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OT: The Excitement of Anticipating "Baby Driver"

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
19 replies | jump to latest

I'll be seeing "Baby Driver" this weekend. This is a report on the sensation one feels BEFORE seeing a film one really wants to see.

Most years these days, seeing new films just doesn't do it for me as it did in my youth. That's to be expected, I suppose. They don't really make movies the way I liked them in the 50's(on 60's TV), the 60s, the 70s. And something about youth and its hormones creates excitement about a "coming soon" movie that perhaps goes away with older age and a greater sense of grim realities.

But to my pleasure, sometimes -- once or twice a year maybe -- the movies STILL hit me the way they used to hit me. Anticipation kicks in, a DESIRE to see a particular movie takes hold.

And I'm 17 again.

QT has managed to get this adrenaline rush going in recent years. It was a long years wait for "The Hateful Eight" once production was announced -- and it paid off, bigtime. Bigger than Django and Inglorious Basterds, now that I've seen them all again.

QT last week announced his next movie won't be ready for production til 2018, release in 2019. But it will be here soon enough.

In the meantime, today, RIGHT NOW...its Baby Driver has me pumped up.

Most reviews have been great . 4 stars, 3 and 1/2. The salute seems to be for Edgar Wright finally getting the payoff he has deserved after all these years.

Its a crime action film. Check. Its a car chase film...which sometimes bore me, but I don't think so this time. And the word is: the car chases and other action are all cut to songs the hero is listening to so...this is a MUSICAL. Excellent. Indeed, the old Simon and Garfunkel tune "Baby Driver" from their famous final album "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is about as rocking a rocker as those twee fellows ever gave us(and its in the movie, I've read.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The cast includes Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm as bad guys. That's classy. Spacey is in my favorite movie of the 90s(LA Confidential); Hamm is in my favorite TV series of the 10's(Mad Men.) The two actors will trail their acheivements from those seminal works into this film as I watch it. And yes, Spacey has more OTHER acheivements than Hamm -- but its LA Confidential that is my favorite Spacey film. Its his North by Northwest. Actually, more his Psycho. And I think that Jack "The Big V" Vincennes is a greater character than those Spacey won the Oscars for in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty.

Speaking of Oscar winners, Jamie Foxx is in this. He's become quite the star in recent years, from Django to his funny character in "Horrible Bosses" -- an ostensible gangsta who proves to be a faker, basing his crime on having seen "Strangers on a Train."

The comedy clip in the trailers where Foxx berates a henchman on wearing a Mike Myers Halloween mask instead of a Michael Myers Halloween Halloween mask...well, that reminds me:

Edgar Wright is a BIG movie buff. His "Hot Fuzz" of some years ago mixed every cop movie made into one.

And this: QT owns a theater in West Los Angeles where double bills are shown and picked, by himself, or by guest programmers.

And when QT invited Edgar Wright to come to West LA and introduce a double-bill from the stage --- Wright picked "Frenzy." I can't remember the other movie. Wright did note in passing that stunt work in 'Shaun of the Dead" was done by "Barry Foster's stunt double in Frenzy." What stuntwork was that? Falling out of a parked truck?

So it all comes together. Edgar Wright. Noir action. Car chase action. Rock and soul song action. Spacey. Hamm. Foxx. LA Confidential. Mad Men. Frenzy.

I can't wait.

I'm 17 again.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

It's certainly great to have been genuinely thrilled by someone's past output and then to have the early word about their latest stuff be so positive.

I'm trying to think when this happy combination of factors happened for me (and further that the new film delivered as hoped and advertized).

1. The Coens have definitely gone though patches both early and late in their careers when they've seemingly got on a roll and I'm there first weekend: the No Country, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit run had me. Things have dropped off since then.
2. I was obsessive about Charlie Kaufman-scripted films for many years, and was hugely excited to see both Eternal Sunshine and Synechdoche NY (also directed by him). Anomalisa was a disappointment tho'. It reminded me of the sort of charmless trainwreck that Woody Allen had with things like Shadows and Fog.
3. Lynch has seemingly been wandering round inside his own mind/obsessions for the last decade or so, but once the early word was positive I was very excited to see the new Twin Peaks... and boy it's delivered. After 8 eps it's still not clear how *good* it really is but it's already been a sensory experience like no other.
4. 2016 was actually full of hyped items from promising sources that delivered some of the best films of the year: Lathimos's The Lobster, Marin Ade's Toni Erdmann, Parch Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden, and Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship.
5. I still get excited when Fincher or Nolan or Wes Anderson or Haneke or Lynne Ramsay or Cuaron has a new film coming out, at least if the word is +ve. Nolan's Dunkirk is out in a few weeks- no early work on it yet that I'm aware of.

And this: QT owns a theater in West Los Angeles where double bills are shown and picked, by himself, or by guest programmers.

I've heard that QT's New Beverly last week ran a double bill of Siegel's The Beguiled (1971) and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled (2017). Nice!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's certainly great to have been genuinely thrilled by someone's past output and then to have the early word about their latest stuff be so positive.

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For some odd reason, what I'm flashing to is the first Thomas Harris novel about Hannibal Lecter -- Red Dragon -- and how excited I was about that story and that character after I read the book; and how the film of it ("Manhunter" --1986) was good but got no box office and how...5 years later...Harris and Hannibal FINALLY scored big-time with Silence of the Lambs.

It can be fun to see a delayed payoff to what one liked "way back when."

That goes for two actors I can think of , too. I liked Johnny Depp long before "Pirates" and James Gandolfini long before "The Sopranos." The rest of the world had to catch up.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

For me, and others who came of age in the late 60s who saw Kubrick's 2001 a dozen or more times and then learn that his followup, A Clockwork Orange, was widely praised in advance as the year's best film, it felt like dying and going to heaven. When I showed up for the first show the first day in NY, I have never experienced such a collective buzz from the audience before the film started, and it didn't disappoint.

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That's a cool assessment, movieghoul, of "that kind of feeling." I would again suggest that this is perhaps more a function of youth, but part of the message here is: the critics DO matter. When a particular "rave buzz" is in the air from the critics, the ravenous fans will follow.

Now, this can be as attendant to an "expected blockbuster" -- The Godfather comes to mind, even though Coppola actually sidestepped a whole lotta material that would have put this in "Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers" territory.

Or it can be "outta nowhere" with sudden heat. Rocky is the populist version of this; I will offer LA Confidential as a bit more sophisticated(and not that big a box office hit for all the love.)

Kubrick was in a league by himself. As I understand it, once "Dr. Strangelove" hit so big and daring in 1964, the years upon years that 2001 was announced, then in pre-production, then being made...Kubrick's newfound cultists were primed and ready.

And then 2001 hit huge -- not so much boffo box office as "meaningful to an entire generation."

I'd come reasonably of age enough to see the A Clockwork Orange came on the Big Wave of 2001...and it was an instant classic, too(even if I personally I have some issues with it, as I do with The Exorcist -- in both cases, the classic power of both films cannot be denied.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Kubrick did so much in that one-two-three of Strangelove/2001/Clockwork that his every movie thereafter -- and increasingly LONG thereafter (7 years from The Shining to Full Metal Jacket; 12 years from Full Metal Jacket to Eyes Wide Shut) was greeted like the latest message from God.

And I dunno, any one of the movies after the Strangelove/2001/Clockwork juggernaut may well be just as good as those three. David Thomson has chosen The Shining as Kubrick's best work, for instance, and Full Metal Jacket is quoted by a lot of people I know.

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But 2001 was still better.

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Yes, it was. I"m partial to Strangelove as a concise package of comedy and cold thriller logic - but 2001 is some kind of event, occurrence. "Happening."

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'm trying to think when this happy combination of factors happened for me

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Reading your list, swanstep, I'm reminded that with your wider range of taste in films, you're probably positioned to feel that excitement a lot more than I get to, for a far broader range of films. I mean, for me, in 2016 it was -- a remake of "The Magnificent Seven"??(Because of the childhood memories of the first and a regard for the new cast.)

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(and further that the new film delivered as hoped and advertized).

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This became an issue for me with "Baby Driver." I reported to my companion on all these great reviews and she warned me, "What if the reviews raise your expectations too high and it ends up disappointing you?"

Always a risk.

My flashback here is to "Frenzy," which got a "first wave" of raves ("Hitchcock's best in years" "One of Hitchcock's very best" "The Return of Alfred the Great") and then some pushback as being mediocre ("They're all calling Frenzy a return...I don't think it is at all.") But that's human nature -- the first reviewers didn't have the rave reviews before then to react AGAINST. It was the Johnny-come-latelys who reacted against the raves.

Having now seen "Baby Driver," well.....more below....

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

1. The Coens have definitely gone though patches both early and late in their careers when they've seemingly got on a roll and I'm there first weekend: the No Country, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, True Grit run had me. Things have dropped off since then.

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Its concerning, isn't it? "Hail Caesar" had the elements in place to be pretty great -- a reality based study of real-life troubleshooting of star problems on a 50's backlot. But it just SAT there, nothing much happened, the stars were barely used..."wha hoppen?" I continue to contend that that movie had such a great trailer -- cut to a fast, rollicking modern song -- that when the movie played WITHOUT the song...nothing. If you saw the trailer first, the movie could only be a disappointment.

The Coens have been hit or miss in recent decades. Though there's that weird one -- The Ladykillers. The world hates it, I love it (for the clarity of the body-falls-into-garbage-scow shots and the music, for two things, along with Tom Hanks' field day) but it tanked. And yet -- three years later -- No Country for Old Men. Erratic, I'd call the Coens.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

2. I was obsessive about Charlie Kaufman-scripted films for many years, and was hugely excited to see both Eternal Sunshine and Synechdoche NY (also directed by him). Anomalisa was a disappointment tho'. It reminded me of the sort of charmless trainwreck that Woody Allen had with things like Shadows and Fog.

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The film business can reveal a brutal truth for writer-directors especially: maybe they only have three or four great stories in them. But they have to keep working.

I saw Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and liked them both. But that was when I saw more indies and art films and for various reasons(people I'm with)...I'm not seeing those so much anymore. My loss.

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3. Lynch has seemingly been wandering round inside his own mind/obsessions for the last decade or so, but once the early word was positive I was very excited to see the new Twin Peaks... and boy it's delivered. After 8 eps it's still not clear how *good* it really is but it's already been a sensory experience like no other.

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Here -- as with, say "The Simpsons" -- I "get the greatness" but its not my KIND of greatness. Still, I'm happy to hear that evidently Lynch has done it again.

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4. 2016 was actually full of hyped items from promising sources that delivered some of the best films of the year: Lathimos's The Lobster, Marin Ade's Toni Erdmann, Parch Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden, and Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship.

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I will -- honestly -- try to rent and watch a few of those, The Lobster and Toni Erdmann above all. Speaking of The Lobster -- add in The Beguiled and Colin Farrell's kind of got an art house comeback going, yes? Meanwhile, still no word of a Nicholson Toni Erdman...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

5. I still get excited when Fincher or Nolan or Wes Anderson or Haneke or Lynne Ramsay or Cuaron has a new film coming out, at least if the word is +ve. Nolan's Dunkirk is out in a few weeks- no early work on it yet that I'm aware of

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Fincher, Nolan, Wes Anderson...yes, I am attracted by those names and their track records. At a certain level, "I've still got it" as a film fan. But its that "17 again" "gotta see it" excitement that is rare.

Which reminds me: if I give disproportionate weight to Topaz, Frenzy, and Family Plot in the Hitchcock canon, its because I DEFINITELY had that "I gotta see it" jones about those movies. I was a fan of Hitchcock's past great work(from TV), and I had child-developed into a teen who could feel anticipation as those NEW films came "to a theater or drive-in near me". Unfortunately for me, these later films were lacking something -- even Frenzy - - but the excitement to see a new Hitchcock was a sensation different from experiencing the films themselves.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And this: QT owns a theater in West Los Angeles where double bills are shown and picked, by himself, or by guest programmers.

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I've heard that QT's New Beverly last week ran a double bill of Siegel's The Beguiled (1971) and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled (2017). Nice!

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We may have read the same article where QT said he is good friends with Sofia Coppola(which surprised me) and that he recommended she do The Beguiled(he knew the old Siegel/Eastwood version well.) I think she told QT she was considering it already, he simply encouraged her.

I know that New Beverly theater. Its a rueful feeling. I lived in LA in the 70's and I got to that theater sometimes when it played foreign films and the like. It was down the street from a "revival house" called the Nuart that allowed me to catch up on all those movies I'd missed in the 60s(because I was a kid, like The Apartment and The Manchurian Candidate) and the early 70's(because they were X-rated, like Midnight Cowboy and A Clockwork Orange.) And those were the years where I went to the premiere of Family Plot, and sat in a seminar about North by Northwest with Ernest Lehman, and had small seminars with Burt Lancaster and Jack Nicholson.

None of which I can do today -- I don't live in LA -- but which all these NEW young folks who live in LA can get by going to QT's New Beverly. Its a vicarious experience for me now. I'm envious of the Los Angelinos who live in this decade and can "hang with QT at his private movie house."

On the other hand...QT didn't get to have my 70's in LA. Too young...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

BABY DRIVER..I saw it...(No spoilers.)

I think all I will describe here is the fact that it wasn't really the movie I was expecting, and that while it took awhile for me to adjust to that...I really, really liked it...and I do want to see it again.

If there was a slight downside, its that the music and songs ended up not being ones I'm all that familiar with, or when I WAS familiar with them...they weren't quite used the right way. That had been over-hyped in the reviews.

But the film is cinematic and energetic and very, very suspenseful. The baddies played by Spacey, Hamm, and Foxx are all very dangerous, psychopathic people and it becomes clear that Baby(and his hoped-for girlfriend) are in very dire straights trying to handle these deadly nutcases and escape alive. To the extent Hitchcock is in this movie, its not the set-pieces: its the suspense.

Spacey sure is great -- I know House of Cards is his calling card now, but he's great in a movie setting.

Foxx is funny/scary and willing to go all the way in villainy.

But Jon Hamm's the revelation. I realized yet again that, in his being selected for Mad Men, Hamm was chosen for more than just his great looks. He has a great, deep "soggy" voice, and he projects compassion warring with arrogance. Its a star's persona, and some day maybe he will BE a star. He was the one to watch in this one, for me.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But its Baby and Debora -- the young lovers of the piece -- who make this movie sing. You want them to be happy. You love them as much as they love each other. I would figure every teenager in the world is going to love this couple....and the plot nicely "mirrors" them with the older, criminal lovey-doveys played by Jon Hamm and ...some really beautiful actress. The juxtaposition of TWO romantic couples keeps "Baby Driver" in chick-flick territory and informs where the plot goes.

As one critic noted, "Baby Driver" is a musical. Yes, it is. The music never stops. And as another critic noted, the relevant musical from last year to this movie this year is..."La La Land." Yes, I see that too -- even if the two movies makers had no knowledge of each other's projects at all, I'll bet.

I didn't go nuts for Baby Driver, but I liked it very much. And I will definitely see it again.

And I'm comfortable putting it in the slot for "My favorite movie of 2017." There it stays...unless something more memorable comes along.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Thanks for your (spoiler-free) Baby Driver review ecarle... one quick thought in response: with its three (Spacey/Foxx/Hamm) starry,high-profile genuinely dangerous, villainous villains it *sounds* like BD's in part channelling Charade/Wait Until Dark and probably a brace of other '60s movies I've forgotten...

And back to our main topic: I've been pretty excited to see Okja (2017), the new film by Bong Joon-ho (a S Korean director who blew up in the '00s with The Host and Memories of Murder) which was shown to acclaim and controversy at Cannes and premiered on Netflix this week... It's pretty jolly good, channelling ET and My Neighbor Totoro and also a bit of Home Alone's slapstick violent action and *very* broad, cartoonish acting... it's *almost* a new children's classic. But the dummies who made it have peppered the dialogue with (completely unnecessary - they're mostly just verbal comedy color) F-bombs of various sorts that alone makes it unsuitable for most pre-High Schoolers (there's also a bit of animal exeprimentation lab footage that could be toned down a bit without loss to make the the film pass for young kids too). It makes you appreciate how the rating systems that Hollywood mostly uses together with the profit incentive actually *are* useful guardrails for filmmakers/parents/everyone. By working with Netflix Bong hasn't had to observe those guardrails, but that means he's ended up screwing himself/Netflix/everyone out of 2/3s (at least) of their audience.

Seriously, Okja *is* a kids-classic-wannabe for the most part but a few dopey decisions completely betray that... leaving it probably with a relatively tiny audience of S Korean movie-watching hipsters! What a pack of don't-really-want-to-make-money dummies.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Thanks for your (spoiler-free)

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I'm trying!

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Baby Driver review ecarle... one quick thought in response: with its three (Spacey/Foxx/Hamm) starry,high-profile genuinely dangerous, villainous villains it *sounds* like BD's in part channelling Charade/Wait Until Dark and probably a brace of other '60s movies I've forgotten...

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Now that you mention it, there is somewhat that "flavor" here. Though there are a few other criminal characters in the mix, the three star names(Spacey, Foxx, Hamm) end up with the most important, menacing roles -- and that's a great feeling. It is as if Edgar Wright managed to nab all three of them(two Oscar winners) on the quality of his script and his track record. So that's one classy set of psychos for Baby to deal with.

I'll remain spoiler free, but what has been sticking out in my mind in the 24 hours after seeing the film is what a great script it has. The dialogue is really good sometimes a bit too QT-ish, but other times, incredibly inventive. I know exactly which passages I am thinking of...but I won't reveal them here. Again: its the kind of script that lands you Spacey, Foxx, and Hamm(sounds like a law firm and how about Foxx and Hamm with their double end-letters?)

One more thing: a movie's ability to stay in my mind after I have seen it -- for the mental re-playing and re-enjoying -- is almost as important as the anticipation to see it. I keep re-running Baby Driver through MY mind so...its that much better.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Seriously, Okja *is* a kids-classic-wannabe for the most part but a few dopey decisions completely betray that... leaving it probably with a relatively tiny audience of S Korean movie-watching hipsters! What a pack of don't-really-want-to-make-money dummies.

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The issue of what a kid can or cannot see would seem subjective(how old is the kid? What is his or her level of maturity) but there can be no doubt that when certain words are put in the movie, the ratings must move in. The filmmaker has given up some potential audience. Evidently, these filmmaker were willing screw up their project's visibility and "the right audience."

THAT said, I must admit I grew up in a family where we were allowed to see a fair amount of sex and violence in film (Psycho rather hilariously excepted, given that I got to see Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch first.) I can't say it much bothered me, I knew it was fake even as it enthralled me.

Moreover, in my own personal case, in my childhood I "dug" the mystery shows(Burke's Law), the spy shows(UNCLE, I Spy, Wild Wild West) and anything with killings, fights and conflict(plus, pretty women were a bonus preview of coming attractions). You couldn't drag me to watch Lassie or Gentle Ben or My Three Sons. I must have had the thriller-loving gene in me from birth.

Hitchcock, of course, was a natural....

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Edgar Wright was on a (1-1.5 hr) Podcast called 'The Canon' last week w/ critic Amy Nicholson discussing Walter Hill's The Driver. The ep. can be listened to and downloaded here:
http://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-driver-w-edgar-wright/
or you can get it through iTunes (just by searching for 'The Canon') and probably every other major podcast distributor.

Wright is a very genial and informed guest, and the discussion opens out into discussions of Peckinpah, the rest of Walter Hill's oeuvre, of This Gun For Hire (1942), and much more including, of course, of Baby Driver (2017). Recommended.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Guillermo De Toro tweetstormed love for Baby Driver here:
https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/879813551237595138
(Note that GDT refers to Walter Hill's Mean Streets when he obviously intends Streets of Fire.)
Apparently Friedkin too has been tweeting deep reverence for BD.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Guillermo De Toro tweetstormed love for Baby Driver here:

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Now, THAT guy is all over DVD documentaries as a deep, deep lover of Hitchcock so -- its good to see him turning his attention to Mr. Wright now. Ironic that De Toro has rather neglected his own directorial career becoming a sort of film studies master in the meantime. Scorsese sorta did that -- but never lost control of his directorial career.

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https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/879813551237595138
(Note that GDT refers to Walter Hill's Mean Streets when he obviously intends Streets of Fire.)

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Oops.

The Walter Hill love is a nice offshoot of Wright's Baby Driver fame. I think Hill began helping Peckinpah(as Peckinpah began helping Don Siegel), and then carved out his own tough guy 70's/80''s career: Hard Times(Charles Bronson in bare knuckle fights with James Coburn managing), The Driver(one of Ryan O'Neal's last star parts and a good cop lead for Bruce Dern, too); The Warriors(is that Hill's pop classic?) and that one with the guys fighting swamp hillbillies ala Deliverance without the rape(Southern Comfort.) And Streets of Fire. And the one where real-life movie brothers(Stacy and James Keach; the Carradines) played outlaw brothers; and the script for The Bodyguard.

Yes, I'd say Walter Hill is right in there with my love of QT, Don Siegel, and Peckinpah....

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Apparently Friedkin too has been tweeting deep reverence for BD.

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Such a journey: The Director You Love to Hate, to the Director who Praises Other Directors. And of course, Freidkin directed a seminal car chase movie in "The French Connection."