Tusk

Started by MacGuffin, July 25, 2014, 11:25:10 PM

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mogwai

Quote from: modage on September 29, 2014, 01:50:03 PM
Yeah, I mean I went in with no axe to grind. I had read the reviews that basically implied he'd been reborn as a low-budget horror filmmaker and I was ready to dive in.

There is a scene set in a fast food restaurant where 3 characters are talking that feels like it goes on for 25 minutes long. It is completely unfunny, there are even more unfunny digressions and flashbacks and it just looks cheap as fucking hell (there are literally zero extras in this restaurant and the one other person to enter the scene is Smith's wife). It's like he thinks he's writing the basement scene in Inglourious Basterds but he's just nowhere near that planet.

What's even worse is like, it can't even just be a terrible movie, it's got to have in-jokes and setup for his new terrible universe/franchise with introducing his and Depp's daughters characters (stay tooned for that snootchie booche)

He's said he's making a canadian horror trilogy but since Tusk bombed the following movies will probably be released straight to dvd. Kind of shame because as you wrote that he had been reborn etc. My opinion is that the first five movies he did is he best, making Chasing Amy the masterpiece. Then he got depressed because Zack and Miri flopped and starting smoking dope. Tried to enjoy Red State but it also suffers from lengthy monologues. It's kind of ironic because Smith himself took a shit on the length of "Magnolia", remember?

Reel

It's certainly an improvement from 'Red State', but he could've done that blindfolded. I'm glad he made this film because it serves as a great example of a director going 'overboard' with his vision, even on this small of a scale. He throws way too many unrelated elements into the pot and expects it to work as his own brand of absurdism. He doesn't have a good grasp of the tone he wants in these last two ventures outside of comedy. That's not to say the movie isn't without it's charms. I was very impressed with Michael Parks' performance and found his monologues to be some exceptional writing, coming from Smith. If a better director sees this and remembers that Parks is still working and decides to hire him, then it won't be all for naught. My favorite parts are the conversations between Parks and Long in the beginning. I really was captivated for a time there in how they were setting up what's to come ( even though I've known about it for MONTHS ). Then it just spirals out of control after the first time we see the Walrus suit and forgets what kind of movie it wants to be.






SPOILERS






The suit is a HIDEOUS sight, truly disturbing, but after seeing it for awhile all you can think about is how bad it looks. This whole time I was expecting to see a guy trapped in a REALISTIC walrus suit, but it turns out it's a patchwork of human skin stitched together from different bodies. I know that Smith wanted to up the ante and show something shocking and grotesque, but the idea of being sewn into a suit that resembles a walrus is SCARY ENOUGH for me. He's always trying so hard to outdo himself that any potential for subtlety flies right out the window. This is a Kevin Smith movie, you wanna freak me out? SHOW THE GUY FUCKING THE WALRUS! There's even foreshadowing about how big the walrus dick is that just gets thrown by the wayside. He really lost his way somewhere writing this script. The more he keeps throwing out these semi-cool premises and fucking it up, the less I want to keep supporting his movies. I'll watch this again, though. Maybe many times. It has some moments that felt inspired, but the second half was a huge disappointment for me.

ono

TL;DR: Needs more bestiality?

Reel

You can't have a walrus cock over your mantle in act 1 if its not going to be used in act 3

mogwai

A little inside news to the follow up "Yoga Hosers. Michael Parks won't be in it as he was unavailable due to health problems. Instead Ralph Garman from Kevin & Bean show and Kevin's co host at Hollywood Babble On will take over. Johnny Depp will reprise his dumb character from Tusk.

The question is: Will it gross more or less than Tusk?

03

and will it be more or less gross?

Jeremy Blackman

Thanks, I just wasted several minutes looking up info on Yoga Hosers.

Anyway, is it basically a collection of Canadian stereotypes?


mogwai

Any canadians in the room who can answer that, eh?

Reel

Speaking for 'Tusk', none of the canadian references work. It's like he's trying to recreate the 'Mooby's' marketing with no satire. His daughter can't act but he claims he didn't have to direct her at all because "she learned from the TV." He tries to pass LA as Canada and it's so glaringly obvious. Like, couldn't you at least wait for a slightly overcast day, dude? "Nope. Johnny Depp's in town for 2 days, gotta shoot!" Soooooooo lazy

mogwai

The scene at the Canadian customs is so painfully unfunny.

Something Spanish

Smith has had a Shyamalan plummet from grace ever since Zack & Miri didn't perform the way he expected. I remember watching Tusk in theaters upon its release then stumbling on Cop Out while channel surfing a few hours later. God really threw a red flag that day, demonstrating in full the ways Smith had erred in his career. Hard to believe this is the same guy that made Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Clerks. Guy started smoking weed heavy after that Porno movie bombed and his movies have been shitslide since. Blame Seth Rogen.

Jeremy Blackman

Oh my. Yoga Hosers looks real bad.

I know the movie apparently gets weird, but this scene is the very definition of the thing I am not interested in seeing. Unpleasant, uninteresting, unfunny. Do people really have this much nostalgia for high school?



03

..what in gods name
i feel like someone took 'can't hardly wait' into the 80s and then chewed it up and vomited it in the future. this is next level horrible.

Reel

Well, I will give him credit for casting 15 year old girls who are actually 15, not 25. I can't say I'm a fan of his anymore, but I like this horror trend he's been on because he seems to be going out of his way to do exactly what he wants. Even if he's unsucessful, he's leaving us a barrage of work to publicly mock him for. I find that respectable, better to make things that get people talking than not at all.

ElPandaRoyal

My relationship with his work is funny because I only got to know about Kevin Smith when the dude was on his way down. First movie of his I saw was Dogma and then Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. So to me his movies were only the stupid (in a good sense) comedies with some very funny dialogue - except for Chasing Amy which I saw on a stage in my life when it spoke to me very strongly - and he was never the indie god who picked up a camera and made a hit with his friends.

His latest movies have been weird in a very very particular way, but I admit to have found them entertaining enough. Red State had a great Michael Parks performance and was creepy and all over the place enough for me. Tusk came out of nowhere, I didn't know shit about it when I saw it, and it seemed to go out of its way to be preposterous. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was a very specific kind of 'fuck you, I'll do whatever I want'. It's one of those bad movies that I enjoyed and can't even start to think 'how is that even possible?' I only know I'd rather watch a bad WTF-is-this movie like Tusk than a bad Academy friendly prestige film like The Imitation Game any day of the week.

Maybe the problem with Kevin Smith in general is that he was made to be something he really wasn't when he started out. Whenever I see one of his movies, the only expectation is that I laugh a bit. That's what I expect from Yoga Hosers. (That said, didn't have the guts to see Cop Out yet. That one sounds really terrible.)
Si