Synecdoche, New York

  GORDO said:

  autopilot said:

I downloaded this but it was an mp4, which I can only watch in the Quicktime player. The Quicktime player, even though I have the absolute newest version, a dual core 64 bit machine, and 2 gb of ram, skips 2 or 3 frames every 10 or so frames. This irritated me so much I couldn't watch it because it would spoil the movie for me.

 

I'm on the lookout for a .avi xvid torrent, so if anyone can help me out I'd be greatly appreciative.

 

VLC plays .mp4 (and anything else)

 

also i think QTlite play anything quicktime related. (?)

VLC player!! when will people get that this is the only player you need??!! the mp4 version of this runs flawlessly on my crappy laptop.

vlc is good yeah. i use mpeg streamclip too, that can play almost as much, and if it can play it, you can save it to any format you want which is well handy for editing

do you think it was intentional that the make up looked fake?

Most of what I felt has already been expressed here I think. But I'm amazed and shaken by this film.

Just fuck. It's really pretty beautiful. 'Honest and brutal', definitely. It meant a lot to me, but I can't really piece anything tangible together right now.

Samantha Morton's Boobs

I loved this film and am about to watch it again. Kaufman did it again... the fucking maniac. Though I must say i can't help but think it was a bit premature... I saw this as a good farewell, so to speak, film... it was epic (hate using that term) but could have been larger. Kaufman should have sat in this hat for 20-30 more years.... but then sadly PSH wouldn't be there and he was beautiful... oh so beautiful.

"[over radio]

Millicent Weems: What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this.

Millicent Weems: Walk.

Millicent Weems: As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are...

Millicent Weems: Gone. "

wow, sorry to dredge up an old thread but I just watched this tonight. i feel like i just worked through malloy or mallone dies again for fuck's sake. amazing, but exhausting. bit negative though for me. why does it always have to be so negative for kaufman?

  Franklin said:

bit negative though for me. why does it always have to be so negative for kaufman?

that premonition is what stopped me from buying this film from a street vendor last night. I had my hand on it and went "naaah." Instead I bought about 25 other dvds, including a nice Twin Peaks box set for nostalgia's sake. I then went and got a hooker whose boobs deserve a place in the "nice tits" thread, went home and drank a decent south african cab/merlot blend, and watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life. Up yours, Kaufman!

i liked this a lot

Btw "Election" is such a good movie. Watched that again, too

my favorite alexander payne thing is the short he did for paris je t'aime. but election is pretty awesome. actually so is sideways. and about schmidt. i want him to make another movie soon.

About Schmidt was really fucking good.

I teared up at the end.

ya the day has to be right for a movie like this. most days i can only stomach comedy. today though i thought i could handle some nihilism.

saw synecdoche, New York yesterday

amazing

This movie kicked my ass. I watched it and only realized later that the movie had me in an existential funk for three days afterward. But I still can't stop watching it.

For Zaphod. Alexander Payne's next film

It definitely left an impact on me for more than a day afterward.

At the same time, I could not really identify with PSH's character, mostly because everything that happened in his life was so extraordinary and he was such a self-absorbed little bitch.

This helped me sort things out a bit: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10...AUFMAN_AUDIOSS/

And the DVD has extras including a round-table of bloggers which is really pretentious, but helps to sort through some of the themes and scenes a little bit.

edit: sorry, that link doesn't really help does it? its from the NY Times' review of the movie, on teh sidebar.

  zaphod said:

my favorite alexander payne thing is the short he did for paris je t'aime. but election is pretty awesome. actually so is sideways. and about schmidt. i want him to make another movie soon.

I agree with all but Sideways. I think About Schmidt, which I just watched about a week ago, was very underrated. To me, it's his best film. (His short on Paris Je T'Aime was amazing, too.)

Anyhow, yeah, Payne is awesome.

I'll have to pick up Synecdoche.

  autopilot said:

About Schmidt was really fucking good.

 

I teared up at the end.

fuckin' lol

kathy bates nude made me want to cry.

  Mirezzi said:

  zaphod said:

my favorite alexander payne thing is the short he did for paris je t'aime. but election is pretty awesome. actually so is sideways. and about schmidt. i want him to make another movie soon.

I agree with all but Sideways. I think About Schmidt, which I just watched about a week ago, was very underrated. To me, it's his best film. (His short on Paris Je T'Aime was amazing, too.)

 

Anyhow, yeah, Payne is awesome.

 

I'll have to pick up Synecdoche.

guess i'll have to see the paris je t'aime short and about schmidt. I agree with you about sideways, I wasn't all that taken with it, the lols didn't seem to be in equal proportion to the dourness and hammy love story, so I figured his post Election films were lesser creations. I steered clear of about schmidt simply due to Nicholson, who I'm not a huge fan of.

  lumpenprol said:

  Mirezzi said:

  zaphod said:

my favorite alexander payne thing is the short he did for paris je t'aime. but election is pretty awesome. actually so is sideways. and about schmidt. i want him to make another movie soon.

I agree with all but Sideways. I think About Schmidt, which I just watched about a week ago, was very underrated. To me, it's his best film. (His short on Paris Je T'Aime was amazing, too.)

 

Anyhow, yeah, Payne is awesome.

 

I'll have to pick up Synecdoche.

 

guess i'll have to see the paris je t'aime short and about schmidt. I agree with you about sideways, I wasn't all that taken with it, the lols didn't seem to be in equal proportion to the dourness and hammy love story, so I figured his post Election films were lesser creations. I steered clear of about schmidt simply due to Nicholson, who I'm not a huge fan of.

If you don't like Nicholson, you're highly unlikely to enjoy About Schmidt.

One thing I admire about Payne is his ability to conceal, at times, the setups for sentimentality and metaphor. In particular, it's his use of inserts I dig. However, when he's too surfaced with that shit, the material flops. I remember thinking that Tom Church was far too much of a cartoon and Giamatti was overacting to a nauseating degree.

This was the passage from Sideways that turned me against it (never to recover):

  Quote

Maya: You know, can I ask you a personal question, Miles?

Miles Raymond: Sure.

Maya: Why are you so in to Pinot?

Miles Raymond: [laughs softly]

Maya: I mean, it's like a thing with you.

Miles Raymond: [continues laughing softly]

Miles Raymond: Uh, I don't know, I don't know. Um, it's a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It's uh, it's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you know, it's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it's neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and... ancient on the planet.

:sick:

I didn't even like the characters' names. Miles? Maya? GTFO.

yeah, i'm with you. What made it worse for me is my family actually grows grapes so I remember feeling like a lot of it fell flat - whatever social critique element there was didn't seem quite on target, and Giamatti's wine fixation actually didn't seem that convincing or particularly impressive. Can't remember the specifics, my overall feeling was that it was rather slow and cheesy, whereas Election was witty and nimble. I just love how everything in election falls into place, all the way through to Broderick's life at the end, with that slow pan upward on the neaderthal in the museum, and the pepsi-throwing at the limo...lol

Loved it

Any of youse seen Citizen Ruth? Payne directed this too.

"Ruth Stoops is a poor indigent drug-user (a huffer - inhaling glue and paint for a high) whose down and out existence is complicated once more by becoming pregnant (she has had and lost four children already). When a judge orders that she gets an abortion or face a felony charge, she is befriended by Gail Stoney, a pro-lifer whose husband is president of the local "Babysavers" group. Suddenly Ruth is thrust into the middle of the pro-choice/pro-life struggle, with each side wanting her to take their side as a "message" to others."

Synecdoche should have won the new best film category within the Nobel categories...if it existed

fuck the oscars...

this one deserves to be in the hall of fame...

'The' hall of fame...

rewatched this earlier today. the scene where psh goes to a strip club to find his daughter actually made me tear up. that's such a perfect scene.