The Squid and the Whale [Archive] - Beastie Boys Message Board

abcdefz

11-09-2005, 10:46 AM

....kind of an unfortunate title until you see the movie, but by all means, see it. This is probably the best movie I've seen so far this year, and I almost skipped it.

It's also a big gift to folks who get sick of movies about real life which seem solely informed by movies, or maybe television. The writer/director (Noah B------ something... co-wrote Life Aquatic [must've written the good parts] and the not-Will Farrel movie Kicking and Screaming) gives the audience a lot of credit for intelligence.

the cast:

Jeff Daniels (fantastic work)
Laura Linney (terrific as usual)
that young guy from Rodger Dodger
Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates' little boy doing gross stuff to library shelves and lockers.

The ending is sliiiiiiiiiightly unsatisfying, but haunting.

A-. (y)

beastieangel01

11-09-2005, 11:07 AM

neat. perhaps I will see it then!

YoungRemy

11-09-2005, 11:15 AM

Noah Baumbauch

abcdefz

11-09-2005, 11:43 AM

Noah Baumbauch

Thank you. I was in sort of a hurry and wanted to get this up on the board.

Man -- it's sooooooooo darkly funny. It's a family divorce movie, and it amazes me -- the stuff that comes out of these characters' mouths at times. Seems sooooo real; like when you just have to say the most hateful thing to your mom or girl or brother or whoever, just because you're hurting so much, they need to, too.

I really loved the fact that all the character motivations weren't spelled out, and we got to just watch it as a behavioral thing and realize things on our own which the characters clearly already knew. I love that stuff -- when the author resists stepping into the characters' voices to explain What It All Means.

It's so, so good. I might have to see it in the theater again.

kleptomaniac

11-09-2005, 04:21 PM

....kind of an unfortunate title until you see the movie, but by all means, see it. This is probably the best movie I've seen so far this year, and I almost skipped it.

ok ok ok u talked me into it

DandyFop

11-09-2005, 11:54 PM

This was by faaaar my favorite film at Sundance in January. I was able to see it with the director and some of the actors. Really a touching, smart, funny film. The cinematography, beautiful. Aces.

like2_drink

11-10-2005, 08:51 AM

you know that jeff daniels' dad wanted to name him jack.

discopants

11-10-2005, 09:16 AM

Who'd win in a fight between a giant squid and a sperm whale?

abcdefz

11-11-2005, 02:34 PM

Maisailana

11-13-2005, 03:14 AM

loved this film. i give it two thumbs up, two snaps in a circle and a bunch of other signs of my approval.

abcdefz

11-14-2005, 11:43 AM

Definiatly on my list of must see's at some point in my life. Jeff can pull off some pretty convincing stuff. He was pretty good in Imaginary Heroes as an insenitive jerk out of touch with everything about his family.

...I think this is the best acting I've seen him do since The Purple Rose of Cairo. Just fantastic.

loved this film. i give it two thumbs up, two snaps in a circle and a bunch of other signs of my approval.

Squidlove! (y) (y) (y) (y)

rirv

03-18-2006, 04:24 PM

Whales are the tramps of the sea:
They have no teeth, no home and wander around singing tuneless songs.

synch

03-18-2006, 05:21 PM

I thought this was going to be about food :(

GuerillaMike69

03-19-2006, 02:15 AM

life aquatic is a real bad movie there4 turning me off seeing this movie but i will probably see it because it has kevin kline and he is bloody funny ecspecially in a fish called wanda

GuerillaMike69

03-19-2006, 02:16 AM

even though i picked up a few flaws in your description its not kevin kline its owen kline and its will ferell not farrel

abcdefz

03-20-2006, 11:12 AM

even though i picked up a few flaws in your description its not kevin kline its owen kline and its will ferell not farrel

I said Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates' son; I didn't mean to say Kevin Kline was in it.

My apolgies to Will.

Still, Owen Kline kicks ass in this thing. (y)

abcdefz

03-20-2006, 02:13 PM

AVAILABLE ON DVD TUESDAY MARCH 21

Nuzzolese

03-20-2006, 03:00 PM

Why was it called The Squid and The Whale?

Haven't seen it...yet.

I get so upset watching divorce movies. A cool dry Place. Kramer vs Kramer. The Story of Us; which wasn't even a real movie so much as it was just a collage of images designed to make the audience feel sad for a failing marriage that never would have existed except so that it could fail and make you sad.

abcdefz

03-20-2006, 03:05 PM

Why was it called The Squid and the Whale: well, a squid/whale exhibit in New York plays a part in it. I don't know exactly what the symbolism of it is, and the writer/director says he doesn't know if one character is the squid and one is the whale. But the exhibit itself is really important to one of the characters because of how afraid he was as a child when he saw it.

If you get upset by divorce movies, I'd say don't see it. Or just brace yourself and see it. But it's... it's harsh but funny/harsh.

IMDB:

The Squid and the Whale

Noah Baumbach's autobiographical portrait may be the funniest film about divorce and its reverberations through the family ever made. Jeff Daniels (in the finest performance of his career to date) is the insufferably pretentious father, an author and literature professor who passes judgment on every topic with such dismissive authority that his eldest son (Jesse Eisenberg) accepts it all as simple truth, and Laura Linney is the mother who finally bails out of the marriage to find her own voice and romantic life, much to the discomfort of the kids. The humor is lacerating and the scenes uncomfortably raw and revealing and Baumbach edits it all with a ruthless intensity, fearlessly cutting to the essence of scenes and vivid fragments of experience and then jumping headlong into the next scene. Owen Kline plays the youngest brother, who acts out with unusual expressions of bodily functions, and William Baldwin and Anna Paquin co-star. Winner of the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Documad

03-20-2006, 07:56 PM

It's at the top of my Netflix list solely because of a-z's previous mentions. a-z is one of the rare people who has good taste in movies (i.e. similar to my own).

abcdefz

03-24-2006, 10:47 AM

It's at the top of my Netflix list solely because of a-z's previous mentions. a-z is one of the rare people who has good taste in movies (i.e. similar to my own).

Praise, indeed. Danke!

Some suggestions for the symbolism of the Squid and the Whale are as follows:

Mother / Father relationship (most probable)
Older Son / Father relationship
Mother/ Son relationship (which is probaby less probable)

Can you explain? I don't know if squid/whale relationships are sybiotic or anything.

SPOILER:

He told the counselor that the squid/whale exhibit frightened him badly as a child. Presumably the squid looks monstrous, threatening. At the end of the film, he's had the crack in his psyche where he finally sees his dad as a deeply flawed, maybe even reprehensible person, and yet he (the son) has done little but pattern himself slavishly after his father, adopting his opinions and beliefs wholesale. His MOM was the comforting one, and he had rejected her along the way. I think his return to the exhibit is kind of a reflexive way of confronting that horror in himself; "the squid and the whale" aren't two characters, exactly, so much as one idea: something about living symbiotically with a monster or something. Something like that?

abcdefz

03-24-2006, 01:31 PM

I don't think the older son is afraid of fighting much at all. He's pretty confrontational with his mom; he even throws dismissive barbs at his girlfriend. It's a film about separation, and I think that ending is the moment when a young man separates from his father. If you notice, when his dad is in the hospital and tells his son to ask the nurse for water, the son leaves and says "The man in that room wants some water."

There's a violence in that disassociation and a fear as he sees he hasn't developed a self and now is on the cusp of it. So that last shot is a full-on facing of his fear of the monstrous (his father's monstrousness, the monstorousness of his own culpability in enabling his father's self-absorption, etc.).

He's idolized his father for so long, and some key things start to waken him: his pleasant memories are of his mother (he can't remember his father being around), and that moment when the father is saying he wanted joint custody and the mom finally blurts out that he only wanted joint custody because it would be cheaper than paying child support. I don't think that's the full truth -- he's lonely and wants company, and the older boy definitely feeds his ego. (A side note: Bernard's ego feeding comes almsot entirely from students, now.)

abcdefz

03-24-2006, 01:40 PM

That closeup with the son's hand leaving his father's at the hospital is a very interesting shot. Some could see it as the whale escaping the squid's grip...which reflects the son finally realizing certain things about his relationship with his father and mother.

Exactly. (y)

This is why -- I mean, the ending of the film always felt abrupt, but it made sense. It ends right as this kids new inner life begins -- possibly, it begins the moment he becomes a man. So that last image was perfect, and breaking it off right there was right.

abcdefz

03-24-2006, 01:55 PM

That sort of movie always gets just a screenplay nod. Look at sex, lies... or Diner.

The DVD has some interesting stuff -- there's an interview with Noah, some interview bits with the cast. It advertises director's commentary, and it's on there, but doesn't run the full length of the movie. Instead, he just talks about... casting, I think.

I wouldn't bet on a special edition, but who knows? If this had been bare bones, I would say yeah -- hold out. But it seems like Noah's participated in adding features as much as he intends to.

!Gi!

03-24-2006, 11:33 PM

I love whales almost as much as i love dolphins. :)
We must do everything we can to save them!

Wheeler

03-24-2006, 11:35 PM

Dolphins are sexual beings, I'm down with that (y)

Kid Presentable

04-13-2006, 06:13 AM

Just too self-involved for my liking. Very cliched ending. Yes the symbolic escape occured, but so what? The crux of the film for me was the breakdown of the relationship; this revelatory episode felt tacked-on.

Great work by the cast, though.(y)

abcdefz

04-13-2006, 08:00 AM

DIGI

04-13-2006, 09:53 AM

Good movie, brotha.

Sarky Devotchka

04-13-2006, 10:35 AM

Billy Baldwin's character was too silly in a movie with mostly realistic characters. Jesse Eisenberg's straightened hair looked like a wig. I despise Anna Paquin and I was pissed that she played basically the same slutty character from the 25th Hour. And how people didn't know that was a Pink Floyd song was beyond me. I mean, I think the parents knew, and it was done kind of tongue-in-cheek to kind of show that the son felt above everyone enough to try to pull it off as his own. but still, I knew who pink floyd was in 1986 and I was in 2nd grade.

Other than that, it was a great movie.

and he says, "the man in that room wants to order some breakfast". ;)

abcdefz

04-13-2006, 10:39 AM

Apparently, the choice of "Hey You" was made on the fly. The day came to shoot the talent show -- it was shot out of order, obviously -- and they hadn't been able to secure the rights to "Behind Blue Eyes."

But I think "Behind Blue Eyes" would've posed the same problem, frankly. You might've sneaked that by some high school kids in 1986, but so many parents would've immediately recognized it.

abcdefz

04-13-2006, 10:40 AM

Billy Baldwin's character was too silly in a movie with mostly realistic characters.

I think this was a performance problem more than anything. But, yeah -- his "brothah" thing was pretty forced most of the time.

DIGI

04-13-2006, 10:44 AM

Billy Baldwin's character was too silly in a movie with mostly realistic characters.

Agreed. His character was a little too retarded Ritchie Tenebaum for me.

beastiegirrl101

04-13-2006, 10:46 AM

Agreed. His character was a little too retarded Ritchie Tenebaum for me.

thats exactly what I thought. The whole movie sorat took on that feel though.

Sarky Devotchka

04-13-2006, 11:06 AM

it had a good mid-80's feel to it. nothing too forced, no neon or super-80's looking stuff. it wasn't cartoonish like Tenenbaums, that's why I was disappointed in Billy Baldwin.

also, my parents got divorced in 1986, so it was kind of interesting to watch...to remember how my parents were kind of awkward and mean and said inappropriate things to or about eachother in front of me. although my parents' divorce was way more shitty.

and seriously, do any of you think that anna paquin is sexy? she's so fucking gross.

abcdefz

04-13-2006, 11:14 AM

...she's kind of sexy in the X-Men movies, in an I-can't-be-touched kind of way.

Kid Presentable

04-13-2006, 07:42 PM

I thought the self-absorption was part of the point -- part of what made it so shocking/funny.

But I know what you mean. I was trying to watch Bergman's Through the Glass Darkly a couple nights ago and just couldn't stand another Bergman movie about neurosis and navel-gazing.

Yeah. I felt that the realtionship dynamic changing was the common theme that would apply to all situations of family breakdown. As such, I was a bit disappointed that it spent a bit of time on the Brooklyn psuedo-intellectual, upper-middle class scene as well. I could have empathised more if it were strictly an exploration into how this family dealt with the same things most divorcing families go through. The kinds of situations that transcend class.

Oh well. I did enjoy it.

marsdaddy

07-11-2006, 06:40 PM

I mean, I think the parents knew, and it was done kind of tongue-in-cheek to kind of show that the son felt above everyone enough to try to pull it off as his own.No, I think everyone else not knowing was a stretch, but the parents not knowing was part of the story -- too wrapped up in their worlds to pay attention to their kids.

It's a neat trick in film making, but therapy would be a lot easier (and less lucrative) if people really could come to those epiphany moments in a one hour session.

I enjoyed the movie in the, "gawd, life is painful and I hope I don't inflict this kind of trauma on my kids" way.

hardnox71

07-11-2006, 06:44 PM

This was by faaaar my favorite film at Sundance in January. I was able to see it with the director and some of the actors. Really a touching, smart, funny film. The cinematography, beautiful. Aces.
You went to Sundance? I would love to go to Sundance. In the last five or six years I've really developed an affinity for indies. I stay up sometimes till four in the morning watching IFC (Independent Film Channel) on cable. Alotta times the work is far superior in the low budget movies you almost never hear about than the multi million dollar big studio extravagnzas that are plastered all over every billboard for weeks and weeks.