Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Joel and Ethan Coen
Clooney to direct crime noir drama Suburbicon written by Coens
Doing a search online shows that it's been in development with the hope they themselves would direct it for several years now, so hopefully that means some harbinger of quality.
Doing a search online shows that it's been in development with the hope they themselves would direct it for several years now, so hopefully that means some harbinger of quality.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
Suburbicon is apparently another dud for Clooney behind the camera, though Oscar Isaac is getting raves for his brief role. Maybe he'll score a William Hurt in A History of Violence nod
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
...did people not like A History of Violence?
(I was always so confused why, after Clooney beat Hurt for Supporting Actor that year, he approached him and hugged him - until I realized that he was also in Syriana, a movie no one has thought about since 2006).
(I was always so confused why, after Clooney beat Hurt for Supporting Actor that year, he approached him and hugged him - until I realized that he was also in Syriana, a movie no one has thought about since 2006).
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
Sorry, my comment on that film was solely in reference to a super short supporting actor perf getting nominated. Still one of the greatest left-field Oscar noms ever
- PfR73
- Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
I have. It's my favorite film of 2005 and I've recommended it to several people since then. I really like Alexandre Desplat's score (which I felt like was often echoed by the series Homeland), and Tim Blake Nelson's "corruption is why we win" monologue creeps up in my brain with regularity.Ribs wrote:Syriana, a movie no one has thought about since 2006.
I was hoping Gold would have been a strong follow-up from Stephen Gaghan, and while it was enjoyable enough, it was nowhere near that level.
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
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- Location: Philadelphia, PA
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
Double features of Syriana and The Constant Gardener are gonna become all the rage soon, just you watch
- PfR73
- Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm
Re: Festival Circuit 2017
HAHAHAHA, I loved The Constant Gardener also!mfunk9786 wrote:Double features of Syriana and The Constant Gardener are gonna become all the rage soon, just you watch
- The Narrator Returns
- Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:35 pm
Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
Suburbicon should be taught in schools as a guide for how not to make a Coen brothers movie. The main section of second-rate Coensy dark comedy (it's easy to see why this was collecting dust on the Coens' shelf for 30 years) is executed with such puzzling straightness and stodginess that any potentially funny joke or moment is immediately killed (Oscar Isaac manages to briefly make the movie fun, but he's out as soon as he came in). And the completely shoehorned-in subplot about the black family moving in next door to Matt Damon and Julianne Moore and getting mobbed by the townsfolk is more Stanley Kramer than Coens. It resembles a parody of white liberal clueless filmmaking, with the family's only characteristics being their stoic reactions to racism (the father literally gets no lines, and only one or two shots where you can clearly see his face) and their story ending on a completely ludicrous, false note of uplift. The two parts are completely incompatible, but either one would make a terrible movie on its own, so I guess it's good Clooney decided to only make us pay for one terrible movie.
- flyonthewall2983
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
- Location: Indiana
- Contact:
Re: The Films of 2017
Such a shame. I had a good laugh at Damon on the tricycle in the trailer.
- dda1996a
- Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2015 6:14 am
Re: The Films of 2017
Well Clooney has been whiffing it for a while, both in front and behind the camera (Caesar and Tomorrowland were fine, his Ides of March was his last good directing credit)
- thirtyframesasecond
- Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm
Re: The Films of 2017
If Damon does any publicity for the film everyone will ask him what he knew about Harvey anyway, so he might be better off if this sinks without trace.
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- Joined: Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:01 am
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
This was dogshit. Sorry to all involved.
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
George Clooney seems insistent that he can be a good director of screwball comedy, but he's never actually been able to pull it off. Perhaps he should just stick to drama and leave comedy to... you know, people who are funny.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
I thought his Kaufman film was pretty funny.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
But was it funny because the director was funny or the screenwriter?
- mfunk9786
- Under Chris' Protection
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
- Location: Philadelphia, PA
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
Against all odds - Kaufman has said he was very frustrated by changes that Clooney insisted on making to the script:knives wrote:I thought his Kaufman film was pretty funny.
Charlie Kaufman wrote:I didn’t like it. That was a movie on which I was not consulted. I mean, George Clooney changed the script, he didn’t talk to me during production. We kind of didn’t get along. I was invited to see the movie when he was pretty much done and I wrote a bunch of notes and gave them to him and I guess it was offensive to him.
This film was written by the Coens, so that sort of torpedoes that argumentGregory wrote:But was it funny because the director was funny or the screenwriter?
I've definitely heard over the years that Clooney is someone who believes he is hilarious, I remember some guest on a radio show (probably Stern) talking about this, and theorizing that after a cavalcade of beautiful women have forced themselves to laugh at his bon mots, he has convinced himself that he must be the wittiest man on the planet.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
I was responding to the comment just above mine about the Kaufman film, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.mfunk9786 wrote:This film was written by the Coens, so that sort of torpedoes that argumentGregory wrote:But was it funny because the director was funny or the screenwriter?
I've definitely heard over the years that Clooney is someone who believes he is hilarious, I remember some guest on a radio show (probably Stern) talking about this, and theorizing that after a cavalcade of beautiful women have forced themselves to laugh at his bon mots, he has convinced himself that he must be the wittiest man on the planet.
To me it often seems like men who have already "won" everything else in show business feel a burning desire to be hailed as great talents in comedy as well. Sometimes they can win at that too, but other times being witty or charming is far from being actually funny.
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
Just for clarity, the original script for SUBURBICON was by the Coens, but Clooney/Heslov did a credited rewrite. And my understanding is that guild rules are such that, if their rewrite was credited, it means their changes were very substantial.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
I knew that Clooney had reworked Suburbicon and was a credited cowriter on it but hadn't realized he'd also substantially changed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind without consulting Kaufman. So yep, argument torpedoed.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
My understanding is the main change is the subplot about a black family which he felt compelled to put in for whatever reason.Brian C wrote:Just for clarity, the original script for SUBURBICON was by the Coens, but Clooney/Heslov did a credited rewrite. And my understanding is that guild rules are such that, if their rewrite was credited, it means their changes were very substantial.
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: The Films of 2017
I saw this tonight and - aside from being as awful as everyone in this thread has said - what's truly amazing is how little this moment registers in the actual movie. The people cutting the trailer made a semi-decent sight gag out of it, but Clooney himself couldn't even manage that much.flyonthewall2983 wrote:Such a shame. I had a good laugh at Damon on the tricycle in the trailer.
I don't know if I've seen a worse movie in years, to be honest. I think I hated everything about it, including Isaac's character, who would be a weak link in any actual Coen brothers movie this side of The Ladykillers. And it's not just bad in the usual ways (although it is bad in the usual ways also), it's bad in all the worst ways; it's a fatuous, witless, patronizing and downright ugly movie, both in its stupid bullshit kitschy mock '50s photography and, well, the very rot of its soul.
In short, it's the kind of movie that makes me think the filmmakers might be terrible people, and I suspect it'll seriously make me look at Clooney substantially more negatively from here on out.
- Dylan
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
I haven't this yet, but Robert Elswit is one of the great living cinematographers, and 1950s Levittown is a very visual setting for a film. It's possible I will agree with you that this is a bad film, but do you really think it was poorly photographed and/or visualized? From the trailer the stylized elements appear fully achieved to me.stupid bullshit kitschy mock '50s photography
- Brian C
- I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
- Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
Elswit has done some great work, sure, but to me this looked like a movie that was aping the usual cliched 1950s look more than coming up with a look of its own.Dylan wrote:I haven't this yet, but Robert Elswit is one of the great living cinematographers, and 1950s Levittown is a very visual setting for a film. It's possible I will agree with you that this is a bad film, but do you really think it was poorly photographed and/or visualized? From the trailer the stylized elements appear fully achieved to me.
- The Narrator Returns
- Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:35 pm
Re: Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)
The only visuals that really stood out to me were some of the more shadowy shots (I think there's one in the trailer of one of the intruders with his face blacked out that's quite nice), otherwise it's too reliant on the cliche vision of bright, peppy 50s suburbs. It seems to have serious issues as well, but what I've seen of Roman J. Israel, Esq. suggests that it at least has much more interesting work from Elswit.