already en route to the US when the movie opens, what is the counselor's actual role in the shipment, and why does the cartel go after his girlfriend but not Cameron Diaz?

Milky Joe
06-26-2014, 07:09 PM
They can't get to Malkina because she's on another level, playing a higher game. "When the axe comes through the door, I'll already be gone." Her target was never the drugs, of course, it was Pitt's character who she robbed. The question about the Counselor's actual role is a good one, but immaterial. The plot is deliberately obtuse. I'm pretty sure he just put up money for getting the drugs across the border and would be getting a ROI to satisfy his avarice and Reiner's desire to see his friend live the 'good life.'

The real answer to the question is metaphysical.

baby doll
06-27-2014, 05:10 PM
They can't get to Malkina because she's on another level, playing a higher game. "When the axe comes through the door, I'll already be gone." Her target was never the drugs, of course, it was Pitt's character who she robbed. The question about the Counselor's actual role is a good one, but immaterial. The plot is deliberately obtuse. I'm pretty sure he just put up money for getting the drugs across the border and would be getting a ROI to satisfy his avarice and Reiner's desire to see his friend live the 'good life.'

The real answer to the question is metaphysical.It still strikes me as pretty bogus: The cartel has a guy waiting for Cruz when she gets off the plane, but somehow they can't track down this two-bit hoochy. As in the film version of No Country for Old Men (I haven't read the book), it seems to me that McCarthy sprinkles a little metaphysics here and there so that we'll accept his preposterous plots: How does the earlier film's psycho killer appear and disappear at will? Because the world is a terrible place full of unrepentant murderers (especially Mexico), that's how. Maybe if the movie offered a more concrete explanation for how Diaz's character outwitted the cartel (and how they intercepted Cruz), it would be easier for me to accept her getting away with it.

Morris Schæffer
06-27-2014, 05:39 PM
This was brilliant. People called this fun? What the fuck is wrong with people? This is one of the grimmest, nastiest films I've ever seen. I loved it. I can't blame people for being repulsed, but I find it amusing that Scott was praised to high heaven for the POS Prometheus but lambasted for this fine, icy, uncompromising film.

At least one guy got it. (http://variety.com/2013/film/columns/the-counselor-rearview-ridley-scott-1200770790/)

He was praised to high heaven for Prometheus? But I agree that this film deserved better reviews. There are some highly memorable and powerful images.

DavidSeven
07-08-2015, 09:44 PM
A threadbare, yet incoherent, plot and some boring direction. Thematically, it didn't strike me as terribly interesting either. Far be it from me to diminish the work of a literary icon, but McCarthy's favored themes and expression of the same strike me as relatively sophomoric and without nuance here. The medium just doesn't play to McCarthy's strengths. I'd guess that he'd spend five pages of a novel describing the film's most inventive kills in intriguing detail, but that doesn't play on film. The car scene and Pitt's overall performance were the only elements that made the film feel alive. Otherwise, this was pretty poorly done in every respect.