Terry Gilliam - C/D, S/D

OK SO TIDELAND IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER EVER EVER PRETTY MUCH.

This is coming from someone who has great respect for Gilliam in general, but seriously, dude, the next time you want to put yourself through some sort of aggressive theraputic "finding yourself as a child" bullshit, leave it for the Terry Gilliam home video collection.

This movie is irredeemable. I watched it last night, and I'm still angry about it.

You and Jeff should have liveblogged, then.

Yeah, it wasn't the fun kind of bad though.

Well it could have been like a Beckett play, then.

Odd, seemingly insulting but not intended as such bit of trivia: Mentally handicapped weirdo sea-captain neighbor who lives next door looks strangely similar to ILX's own Tuomas.

http://lembrowski.webblogg.se/images/tideland_1156706345.jpg

haha I thought that too JJ

http://www.moviehabit.com/photos/tideland_150.jpg

That bad, huh? I am not looking forward to seeing Tideland. But I will, anyway.

This is one of those few times where I actually wish that I hadn't seen a movie, because after this and "Brothers Grimm", I think I'm going to be incapable of speaking of Gilliam as a great director in the present tense.

Maybe the Don Quixote curse actually finished him off. I know this, I doubt I'll make an effort to see anything he does from here on out.

Munchausen and Time Bandits Gilliam's best? This seems like perversity for the sake of perversity.

I love Terry Gilliam, although the two movies above did very little for me. 12 monkeys, Brazil and the Fisher King, on the other hand, are among my favourite films ever. 12 monkeys predictable? Really? Wow - you have fine prediction skills.

Hey FB, the best way I can describe it is that "Tideland" is Gilliam trying to make "The Reflecting Skin" without the story to back it up, the actors to pull it off, or the courage to commit to making a disturbing movie without softening the harsh edges with over-bearing cute kid moments and (I kid you not) overuse of fart jokes.

Ugh. I'm trying to convince myself to move this movie out of my queue, but, you know, it's TG, so I'm having a hard time letting go.

I guess there really is a Tuomas after all!

I like Time Bandits best.

John, so you're saying that he movie falls from the perverse to the ugly by virtue of his inability to make up his mind what this movie is about, and by generally inadequate artistic direction.

(I'm trying to talk myself out of this)

I'll admit, I suspect it isn't as bad as I feel it is now, so I guess it's worth watching. It was just one of those visceral, angry moments of disappointment in watching a director completely fumble.

It is possible that the source material is a significant part of the problem. It is at times a very visually stunning movie, and there are moments that do work, but it still ended up as a half-assed Lynch film with no underlying psychology, or a movie with such a private language that it feels intentionally and mean-spiritedly incomprehensible.

xpost, but probably an answer of sorts.

His cartoons on Monty Python are by far my least favorite part of the show. I always fast forward. Sorry to distract from filmic convo. I just had to get that off my chest.

Yeah in retrospect I can't quite fathom how a movie featuring a farting taxidermied dead The Dude wasn't at all funny.

Peter Stormare was funny as shit in Brothers Grimm.

Fuck it. I liked Tideland, even if no one else on ILX did.

I also think the animated Python bits are sometimes the best bits of the show.

Talking about the possibilities for a Terry Gilliam movie is almost always superior to watching a Terry Gilliam movie. Fear and Loathing is entertaining in small doses and 12 Monkeys is probably OK - but I can't think of anything else I've seen that was passable. (Have not seen Brazil.)

abbott u crazy

12 Monkeys is wonderful, as is Brazil, although Brazil's wonder is completely overshadowed by the final shot, which obliterates more or less all that came before it in a devastating emotional smackdown. One of the finest endings in film history IMO.

Brazil: absolute Classic!

Fear and Loathing in Las vegas: Absolute Dud!

very much polar extremes in terms of quality (Not that the latter is of low quality, it's made quite well, I just depsise it).

Somebody besides me has seen The Reflecting Skin? Holy cow.

Best Amanda Plummer mini-performance: The Prophecy, being yanked around by Christopher Walken's Gabriel.

The Fisher King would be in my top 25 favorite films of all time. Also love 12 Monkeys, Brazil, Time Bandits. Just saw Brothers Grimm this week and eh. It had some good moments. Heath Ledger was surprisingly good.

No bad films, in my opinion. He is one of the greats.

MPython cartoons = CLASSIC

OMG. PROJECTSES!

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus starring Tom Waits and Heath Ledger! A Gorillaz movie! A GOOD OMENS adaptation!

If he makes even one of these movies my stokedness levels are through the roof.

Oh I somehow skipped over the first pages of the interview, they talk about Tideland and still trying to make the Don Quixote movie too.

In fact that doesn't even mention Tom Waits as Dr Parnassus, does it? I guess wiki does.

Love Terry Gilliam with all my heart, this in spite of the fact that his work seems to have totally fallen apart in the last decade.

Brazil and Time Bandits = two of my favorite movies, with very little competition. Munchausen is a mess, but I love it anyway - at least 80% brilliant. If you cut out Robin Williams, it'd be damn near perfect. Fisher King and 12 Monkeys are both admirable, and I respect them a lot, but they're a bit too square for me to really love.

Fear and Loathing, The Brothers Grimm and Tideland are terrible movies. Tideland is far and away the worst thing he's ever done, but it's not an aberration. It fits right in with Fear & Loathing and Bros Grimm: incoherent, arbitrary, poorly thought-out, tedious.

He says something at the end of the interview about how anything is possible if he keeps Johnny Depp on staff...if he makes a GOOD OMENS movie, will Depp play CRAWLEY? That would be good.

THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

Just saw Tideland - I loved it. The actress who pays Jeliza Rose puts in one of the best performances from a child actor I've seen, I'm a little amazed at some of the comments upthread but of course views differ on such things. For me, it was a deeply moving film, and brought me to tears several times. Just thought I'd stick my neck out for this one, because sometimes I wonder if the critics realise what a brilliant director walks among us. It's not just the way he handles the material, or the actors, but also the material he selects in the first place. I think history will cover him in glory, even if many find him a bit hard to take right now.

Read some thing the other day saying he's still determined to finish Don Quixote.

Everything he's ever made has elements of Quixote so he may as well.

moley otm. Deeply disturbing but I quite liked it. Grimm was shithouse.

Um, so The Imaginarium of Dr Parnasssus will be in slight turmoil then.

Doesn't have the best of luck, our Tel.

YES YES YES YES

Law, Depp and Farrell to replace Ledger in film

Jude Law will appear as Heath Ledger's character, along with Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell, in the unfinished film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Law's spokeswoman said today.

They will all play the role of Tony in the fantasy film Ledger had been filming before his death.

It was not immediately clear how the role will be reconstructed for three actors.

DUH IT'S A GILLIAM FILM, LIKE YOU COMMON PRESS TYPES EVER GOT HIS FILMS ANYWAY

COMMON PRESS TYPES OTM, Gilliam movies generally awful

rong

brothers grimm was definitely a bit awful though

Masterpiece or horrible mess? Place your bets now.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=23237

Sorry, here's one that works:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/15/heathledger?gusrc=rss&feed=film

Watched both Brazil an Tideland this week, for the first time

Thought Brazil was great, another film I can't believe I've never seen before.

Tideland on the other hand, mm not really my sort of thing. It seemed very unsatisfying and no particular moment held any interest for me.

Tideland is tough going, whether you're revolted by the more confronting moments or just bored. I liked it but I doubt I could sit through it again.

Brazil is the best film ever, and I really really wish Gilliam would just give up now.

Yeah, i could see how Tideland would appeal to some people rather than me just slandering it as a crap film which it certainly wasn't.

I just loved Brazil though, an extravanganza of gilliamness.

Grimm Brothers, on the other hand, was balls.

so is Tideland really NOT a crap film? because the consensus seems to be that it is actually even worse than that, that it's affront to cinema and sensibilities, among the worst movies ever made

I liked it but I doubt I could sit through it again.

Brazil is the best film ever

― I'm Richard (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 27 November 2008 11:07

^I'll go with this.

Brief bits on Heath Ledger and 'The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus' from Comic-Con.

Read somewhere that he's back at Don Quixote. Lost in La Mancha was so wtf with disorganization and mayhem I'm surprised anything survived of his first go.

was posted on the heath ledger thread and even though it does focus on ledger a bit, i thought this was a pretty good read on Gilliam and the film as well: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/08/heath-ledger200908

can't help feeling sorry for the guy - has there ever been a more talented filmmaker with as much bad luck? seemed like him and ledger were really close too. :(

i'm pretty excited about this film, I think having charles mckeown back is the clincher for me, gilliam is spotty to terrible without him.

Roz- Welles maybe? Though a lot of Welles' problems were (however indirectly) of his own making...

Depp quits Don Quixote (again):

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gWqLREHQxBHCMhKCAdktrMpz_HFw

"He added: "I wanted to shoot Don Quixote next spring. He said he's not available and we have both agreed that I'm going to die soon, so it would be nice to get this film under my belt.""

this statement doesn't really make sense to me?

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw2lUp1Cqz4

holy fucking shit

Just realized where I'd seen the young Parnassus' costume before

http://cdn.idolator.com/assets/resources/2008/03/mungolian.jpg

that trailer was spellbinding

i've watched it like 10 times now, i hate to type or even think something like this but heath ledger's death may have saved terry gilliam's career

I have to see that film.

Brief NYT blog thoughts on Parnassus:

The movie is Pythonesque but also Gilliam-y, with animated sequences involving giant unfurling tongues, cross-dressing troupes of singing men, burned-out landscapes and lavish dream worlds, and a storyline that hinges on the mystical/philosophical.

“On every level, it’s tragical and magical at the same time,” Mr. Gilliam said, introducing it at the screening at the Crosby Hotel.

“It’s not the film I set out to make,” he added later. “It might be better, it might not be better, but it’s different, and I actually love it.”

Fair enough; the stretch of having four actors play the same part is actually not the biggest imaginative leap that the film asks viewers to make. Surrealness has always been Mr. Gilliam’s best medium.

But “Parnassus” also includes several passages that seem eerie in light of the circumstances, including a parade of dead stars like James Dean and a speech about the virtues of dying young. Even weirder, those references were in the script from the beginning.

the CGI stuff in the trailers looks kind of meh to me.

really on the fence about screening this on Thursday.

I rescreened Baron Munchausen recently (a movie I had fond memories of)--its nonstop screechiness really wore on me.

had a similar experience w a recent rewatch of time bandits. describe it as one of my very favorite films upthread, and that was certainly true in my youth, but i found parts of it a lot more grating and draggy than i remembered (fact that my gf basically loathed it probably didn't enhance my enjoyment either). as much as i like michael palin, vincent and his pansy probably should have been left on the cutting-room floor. and as great as ian holm is, the napoleon section is too long by half. at least.

suppose gilliam's always been that way, though. he's so in love with all the wonderful parts that he seems to lose track of the whole. munchausen definitely suffers from that. trip to the moon is a splendid idea, but again WAAAAY too long. a similar journey to vulcan's underworld isn't anywhere near so brutally off-putting, but does go on a bit.

brazil seems like the only "pure" gilliam flick where he really keeps it all under control. i've seen it probably 8-10 times over the years, and it's still an all-time favorite, soul-crushing ending and all. and while i like the fisher king and 12 monkeys, they feel a little diluted compared to the lunatic work he'd done up to that point. after that i draw a line in the sand. have basically hated all three of his subsequent films.

so, uh, fingers crossed for parnassus!

and i dunno. goddamit, i STILL LOVE TIME BANDITS! goofy jokes and draggy bits included. fuck you, adult perspective!

Parnassus is patchy as hell (not a fan of the CG) but certainly enjoyable, and often surprisingly dark / ambiguous.

do tell!

you mean surprisingly dark/ambiguous for gilliam, or just in general? cuz, uh...

http://www.soundonsight.org/tiff-09-the-imaginarium-of-doctor-parnassus/

but i found parts of it a lot more grating and draggy than i remembered

this sums up my rewatch of Brazil a few years ago, but I can't remember which version I watched...

Those without tolerance for Gilliam’s flights of fancy won’t find themselves as new converts, though it is of a somewhat darker hew than some of his past work.

well, i caught this line, but it's nevertheless a rather surprising claim. i mean, gilliam's got one of the bleakest, most death-haunted and fatalistic filmographies i can think of - especially relative to other contemporary commercial directors. sadistic, even. the gilliam films that do permit a ray of light (the fisher king, the brothers grim) are the exceptions, and stingy with it besides.

i'm just taken aback by the idea that parnassus might seem exceptionally dark in relation to, say, tideland and brazil. (setting aside, of course, the small matter of its star's untimely passing...)

I suppose by "surprising" I meant that it's not nec. in line with the movies it most resembles, esp. Munchausen & Time Bandits, which are both tidier movies from what I recall.

Confession: I've never seen "Tideland," but from what I've read it's always seemed like a bit of an outlier in terms of approach.

in other news, Robert Duvall has just been cast as Quixote.

that's not a good sign

I still love Time Bandits and Brazil and Munchausen especially

http://blogues.cyberpresse.ca/moncinema/siroka/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/54724722_h15633137.jpg

u r kidding

My memory of Time Bandits is just so fantastic and awesome. Kind of scared to rewatch it. Like contenderizer I 'consider' it one of my all time favorite films.

HATED HATED HATED fisher king at the time, but I was almost delusionally depressed at the time so maybe a rewatch is in order after these 18 years.

Pretty psyched for Parnassus-- I love a mess.

he's crouching in that photo.

Not massively keen on Duvall as Quixote. He seems slightly too old and not...troubled looking enough, or something. That said: great actor, could pull it off.

This is a gilliam production, so Duvall might GET troubled soon enough...

my first thought on hearing that Duvall was cast as Quixote "oh shit, Robert Duvall is gonna die soon"

Lisa Kudrow cast as Quixote

so this is out now?

Out and good.

Parnassus? It's deece.

feeling older...

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2559

Good at blaming other people for stuff, isn't he?

Visionaries don't have time for nonsense like budgets and schedules and TIME I mean

"Imaginarium" was really pretty wonderful, aside from the Colin Farrell parts. I recently saw "Fisher King" for the first time and greatly enjoyed that too. Kinda get the feeling he keeps remaking the same story over and over - misfits triumphing against an insane world.

well, not in Brazil so much

Fisher King is allright except for the middle-third love story which comes out of nowhere and is just terrible (and then entirely abandoned for the final third)

just like irl tbh

awww

Well,, yeah Brazil is debatable because the ending is so open-ended. But you could argue that Sam ends it completely free of the Orwellian nightmare by escaping into permanent hallucinatory madness. The whole film was about him wanting to live out his dreams and the real world constantly interfering. So maybe - in his mind at least - he's won.

Yeah, I've heard Gilliam make that argument... He never had to sell that to a general audience.

I seem to recall "triumph" being a relative term in the new one as well?

I love Fisher King, top to bottom...including the love story even. I saw Munchausen for the first time earlier this year and really loved it. I haven't seen Imaginarium...I dunno, I'm kind of afraid of it.

dont be, imo. Pleasantly surprised by it

Munchausen, Brazil and Time Bandits are all the business. quality varies thereafter - am seriously trepidatious about the Imaginarium

a mixture of trippy and bodacious? Fitting, imo.

um

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trepidatious

ur middle name ought to be 'understanding of wordplay'

actually, that is the definition of "mo"

understanding of wordplay money understanding of wordplay problems

dont talk shite

see, you just don't understand wordplay

Parnassus was indeed great, but I liked Tideland too so

(really just made that post in order to throw Tideland into the mix and see what happens)

In future I really am not going to bump the thread of a guy who hasnt made a good film in a quarter-century just bcz he turned 70.

yes you will

But you alerted me to Quixote's funding going arse-up so completely worthwhile bump imo xp

totally dug imaginarium which i just saw last weekend. brazil is dope but too long. is fisher king with robin williams? i guess i have to put tideland on my netflix queue . . .

Fisher King Robin Williams, yep.

btw did that film disappear without trace? I've not seen it available anywhere in at least a decade.

I have Tideland and that's another that I've been a bit twitchy about watching.

It's incredibly fantastic but it's also very very confrontational and self-indulgent and monologue-heavy and just weird. But incredibly fantastic.

hurm....

I want to say more but there's so much to spoil.

spoiler:

horrid

That's def a good start.

reviews were pretty bad iirc

Unanimously, and it's pretty clear why (but to expound would breach spoiler etiquette).

Yeah I already knew a little about the storyline and I think that's what backed me off it. Maybe I'll give it a shot this weekend (so to speak)

Hey nice username, Almanac :)

Ahhhh. Righto.

btw if you make it halfway and it's not grabbing you you can stop.

;) xp

ty Almanac. Maybe I'll take a sedative or something before I start out, lol

Fisher King was pretty rad. But yeah most of it is Robin Williams doing his Robin Williams thing, acting like the genie from Aladdin or something, but it's not entirely bad cos it's balanced out by scuzzy Jeff Bridges and his hot-ass gf. Jeff spends alot of the movie looking like a bum, so you can almost imagine this is a prequel to The Big Lebowski or something.

Gonna check out Tideland soon, it's the only TG film I havent seen...

someone describing 'brazil' at work: "it's in the 80's, robert deniro, it's supposed to be set in brazil...."

this is the same person who referred to anne hathaway as "some english actress" when talking about One Day.

is tideland any good

Tideland's abysmal. So much worse than anything else he has done.

"...I think it's the movie version of Who's The Boss? except with only the grandma, and her face is made out of rubber."

"also her dog's asshole is taped shut for some reason"

"the ending is nice and then they ruin it"

August 8

Dear Sid:

Once upon a time you told me that you were not the one that put me in the chair at the end of "Brazil." I'm afraid that this is no longer true — unable as I am to think of anyone else who is directly responsible for my current condition. Your later offer to be the friend who becomes a torturer has more than come true. I am not sure you are aware of just how much pain you are inflicting, but I don't believe "responsibility to the company" in any way absolves you from crimes against even this small branch of humanity. As long as my name is on the film, what is done to it is done to me — there is no way of separating these two entities. I feel every cut, especially the ones that sever the balls. And I plead, whether they are done in the name of legitimate and responsible experiments or personal curiosity, if you really wish to make your version of "Brazil" then put your name on it. Then you can do what you like. "Sid Sheinberg's Brazil" has a nice ring to it. But, until that time, I shall continue to decline. Please let me know how much longer must I endure before the bleeding stops.

Deterioratingly yours,

Terry

c.c.: Jack Lint

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/i-feel-every-cut.html

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7149/6395023359_c357e5f1f5_o.jpg
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/11/when-are-you-going-to-release-my-film.html

Gilliam's daughter Holly is digging into her father's archives and blogging about what she finds: http://hollydgilliam.blogspot.co.uk/

Nice!

John Justen wrote this on thread Terry Gilliam - C/D, S/D on board I Love Everything on 06-Jun-2007

OK SO TIDELAND IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER EVER EVER PRETTY MUCH.

This is coming from someone who has great respect for Gilliam in general, but seriously, dude, the next time you want to put yourself through some sort of aggressive theraputic "finding yourself as a child" bullshit, leave it for the Terry Gilliam home video collection.

This movie is irredeemable. I watched it last night, and I'm still angry about it.

yep

Did anybody manage to see the leaked Zero Theorem trailer before it was taken down?

Yeah, the film has a very Brazil vibe to it, albeit with lots of CG and heavy-handed humour. I liked Dr Parnassus, though, so none of it put me off.

parnassus was pretty good!

I still haven't seen Tideland, waiting for it to show up on cable or streaming or something. I know at least one person who thought it was excellent, weirdly

Parnassus was much better than I thought it would be, although it felt overly long and convoluted. obviously a bit of a cursed production, unfortunately.

re: ZT trailer: It at least looks as if David Thewlis has been given a decent role at last.

anyone remember his first film, 'jabberwocky'? they seemed to show it every week on comedy central in the mid-90s. i remember it being sort of like 'holy grail' without the jokes.

it was pretty much exactly that. it was ok. I watched like every movie any python was attached to at some point and it ranked somewhere in the middle. certainly lower than the movie Palin made with Maggie Smith

Here's a working link:

http://www.celebuzz.com/2013-06-25/watch-the-leaked-trailer-for-terry-gilliams-the-zero-theorem/

I've got to say it looks promising.

wow yes def looks promising

Looks very Brazil meets A.I.. One small reason I'm not looking forward to this is the last 15 years of Terry Gilliam. But man, those first 20 years ...

Here is the first trailer for The Zero Theorem, the latest film by noted weirdo Terry Gilliam, which stars noted weirdo Christoph Waltz. It's gonna be super weird and it looks super great as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eyY5InLYJPQ

hm. Let's try that again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyY5InLYJPQ

BOO! to everyone who says Tideland is crap. BOO! I think it is a contender for his best film and I'm sure there were quite a few critics who loved it. Great performances, great film. I can understand why some might find some parts boring but I'm baffled why anyone would hate it.

Just saw Baron Munchausen today. I didn't bother with it for years assuming it would be so-so and I'd never heard much talk of it. But I loved it stuffed it was with visual designs and I laughed out loud several times. It really ought to be talked up more and be one of those films that all kids assume each other have seen*. Oliver Reed's part was really great.

I assume his new film is being talked about on another thread?

* When I was a kid I actually found these fantasy films too depressing and disturbing but I hope I was a minority on that.

Tideland is way too terrible to just be crap, so maybe we agree

tideland is exactly what happends when a gifted sensory director went out of his way to devise shitness on screen and excels himself

Could you guys at least say why you didn't like the film. All I can find on this thread are complete disapproval with no elaboration or saying it didn't match up to some pre-conceived wishes (comparing it to Reflecting Skin, which was an interesting film but I've never really got the huge love for Philip Ridley's 3 films).

Someone did say they thought the lead performance was poor.

I really love it, I think it's a real bummer that there aren't more films like this and that lots of people obviously discourage it. I saw Brothers Grimm recently and was really surprised he could make something that poor and conventional, although it did ha e some good visuals.

Yep, Tideland is fucking great. I just saw it now. Y'all afraid of what's there.

(and the central performance is absolutely incredible, what the hell are you all on)

My conclusion is that ILX and most movie critics are terrified of narrowly-prepubescent girls, and what happens inside their heads, especially when they're exposed to terrible shit in their lives

I need to watch this again, but my feeling is that most people, critics or otherwise, like movies that make them feel good (about themselves). Something that's dark, twisted, bizarre, etc -- unless your personal aesthetic resonates with that, you're probably going to hate it. It's not like Tim Burton (when people used to actually rep for him), where the dark twistedness merely serves gothic loners who are actually super cool albeit misunderstood. What I remember of Tideland is closer to unresolved, unapologetic darkness.

I violently despise everything Tim Burton has ever done. Tideland, however, is a film where shit gets real. I think every difficult topic was approached humanely, perceptively and honestly, with plenty of ambiguity and sympathy for each character. I was riveted. If you felt uncomfortable watching it, then it probably hit on something you'd rather keep repressed.

how can you despise Pee Wee???

i'm guessing it hits on something he'd rather keep repressed

:D

ach, i forgot he did that. it wasn't terrible i spose. edward scissorhands otoh anyway let's stop this sidetrack

If you're looking for a comparison, I found this from IMDB to ring brilliantly true:

I keep thinking of Pan's Labyrinth, which was so critically lauded while Tideland was so despised. PL's an okay movie, but it's a cynical adult tale of childhood, detached in its understanding and sort of heartless and cruel. The problem is that there is such an obvious disconnect between reality and the imaginary world. They exist separately. Of course, the Spanish Civil War setting is really no more real that Ofelia's own world, no less cartoonish than the world of Tideland. But it tries so hard to be harsh and gritty. It is just so difficult for me to *buy* Pan's Labyrinth, to take it seriously OR to NOT take it seriously. Tideland is a story about a real person living in a believable (or at least buyable)world. And I suspect that this is why Pan's Labyrinth is so critically lauded while Tideland is so critically despised - because it is unwilling to offend. Also, where PL is unfathomably ugly, Tideland is quite beautiful.

I love Tideland, Pan's Labyrinth and several Tim Burton films.

Glad you appreciated it Imago.

Is Zero Theorem discussed elsewhere or did nobody see it?

I've seen it. Blogged about it. Didn't like it, it's attempts at satire makes Gilliam seem very old.

Hamfisted is the kindest thing i can think of to describe gilliams insistence that a childhood of chaotic squalor leads to a quirky no-nonsense magical outlook maaaaan. Dude's clumsy as anything in his hammering home of his limited thematic range, and the boundary pushing desperation in tideland didnt strike me as anything more profound than that.

Kid was great tho. As was teengimp.

What part was boundary pushing? It might be disturbing to Norman McNormalson but I don't think he was trying to be disturbing. And I don't think the film had a specific message. It doesn't need one.

Are you people goddamn fucking kidding me with this Tideland approaching dark truths and u can't handle it bullshit wtf

It's not just the worst move he's done, it's the worst movie a director that I had any respect for has ever done. I can't articulate why partially because I refuse to ever sit through it again, and the first time I was blinded with rage.

I don't buy the "dark truths" thing but I still think it's his best film.

Jjjusten says "the first time I was blinded with rage"

You mean blind to the dark truths, haha.

I think what the film does well is viewing a strange situation with a fresh (even if you might call it distorted) eye. "Truth" doesn't really matter, it's just a way of viewing of things that is a bit different or refreshing and that gives you a springboard to try and look at the events in the film or anything else a bit differently, whether for intellectual reasons or just for pleasure.
In terms of Gilliam talking about the film, I think the most interesting thing he said is that the main girl might grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life or it might be viewed more traumatically.

As I recall it is a 4 hour movie about a corpse farting. Hilarious.

Shit movie is good example of why artists need constraints.

In terms of Gilliam talking about the film, I think the most interesting thing he said is that the main girl might grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life or it might be viewed more traumatically

so true xxxxx

So true of any moment ever in anyone's life. Vaguely profound.

yeah, was wondering how to read that. If Gilliam meant he'd intended that "the main girl *would* grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life, or (else filmgoers) might be view (the events) more traumatically (than they should)", I would find it interesting.

Great movie is an example of why Gilliam doesn't need constraints. I don't know what the circumstances of Brothers Grimm was but it seemed calculatedly conventional in many ways but I guess that doesn't necessarily say that constraints do him bad or good.

There was a short film he did that was an advertisement or something and some people called him a sell out for it, especially considering his previous critiques of big business (according to them, I don't know much about his political statements).
The product placement in Parnassus bothered me a lot but I assumed that maybe that was used to get the film finished but I can't remember if it was in the Ledger scenes.

still haven't watched this because so many people thought it was so terrible and offensive and bad. I do have it though, sitting on my hard drive. Too bad about Zero Theorem sounding not good, because it sounded good when I first heard about it. I quite liked Parnassus.

i thought parnassus patchy but really great in places

yeah it was too long but it was much better than I expected it to be

re: Zero Theorem, LOL

A later iteration of the project, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Biel and Al Pacino and directed by Terry Gilliam, was set to begin production in 2009, but Thornton vetoed filming in London because of his phobia of antiques

Hamfisted is the kindest thing i can think of to describe gilliams insistence that a childhood of chaotic squalor leads to a quirky no-nonsense magical outlook maaaaan. Dude's clumsy as anything in his hammering home of his limited thematic range, and the boundary pushing desperation in tideland didnt strike me as anything more profound than that.

Kid was great tho. As was teengimp.

co-sign all points

I'm not sure how much Kermode counts for around here, but I was eager to see Tideland in the first place because he said it was possibly Gilliam's best film. One critic I love was a big fan of it too but I don't think he has enough of a name to mention.

ok, watching Tideland again, and yeah this is pretty tedious. Firstly (and I may be the only one here to find this annoying), but the fake southern US accents are grating (I grew up in TX, and this happens often or me w/movies). Also, whether or not this is supposed to be from a child's point of view, in what reality is any of this supposed to exist? Heartland America, present day? Why so much mystical hippie imagery? And why do Terry Gilliam movies always involve someone with goggles surrounded by dusty old, mechanical junk? He seems to have an eye-wear fetish in general.

I guess that's the feeling I get from this movie -- it's a collection of its creator's fetishes. Or Burning Man crossed with Dickens crossed with (haha) Monty Python.

For a second I thought you were going to say the fake farting sounds bothered you because that was the only thing that bothered me. I know they can't rely on actors to produce a fart that is audible enough but the stock computer fart sounds are incredibly fake. I watched Sopranos recently and it stuck out really bad.

I have often thought to myself where oh where is the film that will achieve verisimilitudinous farting. truly technology has failed us.

the oculus rift will save us all

Ghost World is another film that springs to mind, suffering from terribly fake fart sounds.

I smell a poll

Wasnt me

I was once thinking of making a thread for bad cgi but the majority is so bad that thinking of good examples might be more interesting. Parnassus and Brothers Grimm suffered from bad cgi. And the sad thing is that I imagine even a lot of the bad stuff was really hard work.

Zero Theorem was better than I'd heard. It wasn't great (the ending in particular just kind of falls apart) but bits of it were ... alright. It's not as good as Parnassus by a long shot though.

Just watched Zero Theorem. I'm not surprised it wasn't a success but I was puzzled just how near non-existent the response was. It must have been expensive so the flop might have hit quite hard.

I felt like I just barely heard half the dialogue so I was confused a lot of the time and even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying (I have doubts that Gilliam knew how to end it).
But even considering those flaws I still enjoyed this a lot. The design work is amazing, it's the prettiest shitty looking cyberpunk future I've ever seen. The main scene with the vortex looked great. I liked watching the characters. Even though it doesn't seem the proceedings added up to much, I'm surprisingly satisfied.

critics were muted and fairly negative. it never got a wide theatrical showing (in the us) or, seemingly, any promotional push. throw in a bleak and sometimes cryptic story, and its failure isn't too surprising. agree that the production design is marvelous, and christoph waltz was quite good in the lead. i enjoyed it, for the most part, but can't say i was satisfied.

I've seen Brazil, Time Bandits, Fisher King, & Baron Munschausen. I may have seen some portion of the Grimm movie, too, but who can remember? I cannot say I truly hated any of them. But after each of them I felt to some degree marked by muddy paw prints and assailed by the aroma of wet dog.

Yeah I've got quite warm feelings about Zero Theorem so I guess it exceeded my cautious expectations. I could see how some people would feel it's a weak retread of films like Brazil or doesn't have new things to "say".
But I think it has its own flavour.
Although Matt Damon is obviously kind of the villain, he doesn't seem nearly as powerful or sinister as I thought they would make him. There doesn't seem to be any grand menace or specific target to blame everything on. More realistic I guess.

Meantime he has a cameo in Jupiter Ascending, I gather.

A part in a western film too.

I assumed Zero Theorem was scripted by Gilliam but it isn't.

I could see how some people would feel it's a weak retread of films like Brazil...

...Although Matt Damon is obviously kind of the villain, he doesn't seem nearly as powerful or sinister as I thought they would make him. There doesn't seem to be any grand menace or specific target to blame everything on. More realistic I guess.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, February 8, 2015 7:22 AM (2 hours ago)

yes to the former, though much more intimate. as for the latter, i saw qohen as his own villain.

Just watched a Gilliam interview and he said this was his cheapest film since the Python films. Really doesn't look like it but good for him.

even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying

This was the only glaring flaw with it really, I liked it quite a bit overall.

Some other things he mentioned in interview.
He said it was largely about him wanting people to disconnect more and try to enjoy their isolation again because many of us are losing that. Learn to distance ourselves from the nonstop buzz of needing to be connected all the time.
The script had extra longer endings that were written to get the studios interested then Gilliam cut them out. I think he might have said the extra alternate endings would be on a DVD as extras but maybe he was joking because I don't know why he'd film them if he didn't like them from the beginning.

I felt like I just barely heard half the dialogue so I was confused a lot of the time and even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying (I have doubts that Gilliam knew how to end it).

I got very frustrated by this and kept having to rewind. Gave up on it in the end.

This has lingered in my mind like few films have in the past year. I liked it better than Dr Parnassus.

Adam Driver is joining Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam‘s Don Quixote, “the film that has been in the pipeline for nearly 20 years,” reports Geoffrey Macnab for Screen. Shooting is slated for the fall.

http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes/adam-driver-set-to-star-in-terry-gilliams-don-quixote/5103724.article

kinda more excited to learn Driver's in the new Jarmusch movie tbh

Filmed in my hometown! Jarmusch sure likes his faded industrial cities.

still may not happen...

http://theplaylist.net/adam-driver-confirms-terry-gilliams-man-killed-don-quixote-still-delayed-20161207/

Palin as Quixote? Huh.

the casting of rochefort was one of the very few things the original production had going for it, even with the thickly french-accented manchegan thing. Lack of depp can only be a good thing tho

like I said in the time bandits thread, this looked fucking horrible in 2000, it has pretty much no chance of being good in 2018

Gilliam hasn't felt worth watching for a long time which is sad to me because his early films are so great flaws and all

I couldn't bring myself to watch that last one about the guy with the magical computer program or whatever it was

although I was surprised that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was not actually as terrible as I expected

12 Monkeys was my last in fact

but i love Don Quixote so much i dunno i would be torn

it would not be the same as don quixote, so maybe that's the deciding factor for you

I'm just finishing up my first ever read of it, inspired by the ilb thread - it's so so so great and I would be interested in seeing quixotic attempts to film it whose synopses don't begin "an advertising executive called toby from our world"

I loved Tideland, reading back over this thread it looks like it was more divisive than I would have guessed?

I haven't seen 12 Monkeys in forever, all I really remember about it was finding Brad Pitt unbearable as the nervous tics asylum guy.

actually, isn't there a whole crew of awful wacky asylum inmate types in that film?

12 Monkeys is p dire, idk what ppl see in it

strangely, Chris Marker liked it

haven't felt the need to rewatch it in 20 years so *shrug*

iirc it isn't uniformly terrible

some good imdb trivia for 12 Monkeys:

Terry Gilliam was afraid that Brad Pitt wouldn't be able to pull off the nervous, rapid speech. He sent him to a speech coach but in the end he just took away Pitt's cigarettes, and Pitt played the part exactly as Gilliam wanted.

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A tagline originally suggested for this film was; "The future is in the hands of a man who has none." This was considered to be a confusing tagline, as it made it sound as though he had no hands, as opposed to having no future.

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don't know whats wrong with the three people who didn't find the cigarette thing interesting tbqh

tideland is… challenging, but i liked it a hell of a lot more than we're supposed to

Tideland is fucking creepy. Yes, I get that it's supposed to reflect how dark a young child's life can get, but there's just some stuff I don't want to indulge in fully. This movie is uncomfortable to the max.

I really liked Zero Theorem.

Still haven't seen 12 Monkeys in full and still don't feel like it. Haven't seen Time Bandits since I was 10 and I didn't like it back then so I might see it soon.

This movie is uncomfortable to the max.

it's hard work and not pleasant in any way. really it's the huge risk that i enjoyed most, and as a bonus it's visually mesmerising.

Tideland is one of the worst films I've ever seen

Tideland not just suit but ugly and dull

12 monkeys great, his best effort at an actual movie

Parnassus far better than expected

Trouble with Gilliam is that he's sure he's clever and his one message is worth half making a lecturing panto about every three years when he's patently quite stupid and has little to say beyond denigrating competence

God knows Tim Burton is total shit but his best and his career average shits on Gilliam despite sharing almost all the same flaws

XP hi jjj I knew praise for Tideland would get you in

Parnassus started out really great w lovely concept, great art design, but towards the end when he was chasing his alt selves it went down tohe tubes

Just for avoidance of doubt I'm voting D btw

having seen Time Bandits again recently, it still rules and is a whole lot of fun

it's hard work and not pleasant in any way. really it's the huge risk that i enjoyed most, and as a bonus it's visually mesmerising.

― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 7 February 2017 22:50

Really? I found it quite pleasant because a lot of the time she's having fun. I still think it's great.

Pleasant? Her father goes on a heroin infused journey and checks out of her life and she spends most of her time dissociating from the cruelty of adults through her puppets. I guess that's the beauty of interpretation.

PS. Robert, didn't mean that in any way as an attack

yeah 'pleasant' isn't the word i'd be using. her apparent happiness is the absolute consequence of everything that's wrong with her life imo (iirc; it's ages since i saw it).

"Mirrormask" did a similar theme well I thought.

Ross- I don't think I would take it as an attack but thanks anyway.

The main thing that sticks with me about this is Gilliam saying that when she grows up, all this could be seen as the best or worst time of her life. But it's difficult to imagine her father's death not overshadowing the good times.

Munchausen, Brazil and Time Bandits are all the business. quality varies thereafter - am seriously trepidatious about the Imaginarium

― in a style known as "Early Cleveland" (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:41 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a mixture of trippy and bodacious? Fitting, imo.

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:43 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trepidatious

― in a style known as "Early Cleveland" (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:46 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ur middle name ought to be 'understanding of wordplay'

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:52 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually, that is the definition of "mo"

― ali-baba-boob-job-bomb.jpg (DJP), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:53 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

understanding of wordplay money understanding of wordplay problems

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:57 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dont talk shite

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 17:57 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see, you just don't understand wordplay

― ali-baba-boob-job-bomb.jpg (DJP), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 18:11 (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good routine that

i wonder whether he got worse for the same reason george lucas got worse: everyone around him just doing what he says unquestioningly

e.g. 12 monkeys looking like brazil because production design thought he would like that

The problem with Tideland is not one of performance, technical execution or -as imago was typically desperate to enthusiastically doing round- the squares being shocked by the themes or plot.

It's the clumsiness. I said hamfisted above and it's still the right word. When you are clumsy and hamfisted and the topic is deliberately risky then the result will be a greater blowout than if you are as clumsy and hamfisted as Gilliam almost always is but the plot revolves around Johnny Depp mugging at a fish.

Gilliam's defence at the start of Tideland underlines his missing the point. It's not the theme. He's not shocked us with farts and underage sexual innuendo. His sin is that he earns nothing of the cloak of bold genius he thinks he dons by sheer virtue of a controversial attempt. He lets his actors down. Any drunk uncle can grasp at a shocking subject as he's being fucked out of the bar. Gilliam lacks the intellect, discipline and focus to actually shock, regardless of the theme. His level of execution isn't worthy of Sid James. The cunt is bawdy and he thinks he's dangerous. It's pathetic.

I'm not sure it was important that it be shocking. I think he may have even made an effort to take the edge off the nasty stuff.

He hasn't got an edge imo

admittedly if it weren't gilliam i probably would never have watched it

Darra- I mean just softening the uglier stuff like the corpse, child abuse and so on.

I didn't like Zero Theorem at all, it was just irritating and looked bad. I thought Parnassus was pretty good though. I think Gilliam is still capable of making a good movie but I don't know what it would take to get him to do that.

I liked things about Parnassus but the cgi and product placement puts a huge damper on it for me. I don't know why it'd look better than Zero Theorem.

darragh kind of 3 quarters otm

Not a bad return when the bloods up.

I'd note that it refers in the main to Tideland only, with a few recurring criticisms. If that helps.

well I've never felt the need to watch Tideland but bar a little rhetorical over-egging they felt like fair criticisms of the bulk of his career, the irony being that rhetorical over-egging is v. much a Gilliamesque trait, obv

Thing is I've never been able to get through the first twenty minutes of Brazil. So yknow there's that.

what

The order in which you approach an ouevre matters I guess.

Brazil, time bandits, same old Gilliam afaic

don't have much to add to this convo tbh but i just wanted to register my appreciation for dmac's new display name - a+ work

nod

so Don Quixote is finished. Already loads of criticism regardling charges that he 'destroyed' a convent, though the descriptions of 'destroyed' sound a bit overblown to me (a few broken modern roof tiles, and trees that were planted for another movie were removed).

He's a clumsy oaf

What happened?

rip

Is this about smashing up the nunnery?

It's a pleasingly complete description tbh

http://www.vulture.com/2018/04/here-is-the-long-awaited-man-who-killed-don-quixote-trailer.html

Damn looks like it might be a return to form

i hear it's being delayed again due to a lawsuit this time from someone who was one of the original producers (who gilliam claims never actually put in any money)

second trailer is a bad trailer, but I suspect that's the studio trying to make it look less Gilliam-y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVArq_Qs9lY

looks interesting and maybe trying for a Fellini feel. i really enjoyed Imaginarium (well the first 2/3 of it, by the ending the plot turned to shit).

https://screenrant.com/terry-gilliam-man-don-quixote-rights/

:(

Director Terry Gilliam has encountered more trouble with his years-long passion project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, as news broke today that the filmmaker has lost his rights to the film. Despite all of the time that Gilliam has poured into the film’s production, the director lost a court battle that determined who had proper rights to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

The Paris Court of Appeal ruled that the film’s former producer Paulo Branco has the rights to the project after reviewing a 2016 contract that confirmed Branco’s enduring ties to the film. It was Branco that originally began the suit, taking Gilliam to court over the film’s rights after claiming the filmmaker made the movie illegally.

what the hell

this project is cursed as fuck

well

gilliam behaves like a total fuckin brat asshole so stuff like this is perhaps tbe

that's true however everything I read about this lawsuit was bullshit.

well this did get some good reviews... i hope we see it eventually

https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/19/keep-tilting-terry-with-the-magical-man-who-killed-don-quixote-gilliam-embraces-the-madness/

this film has leaked all over t0rr3nt sites btw. haven't watched it yet.

It came to the film festival here and was *much* better than I thought it would be, like 5/10

A One Night-Only Event!

https://deadline.com/2019/02/the-man-who-killed-don-quixote-trailer-adam-driver-jonathan-pryce-terry-gilliams-1202565160/

so as noted upthread, this movie is readily available in torrent form so last night I watched it. starts as a sort of normal movie and then rapidly goes off the rails into an hour and a half of surreal wandering through gorgeous countryside before breathlessly tying up the plot (such as it is) in the final castle scene, which I loved but is going to alienate anyone who isn't Team Gilliam probably. women in the movie are given absolutely nothing to do, and there is some hamfisted stuff about terrorists and immigrants that made me say thank god they didn't stick with Johnny Depp for the lead role, because Adam Driver overcomes this by being kind of self-absorbedly gentle about everything and it is an amazing performance. saves the movie from coming across as ugly as it might have otherwise. more than anything it reminds me of 12 Monkeys, as Gilliam films go... surprisingly more than Baron Munchausen which I would have expected.

I guess those first couple sentences could refer to many Gilliam movies so let me add I am talking about The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Sounds cool. Is there still a legal battle going on?

dunno, it's screening in the US on April 10th and had already got a European blu-ray release, so I guess they sorted something out.

Separately, his rival re Brazil, Sid Sheinberg, passed on the other day.

Wow love really does conquer all

lol

hee hee

Anybody else see this today? Just got back and thought... not good. Parts of it - the Quixote/Driver stuff - were fun for me, and it was heartwarming to see it actually existing as a real movie in a movie theater. But the non-Quixote plot elements I thought were terrible, the stuff with the Russian bad guy didn't work for me at all. Lots of hammy acting, Driver working very hard to sell a lot of thin writing. Like some of Gilliam's other weaker moments, a lot of the plot is advanced by people running around screaming each other's names and falling over stuff, which wore thin for me pretty fast. And the handling of the female characters was really embarrassing, two sex objects that exist to be fought over. I'm glad I re-read Quixote earlier this year and had fun picking out scenes and references. But pretty rough overall imho. Honestly would have preferred a version that cuts out everything except Pryce & Driver and went for a more straight adaptation.

Also thought Pryce was a great choice for Quixote and he did a great job with what he had, but I felt disappointed that the script flattened out the character to basically comic relief. Q is obv one of the richest characters in fiction, but here it felt like he just kind of shows up and does schtick to activate the various setpieces.

A large part of Gilliam's problems stem from believing in his talents an abilities far beyond anything justified by his output. And that applies both to him and to anyone who has bankrolled his films in the past three decades.

his films were good for the first of those 3 decades & he’s barely had anything funded in the latter two


tho they might have been better if he’d had money

One Eye Open otm

the first 2/3 of Quixote wasn't that bad. (Driver as Sancho Panza is a good joke, and his physicality makes for its own action movie.) The last 40 mins is pretty much the usual TG mess.

wait how did you see this? I thought it was still in legal limbo

it's streaming on Amazon and the Blu-Ray was released on June 4th in the US, earlier this year in Europe. Also it's heavily torrented.

Very limited theatrical run in April too.

ah ok thx

it seemed to get zero promotion, not surprising it's invisible (it's not the triumph of filmmaking you'd hope for from 25 years of production, but Driver is great in it)

like many gilliam misfires, i felt like I could see the bones of a really good film buried somewhere in there, but it never quite makes it out from underneath all the mess.

That's how he gets me every time, even after being disappointed so many times, theres always this sense that theres a great movie thats tantalizingly close to snapping into place, but then it just lurches and stumbles around and smashes into stuff until it collapses from exhaustion.

He actually had a pretty good streak going until Fear and Loathing. Then there was a long gap, and it's been kind of flop-city ever since then.

the last one that entirely satisfied me was Time Bandits

I would say Brazil but... yeah

no wait I mean Baron Munchausen

twelve monkeys and id listen to a case for parnassus

Time Bandits is my fave - what a batshit movie. But I really like 12 Monkeys and Fisher King.

A strong read.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/12/sarah-polley-terry-gilliam-run-towards-danger-baron-munchausen-interview

Very well written. Also solves the puzzle of why she didn’t use any explosives in Stories We Tell.