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Atom Egoyan

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children with angels

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on: March 10, 2003, 03:20:18 PM
Any love out there for the Candian (/Armenian) dude?
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Cecil

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Reply #1 on: March 10, 2003, 03:29:53 PM
ive only seen sweet hereafter and wasnt impressed. oh well.

im still going to see every other film by him for sure. im particularly interested in exotica.

MacGuffin

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Reply #2 on: March 10, 2003, 03:54:45 PM
Quote from: cecil b. demented
im particularly interested in exotica.


I think it's his best.
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snaporaz

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Reply #3 on: March 10, 2003, 06:52:04 PM
Quote from: children with angels
Any love out there for the Candian (/Armenian) dude?


isn't he originally from egypt?

Cecil

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Reply #4 on: March 10, 2003, 07:36:04 PM
Quote from: snaporaz
Quote from: children with angels
Any love out there for the Candian (/Armenian) dude?


isn't he originally from egypt?


he was born in egypt. his parents are armenian.


whos seen ararat?

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Reply #5 on: March 10, 2003, 08:28:35 PM
I've only seen Sweet Hereafter and Exotica...I went to see Ararat only to discover that it had already left the theater. But I love those other two, especially Sweet Hereafter. The way it tells one story by pretending to tell another is pretty brilliant.

budgie

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Reply #6 on: March 11, 2003, 04:53:29 PM
I've only seen Calendar, which I enjoyed and found touching and very funny, but strangely I'm not compelled to see more, I don't know why. Exotica was on tv not so long ago but I somehow let it slip by me. I suppose there's something slightly cool about Calendar, although I related to the situation totally. It's a puzzle.  :?

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Reply #7 on: March 11, 2003, 05:53:36 PM
I'm a major fan of Egoyan's work. I've seen three of his films (Exotica, Sweet Hereafter, Felicia's Journey) and realized to how simple each story is when looked at overall as one would right them down as a synopsis or something, but the films are always an experience of discovering a fresh and poingnant look at some layer of humanity. He mostly reminds me of my favorite director right know, Hayao Myazaki, who is a Japanese animator but follows in the richness of Japanese filmmaking and culture in deep observance for things that might be discarded. Egoyan follows Miyazaki in being able to stop, observe and make us care for the simplest of things. I remember after watching Felicia's Journey, I knew that it was not the supeior film to the great The Sweet Herafter, but I could not just put it off as a good film but beneath another. The face of the girl, Felicia, was completely with me. I was completely charmed by the face the entire way through. The experience of the film is what I remembered mostly. Which is a rare thing.

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Reply #8 on: March 15, 2003, 12:00:13 AM
After becoming well known for independent and artistic cinema, Director Atom Egoyan is turning his hand toward mainstream studio comedy. Egoyan's current project is producing this Canadian caper movie starring Ryan Reynolds ("Van Wilder"), David Suchet (TV's "Poirot") and Kristin Booth which follows the "members in a club that, for fun, plans highly complicated heists - though doesn't actually put them into effect. The fun comes to an end when the three of them are blackmailed by Suchet's gangster character, and now must pull off a heist for real". Why is Egoyan doing such a mainstream film? scooper 'Greywizard' has an explanation: "Most likely it comes from the recent reforms the Canadian government has enacted upon its feature film fund. After more than 30 years of subsidizing movies that got a lot of awards but almost no commercial success, the feature film fund is now choosing proposed film projects that have the best chance of commerical success. They now not only judge a proposed film project by the commerical attractiveness of the screenplay and how much the distributor is willing to put into marketing and promotion, but they also examine the filmmaker's past performance at the box office. With these new rules - and the fact that ARARAT did badly both in and out of Canada - it's possible Egoyan has chosen to do something much more commercial so that his next personal project has a better chance of being approved". Reynolds & Suchet will also be seen together in the upcoming WB comedy "The In-Laws".
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godardian

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Reply #9 on: May 13, 2003, 04:03:57 PM
Unfortunately, Ararat- in my opinion- was also Egoyan's worst film I've seen, and that includes the very early, very low-budget Family Viewing and Speaking Parts.

I think he's a great filmmaker. Exotica is my favorite of his, but I also love The Adjuster and Felicia's Journey.

For a while on IMDB, he was listed as directing a screen adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, which I was really, really looking forward to- Canada's best novelist brought to the screen by Canada's best filmmaker with a story that would've been perfect for his particular skills and apparent obsessions. Then it just disappeared. I think it could've been the "commercial" prospect he was looking for, too, had he cast the right actors.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

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SoNowThen

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Reply #10 on: May 13, 2003, 04:13:25 PM
Hmm, I don't like Egoyan at all. But I'm a Canadian who hates all things Canadian (with the exception of hockey, beer, and Pam Anderson). I just think we make absolutely the worst films. I read the script for Exotica, and had to put it down after 30 some pages, because the dialogue was just fucking horrid. And it didn't hold my interest in the least. Then, after enjoying the Russel Banks-adapted Affliction, I decided to check out Sweet Hearafter. Man, can this guy make actors look wooden and ridiculous. I had to shut that off, too. Why do people call this genius? It's just the same as shit all over CBC, and in every bad Canadian film school. Just junk. Maybe the non-Canadians think it's cool because it's so different, but lemme tell you, it's not representative of anything particularily unique in Canada, besides bad filmmaking.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

godardian

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Reply #11 on: May 13, 2003, 04:19:00 PM
Quote from: SoNowThen
Hmm, I don't like Egoyan at all. But I'm a Canadian who hates all things Canadian (with the exception of hockey, beer, and Pam Anderson). I just think we make absolutely the worst films. I read the script for Exotica, and had to put it down after 30 some pages, because the dialogue was just fucking horrid. And it didn't hold my interest in the least. Then, after enjoying the Russel Banks-adapted Affliction, I decided to check out Sweet Hearafter. Man, can this guy make actors look wooden and ridiculous. I had to shut that off, too. Why do people call this genius? It's just the same as shit all over CBC, and in every bad Canadian film school. Just junk. Maybe the non-Canadians think it's cool because it's so different, but lemme tell you, it's not representative of anything particularily unique in Canada, besides bad filmmaking.


It's really just a certain sort of staginess, though, right? Like in David Mamet or Neil Labute? Part of the (intentional, I presume) dampening-down, freezing-out effect?

Don't tell me you don't think Margaret Atwood stands up to the top contemporary novelists in the world today... in fact, I think the Brits gave The Blind Assassin their top literary prize.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

SoNowThen

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Reply #12 on: May 13, 2003, 04:28:56 PM
Although having never read any Atwood, I did see a documentary of her. She seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. But I constantly hear of her politics, which happen to be 180 degrees from mine. Sometimes I wish she'd just shut the fuck up. But I can't say anything either way about her work.


As a side note, though, if it's anything like the other heralded female Canadian author Margaret Lawrence, I'd fucking hate it.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

SoNowThen

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Reply #13 on: May 13, 2003, 04:32:26 PM
I read a ton of books, but the only contemporary author I can really take is James Ellroy. I figure there's so many classics out there, I can't waste time with anything new. But I would like to read the Eggers novel.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

godardian

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Reply #14 on: May 13, 2003, 04:34:05 PM
Quote from: SoNowThen
Although having never read any Atwood, I did see a documentary of her. She seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. But I constantly hear of her politics, which happen to be 180 degrees from mine. Sometimes I wish she'd just shut the fuck up. But I can't say anything either way about her work.


As a side note, though, if it's anything like the other heralded female Canadian author Margaret Lawrence, I'd fucking hate it.


I've never heard of Margaret Lawrence. Atwood is something along the lines of a sharper, more incisive Alice Munro.

Here in the US, you'd think a politically conservative Canadian is an extinct species, from the images we get. Socialized medicine, pacifism, lenient drug laws, French... that's what we see on the news about Canada.

As a democratic socialist living in the current good 'ol boy US of A, all I can say is I'm happy to live in a pocket that more or less reflects my politics to a degree.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

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