Atom Egoyan: Search and Destroy

Destroy: Hmmn. I don't know that I'd destroy The Sweetafter, but taking as many liberties as he did with the book destroyed a lot of the more interesting elements of Banks' original. Felicia's Journey is just okay, great Hoskins performance, but bogged down by inferior material/standard serial killer tropes. Egoyan should stick to writing original screenplays and stay away from the adaptations. I don't think they suit him.

Exotica: the splintered time sequence stuff is interesting, but large swathes of this film seem to exist in some wierd alternate universe. And not an interesting alternate universe like in David Lynch films. I mean, that strip club in Exotica - do places like that exist? Why in the name of christ would a strip club have a DJ/MC who keeps reminding people that they can only look but not touch (and not in an 'I'm just stating the rules' kind of way, but like it's all part of the act)?

I've never seen an Atom Egoyan film, btw. I'll have to check him out.

I rented this the other night (first time I had seen it in a while; this was the movie that turned me on to his stuff)...still just blows me away. I actually find it more interesting than a lot of Lynch's alternate universes (though I like Lynch a lot, too), because while many of Lynch's sets are clearly off-the-meter NOT real, Egoyan's sets strike me as more subtle, and have a way of being 'real-yet-not- real' all at once. The strip club is a great example; also the all- white, sci-fi looking video mausoleum in Speaking Parts, the triangular house in the middle of nowhere in Sweet Hereafter.

Still good. I loved The Sweet Hereafter. I loved Mia Kirshner, too.

i interviewed him comedically at last year's tiff

Ararat was a mess, I'm curious to see Truth on DVD.

AND ANOTHER THING: The Bacon/Firth comedy team was very much unfunny in their act.

Slocki, are you Jiminy Glick?

casting kevin bacon and colin firth as martin & lewis is astonishingly weird.

and what about when Melanie Griffith played a Hasid?

All that, of course, does make Nomi remarkably difficult to empathise with. "So's Lady Macbeth," Verhoeven says.

Donald Sutherland was in it? I don't recall him at all. Are you thinking of Christopher Plummer?

That's bonkers.

stopped directing films he wrote, mainly. although I didn't see adoration (actually I haven't seen anything past ararat, which I think is very good)

although people liked chloe, didn't they?

Chloe has to be his biggest film; they were selling it at Walmart!

it has the most famous lead acress of any of his films, which is why

yeah, right, it's just an erotic thriller from Atom Egoyan is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Walmart

I wonder what happened to his repertory...

Chloe is on mubi, might give it a go.

I hear good things about Remember from some ppl I mostly trust but overall man it's hard to think of filmmakers who fell off harder

Chloe is like one of his old Red Shoe Diaries episodes. Remember was so bad.

still haven't seen anything past Ararat. I think his films through Sweet Hereafter are all awesome.

Buncha his films newly available on Criterion Channel. Guess I should finally watch The Adjuster?

I remember loving The Adjuster while also having it nake me feel slightly nauseous inside

That's how I feel about a lot of his earlier stuff. It can be so ... discomfiting. (At least "Next of Kin" is pretty funny, iirc.) I want to say his "mature" streak of "Calendar," "Exotica" and "Sweet Hereafter" is where it all comes together (right before it all falls apart), but I haven't seen those early movies in so long.

Adoration is not terrible iirc

oooh i'm finally gonna get to see exotica!

/Adoration/ is not terrible iirc

Saw Next of Kin for the first time... It is funny, but also has the hollow protagonist/videotape thing which is quite creepy.

Also i'd forgotten Arsinée Khanjian is married to Egoyan.

it's hard to forget by the sixth time she shows up in one of his movies

LOL

I've forgotten how much a creepy queerness permeates his films

Not sure i've ever detected that, but i'm rewatching stuff now after a 15-20-year layoff.

The older victim in The Adjuster feverishly kissing Elias Koteas' hand; the gay scene in Exotica...

his early movies are all incredible and that unsettling, uncomfortable aspect is what makes them so. but my favorite is Calendar.

I'm dreading a rewatch of Family Viewing but I'm otherwise compelled to. I haven't rewatched any of the early ones since they came out.

wow, the adjuster!!!! what a film

rewatched exotica last night, that's now an all-timer for me. a vibe i haven't found anywhere else

the verhoeven quote upthread is fundamentally right especially wrt to comparing exotica and showgirls, but it also wouldn't occur to me to compare them. showgirls is corrupted; exotica, despite its consumingly sinister atmosphere, is very innocent. these are babes in the woods, broken apart by trauma and reassembled into people they don't recognize

the club is incredible but all of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the movie are between bruce greenwood and sarah polley in the car

yes, one of my absolute all time favorite films. I think the screenplay is exceptional. It's one of the only screenplays I bought in book form and kept.

showgirls and exotica aren't even remotely about the same thing so comparing them isn't fair to either one. Exotica is explicitly about grief.

the abrupt transition from the club to the shot of the search party emerging over the hill and then back to bruce greenwood sweating in the bathroom... takes my breath away

Liked Exotica when it came out, haven’t seen it since. Did see Don McKellar’s Last Night finally on MUBI recently.

holy fucking shit @ speaking parts

watched exotica yesterday, the first egoyan movie i've seen - incredible! some of the plot mechanics don't really make much sense but the vibes are amazing. the set design, the colors, the score, beautiful

His run of films from Family Viewing through Ararat is one of the most incredible in all of Western cinema. Family Viewing (which he routinely cites as his best) and The Adjuster in particular are stunning

I never got a chance to visit his Camera Bar venue in Toronto, sadly

Really sad what’s happened to him lately. The last one, the Holocaust one whatever it was called, was like a self-parody.

He’s released two features after Remember. Guest of Honour got distributed by Kino Lorber, which doesn’t have the resources of even A24 or Neon, and Seven Veils, which still hadn’t had a commercial release in the States

Were they any good?

Guest of Honour is worth a rental, or even buying in one of Kino Lorber’s sales. I have yet to see Seven Veils. Maybe Mubi will pick it up at a fire sale price

Limited run here, will go see this tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cKyK1Zp-Lo

Bigger Amanda Seyfried fan than Egoyan (I do like The Sweet Hereafter).

Huge fan of everything through that movie and he sharply dropped off quality wise after that, but reviews for this are promising.

His run through "The Sweet Hereafter" is something, but after that ... I guess I've seen a couple but not sure I've ever heard of most of them.

I haven't seen anything he's done since The Sweet Hereafter but I went to see this. It's not his best work and I wouldn't say it's great, but I still came away thinking his talents were still there and he was still as audacious and thoughtful as ever, moreso than most filmmakers in recent years. Seyfriend is also excellent and continues to impress.

(probably could have used the word "still" less in that last post)

This one played TIFF in 2023--took that long to get it into theatres.

Can’t wait. Agreed, his run through The Sweet Hereafter is all time. Of the recent films, I did see Chloe all I can tell you about it was that it seemed like a lesser De Palma movie. The “return to form!” reviews are out there. Reminds me of when Cronenberg began making movies like End Of Violence and Eastern Promises.

No love for Ararat? I think it’s his last genuinely great movie.

For some reason I never saw it, don't know why, but iirc it was mostly panned. The first time I remember anyone needing to make a defense of one of his film was "Felicia's Journey," and if I remember right "Where the Truth Lies" was his first film hailed as any sort of comeback. But I don't think that stuck, and he's been wandering the wilds ever since. Clearly he still attracts good casts and gets movies made, but (haven't seen the new one) the spark and spotlight have mostly moved on.

Weird timing--immediately recognized the actor who plays the understudy as the surfer guy Jane takes up with in S2 of Big Little Lies, which I'm almost finished rewatching. Douglas Smith, a Canadian actor.

Anyway, based on ambition and execution, I'd give Seven Veils high marks. But I can't say I enjoyed it, and I know that's not what Atom Egoyan's about. Different temperament than mine, plus I'm a rube when it comes to opera. (My standard joke: everything I know about the subject comes from ELO's "Rockaria!") But: one of my favourite scenes this century is the daughter's radio debut in Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce remake, so I do have it in me to respond.

I liked Felicia's Journey, Bob Hoskins is great in it, but the book is indeed better.