Pretentious garbage.
Period. Just like Full Frontal. Stick to the Ocean's Franchise Stevie, your indie 'thought provoking' flicks are nothing more than boring, self congratulatory masturbation.
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All I can think about are dudes.
MovieChat Forums > The Girlfriend Experience (2009) Discussion > Pretentious garbage.
wtf is Pretentious about this movie? "self congratulatory masturbation" is a hell of a lot more pretentious than anything i saw in Soderberghs film.
sharePeople that use the word 'pretentious' are being pretentious themselves. You are somehow placing yourself as gatekeeper for creative expression. I doubt you are anywhere near that wise. I guess the whole world has to have your particular tastes then? Something is either pretentious or it's not. You can't say it is pretentious 'from your point of view'. For that reason, the people that use the term are usually those that didn't respond to the art and are so insecure that they then blame the art for it.
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Ahhhh "pretentious". The go-to word for the film-goer frustrated. And for the record, it makes absolutely no sense to call this movie "self-congratulatory".
soderbergh has long been a huge fan of michelangelo antonioni. not sure if the OP has seen any of antonioni's movies (i doubt it..), but it would go a long way in understanding where soderbergh is coming from. whether or not he was successful in the structuring/pacing is arguable (i think he was! yay!).
what isn't (justifiably) arguable is whether or not he set out to make something "arty" for it's own sake. that is just the explanation that helps you come to terms with not enjoying it yourself.
Intelligence + like = brilliant, thought provoking, masterpiece, magnum opus, tour de force
Intelligence + dislike = pretentious.
Pretentious is just what pretentious people say. Think about it: you can't judge if something is pretentious without having an overly inflated opinion of your own self.
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I thought this film (TGE) was pretentious. Go ahead, call me an idiot. What was the point of telling the story backwards, or at least part of it backwards? That was annoying. The lighting and focus was terrible. What was the point? To highlight the seediness and moral ambiguity of the profession? We know that already. It's a given. And what was the point of this film? That you can't be a prostitute and expect to live a normal life? Duh. We all know that, too. There needed to be more drama. I thought she was going to get kidnapped in Dubai, or at least roughed up or something. No, just a film with no real conclusion, no real point. This film didn't say anything.
"Two thirds of that is half true."
You didn't like it. Fine.
You thought it should have been edited a different way. Fine.
But pretentious is the wrong word. By using it, you are saying that YOU KNOW what REAL ART IS, and YOU ARE its GATEKEEPER.
Pretentious or what?
So, then by your definition, no one in the world (or almost no one) can use the word "pretentious" when describing anything. That's ridiculous.
However, I will say that since I wrote this post I've thought more about the movie and I guess it did kind of say something. She thought she could live this kind of life with no consequences, but in the end she ends up losing her boyfriend and her ability to attract high priced clients (and possible future boyfriends). Her last scene is with an old, unattractive (and probably not very wealthy Rabbi). She has screwed herself over with her poor and selfish decisions. No longer will she be able to live the "glamorous" life of a high priced call girl.
The ending, however, did kind of hint at a perhaps better kind of life. The Rabbi seems so nervous and grateful (and his talk about Israel) almost makes her seem like she's a kind of servant, similar to a nurse or therapist, and that what she's doing might actually be good in a way. I'm not sure if that's what the writers and director were going for, but that's how I interpretted it.
"Two thirds of that is half true."
So, you're the gatekeeper who gets decide which words people are allowed to use? I don't necessarily disagree with you about describing this film as pretentious, but your argument that only pretentious people use the word "pretentious," well, seems like a bit of a sweeping generalization.
shareThis movie IS pretentious garbage. There, I said it. It's pretentious because of all the upper class yuppy *beep* it throws at you. The art, the settings, the buskers and music, the conversations. It was all sickening.
I thought this movie must have been from an amateur college graduate, certainly not from the guy who made the modern Oceans trilogy. How the hell do you go from that, to this drab, boring, plotless film.
And the worst thing about it is that Sasha's character was the dullest character in any film I can think of. When the fat guy gave her the poor (but honest) review I thought finally it makes sense now why the director has made her so unlikable. But no, that little subplot went nowhere. Just like the whole movie.
Bottom line is Chelsea would make a really crap escort.
I thought it started with a story and concept that had the potential to be interesting, but that it did not fully develop or execute the telling of the story.
Part of the film is told in a nonlinear chronological form, which I didn't think added to plot at all.
Maybe, the director had to work around the fact that the lead actress wasn't that experienced and had a limited range, so the dramatic movement isn't acheived to the degree necessary.
That's possible. I also thought it was funny that how during the most dramatic scene of the film (when she tells her boyfriend she's going off for a few days with some guy she's never met) we don't even see her face. I thought the way that was shot was probably due to her inability to show emotion.
"Two thirds of that is half true."
That's what I thought, too, juviejay. I noticed her face was not shown in a couple of scenes, which seemed weird to me.
shareStick to the Ocean's Franchise Stevie
His Ocean's films are just as experimental as any of his smaller movies. Haven't you seen Ocean's Twelve? It's a rip-roaring, free-form, non-narrative, all-star crime caper with liberal references to Soderbergh's main influences Jean-Luc Godard and Richard Lester, chock full of bold primary colours, inter-titles, self-references, and a heist-sequence/musical number that is as close as any mainstream American filmmaker has ever come to ripping on the 80s style 'cinema du look' movement (Diva, Subway, Lovers on the Bridge, etc)
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