Oscars 2024: The Zone of BARBENHEIMER (LIVE)

[DMC]

Trainspotting is a pretty obvious correlate - and many if not most of my peer group had already seen that too.  But no, the comparison isn't really similar to the two Offices.  The two movies are very different in..tone, or accentuating the point.

[3CityApache]

Idk, Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream are very different IMO. Trainspotting, apart from having a powerful message, is also inherently funny. Requiem is just shocking. And it also depicts all addictions, not just drug addiction. As a matter of fact TV addiction showed by Ellen Burstyn was at least as much shocking as all the rest of them for me.

[Heartofice]

My comparison to The Office is in the way the same topic can be approached differently but the similarities and differences say a lot about the creators and the culture and audience it’s designed for. Also Requiem and Trainspotting are from a similar period of time so stylistically share a lot of the same language, in a way that US Office takes a lot of cues from the UK version and adapts them to what it wants to do.

Maybe it’s not a totally fair comparison,  but that’s how it felt at the time. Trainspotting feeling real and gritty, Requiem feeling like a grim Pepsi advert in comparison, the facade of reality but with a Hollywood sheen that broke the illusion. Which is kind of how I feel about US office.

Edited March 13 by Heartofice

[DMC]

To anyone that knows anything about the production of Requiem, it’s absolutely absurd to describe it as Hollywood sheen - or the implication they gave two shits about Trainspotting when making it, for that matter.

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

To anyone that knows anything about the production of Requiem, it’s absolutely absurd to describe it as Hollywood sheen - or the implication they gave two shits about Trainspotting when making it, for that matter.

Not absurd at all! Think you are taking this a little too personally mate.

Anyway, just look at the cast, Trainspotting had a bunch of unknowns, regular looking people, speaking in a language that is barely intelligible to anyone outside of Scotland. Requiem had a cast made up of major Hollywood stars, Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly being some of the most beautiful people around, Burstyn and Wayans also incredibly recognisable. I know Requiem is a dark and grim, but it also is clearly a Hollywood movie.

I also highly doubt Aronofsky had never seen Trainspotting by the time he'd made Requiem. 

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Anyway, just look at the cast, Trainspotting had a bunch of unknowns,

Ewan McGregor wasn't much of an unknown at that point.  Indeed, he's quite comparable to Leto at the same point.  Johnny Lee Miller?  Fairly comparable to Marlon Wayans.  Even the budgets were rather comparable.  1.5 million pounds to $4.5 million -- and Trainspotting was shittons more successful!  This idea that Trainspotting was somehow much less "Hollywood" ignores the fact Requiem wasn't Hollywood -- it was filmed almost entirely on Coney Island. 

Sorry if I got a bit hostile, but this is my point here -- there's not much distinction.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Ewan McGregor wasn't much of an unknown at that point.  Indeed, he's quite comparable to Leto at the same point.  Johnny Lee Miller?  Fairly comparable to Marlon Wayans.  Even the budgets were rather comparable.  1.5 million pounds to $4.5 million -- and Trainspotting was shittons more successful!  This idea that Trainspotting was somehow much less "Hollywood" ignores the fact Requiem wasn't Hollywood -- it was filmed almost entirely on Coney Island. 

Sorry if I got a bit hostile, but this is my point here -- there's not much distinction.

What? McGregor had been in one major movie previously, Shallow Grave, that had some underground buzz but was hardly mainstream. Trainspotting was his breakout really. Johnny Lee Miller was a total unknown and pretty much still is.  Everyone else in the movie was basically even more unknown. 

Jared Leto had just come off the back of Thin Red Line, Fight Club, Girl Interrupted and American Psycho, plus was a teen hearthrob from My So Called Life. 

Marlon Wayans had been in a bunch of pretty big movies and was well known at the time. Jennifer Connolly had been around since she was in Labyrinth and Burstyn was a huge name.
 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Trainspotting was his breakout really.

...And Requiem was Leto's breakout.  No real point in going imdb v imdb with you, but Shallow Grave is hardly McGregor's only preceding credit.  Same thing with Wayans - acting like a big star is just looking at his credits, not in what he actually did in them.  His NAME was famous, sure, but mainly due to his brothers at that point.

Burstyn was an historic name, but couldn't get work at that point.  Anyway, this is silly.  Point is Requiem was NOT a Hollywood movie.  That's an empirical fact.  Argue as you will, I suppose.

 

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

...And Requiem was Leto's breakout.

 

Apart from you know.. the massive movies he was also in at the same time and that he was on posters on every girls was for years sure.

Either way, my point isn't that it's a Hollywood movie in the way that Independence day is, but that in comparison to Trainspotting it really has a layer of Hollywood attached to it and a lack of reality. It feels much less authentic.. and a bit try hard. 

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Apart from you know.. the massive movies he was also in at the same time and that he was on posters on every girls was for years sure.

LOL!    Yep, teenage girls at the time were totally into his bit parts in American Psycho, Thin Red Line, and and Fight Club.  Glad to know you somehow had the pulse on American teenage girls in the 1990s - that's the opinion I trust!

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

that in comparison to Trainspotting it really has a layer of Hollywood attached to it and a lack of reality.

It's a much more surreal movie, sure.  You referring to that as "Hollywood" is ...weird, and your own issue.  It's kinda interesting both Boyle and Aronofsky had their breakouts with Shallow Grave and Pi, respectively.  But to be clear, Requiem was based on a book from 1978.  Again, the producers didn't give a shit about Trainspotting.  And to be clear, I love Trainspotting!

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

LOL!    Yep, teenage girls at the time were totally into his bit parts in American Psycho, Thin Red Line, and and Fight Club.  Glad to know you somehow had the pulse on American teenage girls in the 1990s - that's the opinion I trust!

Not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse or you are sleepy or something. Point being, Leto wasn't an unknown comparable to McGregor, he was a well known face, he was basically a movie star. Requiem is full of movie stars, that in of itself makes far less grounded than Trainspotting. I could point to a few other things in the way the movie is produced that means it doesn't feel quite so authentic. 

I will suggest that this will also be a cultural thing. I'm in the UK, UK productions will feel more authentic than an American one. But at the same time, I do think there are a lot of elements of Requiem that mean it's almost like a cosplay of realism. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse or you are sleepy or something. Point being, Leto wasn't an unknown comparable to McGregor, he was a well known face

No, Leto wasn't.  Not by any much further measure than McGregor was a British star in their career trajectory, is my point.  I'm not sleepy about it.  You just seem to think his credits made him a big star in the United States at the time.  He unequivocally was not what anyone would describe as a "movie star" before Requiem.

Your description is yours and yours only, based on reading his imdb page rather than understanding how much these were bit roles.  Which would be apparent for anyone actually educated on the era.

[3CityApache]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's kinda interesting both Boyle and Aronofsky had their breakouts with Shallow Grave and Pi, respectively.  But to be clear, Requiem was based on a book from 1978.  Again, the producers didn't give a shit about Trainspotting.  And to be clear, I love Trainspotting!

And we're back to the discussion if a great movie should be the one we want to watch again. I think both Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream are great movies. I watched Trainspotting several times and I would never wish to watch Requiem again. And yet I can't decide which one is better.

I certainly didn't get the impression Requiem is unrealistic. It's deliberately surreal, sure, but unrealistic? No.

[Darryk]

Requiem did a much better job of putting people off drugs. I remember people saying after Trainspotting that they wanted to get on drugs cause the movie made it look cool.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

No, Leto wasn't.  Not by any much further measure than McGregor was a British star in their career trajectory, is my point. 

Not to you maybe, but by the time I saw Requiem, Leto had been in at least 3 of the biggest movies in the last year. Just because you hadn't been paying attention doesn't make it so. I remember the time very clearly, maybe you don't.

 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Not to you maybe, but by the time I saw Requiem, Leto had been in at least 3 of the biggest movies in the last year. Just because you hadn't been paying attention doesn't make it so. I remember the time very clearly, maybe you don't.

I remember the movies!  I also remember he was barely in the other ones.  Maybe you don't? 

Fact of the matter is, Leto wasn't a movie star by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, and there's no denying this.  If he was, the movie obviously wouldn't have only cost $4.5 million.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

5 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Idk, Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream are very different IMO.

Very different. 

4 hours ago, DMC said:

To anyone that knows anything about the production of Requiem, it’s absolutely absurd to describe it as Hollywood sheen - or the implication they gave two shits about Trainspotting when making it, for that matter.

Yeah, pretty much. Apart from the film being made for basically nothing, Aronofsky talks about how the was the film was shot, cut, and scored as to make the audience progressively more uncomfortable.  

[dbunting]

13 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Idk, Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream are very different IMO. Trainspotting, apart from having a powerful message, is also inherently funny. Requiem is just shocking. And it also depicts all addictions, not just drug addiction. As a matter of fact TV addiction showed by Ellen Burstyn was at least as much shocking as all the rest of them for me.

Funny, I didn't see it as TV addiction at all. To me it was the uppers addiction that made her stay awake and then have nothing else to do but watch TV. Days and weeks of that makes her manic and delusional and she starts the TV tripping scenes.  I may be remembering it differently than it was though, it has been a while since I last watched it.

[DMC]

5 hours ago, dbunting said:

I didn't see it as TV addiction at all. To me it was the uppers addiction that made her stay awake and then have nothing else to do but watch TV.

Agreed, I always thought it was a pill addiction.  Downers, not uppers, but who the fuck knows?  Fuck me, Imma go watch it on streaming...$13 on Amazon to buy.  Well, that seems whatever.  Talk about addiction...

[Argonath Diver]

Oddly enough even after I said I'd absolutely vehemently never watched h it again,  this chatter has me interested. Indeed I saw it when I was 18 and very naive. 25 years in the service industry over 5 states, and I've now Seen Some Shit. I wonder how the movie would affect me now.

Regardless, my 30 year crush on Jennifer Connely does not make me want to watch her gorgeous character fall into depravity again. Talk about a jarring and unsettling "sex" scene. This is me talking myself out of rewatching this mid-post.