Half in the Bag Episode 132: mother!

half in the bag I can't stop watching movies thank you John I'll have the deposit check to you by next week yes yes extra oysters mr. Plunkett likes them raw and slimy he said he wants to feel the slime from the raw oyster trickle down his gullet exact words yes he's a classy gentleman and he wanted to know if sweatpants are okay at the four seasons he has a tuxedo yes I bought him one for the wedding he just will not wear it he says sweatpants and/or track suits okay once you talk to the hotel manager you let me know tat ah what was that about you're [ __ ] gay wedding well now that I've got my business phone call out of the way I got the whole afternoon open I know we're sitting on about 20 orders to repair VCRs but I just don't feel like doing that today I feel like talking about a new movie I saw called mother Oh mother you're talking about the the biggest box-office hit of the year right we should talk about mother mm-hmm I'm very excited about the mother cinematic universe that'll spawn in the wake of this film's success it's nice to see Jennifer Lawrence returning to her superhero you know roots after the x-men movies yes now she's back she's back in the fold of superhero films with her new superhero character mother young adult novels yaa as they're called in the biz mmm this this mother was based on a young adult novel okay so moms and dads out there if you have young girls who were into The Hunger Games you take them to see mother they're gonna love it basically what we're saying is this is a movie for everyone everyone can enjoy this film which is why it's playing at multiplexes around the nation paramount said this is gonna be huge yeah so let's let's delve into this I think we're more fascinated by the fact that this got a wide release than we are with the film itself yes I was shocked because I saw early on I was hearing about this movie it's Darren Aronofsky it's supposed to be kind of like shocking and intense and then I saw the trailer and it kind of had like a like a horror movie vibe and I was like this I thought this was gonna be like a smaller release like independent theaters our house theaters or whatever so I don't know I commend Paramount Pictures for taking this route of like taking a chance on releasing a movie this sort of extreme and weird to a wide audience but I have to wonder did they really think this would be something other than a flop I didn't hate that I mean we haven't really talked about the movie at all I didn't hate the movie I have very mixed feelings about it but I don't know what they were thinking as far as like if they thought they could trick people into thinking it was a horror film or one well yeah that's the worst thing you could possibly do is to trick people and I mean I unless you're really going to and maybe this movie went over-budget I mean there's a lot of things going on in it I don't know we do have a kind of egomaniac director at the helm so that be an element of it I don't know what Jay laws paycheck was maybe she worked for free because she's in a romantic relationship with Darren Aronofsky well and mothered is definitely not a movie made to fuel a directors ego this is an audience film this is a movie made to please a crowd right right well Jay let's get this out of the way out of the bat i I've seen a number of Darren Aronofsky films but I've never I've never seen him or heard him speak have you now after seeing this film have you looked in interviews yeah does it explain a lot yeah his name was so it's like it was like foreign and exotic like Darren Aronofsky and I just pictured some like no he's just like this pretentious douchebag he you know what I was like oh my god he sounds like like a Brooklyn cab driver and it starts off as one type of movie and then you think use that type of movie and then it shifts and it becomes another type of movie and then it ships and become another type movie yeah I'm a iron guy I've thought about my make a movie about the earth or something put some a religious [ __ ] in there there's this thing called the Bible and it's got a bunch of stories you fares $22 and then I'm like I'm like what the [ __ ] and I look him up on Wikipedia and he's like born in Brooklyn yeah I'm like oh my god I have my my accent power is exactly perfect like this guy is a Brooklyn cab driver and he's making movies and and and so I was like and then the like the nonchalant kind of way I was like don't talk about it don't make this movie mother and just don't do any press for it be mysterious dude well I don't anything is I made a movie I guess Jennifer Lawrence is like mother earth I turn the camera on and I do something it really puts the movie in perspective doesn't it it does when I started working on the film I really wanted to make this kind of allegory about mother nature and our place and our connection to our home and so I cast Jennifer Lawrence as that spirit then I had this breakthrough of bringing in using to tell the story of humanity the stories of the Bible o know that the veil has been shredded around Darren Aronofsky and his mysterious artistic genius now I know it's just a con job see I knew that going in I I before seen this movie I avoided anything like specific about what it was about but I had heard that it's very very over-the-top and extreme and obvious and I was like oh so it's a Darren Aronofsky movie aside from the wrestler which is my favorite movie he's done and maybe one of my favorite movies ever that's a very more kind of subdued and grounded movie I've not seen that the rest are so good but yeah Mickey Rourke is fantastic in it and yeah it's very it gets a little bit of the the sort of slightly over-the-top emotional kind of you know extreme stuff a tiny tiny bit okay but in the the realm of darren aronofsky it's pretty low but like Black Swan is a movie I like a lot even though when I saw it in the theater there was multiple parts where I burst out laughing so over-the-top I'm used to with dared Aronofsky what I'm not used to is the poor attempts at making a movie that is entirely metaphorical and just completely falling on your face I think the best way I would describe this movie it's like the when people talk about Independence Day or like a Michael Bay movie how they say you just gotta shut your brain off and enjoy it this is the arthouse version of that where if you completely ignore the ham-fisted obvious biblical metaphors which are not there's not even any route like it's open to your interpretation like no it's very clear what he's doing and apparently in interviews he's saying that too I guess if you ignore that if you ignore like what this movie is supposed to really be about and just look at it as this nightmare of this poor woman who's just as people keep showing up to her house and it becomes this disaster it's entertaining in that respect you just have to ignore the intentions of the filmmaker yeah I think I compared the majority of it to the turn down for music video there you go turn down so I saw a couple quotes that were like this movie is so [ __ ] vile and just despicable and it make you puke and and I'm like oh my gosh so so yes that is a possible marketing strategy just like it's batshit off the chain go check it out everybody you go to see this movie but then after we saw it a person behind us a couple rows just one that was a bunch of [ __ ] no I think being someone that was stupid that was stupid yeah yeah yeah and yeah this is a movie that doesn't really work for general definitely doesn't work for general audiences and I don't know how well it's gonna work for people that are into more arthouse stuff because it kind of fails at that too Javier Bardem plays the the poet or him I think he's credited as him but he's a poet in the movies a writer and Jennifer Lawrence is his new bride and they are restoring a mansion that he lived in that burned down or had a horrible fire and she is lovingly restoring the house while he has writer's block that that is like the surface level like real life kind of [ __ ] that's the storyline then that Harris shows up and he's like I'm a doctor I'd like to stay here with you and that his wife shows up the sun's the and then um more and more people keep showing up and it becomes a nightmare and then it yeah for for her Jennifer Lawrence is just like this this pure-hearted doughy I like yeah she's very passive and the more crazy the more people show up the more the house gets destroyed she's getting frustrated but she's still you know kind of not doing anything about it yeah so like why are you coming here and destroying my house yes so then it becomes painfully clear that at some point everyone is just allegorical yes this is a retelling of the Bible basically Javier Bardem is God Jennifer Lawrence is mother nature mother nature mixed with a little Virgin Mary yes well that's that's there's a little bit of a clash as far as what the metaphors are supposed to be so we can get into that but yeah mother nature slash Virgin Mary the house our earth at Harris is Adam Michelle Pfeiffer is Eve's they have two sons that show up and fight and one of them gets killed there Cain and Abel Jennifer Lawrence is pregnant she has a baby that's Jesus all these people that start to show up are religious people zealots they start to well not all of them rose elet's but they start to as they take over the house there's different sort of interpretations of Javier Bardem work so then you have these fractions and then Wars get fought in the house over that he's essentially writing what I assume is the Bible yes well there's his first book that people like so you could say that's the Old Testament and now he has this new book out that people are flocking to that's the New Testament yeah and that's right around the time the baby's born yeah this is the Jesus and well we won't talk about that oh and then at Harris's there before his wife he shows up and he's sick and but there's a couple little clues into like like thinking about it after the fact that Cain and Abel I'm like okay the two brothers one of them kills the other obviously that's that's Cain and Abel and then there I mean there's also like the the prodigal son biblical story but one son is the good loyal son and the one sons shitty yeah and comes back and then the father forgives them anyways like there's a couple of different brothers II story lines in the Bible but definitely I think that's Cain and Abel because Cain the bad one that kills the brother it says that he's left with a mark on his forehead by God so God it an early on Ed Harris before Michelle Pfeiffer he's Adam she's eat before she shows up he's staying overnight at their house and they say oh he drank too much and he's throwing up in the toilet and Javier Bardem is like comforting him and Jennifer Lawrence looks in and she looks like he's got like a bruise on his side by his ribs do you get it or do you get it so so God takes a rib from Adam and makes Eve who is Michelle Pfeiffer whose show who's drunk all the time wants to talk about panties because Eve was the one that ruined Eden by taking a bite from the Apple and blah blah blah but yeah when like this movie kind of also reminded me of the Matrix trilogy in a way because there was lots of Al Gore metaphorical things in that like you know and then it's like and everything resets yeah but at least on that it's I mean those sequels suck but at least that's telling its own story exactly kind of the problem with this movie that's not big big problem if it made me think of and this is a weird comparison but do you remember that movie identity with John Cusack yes just like a 10 Little Indians thing or it's like you have all these characters that they set up and then halfway through the movie spoilers for the shitty movie that nobody remembers those characters are all in the head of a crazy man the guys like the guy with the guy with the weird breathing yeah and it's like okay so they're not real people but they keep coming back to them as if we're supposed to care about their fate and it's like but they're not real I don't give a [ __ ] and that's kind of the problem with this is outside of the metaphor there is no actual connection to reality you can make your film an allegory but like you said keep it grounded in reality the first half of this you're watching it and you're like okay I'm with this this is getting weird this it's what's going on and and based on the trailers and people's reactions like it gets [ __ ] crazy and I'm like okay is this gonna be like like a get out like a movie like that where it starts off normal and then you realize I'm I was like okay or is um Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer they part of some kind of weird satanic cult are they gonna try and sacrifice or her baby to Satan something something like that gonna happen that's kind of like kind of [ __ ] but still very mundane and basic you know like still gross and creepy but weird and then and then once it starts to fall apart like like when all the people there's at one moment where she's trying to paint her walls right she's very very meticulous about the color they show her like tweak the color a little and it's very something that's very important to her yeah and then the crazy people like they have like a funeral party there and there's like hundreds of people running around they show people like with paint rollers they're just like we decide to paint your walls yes I wanna [ __ ] your [ __ ] up my mouth right I painting with with a path with like a thing and I'm just being very very careful about it and very very loving and and they're just like paint rollers and so I'm like okay this is a nightmare she's gonna wake up nope it just keeps going well and at that point at that point I'm just like man I'm checking out because I once the reality button the reality off reality off button is hit yeah well I'm gone it's it's for me it's more that it was just so ham-fisted and obvious as far as the the metaphor goes like okay we're retelling the Bible got it but you have to have that extra layer where it still works as its own story and that's what this was missing yeah I mean you look at it like one of my favorite movies is Eraserhead abstract very surreal but it's surreal within its worlds almost like a like a science fiction film like you don't look at a science fiction film to see our reality there's you know weird aliens and crap but that's the world of the movie Eraserhead has its own world and it's telling its own story this movie is not telling a story it's just doing a metaphorical retelling of the Bible and I don't know it's like to what end to me it was more environmental than biblical because biblical was just sort of like I'll pluck this and this story in this story to kind of make characters and and drama happen sure it just feels like a like a clash to me oh definitely definitely using to tell the story of humanity the stories of the Bible do you get it do you get it do you get it good performances mostly all around I like I really like the way Javier Bardem played the part because he's essentially like an egotistical artist [ __ ] Darren Aronofsky stand-in and but he plays it very like like calm like when she's like stay with me don't go back out there with all the crazy people and he's like well I just want to go to ghost you know talk to them there he there they're happy to see me like he's very like almost oblivious to how much of an egotistical [ __ ] he is I loved that is nice scene at Harris and I can't think of the last time I saw him in something Michelle Pfeiffer I haven't seen him forever she's really good at everybody's good in it Jennifer Lawrence is adequate I don't know if you can make a supercut with the trailer but she basically has the same expression through the whole movie [Music] the wildermann yeah so which is kind of the point I mean she's supposed to be sort of passive but I don't know man especially towards the end like I mean cuz she goes through a lot like physically it's a demanding role especially as it goes along but like you got a really go for it and and it's more sort of like the movie works in spite of her because she's kind of OneNote I was picturing like like for a movie that gets this heightened and over the top it reminded me of one of my favorite movies is called possession from 1981 it's Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani and it's similar in the sense that it gets so over the top that it borders on farcical but in that movie it works because the performances are so great and and Isabelle Adjani specifically is so like fearless there's even people that haven't seen the movie there's this famous scene that people know about where she like loses her mind in a subway tunnel and she's flailing around she's throwing groceries and she just is like laying on the ground and screaming it's really over the top in a way that works for the material and I was waiting for Jennifer Lawrence to kind of reach that point and she never does there's even the part when she's like getting the word spoilers right she's getting the [ __ ] beat out of her and people are like tearing at her clothes and calling her like a [ __ ] and a [ __ ] and like you should be kind of wrecked by the end of that scene like as an audience member and instead I just felt like I was watching Jennifer Lawrence with makeup on like she didn't really she didn't go for it she wasn't going as Extreme as I think something like that called for which in addition to the fact that these aren't real characters that kind of helps or that kind of prevents you from getting invested as well that definitely harms your investment but I mean I wouldn't blame her entirely yet it might be the direction I might be the direction because like she's playing mother earth and they keep cutting to her like she touches the house and they show the heart of the earth and over time it happens like three or four times it gets like more and more black and dead do you get it yeah and so mother I think that the the point was that she ever got super angry ever is the fact that mother earth is forgiving up until apoy right and then like the the labor pains from her baby are sort of like her getting angrier and angrier and then but yeah after what happens at the end happens she does get mad but it it you don't feel it you know that it's not real life this is me speaking it's not real I don't care anymore yeah I just want to here turn down for what soundtrack and it works as like a really good visual representation of what an actual dream is like it was interesting cuz cuz it's like he brings down his book and he's like reading my book or whatever he wrote was brilliant work of art right and she reads it says it's here and and she's like it's brilliant and he's like yes my my publishers on the phone how does your publisher read it already you know yeah there's no escalation of time yes it goes on throughout the movie yeah but the the time factor and that happens in dreams yeah well and then when you get towards the end when it's like more and more people show up and now there's she goes upstairs and when she comes back down it's like a completely different situation that's happening it's got even more out of control as far as like people fighting the stream-of-consciousness kind of like that's saying all that stuff is great if you ignore what the movie is supposed to be about and and the movies simplistic message is people are shitty to the earth it's almost like it makes you feel like like like a little kid in and like sixth grade the earth was a beautiful place until mankind came and started smashing it up and ruining it yeah that's the best this is my science report well that's why I was thinking after the movie I was like this is the the most expensive student film ever made it's such a student film concept I remember I remember being in film school and there's a kid that showed his film it was just like shots of tree branches and the teacher is like what's with the tree branches and he just goes it represents human frailty and as its like okay what's your point like you can say it represents something but you also have to have a point on top of that mankind bad ruin earth got it yeah okay yeah what do we want should we all kill ourselves there's a [ __ ] a billion of us on the planet yeah can we talk about the baby okay we're talking about the baby now with spoilers spoilers what definitely spoilers and definitely we've already spoiled most of the movie shut this off if you want to hear grotesque stuff yeah I think cuz people are saying the movie gets so extreme and grotesque it's really just this one aspect which is the babies born babies sacrificed and eaten by people which is pretty [ __ ] horrific but yeah I'm desensitized to all this crap but so I can understand someone just on a basic level of seeing that being you know freaked out or grossed out or offended by it but in the context of the movie you know it just felt like sheep shock value I mean I understand the point it's Jesus and it's you've communion where you're drinking his blood and all that but I don't know it felt like extreme for the sake of it yeah religious really this symbolism thing more so the the eating it was like the the people who killed him like the crucifixion and then it's like he's like you must forgive him so it's it's it's weirdly and that's like it epitomizes and that baby eating scene where I'm just watching it and like yeah yeah I shouldn't have that reaction to a baby being slaughtered and eaten yeah so it's well and it's just like taken to such like an errand offski does this all the time I mean I recommend for a dream is a great movie but it's also you can almost look at it as like a contemporary reefer madness as far as how over-the-top it gets with the drug aspects and here like the the crowd is like surfing the baby and it's not that's not enough you guys see the babies piss flying into the air cuz it's scared it's like yeah but at the same time that that lack of restraint is what makes the movie interesting in certain respects I mean like like a especially early on when more people start to show up before it gets like really crazy just like this is like making me outside of what it's supposed to mean it's just making me anxious yeah I I I prefer the first half of the film before things went batshit crazy because I like the performances and I like the the the feeling that you got from it the the anxiety what's exist what exactly is happening oh and that's the the way the movies shot contributes that to it's lots of close-ups it's very claustrophobic I loved the the look of it as far as the the lighting it's very minimal so many movies now it's well do you think it's ugly in a bad way like I was fine with that so many contemporary movies just look like like TV shows they look so over lit you know and this is something that feels more you could tell it was shot on film - yeah had that looked to it it had that kind of grainy like similar to the wrestler I think was shot on 16 millimeter so that's really grainy I don't think this was but similar kind of style as far as lots of like in the wrestler there's lots of shots that are following Mickey Rourke kind of like from his from his back so it's almost like you're following behind him and there's a lot of that in this too so I don't know man like I would say anything you've read about this movie critically like good or bad they're right this movie defies any sort of conventional some critical analysis it is what it is I I commend Paramount to a certain extent for having the balls to put something like this out there yeah on such a wide release dumb decision on their part but hey at least they're taking a risk yeah and I wish it was at the surface of a better movie that's why I think it's great we're doing this movie on our show it'd be great if we've both really loved it yeah but it's a shame that there's going to be a lot of people out there that go into this going oh is it Jennifer Lawrence film that was the worst [ __ ] I've ever seen I'm only watching then they're turned off yeah I'm not watching mother anymore I'm only watching Mother's Day that wonderful picture by Gary Martin that features people I know saying cliched things that warms your heart I'm only watching that anymore not taking any more chances with weirdo stuff no take chances with weirdo stuff sometimes you'll find great things and that's I think mother as has has Aten that fetus in a bad way well I feel like there's also it's almost like people have been conditioned where there's like this divide like look at something like The Shining from 1980 like a super popular movie and like no one would go see that [ __ ] movie if it was released today that's true like it like there used to be kind of a mix in the the larger studio movies used to get like a Stanley Kubrick you'd still get dumb flock a lot of times it was more thoughtful dumb schlock than a lot of the stuff now but it's like over time there's just been this wedge between kind of more thoughtful movies and the really dumb stuff mmm where like I know people like cuz I was talking about it last time and how like they have to go for the big cheap jump scares and it's like you compare that to something like the witch which I didn't see it in the theater but I heard that during some of the more you know kind of scary parts people were in the theater we're laughing because they've been so conditioned that something like it is what they're supposed to be scared by you know the big loud stuff as opposed to something a little more quiet so and this isn't us being elitist because obviously we see all the Marvel movies and enjoy some of them as well but it's really just a matter of like how much thought is put into the movie and how much you can tell with some of these movies the the kind of studio mentality of like making dumb make it obvious make it play to the widest possible audience I think that they they were banking on me they go see it you got to check this [ __ ] out it's [ __ ] wild people who just watch it and just for the visceral emotional like just this is crazy [ __ ] yeah and we we look at something a little more what were they trying to do with this and why why it didn't work and so I think paramount was banking on the the mass audience of people going for the the word of mouth it's batshit crazy kind of thing and there's gonna be a whole bunch of disappointed grandmas I like that Jennifer Lawrence oh my god might I suggest a prank to any of your family members I think you know what it is just tell them to go watch mother say it's it's the new Jennifer Lawrence film yes directed by Garry Marshall oh that's food here Jennifer Lawrence plays a loving housewife and Javier Bardem is trying to write his novel in their summer home in the in the field and stay if some unruly houseguests what's gonna happen tell grandma your aunts you know to go check it out and then send their angry phone call to voicemail you [ __ ] how could you do this to Nami you're getting $5 in your birthday card this year as opposed to Ted you [ __ ] check out mother or down or don't it doesn't matter you

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,175,021

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, best of the worst, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, mother, darren aranofsky, jennifer lawrence

Id: f2oUaPFlbW8

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/FuckYouZackSnyder]

Mike's indignation with Aronofski just being some guy from Brooklyn instead of some contemporary Bergman/Pasolini hybrid was hilarious.

[u/Supermunch2000]

That thumbnail... J-Law and J-Bau, which one is the better looking J-person.

(spoiler: ^{it's J-Bau.} )

[u/Tbird555]

YOUR FUCKING GAY WEDDING

[u/Fr0styF0ster]

For people who want to know Jay's favorite movies, this video is for you.

[u/[deleted]]

Who else was dumbfounded that Mike knows the song Turn Down for What, let alone has seen the music video?

[u/FakePlinkett]

::checks twitter and sees that RLM posted a link to the review 57 seconds ago::

::goes to RLM reddit::

::sees link posted 46 minutes ago::

[u/FuggenBaxterd]

I saw a review for this before they reviewed it, I think it was Chris Stuckman, and he said it was super good and super deep and that people (or maybe it was just him) will be debating what it really means for a long time.

Sounds like it's exactly what you think it is and it's fairly surface level Christian symbolism.

[u/Fr0styF0ster]

The wedding storyline is back! I can't wait for their marriage in the HITB twenty episodes from now!

[u/Hermit0fAlbion]

Who else wants to see a re:View of Possession?