SILLY COMMENTS OVERHEARD WHILE EXITING THE CINEMA

Moderated

I like existentialism :(

Mark, that was a truly existential post. I am a better person through your insight into humanity’s deepest desires.

Would you believe me if I said she actually was wearing a neckerchief? haha

Matt, my problem is not the concept of “existentialism” (now you’ve got me saying it!). It’s just one of those words (in fact, THE word) I notice the Neckerchief Nazis use in order to make themselves seem bright. It’s like the person who learns a new word, then repeats said word, ad nauseam, EVEN when its presence is totally incongruous. As long as you don’t mention something inane like Denny’s example, Matt, I believe we shall get along fine.

Dequinix: my posts make everybody who reads them a better person…in an existentialisticised manner.

Denny, I would NOT believe you if you told me she was NOT wearing a neckerchief!

Neckerchief Nazis? I’m more concerned about the Hyperbole Gestapo…

Moderated

MARK: you really do come across like such a typical anti-intellectual Aussie sometimes, enough though i know you are probably NOT ;-) Your skepticism reaches near paranoid levels. I understand you are ‘joking’ , and Aussies indeed are hardly the sharpest knives in the draw, but some of us actually know what we are talking about when we use those words, believe it or not. Even uni students ;-)

As for comments after films, i’d be hear all day. Most of the time they occur after ‘art films’. I remember after one of the first screenings of ‘Ulysses Gaze’ in Melbourne back in 1997, an admittedly difficult film, a member of the audience was harping on in the foyer about how ‘pretentious’ the scene with the Lenin status across the river was. ‘in the end, the director probably just looked the way it looked’, that was the conclusion the group in question reached. I was stunned.

I do remember one woman saying Cocteau’s “Orphee” had the typical male dominance, never mind that it’s based on an ancient myth…

But still, you’re lucky to have the art films playing in your area. Learn how to critique a film and give them an education!

“Learn how to critique a film and give them an education!”

what makes you so sure i don’t know already ;-)

Another stupid comment i heard was after the screening of Jesse James(Brad Pitt) at the Nova. I distinctly heard a patron say ‘gee that Robert Ford, what a back stabbing prick and cowardly man’ with no trace of irony whatsoever.

JOKS (Capital letters!):

I knew someone would give me the “we actually know what we are talking about when we say those words” line.

Oh, I don’t doubt you, Joks. However, the smoking gun in your post is “some” (i.e. “some of us actually know what we are talking about”). I don’t doubt YOU know, but many do not. And it’s not so much people using big fancy words that they don’t understand, that wasn’t my point. It’s when people learn a word, then drop it every chance they get, and it just becomes forced verbal clutter. I don’t know why, but “existential” (and derivatives of it) seems to be Verbal Public Enemy Number One. And they say it like they’re SMART…as if their brain is having an erection (which is an appropriate metaphor considering their dickhead status).

JOKS: I’m not anti-intellectual…I’ve dealt with anti-intellectuals and they tend not to be so verbose as moi, but if they are, every second word is a profanity and their verbiage normally contains barely veiled physical threats against your person.

I don’t object to intellectualism, Joks Cousteau. What really raises my hackles is PSEUDO intellectualism. And being from Melbourne, Joks, being one who admits to the film scene here being cliquish and narrow minded, I’m certain you KNOW the university types I’m talking about (it might interest you to know, people often mistake me as being university educated; I recently had an usherette at A.C.M.I. ask me if I went to Q.U.T.; part of my response was I’m too smart for university).

Me, paranoid? Never…

You should know what I mean ESPECIALLY since you’ve revealed you’ve been to THE NOVA! I don’t know why, but that place draws the Neckerchief Nazis like aspiring yuppies to a Young Liberals convention. I once went to see a film at the Nova with a woman who lives a ten minute walk away from me. Despite the fact she and I live fifteen kilometres away from Carlton and there are many arthouse cinemas closer to home, she had this fetish for the Nova. I don’t know, maybe you aren’t “hip” and “cultured” unless you see all your films at the Nova.

And I kid you not, she actually looks a lot like the woman in the red and white striped shirt I posted above!

JOKS: I wonder what the person whose comments you overheard made of Jesse James himself. It probably doesn’t help build a case against J.J. when he’s played by Brad Pitt.

Fraser said:

“I do remember one woman saying Cocteau’s “Orphee” had the typical male dominance, never mind that it’s based on an ancient myth…”

Exactly what I’m talking about, Fraser the Laser, so we agree. And it gets worse when you have a film panel full of “feminists” and “academics” babble about “male dominance” ad nauseum in the Q and A following the feature.

Fraser said:

“But still, you’re lucky to have the art films playing in your area. Learn how to critique a film and give them an education”

It’s an uphill battle in Melbourne, Fraser. The phrase “you can’t polish a turd” springs to mind. The problem with snooty cine-asses is they read you very quickly, and one of the FIRST questions they like to ask is “so what university do you attend?” When you tell them you are thirty-something, and you never went to university, they do not take seriously anything else you say. They think just because they attend the Victorian College of the Arts, they know everything and you don’t know squat. It’s exactly the sort of intellectual elitism that makes open minded discussion of cinema nigh impossible.

Put on your Hoffman lenses and I’m certain they’d look like this…

“I don’t object to intellectualism, Joks Cousteau. What really raises my hackles is PSEUDO intellectualism. And being from Melbourne, Joks, being one who admits to the film scene here being cliquish and narrow minded, I’m certain you KNOW the university types I’m talking about (it might interest you to know, people often mistake me as being university educated; I recently had an usherette at A.C.M.I. ask me if I went to Q.U.T.; part of my response was I’m too smart for university).”

Yes i know well enough ;-)

“t’s an uphill battle in Melbourne, Fraser. The phrase “you can’t polish a turd” springs to mind. The problem with snooty cine-asses is they read you very quickly, and one of the FIRST questions they like to ask is “so what university do you attend?” When you tell them you are thirty-something, and you never went to university, they do not take seriously anything else you say.”

I hate that. A friend of mine encounters this all the time. HIs opinion on film is more solid than most clowns i’ve met from the VCA or Melbourne University yet he is dismissed offhand. The joke is that most of the ‘educated’ VCA students that go on to a career in film rarely ever make anything great. A good friend of mine went to VCA, and he is one of the most knowledgeable cinema geeks i know—with a phd in the subject, no less—and he always complained about the snobs at VCA not knowing anything substancial about film. He jokingly remarked that ‘all they know is Van Sant and Jamursch’. hehehe.

Joks said:

“The joke is that most of the ‘educated’ VCA students that go on to a career in film rarely ever make anything great. "

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I was just waiting for you to say that! Isn’t it mostly true, though? You’re not the first person with whom I’ve communicated to share that joke. Hang around the foyer after a V.C.A. film screening, the mutual verbal blowjobs that take place afterwards are staggering. These bozos chatter among themselves as if they’ve just witnessed the lost footage of ’The Magnificent Ambersons"!

I’m not saying their short films are pants—many are pretty good—-but they pale in comparison to short movies from foreign countries. And it’s certainly nothing for people to have fits of joy about.

That said, there was one feature film I saw a few years ago, “The Independent” by a pair of filmmakers from V.C.A., John Studley and Andrew O’Keefe, and ’twas rather good.

I don’t think that V.C.A. joke is ever going to die until the government pulls the plug on the university itself.

“I was just waiting for you to say that! Isn’t it mostly true, though? You’re not the first person with whom I’ve communicated to share that joke. Hang around the foyer after a V.C.A. film screening, the mutual verbal blowjobs that take place afterwards are staggering. These bozos chatter among themselves as if they’ve just witnessed the lost footage of ’The Magnificent Ambersons”!"

No Aussie film fanatic i know rates Australian ‘arthouse’ films. Not one. At least not recent ones anyway. recent meaning last 15 or so years.

“I’m not saying their short films are pants—many are pretty good—-but they pale in comparison to short movies from foreign countries. And it’s certainly nothing for people to have fits of joy about.”

Have you seen Van Diemen’s Land? Apparently it’s based on a short that the director completed while studying at the VCA, and a friend of mine described it as ‘sub-Herzogian trash’ ; the short, not the film.

I haven’t seen “Van Diemen’s Land” although I do know of it.

Joks, what about “Home Song Stories”? I rate that very highly.

It’s difficult to find Australian films over the past couple years that have an appealing premise to entice me to the arthouse. I did check out “Samson and Delilah” a couple times, and although it was a bold experiment in film and very realistic, I’m not certain it warranted all those “five star ratings” it received.

Joks, you have probably seen “Head On”. I thought it was crap (I only saw the whole thing last year). I haven’t seen any other Ana Kokkinos films. If they are as bad and handle the topic of sexuality as clumsily as “Head On”, I’ll stay well clear. I just can’t believe she still gets her films at the cinema after “Head On”. It certainly did wonders for Alex Dimitriades and his career, didn’t it?

“Joks, what about “Home Song Stories”? I rate that very highly.”

Haven’t seen it.

“It’s difficult to find Australian films over the past couple years that have an appealing premise to entice me to the arthouse. I did check out “Samson and Delilah” a couple times, and although it was a bold experiment in film and very realistic, I’m not certain it warranted all those “five star ratings” it received.”

I enjoyed it, yeah, but it wasn’t amazing. What did you think of The Proposition from a few years ago? I like it, but Guy Pearce’s performance kind of bothered me. I never got the impression that he had ‘internalised the conflict’, if you get my drift. There wasn’t a lot of depth to his performance.

“Joks, you have probably seen “Head On”. I thought it was crap (I only saw the whole thing last year). I haven’t seen any other Ana Kokkinos films. If they are as bad and handle the topic of sexuality as clumsily as “Head On”, I’ll stay well clear. I just can’t believe she still gets her films at the cinema after “Head On”. It certainly did wonders for Alex Dimitriades and his career, didn’t it?

I thought ‘Head On’ was a a decent film in 98, esp since i’m from a Greek background myself and could relate to the perspective. The novel was better, but equally overrated.

Kokkinos best film was ‘Only The Brave’ IMO. Her worst was that Book Of Revelations. completely laughable. Blessed isn’t much better. Another overrated Australian film was Lantana. All the critics harped on about how great it was because it used the multi-narrative structure, attracted an international cast, and was decidedly adult—although it played at close to zero film festivals abroad—but it was full of the usual cliches that ruin serious Australian films, like pregnant pauses, for example. The editors just keep a scene going far too long and it plays like parody. the point is made and the scene goes on, but not in an interesting or ambigious way like the best art films do. One scene in particular with Barbara Hershey is laughable. She is asked a ‘difficult’ question by one of her patients and just pauses. The ‘point’ of the scene was made in her reaction shot that lasted 2 seconds, but the scene goes on for another 5 seconds. This is a problem for most arty Australian films. Everything is so heavy handed, and delivered with a plumber’s grace.

Topical line from the movies:

Reference: Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen’s aside to the audience after watching Marshal McLuhan demolish a motormouthed, opinionated, pseudo-intellectual pontificist while waiting to see a movie.

“IF LIFE WERE ONLY LIKE THIS.”

The scene occurs while waiting to view ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’. It’s available on YouTube and is chapter #7 (At the New Yorker) on my DVD.

Maverick, I must see this now. Thank you for the recommendation. It sounds a bit like the scene with Jack Nicholson doing something similar in “Five Easy Pieces”.

“Unfinsihed Sky” let scenes linger too long, something I noticed very clearly, but I did like the film.

I have not yet seen “The Proposition”.

The problem with “Head On” is not the fact I couldn’t relate to it because I’m not Greek. I’ve seen many films from different cultural backgrounds, and really, despite all the B.S. made about it, I don’t think your average Greek father is much different from one born in Australia…or many other places, for that matter.

Everything in “Head On” is so gratuitous. It plays like a bad student film. Ostensibly, it’s set across a period of twenty-four hours. I haven’t counted, but during said period, Ari snorts several lines of cocaine (by the way, even though I knew immediately what they meant, I NEVER recall anyone calling cocaine “quick”) in addition to taking amyl nitrate, one or two joints, booze, and correct me if I’m wrong, he also shoots heroin. He has something like three, four sexual encounters (each with a different person!) in the same twenty four hour period. All those drugs and sexual encounters, not to mention getting smashed around by the fuzz, would leave Ari looking worse for wear, but here’s Alex Dimitriades, so-called Greek Adonis, with perfect hair and teeth and bright eyes from start to finish.

Absolute bollocks. I accept things like cowboys having immaculate dental work in westerns, yet “Head On” is supposedly a gritty urban tale of hedonistic youth…well, show us the effects, Kokkinos. Alex is also FAR TOO RATIONAL for someone so fuelled with drugs. He’s articulate and sure-footed to a fault. It’s positively absurd.

If you want plumber’s grace, listen to Alex deliver the opening monologue. It’s totally apparent Alex read from a page with which he wasn’t very familiar instead of memorising his lines or at least getting a decent feel for them.

Of course, for real unintentional comedy, we have the pontificist woman (thanks, Maverick) who blabbers on about racial injustice, etc. in the bar or whatever it’s meant to be. This allows Ari to spew some vile racist slurs that raise the hackles of said pontificating character…but Ari is so charming, he later ends up picking her up! Two words: never happens.

And for a supposed nihilist, Ari sure keeps himself interested and knows lots of people! What, he doesn’t hang around in his bedroom playing computer games, eating potato chips and listening to loud rock music like most other aimless slackers? Just silly, it’s one of the worst films I’ve ever endured.

“The problem with “Head On” is not the fact I couldn’t relate to it because I’m not Greek. I’ve seen many films from different cultural backgrounds, and really, despite all the B.S. made about it, I don’t think your average Greek father is much different from one born in Australia…or many other places, for that matter.”

That was the only part of the film i identified with. The Greek-Austrlalian community is not like the Anglo-Australian one. There are certain invisible rules, beliefs, structures, and modes of being that make sense to those that are inside the culture, and ‘Head On’ did a good job of bringing them to the surface and exposing the hypocrisy. You are right that it’s a story that could have been told in any other country with a migrant culture, but we have to relate it to the host country , and Australia’s migrant experience, particularly of their offspring, has some unique features when compared to say the United States. And the novel is considered important as part of an ongoing series of ‘post-colonial’ Australian texts that question the underlying racial, social and political assumptions that govern our existence. So on that level, it’s important to keep it in context, regardless of one’s own feeling towards it.

“Everything in “Head On” is so gratuitous.”

The book is even more gratuitous.

“All those drugs and sexual encounters, not to mention getting smashed around by the fuzz, would leave Ari looking worse for wear, but here’s Alex Dimitriades, so-called Greek Adonis, with perfect hair and teeth and bright eyes from start to finish.”

That’s a fair criticism, and it annoyed me at the time too.

“Absolute bollocks. I accept things like cowboys having immaculate dental work in westerns, yet “Head On” is supposedly a gritty urban tale of hedonistic youth…well, show us the effects, Kokkinos. Alex is also FAR TOO RATIONAL for someone so fuelled with drugs. He’s articulate and sure-footed to a fault. It’s positively absurd.”

I wouldn’t say sure footed, but he does have an unusual self awareness for the type of life he leads, yet it’s not entirely implausible, and is far more convincing in the book where we are just dealling with Ari’s thoughts and no one else’s. In the novel he moves from one idea to the next, and some are more cogent than others. The film misses that free associative aspect of his thought processes, and the drug addled mind.

“Of course, for real unintentional comedy, we have the pontificist woman (thanks, Maverick) who blabbers on about racial injustice, etc. in the bar or whatever it’s meant to be. This allows Ari to spew some vile racist slurs that raise the hackles of said pontificating character…but Ari is so charming, he later ends up picking her up! Two words: never happens.”

That scene is handled well in the book. on film it comes off preachy and laughable.

“And for a supposed nihilist, Ari sure keeps himself interested and knows lots of people! What, he doesn’t hang around in his bedroom playing computer games, eating potato chips and listening to loud rock music like most other aimless slackers?”

many nihilists are sociable people. they just don’t believe in much ;-)

In the book, does Ari still manage to charm the Che Guevara t-shirt and hemp boxer shorts off the loud mouthed political woman, thus converting her to a life of heterosexuality?

PREACHY! That’s what I thought she was, too. She sounded like she belonged on the balcony at Trades Hall with a flat brew and clumsily rolled cigarette in her mitts, discussing Second Wave feminism or some equally banal topic.

When I say Ari is sure-footed, I mean that in the literal sense. He takes more drugs than you’d find in the rider backstage of an Amy Winehouse concert, yet you could have Ari play hopscotch on a frozen puddle and he’d be sure-footed as a mountain goat. His mates never have to haul him from a puddle of his own digestive fluids or keep him from passing out into a life-threatening coma. I think the makers of “Head On” should’ve studied “Less Than Zero” or a similar film first.

I know some nihilists are quite sociable…I just think the film would be improved with Ari eating cheese flavoured snacks, playing some Atari 2600, locked in his room, whining on the telephone to a friend who still has his “Millipede” cartridge and holding his father’s collection of girlie magazines for ransom until his old man springs for a raise in his allowance.

Hey, it’d be a comedy…unlike “Head On”, it would be intentionally funny; it’d be silly, but you could make something out of it.

Speaking of ransoms, bounties, and other forms of dirty money and ill-gotten gains, a ten movie pass to M.I.F.F. for anyone who just HAPPENS to accidentally on purpose have this wretched little woman meet with a cement mixer…

She looks just like someone you’d encounter at Cinemateque!

“If it had been an hour shorter, it would have been good.” (batman)

ummmm…actually thats absolutely true

Put Eric Roberts on the cutting room floor…that would’ve made “The Dark Knight” at least a LITTLE shorter…if I could remember anything he did in the film.

LAIKA: It was after Benjamin Button. Best part of that movie. :D

After A Thin Red Line a couple guys were behind and one said “I liked the battle scenes, but the rest was bullshit.”

So, I stopped, turned around and said, “Well, then you completely missed the point of the film.”

After Speed Racer: “Dude, why does everything look so dull now?”

Funny thing is, I was thinking exactly the same.

lol@Ulicain!! I’ve heard that plenty of times, just not after a theatrical screening ;-)

“We should have rented a Jackie Chan movie instead”

…
after watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon~~~

TuT