this is the thread to anticipate "Synecdoche, New York" - written and directed by Charlie Kaufman

Huh.

Kaufam first time as director here.
the synopsis reminds me of a PTA project.

hmmm. could be good, could be bad. altho I pretty much always enjoy anything with JJL in it

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/protectedimage.php?image=NatTunbridge/barton1.jpg

was originally supposed to be directed by spike jones

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Synecdoche%2C_New_York_poster.jpg

Apparently Tilda Swinton was originally slated to play the JJL role.

the synopsis reminds me of a PTA project.

sounds pretty much like kaufman to me!

jonze has done a kids movie or something. heck of a work rate, that guy.

This sounds like Indie Film Mad-Libs.

i like a lot of the people involved (tho rly dislike morton gah) but am not quite psyched.

"sounds pretty much like kaufman to me!"

things like family relationships and megalomanic characters are more PTA teriroty,isnt it?

What, how can you dislike Morton?

Things like blurring the line between the self and the representation of the self are fully Kaufman territory.

was samantha morton in some shitty movie that everybody but me saw?? every movie nerd i know went from loving her to calling her overrated in like a minute

xpost

true, but this movie seems to be even more complex than before (which was also complex for itself)

i still love her. overrated by, like, five people?

xpost

who the fuck is she?

morton's worst film is 'code 46'. she's become a shitty hipster talisman-type actress. is in harmony korine's new film, i think.

she was good in 'cracker'.

wo i have no idea what this is gonna be like! i guess it piques my interest. i hope kaufman's learned how to end a movie by now.

morton is pretty bad in the pretty bad elizabeth 2.

was this inspired by that joke movie in that episode of the Critic, Schenectady, New York starring Jerry Lewis? if so, it's time people started making movies out of those joke movie titles you see in the Simpsons.

c'mon slock, eternal sunshine had a perfect ending!

"...it's time people started making movies out of those joke movie titles you see in the Simpsons."

And 30 Rock!

I read this script about a year ago. There's some seriously great Dakota Fanning jokes. Not kidding!

hi suzy

Whoa, this movie's cast includes Michelle Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, and Emily Watson! Sounds like every indie-movie boy's wet dream.

apparently the script is incredible. lots of people are calling it his best yet. huge grain of salt, etc, but my interest is definitely piqued.

script buzz from 18 months back: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/cl-et-scriptland13sep13,0,4222289.story

I think Kaufman could shit a better film about writing than Barton Fink

was samantha morton in some shitty movie that everybody but me saw??

http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/c/Cruise_Tom/sq-cruise-morton-minority-fox.jpg

1) minority report was dope
2) samantha morton is cute

3) max digs bald chicks

1) otm
2) not so much

Sounds awfully complicated for a first time director, as someone pointed out. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Since all the indie fuxxor fawning that used to accompany this guy's every twitch has moved on to Diablo Cody, I'm really looking forward to this. And chap, Kaufman's pretty savvy/actor-friendly for a first-timer.

samantha morton + in america = you are never, ever allowed to hate her.

i'ma go see this.

I can't believe the studio let him keep that title.

I think Samantha Morton is really good in the Harmony Korine movie ("Mr. Lonely"). And I thought she was good in "Control" as well. And she's excellent in "Jesus' Son." Is "Movern Callar" the one that bums everyone out? (I thought she was good in that one too).

Since all the indie fuxxor fawning that used to accompany this guy's every twitch has moved on to Diablo Cody, I'm really looking forward to this.

huh? how does the one follow from the other?

i know at least one person who just hated morvern callar and hates samantha morton (I am not that person, I loved that film). I think this sounds great.

also, I don't think this sounds anything like Barton Fink (which I love)

caek your right one doesn't hang on the other. it'll just be nice to see a Kaufman pic w/o all the noise.

TIMES ONLINE - Great, 4/5 stars
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/cannes/article3993534.ece

VARIETY REVIEW - mixed
http://www.variety.com/VE1117937263.html

CINEMATICAL - mixed (Though calling it the "8 1/2 for a new generation and post-Woody Woody Allen" is a massive compliment in my book!)
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/23/cannes-review-synecdoche-new-york/

NEW YORK TIMES - Good
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/movies/23cann.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&em&en=f4e5409f56eb6a89&ex=1211601600

SCREEN DAILY - Good
http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=38803

GLOBE & MAIL - Bad
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080523.wsynecannes0523/BNStory/Front

NATIONAL POST - Great
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/05/23/171465.aspx

INDIE-WIRE - Good
http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2008/05/cannes_08_noteb.html

REPORTS, WITH PHOTOS & QUOTES:
http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSL2342165120080523

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvwwGrRWR8la_aDZE7zDwe5lqX5wD90RCVJG2

Schenectady, huh.

ILX weighs on said town:

Schenectady!

It's a pretty ambitious pun. I have to respect that.

Its sequel should be called Metonymy Falls, Wisconsin

And then comes Metalepsis, Minnesota: The Vengeance of Adele

^^ those unfamiliar with Greek names for figures of speech and upper-midwestern geography should just trust me that all this is hilarious

Para, Taxis

That interesting, because I didn't know, either. And it felt like a trap. And in the end, even though I really do love Kaufman and adore "Eternal Sunshine" and even admire "Adaptation," I felt like the only way out of the trap was to say, "Fuck this movie."

if the goal of the movie was for the viewer to say "fuck this movie" then I admire Kaufman and the film, otherwise, my ambivalence stands.

He did a lot of things with his life, he just never completed the overambitious last thing he aimed to do, tho he participated in it to the fullest possible extent. I don't get yr argument, sarahel.

I guess he didn't finish fucking Hazel but that's a two-way street.

The concentric circles of being aware of your own cleverness and then questioning it and then questioning the questioning of it is really a lot of circling the drain, innit? Yes, yes I know -- we all are. But you're not invited to my next party, dude. In fact, get out right now. No, you can't have any more dip.

he devoted an absurd amount of time to something that was meant to be presented to an audience, but never finished it, and it was never presented. He lost sight of the work as a piece of art to be presented to an audience - and in a sense, the work was weaker because of it. So, as I read it, he failed on two accounts.

When I really start questioning the validity of my life and facing death as if it's a real thing, I have my copy of Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse handy. I'm saving it. I hear it's a lot better when you're 50 than when you're 25.

it's interesting how mid-life crises are things associated with one's 40s and 50s, when for a lot of people their mid-late 30s are actually the middle of their life.

Happy new year to you, too.

heh - I figure since we're the same age (+/- 15 days) and both smoke that our life expectancies are similar.

No, yours is still longer. Statistically. Don't run around in a lightning storm in an open field or step in front of a bus, and yeah, you'll live longer than me.

uh, i probably smoke more than you though -

the fact that this thread is being derailed into a potentially self-indulgent contemplation of our mortality is conceptually appropriate - otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it.

Also, try not to walk around with an earpiece with Dianne Wiest telling you what to do.

no danger of that - though maybe if you had one, you can assign her to remind you not to fuck my mom.

Goddamnit I keep forgetting that!

Forgive me?

You're forgiven - but you might want to write an overambitious epic play about it.

Then again, I might very well fucking not.

Couldn't sleep last night and I'm blaming the dreams I was having about this film.

I finally saw this. definitely not perfect but a ton of lol moments.

Watched this again last night. It actually reminds me a lot of Last Year at Marienbad.

Also, whenever I see it, it makes me want to do a shot-by-shot and chart everything in the film -- every time I watch it I notice another reference. This time I couldn't stop noticing the musical leif-motifs and wondering whether, if diagrammed, the repeated motifs would illuminate more of the film.

i still think about this movie a lot. still dislike the solipsism, but in its way its a devastating depiction of that state, or the way in which our attempts at connection and intimacy simply "re-enter" into the stage of our consciousness rather than transcend it.

I feel like Stanley Cavell could write a great little book on this movie: "With respect to the external world, an initial sanity requires recognizing that I cannot live my skepticism, whereas with respect to others a final sanity requires recognizing that I can. I do."

Wow. This was completely amazing, and hilarious. Yes it was solipsistic but it was also a dream, and it shouldn't be taken as a completely po-faced story of a director disappearing up his own arse. The fact of its being a dream is also the source of, and key to, all of the humour in the film. All the laugh-out-loud moments - the burning house, the nested warehouses, the traumatic novel written by the four year old (who kills himself one year later), the psychiatrist appearing as if by magic from her own book as he's reading it on the plane, claire revealing her giant back tattoo, his daughters diary describing (in an increasingly german accent) events long after she would have stopped writing it - these are all pure nonsense, only in a dream would such twists of time and space and logic be convincing. Arguably we're never more self obsessed than when we're dreaming (because dreams are entirely conjured from our own minds), but dreams are also reflections of reality, albeit often monstrously distorted. I think he's teasing out grains of truth from this dream-state, but also using it to insert a necessary mocking distance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-n1vGeVIXo

friend told me to watch synechdoche, just because. and i kept putting it off. watched a minute of it

seymor hoffman waking out of a bed, to the soundtrack of a small child singing, and scratching himself

music by jon brion

turned that off. don't need to be depressed this saturday evening.

saturday evening is the best time to be depressed imo

but not this early (on the West Coast, 7:20PM). By 11PM I'll be into this, or reading a Benjamin Disraeli biography. At 720 you tell yourself you can't give up -- you can still go out etc.

watch it

This movie deserves another viewing from me.

i rate it highly, worth seeing many times imo

Feeling up for feeling down. Will give it a shot now that the night has gotten away from me and you guys continue to rally behind it.

wow can't believe i've never searched for a thread on synecdoche here. this is my absolute favorite movie. the most affecting and powerful moviegoing experience i've EVER had....it knocked the wind out of me. PLEASE WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T, and with someone you love

Try to get behind the mordant humor. "Caden, does that feel terrible?" "Yep." "OK, good."

"Die."

watched this recently roughly 10 years to do the day since I first saw it. first time in full in 5 years. what struck me was how brisk the movie is. the cutting is ceaseless, brutal. it felt more like a snapshot than an overwhelming epic. remembering the titanic effect it had on me in 2008 and how detached and distanced I felt from it now was unexpected and kind of upsetting, but it hasn't gotten old or been exhausted for me. I'm still not over it.

have you written about it on ilx? this movie left me cold on first viewing but it was on a laptop so. will try again!

here and there for sure, but never at length I don't think. it's my favorite movie, nothing else comes close at all. has been since the night I saw it for the first time. it was on the weekend, and I was so bowled over by it I went by myself again at one of the last showings on a school night that Wednesday or Thursday. I couldn't believe it, it just nailed me to the wall. I think the circumstances at the time - beyond seeing it in a theater and knowing nothing going in - compounded my emotional response significantly. But long after all that, the film still yields so much for me, it is the work of art that we watch Caden struggle and fail to create. And even though my viewing a few weeks ago felt a little tepid or removed, the movie's in the front of my head again. I saw a movie with Dianne Wiest in it today and I was on the verge of tears every time she was on screen. I kept thinking about her reverie toward the end of SNY, "Where is my little girl?...Where is my little girl?..." The only time we see "Eric," Ellen Bascomb's husband and (according to Olive) Caden's lover. It's beguiling but there are no loose ends or unfinished thoughts. But if you watch it again, you should be in a position to be absorbed and overwhelmed, otherwise I imagine the pitch and the speed can be ridiculous. I mean, for how powerful the movie is, it's also really fucking funny. Consistently.

I own a copy but I'm afraid to rewatch

I remember being kind of confused; I saw it with a friend who was seeing it for the second time because he had liked it but was also kind of confused.

It’s p good, but I liked it less on 2nd viewing. It’s very... hermetic? If I was inclined to be less kind to it I would say it’s v solipsistic. Some good jokes/recurring gags

Showed up on Netflix on Friday. First time on any of the major streaming platforms AFAIK.

is this a good or a bad movie to watch if you haven't slept in 3 days

go another day without sleep then give it a bash

GO FOR IT

I loved this. So fucking good.

is this still on Netflix? I want to recommend it to my therapist

Kaufman's rather tasteful Craftsman is up for sale.

Surprised Kaufman is 60, but I guess he’s been around a while (and so have I)

Is the ending as brutal as I think it is? He finds another woman to take comfort in, he doesn't give much of a shit who she is, he's figured out how he's going to do it now ...

The whole film is brutal - but he's had the experience of stepping out of himself to understand (become?) Ellen earlier, and that encounter at the very end with the actress who played Ellen's mother closes the circle of loss and disappointment for just a moment.