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Thread: Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

  1. #1
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)


    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  2. #2
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Of course it's good. What's surprising is just how well it displays grief, sadness, longing, regret.... And pieces it together ever so perfectly to me. The scene that the poster displays (which strangely is in a neighborhood block, not by the sea) is one of the saddest scenes I've ever seen, and the performances are so good there. Too often, these type of scenes display excellent dialog, wherein this one truly has two people who don't know what to say, and it comes out as mumbles, sounds, and held-back tears. It's brilliant, and quite like this throughout.

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  3. #3
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Um.. yeah, pretty much a masterpiece.

    For better or worse (for my tear ducts), and this is becoming something a theme this TIFF, but maybe more than anything else I've seen at the festival, this absolutely destroyed me. I got up at the end of the credits and still saw about a dozen of people still visibly distraught and/or dabbing away tears. And it's all from things that feel so authentic, humanly messy, and entirely earned by Lonergan and every breath of the performances.

    Similar to Everybody Wants Some!!, the only disappointment I had was suddenly realizing it was to coming to an end and instantly bumming me out that it had to be over at all.
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  4. #4
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Fuck, I'm ready for this.

    What's the consensus on Margaret? I feel like that flew under the radar the year it came out.
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  5. #5
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
    Fuck, I'm ready for this.

    What's the consensus on Margaret? I feel like that flew under the radar the year it came out.
    I think it's one of the best films of the 21st Century and my favorite film about post 9/11 America/Planet Earth (second would be 25th Hour...and both of these are great specifically because they are not directly *about* 9/11 itself).
    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



  6. #6
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    I think about this movie so often, and it just guts me every time.

    And then I think about how legitimately funny it also is, and it all feels just as strong, only healing.

    Such a perfect, beautiful movie. If it's anywhere near you this weekend, do whatever you can to see it.
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  7. #7
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Got to see it again tonight. Almost didn't want to go since it was offered to me so last minute, and I mostly just didn't know if I could put myself through the tidal wave of emotions again. At the end of the day, I'm like "C'mon, this might be your favourite movie of the year. How can you pass up the opportunity to see it on the big screen with an audience again?"

    But what really stood out on this second viewing was just the amount of humour I mentioned in the post above. I still cried to the point of near dehydration, but I probably laughed even more this time.

    I now officially can't think of a more impressive performance this year than Affleck's. He's one of those actors who can convey just as much in silence and stillness as he can when he's strongly emoting. The unfinished sentences, mumbling, and messy, unresolved emotions of the scene Ezee mentioned in the first post.. Affleck, Williams and Lonergan can't be given enough credit for just how extraordinary a piece of filmmaking that is alone. And there are two other great hours.

    Can't say enough about this.
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  8. #8
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Very, very good. It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned.

    I think my only nitpicks are a cameo scene by a well known actor (not a huge surprise since he is in all of Lonergan's films) feels undeveloped and a little too "lol Christians amirite?!" and the bar fights felt like they came out of Road House, but just about everything else is spot on.

    It speaks volumes about Lonergan's talents as a dramatist and writer that this is his 'worst' film for me, but easily one of the best American films of the year.
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 12-01-2016 at 08:00 PM.
    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



  9. #9
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    Very, very good. It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned. I think my only nitpicks are a cameo scene by a well known actor (not a huge surprise since he is in all of Lonergan's films) feels undeveloped and a little too "lol Christians amirite?!" and the barfights felt like they came out of Road House, but just about everything else is spot on. It speaks volumes about Lonergan's talents as a dramatist and writer that this is his 'worst' film for me, but easily one of the best American films of the year.
    The Telluride crowd also loled at the cameo.

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  10. #10
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ezee E (view post)
    The Telluride crowd also loled at the cameo.
    Oh, same at TIFF and then my screening last week. I'm not sure that that reaction is a totally bad thing though? [
    ]

    (The above spoilered stuff is broad but I'd rather not have known them going in. Having said that, the name of the "cameo" is in the opening credits..)
    Last edited by Henry Gale; 11-30-2016 at 11:41 PM.
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  11. #11
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Last edited by Pop Trash; 12-06-2016 at 06:25 AM.
    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



  12. #12
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    So I know this is the second movie in a row I'm saying this about, but holy shit. Talk about a gut punch of a movie. Watched it this morning, and it strikes such a chord that pretty much all day I've been on the verge of tears just thinking about it. This was incredible.

    Between this and Nocturnal Animals, two of the best movies I've seen all year released this weekend, and you really can't go wrong either way.

  13. #13
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    It's the type of film that if I read a plot outline, I would think it was overly schematic with the misery pile-ups, but Lonergan is so good with the minutia and humor that everything feels earned.
    It's funny thinking about the trailer (which I know by heart by now since it played before every other movie I saw in the past couple of months) in how it kinda tried to make it about something else entirely, and the real story is completely missing from it.

    This is just excellent and superbly told, but it does hit a similar note and approach as Margaret, especially on the surface level of "difficult people deal with an unexpected death they're responsible for." Lonergan is deadly with his actors, though. Affleck and O'Brien are so intensely specific in how they come across externally and internally. It's ridiculous how note-perfect these performances are. Michelle Williams comes across as a complete character before and after the incident, showing years of pain and growth and stability, with like a total of what, seven minutes of screen time? Ridiculous.
    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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  14. #14
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting number8 (view post)
    Lonergan is deadly with his actors, though. Affleck and O'Brien are so intensely specific in how they come across externally and internally. It's ridiculous how note-perfect these performances are.
    Hedges? Contrary to popular believe, not every redhead heard with a New England accent is automatically related to Conan.

    Interestingly, I realized his first big role was as the bully in Moonrise Kingdom, and the first of Patrick's two girlfriends we meet is Kara Hayward from that film as well. (Not to mention her and the other young lead from Moonrise, Jared Gilman, are back together in Jarmusch's Paterson.) The actress who plays his other girlfriend is apparently Mikhail Baryshnikov's daughter?!

    Quote Quoting number8 (view post)
    Michelle Williams comes across as a complete character before and after the incident, showing years of pain and growth and stability, with like a total of what, seven minutes of screen time? Ridiculous.
    I've thought about this so much. Between viewings I seriously wondered if I had forgotten sequences that she was in because she able to make such an impact under Lonergan's design of the film. She has similar screentime to Chandler, who we never actually see in the present of the story. Say she does win major awards over the next little while, would this go down as one of the all-time shortest rewarded performances? (Next to, say, Judi Dench.)
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  15. #15
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    Oh, the kid who plays the younger Patrick in the flashback scenes is Ben O'Brien. I got them confused.

    He's good too, though.
    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.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  16. #16
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    At first I honestly felt let down by the ending, but then the more I thought about it, it actually hit me harder than anything else in the film. [
    ] All the performances on display are fantastic with their naturalism, the dialogue is real and authentic, the film's sense of humor acts as a perfect complement for the heavier moments...there's not much else to say about it other than what everyone else has said, it's a fantastic film. The more I think about it, the more I love it...and the harder it hits me.
    Last edited by Ivan Drago; 12-13-2016 at 03:24 PM.
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

    615 Film
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  17. #17
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    It's actually the happiest ending, really. [
    ]
    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.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  18. #18
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    Very, very good. I can see this one continuing to grow as memory anchors itself to the two exemplary scenes--[
    ]

    I'm curious whether anyone felt the reveal that Lee Chandler had [
    ] as fundamentally necessary to the plot? Nothing else suggested that extreme of a dependency and abuse on drugs and I'm curious why Lonergan didn't just opt for more booze. Also, I couldn't get a good read on the party going on at that scene. Was Joe there as well or just someone who looked like him?
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  19. #19
    Joe was there.

    [
    ]

  20. #20
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    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.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  21. #21
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting number8 (view post)
    [
    ]
    This. It's never mentioned again either if I remember right. I don't think it's even seen.

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  22. #22
    A solid story, for sure, but I'm starting to wonder if Lonergan's style just isn't my jam. To me, his direction accomplishes the rare feat of being simultaneously uninteresting and showy. Casey Affleck is fine as an especially one-note version of Casey Affleck. And for all the praise that has come this film's way for its human drama, I'm not sure it felt especially honest to me. In Margaret, I felt Lonergan came across as being more interested in specific ideas than capturing genuine and nuanced human reactions. I feel the same here, though to a far lesser extent. The much lauded Michelle Williams scene was a stellar performance-reel segment, but it felt over-the-top and unrealistic as a piece of writing. I give her and Lonergan a lot of credit, however, for crafting a relatively full character in a very limited amount of time. On the other hand, Gretchen Mol's character seemed as though she should be far more interesting than she ended up being.

    Lucas Hedges's naturalistic performance and his character's sub-story was the film's strongest element. This creation was less cerebral, not overly baked. As opposed to the film's protagonist, there's less sense that it was workshopped to death, and thank goodness his presence was there to eventually provide a reprieve to Affleck's overtly conscious take on Lee Chandler.

    It's a good, solid piece of drama. Some aspects worked better for me than others. Ultimately, I'm glad it exists, but it just didn't strike as many chords as I was hoping.
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    A Star is Born (2018) **1/2
    Unforgiven (1992) ***1/2
    The Sisters Brothers (2018) **
    Crazy Rich Asians (2018) ***
    The Informant! (2009) ***1/2
    BlacKkKlansman (2018) ***1/2
    Sorry to Bother You (2018) **1/2
    Eighth Grade (2018) ***
    Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) ***
    Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018) **1/2

  23. #23
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    "Do you smell something burning, Daddy?"
    This is by far my least favorite part of the movie. Out of place dream sequences suck, but even worse is when they're redundant. He wakes up and panics about a real life fire. That should have been enough as a major character moment.

    - Since Affleck lowgears his performance and gives out nothing, almost every other actor overplays their energy level to make up for the deficit. Especially CJ Wilson (George) and Michelle Williams (Randi). I didn't believe anything anybody did in this movie outside of Affleck. It's like nobody is in synch. The scene with Williams at the end is terrible. Williams feels the camera on her and decides to go full throttle because nobody is stopping her.

    - I liked Lucas Hedges, the kid, but really? I didn't believe the entire conception of his character. The dude's father dies after a long illness and he barely skips a beat before he goes back to his regular life. That didn't strike me as true, either, although his scenes do keep the movie from becoming unrelentingly grim.
    Both of these points seem like a misunderstanding of what the film wanted to do with them (if not, it isn't coming across in your criticism). The former is deliberately a choice to contrast Lee, as a point of alienation. The latter is clearly meant to be part of the kid's need to fake some control and convince others (but especially Lee) a facade of independence. Hence the panic attack scene, and the subplot about the alcoholic mother. The whole schtick of the movie is showing these two men from the same family engaging in behaviorally different, but fundamentally same kind of damaging emotional suppression, with their victory at the end of the movie being their marginal acknowledgement of it.
    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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  24. #24
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    The screenplay is quite good- I loved the way it is structured; the way the dialog plays out, telling the story. It's like a river of information. There's also a lot of dark humor; the shots of Lee driving back and forth to pick up Pat.

    Hated the ending though. Would never watch again. It's no Good Will Hunting that's for sure.
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  25. #25
    Body Double Rico's Avatar
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    It's perfectly crafted, but just not my cup of tea. Two of the least pleasant hours of cinema from the past year.

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