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Post by Morgana on Feb 7, 2020 12:56:06 GMT
If Cage wasn't in it, I'd probably watch it, but since he is, I'll give it a pass. I understand that impulse. I do think he detracts from the film at times, but he is understated for much of it, and he's not really the main character. But the movie is more about how it's told visually than anything else, really. I'm no fan of Nicolas Cage, but the Lovecraft of it all and the return of Richard Stanley was enough for me to give it a watch, and I'm glad I did. It's certainly a unique experience. But as I understand it Stanley is going on to make this a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations that will connect but will not use the same actors/characters. So maybe those will do it for you. Thanks for letting me know about the trilogy. I would love to see them if the films are done well. Maybe then I'll go back and watch the one with Cage in it.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Feb 7, 2020 13:48:41 GMT
I understand that impulse. I do think he detracts from the film at times, but he is understated for much of it, and he's not really the main character. But the movie is more about how it's told visually than anything else, really. I'm no fan of Nicolas Cage, but the Lovecraft of it all and the return of Richard Stanley was enough for me to give it a watch, and I'm glad I did. It's certainly a unique experience. But as I understand it Stanley is going on to make this a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations that will connect but will not use the same actors/characters. So maybe those will do it for you. Thanks for letting me know about the trilogy. I would love to see them if the films are done well. Maybe then I'll go back and watch the one with Cage in it. Happy to share the info. From what I saw he is currently prepping The Dunwich Horror and then making a 3rd that he doesn't want to disclose yet after that. I'd imagine we can expect The Dunwich Horror in 2021 or 2022. This movie seems to be doing well enough for the next one to get a green light and a budget relatively quickly. |
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Post by lostinlimbo on Feb 12, 2020 7:44:41 GMT
Yeah it was at a film festival. Probably best film I saw along with ‘The Wretched’. There are obvious flaws. It does have that digital look rather then cinematic which gives off that cheap awe, but I was surprised by the digital FX which was better handled than most big budget films (Outside one sequence involving a bug/or mozzie?). Instead of a dread-inducing atmosphere you’ll get reading Lovecraft, it favours weird, grotesque shocks. I don’t think the chemistry between the cast is there either, and at times feels forced. Although I think you’ll be turned off more by Cage’s performance going by your thoughts in this thread, which might take you completely out of the film. He’s rather daggy & cringy... though it looks like that’s what he’s going for... but when it came to freak out time. And it’s in bursts, not constantly on going. It’s over-the-top with his nervous energy with some dumb dialogues. I enjoyed his performance, but I can see where people are coming from if they dislike his approach. Personally for me, the film would be kinda dry & less memorable without it. Well, I finally saw this and it sure is a wild experience. I had doubts that Richard Stanley would have the ability to fully master his directing style after all this time, and especially in a new era was a whole new toolkit. Boy was I wrong to feel that way. Not everything about this movie works, but boy does he ever have control over the tone and the visual language of this audacious and abstract film. It's got such an extraordinary style, and not just in look, but in its story telling and how the graphic design is used to not only support the plot, but also ultimately becomes the plot. It's pretty fascinating. I agree also about the effects. I'm pretty amazed that this is low budget as it is, but looks as good as it does. Save for the moment with the bug that you mentioned, and another brief moment with a cat, everything that's supposed to look real basically does and everything else looks suitable surreal and impossible. There's a moment toward the end where we go full on trippy and like interdimensional, so to speak, and that may have been a step too far, but fuck it... I was with it by then. I think maybe there's a little too little plot to the thing. That's not totally a problem because the film is from the HP Lovecraft story, and that sort of loss of the grip on reality is baked into it, but I think it was really plugging along with some fairly strong characters and a decent framework for a story that loses itself along the way in favor of depicting the insanity. It sort of regains a narrative at the very end, and I almost wish it chose one path or the other. Either leave us with that insanity or fully tell the story. But it still mostly worked. As for the actors, everyone is very good, and then Cage is Cage. He's actually doing a fairly decent job of playing it straight, but when he goes nuts it's kinda stupid. The rest of the cast I think is really strong, and Tommy Chong providing the eccentricity was enough and we didn't need it from the father character. He doesn't ruin it, but I think the movie is sort of too good for him. But I think a special mention needs to go to the actress playing the daughter. You first meet her thinking she's going to be this crazy, wild, and untrustworthy mysterious type for sort of superficial reasons, and then she's you entry point and essentially your protagonist, so when things happen with her character it's especially troubling and odd. Anyway, this movie is certainly not perfect, but you can't deny that Stanley is swinging for the fucking fences, and the fact that he mostly gets away with this is a minor miracle. He proves that he was not a fluke, and that he was indeed a really exciting and inventive artist with a wild imagination and incredible ability to translate oddities to the screen. If for nothing else, this movie is worth watching to celebrate Stanley as an exciting artist to keep an eye on, but I think it's genuinely a good piece of work. As much as we would like to draw comparisons, this is a pretty singular work. And now I'm more excited to see him tie this into a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations. I hope they're each stylistically different, but I really hope they're all as thoroughly Richard Stanley as this one. Glad you liked it. Probably more so than I did  I definitely agree it felt like Stanley was somewhat caught in-between if he should keep it in check or let it all hang out. When he went the latter, that climax was downright trippy! And Madeleine Arthur was definitely the pick of the cast and perfectly carries it through to the end. It does have me looking forward to Stanley’s next Lovecraft chapter. Hopefully this will kickstart his career, and maybe he’ll get a growing budget for his following films. However I feel like he’s more comfortable without the big studio shackles.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Feb 12, 2020 13:10:04 GMT
Well, I finally saw this and it sure is a wild experience. I had doubts that Richard Stanley would have the ability to fully master his directing style after all this time, and especially in a new era was a whole new toolkit. Boy was I wrong to feel that way. Not everything about this movie works, but boy does he ever have control over the tone and the visual language of this audacious and abstract film. It's got such an extraordinary style, and not just in look, but in its story telling and how the graphic design is used to not only support the plot, but also ultimately becomes the plot. It's pretty fascinating. I agree also about the effects. I'm pretty amazed that this is low budget as it is, but looks as good as it does. Save for the moment with the bug that you mentioned, and another brief moment with a cat, everything that's supposed to look real basically does and everything else looks suitable surreal and impossible. There's a moment toward the end where we go full on trippy and like interdimensional, so to speak, and that may have been a step too far, but fuck it... I was with it by then. I think maybe there's a little too little plot to the thing. That's not totally a problem because the film is from the HP Lovecraft story, and that sort of loss of the grip on reality is baked into it, but I think it was really plugging along with some fairly strong characters and a decent framework for a story that loses itself along the way in favor of depicting the insanity. It sort of regains a narrative at the very end, and I almost wish it chose one path or the other. Either leave us with that insanity or fully tell the story. But it still mostly worked. As for the actors, everyone is very good, and then Cage is Cage. He's actually doing a fairly decent job of playing it straight, but when he goes nuts it's kinda stupid. The rest of the cast I think is really strong, and Tommy Chong providing the eccentricity was enough and we didn't need it from the father character. He doesn't ruin it, but I think the movie is sort of too good for him. But I think a special mention needs to go to the actress playing the daughter. You first meet her thinking she's going to be this crazy, wild, and untrustworthy mysterious type for sort of superficial reasons, and then she's you entry point and essentially your protagonist, so when things happen with her character it's especially troubling and odd. Anyway, this movie is certainly not perfect, but you can't deny that Stanley is swinging for the fucking fences, and the fact that he mostly gets away with this is a minor miracle. He proves that he was not a fluke, and that he was indeed a really exciting and inventive artist with a wild imagination and incredible ability to translate oddities to the screen. If for nothing else, this movie is worth watching to celebrate Stanley as an exciting artist to keep an eye on, but I think it's genuinely a good piece of work. As much as we would like to draw comparisons, this is a pretty singular work. And now I'm more excited to see him tie this into a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations. I hope they're each stylistically different, but I really hope they're all as thoroughly Richard Stanley as this one. Glad you liked it. Probably more so than I did I definitely agree it felt like Stanley was somewhat caught in-between if he should keep it in check or let it all hang out. When he went the latter, that climax was downright trippy! And Madeleine Arthur was definitely the pick of the cast and perfectly carries it through to the end. It does have me looking forward to Stanley’s next Lovecraft chapter. Hopefully this will kickstart his career, and maybe he’ll get a growing budget for his following films. However I feel like he’s more comfortable without the big studio shackles. Yeah, I was surprised how much I liked it. I ended up as positive on it as I did, I think, because I had such trepidation going into it. I'm no fan of Nicolas Cage and his freakish overacting, and I was rooting for Stanley but i had serious doubts whether or not he still had it, or would be able to expand on what he'd done before and make something out of this story. Then the trailer was fairly weak and didn't do the look of the film any favors. Overall, I don't think it's a masterwork or anything, but the fact that it's as solidly good as it is while still being as strange as it is was a nice surprise. I'm with you on the latter point. This probably intrigues me mostly with regards to what he's doing next. I don't think he next two Lovecraft movies are all of a sudden gonna get picked up by universal and get a hundred million dollar budget or anything, but I imagine that Spectre-Vision will be able to get him a little bit more than he did this time on the strength of it already making its money back. And he made more out of a relatively slim (reportedly) 6-ish million dollar budget than I would have thought, so that does bode well for what he can do on a somewhat bigger scale. |
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Post by petrolino on Apr 1, 2020 14:01:36 GMT
Thanks for the news.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2020 14:14:36 GMT
I really enjoyed this one. It felt pretty fresh in a genre prone to retreads. The mom-son plot was pretty heart breaking.
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Post by selfworth10 on Apr 22, 2020 15:42:09 GMT
It was good, but its low budget was definitely showing onscreen
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Post by lostinlimbo on May 27, 2020 4:59:38 GMT
I haven’t seen ‘Mom and Dad’, so I can’t compare, but in ‘Mandy’ I thought he nailed it. Before the tradegy that causes his character’s emotional breakdown, to start off Cage is fairly deadpan and somber in a very ordinary manner. Maybe there’s a goofy charm in his earnest sincerity, but the director’s style only magnifies it and his cosy chemistry with Andrea Riseborough is believable. There are a couple of moments where Cage goes all-out, but it’s mainly in tone with the film’s go-for-broke LSD hazed second half. I don’t think he overacts that often, outside of one, or two moments, but I thought it was the dialogue, or the director for letting those scenes go on for too long. It was my main issue with “Mandy”, as it could’ve been a much tighter film all together. So I’m hoping for this project he puts in a performance like this one. But I guess it all depends on what direction Richard Stanley goes. Lets hope Stanley can make it work... and show the talent that kick-started his career. Have you seen the documentary about him and his attempt at the Island of Doctor Moreau? It's well worth a watch. It goes pretty deep into the insanity of that experience and how it all went wrong... and still you're left feeling that you've heard only a fraction of the stories of that wildly fucked up production. It's unfortunate that that movie turned out so badly and sort of ruined his career. I would have liked to have seen his version of that film. Just watched the documentary last night. What an entertainingly crazy, if at times depressing disaster of a production. At only 100 mins long, it definitely felt like it could have gone on much longer. More stories, maybe even darker and turbulent. Surprised David Thewlis was ghosted. I read he and Ron Pearlman turned down interviews for it, but it was odd no one mentioned him, or had any stories with him. Unless he filed a lawsuit if his name is ever mentioned alongside this movie? I like how they structured it from pre-production through to post-production. Never taking sides either. Stanley’s vision sounded wild, and the artwork for the film looked quite impressive. The absurd Brando stories, especially the dolphin idea had me tears... thanks to Bob Shaye’s reaction to it. So many great, candid quotes. “If I was making a film called the Life of Val Kilmer I wouldn't put that fucking prick in it!" John Frankenheimer “John, referred to Brando as a genius. After the movie, he didn't.“ My favourite though; “Oh yeah... this guy... out there [living in the rainforest]. This crazy guy... that’s... just raving about how Val Kilmer has ruined his life. And his out there... smoking loads of pot.”
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on May 9, 2021 15:43:53 GMT
Just when you thought it was safe to love purple...   |
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I definitely agree it felt like Stanley was somewhat caught in-between if he should keep it in check or let it all hang out. When he went the latter, that climax was downright trippy! And Madeleine Arthur was definitely the pick of the cast and perfectly carries it through to the end. 
