Sunday, December 28, 2008

OK, Sam, We Get It...

Suburbia is just a big ol' nightmare to you.

A lot of people picked that up immediately on seeing American Beauty. I try not to generalize, and I liked the story (hack though it be) because it was well acted and presented.

But now you got your wife Kate together again with Leo doing the same schtick: "Oh, no! We're stuck in suburbia raising children and that was the last thing we wanted to do!"

Get over it, already. And maybe recognize for a moment that those of us who are privileged to share in the Western world's wealth, so much so that we can bitch about how we want something different out of life, maybe shouldn't be bitching about it?

8 comments:

  1. Get over it, already. And maybe recognize for a moment that those of us who are privileged to share in the Western world's wealth, so much so that we can bitch about how we want something different out of life, maybe shouldn't be bitching about it?

    Let me just say that that's one reason I don't take movies very seriously nowadays. Everything seems to be so agenda-driven.

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  2. Is he anti-sububia? Or anti-West?

    Seems like two different things.

    I detest the suburbs: but I love rural and city living in our Western country. [Being able to do both is heaven on earth, but I can't pass through the suburb-blah fastest enough when I transition between the city and the country.]

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  3. He may not be anti- either.

    He won an Oscar for American Beauty so maybe he figured, "I'll do it again, but this time place it in the '50s, and ten years earlier on the married-with-children time-line."

    But we saw Kate do this already in Little Children.

    There's nothing wrong with hating a particular aspect of modern life, be it downtown, the suburbs or the country.

    It's a little tiresome to watch people get married, have children, move to the suburbs and then panic because THEY'RE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

    This "find yourself" crap got old in the '70s, when people were doing it for real and destroying their families.

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  4. The problem with most movie people is that they have no concept of what regular people are like. If they come from somewhere else then their first movie might be pretty authentic like Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing. But then they get sucked into the Hollywood thing and script contrivance rules and they just remake old hollywood crap.

    DW Griffith died for their sins man.

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  5. Get over it, already.

    Indeed. All the great stories out there and he chooses this rehash. Yawn.

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  6. I haven't seen this yet, but the trailer was hilarious:

    Winslet takes out the trash and sees that, Oh noes!, everyone else has their trash out too! Trash day is conformist hell. She must yearn for the days of apartment living when she walked her trash out to the dumpster like a fully actualized human being.

    This is followed by a montage of suburbian horrors, mostly people coming over for food and drinks. Oh noes!, in suburbia people eat and drink and have dinner parties! People would never do that in the city.

    Leonardo screams that he has a backbone because he hasn't abandoned his family. I guess that's the Hollywood idea of having a backbone. If you're not a complete cad, you've got a spine of steel. Impressive.

    And that's just from the preview. I almost want to watch it now.

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  7. Oh noes!, everyone else has their trash out too! Trash day is conformist hell.

    Thanks for reminding me that today is trash day. Oh hell, it's MLK day, It'll probably be tomorrow. No, that's coronation day. Crap! Do I just put the trash out assuming that they'll be by to get it eventually? I can't do that, that would risk the ire of the raccoons upon who's fragile ecosystem my sprawling, suburban neighborhood has intruded. Thank you, Sam, for a conundrum I didn't need on a Monday.

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  8. Freem--

    I know!! This image--trash cans on the street--this is what strikes horror into our artsy-fartsy director?

    A job, a nice, clean house in a good neighborhood, companionship, children... Really? This is Dawn of the Dead for you? Can't imagine anything worse?

    Mendes' problem is he can't understand the nuances of suburbia--can't begin to grasp Matt's existential garbage angst.

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