THE LOBSTER (2016) - dystopian absurdist love story or something with Colin Farrell & Rachel Weisz

seeing this tonight. trailer caught me off guard & set my expectations pretty high.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU29VfayDMw

I loved this movie.

I'd like to see this.

Farrell's interview on Nerdist a few days ago was really, really good. He seems to have grown up a hell of a lot.

Yeah it was a good interview. This movie is easily the best thing he's done. He's excellent in it.

saw this with my folks, good times

also this is might be the definitive movie about dating in the aughts and later

good to see his mustache getting good roles again

First half is fun. Second half is awful.

so weird that this isn't a charlie kaufman thing.

it kinda screams him. or the trailer does anyway.

V curious about this since nyt review

second half was... worse i think, but not awful

Oh, I had no idea this guy did Dogtooth, too. Loved it. What an ending.

2015

thought we'd had a thread on this somewhere? anyway - great first half, boring second half. Dogtooth is really great too

I didn't find the discrepancy btwn the two halves (in terms of quality - there's an obvious tonal shift) as great as most seem to.

seeing tomorrow i think; loved Dogtooth, liked Alps.

I think the second half of the film broadens its scope and makes it richer. Less about monogamous coupling v singledom and more about the structures (societal or self imposed) which distance ourselves from our humanity

never underestimate Richard Brody's ability to miss the fucking point

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-petty-laments-of-yorgos-lanthimoss-the-lobster

This was so much better than the interminable Dogtooth.

well i'm scared then

Greece and Portugal are in deep shit, but Greece is in slightly deeper shit because its leading younger filmmaker, Yorgos Lanthimos—whose film “The Lobster” is now playing here—makes movies that shed no light whatsoever on the country’s troubles, and that in no way suggest that artistic practice develops in concert with and in response to practical circumstances.

Did Brody write this on the pot?

Also, Lanthimos has made films since 2001. How should his artistic practice have developed with a crisis that began 7 years later?

Its a ridiculous criticism to make regardless

What was with the first scene with the woman driving and then shooting the cow/goat? Was she the 'heartless' woman? Just remembered it and can't place it.

Enjoyed many aspects of this film but ultimately could not parse all the symbolism as I am somewhat thix0r so I'll let you guys help me out

If the film functions as an allegory, then such parsing may be required in order to understand it. If the symbols function autonomously within the film, then I'd say don't bother parsing them, since they either do their job (by encapsulating their essential meaning) or they don't. A well-formed symbol shouldn't be subjected to X=Y equivalences.

Symbols are bunk.

Nah. They're just tricky as hell to use and generally not otm when they get dragged in by a less than gifted artist. But they do work sometimes and when they do, they are the real shit. See one Hieronymus Bosch.

They work in visual art but they're often used as a crutch by people with no interest in art; looking for symbols is as useful as pulling weeds from the backyard. If art has a symbol, the art must be important.

That's why I said not to bother parsing. If the symbols work, they work. Poking at them won't put more life into them.

I think to say that this is about dating apps is a reach, if anything it's a condemnation of the desperate search for a mate and marriage, which I don't feel is particularly relevant or widespread anymore? it some ways it feels outdated, I mean the whole "I'll blind myself for you so we have something in common"... I'm not sure people are as eager to get married or even be in relationships these days.

that one guy in the grapes of wrath was actually jesus.

and in fargo, paul bunyan symbolizes the presence of a giant lumberjack

a delicious mess; no Dogtooth, but what is?

I laughed loudly at Ben Whishaw's act of self-violence. Me nearly alone in a near-packed theater. Just how I'm built!

if anything it's a condemnation of the desperate search for a mate and marriage, which I don't feel is particularly relevant or widespread anymore?

Do you know many humans?

yeah, flappy bird -- that is NOT my experience, especially among newly coupled gays

Probably just my age.

Yeah I didn't mean that it was an allegory for dating apps, just like attitudes and social constructs around marriage, dating, courtship, singlehood, etc

I wanted to give a standing ovation to several lines of dialogue, most particularly the one about the utilitarian advantage of having children.

what is this utilitarian advantage

(out of curiosity)

"If you encounter any problems you cannot resolve yourselves, you will be assigned children, that usually helps."

lol

I saw this in a surprisingly packed Memorial Day matinee in Brooklyn; I cannot tell you how joyous it was to feel an audience squirm at the proximity of comedy and disturbing violence. A woman in her 20s next to me said "Jesus Christ!" at least every ten minutes.

the audible exhalation of relief in the audience at a particular cutaway very near the end was amazing

Lots of moans and oh no's and squirming at the closeup of the cut up dog, not much at all for the mangled woman who jumped from the third floor window

the audible exhalation of relief in the audience at a particular cutaway very near the end was amazing

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, May 31, 2016 12:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an old couple got up and left. guess they didn't miss much! (although the final shot was probably my favorite of the film)

I went with a married couple and she had to step out and hide at that point. "Because anything could happen."

I prefer adding my own Five Easy Pieces ending where he leaves her in the diner.

(although the final shot was probably my favorite of the film)

me too. loved the open ending, the fact that it cuts away before he comes back suggests he didn't do it, but my brother thought the smash cut to black meant that he blinded himself...

reminded me of the Sopranos ending in that way...

So this was a pretty major surprise, and I thought it would be good. But wow, I liked pretty much all of this. The imagery was incredible, the use of shadows and slightly tilted camera to either look up or down at the characters. Both at the hotel, but also in the forrest. It looked as if Lanthimos has really studied how to use digital imagery effectively. And I loved the dialogue, Lanthimos is clearly not fluent in English (there's a couple of translators credited) but the stilted, surreal dialogue covered up for all of it. I mean, this was a Greek/Irish co-production with American and French actors in the cast, this had no business being so cohesive as it is. Pretty much the perfect version of itself.

There were great moments in the second half but it seemed stretched time-wise, even though the movie itself wasn't that long.

Yeah it was a good film but they could have spent more time in the hotel and less time looking moody in the woods.

I'm not sure how they could have done that which wouldn't have ended up with wheel-spinning though, it's pretty much a straightforward progress for Farrell's character - I agree the second half is a different film, I'm lucky I liked it as much as the first.

Still perplexed by the "Donkey Killer" in the beginning and where she fits in.

I loved this, both halves - the blackly comic tone and attention to detail was right up my alley

Just saw this and it is astonishingly good. I'm baffled about the complaints about the second half, tbh, it's very much an essential and perfectly done part of the whole.

The Donkey Killer seems pretty obvious - family killing a person who didn't 'complete' to put them out of their misery.

Well, that's obviously a pretty logical story. In my head, though, the donkey is the woman's ex-husband, and he cheated on her, and she found out, and he then went to be with the woman he'd cheated with, but she rejected him, so he and the wife came to the hotel together, and she found a new man almost immediately, but nobody could stand him, so he got turned into a donkey. And then his ex-wife killed him because she still hated him.

I like stories

morbs i am so happy you enjoyed this

Farrell was robbed at the Globes, I say.

It does drag in the woods. I feel like the story they're trying to tell after they meet isn't as well suited to the dry high-stakes absurdity that works so well in the hotel. The hotel setting also has better mechanisms for exposition, while the wilderness has almost none.

Still an awesome movie I plan to recommend widely

Best Mustache

geez, Lanthimos is goin' Hollywood (sort of)

http://deadline.com/2017/01/kirsten-dunst-star-comedy-series-amc-george-clooney-grant-heslov-the-lobster-helmer-1201880036/

depressing url

but close to your heart

“Recently widowed and left with nothing, minimum-wage Orlando water park employee Krystal Gill (Dunst) lies, schemes and cons her way up the ranks of Founders American Merchandise—the cultish, flag-waving, multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme that drove her to ruin in the first place.”

Oscar nominated for best original screenplay! will likely lose to La La Land or Manchester by the Sea.

watched this yesterday, really great

screenplay nod actually not a huge surprise, but still welcome.

no, not as big a surprise as Elle being nominated for anything but Huppert would have been, but still offbeat. If the strong BP contenders were all in adapted, i could almost see it winning.

I'm surprised it wasn't nominated for anything else tbh

crap like that lousy Alan Turing movie last year (2 years ago?) is more their speed

I liked it well enough and am proud it won our awards: http://www.floridafilmcritics.com/2016/12/23/2016-ffcc-award-winners/

I liked the Lobster a lot, enough to see the follow up Killing of a Sacred Deer and man was that a disappointment. Felt like a sub-von Trier exercise in pointless, arbitrary suffering that just got more irritating as it went on.

did you see ready player one?

lol

i laughed not infrequently at Killing

Yorgos Lanthimos and other filmmakers of the Greek 'New Weird Wave'

I laughed at several things but its central conceit seemed woefully thin and undercooked

like the Greek myths!

i don't think the central conceit was all that was there. But try Dogtooth, his best Greek film.

dogtooth his best film overall imo

There's nothing connecting this to greek myth except the title, which is just lazy

a minotaur never kills a patient; only cerberus can kill a patient

yeah sure there's the arbitrary capriciousness of fate, but in Greek myth it's always spelled out really clearly - the Gods are angry, a prophecy has been made, an explicit transgression has been committed and will be punished, etc. But here all we get is one lightning fast info-dump from the kid in a single scene, which doesn't really relate much except calling out what's going to happen. And I get that this is a deliberately opaque, kafka-esque narrative maneuver, but it doesn't clarify much or add any depth. who are we even supposed to sympathize with? any of them? The daughter is probably the most sympathetic? The doctor and the kid are both aggravating and amoral with unclear motivations... idk the whole thing felt flimsy and underwritten to me.

I fucking hated Sacred Deer. I think I made a thread about it. Nevertheless interested to see what The Favourite will be like.

The synopsis for that one is kind of funny.

Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne's ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen's companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.

I liked The Lobster but loved Sacred Deer, so y'all are wrong.

Shakeys xpost is reminding me of why i loved sacred deer lol

I’ve been reading a lot of jack ketchum (& am very much on the fence, way more than with lanthimos) and killing... reminds me quite a bit of ketchum’s story “the box”

Dogtooth is def the best, i don’t remember alps that well but it’s basically the same thing again I think, ditto lobster

found Alps boring :/ need to see dogtooth

Dogtooth is great, and actually quite different from The Lobster imho

"a sub-von Trier exercise in pointless, arbitrary suffering."

see this is what i went in expecting and was pleasantly surprised to find it more interesting than that. similar to Dogtooth, enjoyed the slowly unraveling mystery where you're not sure what these ppl's relationships are to each other and what exactly is going on between them. i'm not sure it holds up under heavy scrutiny (it might?) but i was totally locked in for the ride.

i liked Dogtooth and found The Lobster incredibly irritating fwiw

I kinda hate myself for doing this, but:

1. The Lobster
2. Alps
3. Dogtooth
4. Kinetta
5. The Killing of a Sacred Dear

enjoyed the slowly unraveling mystery

this is like the first 30 minutes. After that it's clear what the doctor, the boy and everybody else's relationships are. and they essentially remain static for the rest of the film (ok one of them dies arbitrarily)

yeah there is really no plot progression to speak of after the reveal it just unravels as foretold, kinda cool imo but ymmv

At this point I mostly just remember the Alicia Silverstone scene.

I like them all quite a bit apart from Kinetta which was just horrible. Lanthimos has a knack for making interesting films but nothing essential (yet).