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NOV 2017 MOVIE THREAD


RIPPA

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1 hour ago, driver said:

Caught Shotcaller(aka Jamie Lannister Goes To Jail) and it was pretty damned good.

I thought it was a bit of a stretch that a mild mannered accountant went that full into hardened white supremacist killer the way he did, but I guess it was a commentary on how far people will go to survive and adapt and whatnot.  It is a pretty damned good movie, albeit one of those no happy endings for anyone stories.

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Greatly enjoyed Sweet Virginia. Recommended if you enjoyed the neo-Western crime movies like No Country For Old Men or Hell Or High Water (I was gonna say this is maybe a touch creepier than those, but No Country is pretty creepy, so never mind that).  A guy walks into a bar after hours, kills three people, and things develop from there.  Christopher Abbott is tremendous in this, he's like weaponized social awkwardness.

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On 11/19/2017 at 5:09 PM, HumanChessgame said:

I thought it was a bit of a stretch that a mild mannered accountant went that full into hardened white supremacist killer 

I don't think it's a stretch at all.

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For some reason, I decided to wrap up my Thanksgiving by watching JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND on Netflix.

My one line review:  "Come for the amazing behind the scenes footage, stay for the...well, be prepared to endure the present-day Jim Carrey interview."

Like, I never would've guessed that the archival footage of Carrey acting like a madman on the set of MAN ON THE MOON would be the least insane part of this movie.  Basically, Carrey uses the footage to segway from talking about Kaufman to doing his own autobiography/career retrospective, where he gets to explain how much like Kaufman he really is and how every film he's made was actually a deeply personal work (yes, even THE MASK).  He also frequently digresses into existential ramblings (sample dialogue: "Why am I drinking this tea?  Did I make that choice, or did my body tell me to because it's thirsty?").  He literally filibusters the ending of his own movie to drop "stoned college student"-level insight on the nature of existence.

If I didn't know that Carrey had legitimately transitioned into this super earnest, "truth seeker" phase, I'd be tempted to think JIM & ANDY was another Kaufman-esque joke.  But this is who he is now.  

So that begs the question: why make this movie now?  It's clearly not because he thinks the footage itself is of any greater relevance or significance.  NO ONE ELSE besides Carrey is interviewed in the present-day, which means we get no other perspective on his antics, whether they helped or hurt the movie in the end, etc.  It largely amounts to Carrey showing off his home movies and saying, "Wasn't I great?"  And maybe that's the point.  As mentioned, he spends a lot of the film talking about his other movies, as if he's sneakily using this footage to try to remind America how much they used to like him (and why they should like him again).

If that's the case, he undoes himself because he can't even keep modern day anti-vax nutter Jim Carrey under wraps in his own vanity project.

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I watched Jim and Andy tonight. I won't get into the heady existential stuff too much other then I largely agree with him, but it's much easier for someone worth Jim Carrey money to live in that headspace than the average person. I basically think he may be crazy, but that's incidental to his feelings on existence. 

Regarding the Lawler stuff, it would be very much in Andy's spirit to make a public spectacle the way Carrey did and secretly be working everyone with Jerry's involvement. I don't know if that's what happened, but it would make sense. 

As far as his telepathic connection with Andy or whatever, I don't know how much of that was him bullshitting or wishful thinking. What is very apparent in the movie is how real those cathartic moments with Andy's family are to them, and to maybe Carrey too. Regardless of what's happening there that was touching.

I expected it to drag or become grating, but I still generally like Carrey and I found real poignancy in the movie even in the face of what is indeed an exercise in ponderous congratulatory self-indulgence. 

In summary, I liked it, but in a lot of ways it was tailored to my tastes, so I'm not going to necessarily recommend it for everyone. 

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22 hours ago, (BP) said:

IAs far as his telepathic connection with Andy or whatever, I don't know how much of that was him bullshitting or wishful thinking. What is very apparent in the movie is how real those cathartic moments with Andy's family are to them, and to maybe Carrey too. Regardless of what's happening there that was touching.

 

Were they, though?  "Real" and "cathartic," I mean.  That was Carrey's read, but he was/is kind of insane.  And the closed doors meeting with Andy's daughter just sounds creepy and bizarre beyond words.

That's one of the many instances where I think it would've been insightful to have present-day interviews with someone besides Carrey.  Their interpretation of that whole situation might be wildly different than his.  His daughter might've been like, "Yeah, I thought I just was going to meet Jim Carrey -- I loved Dumb and Dumber! -- but then he pretended to be my dad for an hour.  I broke down in tears and just told him what I thought he wanted to hear so I could leave.  I had to go to therapy for a year to get over it."

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20 minutes ago, EVA said:

Were they, though?  "Real" and "cathartic," I mean.  That was Carrey's read, but he was/is kind of insane.  And the closed doors meeting with Andy's daughter just sounds creepy and bizarre beyond words.

That's one of the many instances where I think it would've been insightful to have present-day interviews with someone besides Carrey.  Their interpretation of that whole situation might be wildly different than his.  His daughter might've been like, "Yeah, I thought I just was going to meet Jim Carrey -- I loved Dumb and Dumber! -- but then he pretended to be my dad for an hour.  I broke down in tears and just told him what I thought he wanted to hear so I could leave.  I had to go to therapy for a year to get over it."

After watching the movie I came across an article with interviews about the doc with Andy's brother and sister. There's some discussion of something astral or otherworldly going on, but the sister's quote later on is very level headed and empathetic towards everyone involved. 

"Let’s say you love somebody and they die,” Carol says. "And then Hollywood came along and said, ‘We’re going to recreate your sister, mother, whatever it is.’ And you miss them so much, you so badly want to play along. And the person that was willing to do it wasn’t so bad—they were trying their hardest, so they had their heart in it.”

Here's the full piece:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/andy-kaufman-jim-carrey-netflix-tony-clifton-713959%3famp=1

It is fair to be critical or skeptical of Carrey's version of events with the daughter, since there's no version of those events presented besides his, and he's not a reliable narrator.

 

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I posted some thoughts in the monthly wrestling thread, but I'll just quickly reiterate that there's no way Jim was working us. He's out of his fucking mind, or he was then and, well, apparently is now. Look at the reactions of everyone on the set. They're just astonished that this fucking asshole really thinks he's Andy Kaufman, but here's the thing...

HE'S NOT ACTING LIKE ANDY KAUFMAN AT ALL

Jim is method acting as whoever he thinks Andy Kaufman was, which apparently was just a giant troll because he would do the Tony Clifton shift when by many accounts Andy wasn't like that. The Lawler stuff sticks out the most because Lawler is a guy who comes from the carniest business ever and he's not putting up with this bullshit. The only other person who stuck out to me was Danny Devito. Danny is another guy where every time you look at him he looks visibly embarrassed. 

I will say that I think Jim wishes he were working everybody, but that's now. He tries to keep it together as best as possible, referring to himself back then as Andy or as Tony, but a couple times he refers to himself as Jim and then quickly course corrects to add "Jim as Andy" or something to that effect. Why he wants people to believe he was possessed by Andy Kaufman is beyond me, but maybe that's less crazy than being an anti-vaxxer nut job who drove an ex-girlfriend to kill herself. Perhaps if people forgot all of that and instead thought of Jim as this guy who is just a wacky actor, then maybe he would get more work.

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So The Foreigner is fucking awesome. Jackie Chan does his best acting by far. A very understated performance. With the fighting, it still has the Chan style, but it is somewhat grittier. Pierce Brosnan does a great job too and the plot was really good. 

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