View Poll Results: Lady Bird

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  • Yay

    26 92.86%
  • Nay

    2 7.14%
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Thread: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

  1. #26
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    Lucas Hedges' big scene feels like the key to Greta Gerwig's approach, I think. A confrontation that seems rife with comedic possibilities (and is initially so, with Saoirse Ronan's anger and their talk about her mother first) suddenly opens up another world for Lady Bird when she listens to his increasingly and movingly vulnerable plea, striking her with how someone so different in family background can have their own anguish that arises out of the background envied by her.

    Even apart from the richly developed main supporting players like her family and best friend, everyone in Lady Bird's circle is granted by Gerwig a moment or more of empathetic grace note, often sharply comedic but always deeply humane. From the drama teacher, whose melancholy in the next scene after that Hedges one is achingly felt but never directly revealed in cause and effect (apart from a gossip tidibit) since it's outsides Lady Bird's knowing, to the pretentious love interest, whose assholeness is never absolved but complicated in her feelings when she catches a glimpse of his ill father she was told about earlier. Lady Bird's coming-of-age template may be "generic" in broad strokes, but its story is filled to the brim with such finely observed details of tender everyone-has-their-own-world understanding, that they surround and enrich Lady Bird's joyful moments and common heartbreak beautifully. 8/10
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
    The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
    The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
    Sisters (1973) - 6.5
    Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5

  2. #27
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
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    Well that didn't last long. White seems to be annoyed that people aren't loving the movie for the same reason he did.

    A Quiet Passion > Lady Bird

    Terence Davies’s stunning film is as much auto-bio as it is bio-pic: compassion turned into ruthless self-examination and creativity. Greta Gerwig’s attempt at same is minor, yet so over-celebrated (without appreciating its coup de grâce rebuke of hipsterism), that the idiotic acclaim reveals this era’s widely shared disingenuousness.
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  3. #28
    Moderator Dead & Messed Up's Avatar
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    without appreciating its coup de grâce rebuke of hipsterism
    God, he's dull.

  4. #29
    To be fair to Armond White, though, A Quiet Passion is a much better film than Lady Bird (though his reason for comparing the two is a little strained, to put it mildly).
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  5. #30
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    Really loved this. I have tremendous soft spots for coming of age films, or father-son-relationship movie. I completely relate to the Lady Bird character during the college application process and we both share our hate for California. It's just paced perfectly that's grounded with excellent acting. So yeh, one of the best I've seen in 2017, but that's currently not saying to much.
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  6. #31
    Here till the end MadMan's Avatar
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    My #1 of the year, for now, anyways. I went in not expecting anything significant. Came out thinking "This should win Best Picture, but it won't."
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  7. #32
    Here till the end MadMan's Avatar
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    White has written some great essays for Criterion releases. He still feels the need to troll for attention, however.
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    And everybody wants to be special here
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  8. #33
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    This was a nice film. For me the best thing about it was the editing - every scene was cut so swiftly yet Gerwig successfully underlined the details that made the characters come alive.

    I agree the ending was a little overdone but it was still a fantastic, even moving coming-of-age piece.

  9. #34
    Hodge shan't be shot Kirby Avondale's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting number8 (view post)
    Well that didn't last long. White seems to be annoyed that people aren't loving the movie for the same reason he did.
    Personally, I enjoyed A Quiet Passion primarily for its hipster flourishes: Victorian aesthetic, obsessive repartee, mannerism for days, and - oh yeah, right - Emily Dickinson. Nihilists, unite! You have nothing to lose but nothing!

  10. #35
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    I suddenly remembered I hadn't understood the father's subplot concerning suicide thoughts. I mean, I guessed that was it, but I was waiting for a later scene that confirmed it and it never happened.

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