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.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.
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
- hearthesilence
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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- Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:00 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.hearthesilence wrote: I didn't hate Lady Bird
- soundchaser
- Leave Her to Beaver
- Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:32 am
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.
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.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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]
- DarkImbecile
- Ask me about my visible cat breasts
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
That's probably not worth responding to, but Colbert for example seems to be relating to the film on the level of a Catholic.
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Poor Sasha’s spent too much time with Jeff Wells.
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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
- soundchaser
- Leave Her to Beaver
- Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:32 am
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.”
- movielocke
- Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.
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.
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Wait, what would you classify as middle aged? The character in the film would be approx. 32 years old in 2018.
- DarkImbecile
- Ask me about my visible cat breasts
- Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
I also take offense at this broadened definition of middle age. I’m a young man, dammit!
<checks thinning hair in mirror again>
<checks thinning hair in mirror again>
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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!
- movielocke
- Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
i graduated one year before Lady Bird and consider myself middle aged. What is mid-thirties if not middle aged?
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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
- movielocke
- Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Feel free to age yourself into a different bracket ahead of schedule, but I'll be over here being youthful as fuck
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Sorry but you ceased to be young the moment you broke your promise to quit the internet at 30.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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
- DarkImbecile
- Ask me about my visible cat breasts
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Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Anyone who likes Darkest Hour has to be considered at least middle aged, regardless of their year of birth.
- Never Cursed
- Such is life on board the Redoutable
- Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am
Re: Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
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.