Podcast! The Comics, Episode 5 - I Don't Want to Derail This, But…
It’s Wednesday again, which means it’s time for another juicy episode of Podcast! The Comics! What lies within when Brandon and James have their first guests on the show? Listen and find out!
This episode is brought to you by Wizard’s Comics, home of the best deal on comics in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Check out their website for a list of the week’s new releases and information on upcoming Magic, The Gathering tournaments, and watch their Twitter account for news and announcements about the shop and its wares.
Episode 5 - I Don’t Wait to Derail This, But…
This week, the boys welcome their first guests on the show, Erin Fraser and Matt Bowes from Graphic Content, a comic book film series in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! Plied with liquor and mini cupcakes, the freewheeling conversation starts with an introduction to Graphic Content and spirals from there. Along the way, they announce that the next Graphic Content screening will be Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, co-presented by Comics! The Blog!
On February 14th, show up at the Metro Cinema at the Garneau Theatre (8712 109th Street, Edmonton, AB) at 9pm for some drinks, prizes, schmoozing and comic talk! At 9:30pm, we’ll introduce the movie on-stage and settle down for an evening of fun! Check out the our announcement and the Graphic Content websites for more detail.
Download the episode here or subscribe through iTunes. If you want to subscribe the old-fashioned way, insert the following text into your audio program of choice (in iTunes, click “Advanced,” then click “Subscribe to Podcast”):
http://comicstheblog.libsyn.com/rss
You can also find all the episodes to date on Libsyn’s site here.
Find Erin at:
Twitter: @erinefraser
Web: Sequential Tart
Find Matt at:
Twitter: @matt_bowes
Web: This Nerding Life
As always check us out on on Twitter at @blogaboutcomics, @leask & @soupytoasterson!
Oh, you guys… I walked out of DRIVE.
I think you’re assuming that everyone who leaves a movie has decided it’s shit-and that’s just not the case. It’s a sort of, “it’s not you, it’s me” thing. I wanted to see it, I had heard really good things about it-but I’d also been warned that the violence was particularly… wet. Ever since my children were born, I just don’t have the stomach for that kind of thing. I can WRITE IT — oddly enough — but I can’t consume it. My nerves cannot take it unless I’m in control.
So.
We gave DRIVE a shot. I’d heard it was great and I really wanted to see it. Aaaand we didn’t even get to the violence. As soon as Driver carried the sleeping kid back to his apartment I knew I had to go-the child’s mere presence (in a film I knew was going to get rough) was more than my incredibly-maternal nervous system could handle. I was up and out the door and made my apologies to Fraction on the way out.
Wah wah.
It’s not an indictment of the film; it’s just not a thing I can handle at this point in my life.
Oh, understood, absolutely. I’d never pretend to know what it’s like to have kids, but when my half-sister was born (13 years apart) child violence didn’t seem nearly as palatable - and it wasn’t that palatable before.
That said, I have still yet to see DRIVE. Ryan Gosling is in it, so the gf will want to see it, but from the vague shape of things of heard, I’m not quite sure she would enjoy it? Still contemplating that movie night.
That’s completely fair. The violence is definitely a kind that I can’t watch a lot of, or that frequently. I saw it with my dad, and one thing we talked about afterward was the level of violence towards the end. The thing I liked about that part of the movie was how jarring it was; in a lot of movies, that kind of violence is used very carelessly and with gleeful abandon. What I liked about Drive was the relative restraint of it; the violence is limited to people in “the business” and it’s done in a way that’s stark but not romanticized, if that makes sense. It’s a movie that I watched in the summer and even though I haven’t watched it again since, I still think about it sometimes and get very quiet.
It’s absolutely not for everyone because of the approach it takes, but in the end it’s made me think about the movies I watch, the ones I don’t and the overall approach that the action genre takes, so I’m very glad I saw it.
That is a very legitimate point Kelly Sue.
We didn’t really discuss the politics of walking out of movies, or this particular instance in the podcast, but people do have a variety of reasons, and it’s not always that they aren’t enjoying the film. I’ve dealt with a lot of people walking out of movies in my years working in Edmonton’s premier “art” cinema, and 9 times out of ten the tell me they are leaving because it is boring or incomprehensible. The big exception to the rule was the 12 times I screened Antichrist.
Drive is a curious case, Nicholas Winding Refn had been steadily making a name for himself in the world cinema scene, finally wining the equivalent of the best directing award at Cannes for Drive. It has an art film sensibility, but it’s macho Hollywood subject matter and star power put it in the multiplexes. To a certain extent I think that it was marketed and distributed poorly. I’m not sure if it really should have been playing in the commercial theatre we went to go see it in (a cinema we never frequent, but because I wanted to avoid a major film festival, we did). My friends I spoke to who are not film savvy, really weren’t expecting the kind of film they got, they thought it was going to be a lot more Fast and the Furious. Part of my shock and disappointment from seeing people walk out comes from my deep passion for film. Here a critically acclaimed piece of work from rising auteur is playing to the popcorn munching masses- filmgoers who wouldn’t usually see the films that compete in Cannes- and they were walking out! So I took that a certain way.
As for the violence, I didn’t find it all that bad, compared to what I’ve seen. But what I’ve seen, is probably on another level than the average filmgoer. I appreciate the raw and visceral style in Drive a lot more than the hyper-stylized beautiful violence of contemporary Hollywood action and horror films. I can’t sit through a film like Hostel with its torture pornography, but I’m a big Gaspar Noe fan. It’s a difference of aesthetics. I appreciate violence that is used in the film intelligently, and also violence that feels and looks awful. The hypocrisy of cinematic violence is a subject I find very fascinating and I appreciate filmmakers like Haneke who can make you feel awful, because I think a lot of Hollywood movie can make you feel really good or powerful with violence. There’s a fine line between depiction and glorification, and I read that hypocrisy when people walk out of a movie that chooses to depict rather than glorify, and that’s perhaps unwarranted on those filmgoers. Saying that, I can’t always watch Antichrist either, you have to go to a place to appreciate something like that, and I have a huge amount of respect for people who can be honest with their own limits and not just mindlessly digest what’s thrown at them.
I hope this helps better explain my position. I just really want people to like good movies, and it hurts when people walk out.
Erin