Margot at the Wedding

eh it was fine but not great. times review last paragraph put it well. ya got sick of the family.

and it was fucking scripted as well. people don't talk like that

i'm sure this is a good movie but the preview they were running on tv was really poorly assembled. kept seeming like they were setting up jokes and cutting away before the punchline, and gave no idea of what the movie is like or about at all. totally turned me off the movie until i found out it was baumbach.

and it was fucking scripted as well. people don't talk like that

-- Surmounter, Monday, November 26, 2007 4:55 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

welcome to movies

yea but a good movie makes it seem more natural

watching these characters was like reading the script with added dramatic flare. the intelligent, cutthroat back and forth was tiring.

it also just didn't surprise me enough for being a "family gets together for a big event" movie

this movie didn't feel scripted at all, not once. it was funny, all of the actors were first rate (esp. the kids) and the dialogue was awesome. the tree chop scene could have felt like a gimmick, but it totally upped the tension in every scene by 1000%. the only thing that felt slightly off was that she left her bag @ the bus depot. NK wasn't even annoying! Though whenever JJL came into a scene she pretty much stole it.

Also, I don't go to movies expecting "real" dialogue (whatever that means).

yea that SUCKEd, that she left her bag.

JJL was great, but i'm surprised you didn't find it scripted -- the dialogue was way too dialoguey. quick, witty retorts don't fly out of people's mouths like every second like that.

oh, i do go to the movies expecting people to talk in a real way.

i guess i'm just not a huge fan of the intelligentsia style. too fake for me. it's like trying to be too impressive onscreen so as to make up for what people don't really say to each other in real life.

the movie made David Denby kinda grumpy:

“Margot” is sensually as well as dramatically impoverished. Couldn’t the bedraggled couple at least have had the wedding in spring or summer, when there’s a little color to look at? The dun-shaded chromatic scheme seems part of the general haplessness; it’s as if even nature were a flop

This was one of the things I loved about the movie.

yea i didn't mind that. honestly i really liked most of the film given everything. but the ending felt weird to me. esp. the fact that she left her bag, i dunno why but that bothered me a lot.

The scratchy lens thing- were we supposed to be seeing everything through an old LIRR/Metro North train window?

Not how Nestor would have done it.

what scratchy lens thing

Thing was deliberately shot using old lenses. Whereas the obvious model, Eric Rohmer, would have had the DP make it look like a million bucks.

But now I remember, it seemed like the point was to show these people not how they appeared to themselves, but what they really looked like, or how they appeared to others, or slightly worse than how they were trying to come off.

i would be psyched for this but i haaaate jack black is he wicked annoying or no?

i will likely see it anyway tho

jb is not annoying and actually is v v excellent in the movie

eh?

eh yourself, go see it

i generally like him weirdly. he was good. but i really didn't like the scene where he admits his secret thing. weird acting there.

it is inevitable as its playing 4 blocks from my door (an i really luv a squid n a whale)

oh right you're up the street! i saw it here this wknd

Jack Black plays potentially annoying loser character for laughs, like a character from a movie, from another movie, so ends up being the least annoying. Other characters annoying in a way recognizable in life, not always seen quite so clearly on screen, usually have the benefit of a screenwriter polishing up their bon mot misfires. Big talent of Baumbach is to write this kind of slightly-underarticulate dialogue for his characters, like an upper-class David Mamet.

I generally liked this but had problems with it. Like, I recognize the need to make Malcolm this goofball who's not on the surface "right" for Pauline, but I feel like Jack Black was somewhat miscast, since he's too much of a comic icon to be taken seriously. Or maybe I should say, I was ready to take him seriously, but most of the audience I saw the film with wasn't: every time he appeared on screen, there were huge guffaws, no matter what. This is partially the audience's fault, partially the casting director's fault, and partially Jack Black's fault, too, since he doesn't have enough range to overcome this problem (unlike Jim Carrey, for instance).

Jennifer Jason Leigh turns in a great performance, though.

I really loved Jack Black in school of rock, but every other time I've ever seen him he's been unbearable. I liked that he didn't get to lick anything in that movie, cos y'know its for kids.

i did LOVE shallow hall though

hal

lol

Without the Jack Black safety net the movie would have been even more of hair shirt, which might actually have made it better, but might have made it collapse under its own weight. We'll never know.

every time he appeared on screen, there were huge guffaws, no matter what. This is partially the audience's fault, partially the casting director's fault, and partially Jack Black's fault, too, since he doesn't have enough range to overcome this problem (unlike Jim Carrey, for instance).

Yeah! Like when he was on the phone @ the end with Pauline, crying his eyes out everyone was laughing. But I think it was supposed to be funny. You were supposed to kind of laugh at him, and not really feel sympathy for him.

this movie is pretty harsh. made squid vs whale look like the parent trap.

i interviewed noah b about it, will post a link once i trancribe it.

JJL's character in this was the granddaughter of her character in The Hudsucker Proxy.

Well, I like the idea of the Malcolm character, I just think another actor could've pulled it off better.

But I think it was supposed to be funny. You were supposed to kind of laugh at him, and not really feel sympathy for him.

So it's partially Noah Baumbach's fault, then, too? Because that kind of collides with the way all the rest of the characters are treated.

After a few minutes reflection, it might have worked better -and been more believable?- if the JB character were written and played as surly unshaven Eurotrash.

The only time I'm really bothered by movie audiences is when they laugh too much, since I then get resentful and think "C'mon, it's not THAT funny" and then that negatively colors my perception of the film, even if there were lots of things I really liked about it.

Wish we could have seen more of The Best Julius Caesar ever, Ciaran Hinds. The microphone shtick with Nicole K at the bookstore was priceless.

i think it's okay to laugh at movie characters who are experiencing (self-inflicted) suffering? like, i felt bad for him but he never shoulda confessed!

it's awful!

Finally watched this movie today - I thought it was a real bummer. Just depressing. Mostly awful people being awful and crazy. It's very weird that it even got made. I don't know why anybody would want to watch it. Yucky!

S1ocki - did you ever transcribe that interview?

I rewatched this on DVD tonight, after seeing it in a theatre when it came out. The Squid and the Whale's one of my favourites from the past decade (haven't seen the new one or his first), and this one stayed in my mind, but...I don't know. JJL is great, yes. The kid is as unusual as the kids in The Squid and the Whale. It's got the great Karen Dalton song over the end credits. Except for three or four outright awful lines ("It's like you're channelling someone!"), the highly scripted dialogue is credible. But the people are just so remote from anyone I've ever known. That's somewhat true of The Squid and the Whale, too, but Margot's off the deep end. I imagine Kael would have had a field day taking it apart.

Never got around to seeing this until now. Hurm. Difficult to not read more into the screenplay than it deserves knowing that Baumbach was still married to JJL at the time of this. It's likely I was projecting a lot into this to make the movie seem better than it actually is. Jack Black isn't the problem and Kidman is great at judgemental anti-heroes.

Holy shit this movie