"From dawn to dusk, a few hours in the life of Monsieur Oscar, a shadowy character who journeys from one life to the next. He is, in turn, captain of industry, assassin, beggar, monster, family man…"

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uuICidzey5c

Has anyone else seen this yet? It's out there.

It was a pretty big hit at Cannes. Denis Levant put in work, in 11 different roles, no less. Playful, batshit insane, sad, and in some ways, a distant relative of Hugo, but more so Synecdoche, New York, 8 1/2 & Inland Empire.

If you're interested, I've compiled some film references, songs, and visuals from the film here: http://recordinglivefromsomewhere.com/2012/11/12/visuals-songs-film-references-from-holy-motors

Music, movies, and everything in between: http://recordinglivefromsomewhere.com & http://twitter.com/marko_orlic

Really enjoyed the experience of seeing this. It's amongst the most wildly insane movies I've ever seen. It's so challenging it makes other challenging movies like, say, The Master, look like an episode of Family Ties. At the very begging, I was intrigued, then a little further in I was telling myself to be wearing of liking it just for it's weirdness, then by the the final third or so, I was all in.

This is the kind of "art house" movie that people who don't think they like "art house" movies will hate passionately. If you're adventurous, however, I highly recommend checking it out.

----

I don't think it was bad or anything... just way out there for me.

--

"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."

holy motors is an absolute abortion. amateurishly incoherent, visually unimpressive, a complete waste of everyone's time. i now understand why it grossed less than $650K worldwide and gained a following absolutely nowhere on planet earth, except of course PTP. got halfway through, enduring scene after scene of complete nonsense (wifey looking at me every five minutes like WTF are you watching, me looking at her every five minutes like WTF are you watching with me), dude broke out into the accordion number, and i was like nah. killed that stream quick, dialed up the dictator, and we ended up laughing and having an enjoyable saturday evening.

really, i have no further interest in voting with a group that thinks THIS was one of the five best films of 2012. amour was bad enough, but this right here is my stop. too many people concerned about impressing everyone with how much they love jerking it to artsy fartsy french films no one else has seen or cares about. on a hip-hop site of mostly twenty-to-thirtysomething urban males, the level of posing going on here is off the charts. i'm done with it.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

Therefore, all that shit you said is irrelevant.

I grant you that it's fucking crazy and not for everyone, but with that said, I didn't make up my mind that it was awesome until somewhere into the second half.

But you went in expecting to hate this shit and you did. Congratulations.

----

don't need to drink the entire glass of piss to know i'm drinking a glass of piss. and for the record, i don't go into movies expecting to hate them. i know that's all the rage around here, but i don't have time for it. if i expect i'll hate a movie, i just won't watch it.

i gave holy motors a chance based solely on PTP's recommendation, hoping y'all unearthed some hidden gem. i've discovered some great flicks through these boards in the past. but the phoniness and snobbery has gotten wildly out of control. y'all taste in movies is officially trash.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

I love surrealist absurdist shit, and this hit me right where I live. But I understand people watching it and hating it.

All I can say is I'm sorry you think people who love it are pretending. This film is a classic case of being made for an admittedly limited audience with a flavor for the offbeat and bizarre, and I'm absolutely one of those people.

Note: do NOT see this year's Computer Chess, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. It will not be to your liking either.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

listen, i love watching youtube videos of news reporter fails. i'm not gonna nominate any of them for best picture. like, i believe that you're into whatever holy motors was. i believe a little less that you really thought it was one of the five best films released last year (rather than you just using your list to assert your individuality, which is fine, but call it what it is). i don't believe at all that you and half a dozen other people, or however many voted for it and its director and lead actor, all independently felt the same way about it. i don't believe that at all.

i agree with you that, like a blind chimp smearing its feces on a canvas, holy motors was made for an extremely limited audience with a taste for the bizarre and incoherent. i don't believe that such a disproportionately large percentage of that audience just so happens to post on a hip-hop message board. do you? does it seem even remotely likely that the one place this side of planet earth that holy motors gained a following was on okayplayer.com? occam's razor says the emperor has no clothes.

>Note: do NOT see this year's Computer Chess, a movie I
>thoroughly enjoyed. It will not be to your liking either.

noted. but you realize though you just sent out the snob bat signal that will propel computer chess to next year's best picture latte, right?

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

And I'm sure that if each OKP forum did their own movie awards thing (GD, Sports, Lesson, etc.) and if we combined the results, Holy Motors would not be in the overall top 10.

Like I said in the other reply, the extremely low number of ballots made those with indie tastes an unusually high percentage of the whole last year. One or two more ballots could've changed the entire outcome.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

of OKPs responding...lots of people who didn't end up turning in a ballot.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

>listen, i love watching youtube videos of news reporter
>fails. i'm not gonna nominate any of them for best picture.
>like, i believe that you're into whatever holy motors was. i
>believe a little less that you really thought it was one of
>the five best films released last year (rather than you just
>using your list to assert your individuality, which is fine,
>but call it what it is). i don't believe at all that you and
>half a dozen other people, or however many voted for it and
>its director and lead actor, all independently felt the same
>way about it. i don't believe that at all.

.., I can't vouch for others, nor will I try to. I will say, to back up my claim, out of all the films of last year, I've watched Holy Motors enough times that it's definitely in my Top 5 most watched of last year, and the accordion interlude is the theme song for my podcast at the moment, lol.

I don't claim to understand every moment in it. But I love every moment in it, its weirdness, its joy, its sadness, and how gorgeous the film looks.

>i agree with you that, like a blind chimp smearing its feces
>on a canvas, holy motors was made for an extremely limited
>audience with a taste for the bizarre and incoherent. i don't
>believe that such a disproportionately large percentage of
>that audience just so happens to post on a hip-hop message
>board. do you? does it seem even remotely likely that the
>one place this side of planet earth that holy motors gained a
>following was on okayplayer.com? occam's razor says the
>emperor has no clothes.

I will say that while some of it still escapes me, I do not believe the film on the whole is incoherent. I believe it absolutely takes multiple viewings (I know, I really hate that expression, and it's usually an excuse for the worst kind of film, but this time I earnestly believe it, lol), but I could write (and have written) a lot about what it's about and why it speaks to me.

Regarding others, again, I can't speak for them. Since I recommended the film highly, I would hope others see what I see.

I will say a relatively SMALL number of people voted for it. It's just that the small following was extremely loyal and gave it 4 or 5 points. If we had more voters, even one more ballot, I kind of doubt it would have made it.

>>Note: do NOT see this year's Computer Chess, a movie I
>>thoroughly enjoyed. It will not be to your liking either.
>
>noted. but you realize though you just sent out the snob bat
>signal that will propel computer chess to next year's best
>picture latte, right?

LOL, perhaps. It's less accessible off the top than Holy Motors, and I liked it less after first viewing, but it bore its way into my brain. I also think it's far less likely to (a) catch on, or (b) top my ballot. It's just super interesting and strange and unlikely anything I've ever seen, and thus worth giving a shot in my book. I totally admit that many will hate it, but those that like it may absolutely be enthralled, and that's a risk I'll take, with both message board friends and friends of mine in real life.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

you enjoy watching women get their fingers bitten off for no reason. i'm not gonna judge you for that. i just think with the public ballots, people get overly enthusiastic about obscure foreign flicks like holy motors because:

1) they think that not understanding a bunch of stuff in a film means the film is on a level of genius above theirs, and that it's their fault they don't get it and not the filmmaker's fault for not making sense.

2) they're really proud of themselves for sitting through it and not falling asleep, and they think others will be impressed by this as well.

3) they don't think the movie is top 5, but they genuinely think it's worth watching, so they put it on their list and over-sell it to get other people interested.

#1 is a pet peeve of mine. i feel like i'm a pretty smart guy, i've seen a lot of movies, so if there's something in yours i don't understand, that's YOUR bad. there are exceptions, of course, like the ending to take shelter that i still don't totally get but thought was a pretty awesome flick. the ambiguity there worked because the story before it was clear, well-told, and satisfying in itself. but when your whole movie is the ending to take shelter, one ambiguous thing happening after another, you're doing it wrong. real geniuses make films that are challenging, but also coherent and widely accessible (i.e. spielberg). people who praise films they don't understand tend to think the filmmaker is smarter than they are. i tend to think the filmmaker isn't very good at making films. they either don't know what they want to say or they don't know how to say it effectively. again, YOUR bad.

#2 is just general snobbery, aka the lifeblood of PTP. anyone who attempts to defend a two-minute scene of an old man chasing a pigeon around a room falls into this category. the point of the scene is irrelevant. it's BORING. and that's a very basic no no. lots of just really poorly paced, boring stuff (amour, the master) gets shine here because people are proud of themselves for sitting through it.

#3 is the problem with public ballots. i'm tempted to do it too every now and then, but it's really annoying when someone's list is almost entirely obscure indie or foreign flicks no one's ever heard of. like, i'm sure fox searchlight really appreciates your street-teaming efforts, but seriously chill. it's messing up our awards.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

>1) they think that not understanding a bunch of stuff in a
>film means the film is on a level of genius above theirs, and
>that it's their fault they don't get it and not the
>filmmaker's fault for not making sense.

I don't think there's a lot to "not understand" in Holy Motors. The issue is that you're looking for literal, linear storytelling. This isn't that, but so what? The scenes are like a mosaic that, as a whole, make an artistic statement, even though on an individual level they don't necessary have a direct, explicit relationship to one another.

You really need to turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream and let the images and scenes and moods sort of wash over you. If you fight it the whole time on some "What the fuck! This shit makes no sense!" then obviously you're not going to like it.

See, I had no idea what the fuck was going on after the first few scenes either, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. I don't think it's even possible to make sense of it after just 2 or 3 scenes. After a little while, though, when the scenes start to pile up, you start making connections, noticing little things, contemplating its purpose, making theories about what Carax is getting at, etc. That's a sort of active experience that you don't necessarily get from watching a straight ahead movie like Argo, as good as that was. Some people like that experience. Some people also feel exhilarated by having no idea what the fuck will come next.

If you'd watched it longer, you'd start noticing that the different scenes are like different genres with the same actor playing a different role each time. (There's mobster scene where a hood gets killed, a melodratic scene with a father talking to his daughter in a car, a musical scene, etc.) It's sort of like flipping through the channels on TV and seeing Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, Midnight Run, Taxi Driver, New York New York, and Meet the Parents, all airing at the same time. Same actor, vastly different roles, vastly different movie

Which had me thinking about how we all play many different roles in our daily lives. You play a certain role when you're at work, you play a certain role when you're with your boys, you play a certain role when you're visiting your grandma in a nursing home, you play a certain role when you're in a new relationship with your lady, etc.

On top of that, it touches on how all the world's a stage, with allusions to how cameras are everywhere now, and how everyone is always basically performing for cameras and an "audience" at all times, (instragram, facebook, etc.) At the most obvious level though it works as a sort of tribute to acting and performance in general, not to mention cinema itself. (References to other films abound, just like your boy QT.)

If you're looking for a literal, concrete explanation of every single element of a movie like this, you're barking up the wrong tree. I believe that something like this can be "understood" on an instinctual, subconscious level by your mind, then interpreted however you want.


>#3 is the problem with public ballots.

I can't imagine anyone voting differently in a public vs. private ballot in the PTP Spilled Latte awards.

----

you should start a charitable foundation that donates positive reviews to terrible terrible films. that was really impressive. but even given your interpretation of what holy motors may have been going for, it was really poorly executed. the costume changing in the limo framework was weak. the scenes themselves just weren't that interesting conceptually or visually. the acting was about on par with a well done student film. nothing about it worked.

i don't need to understand exactly what's going on every second, but if i'm halfway through your movie and have no idea what's going on and more importantly couldn't care less what's going on, you're terrible at making movies. go ahead and make all your artsy-fartsy existential points about life, but if you can't do it in an engaging story, you're doing it wrong. i have no interest in spending two hours watching you amateurishly meander from one nonsensical scene to another trying to make some cliche high school philosophy class point about wearing masks in different situations or all the world's a stage, hoping someone on a message board somewhere will come along and give meaning to your incoherent accidental rorschach test. just write it down in a brief essay that i can skip over in five minutes, saving me my valuable time and you your five million dollars, thanks.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

>you enjoy watching women get their fingers bitten off for no
>reason. i'm not gonna judge you for that.

Thank God, cuz that scene tickles the shit outta my funny bone,

i just think with
>the public ballots, people get overly enthusiastic about
>obscure foreign flicks like holy motors because:
>
>1) they think that not understanding a bunch of stuff in a
>film means the film is on a level of genius above theirs, and
>that it's their fault they don't get it and not the
>filmmaker's fault for not making sense.

I'm sure there are people who do this. However, speaking for me personally, enough of Holy Motors does make sense for me at this point that I'm willing to overlook the more incongruous stuff. Sort of like when I see a great action movie, but there's a weak link or two (a bad performance, one sequence set at light, a particularly bad CGI moment, etc).

>2) they're really proud of themselves for sitting through it
>and not falling asleep, and they think others will be
>impressed by this as well.

I mean, this one is just opinion, as I was far from falling asleep the whole time. But different strokes make the board go 'round.

>3) they don't think the movie is top 5, but they genuinely
>think it's worth watching, so they put it on their list and
>over-sell it to get other people interested.

I think this is understandable, and I'm sure I'm guilty of it as well when I look back at some past ballots. It's really hard to separate this from the fervor you feel for a film when it's out.

The main things that stick out to me when thinking about this in relation to the Lattes:
1. Folks with more "indie taste" (some you may call "snobs") are far more likely to submit ballots in end-of-year movie votes, so when you combine this with...
2. There was a general lack of submissions last year, the lowest number to date, which really breaks my heart...

... then it's easy to see how things sneak on when a few passionate indie folks put more obscure titles/performances high on their list.

More thank ANYTHING ELSE, I want the Lattes to have 30+ ballot submissions again. Will it mean my indies get squeezed out? Quite possibly, sure. I'm okay with disagreeing with the results more (and there are some in years past I strongly disagree with) if it means I have more people enjoying the board and using it on a regular basis.

No amount of indies on the ballot or disagreeable results can break the Lattes. The only thing that will break it, regardless of the opinion of the quality of the films, is a lack of PTP visitor participation. Hopefully, if anything, last year's results will encourage more people to vote, because TRULY one vote made a difference in so many categories last year. One less vote, and there are changes in literally every category's ballot (not the winners, per se, though that's quite possible too).

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

i'll continue the good work of shaming the snobs.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

>Does it seem even remotely likely that the
>one place this side of planet earth that holy motors gained a
>following was on okayplayer.com? occam's razor says the
>emperor has no clothes.

From WIKI:

- Upon its release, Holy Motors received many positive reviews; it currently has a 90% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.

- Sight & Sound film magazine placed the film at #4 on its critics poll of the best films of 2012

- The Village Voice also ranked the film 3rd on its annual poll of film critics.

- The film was ranked first by both Film Comment and Indiewire on their year-end film critics polls.

- Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called Holy Motors one of 2012's 10 best films.

- French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma elected Holy Motors the best film of the year.

- Not to mention all these awards and nominations from film societies all over the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Motors#Awards_and_nominations

I'm not sure if citing that shit refutes or enhances your point, but I posted it to make sure you understand just how high the critical acclaim was.

On another note, though, what Frank and others have been trying to tell you since the you started complaining during the last round of Latte voting, is that if more people voted, this shit wouldn't have won.

Only a handful of people voted, and the ones who did, gravitated towards unconventional stuff like this. If more people voted, you would had a more populist consensus. The problem isn't that people voted for this, it's that not enough people voted.


>>Note: do NOT see this year's Computer Chess, a movie I
>>thoroughly enjoyed. It will not be to your liking either.
>
>noted. but you realize though you just sent out the snob bat
>signal that will propel computer chess to next year's best
>picture latte, right?

No he didn't. Trust me, I can only speak for myself, but I'm confident that no one who voted for Holy Motors last year did so because Frank liked it. With all due respect for Frank, my taste often fails to align with his.

Not sure why it's so hard for you to understand that, like, four or five people actually really liked this movie, independently of one another.

----

Three first place votes, one second place vote. And 19 points was enough last year, sadly, to get you on the main ballot.

Although I loved Holy Motors, I would far prefer a larger number of voters, including a wide variety of tastes, to participate, even if it means results end up skewing toward populist.

I just don't want this board to slowly fade away into something folks don't participate in anymore.

My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide

that's the total worldwide box office of holy motors (budget: $5.1 million). it was universally rejected by audiences. word of mouth was zero. buzz was negative zero point zero. there are schizophrenics panhandling on street corners who are more coherent and entertaining than holy motors, and who pull in more box office.

if okayplayer was a message board for film critics, i might buy four or five people independently seeing this film and pretending to think it's the best picture of 2012. okayplayer is not a message board for film critics. i have to concede though that holy motors did receive a lot of critical acclaim. in other news...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_painting

"Monkey paintings were exhibited in many modern art museums and experienced a fad following in the early 1960s. The cultural and scientific interest in monkey painting diminished steadily and little note is taken today."

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

Sheesh.

For those who can appreciate absurdities in a film, this is quite the unorthodoxed treat. What's interesting is that I made a short film about a guy who is very similar to the main character in "Holy Motors". Unbeknownst to me, this happened before I even watched the film.

anyone can think up a series of bizarre events that have nothing to do with other bizarre events, and present them in a way that most audiences won't care about at all. anyone can release a film that no one has any interest in seeing. it takes skill to do the opposite of all that.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

91% for Holy Motors.
28% for Kick-Ass 2.