Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster) - f.k.a. Disappointment Blvd

[PinkTeeth]

OOOWEE

https://www.slashfilm.com/disappointment-blvd/

Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix are teaming up for Disappointment Blvd., a title that's coming from Aster's buddies over at A24. The indie distributor pumped out Aster's Hereditary and Midsommar, so it makes sense that the director would want to stick with them. We don't know much about the title just yet, but the official word is that it'll be a "decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time." Aster has dropped several hints about what his new movie might be about in the past, but it's unclear if he was talking about this project.

[Alethia]

 

[HACKANUT]

good lord please let this be the praying mantis movie! 

[wrongright]

https://twitter.com/FilmUpdates/status/1418673265094971392

[WorldForgot]

I guess at somepoint they changed the title to this flick ~

[PinkTeeth]

gimme

[polkablues]

Looks very much to be an evolution of the style and tone of his pre-Hereditary short films, which I couldn't be more excited about. That razor-thin edge between unsettling and hilarious.

[PinkTeeth]

Looks very much to be an evolution of the style and tone of his pre-Hereditary short films

HellYes!
Financial District Chaos & Hyper Phony Posters and Logos!
LoveIT!

[HACKANUT]

[WorldForgot]

Macabre mania ~ Melodrama of the teenage rebel variety. So much good dialogue.

Went in without having seen the trailer or looked at the cast on IMDB which means I got served a hefty surprise with one

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Patti LuPone !!!! like, COME ON

.

More Jung than Freud, but neither, really - its distortion of introspective folly means only what we paid for: Theater of the Absurd, Entertainment at the serrated end of mortal coil.

Pure mischievous excess, with references to so many comedies it might as well be a collage.

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Enter The Void? Starship Troopers? Click? Truman Show? Brazil? Is Aster tracing a lineage of boof'd dystopias?

Even going so far as to

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manipulate his own iconography

.

[HACKANUT]

Still having quite the time digesting this one. I want to write about it but seem to be grasping at the words to no avail. Here's some notes, at least:

- This brand of comedy is 100% in my wheelhouse, with a part of the joy coming from the fact that it's so rarely used. Strong After Hours vibes. The balls to consistently "yes and" every single ridiculous situation into nightmare...

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 well, they'd have to be so big you'd need an attic to store them.

- I respect Aster's ability to externalize the interior world of his characters while also fleshing out their surrounding world in a believable way. His world building has one foot in the character and one foot on the ground.

- This felt like it was 4 hours long. I dont mean that as a mark against it either. In fact I find that protracting pacing really aids the odyssey here. The episodes wash over you in a hypnotic, glacial pace... just enough time to try and piece it all together in real time. I felt rebirthed many times over throughout.

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The animated journey sequence has some beautiful "facts of life" stuff that could have easily come off as overly sentimental but I found myself earnestly reflecting on "purpose" and the stories we tell ourselves. They're so important.

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I found the plastic baggy'd polaroid of Elaine in his bedside table to be an incredibly effective device. Did anyone else INSTANTLY feel what was being said here? Again, its hard to find the words... but as soon as that drawer opened my heart rose and sank at the same time. Poor Beau.

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The first thing I ever heard about this movie was that it was about a dude that sweats a lot and turns into a praying mantis. I was excited to see that manifested onto the screen. Looks like, if that ever was in the movie, it was turned into a detail on the dick monster. I'll take pincers. That's good enough.

Eh, that's enough for now. Gotta go to work. Cant wait to see this again.

[WorldForgot]

- This felt like it was 4 hours long. I dont mean that as a mark against it either. In fact I find that protracting pacing really aids the odyssey here. The episodes wash over you in a hypnotic, glacial pace... just enough time to try and piece it all together in real time. I felt rebirthed many times over throughout.

-

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The first thing I ever heard about this movie was that it was about a dude that sweats a lot and turns into a praying mantis. I was excited to see that manifested onto the screen. Looks like, if that ever was in the movie, it was turned into a detail on the dick monster. I'll take pincers. That's good enough.

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I love how the praying mantis/Gregor Samsa esque plot details that were first reported, paired with the duplicituous logline they put out '"decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.' we can imagine that Ari Aster totally fleshed out Beau's parents as well as accounting for Wasserton's

scope of control on society and our protagonist.

On my latest rewatch a noticed a very small joke that could be unintentional but I read as intentional from the production design team.

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Beau's apartment complex is the 'Big Dubya' povertyrehab center, like Big Wasserman building, but it's also a Big Dub, big win, to be able to choose a decrepit solace to living with his mother.

And totally agree about the rebirths! I jokingly fielded that to my friends as an interpretation i could see people holding on to. Essentially every act 'breaks' when

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Beau is unconscious

which adds an element of interpretation beyond the literal.

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Perhaps Beau lives many more lives than we realize.

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[WorldForgot]

Out on VOD now, I believe

Blu-Ray announced for July 11th ~