der SQUID und der WHALE

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Noah Baumbach's roman a clef (or whatever the cinematic equivalent is) of his parents' divorce. Seen it?

I thought it was good, a few off notes -- ocasionally loses the balance between comedy and domestic trauma -- but nice performances. The major characters are all kind of obnoxious, but still sympathetic to varying degrees. Thoughts?

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

The one major thing I couldn't believe was (SPOILER) that any high school kid in 1986 could have fooled anyone into thinking that a song off The Wall was an original composition. I was in high school in 1986, and everybody knew that album. And "Hey You" was on rock radio all the time. I mean, maybe that was based on real life too, I don't know, but the movie presented it as some obscure thing that '80s teenagers wouldn't have known, and that didn't make sense.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:10 (twenty years ago)

haven't seen it yet, but it's on my very short list of "theatrical features i'd pay money for," right behind good night, and good luck. (saw capote already.)

― jagged little filly (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

Capote is next on my own list.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

The one major thing I couldn't believe was (SPOILER) that any high school kid in 1986 could have fooled anyone into thinking that a song off The Wall was an original composition. I was in high school in 1986, and everybody knew that album. And "Hey You" was on rock radio all the time. I mean, maybe that was based on real life too, I don't know, but the movie presented it as some obscure thing that '80s teenagers wouldn't have known, and that didn't make sense.

if i include 9th grade (which would have been my freshman year), i started high school in 1990 (four years after '86). a very small amount of the kids in my class that year were into rock music at all (and they were metalheads).

― jagged little filly (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

wow that was a lot of parentheses.

― jagged little filly (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 October 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

anyone like Kicking & Screaming and Mr Jealousy? I rather like the former.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 27 October 2005 23:13 (twenty years ago)

I liked K&S. Haven't seen Mr. Jealousy.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 27 October 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)

i like both! i thought i was the only person who saw mr. jealousy.

― jagged little filly (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 27 October 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

i haven't seen tis movie, but it was filmed in my neighborhood.

― Special Agent Dale Koopa (orion), Friday, 28 October 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

There is lots of Park Slope in it.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 28 October 2005 00:54 (twenty years ago)

Jesse Eisenberg kept me thinking that this was an evil version of Pete & Pete.

Good tho.

― Jimmy Mod Is The Damnation (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Sunday, 30 October 2005 03:29 (twenty years ago)

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Most of the characters are really well drawn (obvious exception is Billy Baldwin's tennis coach, but he's there as basically a running gag). But the four members of the family in particular, the way they all relate to each other, the complicated domestic geometry, there are a lot of little moments that are just very nicely done.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 30 October 2005 03:48 (twenty years ago)

Kicking & Screaming had its moments, but it suffered a bit from time & place (the dawning of the age of Kevin Smith) and a low budget (sitcomy locations, weak acting, Eric Stoltz).

― Are You Nomar? (miloaukerman), Sunday, 30 October 2005 07:26 (twenty years ago)

I didn't like either Kicking and Screaming of the LIfe Aquatic. Will I like this? It looks better than either of them.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 07:59 (twenty years ago)

I was thoroughly disappointed by this movie. There are indeed little moments that are nicely done, as gm put it, but that's about all there is. As a Brooklynite with a car I found the running riff about the lack of parking amusing.

― rasheed wallace (rasheed wallace), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

i liked this movie

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 00:15 (twenty years ago)

i want to see it but cannot persuade wifey to go

― F.R.I.E.N.D. (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 00:16 (twenty years ago)

i bet it sucks

why would she not like this though?

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 00:35 (twenty years ago)

I went with mrs. L, we liked it. She pointed out some of the Museum of Natural History anachronisms. I've liked all the Noah B. that I've seen so far- I managed to catch Mr. Jealousy on cable, but there seems to be one that nobody has seen called "Eightball" or something like that- surely not based on comic book? Besides Wes A, he also reminds me of Whit Stillman, I guess what tipped me off was the Chris Eigeman connection (have you ever seen him walking around downtown Brooklyn, Jody? I haven't recently, I think he moved to LA).But Noah's distancing device is not the Newberry Award Winner into Joseph Cornell magic dioramas of the one or the Brooks Brothers cool of the other, it's a borrowed pretentious gobbledygook that the characters use which, because they fail to pull it off and show themselves to be trying too hard, makes them more vulnerable, human and real. So, I'll accept the reference to "The Mother and the Whore," which was the film that showed the soft white underbelly of the Nouvelle Vague.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:14 (twenty years ago)

OMG, that post makes me sound just like one of the fools in these movies. It's catching!

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:48 (twenty years ago)

A.O. Scott had a good line about it being "the filet of the Sundance coming-of-age genre" or something like that.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:50 (twenty years ago)

(which is only funny if you've seen the movie)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:58 (twenty years ago)

The title of A.O. Scott's Royal Tenenbaums review was pretty funny-"Warning: Do Not Feed Or Annoy The Woebegone Former Prodigies," or something like that.

Was I the only one who laughed out loud when he did that Jean Paul Belmondo thing from Breathless?

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:06 (twenty years ago)

That was hilarious. And then she's like, "You're calling me a bitch?" It was a great little window into their relationship.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:14 (twenty years ago)

It was one of the sparsely dealt out things that made that character likeable, that at a moment like that he was thinking: "Hey, this is an opportunity for the movie reference gag I've waited my whole life to do!"

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

Really really, almost surprisingly, good. The scenes with Daniels' giving "dating advice" are really really uncomfortable.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 13 November 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

shame about that last scene though huh

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 13 November 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

The actual squid and the whale scene? Yeah that was a little too obvious, but whatever. The last scene with Daniels is great though!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 13 November 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

I thought the younger kid was great- already a much better actor than either of his parents.

― k/l (Ken L), Sunday, 13 November 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

best masturbating in a library scene evah!

(I thought the 2 boys were the best thing in the movie acting-wise)

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 13 November 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

yeah, the actual squid and the actual whale... i mean come on. very "worst tendencies of wes anderson" way to end the movie

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 13 November 2005 20:24 (twenty years ago)

That was weak yeah; he'd already spelled out the whole squid and whale thing with the shrink, didn't need to actually show it. Would've been much better to just end with him walking out of the hospital. Didn't ruin anything for me, though.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 13 November 2005 20:41 (twenty years ago)

this hit ~~a little~~ a lot too close to home. it was home.

not the divorce stuff, but everything else.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 00:36 (twenty years ago)

my parents put me into private school for third grade because they felt public education wasn't cutting it for me. it was this scatterbrained boomer-bohemian kinda glorified day-care center, in a sprawling two-story victorian house that was kinda falling apart. my mom used to take me there every day on the subway -- to the newkirk avenue stop. this was '84-'85. lotta memories flooding back. go away, memories.

(the school sucked and when my parents put me back into public school the next year, all the kids laughed at me because i hadn't learned anything.)

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)

when the dad said "walt and i are taking a road trip to suny-binghamton," i nearly DIED.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)

scatterbrained boomer-bohemian kinda glorified day-care center

I had several friends who went to a place like that, in Rochester. My sister went there for a year too. It was called Our School.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 20 November 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

OUR SCHOOL

i can't remember what my school was called. gotta ask my parents. i have a class pic of me from that year... i'll scan it if i can find it.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 02:29 (twenty years ago)

also it was funny that the dad taught at brooklyn college... both my parents went there.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 02:31 (twenty years ago)

the trip to suny-binghamton reminded me a lot of that college reading scene in deconstructing harry.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 20 November 2005 06:03 (twenty years ago)

ah binghamton, pride of the sunys. william baldwin went there!

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 06:23 (twenty years ago)

This has been showing in Dallas for a couple of weeks, but after seeing Broken Flowers, I just cannot work up the will to see an American Sundance-friendly independent film.

American indies have become the cinematic equivalent of the Shins - completely affected, heartless, nothing to say, no new ground broken, no real reason for existing and/or for not just going all-out commercial.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Sunday, 20 November 2005 06:25 (twenty years ago)

that's nice.

to me, the squid and the whale is the curb your enthusiasm to the royal tenenbaums' seinfeld -- darker, naughtier, less reliant on "stock" characters, less shy about showing awkwardness and conflict. doesn't mean i don't love both movies. i see tenenbaums as a tableau piece, a family portrait with action. this is closer to being a movie movie.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 06:31 (twenty years ago)

That...is very well put.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 20 November 2005 07:44 (twenty years ago)

Allison: I'm in the midst of doing my thesis.
Alvy Singer: On what?
Allison: Political commitment in twentieth century literature.
Alvy Singer: You, you, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy Singer: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.

― mimi in st. louis (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah? My parents divorced when I was 9. I lived 30 minutes out of manhattan, but in the other direction (NJ). I had the same SHEETS as the younger son, the ones that say sleep, sleep, sleeep, sleep on them. When they divorced my father moved into a shabby townhouse development several blocks away. The first thing he did was buy a warped Ping-Pong table. I was obsessed with pink floyd by the age of 11. And obsessed with the big whale at the museum, which was not lit the way it is now as shown in the movie. Talk about hitting close to home!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 20 November 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

i love that exchange so much. (xp)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 20 November 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

I guess there were a lot of cars made twenty years in the future on the streets of Park Slope in 1986? There were so many obvious anachronisms in this movie it sort of annoyed me. Otherwise, I liked it.

― Keith C (lync0), Sunday, 20 November 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

This movie has the sleep sleep sleep sheets in it? AWESOME

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Sunday, 20 November 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

i liked this movie. it was kinda hard to watch cuz it hit close to home yes.

― howell huser (chaki), Sunday, 20 November 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

I guess there were a lot of cars made twenty years in the future on the streets of Park Slope in 1986?

huh? the cars were otm! nothing but boxy '80s volvos painted taupe! that's park slope all right.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

i liked the little kid's orange swatch and his burger king glass that was made out of glass. nice subtle touches.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

are there any other movies set in the ditmas/midwood area? i know the press has really pushed the park slope angle but just as much of it took place in the brooklyn on the "other side of the park" (and i know that where they move is supposed to be run down, but even in 1986 the houses around the brooklyn college campus were fetching a pretty penny).

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 20 November 2005 23:00 (twenty years ago)

The cars the characters were using were of the era, but in almost every single street scene there were LOTS of late model cars in the background.

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

i'm not going to listen to you until i watch the movie again (and i will).

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:20 (twenty years ago)

Watch the subway scenes, too--all modern signage. I was waiting for the kid to whip out a MetroCard and swipe it!

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

did you grow up here, keith?

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:26 (twenty years ago)

I grew up in North Jersey.

I live in PS now, so I was paying *way* more attention than normal to little things going on in the background (what street corner is that? etc)

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:32 (twenty years ago)

i went to day camp at berkeley carroll for several years so i'm no slouch either!

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

i think i was even there in '86.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:35 (twenty years ago)

the park slopiest park slope that ever park sloped:

http://www.bcscap.org/page/page/945869.htm

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:38 (twenty years ago)

"kyrie eleison down the road that i must travel..."

http://www.bcscap.org/i/7_14_05/abe.jpg

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 00:55 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, there were quite a few modern cars parked on the streets.

― Mugur Simionov (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)

Indie film in not-being-able-to-shut-down-entire-Brooklyn-neighborhood shocker.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:25 (twenty years ago)

re the subway signage, that has hardly changed at all since the '80s. same look, same font, same colors -- the signs in those stations are exactly as i remember them. the paint colors on the columns might have been different, but there's never been one standard color across the system. manhattan stations are quicker to make cosmetic changes -- in the brooklyn ones, there's not that much to change.

it's baumbach's film and it's not like he's unfamiliar with what that part of brooklyn was like in 1986, so i'll trust him sooner than i'll trust some, you know, jersey person. ;-) i know i was obsessed with cars that year and i used to stare out the window of my parents' goldish brown '84 ford ltd station wagon and take note of all the different makes and models, company logos, license plates, tires.

also, this is a film about memory. memories can be extremely vivid, but they can be incomplete too -- which is why i'll excuse an inaccuracy or two. it could be baumbach acknowledging something about the way his memory works. that issue certainly comes up with the characters throughout the film.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:39 (twenty years ago)

haha gypsy, not even law and order can do that.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:42 (twenty years ago)

as for street signs, the ones in brooklyn used to be black with white lettering and in the mid-'80s (not sure which year) they decided to phase those out and switch to a citywide standard of green with white lettering. more info below.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SIGNS/Color/color.html

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:52 (twenty years ago)

come to think of it, most of park slope has the landmark-designation brown-and-white street signs now, right? (not the green ones?)

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 01:58 (twenty years ago)

I just found all these things together kinda lazy, that's all--I mean even the tennis racket thing was wrong, by '86 no one was using wooden rackets at all, especially little kids whose parents could afford to take them to a tennis pro. After a while it starts to look like a student film instead of something 'serious'...a MINOR WORK, if you will.

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

especially little kids whose parents could afford to take them to a tennis pro.

if they couldn't afford to buy four dishes at the chinese restaurant, they probably couldn't afford the tennis lessons either.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

keith, stop being such a PHILISTINE.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 02:04 (twenty years ago)

My family was still using wooden rackets in 1986 because my parents were cheapskates. I bought my own first aluminum racket my freshman year of college.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 21 November 2005 02:07 (twenty years ago)

the rackets we had (stashed away in the closet, never used by anyone as far as i could tell) were wooden, and holdovers from the '70s.

― j b goddamnfucking r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 02:13 (twenty years ago)

I second that...we used wood, metal and newer fiberglass type tennis rackets through the late 80s when I stopped getting tennis lessons in west orange, nj, at a place much like the one in the movie.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 21 November 2005 03:34 (twenty years ago)

gawd, this thread is crawling with tennis yuppies! :-)

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 03:46 (twenty years ago)

gimme a break keith, fuck "historical accuracy" it's not a documentary!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:18 (twenty years ago)

hey did you guys know this movie was produced for under $1 million? that's so cool...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

that is cool. i sorta know one of the exec producers, but i didn't realize he was involved until i saw the credits.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

I don't see why he can have it both ways, though. Just because it's a small film? I mean, it's either supposed to be 1986 or it's not. And if it is, then there's a reasonable expectation that it's going to look and feel like 1986. It didn't to me.

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 04:57 (twenty years ago)

I think I read an interview in which Baumbach admitted the lack of period faithfulness re the cars.

I liked the movie a lot. The dad was such an asshole.

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:01 (twenty years ago)

i see it as a positive thing that i was engaged with the story enough on the first go-round that i didn't have to have that level of fault-finding detachment. i intend to watch it again (hopefully it'll be less emotionally cringeworthy), because the second and third viewings are when i really enjoy catching the minor background things.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:03 (twenty years ago)

I agree. I don't think anyone expected them to be able to shut down an entire neighborhood (thanks for being condescending tho, gypsy) but there are ways to shoot around things like that. Beyond that, I was half-asleep during this movie the parked still stuck out like a sore-thumb for me. But then again, not being a East Coaster or child of divorced parents, there wasn't a whole lot of interest for me in this movie.

― Mugur Simionov (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:04 (twenty years ago)

(that was an xpost to keith)

― Mugur Simionov (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:05 (twenty years ago)

The mom was an asshole, too! So was the oldest son. The characters were all kinda dickish, except the littlest kid, who was great. And the tennis pro (who would NOT have been using a wooden racket if he was a pro!)

xpost

― Keith C (lync0), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:06 (twenty years ago)

one of my favorite characters that i don't believe has been mentioned here yet: the school psychologist. he wasn't quite the WIZENED AUTHORITY FIGURE MAKING A DIFFERENCE you'd think he'd be with so much of the third act riding on him, but he was likable and snarky in a way that said "work with me kid; i don't wanna be here as much as you don't wanna be here."

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:10 (twenty years ago)

i liked that a good third of the movie was spent looking for parking. that it wasn't JUST parking, it was a family ritual, a running joke, a source of dread.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:15 (twenty years ago)

You would think that while looking for parking, they'd notice all of the parked vehicles from the future. Maybe they were too wrapped up in their family drama.

― Mugur Simionov (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:36 (twenty years ago)

oh hush you.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:37 (twenty years ago)

car authenticity is pretty low on my list of things i give a shit about in movies!

hey anyone else notice how anna paquin is making a cottage industry of playing sensitive, literate & sexually available new york students?! this, 25th hour, finding forrester... even x-men!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:44 (twenty years ago)

i like the new direction this thread is taking.

http://www.123people.net/p/paquin-anna/paquin-anna3.jpg

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:48 (twenty years ago)

you could always suspend your disbelief, regarding parked cars from the future.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 21 November 2005 05:57 (twenty years ago)

baumbach's next movie: parking in cars from the future, starring anna paquin as a pregnant but sexually available new york student.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 06:00 (twenty years ago)

i liked this movie. it was kinda hard to watch cuz it hit close to home yes.

by this i mean i also like to rub my semen on books at the library.

― howell huser (chaki), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:27 (twenty years ago)

just on library books?

― GARGLEBY (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

and ur mom.

― howell huser (chaki), Monday, 21 November 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

"hey anyone else notice how anna paquin is making a cottage industry of playing sensitive, literate & sexually available new york students?! this, 25th hour, finding forrester... even x-men!!"

Yeah, she's become seriously typecast (although wasn't she Southern in the X-Men.) I think she's become our generations upper-middle class Juliette Lewis (and just about as annoying.) Which means her Way of the Gun is coming (*shudder*.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

she's southern but the x-men school is in upstate new york, right?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

Yes. It's based loosely on Sarah Lawrence.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)

I think she's become our generations upper-middle class Juliette Lewis (and just about as annoying.)

i don't find her annoying! (juliette lewis is, but she's not.) at least she's typecast to play smart people, and not borderline-retards.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

(and the characters in squid are SO not upper middle class. no self-respecting upper middle class girl would attend a CUNY!)

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

i don't see the juliette lewis comparison, they have pretty different acting styles.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 21 November 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

yeah, paquin reminds me more of natalie wood.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 20:15 (twenty years ago)

and ur mom.

My mom's dead.

― GARGLEBY (dr g), Monday, 21 November 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

"yeah, paquin reminds me more of natalie wood."

I will agree that she is currently not as annoying as Juliette Lewis (although she is fast becoming as ubiquitous) but Natalie Wood?!? I don't get it.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

the ability to be impossibly poised even while being slutty.

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 22:52 (twenty years ago)

Yeah uh huh?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 22:58 (twenty years ago)

I mean Natalie Wood was anything but poised (or slutty) in most of her big movies. She was basically type-cast as hysterical young girl from moment one.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

alex, if you don't settle down i'll have to zing you on the "impressions" thread.

you don't see a resemblance?

http://www.retroidols.com/n_wood/natalie_wood_front.jpg http://gfx.filmweb.pl/p/2562/po.69633.jpg

― j b everlovin' r (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

Well my work is blocking the Natalie Wood image, but no I can't really see much of a resemblance physically either.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)

me too :(

― GARGLEBY (dr g), Tuesday, 22 November 2005 06:32 (twenty years ago)

I thought the film was startlingly good. I can't say that it hit close to home, Tennessee Williams is more like my childhood, but I knew people in college who came from similar backgrounds--somthing I couldn't fathom at the time.

1. cars from the future? oh, please.
2. wooden tennis racket? I think that's a bigger deal. Certainly Baldwin wouldn't have had one, and if the family had been using them, it would have been a nice contrast.
3. Hard to imagine nobody would have recognized Pink Floyd.
4. Interesting to see Jeff Daniels playing an heterosexual again.
5. The shrink was indeed great in a small role. So was the woman playing the principal or counselor: "Your son has been smearing semen all over the school, but I loved your piece in the New Yorker."

The real strength for me, though, was the unrelenting ambiguity of all the four principal characters. They were soooo horrible. Wretched people. Just barely enough decency creeping through occasionally to justify their continuing to live. Awful people. So thoroughly second-rate.

Thankfully no deus ex machina self awareness at the end. Jeff Daniels is still the jerk he always was, even in the hospital.

Great movie.

― EComplex (EComplex), Monday, 5 December 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

i still wanna see this again before it leaves the theaters (if it hasn't already).

re the pink floyd issue: there's that part where anna paquin says she knew it was a floyd song but wasn't gonna say anything. i wonder how many of the other characters knew it as well, but were keeping their mouth shut (is there really anything to be gained from calling a kid at his high-school talent show out on plagiarism? just humor the kid).

― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 December 2005 03:42 (twenty years ago)

i think the pink floyd stuff was stretching it a BIT.

still don't like the last scene.

still will make it into my top 10 i think.

ps: i don't think the characters were particularly wretched or horrible. they weren't super-morally-pure movie heroes but i liked that about them. nobody was selfless or above reproach. they were just real-seeming, messy people.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 5 December 2005 04:31 (twenty years ago)

i think the pink floyd stuff was stretching it a BIT.

perhaps a bit, but it's not that big a deal.

― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 December 2005 04:38 (twenty years ago)

i thought this thread would be like, Squid vs Whale: FITE! like the monkey vs horse, or mouse vs spider. i am sorely disappointed.

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 5 December 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

Another possibility re: Pink Floyd----it's supposed to be really obviously not his own composition. He's that screwed up. And of course, some one did rat him out--it's just that no one stood up in the assembly and shouted "LIAR!" More likely, the pink-floyd-acid-heads on the back row were whispering among themselves, "did he say he wrote it?" "I dunno man, I wasn't listening." "Did he?" "I don't think so." "The hell he didn't, man..." etc.\

I gotta say, I do think the parents esp. were vile people. "You could sleep with her once. See other girls." "I don't think she'd go for that."

― EComplex (EComplex), Monday, 5 December 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

TGPF=JBR=otm. Plus, do you guys think the joke would be as funny if you didn't constantly keep wondering why he hadn't been caught already? If it had been someone more obscure it might have come off as a nod to current day hipsters-even more of a time travel thing,no? The whole point of that kid was that he was so far under his dad's shadow that he wasn't that hip.

(xpost)

I for one think it was worth it just for the sight of Jeff Daniels sitting at that student desk with the unraveled white lyric sheet from the cassette tape of The Wall.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 15:15 (twenty years ago)

I guess that should be tGPoF

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 15:31 (twenty years ago)

I think Jeff Daniels is really supposed to be pretty unsympathetic (esp. by the end.) I don't know if I would go so far as to call him vile, but he's definitely not very likeable. I don't think the rest of the characters were wretched or horrible (certainly not unredeemably so), nor were they supposed to be.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

what does it say about me that i liked him, i wonder...

― mies van der rohffle (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

I liked him too. He had all those bad qualities but they were obvious for all to see. It's not like he was a real master manipulator or anything.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

I'm defining "like" in this case as: would I want this guy to be my father or my husband or my teacher or my close friend? He was amusing enough though, I will admit.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

linney had this way of being smug without QUITE showing it in her facial expressions. i've known people like this -- you sense their smugness more than you see it (or hear it in their words), and it drives you crazy and makes you want to punch them, but you can't and they always come away smelling like (shit-fertilized) roses.

― mies van der rohffle (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

Never met one, and I've lived in NYC pretty much my whole life, Jody.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

NOT!

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

True, but she was mostly like that with Daniel's character (which is completely understandable in my opinion.) She seemed pretty sympathetic with her kids.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

Maybe. But, as somebody said upthread, there were times when she leaned on the cute nicknames kinda hard.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 5 December 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

Man, Noah B really hates his dad and loves Bert Jansch records!

the major characters are all kind of obnoxious, but still sympathetic to varying degrees.

...except Jeff Daniels, and Jesse Eisenberg not far behind. All 4 actors were fine. J Hoberman hit the exact word for those teen-sex disasters: "mortifying." At least from what people have told me about teen sex.

Armond White also went apeshit over the Pink Floyd fraud (I took it as a fair joke -- the FACULTY at a school like that would likely be more familiar with PF).

Was NB sposed to build a 1986-accurate Nat Hist Museum? Get off the Premiere Gaffe Squad, kids.

I think I've eaten in two of the restaurants in this film.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 December 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

another favorite moment in this: when the younger son walks in on the mom and the tennis instructor post-sexoring and for the requisite sensitive/npr music "heart like a wheel" is playing on the stereo. i cringed (in a good way).

― Penis, NV (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 12 December 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

At least it was the McGarrigles' and not Ronstadt!

The film made me glad I had philistine parents.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 December 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

boo, i like ronstadt. i have a great version with the three of them together; it's probably the best one.

― Penis, NV (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 12 December 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

all he had to do to make the museum accurate was turn off the lights shining on the whale. And it's not like I was complaining about the cars, I could care less about that. Just showing off my vivid memory of that room, which held as strong an appeal to me as the squid diorama did him.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 12 December 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

haha the premiere gaffe squad! i remember that!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 12 December 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

Successors to the gaffe squad (the goof squids?):

http://imdb.com/title/tt0367089/goofs

Maybe it woulda looked crap if he'd turned off the lights shining on the whale?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 December 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

Wow, I thought this movie was so refreshingly good, and refreshing precisely because it DIDN'T fall into the traps of so many sundance-friendly films. A few obvious flaws, sure, noted above -- recapped enough already.

Fantastic acting on everyone's part. Laura Linney is always Laura Linney, but here she managed to be enough of the character while still being Laura Linney. Great kids. Older son was a fairly original character, I thought. I liked his girlfriend very much. I loved the therapist too - he was awesome. "No, I have an M.A....from the Yale Child Psychology Studies Program." "Do you have a Ph.D.?" "No, an M.A. is a Masters."

I found the father more sympathetic than some here -- I think that the movie implies in a way that, for all his bastard-ness, he loved his wife more than she loved him and that he was the bigger victim in the marriage (note he has "The Victim" on his bedside table.) She tells her son she married him more or less because he was the only interesting man in Columbus, and we know she's been cheating on him for years. That doesn't make him any less of a shit, but I actually cried a little in the scene where he collapsed in the street.

So many little details I liked -- for example, if you listen closely at the Dad's reading, his writing is actually pretty trite, for all his pretense: "...into the sunset and so ended another chapter of his life." or something like that.

I laughed really hard when the kid tells Sophie that Kafka is "Kafkaesque."

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 17 December 2005 18:21 (twenty years ago)

i haven't seen the movie, but just realized the title referent - OH NO!

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 17 December 2005 18:25 (twenty years ago)

It also occurred to me that the divorce generation is coming of age and making films. Two others I've seen recently - the far inferior Me and You and Everyone We Know, and an Israeli film called "Nina's Tragedies" had very similar themes.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

I laughed really hard when the kid tells Sophie that Kafka is "Kafkaesque."

yes, i forgot to mention it but that was my absolute favorite line in the whole movie!

― the people are such untight s wads (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 17 December 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Am I the only one who didn't know N.B. is married to Jennifer Jason Leigh? Suddenly I'm not so sorry about his parents being assholes.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

you are not alone!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 20:00 (twenty years ago)

Huh. I didn't know that, either.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

I actually cried a little in the scene where he collapsed in the street.

Not me. I was going DIE! DIE! DIE!

I thought it was a good movie, but I didn't love it. I liked "Me and You and Everyone We Know" WAY more. S & W has an intrusive soundtrack—one of my growing pet peeves—and the father was too over-the-top of an asshole. Why would anyone have stayed with him? Well, people do stay married to assholes. Fact 'o life.
My husband thought that it was okay for the portrayal of the parents to cross over into caricature because the whole movie is one big fuck you. Especially if Baumbach/Walt was so solidly on his father's side at the time of the divorce. Has anyone interviewed Baumbach's dad?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 15:16 (twenty years ago)

the whole movie is one big fuck you.

A friend hated it just cuz of this, but the morality of NB making such an FU 'about his parents' even if they were dicks is separate from evaluating the movie's worth. I find his gee-I-thought-it-was-a-normal-divorce quotes to be either lies or blinkered New Yorkism at its funniest.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 January 2006 15:57 (twenty years ago)

I liked "Me and You and Everyone We Know" WAY more

Why are you comparing the two? I liked Sq+Wh WAY more, fwiw.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

I never, ever want to see Me and You and Everyone We Know, my wife hated it so it must be terrible. Squid & The Whale was okay, but I did not love it.

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:18 (twenty years ago)

Me and You and Everyone You Know is gimmicky load of crap by a "punk artist."

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:19 (twenty years ago)

xposts It doesn't matter what his dad was really like, this is a movie. It's a work of fiction.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Well, I'm sure that's what he told his ASSHOLE FATHER.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:33 (twenty years ago)

Having soundtrack do all your emotional heavy lifting=gimmicky load of crap

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

what about their divorce wasn't "normal"? i've seen/heard an awful lot of weird and ugly stuff in divorces (and i'm not even counting my own, which was relatively un-ugly).

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:36 (twenty years ago)

my wife hated it so it must be terrible

Huh?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:38 (twenty years ago)

you know

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:39 (twenty years ago)

When Adam's wife likes things, they're usually bad. But when she hates things, look out!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:40 (twenty years ago)

No I don't.

I didn't mean to say S&W was a gimmicky load of crap above. I'm just matching abbadabba in bellicosity.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:41 (twenty years ago)

Well, I'm probably been leaving a sheltered existence on that score if so. Most of the unhappy spouses I was aware of, esp as a youth, stayed married (yay, oldskool Catholicism). But including dad & son both lusting for their teen roomie? That and Dad offering dating tips is more Bad Parenting than divorce-related.

I didn't find the soundtrack tunes to be a crutch; self-absorbed aging hippie parents might listen to a lot of Bert Jansch. Does Morricone do 'heavy lifting' for Leone, or is that different cuz it's original music?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:41 (twenty years ago)

xpost re not an unusually ugly divorce (really, my mind boggles)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

xpost Sorry, I guess that was a bit unnecessarily bellicose of me.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:44 (twenty years ago)

Never mind me and the soundtrack gripe. I've turned into a Dogma killjoy.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:44 (twenty years ago)

The Bruce Langhorne soundtrack from The Hired Hand is the best thing ever.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 16:49 (twenty years ago)

Plus I am guilty of plenty of unprovoked bellicosity of my own. I find myself inflating my negative reactions just to make a splash on the thread. Before you know it everybody's ready to take it outside.
Morricone is fabulous. I have all that stuff on my iTunes.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 13 January 2006 23:09 (twenty years ago)

hey, every consensus needs a contrarian.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 13 January 2006 23:13 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

this was probably the best written film i've seen in a long time -- environments filled with such hostility and passive-aggressiveness are potentially crazy-making, and baumbach articulated that really nicely (slot me in with the people for whom this hit a little too close to home.)

also, "complicated domestic geometry" is a great phrase.

― mark p (Mark P), Saturday, 11 March 2006 04:14 (nineteen years ago)

it deserved the oskar for writing

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 11 March 2006 08:32 (nineteen years ago)

eh?

http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/03/images/neeson.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 11 March 2006 08:34 (nineteen years ago)

is this on dvd yet or what?

― Knute Rockne, All American (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 11 March 2006 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

it's out in ten days.

― Chairman Doinel (Charles McCain), Saturday, 11 March 2006 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

the father is SO GREAT. what a brilliantly written (and well-acted) asshole.

― sleep (sleep), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

One of last years best movies.
it seems like yet another divorce-american-cliche flick, but it turns out that in a sophisticated way, the director turned the cliche into strong cinematic criticism of american culture: the movie just goes to the extreme of it's subject, by digging really dip into it, till all the grouse of it comes out.always agood thing trying to deal seriously with serious issues.

― samuell the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

i dont like actor kids. their hair is always too long.

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

"i dont like actor kids. their hair is always too long. "

and the younger one is a pervert - stop wasting sperm!

― oneil, Monday, 27 March 2006 14:12 (nineteen years ago)

strong cinematic criticism of american culture

or just Park Slope liberal culture.

Jesse Eisenberg's perf was one of the more unsentimental teen portrayals I can remember in American movies.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

"or just Park Slope liberal culture"

i agree with your correction.
it's a very white-bourgeois orienated american/NYC movie.
but still, it could be also about all white-bourgeois western culture,anywhere.

― samuell the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

I just saw this Saturday and loved it. I'd heard a lot about the older son being an asshole, but he just reminded me of all the guys I went to high school with. I guess I lucked out. ha ha

As for the comments about the cars/signs upthread, in the special features Baumbach mentions that they didn't have enough mula to fix everything. They just crossed their fingers that the story/actors would be strong enough to carry it.

― Sarah Madkitten McLusky (coco), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

Was Eisenberg in Rodger Dodger? If so, the sequel to TSATW should show Eisenberg meeting Campbell Scott.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

xpst yeah, i didn't notice the new cars; i wasn't focussing on how well they nailed 1986.

it is a bit of a shame that ivan was sketched out just enough to serve his purpose in the story. also a few of the scenes came off a bit too utilitarian, though i don't remember if the script or the delivery was at fault in these cases.

still, very entertaining movie.

― sleep (sleep), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

being captious is always easy.

― samuell the puller, Monday, 27 March 2006 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

from imdb board:

The Word Used to Describe dumb people!
by - sassee4ever (Sun Jan 15 2006 22:37:14 )
what's the word used by jeff daniels describing someone that doesn't like film or books? i want to use that word to sound smart and call these stupid bitches at my school.

thanks!

Re: The Word Used to Describe dumb people!
by - About2Crash (Mon Jan 16 2006 02:18:58 )
a philistine. great word.

Re: The Word Used to Describe dumb people!
by - sassee4ever (Tue Jan 17 2006 13:42:42 )
sweet! thanks man, these bitches don't know what's coming, i'm gunna blow their minds! philistine, ha thats rich

― sleep (sleep), Monday, 27 March 2006 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

That's totally awesome.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 March 2006 18:52 (nineteen years ago)

Hahaha!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 27 March 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

wow.

― send your men of science quick (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

That's so sassee.

― My Psychic Friends Are Strangely Silent (Ex Leon), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

HOWS IT GOING, MY BROTHER?

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

I think my favorite moment was when the son invites the dad to go with him and his girlfriend to go to the movies, and then he says they're going to see "Short Circuit," and the dad says "I hear 'Blue Velvet' is very interesting," and then in the next scene they're watching Blue Velvet.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

The ping pong games are pretty brutal too.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

And AAH! I just remembered the sequence where the younger son asks if his dad has any aspirin because he feels sick, the dad sends him to the store with two dollars, which isn't enough, so he has to walk back home for more money and then walk back to the store, and then when he gets home his dad makes him play ping pong.

"You have to try, it's no fun for me if you don't try!"

Such a good movie.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

i just saw this last night for the first time - the thing is, it's just so fucking sad. the whole time, i sort of struggled with finding fault in all the characters, and all of them (although it was easiest to see the younger son as a total innocent)acting horribly. but it's really just this huge sad thing that happened this way, and no one came out ahead. i cant see it as a critique in any practical/rational way. it seems to me to be more like a meditation/pro-human-by-way-of-anti-human thing. ill never watch it again, but im really glad i saw it.

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Monday, 27 March 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

Jeff Daniels is so great in this, too. Probably my favorite movie of last year.

― My Psychic Friends Are Strangely Silent (Ex Leon), Monday, 27 March 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

My best friend's review was "Fuck these people, I'd like to kill em all."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 27 March 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

little kids drinking beer is all i need in a movie.

― ddb (ddb), Monday, 27 March 2006 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

"You know that was about her cunt, right?" I'm glad they made Daniels despicable right up to the end. A reconciliation would have ruined it all.

― Big Willy and the Twins (miloaukerman), Friday, 7 April 2006 01:41 (nineteen years ago)

"wasn't that mom?"
"yep, that was mom... ivan's a bit of a halfwit isn't he? heheh"

― sleep (sleep), Friday, 7 April 2006 01:51 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe it's because I grew up surrounded by Navy housing projects in San Diego instead of in the Upper West Side, but none of the characters in this movie seemed even remotely real to me. They have a very Oscar Wilde / Stoppard's Arcadia / Wes Anderson way of making every sentence sharp and elevated, but without the nuance to be believable. If the story is a modern fable (as I read Rushmore/Tennenbaums), the story has merit. But as a seemingly very personal story about Baumbauch's coming-of-age, I ultimately thought the movie was a bit cowardly and dishonest. I'd give it a B- for the great lines and sight gags, though.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 7 April 2006 04:46 (nineteen years ago)

I totally recognized the characters.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 7 April 2006 04:50 (nineteen years ago)

yeah you didn't have to grow up on the upper west side to be around self-important liberal artsy baby boomers.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 7 April 2006 04:53 (nineteen years ago)

i've met some of those but none who were so totally invested in their character.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 7 April 2006 05:00 (nineteen years ago)

they reminded me of my parents, though they were more passive/agressive in their cruelty.

ned, yr too fucking nice, yr families too fucking nice, and that niceness isnt real

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 7 April 2006 05:27 (nineteen years ago)

it's hard to judge this because the characters are all varying degrees of despicable: the old chestnut of attempting to pass misanthropy off as realism. We may have come across people as vile as this in real life but never an entire group of them, surely? There is some clever dialogue in here but i can't remember having such an averse reaction to every character in a film since Todd Solondz's Happiness. Solondz's films have the bonus of having a certain style, whether you like it or not, whereas this one was pretty ugly throughout. That may be a good thing actually, i'm not sure.

It has the added problem/ chestnut of including the scene explaining the typically random-seeming title so it can include it as an epiphany (yawn) at the end of the film in a predictable indie-filmish way. Please stop doing this.

anyway, i liked this more than all of that ^ suggests i did.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

"i've met some of those but none who were so totally invested in their character."

Yeah, the guys like Daniels I know get away with their asshole-ness by occasionally flashing some (maybe disingenuous) charm or warmth to throw everyone off balance.

"the old chestnut of attempting to pass misanthropy off as realism."

Yep, that's it exactly. Stories about humans who sometimes behave cruelly to one another are richer than a string of set pieces illustrating unpleasant interactions.

― Martin Van Buren (Martin Van Buren), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 20:55 (nineteen years ago)

it's hard to judge this because the characters are all varying degrees of despicable: the old chestnut of attempting to pass misanthropy off as realism.

I agree. I'd also add Neil LaBute to that list. But this film ain't one of them.

See, I still sensed Laura Linney's love for her boys despite her narcissism.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

anyway, i liked this more than all of that ^ suggests i did.

Yeah, at least the film made an impression on me. So many don't.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 21:12 (nineteen years ago)

Daniels was the only character I found thoroughly horrible. The other characters were troubled but not dislikable.

― Big Willy and the Twins (miloaukerman), Thursday, 13 April 2006 00:03 (nineteen years ago)

i liked it. has jonathan baumbach talked about it publicly yet?

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 22 April 2006 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

just saw this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had no idea at all it was a wes anderson, but from the start it felt so much like Tannenbaums, and this feeling only got more pronounced as the film progressed.

to me, the squid and the whale is the curb your enthusiasm to the royal tenenbaums' seinfeld -- darker, naughtier, less reliant on "stock" characters, less shy about showing awkwardness and conflict. doesn't mean i don't love both movies. i see tenenbaums as a tableau piece, a family portrait with action. this is closer to being a movie movie.

-- mimi in st. louis (theundergroundhom...) (webmail), November 20th, 2005 1:31 AM. (Jody Beth Rosen) (link)

more or less otm.

also, JB's character of a middle aged English prof is SPOT ON. couldn't be more perfect.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 13 July 2006 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

it's not a wes anderson movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 13 July 2006 04:24 (nineteen years ago)

it sucks like one - OH!

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Thursday, 13 July 2006 04:31 (nineteen years ago)

This was so good ("Hey You" debacle and final scene were problematic, but certainly didn't ruin it, imo).

Favorite part: every time the little kid would tie one on he'd be shirtless. kinda like "philistine solidarity, my brother!"

― Will (will), Monday, 24 July 2006 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

it's not a wes anderson movie!

i finally rented it and kept getting a nagging feeling that it borrowed too heavily from Wes Anderson's precocious brand of "twee cinema". Of course you're right, but it turns out Anderson was one of the producers.

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

baumbach also wrote (co-wrote?) the screenplay for the life aquatic, so it's not as if he's just some random wes anderson PLAGIARIST.

― taco de ojo (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:20 (nineteen years ago)

i hated the life aquatic, the boats in it were totally from the wrong years, such an anachronism.

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

If only the boats were the biggest problem with that movie.

― GILLY'S BAGG'EAR VANCE OF COUPARI (Ex Leon), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Did you really find that family TWEE?? Not mortifying?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

NOT the filet of movies. But OK to see once.

― Bnad (Bnad), Monday, 24 July 2006 19:46 (nineteen years ago)

morbs, i did not read that hoberman piece and am only catching up with the movie now -- but it sounds like he nailed it.

i wasn't implying the family or the characters were twee, rather i was noting the tendency of these post-Anderson/S. Coppola filmmakers to indulge in certain sentimental tropes.

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

I don't really see that strong a similarity. Anderson is always so cartoony and insincere, whereas Baumbach is obviously going for realism, sincerity, psychological drama, etc.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

childhood memories
retro fashions
the exotic as running gag
failed geniuses

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

I sort of see what you're saying, but "childhood memories" has been a staple of pretty much all fiction for a long time, "retro fashions" happen to be period fashions in this case (and not all that hip in S&W either), the "failed genius" here (the father) is hardly romanticized - in fact if anything his "genius" is made to look kind of questionable, and I don't know what you mean here by "the exotic as a running gag."

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

it's so much better than the life aquatic (and Kicking and Screaming)

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

"exotic as running gag" doesn't really apply here, it comes up more in Coppola's (goofs on English pronunciation in Lost in Translation) and Anderson's (the Punjabi manservant) work. maybe it does apply to Squid + Whale, i can't remember if the subway montage showing off the father's relegation to "the other side of the park" was played for comic effect.

Anderson is always so cartoony and insincere, whereas Baumbach is obviously going for realism, sincerity, psychological drama

i don't agree with this, i don't see much difference between the two filmmakers. these twee indie filmmakers have a cloying way of wrapping up highly sentimental moments in a mantle of high irony and snark. it shouldn't work, but it does. baumbach fell flat doing this in a couple scenes, but the better ones -- the Belmondo reference in the ambulance for example, work great, they hit the right notes of funny and sad and define the characters.

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:53 (nineteen years ago)

I see less snark in Baumbach's work, though. He gets away with it by letting one character play the George Sanders trenchant-commentator (Chris Eigeman, Eric Stolz, Jeff Daniels).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 24 July 2006 20:56 (nineteen years ago)

these twee indie filmmakers have a cloying way of wrapping up highly sentimental moments in a mantle of high irony and snark

Such as?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 24 July 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

i thought i was pretty clear. wes anderson, s. coppola, baumbach, and to a much lesser extent michel gondry. also one-off films such as garden state

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 22:51 (nineteen years ago)

what about that thumbsucker motherfucker

― Supercalifragilisticexpiala Brosius (chaki), Monday, 24 July 2006 22:52 (nineteen years ago)

anyone/anything i'm forgetting here in this twee canon?

― fongoloid sangfroid (sanskrit), Monday, 24 July 2006 22:52 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry, I mean "such as?" as in, can you please give an example of a scene in The Squid and The Whale that fits that twee snarky sentimental blah blah blah description?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 24 July 2006 22:54 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Is there gonna be a separate Margot at the Wedding thread, or will we just use this one?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Monday, 26 November 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)

I can't wait to see it. Sunday Girl is on the soundtrack.

― I know, right?, Monday, 26 November 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

Margot at the Wedding is fucking a

― Mr. Que, Monday, 26 November 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

three months pass...

thought this was excellent. 'margot' got shat on by crix in england but want to see it and it isn't here.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 22:54 (seventeen years ago)

some kid said I reminded him of the older brother in this movie. i've never seen it. is that a compliment or an insult? if it's the second, i've got some back of the head to punch.

― burt_stanton, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 23:41 (seventeen years ago)

lolololol some kind OTM

― max, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 00:04 (seventeen years ago)

some kid

― max, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 00:04 (seventeen years ago)

At least you're not the compulsive masturbator.

― milo z, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 00:51 (seventeen years ago)

compulsive masturbator >>>> older brother

― t_g, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 11:02 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

jesse eisenberg has such an exquisite hunch

― always be cozen (dayo), Thursday, 9 September 2010 15:05 (fifteen years ago)

this film was very good at summing up my family circa 1999-2003.

― village idiot (dog latin), Thursday, 9 September 2010 15:32 (fifteen years ago)

I lol'd

― always be cozen (dayo), Thursday, 9 September 2010 23:20 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

We watched this tonight and I loved it, for all the reasons ^ up there. So I shan't repeat them except yeah, great writing. The missus wasn't so swayed I think; she hates cringing, and there was a lot of that. It packed so much in too - I looked at the timer at one point thinking we must be quite a long way in, and it read 8 mins 50.

I actually got this because I was reading about City Island and it said Margot At The Wedding was filmed there and I'd like to see what it looks like. But its reviews are terrible so I got this instead. I'm glad I did.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 1 June 2012 21:14 (thirteen years ago)

margot sorta epitomises frivolous, pointless, domestic filmmaking iirc.

― blossom smulch (schlump), Friday, 1 June 2012 21:28 (thirteen years ago)

Never knew this had its own fairly lengthy thread. One of my favourite movies ever--#17, to be precise, last time I counted them down.

― clemenza, Friday, 1 June 2012 22:20 (thirteen years ago)

four months pass...

the version of Street Hassle at the end of this is driving me crazy. I could've sworn that it's different from the album version...?

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 4 October 2012 23:00 (thirteen years ago)

Pretty sure it's exactly the same...three or four minutes' worth?

― clemenza, Friday, 5 October 2012 03:41 (thirteen years ago)

I might watch this again today

― This Is... The Police (dog latin), Friday, 5 October 2012 08:00 (thirteen years ago)

Pretty sure it's exactly the same...three or four minutes' worth?

what throws me is the scene starts with the string riff from the middle of the song but when Lou's vocals come in it's not the narrative/story that he sing/speaks on the track, it's some sung refrain that I didn't recognize as actually being from the song

I would A/B these but the final scene doesn't appear to be on youtube

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 October 2012 22:30 (thirteen years ago)

report back dog latin!

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 October 2012 22:30 (thirteen years ago)

Here's part of it--the whole final scene was up a while ago, must have been taken down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvc27mAieLQ

― clemenza, Friday, 5 October 2012 22:35 (thirteen years ago)

huh

I guess it's just an edit, my memory of the vocal was wrong

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 October 2012 22:37 (thirteen years ago)

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