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Thread: 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

  1. #26
    i am the great went ledfloyd's Avatar
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    I was with him (because bad online reporting is a serious problem right now), but then he went and used the C-word.

    I was just as confused by the doorman and garbage man quips. Who says that?

  2. #27
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    Keeps getting bizarre. A bunch of critics who were there are now insisting on twitter that it was in fact him and that they did hear him say those things loudly. Dana Stevens from Variety was actually sitting at White's table. Filmlinc even posted an audio recording of the heckling.

    White responded to this by saying that it's a some kind of a frame-up job and a deliberate smear campaign against him by the critics community.

    I don't understand what White is doing here? What good is lying when you did it in a room full of journalists? Maybe he was really drunk so he genuinely doesn't remember saying those things, and why the insults made no sense?
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
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  3. #28
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    That makes the most sense to me. Although, it's kind of embarassing if you get blacked out drunk in a somewhat professional setting. Yikes.

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  4. #29
    Body Double ciaoelor's Avatar
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    Armond talks with the Filmcast podcast about this.

    http://slashfilm.com/filmcast/?p=894

  5. #30
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    It's done.

    Curious what his presence will be like from now on. They already took him off Rotten Tomatoes two years ago, and he no longer writes for NY Press.
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
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  6. #31
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Very good news.
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    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
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  7. #32
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    I Listened to the whole podcast with David Chen and it gets really weird around the 25 min mark where he blatantly goes out of his way to say he "didn't hear" the heckle and he also wants David Chen to define what a "heckle" is....
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  8. #33
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Just a strange man...

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  9. #34
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    Largely harrowing as a work. The length that the film devotes to Solomon's "hanging" is likely the strongest moment for me--it records the passage of time and inability of the rest of the plantation to care, as they've been conditioned to expect such cultural logic as natural. That kind of scene is its own capsule.

    I do agree that the big name actors become distracting when their characters aren't given enough time to be truly lived-in. Fassbender avoids that issue, and so Cumberbatch. Giamatti and Pitt less so. Further, the lack of time signifiers likely deny our ability to clearly mark time and feel confident that Solomon only has _____ until he's rescued, but the film did need a little more age makeup or some other form of transformation. The passage of the years felt a little too unrecorded.

    I did think that the way the film records religious defense, and later accusations against that same defense, was one of its strong suits. Likewise, I found Lupita Nyong'o and Sarah Paulson gave the strongest, most dynamic performances.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  10. #35
    i am the great went ledfloyd's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting dreamdead (view post)
    The length that the film devotes to Solomon's "hanging" is likely the strongest moment for me--it records the passage of time and inability of the rest of the plantation to care, as they've been conditioned to expect such cultural logic as natural. That kind of scene is its own capsule.
    It's amazing. The adults walk by and you assume they are afraid to show concern for fear or retribution, but then you seen the children playing in the background and realize it's just routine for them. Chilling.

  11. #36
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    Quote Quoting Qrazy (view post)
    I thought the script for this was terrible. It's like they made a check list of all the conceptually abstracted roles blacks and whites (and natives!) played in the time period (the subservient groups, the uncle tom's, the religious fanatics, the pure of heart northern, etc) and all the various types of suffering endured (this is where he walks past two people in the process of being hanged, this is when he's made to whip a fellow slave) and then made their way down the list.

    There are some decent shots because Sean Bobbitt is no slouch and the performances are solid if often melodramatic. I'm glad films are being made about slavery these days but this didn't strike me as an especially enlightening perspective on the period.
    I had similar problems with it. There's a slow buildup here that I resented because it's manipulative. You'd have to be inhuman not to react to this stuff, but I also feel depicting it in this way is, similar to [I]Schindler's List/I], going after low hanging fruit. (Congratulations, Mr McQueen. You got audiences to flinch at barbourous human cruelty.)

    The scenes on Cumberpatch's estate said more than the rest of the film. And Cumberpatch was the most interesting character in the whole movie -- here's a guy who seems to he morally good but at the same time has no problem benefitting from what he knows to be a deeply evil system.

    My biggest problem is that film was more descriptive than dramatic. As a protagonist Solomon is incapable of making meaningful choices because of his position in this world. His tiny arc is a good one. Breaking the violin, burning the letter, singing along the other slaves at graveside were all meaningful moments -- but are they enough?

    I dunno. This is a simple movie about a complicated topic and I don't know how to react to it, or what to think.

  12. #37
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Schindler's List had a more complicated conflict to the protagonist though. Solomon Northup just needed for himself to escape.

    I love the movie, but Schindler's List sticks out as the better movie to me for this reason.

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  13. #38
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ezee E (view post)
    Schindler's List had a more complicated conflict to the protagonist though. Solomon Northup just needed for himself to escape.

    I love the movie, but Schindler's List sticks out as the better movie to me for this reason.
    Upon further thinking, if 12 Years A Slave went the SL route, it would have made its main character Benedict Cumberbatch, and that would've been pretty ridiculous actually.

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  14. #39
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    I totally disagree. A lot of themes are inherent in the original story I'm sure, but I read a lot of metaphors in the film into the death of creativity and the death of identity vis-a-vis a capitalistic system. I'm sure this appealed to McQueen as an artist as well. I think anyone who is part of a "creative class" has had that moment where their art has to be thwarted or perverted for the sake of business or has had their identity diluted for the same reasons. Obviously this isn't nearly as horrid as it was in the antebellum south but it exists as a powerful metaphor all the same.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



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    I'd buy into that more if this wasn't positioned on a true story based on a personal memoir, and it wasn't so exceedingly violent.

    Also, I know didn't intend it this way, but even the faintest comparison between the problems of bourgeois artists and 400 years of enslavement and death reads as crass and myopic.

    Edit: Glancing at Northrup's wiki page, the details of his life, including his kidnapping, are straight from his own book.

  16. #41
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    I totally disagree. A lot of themes are inherent in the original story I'm sure, but I read a lot of metaphors in the film into the death of creativity and the death of identity vis-a-vis a capitalistic system. I'm sure this appealed to McQueen as an artist as well. I think anyone who is part of a "creative class" has had that moment where their art has to be thwarted or perverted for the sake of business or has had their identity diluted for the same reasons. Obviously this isn't nearly as horrid as it was in the antebellum south but it exists as a powerful metaphor all the same.
    I'll buy the death of an identity, but you're reaching here.

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  17. #42
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ezee E (view post)
    I'll buy the death of an identity, but you're reaching here.
    The destruction of his violin = creative suicide of an artist.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  18. #43
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    I had similar problems with it. There's a slow buildup here that I resented because it's manipulative. You'd have to be inhuman not to react to this stuff, but I also feel depicting it in this way is, similar to [I]Schindler's List/I], going after low hanging fruit. (Congratulations, Mr McQueen. You got audiences to flinch at barbourous human cruelty.)

    The scenes on Cumberpatch's estate said more than the rest of the film. And Cumberpatch was the most interesting character in the whole movie -- here's a guy who seems to he morally good but at the same time has no problem benefitting from what he knows to be a deeply evil system.

    My biggest problem is that film was more descriptive than dramatic. As a protagonist Solomon is incapable of making meaningful choices because of his position in this world. His tiny arc is a good one. Breaking the violin, burning the letter, singing along the other slaves at graveside were all meaningful moments -- but are they enough?

    I dunno. This is a simple movie about a complicated topic and I don't know how to react to it, or what to think.
    I personally find Schindler's List much more formally remarkable but I agree in terms of their approach to similar thematic material and both also possess a certain sentimentalism.

    I think overall I just didn't buy it a historical document. It felt more like a cinematic essay to me than a realization of the time period. And fair enough, I can count on one hand the films that feel historically genuine. It's certainly one of the hardest realms of storytelling to pull off.
    The Princess and the Pilot - B-
    Playtime (rewatch) - A
    The Hobbit - C-
    The Comedy - D+
    Kings of the Road - C+
    The Odd Couple - B
    Red Rock West - C-
    The Hunger Games - D-
    Prometheus - C
    Tangled - C+

  19. #44
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    Quote Quoting Qrazy (view post)
    It felt more like a cinematic essay to me than a realization of the time period. And fair enough, I can count on one hand the films that feel historically genuine. It's certainly one of the hardest realms of storytelling to pull off.
    "Cinematic essay" is a good way of putting it, but I'm not sure that makes it a bad film, either.

    The subject matter is rarely addressed with such detail and intelligence, and I really loved McQueen's spartan approach. Those elements alone make it a far cut above most of what comes out of Hollywood.

  20. #45
    The Pan Qrazy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    "Cinematic essay" is a good way of putting it, but I'm not sure that makes it a bad film, either.

    The subject matter is rarely addressed with such detail and intelligence, and I really loved McQueen's spartan approach. Those elements alone make it a far cut above most of what comes out of Hollywood.
    Well yeah, it's all relative. Compared to most Hollywood films it's certainly better. But while it's not a bad film in a formally objective sense I don't consider it a good film either.
    The Princess and the Pilot - B-
    Playtime (rewatch) - A
    The Hobbit - C-
    The Comedy - D+
    Kings of the Road - C+
    The Odd Couple - B
    Red Rock West - C-
    The Hunger Games - D-
    Prometheus - C
    Tangled - C+

  21. #46
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    I gave this a Nay. Perhaps it's excessive as it's not altogether a bad movie - just incredibly boring and disappointing. Agreed that the "big actor cameos" got embarassing after a while, particularly Pitt's character which is just too ill conceived.

    Also, has anyone noticed how this is straight up exploitation material filtered through the polish of high profile filmmaking? In its eagerness to show extreme, painful and hardcore moments, it reminded me more of something like Christiane F. or Thriller than "serious" prestige cinema.

  22. #47
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Grouchy (view post)
    Also, has anyone noticed how this is straight up exploitation material filtered through the polish of high profile filmmaking? In its eagerness to show extreme, painful and hardcore moments, it reminded me more of something like Christiane F. or Thriller than "serious" prestige cinema.
    American slavery was exploitative, extreme, painful, and hardcore.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  23. #48
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    American slavery was exploitative, extreme, painful, and hardcore.
    I know, but I feel that the kind of cinema this movie belongs with used to be classified as exploitation in any other decade. Now it's on top of the mainstream, winning the goddamn Oscar.

    Mind you, this isn't a negative criticism of the film, just an observation. My negative criticism is that it's boring.

  24. #49
    Ain't that just the way EyesWideOpen's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Grouchy (view post)
    I know, but I feel that the kind of cinema this movie belongs with used to be classified as exploitation in any other decade.
    No it didn't.
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  25. #50
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    Quote Quoting EyesWideOpen (view post)
    No it didn't.
    Yes it did.

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