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bigway

MUST See Movie

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Anyone who really enjoys good movies, you have to see this movie.

"synecdoche.new.york"

Do yourself a favour, Do NOT read a review, do NOT look it up, just watch it. This movie is one you want to know nothing about when you start to watch it.


I really would love to hear what people think about this movie as I have no idea what to think except it being a movie of Brilliance. I am only half way through it, i hope it does not elt me down at the end. So far it would be one of the best 3 or 5 movies I have ever seen.


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"synecdoche.new.york"



***** WARNING REVIEW BELOW! DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE GOING TO FOLLOW BIGWAY'S ADVICE TO NOT READ REVIEWS ECT. *****




*** SERIOUSLY! LAST CHANCE! ***

For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE watch a movie all the way through before recommending or reviewing it.



I'm a huge Charlie Kaufman fan. Pretty much have to see anything he writes. Ditto with Philip Seymour Hoffman. I was willing to put up with quite a bit in hopes it would somehow make sense at the end, but it does not. I don't know what the hell happened there.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I was through it alot more than I thought, I was watching it on my own and just had to share how great I thought it was with someone, so i came to the forums. I still think it is a brilliant movie. Very different from anything I have seen before and kept me guessing and very interested the whole way through. I still think it is brilliant. I actually believe it is one of the best movies I have seen since the last one I enjoyed so much which was 'August Rush'.
I like the way Phillip portrays his charachters emotions in films and think this was a stand up performance.

Each to their own though.


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I like the way Phillip portrays his charachters emotions in films and think this was a stand up performance.



Yeah, he does a good job with whatever he's given, but in this case, what he's given just doesn't make sense when you look at it all the way through.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I like the way Phillip portrays his charachters emotions in films and think this was a stand up performance.



Yeah, he does a good job with whatever he's given, but in this case, what he's given just doesn't make sense when you look at it all the way through.




You sure like to give alot of information away. Those that decide to watch it would have a much better experience if you dont start telling them about the film.

I have just been reading reviews and fail to find one single review that puts this movie down...


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Synecdoche, New York, review
Maverick screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is not the happiest film around, but it's still a magnificently honest, mind-bending masterpiece.

-------------------------------------------
The film is either a masterpiece or a massively dysfunctional act of self-indulgence and self-laceration. It has brilliance, either way: surreal, utterly distinctive, witty, gloomy in the manner that his fans will recognise and adore, but with a new epic confidence, absorbing the influences of Fellini and Lynch. As with his previous films, Adaptation and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I had the uneasy feeling that one single idea was being extruded to an excessive length, but this movie's crazy emotional intensity and ambition really punched my lights out on a second viewing. And that protracted final sequence is quite extraordinary
------------------------------------------------------------

Maverick screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is not the happiest film around, but it's still a magnificently honest, mind-bending masterpiece.

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



QUADE- I hear you dont like it and thats cool mate, but you think you could not jump on a thread I have started and start telling people the plot of the movie and let them enjoy the same mystery I did and had written in the original post that I also suggest others not to read anythign about the story line etc?
Let them experience what you and I did and find out for themselves what they think.

Anyway, I loved the movie, it sounds like you missed something if you did not understand it.
If people liked 'Adaptation' and Being John Malckovich' then they should at least watch this and find out for themselves.

I know you work in the industry and your opinion is very valid, I think of myself as a big movie buff considering the amount of movies I watch and this is not one I will forget anytime soon. I can see how some would not like it but for those that enjoy these types of movies will get a real kick out of it.

Anyway mate, I respect your opinion, actually for 8 years now I have read your posts as if they were quotes from the bible, I have alot of respect for you, it would be nice if you could give me the idea of this thread "dont read any reviews or find out what this movie is about, just watch it' and edit where you start to tell other users what this movie is based around. If not, well thats your choice and your right, I am only asking as i think it spoils it for those like me who like to watch a movie without 'seeing the previews' first so to speak.

Im going to get flamed for that request from someone I am certain of it, but I have to at least ask you do.

Cheers.


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I've redacted the parts that actually give anything away.

As far as bad reviews go, well, I guess you have to read a few more then and decode what I'm seeing in a lot of them, words like; "Wow, is that ever not a "money review." Why will people hurry along to what they expect to be trash, when they're afraid of a film they think may be good?" from Roger Ebert.

Most of the professional reviewers played nice with the film and Kaufman. Most hedged their positions. Most used code words like, "It will open to confused audiences and live indefinitely." (also Ebert) or "...when he outlined the contours of his sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad movie..." (LA Times).

There is a certain, "Sundance movie" quality to it. Some would say it's "art" and if you don't get it then you just don't get it.

Me, I like an actual story.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I have just been reading reviews and fail to find one single review that puts this movie down...
----------------
The film is either a masterpiece or a massively dysfunctional act of self-indulgence and self-laceration.



You might wanna read that part in italics again! That's at least a little negative!
quade -
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I have just been reading reviews and fail to find one single review that puts this movie down...
----------------
The film is either a masterpiece or a massively dysfunctional act of self-indulgence and self-laceration.



You might wanna read that part in italics again! That's at least a little negative!



Yeah I put that in their cause i think it is a fair comment. it says the truth, it is a bit fuked up and or a bit amazing so to speak. It gives both arguments, well thats how I took it.

Thanks for removing the parts you did.

Look, 95% of movies these days that make it to the big screen ahve all been done before, r they are movies that you can say, ok, it is either going to end like this, or like this or like that, you can guess and one of your guesses will be right. With this movie you jsut have no fucking idea the whole way through. I usually hate movies that dont give you a just ending, but that is because they usually have shit performances. In this one it has great performances. That makes it for me. Phillip to me is like Edward Norton, Sean penn, maybe even Matt Damon (minus Bourne series), He is an actor that can really give a strong performance and make a movie no matter what the movie is about. He did it in this one as he does in all his movies. Mind you I never watched all of that last Nun-Priest movie he was in, got a bit bored with it, so it was good to see this and see hiim keeping me interested again.

Anyway, as I said, I respect your opinion and I can fully see where you are coming from, it just suited my taste and I think it will suit alot of peoples taste. I think this movie is for those that want a quiet day with a good lazy DVD experience. You will either Love it or you will hate it. Some might call it art, I will not put this movie into a genre like thatas I think it is very unique.

And for those that Didnt like Eternal sunshine spotless mind or whatever it was called, neither did i, but i guess it might be along those lines. (never finished that either).

I do hope to hear what some other people thought about the movie or hear that someone has been inspired by this banter to have a look at it. I have not seen a movie that kept me this interested all year.... and I think I have seen most of them.


Actually Quade--- I just started watching 'Grey Gardens a couple of days ago, only got half an hourinto it. Hated it at first but then it got me intrigued. I got up to where they were told in the bedroom they wanted to make a documentry on them, thats where it got interesting. I have not gone back to it though... Have you seen this movie? Seems very strange.


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Grey Gardens -- I've heard the basic story, but never saw the 1970s movie or the more recent HBO version.

I'm assuming you're talking about the 1975 version. I'll have to add it to my queue at some point I guess since it's makes for weird sidebar conversations every once in awhile; usually in reference to somebody else that's famous and their estranged weird cousin twice removed that lives in the sticks somewhere.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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One last parting shot about "art" and people's reactions to it and then I absolutely have to hit the sack for the night.

Over 30 years ago I saw the movie "Little Murders" -ONCE- and this scene has stuck with me all that time. I constantly think back to this scene whenever I see a piece of what I consider self-indulgent "art." It's a scene where Elliot Gould's character is trying to describe to his girl friend's family what it is he does for a living. In looking up the clip there's a weird little subplot bit about a bomb going off and the lights going out in the house. Also the brother is just goony, no real need to pay much attention to that. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOH-PCFh0Sc

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Grey Gardens -- I've heard the basic story, but never saw the 1970s movie or the more recent HBO version.

I'm assuming you're talking about the 1975 version. I'll have to add it to my queue at some point I guess since it's makes for weird sidebar conversations every once in awhile; usually in reference to somebody else that's famous and their estranged weird cousin twice removed that lives in the sticks somewhere.



Actually talking about the HBO version.
The thing about this movie is that Drew Barrymore plays a role that is so far from her usual roles. Again, I only saw half an hour of it but I am looking forward now to going back and watching the rest. after a few days with it being on my mind. From what I saw it seems to span over 50 years or something and she plays a young girl and an old lady. From what I saw of her as an old lady she played it so well you had to really ask yourself if it wa drew barrymore. I was surprised with her role and I find myself very intrigued to see where she goes with it. Maybe she is finally at an age where she can do some real acting rather than trying to get a few cheap laughs. Something about what I saw has really made me interested, just cant hit the nail on the head.
As it is a HBO movie and it has her in it, at first I am put off, but I have a funny feeling I will miss a excelent performance if dont go back to that movie. I may be way wrong, will find out Sunday night though.
It kind of secures my thought of missing something if I dont watch it.

I am not from the states so have no idea of what the LA times reviews are but this is one I got from them online.

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

The story of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, a pair of former society fixtures found living in nonpicturesque yet strangely joyful squalor in the 1970s, began as a cover story in New York magazine. It went on to become a cult-worshiped documentary, a Broadway musical, a documentary of the making of that Broadway musical and now a movie on HBO. Surely someone should just write the "Grey Gardens" symphony and be done with it.

Well, two someones, namely screenwriters Michael Sucsy (who also directed) and Patricia Rozema, have. Anchored by amazing performances by Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, the “Grey Gardens” that premieres tonight is, like its subjects, a brilliant, moving, hilarious and mesmerizing mess of a movie that miraculously captures what made the Beales such iconic characters.

That's a lot of adjectives, but "Grey Gardens" is a lot of movie.

Lange, we are reminded once again, is an actress who can do anything, anything, including play a bedraggled, gray-haired woman who stands amid piles of rotting garbage and cat feces, looks Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (a terrific Jeanne Tripplehorn) straight in the eye and says in her most beguiling tones: "You know, chicken, if you ever need a place to stay, you're always welcome here."

If Lange was an obvious choice for her role, Barrymore was not. When she was cast as Little Edie, the scarf-swathed, uninhibited, often scathing middle-aged sprite who lighted up Albert and David Maysles' original documentary, I must confess I thought the project was doomed. Barrymore's cute and all, but how could she embody a woman who was dancing with an American flag one minute and taking down East Hampton society the next?

Perfectly, as it turns out. Her young Edie has just enough hint of otherworldliness and self-delusion to make her later Edie completely believable, and the Barrymore twinkle makes the occasional glimpses of Edie's tamped-down sadness even more affecting.

In other, less loving and capable hands, this strange symbiotic relationship between mother and daughter could easily have become a typical mama-dominatrix trope. Here, as in the documentary, it is something more startling: an orchid growing in the shade and rot of the forest floor, a fragile ecosystem threatened by more modern-minded developers.


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I guess this conversation just illustrates how movies, like music, tend to polarise people's views.

I haven't seen S.N.Y., but I've read both good and bad reviews. I think with film makers that are critics' darlings, the early reviews are often over-generous because they're based on reverence for their earlier work. And nobody wants to be the first to point out that the Emperor's naked. Anyway, maybe I'll make the effort to dig it out now and see what the fuss is about.

On a side note, what's with this new trend of people posting their opinion of a film halfway through watching it? Somebody recently was reviewing the new Star Trek movie on here a few minutes at a time. Don't you people know that these things are paced and designed to be watched end-to-end? :P:)
Unless it's a Michael Bay movie, in which case feel free to dip in wherever you want and watch something blowing up. ;)

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I posted halfway just cause nobody was home for a couple of days and I wnted to say to someone 'damn this movie is good', so came to trusty ole dz.com.

Anyway, I knew nothing about this film before i watched it. I had no idea who was in it, who produced it or anything, no idea, it was a huge surprise to me to see P.S.H in it and then to later look online and find out that it is from the makers of adaptation and I think Being John Malkovich, then to find out hoffman also directed it. So my opinion up until the end of it was purely from the film on its own merits.

It really is a very mind boggling, creative and very original film.

I hope you enjoy it, just make sure you dont walk away from the screen without pausing it etc as there is alot going on.


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OK, from literally the first two reviews I came across online:

'To say that Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now.' (bigway, I think this is the movie you saw).

and...

'a turgid challenge to sit through' (quade, I think this is the movie you saw).

Fascinating :D. I think I'll definitely have to give it a look now!

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On a side note, what's with this new trend of people posting their opinion of a film halfway through watching it? Somebody recently was reviewing the new Star Trek movie on here a few minutes at a time. Don't you people know that these things are paced and designed to be watched end-to-end? :P:)



I'm going to blame Twitter and Facebook; maybe not directly, but the idea that "moments" are somehow more important than a reflective analysis of the whole.
quade -
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I'm going to blame Twitter and Facebook; maybe not directly, but the idea that "moments" are somehow more important than a reflective analysis of the whole.



Agreed, and obviously just the ability to skip around a movie on DVD (or download) means you're less likely to actually concentrate and watch it the way you have to in a cinema. The current issue of Empire magazine includes a huge filler article listing and categorising the greatest 'moments' from dozens of films, along with the relevant timecode to allow you to find them. Notwithstanding the lazy journalism, that just seems to miss the point entirely. [:/]

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Hi bigway,

It was probably the worst movie that I have ever seen. And I am a movie fanantic.

But, different strokes for different folks.

I went to see it because I really like Hoffman.

I just watched 'La Vie en Rose.' A great, great movie and the performance of a lifetime.

Watch and let me know what you think of it,

JerryBaumchen

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I'm going to blame Twitter and Facebook; maybe not directly, but the idea that "moments" are somehow more important than a reflective analysis of the whole.



Agreed, and obviously just the ability to skip around a movie on DVD (or download) means you're less likely to actually concentrate and watch it the way you have to in a cinema. The current issue of Empire magazine includes a huge filler article listing and categorising the greatest 'moments' from dozens of films, along with the relevant timecode to allow you to find them. Notwithstanding the lazy journalism, that just seems to miss the point entirely. [:/]


Well, there is arguably an academically justifiable position in watching a specific scene to study how a specific moment was handled, so I wouldn't completely dismiss the ability to do so or a list of "greatest" scenes just out of hand. Lists and scenes taken out of context can be used for both good and evil a bit like taking a quote out of context or citing a passage from the Bible to support something that may not of actually been what the passage was about.

All of the above said, reviewing a movie, story or whatever before having experienced it all, just doesn't make sense to me.

It -may- make sense to internet generation 2.0. I'm open to that possibility, but to me if you're breaking away from the story to interact with someone else, then you're really screwing around with the intent of the author. Yes, you nailed it on the head when you said that these things are meant to be seen in one sitting. I'd go so far as to say that even just the difference of watching a movie in a theater and in a home is wildly different (unless you happen to be well off enough to have a room dedicated to home theater and are doing it "right").
quade -
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Wife away on work today, so I trudged through this thing while watching my 18mo old. Almost went for the cutaway handle several times, as my beavis/butthead dvd is within arms reach. Awesome film, but I have absolutely no idea what happened. I may watch again, uninterrupted.

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