Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

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hearthesilence
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#101 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:59 pm

wattsup32 wrote:I was expecting an exploration of the nuance and complexity of a developing young woman’s emotional life. Instead, I got a facile trip over the surface of the veneer of a person. The lone scene handled with any subtlety is the scene with LB’s mom and the drama teaching priest.

There is an opportunity to handle the loss of her virginity with subtlety with the comment LB makes about how dexterous her boyfriend is with a condom. But, instead, Gerwig spends the next three minutes hammering his duplicity home in case the audience is too stupid to understand happened.
This assessment made me think about Margaret, which I was discussing with another friend just yesterday, and it really makes Lady Bird feel all the more insignificant - I didn't hate Lady Bird but compared to everything I got out of Margaret, it really feels like a nothing film. It's all the more disappointing since it's a very personal film tapping into the life of its young, female writer/director (and I say young as in she's old enough to have a more objective view of that time, but young enough that the raw emotions of that age aren't so distant or removed). Of course, Margaret was buried into obscurity and Lady Bird is being fêted like, well, Juno.

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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#102 Post by wattsup32 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:08 pm

hearthesilence wrote: I didn't hate Lady Bird
I didn't hate it either. In fact, it would make a perfect entry for any dictionary looking to refer someone to a clear example of the definition of "mediocre." That's a lot more than I can say for Three Billboards or The Shape of Water.

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soundchaser
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#103 Post by soundchaser » Wed Mar 07, 2018 12:45 pm

I'm surprised to see so many comparisons made between this and the overly twee Juno, because they feel totally off-base to me.

I saw this film last night in an empty theater, but I suspect my emotional experience would have been much the same had the place been packed. This was such a profoundly personal film for me, in a way that no coming-of-age film I've seen before has been. The relationship between Lady Bird and her "scary but warm" mother (god, how I've heard that one from friends before) could basically have been plucked from my own (far too recent) memories.

I lay aware for hours with scenes running again and again in my head, expurging a tremendously narcissistic and extraordinarily lengthy manifesto about what makes this movie so good (its brilliant use of Merrily We Roll Along, its 100% accurate depiction of going to a single-gender Catholic high school, its quietly devastating portrayal of rudderless living), but I'm not sure the forum needs to be bored with my life story. Suffice it to say, I think this is one of the best films about growing up I've ever seen, and to call it a run-of-the-mill high school story is to do it a tremendous injustice. It could be a film about its main character coming home again, and it would still ring true.

It's slight in running time and plot, yes, but Lady Bird herself says it best - different things can be sad; it's not all war. It was a profoundly disquieting film for me, and I'm still a strange mix of hollow, exasperated, and jubilant this morning.

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domino harvey
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#104 Post by domino harvey » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:39 am

Sorry heterosexual men, Sasha Stone sez you're a pervert if you like this movie
I'm only gonna say this once and then never again - grown men, middle aged men who are not gay, whose favorite film of the year is Lady Bird will never not be weird to me, especially since movies by women usually aren't embraced to the same degree. I'm gonna chalk it up to biology/fertility and the way of humans. Young fresh and fertile will always win out over old bitter and infertile. [ducking]

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#105 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:41 am

So it's important for people to be open to embracing and celebrating stories by and about people from different races, genders, and backgrounds, but do it too much and you're a weirdo. Got it.

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knives
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#106 Post by knives » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:43 am

That's probably not worth responding to, but Colbert for example seems to be relating to the film on the level of a Catholic.

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Brian C
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#107 Post by Brian C » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:00 pm

Poor Sasha’s spent too much time with Jeff Wells.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#108 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:03 pm

If Sasha Stone's contributions to the political discussion in the last couple of years weren't evidence enough that she badly needs psychological help, this certainly adds fuel to that fire

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soundchaser
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#109 Post by soundchaser » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:26 pm

Ah, yes, young and fresh will always win. That’s why the middle-aged heterosexual guys at the academy gave awards to a guy who played a long-dead politician and whose last name is literally “Old Man.”

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movielocke
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#110 Post by movielocke » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:43 pm

If you’re a middle aged man, a film set fifteen years ago corresponds closely to that mans high school time frame, and since this is one of the first films retrospectively set in that era (in high school) you’re very likely to relate strongly to the film, IMO.

I found lady birds story to be startling in how similar it was to my story, coming from a small city, leaving for a distant megalopolis, squabbles with family over cost and the gigantic “risk” of going so far away, amidst all the minor dramas of high school, the stress of college applications while working part time.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#111 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:44 pm

Wait, what would you classify as middle aged? The character in the film would be approx. 32 years old in 2018.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#112 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:45 pm

I also take offense at this broadened definition of middle age. I’m a young man, dammit!

<checks thinning hair in mirror again>

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domino harvey
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#113 Post by domino harvey » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:56 pm

I graduated two years before Lady Bird and also found it pretty relatable on the whole. I'm not yet middle-aged though-- at least I hope I'm not!

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movielocke
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#114 Post by movielocke » Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:32 pm

i graduated one year before Lady Bird and consider myself middle aged. What is mid-thirties if not middle aged?

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mfunk9786
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#115 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:34 pm

Life expectancy in the U.S. is approaching 80 years old, which would put middle age at 40, but most (optimistically) wouldn't start invoking it until maybe 10 years after that

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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#116 Post by Werewolf by Night » Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:56 pm


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movielocke
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Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#117 Post by movielocke » Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:54 pm

Hah, that’s funny I’ve always associated middle age with thirties to mid forties, possibly because growing up, mid-forties to early fifties is when people in our community started becoming grandparents, and in general I don’t think of grandparents as middle aged.

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domino harvey
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#118 Post by domino harvey » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:58 pm

Feel free to age yourself into a different bracket ahead of schedule, but I'll be over here being youthful as fuck

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swo17
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#119 Post by swo17 » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:02 pm

Sorry but you ceased to be young the moment you broke your promise to quit the internet at 30.

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domino harvey
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#120 Post by domino harvey » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:06 pm

I still can't believe I've been posting here for twelve years. To give some context to put that in perspective, when I started posting here, people actually posted on message boards

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#121 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:26 pm

Anyone who likes Darkest Hour has to be considered at least middle aged, regardless of their year of birth.

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Never Cursed
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)

#122 Post by Never Cursed » Fri Mar 09, 2018 8:48 am

I thought it was good and I'm definitely not middle aged, but it is telling that Google AdSense is currently showing me ads for senior vacation tours.

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