Tag (Jeff Tomsic, 2018)

[Boosmahn]

Glenn Kenny's review of Tag, where he spends one-and-a-half paragraphs criticizing the film's use of "White Male American Dumbness." What does race have anything to do with this movie?!

[knives]

Why would you have to be fratty to be interested in this film?

[mfunk9786]

A target demographic is not the same thing as a required cost of entry

[knives]

Let me rephrase, how is this targeting fratty people especially rather then generic men in the '30s and '40s? Additionally, so what?

[mfunk9786]

It's right there in the review, I'm not sure that I'm particularly interested in rephrasing the work of an excellent film critic for the remainder of the afternoon.

[knives]

I wasn't asking for a rephrasing, but an explanation of how that term is a valid one. If we must go to the review then I'd have even more questions like how does he know Buress was was only cast in some conspiracy to hide the whiteness of the film. Does Buress know that he was Uncle Tomed, does Kenny assume that Buress had nothing to enjoy about the making of the film or maybe even enjoying the film itself? And that's really just the main question from the second paragraph. It comes across as not much better than a less flowery variant of an Armond White argument from a Liberal perspective.

[mfunk9786]

Not sure that pointing out a racial component of the film's brand of cavalier sophomorism makes Burress' involvement some sort of "Uncle Tom" violation at all, nor is he even saying that the film is 'racist' in any measurable way. It's just (in his view, I haven't seen it) a celebration of the sort of privilege that encourages unchecked immaturity well into adulthood, and that maybe a bunch of adults having an ongoing game of tag throughout their adulthood isn't necessarily something worth celebrating.

[knives]

The suggestion of a racial component as he frames it is described in a way where the filmmakers have to be urging that on him and he definitely is accusing it of being racially obtuse. Also maybe the film isn't celebrating immaturity, but rather just making a silly slapstick film. Are we going to admonish the Three Stooges for making light of the serious work of surgery in favor of antics the way Kenny bizarrely does for the diabetes talk?

(also I hate that I now feel obligated to watch this in light of starting this thread)

[mfunk9786]

The suggestion of a racial component as he frames it is described in a way where the filmmakers have to be urging that on him and he definitely is accusing it of being racially obtuse. Also maybe the film isn't celebrating immaturity, but rather just making a silly slapstick film. Are we going to admonish the Three Stooges for making light of the serious work of surgery in favor of antics the way Kenny bizarrely does for the diabetes talk?

(also I hate that I now feel obligated to watch this in light of starting this thread)

Fly out here and we can see it together

[knives]

I don't extend my obligation THAT far.

[Boosmahn]

...Is it a bad time to say that I saw this film?

[mfunk9786]

It's a good time, if anything! Especially if you're going to write about what you thought of it.

[Boosmahn]

It was pretty harmless. I'd compare to it to other mainstream comedies that have come out of Hollywood lately, maybe even a bit better. The emotional core of the film comes from the obvious nostalgia factor, which should hit the middle-aged demographic it's going for. The reason I posted Glenn Kenny's review was that I felt his criticisms went in the wrong direction: what he describes as a "warped" view of innocence would have made for a better critical angle.

But going back to Tag: it's enjoyable and lands its jokes pretty consistently (seeing the various ways Jeremy Renner's character outsmarts the others and Hannibal Buress' side-comments were the highlights). The nostalgia factor and theme of "maintaining innocence" lifts it from forgettability into a decent summer movie, so there's no harm done if you see it when you have a free day.

[lacritfan]

I like how knives and mfunk are sorta playing tag in this thread

[All the Best People]

So ... we never had a Good Time thread, right? A deliriously exciting (and often funny) thriller that is actually acutely aware of race dynamics?

I have not seen Tag, which looks rather tiresome to me, thanks to a very silly premise and an overuse of slow-motion in the ads.

[swo17]

Good Time

[mfunk9786]

So ... we never had a Good Time thread, right? A deliriously exciting (and often funny) thriller that is actually acutely aware of race dynamics?

Even taking Glenn Kenny's review into account, what does this have to do with Tag in the slightest?

[domino harvey]

He's clearly saying that film does what this one doesn't. Like, it's even right there in the quote you selected

[mfunk9786]

I guess, but if the argument is that Tag is a symptom of race dynamics, then it isn't even trying to approach engagement with them and was made without an awareness of them, which is.............. exactly what All the Best People said. Don't post before you've had your coffee, folks

[MongooseCmr]

Here’s a real brain fart: at first I took “race dynamics” to mean Good Time is a movie where people are running around a lot and is more exciting than Tag, a movie explicitly about “racing”.

[swo17]

That might also be true!

[John Shade]

I had not heard of Kenny before this post and I have to give him some credit: he found Tag to be an almost ideological film, while not thinking the same for the Young Karl Marx, a historical character whom he also decided to distance from the Soviet Union. All of this reminds me of the line from Burn After Reading, "you're not ideological?"; anyway, I'm bouncing around too much in this post...Some might say it's a dialectical game of Tag now

[All the Best People]

So ... we never had a Good Time thread, right? A deliriously exciting (and often funny) thriller that is actually acutely aware of race dynamics?

Even taking Glenn Kenny's review into account, what does this have to do with Tag in the slightest?

The OP (which I understand was ported over from another thread, and not written as an intentional opener to a distinct thread for this film) is from someone who hasn't seen Tag, either. It morphed into a thread about talking about race issues in movies that on the surface aren't explicitly addressing such dynamics.

[Boosmahn]

The OP (which I understand was ported over from another thread, and not written as an intentional opener to a distinct thread for this film) is from someone who hasn't seen Tag, either. It morphed into a thread about talking about race issues in movies that on the surface aren't explicitly addressing such dynamics.

Are you talking about me? I mentioned that I saw Tag a few posts above:

It was pretty harmless. I'd compare to it to other mainstream comedies that have come out of Hollywood lately, maybe even a bit better. The emotional core of the film comes from the obvious nostalgia factor, which should hit the middle-aged demographic it's going for. The reason I posted Glenn Kenny's review was that I felt his criticisms went in the wrong direction: what he describes as a "warped" view of innocence would have made for a better critical angle.

[bottled spider]

Happened across this on Letterboxd: Full disclosure, this movie is based on my dad. He doesn't have a whole lot to say, but down in the comments he mentions that the game in real life involved ten adults. (Season to taste with quotation marks).