Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)

[Ivan Drago]

http://www.joblo.com/posters/images/full/Mandy-poster-1.jpg

IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6998518/) / Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_(2018_film))


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI054ow6KJk

[Ivan Drago]

This movie is just beautiful.

[Skitch]

This movie is just beautiful.

Does it live up to that trailer?? Seems way too good to be true.

[Irish]

Does it live up to that trailer?? Seems way too good to be true.

I'm curious if it lives up to the hype or turns out to be another one of those experiences you needed to see opening night at Fantastic Fest with a big audience.

[Watashi]

It's incredible. Just next-level GOD MODE from Cage.

[Henry Gale]

Once TIFF is done this is will immediately be the first movie I see.

For years I'd been waiting to leap at whatever Cosmatos did next, so the fact that is also looks like this? Fantastic.

I purposely watched the trailer (which was stunning) only once back when it was released to keep it all as fresh as possible.

So yeah, can't wait!

[Spinal]

I have to give it a mild yay because there is some stuff in the first half of the movie that is simply extraordinary and utterly unique. Ultimately though, the film's emptiness catches up with it and the second half becomes a tedious, predictable bore. I liked it more when it was a hallucinatory impenetrable nightmare before it devolves into a campy Nic Cage splatter-fest.

Linus Roache is great though, channeling Alice Cooper and Charles Manson, and Andrea Riseborough is captivating in every scene she's in.

[Spinal]

Here's the problem:

Once they kill the girlfriend, the movie has no dramatic tension. You know exactly what's going to happen and it's all a matter of how much you enjoy watching baddies die.

[Dukefrukem]

Gorgeous indeed. I'm still trying to decide if this movie takes place on what we know as planet Earth.

[Ivan Drago]

Gorgeous indeed. I'm still trying to decide if this movie takes place on what we know as planet Earth.

I have a rough interpretation of the story as a retelling of Adam and Eve set in Hell. Or Adam and Eve if they were sent to Hell after being banished from Eden. Then again I've also thought of it as a film about how the closest people in our lives become our universe in a cosmic sense, and how our universe crumbles when they're taken away.

I intend to iron these out more after I've seen it again this weekend, but there's loads more to unpack than I expected, tonal shift be damned.

[Irish]

I enjoyed bits and pieces of this and it certainly was an experience. I woulda enjoyed it more if Cosmatos' ego wasn't so fucking big. (2 hours? Really, dude?)

Agree with Spinal that the first part is better than the second .

[Ezee E]

An initial three stars that I have a feeling will wear down as I think and talk about the movie.

Yes, the visual spectacle and visualization of a heavy metal ballad is certainly on display here. To the point that it's almost a music video more than a narrative movie. Only thing is, there is a straightforward story here that's pretty dang simple here (and already addressed by MCers). The romance is also anything but interesting here. There's not really any real chemistry between Mandy and Cage in my opinion.

BTW, watched this in Arizona, and for the first time ever, saw the Alamo have to boot out someone. This is an audience of four by the way. I could hear some rumblings, but wasn't close enough to them for it to annoy me. A couple were just talking a lot, and someone was annoyed and shared their complaint. Alamo kept their eyes out, and the couple, drunk most likely, purposely got louder to where I could hear it too, and were quickly kicked out. Nice job on the Alamo staff.

Anyhow, casting Nic Cage in this is pretty effective at this point. It'd be a great tip to his career if he finished his career on this. We know he's nowhere near the end to this, but still.

[Spinal]

I realized later that this was the first Nicolas Cage movie I've seen since Adaptation (not counting animation and cameos).

[Ezee E]

Three stars is about right.

This is the Neon Demon of the year.

[Dukefrukem]

Three stars is about right.

This is the Neon Demon of the year.

The bathroom freak out alone is better than anything in Neon Demon. Cage forging some bizarre custom sword that he somehow knows how to do is better than Neon Demon. "You ripped my shirt" is better than Neon Demon. ... just way better than Neon Demon.

[Watashi]

I too prefer the intimate, somber first half over the raged up second half (though there are many poetics moments of stillness amidst all the chaos_

[Ezee E]

The bathroom freak out alone is better than anything in Neon Demon. Cage forging some bizarre custom sword that he somehow knows how to do is better than Neon Demon. "You ripped my shirt" is better than Neon Demon. ... just way better than Neon Demon.

More in that it's a strange, unique movie that will have many lovers and probably even more hating on it. But essentially is a midnight movie all in the end.

[Spinal]

I also thought of The Neon Demon as I was watching it. More in the sense of it being a movie with an artistic aesthetic I wished more directors would emulate, but unfortunately in service of a script with nothing to say.

[Dukefrukem]

More in that it's a strange, unique movie that will have many lovers and probably even more hating on it. But essentially is a midnight movie all in the end.

Can you remember a single scene, outside of the ending, of Neon Demon?

[Ezee E]

Can you remember a single scene, outside of the ending, of Neon Demon?

Mountain lion in hotel room comes to mind.

[Dukefrukem]

Still had to google it.

[Pop Trash]

Can you remember a single scene, outside of the ending, of Neon Demon?

Oh man, that movie has several absolutely gorgeous shots that are crystal clear in my memory. My favorite is Jena Malone lying naked in her room, illuminated only by the moon which creates a silhouette effect. She later spreads her legs (again, silhouette effect so nothing explicit is really shown) and a puddle of blood slowly emanates below her.

Another shot I really like is Elle Fanning listening to some bit of violence through her motel room wall while the camera keeps going back and back and back until the perspective is clearly way beyond the geometry of the motel room, but she is still enclosed in total blackness.

I also like the strobe triangle scene.

I'm a cinematography whore, so I'm all about these things.

[Milky Joe]

Can you remember a single scene, outside of the ending, of Neon Demon?

Necrophilia isn't some shit you just forget

[transmogrifier]

46/100
Turns out, dull, monotonous revenge porn covered in a self-consciously nostalgic sensibility married to a strong sense of atmospherics is still dull, monotonous revenge porn when you get right down to it. As soon as the inciting event occurs, it is pretty much all downhill as Cosmatos and Cage preach to the perverted.

[transmogrifier]

The bathroom freak out alone is better than anything in Neon Demon. Cage forging some bizarre custom sword that he somehow knows how to do is better than Neon Demon. "You ripped my shirt" is better than Neon Demon. ... just way better than Neon Demon.

That bathroom scene might be the worst scene I've seen all year. It's just bad.

[Dukefrukem]

That bathroom scene might be the worst scene I've seen all year. It's just bad.

k .

[MadMan]

I loved this, but I dig cult movies and I like Nic Cage when a director properly unleashes him.

[Grouchy]

Here's the problem:

Once they kill the girlfriend, the movie has no dramatic tension. You know exactly what's going to happen and it's all a matter of how much you enjoy watching baddies die.
This is certainly true. This is not the kind of movie where the plot matters but still, it follows a very traditional revenge structure where every other aspect of the filmmaking is balls to the walls insane. That's what makes it unique but I wish they'd make things a bit more difficult for the protagonist. His friend with the crossbow warns him that the odds are against him but then that turns out not to be the case.

Bathroom scene was certainly a highlight as were the first LSD trip, the animated sequences and the chainsaw swordfight. My main takeaway from the film is that Nicolas Cage is the most interesting Hollywood actor alive. He reminds me of Vincent Price in that I'm never sure if he's brilliant or an outrageous scenery muncher but he will never phone it in and he will always do something a little absurd and off-key with his characters.

[Dukefrukem]

Exactly Grouchy. There's nothing wrong with a good revenge film. We know what's going to happen. We want to see HOW it happens. Not even movie needs to be the Sixth Sense.

[Spinal]

It's not a matter of having a twist ending like The Sixth Sense. It's a matter of having something that is still worth fighting for. This is the frustrating thing about Cage and this movie in particular. In the first half, he shows the capacity to tap into a deeply, passionate humane performance. In the second half, he becomes mostly a wacky cartoon. There are clearly some people who enjoy him in that mode. I'm not one of them. And regarding the film itself, there are clearly some people who enjoy watching baddies die gruesomely simply for the sake of it. I'm not one of them. In Kill Bill, Tarantino uses several devices to sustain viewers' interest: mystery, personal growth, a code of honor, the lure of a past lover, a child. Mandy doesn't have any of this. It's empty revenge. Red's success or failure is almost completely inconsequential. It's cartoons fighting cartoons.

[Grouchy]

In the second half, he becomes mostly a wacky cartoon. There are clearly some people who enjoy him in that mode. I'm not one of them. And regarding the film itself, there are clearly some people who enjoy watching baddies die gruesomely simply for the sake of it. I'm not one of them.
I'm part of those two groups of people you're describing (as a huge fan of the Bad Lieutenant remake and, quite frankly, revenge films in general) but I still wish the second half of the film was a bit less linear. While watching it I was thinking of a lot of possible interesting things that could happen and didn't.

[Dukefrukem]

It's not a matter of having a twist ending like The Sixth Sense. It's a matter of having something that is still worth fighting for. This is the frustrating thing about Cage and this movie in particular. In the first half, he shows the capacity to tap into a deeply, passionate humane performance. In the second half, he becomes mostly a wacky cartoon. There are clearly some people who enjoy him in that mode. I'm not one of them. And regarding the film itself, there are clearly some people who enjoy watching baddies die gruesomely simply for the sake of it. I'm not one of them. In Kill Bill, Tarantino uses several devices to sustain viewers' interest: mystery, personal growth, a code of honor, the lure of a past lover, a child. Mandy doesn't have any of this. It's empty revenge. Red's success or failure is almost completely inconsequential. It's cartoons fighting cartoons.

I didn't mean necessarily a twist ending, just something the audience would be surprised about since your initial reaction was the ending is predictable.

[Ezee E]

I'm in Spinal's boat. I can appreciate the artistic look to this movie, but in its execution, the villains are mostly one-note, and the deaths are pretty similar. Except for the Main Boss who is pretty unique... But still..

One movie that starts to get the villainious characters interesting is Revenge. Although the ways everyone dies in that can be predicted when we see the establishing shot.

[Irish]

In Kill Bill, Tarantino uses several devices to sustain viewers' interest: mystery, personal growth, a code of honor, the lure of a past lover, a child.

Not to mention that Tarantino changes his visual style from sequence to sequence, and stages his action scenes differently from one another. It helps distract the audience from an otherwise linear plot.

"Mandy" is a geek-show. We're there to see Cage bite the head off a cinematic chicken. But I couldn't tell if Cosmatos was presenting super cheesy material as an homage to 70s style trash or whether he thought this shit was genuinely good in its own right.

[Lazlo]

It's not a matter of having a twist ending like The Sixth Sense. It's a matter of having something that is still worth fighting for. This is the frustrating thing about Cage and this movie in particular. In the first half, he shows the capacity to tap into a deeply, passionate humane performance. In the second half, he becomes mostly a wacky cartoon. There are clearly some people who enjoy him in that mode. I'm not one of them. And regarding the film itself, there are clearly some people who enjoy watching baddies die gruesomely simply for the sake of it. I'm not one of them. In Kill Bill, Tarantino uses several devices to sustain viewers' interest: mystery, personal growth, a code of honor, the lure of a past lover, a child. Mandy doesn't have any of this. It's empty revenge. Red's success or failure is almost completely inconsequential. It's cartoons fighting cartoons.

"You must spread some reputation around..."

[Grouchy]

But I couldn't tell if Cosmatos was presenting super cheesy material as an homage to 70s style trash or whether he thought this shit was genuinely good in its own right.
I think it's clearly the former - it's a very pop infused picture, what with the pillow talk about Galactus, the Black Sabbath t-shirt and the old sci-fi movie on TV. Plus the period setting.

By the way, the first thing I did after getting out of the theater was check if Goblin Cheddar had ever been a real thing. Stranger shit has happened.

[Watashi]

The guy behind "Too Many Cooks" created the Cheddar Goblin commercial.

[MadMan]

Heh I prefer Mandy over both Kill Bill films.