You have described my exact reaction to the movie down to every word. Though I’d seen him previously in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (and apparently Lincoln, though that appears to be a minor enough role that it seems normal I’d simply forgotten him in it), Colman Domingo wasn’t really on the map for me until this year. This Rustin performance was very solid, and he was really good in The Color Purple too. Glad he’s getting kind of a moment here; I see he’s going to be in Drive-Away Dolls as well.
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I detailed my experience with getting into Chaplin earlier ITT, but I do recommend going more than just one and done with him. I had basically this exact reaction to City Lights as a first watch, but as I got more and more into the Chaplin style the more I watched, I’m convinced that part of it is acclimating to his style.
Because City Lights was my personal guinea pig, I’m pretty sure I owe it another go because I’m guessing I would like it more on round two. Seeing Emma Stone call it her favorite movie of all time further convinced me of this as a necessary part of my eventual to-do list.
Guess I’ll put this here?
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City lights was only other one I added to my list so I’ll check it out
I loved The Sixth Sense when it first came out. Loved it. As the Shyamalan experience got worse and worse, getting really bad at The Village and then absolutely bottoming out at Lady in the Water (I haven’t seen anything from his catalog beyond this and don’t plan to unless something of his gets true raves), I began to suspect that even The Sixth Sense was nothing that great, and that perhaps it was more that his gimmicks worked for a minute until they ran out of steam.
Rewatching The Sixth Sense tonight, and shit this movie is still really enjoyable. And enough time has passed that I’m definitely thinking things like, “Oh shit, young Bruce Willis. Young Toni Collette.”
Had never noticed this before - and by no means is it a criticism, since 1. he’s a kid; and 2. he’s just trying to come up with a lie on the spot anyway - but in the early scene when Cole’s mother leaves the room for a few seconds and then comes back to the scare that all of the cupboards were suddenly opening and he’s just sitting there, it’s kind of funny that he’s sitting in front of a huge bowl full of Cocoa Puffs, and when she says, “were you looking for something?” he replies with “Pop Tarts.”
I also like the recurring thing where the kid - who by all means knows what Bruce Willis is - just doesn’t humor his bullshit for a second. Responds to his magic trick with (paraphrasing), “That isn’t funny, and the so-called magic trick is stupid,” and “boy you’re really bad at improvising stories.”
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I don’t have an opinion of Dakota Johnson yet, and really I don’t even know what to think of Chris Evans either despite thinking he was a solid Captain America over the course of many movies, but count me in for Celine Song/A24/Pedro Pascal.
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Have we gotten any takes about Past Lives from the women of the forum?
My small sample size (sister, mom, wife) says that women are much less impressed with the movie than men, and Im trying to figure out if thats a me thing or if that carries outside of my circle.
They liked it fine, but none of them would put it in their top movies of the year while I have it in my top 5.
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Just looked, and unfortunately IMDb removed its gender/age data that it used to provide with a movie’s rating.
Would have been the best bet I know of at a useful answer with a decent sample size.
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Damn,
Im starting to wonder if men are more likely to connect to a story about pining for a lost love from childhood. I know with my sister she had a vunch of boyfriends throughout highschool, but there was always something that stuck with me about the first girl I fell for around the same age as the characters in the story.
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How interesting. I really enjoyed Greta Lee but didn’t think the movie was all that great. I thought it was excruciatingly slow.
Way back when I worked primarily on romance novels, we found that readers mostly didn’t like second chance romance tropes. They wanted to see a brand new relationship get a shot.
My wife also said it was very slow.
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I assume the readership tended to be more female?
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I mean it’s objectively slow, I don’t know how arguable that is. I just reject the notion of “slow” as a criticism unless it’s meant to be synonymous with “boring.” One might say that a slow movie like that beats the hell out of, say, a hectic and loud two-hour chase through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
There are a variety of paces a film can move at, and there are great works to be found in all of them.
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Agreed and as I mentioned upstream I really appreciated the pacing of the film, especially in dialogue scenes. This is how people really talk. I love Sorkin, but no human talks like he writes them. The slow, methodical time that is taken between responses as the characters consider what has just been told to them is really very well done.
I REALLY, REALLY liked, but didn’t love Past Lives. I had chalked that up to being spoiled on the ending, but maybe there is also something about the ending that resonates differently for men vs women… In my own personal life, I’ve sort of been both of the two male characters at times and never really been in the position of the Greta Lee character, so that probably also changed the way I viewed the film and may be different from the way an average female viewer would experience it.
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Thanks! Would it make your top ten this year?
I think another point of disconnect for many viewers - and this definitely includes me - is that the film is speaking to the immigrant experience. Nora sleep-talks exclusively in Korean. Seeing Hae Sung, she says, simultaneously makes her feel more Korean and less Korean. There’s a clear individual personal connection, but he is also standing in as a symbol of a life she didn’t get to live past age 12.
Since I have never immigrated and don’t plan to, I can only ever hope to achieve a detached academic understanding of what the movie is saying about this. But as I’m certain I’ll keep periodically rewatching the film, it’s one of the things I’ll be interested in continuing to try to unpack.
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Haven’t fully constructed a list, but top 10 for sure, probably top 5 (but there are still a few Oscar nominees that I haven’t seen yet)
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It says something about the movie for me to remember that exact piece of dialogue. I like how deliberate the movie is.
I thought it was a great piece of art, but the experience of it was not at the pace I prefer. For me, Past Lives was excruciatingly slow, but I wouldn’t call it a bad movie or begrudge anyone who rates it at the highest.
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Yes, mostly girls