criterionforum.org

That’s attention to detail.

First reactions and the film proves wildly divisive, with someone declaring it a masterpiece to boos and walkouts. Looks like it’s all going to plan.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2018/ ... -half-way/

Due to the nature of how polarizing it is and why, it is getting some comparisons to Aronofsky's mother!

If it can up the ante on the go-for-broke visceral insanity and genre effectiveness of mother! but ditch the VERY ham-fisted allegory stuff, I'm down.

"Not respectful of the original" is hardly a bad thing. Why remake something only to treat it with too much reverence and make your own interpretation that much less needed?

It's exactly the type of movie you want to be divisive and yup, loved mother !

There isn't really any need to remake anything if you're not going to interpret it your own way. Throw me into the excited camp. I cannot fathom why anyone would want a copy/paste of the original (Not that it's in any way bad.).

This is a pretty good breakdown of the reaction so far and, yeah, it's pretty conflicted. I can't say this alleviates some of the concerns I had for the film but it sounds like an interesting watch, if nothing else:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ng-1138124

This quote from Rooney's review for THR is pretty much the exact thing I was dreading when I heard about the long run-time:

"The remake is never uninteresting. But it begets the question of whether the slender thread of story about a coven of witches operating out of a famed Berlin dance academy can withstand all the narrative detail, social context and cumbersome subplots heaped onto it."

Any "it's normal to reinterpret stuff when remaking them, otherwise what's the point" aside (which I don't totally agree with - Guadagnino himself calls this a "cover version" rather than a remake -), I'm not surprised with the movie being divisive. It's quite long, I'm quite sure that thematically and visually it's not for everyone, and I seem to recall that the original movie was also already quite divisive.

However, some of the criticisms in the THR breakdown are exactly the kind that I was concerned about : "indigestible new layers of historical meaning added", "Guadagnino has made the plot and the setting insanely complicated", "The political backdrop is an extra layer of needless complication".
From the look of it, it also seems that the Ebersdorf joke (is it contractual now to provide a full make-up role for Swinton if you want to hire her ?) doesn't offer much except a superfluous sub-plot that might explain part of the movie's 2h30 duration.

This being written, this roundup seems to be mostly focusing on the mixed to negative reviews, and I don't doubt there are some more positive ones around that probably alleviate these concerns. In any case, I'm still very curious about the movie, especially if I can catch it in theaters rather than later on video.

Any "it's normal to reinterpret stuff when remaking them, otherwise what's the point" aside (which I don't totally agree with - Guadagnino himself calls this a "cover version" rather than a remake

I don't understand the distinction you're making. Just about any cover of a song that anyone cares about reimagines it into something new

And I exactly agree with that, because I think that a remake and a "cover" are 2 different things, with the former being quite close to the original work while the latter can be a re-imagining.
But it's not a complaint nor a judgment call, it's just that I think the distinction is worthy to be made, and interesting in better understanding how far the new movie is from the original one.
I'm not sure a remake absolutely has to re-imagine things not to be pointless. That's why I think the distinction is important.

I guess it's akin to some kind of cursor, ranging from shot-for-shot remake à la Psycho to something that might only have a mention in the credits "based on this movie / these characters". When I read "remake", I expect something similar to the original movie rather than something vastly new. That's why I appreciate being able to have this info being going in with the wrong expectations. I've been burnt with The Orphanage, which I expected to be a ghost story movie but really should be watched as a pure drama, and I spent the whole movie expecting something that never came, simply because my expectations were wrong. If I can avoid that, all the best.

I regard Cronenberg's The Fly as a superior film to the 50s version and it only keeps the central premise. Same with Carpenter's The Thing.

And there certainly are plenty more like this. Again, it wasn't a judgment call. I just think it is an interesting nuance to have in order to understand the type of departure from the original work one can expect.

tenia wrote: Mon Sep 03, 2018 2:18 pm And I exactly agree with that, because I think that a remake and a "cover" are 2 different things, with the former being quite close to the original work while the latter can be a re-imagining.
But it's not a complaint nor a judgment call, it's just that I think the distinction is worthy to be made, and interesting in better understanding how far the new movie is from the original one.
I'm not sure a remake absolutely has to re-imagine things not to be pointless. That's why I think the distinction is important.

I guess it's akin to some kind of cursor, ranging from shot-for-shot remake à la Psycho to something that might only have a mention in the credits "based on this movie / these characters". When I read "remake", I expect something similar to the original movie rather than something vastly new. That's why I appreciate being able to have this info being going in with the wrong expectations. I've been burnt with The Orphanage, which I expected to be a ghost story movie but really should be watched as a pure drama, and I spent the whole movie expecting something that never came, simply because my expectations were wrong. If I can avoid that, all the best.

I think the reference to GVS's Psycho is probably pertinent because that's close to the only film (apart from Haneke's Funny Games Mark II) I can think of that really qualifies as a 'remake' according to this narrow definition. Otherwise, everything we've ever called a remake pretty much is a cover version, really (if not something that goes completely in the other direction, i.e. something that's much more inspired by than indebted to the original).

Can't wait for the day a director again owns up to making a remake instead of 'well actually this is more of a reboot/re-imagining/cover version/we're going back to the original novel that no one remembers'.

Cde. wrote:Can't wait for the day a director again owns up to making a remake instead of 'well actually this is more of a reboot/re-imagining/cover version/we're going back to the original novel that no one remembers'.

I think there’s a difference between a transactional remake of a prior work to make it more marketable to a modern/foreign audience, and something that requires more artistry and originality.

That In Living Color font is incredible

I arrived home from the movie theater, about 15 minutes earlier than my wife (who opted to stay for the remainder of the finale of this), to find an unpleasant piece of paper with... something floating on it... in the toilet. Anyway, I texted her as she headed home to find out whether a plumbing issue might be going on that I was as yet unaware of, to which she replied:

LQ wrote:That was something the cats (??) left on the ground, like a bit of goo. The trash can was just too full.

Anyway, it took me around 2 or 3 minutes to realize that wasn't her insta-review of Suspiria, one of the worst feature films I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through 92% of in my entire life, but instead her explanation for what was floating in our toilet when I got home.

Sometimes life intervenes and makes this whole writing thing much easier.

I’m mostly surprised by just how poorly the soundtrack and Yorke’s vocals complement the film that I’m taken aback.

The climatic scene

Spoiler

came off as shockingly amateur in the editing with the constant speeding up as heads explode looking quite poor. Worst of all is Yorke crooning over the entire thing in what is absolutely the most baffling musical choice I’ve ever heard considering the scene.

Was blown away by

Spoiler

"Lutz Ebersdorf"'s smooth womanly legs below his torso in the finale. Almost as though the makeup department lost interest in the whole bit and just figured people wouldn't find it incredibly strange for an "elderly man" to have the lower body of a fit middle aged woman

Anyway, it's one of a myriad of fatal flaws here, but Swinton's Norbit-level indulgence is the worst part of this film, and that's really saying something.

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 2:57 pm Was blown away by

Spoiler

"Lutz Ebersdorf"'s smooth womanly legs below his torso in the finale. Almost as though the makeup department lost interest in the whole bit and just figured people wouldn't find it incredibly strange for an "elderly man" to have the lower body of a fit middle aged woman

Anyway, it's one of a myriad of fatal flaws here, but Swinton's Norbit-level indulgence is the worst part of this film, and that's really saying something.

Yeah, I haven't seen it yet but even in the trailer, once the old German man speaks, it's quite obviously a woman. Why on earth would Guadagnino want to distract the viewer like this? Utterly bizarre choice.

Rubbery face, too. It's not as though the makeup department is doing much heavy lifting beyond an admirable job of attempting the impossible. It's a character that could have been excised from this overlong bit of rubbish entirely to perhaps salvage what is a truly terrible film into merely an interesting failure. Would love to see someone re-edit this film entirely, because the fact that there are some bits that are somewhat interesting (and one fun sequence with a dance intercut with the dance's supernatural effect on another student), but it would take chopping off perhaps half of this in order to maybe get to a pretty good result.

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 3:27 pm Rubbery face, too. It's not as though the makeup department is doing much heavy lifting beyond an admirable job of attempting the impossible. It's a character that could have been excised from this overlong bit of rubbish entirely to perhaps salvage what is a truly terrible film into merely an interesting failure. Would love to see someone re-edit this film entirely, because the fact that there are some bits that are somewhat interesting (and one fun sequence with a dance intercut with the dance's supernatural effect on another student), but it would take chopping off perhaps half of this in order to maybe get to a pretty good result.

It's that bad? Man, that's depressing. I loved his last two films.

The more I read about it, the more I feel like everything I was worrying about this re-something, and more, happened.