Sofia Coppola's Bling Ring

Saw it last night, thought it was pretty good even if it did feel ultimately kind of lightweight. Somehow I missed this important pop cultural event (robbing Lohan and Hilton) ever occurring.

almost watched it yesterday but chose Much Ado instead

also, you know, this:

http://img.pandawhale.com/42766-Emma-Watson--The-Bling-Ring--I-WZGs.gif

how is much ado?

I had a good time.

I didn't have any delusions of this being anywhere near as good as her first two, so I didn't have a strong negative reaction; not much reaction at all. People who loved Spring Breakers probably wouldn't agree, but the two films are a serendipitous matched pair (also thought of To Die For and The King of Comedy at various points). This one is more conventional than Korine's, but the points of similarity are obvious and many. I'm not sure what Coppola wanted to say about these people--maybe not attempting to say anything is her comment on their vacuousness. Logistical incredulity abounds, although I suppose the fact that it all actually happened provides cover there. The use of pop music in The Virgin Suicides ranks with any film ever. "212" is used pretty well here, there's some MIA, my friend recognized Can, and there's other stuff--music seems important to the characters, but it's not that important to the film.

emma watson looks pretty good in that gif. she was very stilted and lame in "this is the end" though, so i am worried about this movie, which i will see at some point anyway because i am one of the few people who is unreservedly a fan of sofia coppola.

i thought this was really good but in a way that doesn't feel interesting to talk about

i am also unreservedly a fan of sofia coppola

i am unreservedly a fan of emma watson

i didn't see this tho. my mom did. she seemed to have been pleasantly scandalized.

she asked me if this is what my generation was like. i was like haha c'mon mom.

I'm unreservedly a huge fan of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation (thought Somewhere was pretty good, never saw the other one), so I would like to hear your thoughts, lamp. I mean, I do think there was a really good film somewhere inside this story, I just didn't think she found it. Emma Watson's final line encapsulated what I thought was the easiest way to approach these characters.

i was talking about this with my mom today too, she asked me if she should see it and i said 'probably not'. i didnt feel the need to elaborate any further and she seemed to find this answer sufficient since she didnt ask my any more questions about it.

ive grown to increasingly appreciate ambivalence i guess, its sort of a movie about nothing, no one says or does anything that means anything and its sunny all the time. i kept thinking about the words 'haze' and 'delirium' but it wasnt really like that, the events the movie is tracing arent really like that, youre fully conscious of the nothingness of it, the desire to trade youth for counterfeit youth, for the facsimile of meaning. the movie doesnt have anything to 'say' because what is there to 'say', doing is saying or something like that. the music is pretty good too, theres an opn track in it. a hat for a cat and cat for a hat but always nothing for nothing

I just read Richard Brody's review, and he suggests some of the same things: "They don’t talk about their own lives in terms of stories. Rather, they live in a world that detaches effect from cause, and they depict only the outcomes...She offers not psychological, sociological, or moral portraits of her characters but aesthetic ones."

Bully, Elephant, Spring Breakers, and now The Bling Ring all kind of fit together for me. Elephant was the only one I connected with emotionally, and even that didn't happen until a second and third viewing.

Meant to link to his review: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/06/sofia-coppolas-bling-ring.html.

one thing that i was a bit surprised by was that the people whose homes were broken into had such lousy security. no guards (apart from paris hilton), fine, but no alarm systems? really? also, the kids were so assured/deluded that nothing would happen (though im guessing they secretly wanted something to happen) that they never thought to wear masks? low standard of burgling. i kept thinking of to die for, though that had a lot more humour and satire to it.

great soundtrack though, even if its too recent to have been playing when the actual IRL bling ring were robbing.

this is definitely coppola's spring breakers moment - as in an attempt to make something more accessible, without her usual hallmarks (though her usual spaciousness-borderline-vacuity/style/coolness is still there). funny how both SC and HK have done it with films about teenage girls with no grip on reality.

i thought this was really good but in a way that doesn't feel interesting to talk about

Same, except

i thought this was really bad but in a way that doesn't feel interesting to talk about

it is kinda vapid... and has nothing in particular to say at all, though makes it worse by almost wanting to say something at the end, though its so humdrum and familiar that i got quite annoyed before the credits started. seems like a more interesting film would have been what happened after they got caught (i dont know the backstory so for all i know, it could be incredibly tedious). the characterisation was pretty thin. but hey, it felt cool (though thats the feeling i get from every SC film).

no guards (apart from paris hilton), fine, but no alarm systems? really? also, the kids were so assured/deluded that nothing would happen (though im guessing they secretly wanted something to happen) that they never thought to wear masks?

Exactly what I meant by "logistical incredulity abounds"--addresses easily Googled, too, even keys left under the mat. I know it all happened (though like akm in the original post, I too missed this story at the time), but surely the break-ins weren't that easy? I suspect Coppola embellished all that to underscore just how assured/deluded/self-absorbed the kids were.

That stuff is all pretty dead-on!

Here's the Vanity Fair article it was based on (which is far more fascinating than the film, I think - Coppola seems to want to paint Nancy Jo Sales as manipulative and calculating, which might be the case, but it made for a better story than the movie)

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/03/billionaire-girls-201003

And this is the woman that Emma Watson plays:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/03/billionaire-girls-201003/_jcr_content/par/cn_contentwell/par-main/cn_pagination_contai/cn_image.size.billionaire-girls-1003-01.jpg

great gif

Doug Bonar?

That stuff is all pretty dead-on!

hollywood celebs live in a truly strange universe... i thought they would be the ones with impenetrable fortresses...

imagine this thread receives a good bit of repeat traffic despite this film apparently being not particularly interesting to talk about.

thinking about the film and how its about vacuous, self-serving rich hollywood teens robbing, rich, vacuous, self serving hollywood stars, perhaps its a bit naive to expect it have much to say... sofia coppola, though i love the stylised look of all her films, marie antoinette especially, has also never really been a director with much substance (apart from virgin suicides)...

For me, Lost in Translation has a great amount of feeling, which automatically makes it a film of substance. The feelings aren't startlingly original--drifting, anomie, whatever you want to call it (both Murray and Johansson, so you get it at two different stations of life)--but I think they're as valid in Coppola's film as in a European art film.

Saw this tonight. I knew the story already, so I was a little bit disappointed that all we really got was rich kids + steal stuff + get caught + go to jail = end

not that I expected SC to have a 'take' on it...but it just felt like a really flashy dramatization for like, Dateline or something. idk.

Emma Watson looked gorgeous, but I kinda felt like the omg Hermione being a bad girl overshadowed her character's role in the movie...and Leslie Mann as the mom was kinda distracting. they both felt like they were in different movies than everyone else, somehow?

it looks fucking great though. I could happily watch it on mute with the soundtrack playing

speaking of the soundtrack, the 5 min edit of "halleluwah" is on it
anyone know when it plays in the movie? i hope it's the music for that gif!

Saw this tonight. I knew the story already, so I was a little bit disappointed that all we really got was rich kids + steal stuff + get caught + go to jail = end

not that I expected SC to have a 'take' on it...but it just felt like a really flashy dramatization for like, Dateline or something. idk.

that was pretty much my reaction too. saw this Saturday night and didn't think much of it. some of the acting was pretty bad (Gavin Rossdale ughh) and it just didn't seem to have any style to it. I never would have guessed Sofia Coppolla made it (I'm a fan, generally).

speaking of the soundtrack, the 5 min edit of "halleluwah" is on it
anyone know when it plays in the movie? i hope it's the music for that gif!

I missed Halleluwah in the movie. the music for that gif is either Avicii or Azalea Banks iirc. the soundtrack was pretty good.

(despite having Avicii on it, not because of)

seems like a more interesting film would have been what happened after they got caught (i dont know the backstory so for all i know, it could be incredibly tedious)

not really, the Emma Watson character went on to have a reality show!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Wild

About the same reaction as above on second viewing. The biggest problem, I think, is there's just too much damn bling. You don't need 15 different break-in scenes that all end with the same "Hey, guys, you won't believe this" moment. It does look great, the tone and direction and performances are assured, and I suppose it has something to say, and I'm just too far removed from this world to connect or to care enough to figure it out. I'd add American Honey and Palo Altoto the like-minded group of films I listed above (a general affiliation--lots of differences). I like those two better than this.

i started this thread, but I've completely forgotten everything about this movie.

aaahahahah omg we should take off the word "movie" and just make that the permanent board description

I still need to see this. I loved, and still do love, her first three, but Somewhere was such a whole lotta nothing that it cooled me on her to the point that I never made this one a priority.

Almost posted to a thread about some band named the Beguiled...No desire to start one for Coppola's film.

Haven't seen the original (I vaguely remember seeing the amputation scene, though), haven't read the book. The new one's not bad, but I don't think there was a surprising moment in the whole thing. I have no idea why Coppola felt compelled to make this.

unlike many people I like her movies, but now I feel put off by this one due to the racial issue and the fact that her defense of removing the black character from the original novel and movie was so she didn't have to deal with race.

We may have discussed that point in another Coppola thread. My conclusion, after watching the movie and knowing the original, is if she thought she couldn't handle the nuances of a black character, then it's good she omitted the character.

As for The Beguiled, it's her most inessential movie (Marie Antoinette is her best).

I've had Marie Antoinette on the shelf for years. Will watch it soon, but I don't go in with an open mind; I'd be shocked if I end up liking it as much as her first two.

Marie Antoinette is like Barry Lyndon scored to Gang of Four and Bow Wow Wow--how could you not like it?!

Good point about the black character--better to omit than to patronize or worse. (Which overlaps into Boyhood, I guess, which I've defended...I don't know the answer.)

I read David Edelstein's very positive review of The Beguiled last night. He points out that it turns the original upside down and recasts it from a woman's point of view. As I posted last night, I haven't seen the original, but I think I intuitively took that for granted. Even on those terms, though--accounting for my puzzlement as to why she made it--I still don't see a surprising or eye-opening moment in the whole film. Everything proceeded exactly as I expected. And very slowly. At one point, when all the females (except Kidman) were vying for Farrell's attention, the movie struck me as a very arty extension of the scene in The Ten Commandments where Heston's entertained by Hugh Griffith's daughters.

I'll also point out something no one cares about except me. As with Paul Thomas Anderson in There Will Be Blood and The Master, a director who began with one of the greatest pop-music movies ever--and followed up with a second that was pretty great in that department--has abandoned pop music altogether. Obviously I understand why in the context of these films, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Not entirely abandoned pop -- she still hired Phoenix to do the score, which I think gives it some residual buzz even though it's not explicitly pop. Music is still a big part of the story, and it's arguably pop music of the 1860s.

We went to see Beguiled yesterday and I enjoyed it as an allegory but I agree with the "whitewashing" critiques. I understand her not wanting to take on race and slavery, she basically wanted to make a fantasy film about blonde girls in white dresses in the forest primeval, but a Civil War setting carries a lot of baggage. Anyway, I think she's interesting and talented, limitations notwithstanding.

I've seen Marie Antoinette twice within a few weeks--first at home, then it improbably turned up last night at a local rep. Definitely like it, find it silly that it was booed at Cannes for historical goofing-around, don't think it's the equal of her first two. What I really love are the "Ceremony" and "Hong Kong Garden" scenes. I think the latter is her version of the "Rubber Biscuit" scene from Uncle Marty's Mean Streets.

Beguiled was a return to form, beautiful final shot

yeah I loved The Beguiled. I missed The Bling Ring when it played here (for a week) four years ago. gotta see it

The Beguiled was good looking, nicely acted, and inert. The Eastwood/Siegel version is no classic, but it at least had an enjoyable sense of perversity about it. Also, Coppla's attempts to avoid the landmines of "problematic representation" robs this film of the original's most interesting character.

Tried half-a-dozen search options, and not wanting to start a new thread, this'll do. In spite of its obviousness--in its conception, not necessarily its execution--I expect Ingrid Goes West will linger in my mind. Belongs with The Bling Ring, Palo Alto, Zola, one or two of Sean Baker's films: dreamlike evocations of the people who slither out of the internet. It reminded me even more of To Die For, especially the ending. Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, and O'Shea Jackson Jr. were all very good.

Ingrid... really struck as a fantastic attempt at a social media version of The King of Comedy (The Queen of Insta?).

great place to start a discussion about Ingrid Goes West... in the Bling Ring thread

I just didn't know where else to put it--tried the two leads, tried some vague search terms for these kinds of movies, couldn't get anything. And I didn't want to start a new thread. Figured it would only intrude with a handful of posts.

King of Comedy, of course--that should have been my first comparison.

this tiktok of sofia coppola’s daughter… this means so much to me pic.twitter.com/6AQtWNhAgG

— savannah ~* (@savbrads) March 21, 2023