this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/movies/t/664183

The mixed response to Emerald Fennell’s 00s-set thriller evinces a movie-going conundrum: how do we assess entertainment that is predominantly indexed on vibes? By now, the buzz around Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s sweaty, lascivious sophomore feature about a middle-class interloper in a vacuously rich family, has begun to settle into two camps. On one side, viewers and the plurality of critics who find the film, which had one of the most successful limited releases this year in the US before expanding nationwide last weekend, to be a flashy, self-satisfied mess of empty provocations. And on the other, those who see Fennell’s remix of Brideshead Revisited and the The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch as a successfully absorbing erotic thriller with titillating shocks. Depraved, but in a fun way, to summarize the predominant sentiment on TikTok.

Everyone agrees that Saltburn, for the most part, looks good – lush, attractive, expensive. (It helps that it stars the Euphoria actor and ascendant screen heartthrob Jacob Elordi.) But are its squirm-inducing visuals – a character slurping another’s cummy bathwater, a literally cocky ending – the mark of perverse genius, or cheap, hollow tricks masquerading as it?...

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Given the fact that I've never heard of it till now, I'm gonna go with "no." Would unironically say that Barbie was the most devisive film of the year.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Barbie was divisive? Wasn’t it universally acclaimed?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Most of the criticism of the movie is political, and most of it from people like Ben Shapiro.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

No. o_o Some people were, maybe still are, very upset about Barbie.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm beginning to feel slightly weirded out that every single post I make to [email protected] gets reposted here.

Am I being followed by a bot?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hello! I'm not a bot, but I am indeed reposting some of your articles here!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@Blaze Thanks for the reply. Nice to know you're a human!

You've actually reposted all my posts to movies in the last few days, including an obscure one, so I was really beginning to wonder!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yes, to be honest I tend to cross-post most of the articles I find interesting, and yours definitely are!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

@Blaze that explains it! I should probably take a leaf out of your book and do more crossposting myself, but at the moment I'm focused on new content.

Hope you get to watch some of the shortform docos. They're pretty good.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@Blaze Afterthought: I do have a favour to ask, please can you upvote my posts if you like them?

One of the reasons I thought you were a bot was because you weren't interacting with me at all over there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You are welcome! We should probably decide which community to keep at some point, it might be more interesting than crossposting everything both sides ha ha. Would you like to help us mod [email protected] ?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

@Blaze thanks for the invite, that's an interesting idea - but I don't know if federation currently allows us to cross-moderate between Lemmy and Kbin yet?

We should probably decide which community to keep at some point

!moviesandtv is obviously the bigger/main community on the threadiverse so definitely it needs to be kept!!!

Also everyone already migrated here once after the old instance shut.

Kbin is a relatively small instance, but I'm still committed to helping it maintain some basic communities because I think it's an important aspect as it grows. So I'm thinking for now, keep little !movies going too, maybe lean into theory/art/history type stuff over there a bit more.

Back when I was on reddit I used to enjoy both the big movies sub and the much smaller ones like flicks and truefilm, and now that Kbin has multi-communities that seems promising in terms of access.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Blaze thanks for the invite, that’s an interesting idea - but I don’t know if federation currently allows us to cross-moderate between Lemmy and Kbin yet?

Yes, unfortunately you would need a Lemmy account to be able to mod :-/

!moviesandtv is obviously the bigger/main community on the threadiverse so definitely it needs to be kept!!!

Alright, let's do this!

Also, I agree that small communities are also nice, but probably too early for now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, unfortunately you would need a Lemmy account to be able to mod :-/

This is one of the things I am currently working on; something should change in the near future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Hey, good to see you here! Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Is your name a Huey Long reference? I wouldn't normally think so, but with you being a movie buff, I have to ask.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

No it's not!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


On one side, viewers and the plurality of critics who find the film, which had one of the most successful limited releases this year in the US before expanding nationwide last weekend, to be a flashy, self-satisfied mess of empty provocations.

And on the other, those who see Fennell’s remix of Brideshead Revisited and the The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch as a successfully absorbing erotic thriller with titillating shocks.

The Saltburn divide is, in my view, less a product of the film’s intention as satire than its artifices – its visual provocations, its luxe tableaus of aristocratic wealth and debauchery, its bold and underlined telegraphing of desire.

Numerous festival circuit films this year – Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest, Annie Baker’s Janet Planet, Steve McQueen’s Occupied City – use feelings, mood, visual language and sensory experience to communicate a sliver of the unspoken human experience; together, as the New York Times’ Beatrice Loayza wrote, they argue against the tyranny of story in how we evaluate screen-based media.

It revels in its gargantuan manor house, ludicrous plot twists and aristocratic daffiness via the reliable scene-stealers Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant, as the Catton parents.

Some get halfway there (spoilers ahead) – Oliver’s bathwater moment, or eating out Venetia on her period, are self-satisfied provocations for an increasingly puritanical moviegoing public, but those scenes at least try to literalize Ollie’s consumption of the Cattons’ wealth as something carnal.


The original article contains 1,027 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I’m certainly pumped to see it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

More divisive than Dicks: The Musical?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A musical cast entirely of Richard Nixon lookalikes?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Nothing I say can POSSIBLY prepare you for Nathan Lane singing "I'm desperate for your pussy" to Megan Mullally.

https://youtu.be/SQDmT_Cih2Q

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You're statement was 100% completely accurate. I actually liked The Birdcage. I'll reserve judgement until after I actually pirate the movie, but that looks like the summation of the donkey fucking show, delivered by Rosario Dawson, in Clerks 2.