Come anticipate Art School Confidential with me (cf. Art students of the world, RECOVER)

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Oy. I'm so excited. I just can't hide it. I went to Pratt. New School Sculpture studio has the comic posted predominantly on the floor.

― Jimmy Mod: My theme is DEATH (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Tuesday, 18 April 2006 02:29 (twenty years ago)

It was satisfying but not nearly as good as Ghost World (nor Pecker).

There's an entire murder-mystery element introduced that is akin to Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer type of teen comedy/horror flick. Similar to 5 minute SNL skits dragged out over 90 minutes, much of the 2nd act/3rd act plot was weak and one-dimensional.

Ghost World (the film) embodied and commented on the themes/statements of Art School Confidential (the comic) better than ASC (the film).

But it's very funny in places.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:46 (twenty years ago)

It's disquieting how the TV ads sell it as Bad Santa Goes to Art School.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:53 (twenty years ago)

This whole premise sounds so pointless and unfunny. Ooh look I parodied some art students, yeah I bet that was real hard...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:55 (twenty years ago)

I love Bad Santa, but I have my doubts about this one.

― The Mercury Krueger (Ex Leon), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

There is one character that could have be straight out of Bad Santa.

The film seemed to be a battle of Clowes' ideas and Zwigoff's and Zwigoff won.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:59 (twenty years ago)

I think I will rent Crumb instead.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:04 (twenty years ago)

if i hated ghost world and loved bad santa you think i will like?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:18 (twenty years ago)

ie, is it full of testosterone?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:23 (twenty years ago)

yes morbius, that's my thing.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:26 (twenty years ago)

are you a bigger fan of clowes or zwigoff?

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:32 (twenty years ago)

ts. bad santa vs. sensual santa!

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:40 (twenty years ago)

ghost world was a battle of clowe's ideas and zwigoff's and zwigoff won there too. director trumps writer shockah. i'll still definitely see this, the orginal strip's fantastic though i can't imagine it does much here beyond provide a couple of punchlines. i'm thinking mike judge would be a better fit for clowes but i'm not sure he matches up well with any of the big likely to be adapted's out there. i'm not sure if egoyan or linklater match up better for ice haven, i'm thinking michael bay for david boring.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:45 (twenty years ago)

(actually) blount,
I might have agreed with you yesterday, but after seeing ASC, I realized that Clowes left a much, much larger imprint on Ghost World.

The elements where Zwigoff throws Clowes a bone* in ASC are few and far between.

*in terms of dialogue, charicatures, relationships, etc.

FWIW, neither Clowes (Berkeley) or Zwigoff (San Francisco) attended the SF premiere last night.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:52 (twenty years ago)

yeah i still probably have at least one conversation a year where i bitch about how they fucked over becky in the movie just so zwigoff could tittyfuck a teenager.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

i'm thinking michael bay for david boring.

I hurt now.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:07 (twenty years ago)

i found zwigoff (and maybe clowes too) kinda bleached out all the interesting and brilliant stuff out of ghost world and just left in the not-as-interesting teenage misanthropy stuff.

and they TOTALLY fucked over becky!!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:15 (twenty years ago)

Yes, it was disappointing.

― The Mercury Krueger (Ex Leon), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:34 (twenty years ago)

Comic boyz expecting Talmudic fidelity from movies shockah

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:42 (twenty years ago)

dr morbius talking out his ass shockah

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:44 (twenty years ago)

There is no way that Seymour could beat up Bruce Wayne, even before his training from the League of Shadows.

No, seriously. Changes to make a story clearer and more concise? Fine. Changes to make characters more interesting? Also fine. Changes to get a teen hottie to bang a middle aged dude for the ego gratification of the director? Fuck that shit.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

aw s1ocki, don't turn to the Dark Side.

Yeah, cuz Seymour came off lookin' so good as a result?!

I hear Zwigoff left out the The Scouring of the Shire in ASC.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:49 (twenty years ago)

you started it morbius!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:50 (twenty years ago)

The relationship between the two girls was what made Ghost World special, the Seymour story that replaced it in the film was okay, but not as good. I don't say movie adaptations should be faithful in general, but in this particular case the change made the movie worse than it could've been.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 17:53 (twenty years ago)

I really don't get how having Seymour and whatsername sleep together = tittyfuck for Zwigoff...?

(also I only know the first few chapters of the comic book in Ghost World, cuz that was around the time I stopped reading Eightball.)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:04 (twenty years ago)

I mean the two characters sleeping together was not in any way lurid or even positively portrayed - it made everyone involved look like a stupid idiot (Enid spent the whole movie being a very unsympathetic character, as far as I'm concerned. Seymour only slightly less so).

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:07 (twenty years ago)

tittyfucking occured?

― kingfish, Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

I totally missed that scene.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:28 (twenty years ago)

you miss alot!

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

Director's Cut, dude.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 27 April 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, anybody who thought that GW hookup was titillating for anybody, or meant to be -- they must have it mixed up with American Beauty (which was inadvertently hilarious for being perpetrated by several gay men).

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 April 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

who said it was titillating?

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

christ American Beauty is so bad.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

it's very very close to being the same movie as ghost world

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

eh. Buscemi >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Spacey

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:11 (twenty years ago)

o god yeah! don't get me wrong - ghost world >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> american beauty.

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:12 (twenty years ago)

I see what you mean tho - the whole "disaffected teenagers + hey didja ever notice that suburbs are a horrible seething mass of self-delusion and stunted growth?" thing...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:15 (twenty years ago)

christ American Beauty is so bad.
-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), Today 2:01 PM. (Shakey Mo Collier) (later)

it's very very close to being the same movie as ghost world
-- j blount (jamesbloun...), Today 2:09 PM. (papa la bas)

lost in translation

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:18 (twenty years ago)

― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:26 (twenty years ago)

one thing i like about rushmore is how it flips the paradigm (slightly).

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

and on that note: in art school confidential has this very similar device (replace 90s old man cliche with 80s rich/normal/popular cliche).

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

"didn't he listen to her mixtape???"

ROFFLEZ

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

("replace 90s old man cliche with 80s rich/normal/popular cliche")

REALITY BITES

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

I would be so much more excited if this was a Dan Pussey movie.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:45 (twenty years ago)

TS Art School Confidential v Art School Sluts

― scrimhaw1837 (son_of_scrimshaw), Thursday, 27 April 2006 20:47 (twenty years ago)

there was this hilarious interview with robert crumb a few years ago where he said re: ghost world that "a middle-aged record collector who gets laid by a teenage girl is pretty much terry's biggest fantasy."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:57 (twenty years ago)

IOW Zwigoff wants to be R. Crumb

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:58 (twenty years ago)

Was that the one in Pulse? I remember they had an article right before GW came out where Zwigoff said "When I was in high school, I was pretty much obsessed with teenage girls."

Wow! That's amazing! And highly unusual!

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Thursday, 27 April 2006 22:59 (twenty years ago)

http://www.ezrabuzzington.com/A%20MOVIE%20PHOTOS/GHOST%20WORLD/Thora%20Birch.JPG

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 28 April 2006 05:41 (twenty years ago)

I read Zwigoff is himself an oldies record collector, and it seems pretty obvious Seymour was kind of a stand-in for him. That doesn't mean Ghost World is his masturbation fantasy, though. I didn't mind the Enid/Seymour thing in that sense, I just thought it wasnt' a good move to focus on their relationship rather than Enid/Becky, which was the best thing in the comic.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 28 April 2006 07:26 (twenty years ago)

I saw ASC this afternoon and liked it a lot more than I was expecting. It's basically the Zwigoff/Clowes version of a goofy college movie like Real Genius, Revenge Of The Nerds, or even Animal House than as any sort of thematic follow-on from Ghost World.

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 7 May 2006 23:50 (twenty years ago)

Best parts were the throw-away gags: Jerome's parents hugging in the kitchen, the "Eno" student, the film student roommate who transforms into Kevin Smith, etc.

― LOL Thomas (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 7 May 2006 23:52 (twenty years ago)

it's terrible.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:40 (twenty years ago)

im counting on this to bring the lolz

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:51 (twenty years ago)

don't.

laughs = 0

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

there is only one reason to see this movie and it lasts about 5 seconds.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

youtube?

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:56 (twenty years ago)

i dont think youtube will let you upload a clip of malkvich waving his sac around

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

not only are all of the funny jokes in the trailer, they're actually cut a lot funnier there.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:58 (twenty years ago)

but... bad santa... so funny....

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:00 (twenty years ago)

bad santa is probably my favourite comedy of like... the last 10 years, so believe me i'm with you bro.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:01 (twenty years ago)

haha slocki youre probly my most trusted film critic even tho i only read you on ilx

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:02 (twenty years ago)

that said ill probly still end up seeing this - is it at least a passable date movie?

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:03 (twenty years ago)

what bad santa knows but this movie doesn't: if you're going to have a technically "unsympathetic" main character make him hilarious and entertaining to watch (and if possible played by billy bob thornton), not pouty and boring

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:04 (twenty years ago)

if by "date movie" you mean "do you get to see quite a few shots of a withered penis," then the answer is yes yes yes.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:04 (twenty years ago)

not good

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Slocki OTM.

This is a lot more like Saved! than Bad Santa.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

but i really liked saved!

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:18 (twenty years ago)

I wouldn't be in any rush to see it (unless it's in the dollar theater)... it's very rentable.

FWIW: I can't remember what the "very funny" scenes were that I mentioned way up at the top of the thread. That said, I didn't hate the movie, just thought it was mostly filler.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:51 (twenty years ago)

Can I back up a whole ways and note that GW did not necessarily fuck over Becky -- at least not unless you came at the character with certain prejudices already in mind. One of the things I like about it, actually: it's one of those rare narratives where you can get in touch with the flaws and failings of the main character to the point where you're equally sympathetic with her and those who are (at times) against her.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:05 (twenty years ago)

it's not that they got becky's character wrong, they just sort of left her out of the movie!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:07 (twenty years ago)

Bingo.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:11 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, kinda scant treatment, but I felt like it was really effective treatment. It reminded me of Salinger, actually, how there are all these times when Salinger has the impulse to be anti-bourgeoise but in the end he can't, because he's continually deciding that normal "boring" people are actually so beautiful and brave and impressive to him -- I get that same sense from the Becky bits of the movie.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:11 (twenty years ago)

It reminded me of Salinger, actually, how there are all these times when Salinger has the impulse to be anti-bourgeoise but in the end he can't, because he's continually deciding that normal "boring" people are actually so beautiful and brave and impressive to him.

This is the middle act of ASC.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:16 (twenty years ago)

i dunno, he seemed to use becky purely as a normal foil to enid's eccentricity which to me was like the most boring way to go.

one of the interesting things about the comic was that it was ENID who wanted to go away to college and becky that resented her for it.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:17 (twenty years ago)

the movie turned their relationship into "weird girl + normal friend."

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:21 (twenty years ago)

also can i say that for a movie based on a book called GHOST WORLD (which had this great limited palette & gorgeous art), there seemed very little effort put into you know, visuals.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:23 (twenty years ago)

pox: acclaimed award winning amerindie flix where old white dude wants to fuck big-titted young white girl their common bond being they're both assholes that are too cool for the room. (gw and lit both even have poor actual adult woman scorned for liking music hep old dude thinks ain't hep at all maan with bigtitted young girl o so pissed and angry cuz how could he do it - don't he know they have a bond? it's just them against the world? how could he hook up with someone who actually likes ashford & simpson/maria muldaur??? didn't he listen to her mixtape???)
-- j blount (jamesbloun...), April 27th, 2006 2:26 PM. (papa la bas)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
one thing i like about rushmore is how it flips the paradigm (slightly).
-- Steve Shasta (steveshast...), April 27th, 2006 2:28 PM. (Steve Shasta)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and on that note: in art school confidential has this very similar device (replace 90s old man cliche with 80s rich/normal/popular cliche).
-- Steve Shasta (steveshast...), April 27th, 2006 2:30 PM. (Steve Shasta)

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:27 (twenty years ago)

it would've been cool if they'd tried to film it entirely in that weird dead-channel TV blue that the book's saturated in: it might've been kind of hard to watch though.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

xpost

GW Balaban-dad and girlfriend, too, totally cast in that mode. I dunno, that sort of treatment is rare and interesting to me, as a thing to get at -- similar to some of the reasons I like Freaks and Geeks so much -- so maybe ASC will have to go on my list.

Well Slocki one of the things that seemed a little bit risky about GW is that it required the viewer to kind of run against the grain of the main character, like I was saying before. Watch it in conventional big-film terms, and you might imagine that the film is somehow trying to assert that Becky actually is somehow betraying Enid. But if you kind of bring something else to the table it becomes interesting to see how Becky, rather than just being "normal," actualy has abilities that Enid doesn't, has certain kinds of strength and adaptibility and Salinger-style "brave" normal-people assets that Enid totally lacks. She's better than Enid, maybe. And I find that much more interesting than the Enid-wants-to-fly / Becky-doesn't alternative. Because it makes you turn on Enid and question her -- why can't you do these things, and what more exactly do you think you're entitled to? -- in a way that's really telling and kinda, you know, deep.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

^^^wants to fuck big-titted young girls

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

Can I throw Shopgirl in here for just a second? There.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

yes, enid is a misfit and becky isn't, what else are you really saying there? sorry i don't really find that very "deep"! the loveable outsider is oldest movie cliche in the books!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:32 (twenty years ago)

That's the point, Slocki! I'm saying it's interesting because Enid isn't the "loveable" outsider -- the way I watch this, Becky kinda begins to seem admirable and loveable and brave, and the "outsider" begins to seem self-defeating and horrible and craven and deluded. Or at least it raises that question.

That's what I'm saying is "risky" about it -- that it can seem to run along that cliche, but all along it's asking questions about how much it's maybe the other way around, how much maybe all of the awful "normal" people around (Becky, her dad, etc.) are actually better and braver and more human than she is. It gives you a loveable outsider and then says hey wait, what if maybe she's just an incompetent brat?

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:39 (twenty years ago)

that's actually very much what art school confidential does! (poorly)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:41 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it seems like a theme Clowes is pretty good at treating, seriously and sincerely (just like Salinger!), which is why the "wacky art send-up" presentation of ASC is really offputting.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:42 (twenty years ago)

i'm still not buying your reading though, dumbifying ghost world to upstage your main character doesn't really wash with me.

(and i guess one of my big problems with the movie is that enid IS the "main character"--that it's her story, which i guess she deserves cuz she seems more like an indie kid than becky or something?)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:44 (twenty years ago)

i'm still not buying your reading though, dumbifying ghost world to upstage your main character doesn't really wash with me.

(cuz if anything i think enid's flaws (and becky's too!) are even more apparent, and poignant, in the book)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

I'm not superfamiliar with the book. And hey, if it helps, I should say that I've wondered a few times whether my reading of it is a little bit a matter of me projecting my own thoughts onto the thing (especially since I don't watch loads of films and sometimes feel like I'm reading them wrong and book-like). But there are loads of things in there that reinforce that reading for me. The way Becky becomes independent where Enid can't. The way Enid's father's relationship seems mocked in the beginning, but we gradually get to see that he's trying hard to accomplish something difficult and meaningful. And especially the meat of the story, with Seymour, how it interrogates exactly this -- Enid tries to push him out into the world! And neither of them can quite do it. And how Seymour eventually manages it, and Enid resents that the same way she resents Becky. This stuff is all in there, the issue is being constantly raised.

In that sense I think the film's actually pretty anti-indiekid, poking holes in the entire indiekid mentality -- it understands it very well, it's sympathetic with it, but in the end it's kinda two hours of interrogating that attitude and implying that in part it's a weakness and a copout.

So yes, I've wondered if that's just me reading my thoughts and experiences into it, but in the end I don't think I should be so suspicious, because I kind of guess that Clowes's experience of this stuff might be similar. It's another way he might be like Salinger. Salinger seems like he has stuff in common with e.g. the Beats -- Zen, anti-bourgeoise impulses -- but in the end he seems to hate them, like he stepped in that direction but just found it false and shallow and pretentious and self-congratulatory. And (especially judging by ASC), it seems like Clowes feels the same way about art. These are both forms of confronting "indie"-type mentalities and finding them lacking, especially when confronted with ordinary-people bravery. So in the end I don't think I'm stretching by seeing that in GW, you know?

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:05 (twenty years ago)

I feel you nabisco. I think Enid is made out to be a very unappealing bitch pretty clearly... and Becky is a contrast to that (albeit an underused one in the film)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:15 (twenty years ago)

Art students of the world, go to an art film instead and leave this one to enraged fogies.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 14:42 (twenty years ago)

am i right in saying 'art school' means something very diff in the US to here in the UK?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 14:44 (twenty years ago)

ie less of a state-funded petri-dish for the talented and skint?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 14:45 (twenty years ago)

i like your review momus.

this is interesting:

And yet there's an oddly fusty atmosphere in this film. Zwigoff (and yes, I saw "Ghost World" too, and "Crumb") shares with David Lynch a certain 1950s fixation; with Lynch, even if you're ostensibly in the present, you're in a permanent 1940s, 1950s of the soul. Zwigoff formerly made a documentary about Robert Crumb, and seems to share Crumb's out-of-time fogey-ish style. I suspect that Clowes shares it too; his drawing style, for instance, is oddly retro. In this film we're far from the 21st century. The jokes at art's expense could almost come from Tony Hancock's 1960 film "The Rebel". One of the girls Jerome dates in ASC is a highly-wrought "beatnik girl". Not even a Goth, but a beatnik! In The Rebel (according to Screen Online's blurb) "there is a kind of lazy shorthand at work that conflates artists with Paris, existentialism, angry young men, beatniks and beat poets", but at least, in 1960, that "lazy shorthand" was only a couple of years out of date. Here it's four or five decades wide of the mark.

cuz i think that stuff just works so much better in comic form.

either clowes just doesn't translate to the screen or he needs a director who's actually capable of being a visual stylist on some level.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 14:46 (twenty years ago)

nabisco's take on GW very good and very OTM (i know we're not allowed to say "nabisco OTM" anymore but when he is he is).

also, i haven't seen ASC yet but momus (who i seldom think is OTM) is right on target here ("lazy shorthand" etc):

One of the girls Jerome dates in ASC is a highly-wrought "beatnik girl". Not even a Goth, but a beatnik! In The Rebel (according to Screen Online's blurb) "there is a kind of lazy shorthand at work that conflates artists with Paris, existentialism, angry young men, beatniks and beat poets", but at least, in 1960, that "lazy shorthand" was only a couple of years out of date. Here it's four or five decades wide of the mark.

― raw like sufjan (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:00 (twenty years ago)

i mean i like that beatnik/paris/beret shit when it shows up in eightball but you really have to create a certain... mood, i guess... to make it work. and when your movie looks like a run-of-the-mill tv drama it just don't play.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:07 (twenty years ago)

slocki what do you think is a film who does this sort of thing well? is it possible?

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:31 (twenty years ago)

Pecker!

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:35 (twenty years ago)

youre not slocki!! pecker is funny tho

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:36 (twenty years ago)

haha i have a feeling a.s.c. is more 'cecil b demented' than pecker

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

probably not even as good as that

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

waters remains a pretty warm guy through all his stuff really

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

good question! i'm trying to think of a movie not from that period (like say "bell book & candle") that does it without coming across as totally embarrassing...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:45 (twenty years ago)

i guess the weird thing about ASC is that the point of most of the movie seems to be to satirize art-school pretensions and yet it takes its own very dated points of reference (like picasso) weirdly seriously

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

but maybe i'm wrong about that, i guess it does have a sense of humour about that stuff, it's just not very funny.

i think this movie also has a very conflicted relationship with its protagonist!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 15:49 (twenty years ago)

god i love bell book & candle, i mean its less than that sum of its parts (witches! beatniks! african masks! stewart & novak, post vertigo! jack lemmon! ernie kovacs! elsa lanchester! grainy central park romance!!) but how could it not be

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:00 (twenty years ago)

Shepherd 'Shep' Henderson: That girl you know, Gillian Holroyd, she's one.
Merle Kittridge: A witch?
Shepherd 'Shep' Henderson: Yes!
Merle Kittridge: Shep, you just never learned to spell.

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:00 (twenty years ago)

haha the other thing a.s.c. seems to be reminding me of is that weird todd solondz hannah & her sisters rip-off from the late 80s

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:01 (twenty years ago)

the thing is, i dont think this movie seems dated to the 50s, more like the early 80s

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:02 (twenty years ago)

it almost brings to mind that thing from some eightball story "i'm into '70s '50s" "naw, i'm more of a stray cats '80s '50s guy"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:03 (twenty years ago)

hahaha

you know whatd be great would just be an 'eightball' movie with like 30 difft sketches over 90 minutes, instead of stretching one short, perfect bit into a full movie all lorne michaels style - could use animation, different film styles, lotta weird cameos from the type of actors whod be down for this kinda thing, itd be alot of fun!

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:08 (twenty years ago)

kinda like 'everything you ever wanted to know about sex...' but actually funny

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:09 (twenty years ago)

especially if they did like include earlier funnier lloyd llewellen 'rant' stuff + later drama like immortal invisible/blue italian shit

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:09 (twenty years ago)

yeah, that'd be an interesting way to go, although i don't see how you could adapt something like blue italian shit and make it better or equal to the original... it's just so perfect as a comic that i dunno what would be the advantage of turning it into a movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:15 (twenty years ago)

i dunno - sin city was pretty good, and proved that translating comics >> film "unchanged" usually reveals alot more than trying to "adapt" them (sin city was a !*!LOT!*! funnier in a movie)

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

im thinking of something like altman & short cuts too, tho maybe w/o the framing device that connects all the carver stories

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:21 (twenty years ago)

director who would be up for this fantasy project = alexander payne

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

ok im starting to sound like latebloomer & 'alien' now

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:28 (twenty years ago)

it almost brings to mind that thing from some eightball story "i'm into '70s '50s" "naw, i'm more of a stray cats '80s '50s guy"
-- s1ocki (slytus...), Today 10:03 AM. (slutsky)

this line made it into Ghost World (as did much of ASC the comic).

+++++, daniel clowes did the movie poster for the solondz movie you mention upthread.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:14 (twenty years ago)

hey what are we talking about? i thought this movie was a big snooze fest! and i love old skool clowes but whatevs!

― city of gyros (chaki), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:25 (twenty years ago)

no he didnt, he did the poster for happiness

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:30 (twenty years ago)

the movie i was talking about is 'fear, anxiety & depression'

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:31 (twenty years ago)

(which is a terrible movie, btw)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:45 (twenty years ago)

Haha, I was seeing parallels in Hannah & Her Sisters to Happiness...

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:49 (twenty years ago)

It's horrid, unfunny, mean and yet also crappy.

― Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 19:17 (twenty years ago)

The National Review loved it. Because it gives 'a pointy jab to the self-regarding, self-validating Art establishment,' y'see.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

case closed.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

both otm somehow. like, sometimes i think i would love to see a full on, loving adaptation of like a velvet glove cast in iron. but i also trust no one to actually capture the perfect mood.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 19:51 (twenty years ago)

velvet glove is the best thing Clowes ever did.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 20:06 (twenty years ago)

agreed

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 20:07 (twenty years ago)

meh.

A tampon in a teacup is funnier than this whole movie.

― sinful caesar sipped his snifter (kenan), Saturday, 13 May 2006 02:08 (twenty years ago)

Best gag -- the parents hugging in the kitchen. I larfed.

― sinful caesar sipped his snifter (kenan), Saturday, 13 May 2006 02:09 (twenty years ago)

i think i should really not see this movie

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Saturday, 13 May 2006 02:59 (twenty years ago)

This is a bit off topic, but about a year or two ago I came across a comic on the web called something like "I Hate Modern Art", which I can't find for the life of me (apparently, many people on the web hate the stuff), but would be an interesting side note to a lot of the issues raised in this thread. I remember it being a lot more interesting than ASC The Movie. Anyone?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 13 May 2006 03:35 (twenty years ago)

(apparently, many people on the web hate the stuff)

Many people on the web are incorrigible geeks who can't be bothered with even the most rudimentary elements of design. And so it goes.

― sinful caesar sipped his snifter (kenan), Saturday, 13 May 2006 05:14 (twenty years ago)

Boy did that suck. I actually liked the stoner friend and his run through the art-school stereotypes ('beatnik girl' didn't seem out of place - I knew exactly who he was talking about, they still exist!), but the railing against the art world (thanks to Jim Broadbent) and Malkovich's character and the whole murder mystery and the annoying roommate and the gay roommate - so awful.

Preppy guy's paintings weren't bad.

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 15 May 2006 01:58 (twenty years ago)

So incredibly bad. i really would have walked out had i not taken my mother for mother's day.

― Jimmy_tango (Jimmy_tango), Monday, 15 May 2006 02:28 (twenty years ago)

yeah i saw it this weekend too and it was really, really bad. no bite, maybe one or two laughs (jerome's uncle or something eating that chicken leg and telling him to get into business was about it besides the naked model guy who looked like christopher lloyd). the murder mystery thing DRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGED

― ath (ath), Monday, 15 May 2006 02:38 (twenty years ago)

AND THAT GIRL, THE MAIN GIRL LINDA OR LISA OR WHATEVER THE FUCK -- WERE WE SUPPOSED TO CARE ABOUT HER AND HER BORING FACE?

― ath (ath), Monday, 15 May 2006 02:39 (twenty years ago)

They should make a movie out of "I Hate You Deeply", only it would have to stick strictly to the form of the source. Just an hour and a half of, like, 10-second bits.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Monday, 15 May 2006 03:49 (twenty years ago)

eight months pass...

I saw this last night, it's not the worst film I've ever seen, or even the worst film I've seen this year. Still, it very much has a vibe of hip indie film dudes getting a paycheck, and overall I'd say it was just a downer. It went straight to video over here, or should we say straight to DVD, doesn't sound the same.

I liked the cops paintings too.

I wish I'd gone to art school.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 25 January 2007 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

four months pass...

wow this was almost as bad as I'd imagined it - there were a couple chuckles early on and then murder mystery = total divebomb into pointless shittiness

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

Absolutely terrible. Zwigoff & Clowes are now on my ban list for life.

― Sparkle Motion, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

I'd totally forgotten I saw this... Yeah, I agree that the murder mystery and the art world critique were mostly boring as hell; I would've at least expected the latter to work, because the original strip this was based on did it much better. I think this should've been a straight-ahead teen comedy set in an art school, the "deeper" parts simply didn't work. Also, there was a bit of nasty sexist vibe in it, like every girl merely existed as a fuck object to the main character (the part where he "tested" all those loose, easily available art chicks).

― Tuomas, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't think Zwigoff brought anything to Ghost World but dang I was not prepared for what a dud this turned out to be

― A B C, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

the one actual strangling scene was really really mishandled. The whole descent into murder-mystery-thriller territory seemed terribly unsuited to Zwigoff's tone, and it was handled so clumsily - lots of pointless exposition (ie black kid walking up to main character to explain "yeah the building burned down, everybody's dead, they think it was a cigarette" = SO UNNECESSARY WE NOTICED THE CIGARETTE IN THE PREVIOUS SHOT K THX; or the lawyer character coming in at the end to explain "btw, keep him in jail it sells paintings" like the audience was too stupid to realize that on our own, etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

the one actual strangling scene was really really mishandled
Whereas I got the feeling that it was Zwigoff's favorite scene.

― Sparkle Motion, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 18:46 (nineteen years ago)

it was really unclear if it was supposed to be funny or scary/creepy or just a conventional horror movie scene shot really badly

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 18:48 (nineteen years ago)

I thought it was worth watching to the point where I rented it to watch again with a friend who hadn't seen it, but I think it really only worked as a few funny scenes, mostly toward the beginning. I actually got in a bar argument with someone who was going on about it being a great recent film. It kind of turns into a string of mean-spirited jokes and shallow setups (the love interest's ex being bitter lesbian) while the plot doesn't really do anything. The guy who was claiming it was great hadn't seen Ghost World, which isn't that deep but at least was enjoyable.

― mh, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

ethan's eightball movie idea is terrific. i wish someone would do that.

― J.D., Wednesday, 13 June 2007 21:19 (nineteen years ago)

is it just me or was the film student roomie a not-too-subtle dig at Kevin Smith... in that TV clip of the end of the film he looks deliberately styled after Smith...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 18 June 2007 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

I just re-read the Death Ray last night. That was amazing.

― dan selzer, Monday, 18 June 2007 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

my favourite right now is the halloween one, i was just thinking about it last night. the detail of the knick-knack diorama on the old couple's table has always haunted me

― s1ocki, Monday, 18 June 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

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