Am I the only person who loved Closer?? Or just the only person who’s seen it? I never heard of it, and never noticed any previews or hype about it whatsoever. But I wanted to see a movie on Friday, and my friend suggested we see it. She basically just wanted to see Jude Law and she said there was a lot of sex and cheating and lieing in the movie. Even though there were no sex scenes, there was a lot of all that. We both really liked it.
This movie rocked, and in a way that most all Dopers can appreciate. People were leaving and mumbling about how they really didn’t like it. How it was boring, or how it was “different”.
Yeah, I guess if by “different”, you mean that it wasn’t mindless drabble with gratuitous explosions, no plot, poor acting, and unecessary nudity (oxymoron?), then, yeah ok I guess it is “different” then most movies.
I think one person even said “Did you follow any of that”. Holy crap, it was a total mind fuck. It wasn’t like Momento or (I forget the title… that one movie with the random hotel, the dark rainy night, the schizophrenic, all the characters were just his different personalities…) anyway, it was not even slightly difficult to follow. At most, one would just have to spark of a couple brain cells and figure out that time had passed when it did. The next scene would just end up being a year or a couple months later, and no mention was made but it was pretty freaking obvious by the conversations. Like in the first scene he just meets this girl. And in the next thing he is talking about a book he wrote about her and how he’s been with her for a year or something. That’s pretty obvious, I think. What is wrong with people.
Anyway, if you did watch it. Did you notice what happened at the end? With the passport and the cemetary?
I bet some of you Dopers probably saw the play this was based on? Was it good? How was it different/same?
I hated, hated, hated this movie. Sorry. I enjoyed the dialogue, and the acting, and could intellectually appreciate it on some level, but there was zero emotional connection with these people. I didn’t like them, I didn’t care about them, I didn’t care what they did to whom. How could I, when you never see them alone or wtih anybody but one of the other 3 people, and after the first fifteen minutes or so you never see anything of their lives, only them hurting somebody else’s feelings?
It seemed it would work better as a play to me (and when I got home I found out it was - I think I’d have liked the play more.) The guy I saw it with felt the same way - vaugely soiled. Which is not to say I can’t like a movie in which I like none of the people, but I didn’t like this movie that was like that.
Maybe the fact that I connected with these cruel, manipulative, lieing people says something about me on a personal level Maybe I just really got off on all the cruelty.
If you’re not like one of these people, have you ever been in a relationship with one? Ever been cheated on? Ever been hit? Jealous? There is much to connect with.
I liked the doctor except for when his bitch-ass was crying. My favorite, of course, was Portman’s character and I’m glad she ended it the way she did.
I heard that Julia Roberts was talking about how she could not bear to watch this movie after filming. She absolutely hated how awful a person her character was. Being married, she couldn’t imagine herself ever hurting her husband the way her character did.
Did you not laugh at all during the movie? I cracked up during the cybersex scene, and for somereason, the line:
Toad, Frog, Lobster… they’re all the same fucking thing!!!Had me laughing forever. Mainly because it’s exactly something like I would say. And in the exact same loud, random and nonsensical way.
I’ll be seeing it once my finals are over, both my girlfriend and I really want to see this movie. Her for Jude Law and me for Natalie Portman. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks…
Well, I don’t know what these people were like, or why they did anything, because we never saw them do anything but be brilliantly catty at each other. (I did like the doctor a bit - one almost saw some passion there, in a scene or two.) You never even see them overwhelmed by passion and falling into bed with each other - just the aftermath. There was no “hook” for me to identify with them - after the movie I kept trying to figure them out, but had to conclude I didn’t have any data whatsoever - there was nothing there that revealed them in any meaningful sense. I couldn’t connect with them and say “that’s just like the time I broke up with ___” or “she is sooo like ____'s ex” - all they were was sort of generically selfish. They weren’t even interestingly selfish - after a while I caught myself making up motivations for them that weren’t in any way supported by anything they said or did, because there was so little there to care about.
Reading the link, I doubt the director will include those shots since he’s painted as rather protective and paternal.
Which is a shame. While the movie doesn’t look bad, the only reason I was even mildly interested was for those scenes which I only found out about yesterday or the day before.
I’ll watch it eventually though. I’m not quite so hormonal that I allow nudity to rule my cinema choices.
Yeah, I caught all that - it didn’t really make me reevaluate the character, though, because it didn’t really change anything we knew about her (because, like I said, we didn’t know anything about her). It only had meaning for the bit with Larry, which makes the two interesting bits of the movie connected, I guess.
Alright, for those of you who “get” the ending in the graveyard and the customs office, did you catch the fact that right before the credits roll we see that
It casts the things she said to Dan and Larry in a whole different light. I’d love to try to figure out if any of the characters really knew what they wanted, or if any of them ended up with what they wanted.
Sorry but director Mike Nichols has said that the footage of Portman’s hey-nani-nani has actually been destroyed and will not be included in the DVD release.
We finally saw it last night - not sure that it’s going to be around much longer, I don’t think it’s doing all that well at the box office. I thought that Julia Roberts’ character was the cruelest of them all. Yeah, Clive Owen’s doctor is a nasty guy but Anna seemed downright devious to me. I loved the interaction between Clive and Natalie, some really great dialogue and acting there. I was disappointed in Jude’s character, in fact in several scenes he seemed to be just in a daze (perhaps
that was the direction he received?). I can’t imagine seeing this as a play, wow talk about intensity.
It’s a really good movie in a year full of good movies, so I predict no nominations for the actors, maybe something for screenplay or director. I loved the song at the beginning and end, who is that singing? It was kinda Buckley-ish, but I’m sure it’s someone more recent.
The cyber sex “dialog” just turned me off. And who would act like Julia Roberts did? Overall the movie felt like watching someone paint a beautiful painting with human excrement.
I’m glad Portman’s nude scenes were cut. Nothing could live up to my imagination.
And that’s probably why it won’t do as good as it could have. Like it or not, a hell of a lot of guys would have gone to see the movie just to see her tush…I wouldn’t have, as the rest of the movie looks totally uninteresting to me. And I also think it cheapens her as an actor for her to make that decision to do a (while not stricltly tastefull, but not sleezy) nude scene, and then the director become all fatherly and not only cut it, but then destroy it so that it can’t ever be scene by anyone. Except of course the 50 or 60 people on the set when it was filmed :rolleyes:
Rest assured, Clive Owen and Natalie Portman are virtually assured Supporting nominations. Nichols has an outside chance and the screenplay will probably be recognized.
Damien Rice, if I’m not mistaken.
And FTR, Portman does show quite a lot of her butt (though the light isn’t the most flattering), so not everything was cut.
I enjoyed the dialogue, and the acting, and could intellectually appreciate it on some level, but there was zero emotional connection with these people. I didn’t like them, I didn’t care about them, I didn’t care what they did to whom. How could I, when you never see them alone or wtih anybody but one of the other 3 people, and after the first fifteen minutes or so you never see anything of their lives, only them hurting somebody else’s feelings?
Maybe I just really got off on all the cruelty.