One of the best movies of all time
Added 11/1/2009
"Synecdoche, New York" is a true artistic masterpiece. It is a very profound work of genius. Thank you so very much, Charlie Kaufman.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Almost, almost intolerably heavy-handed.
Added 10/31/2009
From a straightforward approach, it seems to make the mistake of trying to make sense out of chaos by saying that it doesn't make any sense.
Still, I might almost call the film self-loathing, which begs me to consider it more as film criticism than simply just a 'film.' It's almost if the trappings of film are set up as a lab-rat style maze with no solution and 'Humanity' is dropped into the mess and cursed with trying to find a way out.
If I were to go so far as to say the glass is half-full with this film, and I'm not sure that it is, I'd say that it's a pioneer in a whole new genre, which might be aptly termed "The Epic Short." The film seems to have about a ten, perhaps fifteen minute attention span, and nothing seems to internally recall anything beyond it.
It's just that I'm just not sure that actually making this film was a good idea. While any of this may sound great in theory or on paper, the film itself, for me, loses all novelty and the very basic quality of watchability really quickly.
So, yes, I hated it, and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to--but without any of the guilty pleasures of entertainment, I found it lacking hooks.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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WHY NOT TITLE IT "SUPPURATION, NY"?
Added 9/26/2009
"Synecdoche," as some people may recall from their freshman high school English classes on poetry, is a figure of speech where a part of something stands for the whole (or vice versa): e.g., "We hired ten hands" (meaning "ten people").
Apparently this confused and confusing film is in some way meant to seem (A) deep and very intellectual and (B) like a metaphor (or figure of speech) for "Life" (with a capital "L").
Also (apparently) its main character is suffering from different shades and degrees of mental illness throughout most of it, so that neither he nor the audience of the film has a clear idea of what is REALLY REAL vs. what is surreal or symptomatic of a disturbed person's perceptions.
Do you recall the "fantasy" scenes of Diane Keaton's character in LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR? Or the drug-trips in YOUNG GUNS? Or the schizophrenic delusions of John Nash in A BEAUTIFUL MIND? Those are crystal clear to us, compared to many of the scenes in this film.
Do you enjoy reading the novels and short stories of Franz Kafka? Or the fiction and drama of Samuel Beckett? At least with them, we can find intelligent and intelligible meaning.
My impression of this film is that it is pretentious, pseudo-intellectual suppuration, whose point could have been made in fifteen minutes or less. Throughout this long, painful film, I was deeply saddened to see so many fine actors wasted.
If I were only allotted seven words for this review, I would have written, THIS EMPEROR IS NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES.
1 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Nuke a [...]whale for jesus
Added 9/23/2009
[...]
For a film with so distinguished a writer and cast I actually have nothing good to say about this movie and that is a shock even to me. If you want to be a jerk and buy this anyways to defy reason I say go for it. You'll have wasted some money and lost 3 hours of your life you could have used on your death bed to tell your family you love them, and now they will never know.
0 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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Labyrinth of the mind a surreal odyssey
Added 9/17/2009
"Synecdoche, New York" represents a world that lies somewhere between fantasy and reality. An ailing director, Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) builds a replica of New York in a huge cavernous warehouse and instructs his actors live out constructed lives. He hires an actor to play himself, and others to play the people he knows. The staging of the play takes on a life of its own as the sets just keep getting bigger and bigger and more elaborate, until the fabricated New York begins to look every bit as real as a real city. And when the actors begin to intermingle with Cotard's real life the line between the play and real life becomes even more blurred.
This is a fascinating movie that will frustrate some and stimulate others. Just sit back and enjoy this labyrinth from the mind of Charlie Kaufman ("Adaptation", "Being John Malkovich").
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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One of the best movies of all time
Added 11/1/2009
"Synecdoche, New York" is a true artistic masterpiece. It is a very profound work of genius. Thank you so very much, Charlie Kaufman.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Almost, almost intolerably heavy-handed.
Added 10/31/2009
From a straightforward approach, it seems to make the mistake of trying to make sense out of chaos by saying that it doesn't make any sense.
Still, I might almost call the film self-loathing, which begs me to consider it more as film criticism than simply just a 'film.' It's almost if the trappings of film are set up as a lab-rat style maze with no solution and 'Humanity' is dropped into the mess and cursed with trying to find a way out.
If I were to go so far as to say the glass is half-full with this film, and I'm not sure that it is, I'd say that it's a pioneer in a whole new genre, which might be aptly termed "The Epic Short." The film seems to have about a ten, perhaps fifteen minute attention span, and nothing seems to internally recall anything beyond it.
It's just that I'm just not sure that actually making this film was a good idea. While any of this may sound great in theory or on paper, the film itself, for me, loses all novelty and the very basic quality of watchability really quickly.
So, yes, I hated it, and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to--but without any of the guilty pleasures of entertainment, I found it lacking hooks.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
WHY NOT TITLE IT "SUPPURATION, NY"?
Added 9/26/2009
"Synecdoche," as some people may recall from their freshman high school English classes on poetry, is a figure of speech where a part of something stands for the whole (or vice versa): e.g., "We hired ten hands" (meaning "ten people").
Apparently this confused and confusing film is in some way meant to seem (A) deep and very intellectual and (B) like a metaphor (or figure of speech) for "Life" (with a capital "L").
Also (apparently) its main character is suffering from different shades and degrees of mental illness throughout most of it, so that neither he nor the audience of the film has a clear idea of what is REALLY REAL vs. what is surreal or symptomatic of a disturbed person's perceptions.
Do you recall the "fantasy" scenes of Diane Keaton's character in LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR? Or the drug-trips in YOUNG GUNS? Or the schizophrenic delusions of John Nash in A BEAUTIFUL MIND? Those are crystal clear to us, compared to many of the scenes in this film.
Do you enjoy reading the novels and short stories of Franz Kafka? Or the fiction and drama of Samuel Beckett? At least with them, we can find intelligent and intelligible meaning.
My impression of this film is that it is pretentious, pseudo-intellectual suppuration, whose point could have been made in fifteen minutes or less. Throughout this long, painful film, I was deeply saddened to see so many fine actors wasted.
If I were only allotted seven words for this review, I would have written, THIS EMPEROR IS NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES.
1 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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