Green Book reviews

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OscarGuy
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by OscarGuy »

Unfortunately, we have just the opposite reaction from Sasha Stone who's defending Vallelonga because we shouldn't let "art" be sidetracked by politics. Apart from the utter subjective gymnastics she has to go through to proclaim Green Book art, she's also defended Woody Allen. I defend Allen, but I also acknowledge why he's a problematic individual. I don't defend Louis CK. I don't defend Harvey Weinstein, but Sasha seems like the kind of person who would defend both.

The problem here for me is that Green Book is the Crash of 2018, a white guilt kind of movie that makes white audiences feel they are supporting minorities by supporting a film that's superficially about race relations. When you have both BlacKkKlansman and If Beale Street Could Talk this year, both amazing pieces of art and both dealing far better with race relations than anything else released this year, especially Green Book, and you wonder why people are even trying to support Green Book. It goes back to the notion that these people don't actually care as much about minority rights as they do about having good optics.

Thankfully, voters DO have options other than Crash. In 2005, Crash was up against the "gay cowboy movie," and since that wasn't about race relations, those white saviors chose to recognize the abysmal Crash instead of having to make a tough decision. Of course, we're now in a time when the small movie about gay black men could beat out the big musical about white Hollywood. There is still some hope. Matter of fact, I would love to see Spike win for BlacKkKlansman. Now THAT would actually have something important to say politically and would finally acknowledge that we don't have to be white to tell a story about racial injustice.
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Sabin
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
Had to look it up. This is what I found:
My bad. That was rude. It’s just that was a pretty long post to make a Chicken Little point.
Mister Tee wrote
Not everyone who believed the false story was a reactionary. A good friend of my wife's -- who voted for Hillary and hates Trump down to her bones -- said she thought she remembered seeing it, until I corrected her.
True, but everybody who tweeted support of it may as well be. Especially at/in support of Trump.

You say as much later on, but it’s worth mentioning the distinction between the two. Twitter isn’t private thoughts. It’s putting something on the record. At best, it’s bad optics.
Mister Tee wrote
I've said many times in the past that I think these people have done nothing but hurt the Oscars, and this is their worst moment yet -- even if it results in their demolishing a movie I don't like. In so many ways, I hate living in these times.
This wasn’t a deep investigation, Tee. They went on his Twitter and found out he tweeted at Trump some anti-Muslim shit. They’re not exactly masterminds. I don’t have a ton of sympathy for him either. Let’s say the poor dear was misinformed. He had 14 years to do his research.

Do I like this as a precedent? No. But I’m not quaking in my boots that some message board dorks are going to subterfuge the Oscars from here on out.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Greg »

The Original BJ wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:If you read Nick's biography on IMDb. you'll see his early production work gave prominent acting jobs to Clarence Williams III, Paul Winfield and Louis Gossett, Jr. He may not be "woke" but he's not intrinsically racist either.
Well by that logic, Trump gave jobs to Ben Carson and Omarosa so give the man an NAACP Award!
Except that, for me at least, the NAACP Award would only be analogous to the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, not the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by MaxWilder »

Big Magilla wrote:All this handwringing over an innocuous movie when there are more serious concerns we should all have
In that case we shouldn't be talking about the Oscars or movies at all.
Big Magilla wrote:The film is set in 1962. It feels more attune to the time when Sidney Poitier was emerging as a megastar just a year away from his Oscar win for the similarly simplistic, but undeniably feel good Lilies of the Field.
Which makes it ridiculous that Tony Lip is so evolved when it comes to Shirley's sexuality.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

Oy; I hate to have to take part in this discussion. This movie has now officially joined Parker's Birth of a Nation as a movie you can't talk about without giving at least cursory attention to extraneous elements.

1) The film itself. I never commented on the film here, though I have thrown in thoughts on other threads. Forgive me if I repeat points you've heard. I think the film is clearly a retro piece -- setting it in 1962 is no excuse for adopting a 1962 mind-set on race in America. As I said elsewhere, it's the kind of film that many will pat themselves on the back for liking, as if it proves their racial bona fides, right before they complain about Colin Kaepernick lacking respect. And, however much the filmmakers will point to plot developments to say "each man helps the other", you can really tell this was written from the white guy's point of view, as his realizations are almost subconscious, where Shirley's are all out in the open and delivered as lessons.

I have an equal problem with the film for its filmmaking faults. This is the kind of script I fear would get an A+ in many film classes because of the relentless way it plots out its beats -- it's the sort of project where the surprises arrive on schedule. Over the whole two hours, only two narrative developments struck me as interesting: how they got sprung from the Louisiana jail (though I guessed the punch line about 45 seconds before it was delivered), and Linda Cardellini's final line. It's, frankly, exactly the sort of mechanical script I would expect from a guy who's made his living in Hollywood dreck, and thinks you can delve into serious subjects in the same basic way. (Obviously many here disagree, but I think the difference between this film and Adam McKay's recent work is night and day.) The film isn't as bad as The Blind Side -- it's not nearly as shameless -- but it springs from the same "let's work the audience" approach, rather than seeking any genuine feeling.

Oh, and I completely agree with dws (I think it was he who said it), that Lip's benign reaction to Shirley's gay tryst is grafting millennial attitudes onto a period piece. Look at how characters on The Sopranos, 40-odd years later, dealt with Vito's gayness to get a better idea of how that would have been viewed.

2) I don't think everyone connected with the film can be accused (as some suggest) of "dangerous" racial pandering. I have no doubt Octavia Spencer sees this as a genuinely uplifting story, and many among the actors I'm sure feel the same. The fact that their taste in scripts sucks doesn't make them reactionary. I'm reminded of how poor Gene Hackman, who idolized Martin Luther King, was forced to defend Mississippi Burning, another would-be-liberal-but-sort-of-retro race movie. I'm guessing all the creators think they're making something progressive, and the fact they have limited talent doesn't mean they're monsters.

3) That stupid "Muslims were celebrating in Jersey City" meme got started, I believe, when some news footage was shown of Muslims celebrating 9/11 overseas (that did happen), and at roughly the same time it was noted that Jersey City had a significant Muslim population. The two got conflated, possibly with the aid of some right-wing site (the same sort that helped turn the 2016 election with false Facebook stories). Not everyone who believed the false story was a reactionary. A good friend of my wife's -- who voted for Hillary and hates Trump down to her bones -- said she thought she remembered seeing it, until I corrected her.

4) Villelonga, however, doesn't seem the sort to want correction. Apparently his Twitter account follows Ann Coulter and the other right wing suspects.

Which doesn't negate his right to art prizes. V.S. Naipaul's politics were pretty right-wing, and that doesn't make his writing any more or less good. But this will now likely be a factor (especially since it validates what some of us felt, that Green Book is the sort of racial movie a reactionary could write).

5) The biggest problem I have with all this is that it was specifically AIMED at bringing down an Oscar contender (talk about low stakes). The tweet was evidently uncovered and then sent viral by somebody at Awards Watch who objected to the movie's politics and set out to "take it down". People over there at the site are hooting and hollering "We won!", thinking they've single-handedly taken away an award from somebody. Some are shouting, Now on to Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice! Anything they don't like should be subject to villainization. This has the overlay of Madame De Farge at her knitting. And now, if Green Book doesn't win the Oscar/WGA prize (which it might not have won anyway), they'll claim this campaign was the reason, and they'll want to do it more going ahead. Another possibility: it could get some voters' backs up, and cause them to vote for the damn thing where they previously might not have. In any case, politics and Internet spite will have totally overwhelmed whatever artistic judgment was left in the Oscars.

I've said many times in the past that I think these people have done nothing but hurt the Oscars, and this is their worst moment yet -- even if it results in their demolishing a movie I don't like. In so many ways, I hate living in these times.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Sabin wrote:tl, dr
Had to look it up. This is what I found:

TL;DR, short for "too long; didn't read", is Internet slang to say that some text being replied to has been ignored because of its length. In slang it can also stand for "Too lazy; didn't read". It is also used as a signifier for a summary of an online post or news article. The phrase dates back to at least 2003, and was added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2013.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

tl, dr
"How's the despair?"
Big Magilla
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

All this handwringing over an innocuous movie when there are more serious concerns we should all have, reminds me of a lesson I learned as a child from Chicken Little.

Chicken Little likes to walk in the woods. She likes to look at the trees. She likes to smell the flowers. She likes to listen to the birds singing.
One day while she is walking an acorn falls from a tree, and hits the top of her little head.
- My, oh, my, the sky is falling. I must run and tell the lion about it, - says Chicken Little and begins to run.
She runs and runs. By and by she meets the hen.
- Where are you going? - asks the hen.
- Oh, Henny Penny, the sky is falling and I am going to the lion to tell him about it.
- How do you know it? - asks Henny Penny.
- It hit me on the head, so I know it must be so, - says Chicken Little.
- Let me go with you! - says Henny Penny. - Run, run.
So the two run and run until they meet Ducky Lucky.
- The sky is falling, - says Henny Penny. - We are going to the lion to tell him about it.
- How do you know that? - asks Ducky Lucky.
- It hit Chicken Little on the head, - says Henny Penny.
- May I come with you? - asks Ducky Lucky.
- Come, - says Henny Penny.
So all three of them run on and on until they meet Foxey Loxey.
- Where are you going? - asks Foxey Loxey.
- The sky is falling and we are going to the lion to tell him about it, - says Ducky Lucky.
- Do you know where he lives? - asks the fox.
- I don't, - says Chicken Little.
- I don't, - says Henny Penny.
- I don't, - says Ducky Lucky.
- I do, - says Foxey Loxey. - Come with me and I can show you the way.
He walks on and on until he comes to his den.
- Come right in, - says Foxey Loxey.
They all go in, but they never, never come out again.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by The Original BJ »

Big Magilla wrote:If you read Nick's biography on IMDb. you'll see his early production work gave prominent acting jobs to Clarence Williams III, Paul Winfield and Louis Gossett, Jr. He may not be "woke" but he's not intrinsically racist either.
Well by that logic, Trump gave jobs to Ben Carson and Omarosa so give the man an NAACP Award!
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

Sabin wrote:Why are people out to get this film? Because it sells a simplistic message of togetherness that isn't in fashion right now among some circles. It's a feel-good film about our racist past. Clearly, that's the reason. It presents homily as a cure-all. So, there are people out there that are trying to deauthenticate it. And why not? I didn't find it terribly believable when I saw it. It feels like a half-told story -- and I don't mean the Tony Lip side. I mean, the film itself feels half-told, surface-level, phony. I had the same feeling when I saw The Hurricane. Every moment screamed at me, "This didn't happen."

Now we know that Nick Vallelonga tweeted support to Trump and spoke about Muslims cheering the towers falling down.

How can I be clearer: I care about Nick Vallelonga's tweets because Green Book seems like the kind of message of racial unity conceived of by a Trump supporter.

Voting for Trump isn't even a disqualifier for me. I know some Trump supporters who just honestly were duped by the guy and couldn't stomach Hillary. But this guy isn't one of those people. When Trump started spouting his racist, divisive rhetoric, Nick was one of the guys he was speaking to. Trust me.
The film is set in 1962. It feels more attune to the time when Sidney Poitier was emerging as a megastar just a year away from his Oscar win for the similarly simplistic, but undeniably feel good Lilies of the Field.

I don't know where this "Muslims dancing in Jersey" stuff came from. I doubt it's something Trump made up. Like all Orange Hitler's crap, it likely came from something he heard and exploited, something that Nick Vallelonga may have him himself heard and conflated in his memory with what he actually saw at the time. I live in Southern Jersey. Many of my neighbors came from Northern Jersey and believe the same bullshit. They were or are all Trump supporters. They're all deluded. None of them think they're in the least bit prejudiced. They all like Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah and the hardworking Mexicans who do their yardwork but believe the garbage they hear on Fox News and conservative talk radio.

If you read Nick's biography on IMDb. you'll see his early production work gave prominent acting jobs to Clarence Williams III, Paul Winfield and Louis Gossett, Jr. He may not be "woke" but he's not intrinsically racist either.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Sabin »

Would you care if the writer of Schindler's List tweeted about "globalists?"

Would you care if the writer of Milk didn't support gay marriage?

List of Green Book's "controversies" I don't care about. I don't care that Viggo used the n-word in a Q&A. I don't care that Peter Farrelly flashed his penis on set. I ultimately don't care that the family of Dr. Shirley weren't consulted because it seems like he said/she said, because ultimately that's a choice. It would have been nice but, y'know.

Why are people out to get this film? Because it sells a simplistic message of togetherness that isn't in fashion right now among some circles. It's a feel-good film about our racist past. Clearly, that's the reason. It presents homily as a cure-all. So, there are people out there that are trying to deauthenticate it. And why not? I didn't find it terribly believable when I saw it. It feels like a half-told story -- and I don't mean the Tony Lip side. I mean, the film itself feels half-told, surface-level, phony. I had the same feeling when I saw The Hurricane. Every moment screamed at me, "This didn't happen."

Now we know that Nick Vallelonga tweeted support to Trump and spoke about Muslims cheering the towers falling down.

How can I be clearer: I care about Nick Vallelonga's tweets because Green Book seems like the kind of message of racial unity conceived of by a Trump supporter.

Voting for Trump isn't even a disqualifier for me. I know some Trump supporters who just honestly were duped by the guy and couldn't stomach Hillary. But this guy isn't one of those people. When Trump started spouting his racist, divisive rhetoric, Nick was one of the guys he was speaking to. Trust me.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

From the article:

"(Green Book) premiered at September's Toronto International Film Festival, it was greeted by a tumultuous standing ovation and went on to win the festival's audience award over frontrunner A Star Is Born."

And there you have the seeds of the backlash exacerbated by Green Book's win and A Star Is Born's loss at the Globes even though they were in different categories.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:If you don't like a movie because of what's up on the screen, that's your prerogative but all this external stuff that has nothing to do with it is outrageous.
I agree. Too much of this hate nonsense has been going around now on a regular basis which is scary.
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Okri »

Big Magilla
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Re: Green Book reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

All this anti-Green Book crap is coming from IndieWire. Why? Who is behind this smear campaign?

The stupid Trump supporter tweet was taken down after it resurfaced on IndieWire.

Dr. Shirley disinherited his family. Maybe that has something to do with their trashing of the film.

If you don't like a movie because of what's up on the screen, that's your prerogative but all this external stuff that has nothing to do with it is outrageous.
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