I know I'm late to the party on this, but we all agree it's basically an average movie, right?
Seems like the first act is mostly pointless and the whole thing is actually pretty manipulative. Chiron sort of just suffers and suffers and suffers with basically no nuance to his life or situation. The direction had some really creative moments but the story pretty much sucks.
it was still better than manchester
The story is simple but that doesn't make it any less well made of a film. It tells the story well with minimal dialogue for the first two parts, with a third that's a good show that Chiron learned how to finally interact but at a price.
>better than manchester
>better than the moty
lol, no
I love the popularity backlash effect.
Helps me gauge a films longevity.
Yeah but the first act is still mostly pointless, right?
All it sets up is that he's bullied, gay, and has a shit mom. It also sets up a relationship with the drug dealer but that doesn't go anywhere. It seems like they could've started with the second act and ended up with the same finale, having lost almost nothing.
Juan is the closest thing he had to a father and he came in Chrions life right before puberty. Those formative years are extremely important in him fighting back in the middle part, and the obvious influence when he's an adult.
I'll co-sign this.
Manchester by the Sea didn't have much besides looking good and Lucas Hedges' performance, and even if the movie looked good it was still standard stuff.
Moonlight is a gorgeous movie, and Juan and Kevin were great characters.
>Those formative years are extremely important in him fighting back in the middle part
Are they really, though? Is there anything in the story that suggests he wouldn't fight back if he hadn't had that support? It seems like the effect of the support is really unclear. It just seems that if you take away the first act with the support, the second act plays out the exact same way.
To me at least, he probably would have continued to not trust anyone and not even meet the guy and do the beach stuff.
I don't know, I just don't see how to draw the line through the movie's logic to look at it this way. Now that you say it, I realize that that's definitely what they're going for, but I don't see what they do to make the effect of the paternal support clear. I wanted to see him act differently after the support, but that's just not in the movie, even if they want us to infer it.
He communicates much better. Unfortunately it's about drug dealing but yeah. And he's driving Juans car.
He's also bullying the underling dealer. Juan had to be tuff and whatever and that's what Chiron absorbed. Juan hid under a shield of gold and muscles, and so does Chiron.
If you didn't feel it pushed that idea well enough I understand that, but it did try.
He's completely alone in the world before this though. The whole story hangs on him trusting Juan and letting him in. He barely has any dignity as a human before this. Different user btw.
I'm also of the opinion that Chiron is just incidentally gay and maybe not even actually gay. I think the film is also engaging in the nature vs nurture argument as it relates to the black community, whether its upfront about it or not. I enjoyed the film on a much deeper level later on after that occurred to me.
the only good scene is where he breaks the chair over the kids head
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one [black] could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America.
Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.
Just shut the fuck up.
La La Land shits on them both
>The whole story hangs on him trusting Juan and letting him in.
It just doesn't,though. In the second act he still takes shit from his mom and he still takes shit from his bullies. He's basically still a coward. What pushes him over the edge is Kevin beating him, which has nothing to do with Juan. Like, imagine that the first act just didn't exist, and still, nothing in the second act would seem farfetched or hard to understand. It would all play out the same way.
Your point about nature vs. nurture is pretty interesting. If they were trying to make that point, then the first act would definitely have a place in the film, but I'm not really sure if they were. The main thrust of the film is the character drama and the idea of finding and being comfortable with one's identity, right? That's the whole point of the ending, to say the least. I don't see where an exploration of nature vs. nurture fits into it all, really. I'll have to think on it more.
correct
emma stone is shit
In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time . . . . Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. —Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.
>Seems like the first act is mostly pointless and the whole thing is actually pretty manipulative. Chiron sort of just suffers and suffers and suffers with basically no nuance to his life or situation. The direction had some really creative moments but the story pretty much sucks.
Strongly disagree with this. Chiron's obstacles are natural and what a lot of people go through. Getting teased at school for being different, having a rough patch with your mom, struggling to find love, etc. are things that tons of people experience. They don't feel like they were artificially created just to make him suffer. And even with all of that he still finds love as a teen and has some reconciliation as an adult. It's not all misery.
The movie also doesn't actually focus on him being in poverty that much either, it's more of just a background to explain why someone like Juan would be the top dog of the neighborhood and a role model to him.
Only good thing in the film is cottonmouth.
This show really went to shit after they killed him off
>Just right after they give him some deeper character development
>And even with all of that he still finds love as a teen and has some reconciliation as an adult
He gets one handy and then his lover has to beat him up to avoid being outed as gay. I don't know how you spin that as "not misery." And the reconciliation is literally just the happy ending. The only real moments of his life which aren't miserable are when he is with his drug dealer benefactor who is somehow a more stable and healthy influence than his own mother. Talk about things that "a lot of people go through."
Chiron's experience just isn't nuanced. It's one-sided. It's stereotypical. It wants to garner as much sympathy as possible for the main character, and the result is that it takes all dimension from him and kills the message.
I agree. You connect with Chiron because you feel how much of a lonely kid he is - the few connections he has with people are so important.
Luke Cage's acting is terrible, the villains were solid though.
Well also the idea of finding and being comfortable with one's identity often boils down to privilege or lack thereof. Or that black men have to get tough quick and early in life. Like they're telling him he's gay before he knows it but it's also based on their prejudices about gays in the black community. Like I said, I'm not even sure he's really gay, he's just a sensitive kid with an absent father and a crackhead mom. Maybe in a different environment, he doesn't turn out that way. The film has this jarring moment in the third act where he tells Kevin that no one has ever touched him like that. I think certain portions of the film's audience take that to mean he's never had any other sex. Yet I read it to mean he's nailed tons of hood rats since he got tough like Juan but never had an emotional, safe connection like he did with Kevin. There seems to be more going on in this movie than meets the eye. Not trying to make it deeper than it is but it's a movie about a first world child dealing with extraordinary circumstances that a lot of the first world doesn't often think about maybe.
I think first act is set up, second act is crucial, third act is weakest. Maybe you're right. Or maybe Kevin turning on him is the big turning point. But he wouldn't have opened up to Kevin as a friend in the first place without Juan bringing him out of his shell.
I have a black friend who initially found the swimming scene with Juan and Chiron exploitative, private and shameful to see on screen. Or for others to see, as he put it. That's a weird reaction too, to me at least.
Yeah, I'm not sure if there's a clear answer to this. But even if it is about nature vs. nurture, I'm not sure it says anything profound. The film's basic assumption seems to be that everyone in the movie is just a product of their environment (Chiron, the bullies, the mom, Kevin, etc), and I'm not sure if it does anything to either challenge that assumption or explain it beyond the surface level.
Well, maybe I'm wrong there. It does seem to go into depth about how Chiron's environment shaped him, maybe the film is supposed to be a complex look at that process.
WE WUZ LUZBEKI AND SHEEIT
Where'd you get this from? Sounds interesting although the music part is bullshit as classical music is music in it's true and finest form and we all know blacks couldn't wrap their head around classical music if it was a hairstyle
>we all agree it's basically an average movie
Fuck yes. One of the most 6/10 movies I've ever seen.
Not even close.
Think this painting is average? It was made by a chimp
...
>MUH GAY NIGGERS
>MUH WHITE GUILT
>MUH HETERONORMATIVITY
So Precious but without the father rape and obesity?
WE
Goodness movie casual.
He literally becomes Mahershala's character in the third act
Above average. Very well executed and heartwarming but not much beyond that, doesn't stray from any formula, not very daring.
That's not hard though
how do american men compete?