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

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

just realised, my comment should have read 'obv all the non white ppl die FIRST'

Yes it's now an excellent review of this bad movie

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

― StillAdvance, Monday, 10 July 2017 15:30

That's unfair, I thought they were very different. Similarities were just Jon Hamm playing a bastard.

And Lily James wasn't manic or unattainable or teaching Baby much at all, she was just really cute.

Last point to Simon H

main thought i had watching this was edgar wright is directing like this like someone who just saw MTV for the first time in the early 80s and thought 'what if someone did this in a movie?!'

other recurring thought: i need to get my old ipod repaired. i liked that dial much better than the replacement.

i loved that the 56 second intro to Geogaddi - Boards of Canada was in this. AND maybe a mid/late period Stereolab track?? there was s song playing when he went record shopping that sounded just like something from Dots and Loops or Cobra and Phases.

Ok, so now I guess I'll have to watch this movie

this movie was great, probably gonna be my favorite of the summer. as good as any of Wright's other films, imo. a better musical than La La Land. don't miss it.

Car chase to "bellbottoms" at the start was exhilarating. I enjoyed it although I do think by the end it swallowed a lot of action movie cliches.

Regurgitated them in some interesting new flavours though.

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

I did; it was OK. Not great. The robbery sequences were well done. Kate Winslet's really good in it.

Was quite pleased they gave Focus - "Hocus Pocus" a good spot.

Ok, so now I guess I'll have to watch this movie

― Moodles, Wednesday, July 19, 2017 1:24 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha to be fair it could've easily been a piece of exotica/lounge music that Stereolab referenced or absorbed.... BUT it really sounded like the first part of Refractions in the Plastic Pulse, or Velvet Water.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/982d0a4f3a0142aa1270df0f16181865/tumblr_n6k7a8Qwru1sskn9qo2_250.gif

I liked some of this, I didn't like some of this, I loved part of it, I hated part of it. So I guess that makes it ... a wash?

it makes it a regular movie

Well, it feels more inessential than average, let's put it that way. A diversion, little more than that. I think I would have preferred a PG-13 rating and full musical, minus bloody violence, which felt out of place, given the tone.

That Hollywood can still produce diversions in the years before the sea rise deluge is enough.

You know what I remembered as I was watching it? That better than it should have been Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Michael Shannon bike messenger vs. cop comic thriller "Premium Rush."

the trailer for this made it look so good, but it was so lame. the script sucked, the kevin spacey twist at the end was totally unbelievable and out of place, the romance was lame (hmm yes let's drag this poor woman who you've hung out with exactly twice into your drama without asking her first), the choreography was dumb. the whole thing was just so... try-hard. it was like the director watched john wick and thought he'd try making a super slick, stylish, effortless crime caper too but ended up failing miserably.

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.