Pitchfork’s impact and history. For you lazy-ass TL;DR types: “A Pitchfork review may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical aspects of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment. This is a small, petty way of thinking about a large art.”
Here’s a Fresh Air interview with Aaron Paul (Jesse). Gotta love Terry Gross suggesting Jesse might have “watched a lot of Beastie Boy interviews,” even if it’s no “Thoughts for Your Thoughts.”
What the hell are these people doing? I’m sorry, but a 50-year-old Asian man wearing a Paul Smith suit, a denim jacket, a mink stole, a Louis Vuitton backpack, Air Force Ones, and shutter shades — WHERE IS HE GOING? Does he work at an accounting firm run by Kanye West and a 10-year-old girl? Is he late for an appointment with Willy Wonka at the World Bank? Seriously, this man had one thing and one thing alone on his agenda that day: Stand awkwardly on the corner of the street, smoke a cigarette, and wait for people to come take his picture.
Since I seem to be one of the few people who has seen Bellflower and energetically disliked it1, I figured I should explain. But first, the good:
The movie does a good job showing the fear, rage, and misogyny of the nerdy, emasculated and powerless man-child (the last few years’ favorite new stock character), which most recent TV shows and movies have swept under the rug.
Although the reliance on super-short depth of field (seriously, it’s tilt-shift city) for the early relationship scenes initially bothered me, I think it works as a visual representation of head-over-heels, only-think-about-each-other new love.
The film is visually striking, and is surprisingly stylish, as long as your idea of style is “Instagram shaky-cam.”
Now, the bad:
Turns out, we already have a bunch of movies about powerless, undersexed man-children! And a lot of them are better.
The characters are paper-thin, one-dimensional and flat, and aren’t helped by the actors, who are nearly all stunningly awful. Director/lead actor Evan Glodell, who delivers his “happy” lines with the frozen smile and rising inflection of a Miss USA contestant, is particularly intolerable.
The movie’s cockeyed plotting, pacing, tone and continuity issues2 make the thing an absolute mess.
By the end, I would argue the movie has gone past portraying two damaged, possibly-misogynistic young men, and at least tacitly supports their worldview, if not outright celebrating it.
I’ll save spoiler-related criticism for a later post, but have to admit that I’m utterly baffled by the adoring critical consensus3. And critics acknowledge it–every positive review has some form of the phrase “Sure, it’s a mess, but it’s alive!” My response: Yes, it’s an inventive vision of an almost-post-apocalyptic world and the movie burns4 with passion, but it’s still horrendously onanistic, disjointed and, ultimately, a waste of time5.
I find most mumblecore borderline-insufferable, so keep that in mind. ↩
I’m not confused about the movie’s final third–there are a bunch of other issues I’m talking about. ↩
I didn’t actually read any reviews before going, but it wouldn’t have helped. ↩