BABY DRIVER (2017) aka, the Edgar Wright/Ansel Elgort/Kevin Spacey/Jamie Foxx pop-song-and-car-chase Walter Hill homage(?)

I like Edgar Wright a lot, but there is nothing about this that looks remotely appealing to me. It seems like a parody of some post Tarantino 90's movie, except by most accounts it's not a comedy?

It's hilarious in spots. I don't often laugh watching movies.

Also, Wright is way more fun than Refn and Tarantino.

"Romance has never been Wright's strong suit" is the most charitable way to possibly account for the toxicity of Scott Pilgrim (though I'm assuming the source material is largely to blame as well), but that's another movie and another discussion.

Like, is it really another one last job ensemble heist movie?

The movie's at the service of the soundtrack, I might argue, but Wright's such a shrewd editor that Elgort moves with way more grace than Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone ever did in LLL.

"Romance has never been Wright's strong suit" is the most charitable way to possibly account for the toxicity of Scott Pilgrim

yes Scott Pilgrim has its own thread, but I would add that SP (which I recently rewatched) contains about 10,000 references to its main character being an asshole which really helps

I kept thinking this must have been an exacting nightmare to edit but I'm sure Wright was slick enough to make it as easy as possible

I think the main reason the movie disappointed me (even though I really enjoyed it for the most part) is the trailer made me think more of the film would be Baby and his love interest escaping his former life rather than it being tacked on at the very end.

some other details too bothered me, like why the corrupt cop gunrunners wouldn't first disarm the people they were planning to sell to.

this movie is v much not grounded in reality but v much a universe that exists only in crime movies (and it's a good thing in this case cos grounding woulda sunk this one fast).

it's a good thing in this case cos grounding woulda sunk this one fast).

and yet Baby likes the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

funny to see Sky Ferriera play Baby's mom, I can't recall if she had any dialogue but I guess for whatever reason it was important to Wright that the woman singing on the MOM tape was the same one actually playing the character.

One of the things I really like about Wright's movies and screenplays is how they tend to be strongly anchored by an actual moral, without ever feeling overdetermined or po-faced about it (being really funny helps). This keeps him in sharp contrast to his snarky/nihilistic, heavily postmodern peers. You could argue that "passivity is tantamount to complicity" is the moral to BD but the love story gets in the way of that and undercuts that strength a bit. (I should stress again that I liked this, it's just my least fave of his features.)

an awful lot of fatal car accidents happen in movies while people are driving and arguing simultaneously

also did I miss it, but why did Spacey talk about how he never uses the same crew twice other than Baby and then he re-uses Hamm and Gonzalez again 30 minutes later?

or did he just mean "exact configuration" i.e. Batts was subbed in for Griff so that = "new crew" even tho it was only 25% diff

also did I miss it, but why did Spacey talk about how he never uses the same crew twice other than Baby and then he re-uses Hamm and Gonzalez again 30 minutes later?

― Charles "Butt" Stanton (Neanderthal)

would you ever work with Flea again?

can I just

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5e/f1/bb/5ef1bb3bfa7be1814b910ba59bd6e647--ansel-elgort-fun-facts.jpg

or did he just mean "exact configuration" i.e. Batts was subbed in for Griff so that = "new crew" even tho it was only 25% diff

this is how I took it.

First half great

Second half shit

Scott Pilgrim is a perfect, incredible movie.

I really wish the MIchael Myers mask thing hadn't been in the trailer cos it woulda been a lot funnier just showing up cold mid-movie

I feel like blind foster dad shoulda been like "dude I am already not ok with u robbin shit but at least if yr gonna do i can I like benefit from it and live somewhere decent"

Every character in this is a cipher fyi

I kind of expected that going in tho

this wasn't too horribly different from Driver other than I feel like this was a better movie and Gosling's character liked to use stealth rather than do doughnuts on the highway

It was transporter more than driver but it isn't as subtle or as adult in its themes or relationships as transporter

Wished the movie kept up the energy of the first half hour but whatcanyado. It was still a fun watch

Is it named after the Simon & Garfunkel song?

yes it plays over the credits

Lily Collins is more of a MPDG than anyone in Scott Pilgrim was

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 3 July 2017 18:43

Lily James.

I enjoyed this, it moved along well but I do wish it had something a little bit more to it.

Only complaint is Hamm doing the "you can't hide from me" thing later on.

I do wish it had something a little bit more to it.

yeah, i don't want a ticket purchase for this to result in more films like it being made.

you chuckleheads should be discussing Walter Hill's The Driver rather than that ludicrous POS Drive, get yr titles right.

that kid's legs are too thin, Alfred.

yeah, i don't want a ticket purchase for this to result in more films like it being made.

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius),

What, decent Hollywood froth for once?

that kid's legs are too thin, Alfred.

So were McCrea's.

Wright's a big Hill fan, but I see Streets of Fire in this more than The Driver.

i need to watch Streets of Fire, thx

sacrilege to compare a boy to Joel McCrea

You're in luck: SOF recently got a Blu-ray reissue, I believe.

And you can dream about it.

If I can hold it just right!

i didn't like this at all really. clever-clever w/o being clever. careless about violence. terrible dancing. cutesy and shallow instead of 'archetypical' or w/e. 90s in a bad way. jamie foxx was great though.

i did like how it was really in atlanta instead of an anono-city, but that only highlights some unappealing racial attitudes in the thing.

no you're a terrible dancer

Anyone see Triple 9, the John Hillcoat Atlanta set Heist Thriller with Casey Affleck and Gal Gadot?

Jamie foxx was as bad as everyone else

in the Michael Jackson sense

I was hoping for more from this, but the first hour was fun. It didn't stay as funny as I'd have liked.

spoiler alert - obv all the non white ppl die in this. which is very 80s just like most of the movie. good to know edgar wright absorbed the decade well. i thought foxx was actually very good, though obv his character is an arsehole. jon hamm proved he can only really act as don draper, even when playing a bank robber. i liked the film overall, the car park battle was a bit too cartoon tarantino, and excessive in a way the rest of the film wasnt, and something i thought edgar wright was above, but hey, its hollywood. i like that he got to make this in the structure he wanted, it was a lot of fun to watch, and kind of sweet, but the film was also a little culturally/emotionally empty in a way his british films havent been. the other odd thing i found was that apart from the bank job in the red car, many of the car sequences werent actually that amazing to watch. this might be as i find very few race/car action sequences as amazing as many seem to think (unless its the delorean in back to the future), but i thought wright would pull something more kinetic and inventive out the bag. tarantino did it better in death proof IIRC. the sequence of baby just walking around listening to music on the street when he goes to order coffee was more memorable than any of the car scenes.

(spoiler) Hamm and Spacey die and the black foster dad doesn't, so I don't think that first point really holds up.

jon hamm proved he can only really act as don draper, even when playing a bank robber.

This is a plus! Also, he's way more handsome when elegantly wasted than in the suits.

yes, also very much reminiscent of 80s racial tropes. the non white character gets to live... but only if hes sufficiently harmless and non threatening to warrant being saved/spared. got to have One Good Minority character. good in this case meaning perfect by way of being adorably deaf.

SPOILERS

the point is not that 'oh hey! white ppl die too! all lives matter! okay?!' but that no non white characters live except the one no one could ever dislike. because there is no way he could every harm anyone. thats how perfect the non white good guy has to be.

*ever

Spoilers

Most ppl die in this movie

lol

Driving Baby vs Running Man

I rewatched Last Night In Soho a week ago and definitely didn't like it as much as I did the first time.

Never loved it, but I thought it was competently written/directed with some a good visual sense. Watching it again all of the plot holes opened up and it was dopey and stupid with a good visual sense. Which is how I remember Baby Driver.

The World's End has become my favorite movie of his. It's the only one that was better upon a rewatch and it has the more meat on its bones than the others. It really seems to be about something and Wright seems to care about the subject (aging with adolescent fuckup tendencies).

I need to rewatch that, feel like it reaches for State of the Nation stuff towards the end there that muddles the more well realised personal story.

dopey and stupid with a good visual sense

tbf that's pretty much the giallo brief!

i don't think giallos are dopey or stupid. incoherent, sure

the ghost men cgi in last night in soho is so disgustingly ugly that i can't remember anything about the visual sense beyond that. a few good mirror tricks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ0aFq1ve0M

i don't think giallos are dopey or stupid. incoherent, sure

I guess. Incoherent sounds a bit harsh, dopey and stupid are good things.

World's End would have been better if it hadn't insisted on being a film about aliens. Fun fact: Much of it was filmed in and around my home town

And apparently his!

The quickest public transport from Wright’s home town to the main locations for The World’s End involves 90 minutes on a coach to a train station, 90 minutes on a train to London, a train across London, and nearly an hour on another train out of London. You’re probably thinking of David Leitch.

Glen Powell is not good-looking enough or charismatic enough to be a romantic lead, and he's not tough enough to be an action movie star. He does not move like a real person — he passes through scenes like an actor, acting. I am impatiently waiting for his moment to pass.

crazy talk

Irl lols @ deems joke

unperson otm

I've only seen Hit Man, but found him very difficult to connect with. He looks like a 1980s catalogue model: a strong chin but he doesn't make sense in motion.

I don't understand that guy's ubiquity, but we're talking about a movie where Powell is playing a part made famous (?) by Arnold Schwarzenegger, so I think the bar is low, or at least flexible. I could see Hollywood finding a place for Powell as a new Bruce Willis-type, maybe that's what his people are pushing for.

The quickest public transport blah blah

I was thinking of "Hot Fuzz," that was the one apparently filmed in his hometown.

I saw Baby Driver on a plane recently. It was ok I guess. Sort of mind-numbing. It was like Drive meets Garden State (with a splash of, idk, Suicide Squad?). There was a lot of stuff that seemed hack that I had a hard time telling if it was supposed to be hack or not. Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm are both actors that I find annoying.

Wright is an interesting example of a guy that favors style over substance but is fun and technically adept enough that so far it's never been a bad time, imo. He's slick but sort of homegrown, a la Sam Raimi or someone like that.

He's yet to top Shaun Of The Dead for me but part of the appeal of the Cornetto trilogy was seeing that kind of...hesitate to say it but a 'Real Britain' on the big screen (see also Attack The Block), especially in the context of otherwise surreal and improbable events. Obviously this is lost in his subsequent US films. TRM does look like big stupid violent fun tho.

Baby Driver is his only US film tbf

was thinking of "Hot Fuzz,"

mcbain.gif

I'm excited for this as an action movie, but it's a bummer to see him become more and more conventional. Maybe Pegg didn't get enough credit for the collaboration.

Well I dunno Pegg's post cornetto work hardly makes a case for him as the brains of the operation.

Talk to him about brains when he's lying by several swimming pools paid for by Mission Impossible and Star Trek movies.

You don't need brains to get rich, as many examples attest.

That's for sure. You just need to pretend to listen to Tom Cruise discuss Dianetcs and nod your head politely.