Green Book reviews

Sabin
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

That’s old news. That’s not great but I don’t really care. I care about Nick being a Trump supporter because it just confirms something we all know about the shallowness of the film’s message of “kindness.”
"How's the despair?"
dws1982
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by dws1982 »

There was also a story today about how Peter Farrelly used to repeatedly flash his penis on movie sets.
Sabin
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

Somebody just unearthed a 2015 tweet from Nick Vallelonga saying:

@realDonaldTrump 100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news.

Two things:
1) Mahershala Ali must feel great.
2) It was 14 years after the towers fell down and right after Trump announced his run for the Presidency. So it’s recent enough. It’s hard to make the claim that he’s, like, become a new person since. How is this movie not done by now ?
"How's the despair?"
MaxWilder
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by MaxWilder »

dws1982, that Office analogy was perfect.

Green Book is a rare PG-13 movie allowed two F-bombs, not just the standard one, presumably because it has "educational" value. Or something. *scoff*
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Greg wrote:
dws1982 wrote:Green Book basically plays that line straight--in multiple scenes, Mortensen is showing Ali how to be more black, by introducing him to fried chicken, by encouraging him to play "real" music in a blacks-only restaurant. . .There's absolutely no reason, other than the lower place his character occupied on the social ladder of 1962 America, that Ali should be considered supporting here.
I have not seen Green Book, so , I do not know all the details; but, something about this struck me as off. I know that Kentucky Fried Chicken was already well established by the time I was born, but, I did not know how long it had been established by then. According to Wikipedia, KFC's first franchises started in 1956; and, by 1963 it had the largest fast-food operation in the United States. So, the movie portrays eating fired chicken as a black thing at a time when the national symbol for fried chicken was Colonel Sanders?
Everyone in America loves fried chicken, but it is a staple of soul food.

As per Wise Geek:
After Lincoln ended slavery, black families turned to soul food for inexpensive sustenance. Fried chicken is considered a soul food. Peach cobbler is a common soul food dessert. Grits are a popular side dish in soul cuisine. Cornbread is a staple of soul food.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Greg »

dws1982 wrote:Green Book basically plays that line straight--in multiple scenes, Mortensen is showing Ali how to be more black, by introducing him to fried chicken, by encouraging him to play "real" music in a blacks-only restaurant. . .There's absolutely no reason, other than the lower place his character occupied on the social ladder of 1962 America, that Ali should be considered supporting here.
I have not seen Green Book, so , I do not know all the details; but, something about this struck me as off. I know that Kentucky Fried Chicken was already well established by the time I was born, but, I did not know how long it had been established by then. According to Wikipedia, KFC's first franchises started in 1956; and, by 1963 it had the largest fast-food operation in the United States. So, the movie portrays eating fired chicken as a black thing at a time when the national symbol for fried chicken was Colonel Sanders?
dws1982
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by dws1982 »

Well if Driving Miss Daisy was too progressive in its portrayal of cross-racial friendship, have I got the movie for you!

This is a movie that, in my opinion, does almost nothing right. It's too eager-to-please, too fixed on the box-office and Oscar race to say anything meaningful, too indulgent of the actors (especially Mortensen) but too neglectful of anyone other than the two leads. It includes a sequence where Mortensen finds out that Ali's character is gay. I'm not going to say that a working-class man from the Bronx would never say what Mortensen says in that scene, but I will say that it's impossible to accept what he says as anything but an attempt to curry favor with 2018 viewers. The character's sexuality is not mentioned even once after that. It typifies this movie's agenda: it wants to pat itself on the back for being "progressive" while (unsuccessfully) hiding its true nature. I remember on The Office, after one character was revealed to be gay, Kelly, who was shallow and obsessed with celebrity culture, started asking him about Lance Bass--probably the only gay celebrity she knows of--and Oscar doesn't know who he is. Kelly's reply is "You need to learn more about your culture." Green Book basically plays that line straight--in multiple scenes, Mortensen is showing Ali how to be more black, by introducing him to fried chicken, by encouraging him to play "real" music in a blacks-only restaurant. This would be the favorite movie of the Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener characters in Get Out. Heinously bad movie.

Ali isn't bad, but Mortensen is just awful. I've not been a fan too often in the past, but this is just embarrassing work. This movie is also a perfect illustration of what Uri is talking about with Lead/Supporting placements. There's absolutely no reason, other than the lower place his character occupied on the social ladder of 1962 America, that Ali should be considered supporting here. Sure, Mortensen may have more screen time, but it's not that much more, and without Ali's character, there would be no reason for a movie at all. Just like his character is barred from eating at the whites only restaurant, it seems Don Shirley is also barred from being considered a leading character. I'd like to see an actor, at some point, buck the system a bit on these absurd category placements, and push to be placed in the correct category, even if it costs him a nomination. Truly an absurd, insulting category placement.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

I love road movies. The best ones (hell, even the good ones) hone in on their protagonist's flaws, shine a light on them, and get them to change. So, here's my question about Green Book: what is Tony's flaw and what is Doc Shirley's flaw? What do they both need to overcome? It seems that it's Tony's racism, but why is that a problem for him outside the fact that all racism is bad? For Doc Shirley, it would seem to be his loneliness, his lack of belonging, not existing one place or the other. But how is that tackled? Notionally, Green Book is the story of Dr. Don Shirley's performance tour through the south to confront racism by simply existing there with dignity, but the film isn't interested in confronting what that means for him really. We're supposed to take our lessons from what is unsaid in Mahershala Ali's performance and in the quiet moments we have with this character. But that's a lot of heavy-lifting required for what I honestly think it's clear in the movie to begin with. There's too much contrivance in this Hollywood film to give it a "it's just a story of people"-pass. For me, this is a story the filmmakers wanted to protect, not dramatize. And that's a shame because there's a lot to like about it. The best thing about Green Book is that Peter Farrelly knows how to direct a road comedy. He knows how to keep the story moving along, get the laughs, hit the beats. The film's final line tells you all you need to know about how seriously they're really taking this subject matter. It never wants to get messy. It only wants to be nice.

I'm fine with movies like Green Book existing. I just don't want them anywhere near Oscar night.
"How's the despair?"
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:Olivia Colman being campaigned for lead and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in support for The Favourite is a rare exception.
Oh is this how the studios are going with their campaign? If so, then the studio just lost their chance to win an Oscar for this film. Colman has no chance of winning in the lead category but will most certainly win if she is nominated in the supporting category.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

When I first saw this being pushed as a potential Oscar winner for Best Picture I laughed out loud. It seemed like we were back in 1992 with My Cousin Vinny taking not just supporting actress but winning Best Picture over Unforgiven, Howards End, The Player and The Crying Game - impossible then, but not so much so now as none of the major releases seems to be taking anyone by storm.

In a perfect world Mortensen and Ali would both be campaigned for lead but the way it generally works when they split the campaigning between two players of more or less equal screen time, the bigger name gets pushed for lead and the lesser name for support. That's the way it worked with Davis and Spencer. That's the way it worked with Travolta and Jackson. Olivia Colman being campaigned for lead and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in support for The Favourite is a rare exception.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by The Original BJ »

I feel like everyone here knows exactly how they're going to respond to this movie. Probably however you feel about The Help is how you're going to feel about this -- for me, that's finding moments of genuine sincerity alongside some very broad ones, in a crowd-pleasing enough but very obvious and predictable piece. (Though I don't think any element of Green Book is as strong as Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer's performances in The Help.)

The screenwriting here is pretty 101 -- you can easily determine both central characters' arcs from the premise alone, much less the early scenes, and it's all very neat and tidy storytelling from beginning to end. There's also a lot of pretty typical civil rights story beats -- I'm at the point where I just don't think I can cluck my tongue at any more movie scenes of a black person being denied the right to use a white bathroom. But the film also gets by on the good humor of its odd couple scenario, the areas of the story that feel a little bit fresher (especially the class/cultural inversion of status of the main characters vis a vis race), and the honest portrait of a black man who feels like he does not fit in either the black or white worlds (which gets complicated in the film's most surprising plot point).

All of this is to say, I found the movie pleasant enough in a harmless way -- it wasn't down there with The Blind Side -- but clearly not the kind of vehicle I'd want to see touted for major prizes.

Both Mortensen and Ali have pretty attention-grabbing roles, and I'd say most folks will be surprised by how different both actors seem to carry themselves than in the roles we've seen them in before. The charm of their interplay -- basically a reverse Driving Miss Daisy -- also really helps buoy the movie along (though Mortensen definitely has moments that are on the broad side).

Can we enlist woke film Twitter to join forces with the category fraud police to carp about Ali's supporting campaign? Certainly anyone who griped about Jackson/Pulp Fiction in the supporting category should be outraged over the argument that the black man in a film that's almost entirely a two-hander is being positioned in support, beneath his white co-star.

Mister Tee, there are A LOT of photos at the top of the end credits you're going to love!
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Green Book reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

Reports are that crowds at Toronto LOVE this. It has the feel of a movie that'll make some of us cringe, but Oscar voters might fall for.

https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/g ... 202937442/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/revie ... ce=twitter
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