Quick film review:Mandy
Feb 5, 2019 0:37:00 GMT
Post by Jinxtengu on Feb 5, 2019 0:37:00 GMT
Last night I watched the film "Mandy" Here's my quick impressions of this piece of cinema.
I have to say I had extremely low expectations for the movie (after seeing the trailer I judged it as pulp), and I probably would've avoided it if it weren't for knowing a few people who really wanted to see the movie for some reason, and being motivated to have a discussion about said film with my friends. In the end it really it didn't break any of my expectations (overall it was fairly shit id say), although it was watchable.
Nicholas cage plays a reticent lumberjack who lives with his partner Mandy, in some forestry area of the US. Mandy is introduced as an apathetic and affect-less lady with a scar over one eye, who draws new age fantasy landscapes and works at a local corner store type store.
the plot goes something like this: some Satanists see Mandy walking on the side of the road and their leader decides they must abduct her. Up until this point mandy is always wearing some t-shirt that references a bit of occult lore, ie a pentagram or a black sabbath t shirt. There's a bunch of references to occult paraphernalia peppered throughout the movie (a fire salamander), all of this had little effect on me and seemed very paint by numbers, prescriptive almost, as if someone had listed a bunch of items they wanted to put in a movie to make it seem cool/edgy thinking it would give the script weight, then molding the plot around these elements, but I digress; back to the plot. so anyway the cultists summon hellraiser esque, gimp suit demons using the horn of abraxas and then abduct mandy and restrain Nicolas cages character. they force on mandy some kind of LSD substance and the egoist cult leader exposes himself after giving a manson esque rant, to which Mandy Laughs at him, causing him to become enraged in response. The cultists then burn mandy and stab nicolas cage with a ceremonial dagger, then leave. Nicolas cage manages to escape and then hunts down the cultists and gets revenge by killing them and the demons.
this plot may sound alright on paper, and couldv'e made an alright film, however there are a number of problems with it.
First of all the character of Mandy is really just a "refrigerator woman""refrigerator woman". Her role is almost completely passive and only serves the Nicolas cage/revenge plotline. My next complaint would be her character is just plain boring, and really doesn't inspire any sympathy.
It bothers me that this "wooden" acting style seems to be the new normal. Clearly the film was ripping off twin peaks, but it ultimately lacks the sophistication of a david lynch movie, (where visual metaphors have multiple meanings relating to the plot), in mandy I felt that alot of the film was just style over substance. Alot of the visuals did not have meaning but were just there to look cool, when there were visual plot devices they were fairly banal (ie the reoccurring tiger), overall I felt it was lacking in subtlety for it to work in the same way as a lynchian film. I also find the wooden acting style a bit try-hard
I think its somewhat indicative of a broader problem with modern american cinema and is comparable to the rise of pixel art in the indie game scene (as in the domination of a single, easily reproduced, clean yet bland style).
, I had the same problem with the acting in the movie Lobster. Modern American filmakers are just too homogeneous as a culture to create a sincere arthouse film, although that's really another topic for another day.
Mandy certainly isn't an art-house film, but I think in some ways it really wants to be one. It's like the inverse of "the room"
Tommy wiseau claims it was intended as a dark comedy, but watching it, it seems sincere but so badly done it's laughable, this film unfortunately isn't done badly enough to be quite so amusing.
I believe that "Mandy" could have been a decent movie if it had gone in the direction of films such as the evil dead and just not taken itself seriously at all. Mandy as a film is patently ridiculous (at one point nicolas cage has a chainsaw battle with one of the cultists) if only it had taken that and just ran with it. It has poorly written dialogue and the script could've been written by a high school student from the 90's. Had this been made as a kind of splatter comedy it may could have been quite awesome, I guess it's the fact that the film takes its stupidity dead serious that offends me. the film patronizes the discerning viewer by being dumb yet putting on airs as if it could be compared to the likes of lynch or jim jarmusch. The plots really not original, and has been done better in the past, and is basically just a revenge plot (wasn't conan a revenge plot?).
Some of the cinematography and post production is "made to look trippy" when the characters are on acid, but just looking trippy adds nothing to the fact that it's a shit/unoriginal/boring/uninspired plot. I feel like the audience is supposed to be dazzled by the effects and ignore the substance of the film, which is about as mentally nourishing as anemic dogshite. Anyway the post production effect didn't make me care about this move, if i wanted to trip I would play one of my games or something. What else...
The demons that the cultists summon served absolutely no purpose in the context of the film, and ultimately they were really quite boring as far as demons go. They were nowhere near as interesting and complex as Clive barkers cenobites, and yet I felt like they were meant to be like them (being dressed in quasi s and m gear and having spikes and such), Nicholas cage dispatched them with ease and they didn't even serve to pose any threat. At no point in the film was I on the "edge of my seat" infact I probably could've slept through most of the movie. One of the demons seemed to spend it's time jakking off to porn, only to be impaled through the neck by nicholas cage, with a home forged axe (which was forged in a montage highly reminiscent of Ash forging his chainsaw arm in the evil dead, yet nowhere near as memorable)
Closing thoughts;
The cult leader was poorly cast, although he just as easily could have been badly written. He was both unconvincing and uninteresting.
there was some weird demonizing of lsd throughout the film, which I didn't think was very helpful or honest.
In conclusion, I thought that Mandy was a mixed bag of garbage, trying to be many things but just ending up being mediocre. By the end of the film I felt as non affected and the character of mandy, and maybe a bit angry that so much money, time and energy was wasted making such a substandard cultural artifact. I could have directed a better film than Mandy! but then I could never operate within the constrains of the so called professional filming institution, with all the idiots that inevitably surround it.
This film feels like no women were involved with the project and a quick google only confirms that it was made by a bunch of dickhead bros.
The film mandy IS SHIT SHIT SHIT. I don't know how much more clearly I could put it than that!
Don't waste your time watching this shite unless you really are a complete idiot, in which case you might as well do us all a favor and kill yourself now!
Having said that if anyone else has seen the movie and has a differing opinion I would be keen to hear it.
I have to say I had extremely low expectations for the movie (after seeing the trailer I judged it as pulp), and I probably would've avoided it if it weren't for knowing a few people who really wanted to see the movie for some reason, and being motivated to have a discussion about said film with my friends. In the end it really it didn't break any of my expectations (overall it was fairly shit id say), although it was watchable.
Nicholas cage plays a reticent lumberjack who lives with his partner Mandy, in some forestry area of the US. Mandy is introduced as an apathetic and affect-less lady with a scar over one eye, who draws new age fantasy landscapes and works at a local corner store type store.
the plot goes something like this: some Satanists see Mandy walking on the side of the road and their leader decides they must abduct her. Up until this point mandy is always wearing some t-shirt that references a bit of occult lore, ie a pentagram or a black sabbath t shirt. There's a bunch of references to occult paraphernalia peppered throughout the movie (a fire salamander), all of this had little effect on me and seemed very paint by numbers, prescriptive almost, as if someone had listed a bunch of items they wanted to put in a movie to make it seem cool/edgy thinking it would give the script weight, then molding the plot around these elements, but I digress; back to the plot. so anyway the cultists summon hellraiser esque, gimp suit demons using the horn of abraxas and then abduct mandy and restrain Nicolas cages character. they force on mandy some kind of LSD substance and the egoist cult leader exposes himself after giving a manson esque rant, to which Mandy Laughs at him, causing him to become enraged in response. The cultists then burn mandy and stab nicolas cage with a ceremonial dagger, then leave. Nicolas cage manages to escape and then hunts down the cultists and gets revenge by killing them and the demons.
this plot may sound alright on paper, and couldv'e made an alright film, however there are a number of problems with it.
First of all the character of Mandy is really just a "refrigerator woman""refrigerator woman". Her role is almost completely passive and only serves the Nicolas cage/revenge plotline. My next complaint would be her character is just plain boring, and really doesn't inspire any sympathy.
It bothers me that this "wooden" acting style seems to be the new normal. Clearly the film was ripping off twin peaks, but it ultimately lacks the sophistication of a david lynch movie, (where visual metaphors have multiple meanings relating to the plot), in mandy I felt that alot of the film was just style over substance. Alot of the visuals did not have meaning but were just there to look cool, when there were visual plot devices they were fairly banal (ie the reoccurring tiger), overall I felt it was lacking in subtlety for it to work in the same way as a lynchian film. I also find the wooden acting style a bit try-hard
I think its somewhat indicative of a broader problem with modern american cinema and is comparable to the rise of pixel art in the indie game scene (as in the domination of a single, easily reproduced, clean yet bland style).
, I had the same problem with the acting in the movie Lobster. Modern American filmakers are just too homogeneous as a culture to create a sincere arthouse film, although that's really another topic for another day.
Mandy certainly isn't an art-house film, but I think in some ways it really wants to be one. It's like the inverse of "the room"
Tommy wiseau claims it was intended as a dark comedy, but watching it, it seems sincere but so badly done it's laughable, this film unfortunately isn't done badly enough to be quite so amusing.
I believe that "Mandy" could have been a decent movie if it had gone in the direction of films such as the evil dead and just not taken itself seriously at all. Mandy as a film is patently ridiculous (at one point nicolas cage has a chainsaw battle with one of the cultists) if only it had taken that and just ran with it. It has poorly written dialogue and the script could've been written by a high school student from the 90's. Had this been made as a kind of splatter comedy it may could have been quite awesome, I guess it's the fact that the film takes its stupidity dead serious that offends me. the film patronizes the discerning viewer by being dumb yet putting on airs as if it could be compared to the likes of lynch or jim jarmusch. The plots really not original, and has been done better in the past, and is basically just a revenge plot (wasn't conan a revenge plot?).
Some of the cinematography and post production is "made to look trippy" when the characters are on acid, but just looking trippy adds nothing to the fact that it's a shit/unoriginal/boring/uninspired plot. I feel like the audience is supposed to be dazzled by the effects and ignore the substance of the film, which is about as mentally nourishing as anemic dogshite. Anyway the post production effect didn't make me care about this move, if i wanted to trip I would play one of my games or something. What else...
The demons that the cultists summon served absolutely no purpose in the context of the film, and ultimately they were really quite boring as far as demons go. They were nowhere near as interesting and complex as Clive barkers cenobites, and yet I felt like they were meant to be like them (being dressed in quasi s and m gear and having spikes and such), Nicholas cage dispatched them with ease and they didn't even serve to pose any threat. At no point in the film was I on the "edge of my seat" infact I probably could've slept through most of the movie. One of the demons seemed to spend it's time jakking off to porn, only to be impaled through the neck by nicholas cage, with a home forged axe (which was forged in a montage highly reminiscent of Ash forging his chainsaw arm in the evil dead, yet nowhere near as memorable)
Closing thoughts;
The cult leader was poorly cast, although he just as easily could have been badly written. He was both unconvincing and uninteresting.
there was some weird demonizing of lsd throughout the film, which I didn't think was very helpful or honest.
In conclusion, I thought that Mandy was a mixed bag of garbage, trying to be many things but just ending up being mediocre. By the end of the film I felt as non affected and the character of mandy, and maybe a bit angry that so much money, time and energy was wasted making such a substandard cultural artifact. I could have directed a better film than Mandy! but then I could never operate within the constrains of the so called professional filming institution, with all the idiots that inevitably surround it.
This film feels like no women were involved with the project and a quick google only confirms that it was made by a bunch of dickhead bros.
The film mandy IS SHIT SHIT SHIT. I don't know how much more clearly I could put it than that!
Don't waste your time watching this shite unless you really are a complete idiot, in which case you might as well do us all a favor and kill yourself now!
Having said that if anyone else has seen the movie and has a differing opinion I would be keen to hear it.
