Dave Bautista is interesting because he can pull off “I’m big and dumb but you can buy I’m smart too” in a way that I can’t see, say, Liam Hemsworth doing as well.
For some reason Madelyn Cline has been featured in a lot of the Youtube videos about the movie. I’d like to see Jessica Henwick get some of the love.
This is a good point, and does get to the heart of why art has its own category of value, if that expression makes any sense.
Wellllll, not quite. Dang, I really don’t like to be doing anything that could even superficially appear to be excusing the Taliban destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, but the point was that those “idolatrous” statues were existing in a Muslim country under the Taliban’s jurisdiction. Thus in theory making the Taliban Islamist-extremist theocratic government responsible for the statues’ continued existence. Which, according to their rigid fundamentalist theology, is blasphemy.
Even among fanatical Wahhabi and similar extremist Muslim sects, AFAICT, it is not mandated to destroy “idolatrous” imagery in the "idolaters’ " own territory. But allowing it to exist in places that you control means that you are at least implicitly condoning idolatry. Which is a very big no-no.
(Naturally, in my own personal view none of that rationale in any way justifies the gratuitous destruction of priceless historical artifacts. But I think there is a meaningful distinction to be made between this motive for the destruction and the somewhat different one you were assigning to it.)
Yes, the film has done an enormous amount of work to get us to empathise with Helen and even to relish (in the moment) the destruction of teh Mona Lisa, which is quite an effect to achieve and very powerful one even to aim for.
I’m regularly confused about what is/is not an acceptable hijack. Should the destruction of art get a separate thread? Because I find many of the comments here quite qurious, but am hesitant to continue what seems a hijack.
I tend to be a preservationist. But was surprised how little the fictional destruction of the Mona Lisa moved me. Sure, it is unique and irreplaceable. But I wonder how many items have been studied more than the ML, such that very close facsimiles could be created. I’m surprised at the strength of emotion for this specific thing. Why would the destruction bother you, if you could see a facsimile that was indistinguishable to nearly everyone? (And yes, I’m assuming that however distraught you would be at the idea of art destruction, this is relatively low on the list of societal issues that move you.)
Pieces of art have been destroyed throughout history. The Afghan example is a great recent one. What if the Taliban requests that looted art in western museums be repatriated - so they could destroy it? And cultural history is regularly destroyed in wars.
I have been dismayed in the past when buildings I loved were razed for the sake of “progress.” I’m trying to think of a single artwork that would affect me as much. And historical/natural areas have been destroyed by dams and such. I’m pretty much of the opinion that, if an item is privately owned, the owner is free to destroy it. Probably a good argument for cultural artifacts to be owned and protected by the most stable and secure governments.
Not trying to convince any of you art lovers to think differently. Just trying to suss out why some folk seem to feel so strongly about some pieces of art. How long is the list of “irreplaceable” art? Is it relatively short with a few universally agreed upon “treasures.” Or far more expansive?
I considered starting a new thread on this, but didn’t think that appropriate with so much of the discussion taking place here - with mod participation.
Real vs. replication was discussed at some length in the thread about the Elgin marbles, if you want a recent one more aligned with the topic.
Fundamentally, you pretty much can’t get someone to care about the things you care about, if they just don’t care about it.
Using your example of architecture. In my city, there was a downtown building that was left vacant for decades, right in the middle of one of our major tourist and shopping areas, because of a conflict between those who wanted to tear it down and replace it, and those who insisted the facade was “historic” and “important”, and any redevelopment plan had to preserve the original facade intact. Even a perfect reproduction was unacceptable. And preservation would add enormously to any redevelopment plan, so no one could ever make a plan that made economic sense.
And I just could not care a whit about that facade. To me, it was just a generic building, and had I owned it, I would have torn it down any used the space without hesitation.
Spoiler Alert: They ended up tearing it down after a “homeless guy” “accidentally” started a fire in the basement.
Perhaps relevant is a line from one of my favorite poems, e.e. cummings’s pity this busy monster, manunkind:
For all his issues, and although the premise of the sonnet is debatable, I think this line gets to the heart of why I’m on team Helen.
What could Blanc do?
pull some strings, apparently.
He’d pull some strings.
But, realistically, he probably has connections with the/a mayor or police chief to keep it out of the press. Maybe even a connection with the ME to delay IDing the body.
Ninja’d. I just had to keep typing.
I’d imagine that Blanc has a pretty good network of people willing to help him out with stuff like that, out of gratitude for him helping them with various legal jams.
I mean, look who he plays Among Us with. Dude knows people.
(Incidentally I completely missed the name “Philip” in the critical scene and thought that Blanc simply shared an apartment with Hugh Grant. Seemed plausible)
Moderating:
It’s complicated, because Great Debates and P&E enforce very tight topics, whereas IMHO and Cafe Society are more expansive, MPSIMS even more flexible, and pretty much anything goes with regards to hijacks in the Pit.
I think everything said so far is fine for this thread. It’s clearly relevant to understanding this movie to understanding how people feel about the destruction of great works of are. But if this is a topic you’d like to explore in more depth, I encourage you to start a new thread, as much to attract people who haven’t watched this movie as to prevent hijacking this thread. Feel free to start by linking posts here.
I was also sorry to miss this in the theater. I’ve just watched it on Netflix. I’ll have to say, I enjoyed the first movie much more. It seemed like everything was tighter. It was a very clear deconstruction of the genre and its tropes.
In this installment, I was a little disappointed to see that Benoit Blanc was so heavily involved in the “revelation” portion of the story. But … maybe that’s also a deconstruction of the genre?
A lot of great things have already been said in this thread, so it’s hard to add to that.
I’ll say this though: it seems to me that Rian Johnson’s scripts work better when he is concentrating on plot, because he doesn’t write people very well, certainly not dialogue.
The other thing I’ll add is this: Throughout the entire bathtub scene in the beginning, the only thought in my head was, “How is he going to get out of that tub without ruining all his stuff, including his computer?”
Also, good catch regarding Hugh Grant’s character. The whole time I was thinking, “Who the fuck has a butler in a tiny apartment?” and “He isn’t behaving like a butler or valet.” D’oh! Of course! Hugh is his domestic partner! The apron really threw me off. Had he been dressed normally, I would have caught on faster.
There’s a table next to the tub. But even without that, he could probably just set it on one of the stacks of books. In the movie, I’m sure Phillip could have grabbed it. But those tables that go across the tub have been around for a while now.
Come to think of it, there’s no reason he couldn’t just push the whole tray to the far end of the tub and be careful not to drip on it as he stands up.
Ignore the circle, someone on reddit was using the picture to point something out.
Who in the year of our Lord 2020 had a butler at all? Outside of a head of state, that is. I’m confused over how many people thought Philip was a butler. I picked up that they were partners as soon as the other computer game players mentioned him.
I was just checking to see if maybe he was credited as a butler (nope) or someone called him that (no mention of ‘butler’ in the script), but I did find out that Hugh Grant has stated that Phillip and Blanc are married. According to Grant, “It is true, I’m married to James Bond,”
So that answers that.
There’s no way I could take a bath, much less exit from a bath, without soaking everything on that floor within two feet of the tub.
Sounds like you need a butler to help you get out without making a mess.
But, realistically, he could probably just push the tray to the far end of the tub and be careful.
To be fair, the moment you bring your laptop into a bathtub you’re already accepting the risk that you may end up ruining it.