I don’t want to fall out with my mate, but this looks like quite a bad film to me.
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This is a pretty decent criticism of the sexual/racial politics of the film
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Subtext is wank
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That CIA advert is one of the most bonkers things ever, still can’t believe it’s real
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That was so good, thanks for sharing!
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No problem, FD Signifier’s stuff is pretty consistently brilliant so always happy sharing his stuff.
It’s funny cuz I do remember watching it and feeling a bit uncomfortable about the first 20 mins/prologue in thinking “I’m not convinced this is PTA’s tale to tell”, but then I got so swept up in the rest of it, a straight white cis male watching a battle between two other straight white cis males, that I stopped questioning it and was like “oh, well, that was a preamble to the main story”, which says a lot.
So, good to have some context from a different, more related voice. Definitely plan on seeing it again to see how these things hold up on rewatch.
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Finally saw it - really want to go on a big drive in the desert now
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Hmmm… I do get the criticism there, but I think I kind of took the film’s handling of race and revolution themes as deliberately hamfisted , to kindof reflect and critique the protagonists worldview. Maybe it’s not intentional enough about that, or maybe I’m reaching.
I guess it’s a fine line between ‘these characters fetishise black women’ and ‘PTA fetishises black women’ - Im on the more generous reading of that, and I’m a white man so……
Maybe he should have spend a bit more time thinking about how the film might be viewed by people who don’t come from a similar demographic to himself! 
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Good film
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I think both things are true, I agree in that its showing up how pathetic and privileged white guys are in a satirical way (like the scene I highlighted up thread with Leo on the phone while Del Toro calmly got his family/house in order) but that doesnt absolve it from still being guilty of those criticisms of fetishisation or objectifying or exploitative.
Something from that video about that blew my mind slightly because I had no idea is that PTA’s partner is a black woman which obviously wouldn’t normally make any difference but is an interesting wrinkle in the intent of the artist here making a film which could be read as his own desires in the narrative (especially as that aspect wasn’t in the source material)
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The Rentals and Bridesmaids’ own Maya Rudolph
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Father of biracial daughters as well innit (which is why I think that the film is so distinctly about that dynamic after the prologue and why I’m comfortable that he has the insight to portray it)
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Of course! How did I forget that ha
I didn’t get none of this from the film, good or bad
I had a fun time watching the film and I kinda don’t want to read any of the recent posts in case they ruin it for me
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Criticism doesn’t colour my opinion anywhere near as much as it used to…but I am still learning to let others have an alternative opinion to me without thinking they are a BAD person with TERRIBLE taste in culture
(I am exaggerating btw)
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EDIT: @foppyish got there first!
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Having sat with it a bit, my original intention to re-read Vineland before this came out is obviously out the window but it probably helped me appreciate this for being a PTA film over a Pynchon adaptation. As much as I liked Inherent Vice I’m not really mourning the lack of a Gravity’s Rainbow film or whatever because it’s not like a straight retelling of the plot(?) would really work.
I don’t think it’s close to my favourite PTA film, and maybe he could have taken one more leaf from the book and made Leo’s character disappear after the first section but then that would have made his tantrums around Sergio less funny.
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think there’s a good Strangelove type film to be mined out of Gravity’s Rainbow. Keep it to Slothrop and his psychosexual adventures through postwar Europe, evading secret societies and intelligence orgs. I’d pay to see that. It would make no money but still.
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