Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Started by polkablues, March 24, 2017, 02:52:59 PM

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Drenk

Wesley Morris wrote a thoughtful negative review of Three Billboards. I don't entirely agree with it, I don't think it's entirely flawed, but I liked reading someone who was making sense.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/movies/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri.html


Ascension.


©brad

What a fascinatingly polarizing film. Like the critics and friends I trust, you guys are all over the map and I don't know what to think. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and watch it myself vs forming an opinion based on a few good hot takes I intrinsically agree with.

Alexandro

SPOILERS

I appreciated the fact that the film kept me second guessing it's intentions. A lot of what the more heroic characters were doing didn't sit right with me, and that prevented me from taking any sides. The ending was what shook me, because I realized what we were seeing was not a redemption story, but simply a descent into despair. Liked the humor, the performances, the dialogue... I was a little stunned when it ended and some dumbass chick who never stopped talking during the whole thing turned to her boyfriend and said: "so who was the killer? I didn't understand it... I don't want to understand it." Made the whole film a bit more poignant.

jenkins

learning to like this movie was a growing moment for me.

BB

I didn't care for this, but find the discussion around it really interesting. Can't believe nobody's talking about:

SPOILERS

The goddamn slipper scene! I was stunned. Stunned! You all hung up on the deer. I hadn't read anything about it beforehand and didn't watch the trailer, so had no particular expectations going in. Coming out, would've predicted a Crash-esque response to the Oscar stuff. Surprised to find such rousing support.

There's an intriguing kind of movie in here in which the lead goes insane yet the stylization and music frame it in a conventionally heroic way, but I don't know if that's where this was aiming. It didn't feel cohesive to me and I didn't laugh but I've been thinking/reading about it for hours, so maybe I kinda almost like it in a way?

This will sound like an unusual comparison, but it made me think of The Boat That Rocked with PSH, which I only saw one time back when it came out and haven't thought of at all since. I'm not sure where this is coming from. Maybe evoked a similar sense of discord? The uneasy tonal shifts. The good cast doing clumsy things. A peculiar artificiality. And that was about believing in the music, not madness and abuse and despair. Like Ebbing is to Fargo what The Boat That Rocked is to Almost Famous.

Alethia

Finally saw this. I liked it overall, I guess, but there were some bits that could have just been taken right out (e.g. everything with the 19 year old girlfriend).

I enjoy McDonagh's movies more or less, but has anyone here read and/or seen his plays? Pillowman? Lieutenant of Inishmore? The Beauty Queen of Leenane? His talent shines far brighter in that medium.