GOOD TIME
Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
imdb
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GOOD TIME
Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
imdb
Add this to the list of movies where I had the theater entirely to myself for. o.O
But even if it doesn't do well theatrically, this definitely felt like precisely the sorta movie I can see really finding its audience and becoming a cult hit on video. Some real good stuff here.
That's a bummer. I saw it on a Friday night and my theater was packed. Which was really great, especially when everyone reacted loudly in unison when Pattinson [].
My own biggest reaction came when []
I recognized the Safdie name, but didn't realize they did Heaven Knows What. As if I needed another reason to see this movie.
I had a run-in with the Safdie's at a film festival over a decade ago when I was working as a volunteer - they're a lively pair and back then were quite adorable. It's great to see that such a young duo is capable of such a film - I have some minor qualms with it but Pattinson is brilliant here. The score is also absolutely engrossing and elevates the picture to a certain unique place.
I didn't understand the point of this movie. I watched an awful human being coerce and bully other people in order to get himself out of a situation he put himself into in the first place. It might have been interesting to explore his relationship with his brother, but that character disappears for most of the movie. There is some skill on display here, but I was honestly confused as to what the filmmakers wanted from me. Because I did not have a shred of empathy for Connie.
Yeah, I'm not sure this added up to much. Pattinson is very convincing and some bonus points for bold casting of minor roles. The oppressively tight framing was unique but not particularly useful. It's an acting showcase for a single star, and, in that respect, it's successful. However, I don't see myself returning to this one for any other reason.
Liked the way that this played out. Not sure that its many pretty cinematography tricks (all neon... signifying... what exactly?) amounted to as much as the filmmakers believed. But I did feel a tenseness and struggle to hold an anchor to a brother who couldn't be trusted on his own--Pattinson owns this film as he works so hard for so little, detonating any fabric of normalcy for his own inchoate fantasies for himself and Nick.
The score is solid stuff; further, I found that the closing song with Nick just shuffling around a sense of entrapment that resonated more heavily than almost anything before it. Not fully confident if the film wouldn't have meant more if it had one or two cutaways to Nick along the way or if it works precisely because we're finally forced to reconcile with the absent brother.
I don't think it would have added anything to what the film wanted to do in terms of its narrative drive. It would have provided some context, maybe better emotional weight, but likely not enough to alter the movie's singular mission to be this DOA-style ticking clock film noir. When you reckon that that's the intent, it probably would have proved more detrimental to break away from its narrow focus. Especially when the mystery of the brother's whereabouts is what connects the viewer to Connie's paranoid dash.Quote:
Originally Posted by dreamdead
I'm watching the Safdies backward, and at my second movie with them... They're not for me, despite WANTING to like their movies. The pace is frantic, the characters are pretty low on the moral scale, and there's a 70's feel to it... But, I just don't like the movies. They're all over the place. The decisions they make don't seem authentic. And their audio is obnoxious.
Yeah, this movie is overrated hard. It has no rhythm to it at all. It looks like it was made by someone steeped in 70s movies who recognizes their trappings but doesn't understand how they can be arranged into a cohesive whole. However, for the Letterboxd crew, it helps that it has a pretty blatant Woke-friendly angle (white guy taking advantage of minorities), hence it gets a lot of support over there. (As an aside, I find that many younger critics go nuts over films that confirm their political beliefs when said film criticizes someone else, but as soon as any film directly confronts them as an audience on anything (like I, Tonya, which is not shy in blaming the viewer for the rise in TV sensationalism), they suddenly take it as an affront and as the filmmakers overstepping their boundaries and being "didactic" or some shit like that.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezee E
Letterboxd was taken over by millennial lemmings sometime around 2015. That's when the twitter bite sized hot takes started to get wildly popular, esp. if they took shots at men, white ppl, and/or straights (woe be the person that is all three). Sorry to sound like such a Republican reactionary, but it gets tiresome.Quote:
Originally Posted by transmogrifier
ANYWAY Good Time is interesting because it manipulates the whole "white privilege" thing to the point where it could be considered racist (and I think AO Scott kinda sorta accused of such a thing in the NY Times) if you don't think about it too much, but it seems pretty obvious the filmmakers are well aware of what they are doing i/r/t racial dynamics.
Don't worry, that viewpoint is more than countered against hard (often, and often at random) in this board. :p (I mean, not surprising considering the make-up of members here. Which is not an accusation, just an observation)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pop Trash
Is it though? I thought we just discuss movies (outside of separate political boards on here). I find "social media brain" to be alarming. Like you throw out some thought not because you sincerely believe it (or more likely, your brain wires itself to believe it because of the dopamine hits) but because you get 100 "likes" for stating some two sentence hot take that amounts to "men bad" or whatever. It's disconcerting these people are walking around society and are of voting age.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peng
Then again I probably spend too much time on the internet.
I mean did it not just come up here? And also seeps up in a lot of film-related threads. Believe me, I have enough of the silent but intense atmosphere of being "the non-straight non-white one who wants to speak about something" in real-life being in school/university abroad that I don't relish to feel the online version of it when I mostly just want to talk about films too. I kind of make peace with myself, around the time of Rashida Jones/Pixar thing, that with the members make-up of this board being currently the way it is, I should accept that the thinking/opinions will mostly be some certain ways and not engage too strongly with The Kitchen Sink section (which is why I didn't chime in when transphobia came up in the sexual harassment thread, although the way that resolved is kind of mind-boggling to me), and only "speak about something" only in film-related threads. Which ends up being more frequent that I expected or wanted lol.
I don't remember that exact conversation or what I said in it but all I can say now is that I wouldn't want anyone to feel like they can't talk back at this forum nor would I want any sort of mob mentality to be formed. I don't think that's the case and 96% of discussion is very civilized. I don't know who any of you are IRL but for a few exceptions but I feel this is like the Argument Clinic for movie nerds - we wouldn't come here if we didn't feel the need to argue about films and all sorts of other matters.
The last few posts went completely over my head.
Yeah for sure. My comments were more directed at the pitfalls of letterboxd, which stems directly from the pitfalls of tumblr and most egregiously (ugh) twitter. Creating a digital world and a digital avatar of your "self" while wiring your brain in tandem is a recipe for disaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grouchy