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If they'll release Dark Places, they'll release anything with a marketable name. But, I'm looking forward to this (then again, I was looking forward to Dark Places and look where that got me)

A24's trailer for this surprisingly makes a rather effective case for this being a rather conventional prestige picture. Almost makes me wonder if they've made some considerable tonal changes or the like to try and make this a bit less dead on arrival.

(I assume there's no getting around the ridiculous ending, though)

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domino harvey wrote:Has anyone heard anything about this getting released anywhere anytime soon?

Well....it made Drudge

http://www.showbiz411.com/2016/08/31/ma ... -in-5-days" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Starts tomorrow here.

Curiosity got the better of me and I watched it on VOD since it doesn't seem to be coming to any theatres nearby. Embarrassingly enough, this was my first Van Sant so I can't speak on how it compares to his other movies but it's not good and it's not even any fun, despite how silly the twists are. McConaughey is fine but it's the kind of role he can do in his sleep these days and Ken Watanabe doesn't get much to do. I'd wanted to see this since the Cannes reception so I'm glad A24 picked it up in the end but I have no idea why they did.

chiendent wrote:Embarrassingly enough, this was my first Van Sant so I can't speak on how it compares to his other movies but it's not good

Oh, good grief. I haven't seen this yet (as a Van Sant fan - as frustrating as that often can be - I'm dragging my feet on it knowing I will probably hate it) but rest assured he has made some great films. I'm personally partial to what is sometimes referred to as his 'death' trilogy (really a quadrilogy): Gerry, Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park. His early works also have very ardent admirers, and in general he has made great films intermittently throughout his career. Don't let this apparent turkey deter you from checking those out for sure.

Just don't make your next one Restless!

Funny enough, reading the description of Restless reminded me that I almost went to see it back in 2012 when staying in a city without many movie options. I guess I just wasn't meant to choose good Van Sant movies.

Oedipax, I definitely won't let it deter me; the films you mentioned have been long-overdue watches.

Yeah, Restless isn't much to write home about either, although I wouldn't rank it among his absolute worst by any stretch. If nothing else it's noteworthy for being his final collaboration with Harris Savides, and it does have a nice look to it, just not much else.

Plus there's that silent version which raises it to decent.

I actually liked Restless very much and was very moved by it as well which was surprising considering the less than enamored critical response it received. It was also surprising to me given my almost allergic aversion to Wes Anderson-esque whimsy. But this is a special case. There's a really well handled, sensitively understood, underlying melancholy here that gives weight to the whimsy. What could be fatuous is not and that's some minor triumph right there; the major triumph is getting us to appreciate that it should not be fatuous at all.

I'm curious to see how this stands next to what I consider to be Van Sant's absolute worst film: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (which I consider one of the worst movies I have ever seen)
Maybe SoT will prompt GVS to make something worthwhile (as ECGtB led to the exemplary To Die For)

Cinema 21 dropped this from their schedule, and as far as I'm aware it was the only theater here in Portland—where Gus Van Sant lives—that was slated to show it (unless it already came and left somewhere else).

John Cope wrote:I actually liked Restless very much and was very moved by it as well which was surprising considering the less than enamored critical response it received. It was also surprising to me given my almost allergic aversion to Wes Anderson-esque whimsy. But this is a special case. There's a really well handled, sensitively understood, underlying melancholy here that gives weight to the whimsy. What could be fatuous is not and that's some minor triumph right there; the major triumph is getting us to appreciate that it should not be fatuous at all.

Not only an Anderson-esque comedy, but this basically copies the great Harold and Maude yet has non of that film's humor, sensitivity and almost everything Harold & Maude has.
Sadly all I have left from before I rewatch his greats are ECGtB, Finding Forrester, Psycho and Sea of Trees. Any of them worthwhile?

dda1996a wrote:

John Cope wrote:I actually liked Restless very much and was very moved by it as well which was surprising considering the less than enamored critical response it received. It was also surprising to me given my almost allergic aversion to Wes Anderson-esque whimsy. But this is a special case. There's a really well handled, sensitively understood, underlying melancholy here that gives weight to the whimsy. What could be fatuous is not and that's some minor triumph right there; the major triumph is getting us to appreciate that it should not be fatuous at all.

Not only an Anderson-esque comedy, but this basically copies the great Harold and Maude yet has non of that film's humor, sensitivity and almost everything Harold & Maude has.
Sadly all I have left from before I rewatch his greats are ECGtB, Finding Forrester, Psycho and Sea of Trees. Any of them worthwhile?

Psycho is probably worth it out of curiosity's sake - Van Sant's given his reasons, to see whether a studio would undertake a postmodern experiment. It's mostly shot-for-shot, colour and if anything might have an interesting queer element (Anne Heche as the Marion role, her sister played by Julianne Moore is I think clearly a lesbian). You get the intriguing prospect of Vince Vaughn, when he was still interested in acting, as Norman Bates (with more sexual psychology than you'd want). I wouldn't expect to consider it to be good though.

Yeah it's probably the only interesting film by him I have left, unless Forester is better than just trying and failing to be the next Good Will Hunting. I don't know another director who made such honest and interesting films on one hands and awful on the other. And not all his studio films are bad and not all his indie films are good, which is a rather strange mix

dda1996a wrote:Yeah it's probably the only interesting film by him I have left, unless Forester is better than just trying and failing to be the next Good Will Hunting. I don't know another director who made such honest and interesting films on one hands and awful on the other. And not all his studio films are bad and not all his indie films are good, which is a rather strange mix

Agreed, he's probably the most uneven filmmaker of the last couple of decades; it's not even like his less good films are mediocre, they sound absolutely horrific.

I like Finding Forrester, which I think is a little looser and more focused on (interesting) small-talk and conversation than Good Will Hunting (although the story is a lot more simplistic to even things out). The Psycho remake is worth seeing just for the amusing sight of Van Sant boxing in Christopher Doyle, one of our most notoriously spontaneous cinematographers, by telling him to entirely follow the lead of another movie. Both are substantially better than this movie, which I just got out of and which I would handily call Van Sant's worst, besting even Restless (with the caveat that I haven't seen Even Cowgirls Get the Blues). At least Restless had Mia Wasikowska to brighten things up.

Given Van Sant's inconsistency and he's made a couple of duffers since Milk for sure, it makes you wonder what McConaughey saw in the film. He's on a roll; maybe he wanted to do some more 'arthouse' work?

Perhaps he wanted to work with him and wasn't fussy about the script? Plus free holiday in Japan...
I don't think there is another director as scattershot as Van Sant. Even Spike Lee and Ridley Scott don't step as low as he does, or at least their bad films usually aren't as bad as his. I find it harder and harder to try and call myself his fan, even though I admire five of his films very much. Is there a more disappointing Palme d'Or winning director than him? Maybe just Michael Moore, and I don't think the comparison is really apt

Finding Forrester has a Harmony Korine cameo, if you care about that kind of thing (I do!), and also gave birth to one of the first widespread internet memes, You're The Man Now Dog.

Also, inspired by the discussion in this thread, I rewatched Paranoid Park followed by Elephant the other night. Paranoid just continues to grow in my estimation every time I see it - I think it's now quite possibly my favorite Van Sant. It's such a beautifully made, formally adventurous film, but at the same time has a deeply affecting emotional core to the center of it. It captures my own memories of being a teenager quite well, even if the specifics are completely different to Alex's in the film. I think the amateur/non-actor vibe to a lot of the performances bothers people, but once you adjust to it, it really lends the film a unique quality that I find very rewarding and authentic. What he loses in the gracefulness/articulateness of trained actors, he totally gains back in terms of seeing real genuine youthful energy on screen; the awkwardness of that age, but also the beauty. The soundtrack is also inexplicably perfect, using everything from Nino Rota to hip-hop, hardcore, country and western, and experimental soundscapes.

Unfortunately I have to say Elephant by comparison is somewhat lowered in my estimations. At one time I said it was a top 10 film for me, but I've apparently changed in what I value the most in a film over the years. While the photography is just as stunning now as the first time, I find the overall conscious formalism of it to be too heavy-handed at times. The first section of the film, before we're introduced to the two shooters, is still just as strong and vivid a portrait of high school life as I remembered it. Where the film goes somewhat off track for me are the parade of 'explanations' once we get into the shooters: bullying, video games, gun laws, repressed sexuality, distant parents, Hitler speeches... The film just tosses them out one after another with indifference, as if to show that none of them really gets us any closer to understanding the motivation behind the act. Fair enough, but it feels dated to its moment now.

Where Paranoid Park puts us right inside the head of its character via a masterful blend of expressive images and sound design, the story unfolding in fits and starts as our protagonist slowly comes to terms with what happened, Elephant deliberately keeps us at arms length, so that we never have any real insight into who these people are or what motivates them. It can start to feel a bit like a cruel exercise in style. I do still think it's a beautiful film to look at and passages of it are still just as breathtaking as ever, but I felt somewhat soured on it by the end.

I like both almost the same (To Die For is my fabourite) but I don't think you can really compare. One is a personal subjective film while the other a purposely more cold and distant, because the situations are different. Have you seen Alan Clarke's Elephant? It will make you appreciate Van Sant's film even more

dda1996a wrote:I like both almost the same (To Die For is my fabourite) but I don't think you can really compare. One is a personal subjective film while the other a purposely more cold and distant, because the situations are different. Have you seen Alan Clarke's Elephant? It will make you appreciate Van Sant's film even more

I've seen the Clarke's Elephant (it was actually Van Sant's title that made me first aware of Clarke, after which I sought out what was available at that point). Paranoid Park and Elephant are certainly different films with very different aims so I don't mean to suggest that one's doing it right and the other wrong - just speaking from a place of my own feelings after having revisited both and been somewhat surprised by my relative lack of receptiveness to Elephant this time around. Could have just been my mood at the time and not being on the film's wavelength. I do think it's a brilliantly made film, but I felt uneasy about the underlying impulse behind it, somehow.

When Clarke made his film, it was commentary on a real ongoing conflict between two groups and both sides obviously felt they were justified in their actions. By removing all the rhetoric and even (at least to an outsider) making it difficult to tell often times who was killing who, Clarke was exposing the horror of the conflict in a way that was new and very powerful. The film just wore you down with one senseless act of violence after another until you understood intuitively that it had to end. I suppose you could say something similar for Elephant, but who ever thought school shootings were a good idea outside of the people committing them? What is the film actually doing? I get the formal inspiration from Clarke, and formally speaking Elephant is a marvel, I'm just less certain now of what it's trying to do beyond the aesthetic element. It's a beautiful film about a horrible thing.