Gummo: Classic or dud?

Anyway, as part of the horrible ice-breaking set-up, we had to garner several pieces of information from the person sitting next to you and relate them to the rest of the group. One was 'what was the last film they watched and what was it about'.

My counsellor type person sitting next to me really struggled, when she said 'Dave saw Gummo, which is about, er, a young boy who kills cats to sell to a takeaway so he can pay his friend in order to have sex with his friend's disabled sister.'.

I wasn't swamped with offers to sit at the same table with my fellow group members at lunch, oddly enough.

Film - dud.

Moment described above - classic.

http://www.etrangefestival.com/NewPixsEFWeb/Gummo.jpg

where? not that i'm gunna look or nutn

That tennis player with the shaved eyebrows does trip me out tough.

Hickgore is done better in The Hills Have Eyes. And I'd probably call that a dud too.

and it's ART SKATEBOARDER mark gonzales...not ART SKATEBOARDER Tommy Guerrero.

http://www.ryecast.ryerson.ca/dmpstreams/2004Kodak/index.htm

(will be archived too apparently)

I assume you mean another Adam cos I never said any shit like that.

OP forgot to mention- the chair wrasslin' scene ("kick it's ass!")- had a GAY African American dwarf with an Israel T-shirt.

Classic. I had a worse reaction to the "mean voyeurism" feel of American Movie... I thought that was making fun of losers, but Gummo just didn't feel like it was reinforcing conformity, it felt like you had to be wierd to enjoy it, and that was why I loved it.

'cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh..

I prefer "Julien Donkey-Boy" though. I really wish Korine could get his shit together & start being a filmmaker again.

what does Florida have to do with anything, btw...? Gummo is set in rural Ohio and Paradise Lost is in West Memphis, Arkansas

Whiney and I both lived in Gainesville for a long time, u guys were basing on him for not having hillbilly cred.

went to a waffle house just outside of gainesville once. made gummo seems like a frothy romantic comedy.

hahahahaha

just a head up, korine like waffle fries

heads

I don't get what Whiney's criticisms are at all really, so I'm not sure how personal authenticity (either Korine's or Whiney's) fits in

xp

'just outside of' is key. Actual Gainesville is one the best towns in the US, but you drive for 15 minutes and you've got a shirtless guy in front of a wooden gas station selling tadpoles out of a bucket.

whiney, as a factual matter, let me ask: have you spend much time in rural america?

― goole, Monday, June 7, 2010 1:36 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

like Whiney do you think Korine was some interloper trying to ridicule/objectify the people depicted in the film or what...?

xpost yeah, no, i liked gainesville -- i seriously considered moving there at one point. but you're right, it felt like an enclave in a sea of pretty intense hillbilly-dom.

xpost

i dunno if it was actually ridicule or objectification but it was definitely EXPLOITATION. And done in that same corny way of Kids where the film dealt almost solely in extremes to where figuring out any reality is nil.

Like what's really more bleak, a kid fucking a retarded prostitute or actually confronting the monotony and hopelessness of rural america?

it's a supposedly serious film that deals exclusively in WHOOOAAAA CRAZZZZZYYYYYY shock

I won't defend Kids cuz Larry Clark is fucking horrible.

do you think Even Dwarfs Started Small is an exploitation flick?

i've never seen a herzog movie btw try another example

i remember liking this movie but kind of eyerolling, not really at the hicksploitation of it, but the arty bits. shirtless kids whipping a dead cat with wires and screaming faggot at each other didn't seem totally out of line to me, but chloe sevigny with farrah fawcett hair? too far!!

your average ep of beavis and butthead mined the same territory better

otm

like the pedo-vibe in Kids is just gross and really clumsy and off-putting. Clark unfortunately obscured a lot of what makes Harmony interesting... really I think Gummo just needs to be seen in the appropriate context, and Herzog (and Fassbinder?) and the films of Korine's parents have a lot to do with it. I don't think its an exploitative movie. I find it kinda meditative tbh.

i've never seen a herzog movie btw try another example

okay I give up then

its not exactly a coincidence/marketing gimmick that Korine's next two films featured old Werner

the actual content/vibe of this film is pretty great imho - more in the vein of Herzog or Lynch than Waters. Dunno why you are expecting LAFFS, unless yr unable to engage with rural America on any level besides lol joeks. The film has a very absorbing drugged/dreamy quality. Its rooted in fairly mundane material but punctuated by occasional violence/casual cruelty, childishness, tenderness and I like how it just kinda wanders around town, drifting from one setpiece to the next. in my experience a lot of rural America really does have this kind of atmosphere, nothing happens very much (if at all), there's a certain aimlessness and glassy-eyed withdrawal going on. I guess it doesn't seem so "inauthentic" to me given the number of former huffers and metalheads I've known over the years from Arkansas and Indiana and Oregon...

also seems to me "hipsters" have been ironically/unironically into metal since at least Greg Ginn's Black Sabbath phase...

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 7 June 2010 17:13 (1 hour ago)

good post

he films of Korine's parents

whoa hold the phone

whiney go watch some herzog ffs

Sol Korine produced documentaries for PBS in the ‘70s about an "array of colourful Southern characters"

is that a euphemism for the carter campaign?

hahaha

Peanut Farmer Skins Cat (5 min)

Hamper McBee: Raw Mash, by Blane Dunlap and Sol Korine. 30 min. color videotape. Pie Productions, Atlanta, Georgia.

Showdown at the Hoedown, by Blane Dunlap and Sol Korine. 60 min. color videotape. Pie Productions, Atlanta, Georgia.

Mouth Music with clip

Herzog is really interested in the way people deal with extreme adversity - the limits they can be pushed to, the coping mechanisms they develop, the absurd lengths people will go to to entertain themselves or stave off fear or boredom - and Gummo is all of a piece with that. It's just coming from a slightly different cultural and geographical place, Korine as investigator of his native America (Herzog is more like detached German globetrotter investigating the entire world)

so does anyone wanna hear me talk about this movie some more haha

Did u go see Trash Humpers Shakey?

not yet, but I will! Mister Lonely was okay, didn't really play to his strengths as a filmmaker, but had some great acting/character bits.

love this! i actually felt like he really loved and was fascinated by the people and culture in the film, not simply pointing his finger at lol hicks. and obv it's not a documentary anyway - agree v much with shakey on the herzog-like mix of the mundane and absurd with violence, casual depravity, etc, and setting that somewhere believable. i think he pulls off the collage approach in a very creative way that doesn't force a big overarching point like a more structured narrative might. cool to see that clip from his dad! could def see that influence in gummo, meeting it with something like stroszek.

mouth music is pretty cool

i go back and forth on gummo though

I haven't seen this & probably never will but the soundtrack is a quality metal mix and any metal supporter who denies it is posing imo

love this movie.

I haven't seen this & probably never will but the soundtrack is a quality metal mix and any metal supporter who denies it is posing imo

― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, June 7, 2010 4:54 PM (9 minutes ago)

well, if there was any confusion as to what underrated aero's former username was, there's none now - i agree about the awesomeness soundtrack, though, and am really unconcerned about who is or isn't posing, except as far the film itself, goes.

hahaha, me in the past made me laugh!

Yeah, Gummo is great, but did you see American Job? I don't know why I loved that movie so much. I guess I could relate to it. I'm actually sorta surprised that there isn't more Gummo hate on this thread. It seems like something ILE could get a good whine going about. Sorry to underestimate you, ILE.
― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, October 14, 2005 2:41 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the only film to be given an NC-17 rating for "nihilism". how great is that?

did you see American Job? I don't know why I loved that movie so much.

top 5 all time movie for me! high five!

the gummo soundtrack is pretty dope tbh

so ur annoyed bc this movie made ur neighbours like a good album?

no, whiney likes things, other people pretend to like things

Whiney I think yr a good writer n all but maybe you should cut down on the self-loathing (or are you somehow not a "hipster")

um, this movie rules, if you feel otherwise get flayed

I saw "I Stand Alone" sometime between 2007 and now and I recall not enjoying it at all. I have yet to see Begotten, but if it's anything like I Stand Alone I'm not interested.

Also most of my friends who love Gummo really hated Trash Humpers, so I'm in no rush to see that either.

gummo is clearly great

RIP Bryant Crenshaw, the little man

http://www.indiewire.com/article/harmony-korine-remembers-late-gummo-actor-bryant-crenshaw-20150207

Supreme x Gummo reviewed by someone who doesn't know Gummo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYTUqSm0SY