Velvet Buzzsaw (dir. Dan Gilroy) - 2/1 on Netflix

[prkchopexpress]

like has been said earlier...

after nightcrawler, this is disappointing. I'd even go as far to say that this wa quite boring. as a horror movie, it fails. especially if you've even seen a horror movie. as a satire, I don't know. as a movie...

it kind of feels like that dicknanigans sketch from key and peele. the characters in this are kind of awful people you want to see die. and it's not like when you watched nightcrawler and you were compelled by the character of gyllenhaal. these are all people you hate from frame one and just hate more as time goes on.

I guess the question is, is being different and weird enough for a movie? do you just respect the big swings and can you overlook everything else?

for something so completely over the top, I wish had enjoyed it more. especially since I absolutely loved polar because of it's crazy style. but that works for that movie. not so much for this movie.

also, let's not act like netlfix isnt part of the problem. they give artists creative control not not because they care about art, but but because that's the joy thing they can offer. with no physical realizes, there are no royalties. they're only doing it to build their library so they can pay less in licensing. and that's bad, because netflix really doesn't bother with older movies.

[cinemaphile]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

I liked it. It was like a longer Tales from the Crypt episode.

Yes! That is the best description I have heard of this. That fits is perfectly.

[Holmes]

This reminds me of two past films, neither particularly well-regarded: Maps to the Stars, David Cronenberg's well-acted but blundering and scattershot satire of Hollywood egotism and indulgence, and Cursed, Wes Craven's tortured and re-shot-and-then-re-shot-again attempt to transplant Scream's self-reflexive, trope-deconstructing humor to both the werewolf sub-genre and a new setting, Los Angeles.

As an art-world satire, this is decent, if minor. It lands the obvious low-hanging-fruit gags: a character fawns over a plain garbage bag on the floor (what an inspired piece! a statement!) before being told it is indeed just a bag of trash, etc., etc. The plight of Natalia Dyer's long-suffering, permanently temporary secretary, always discovering corpses and being scolded by her superiors, is an amusing subplot; I half wonder if she should be the protagonist. And the always interesting Jake Gyllenhaal is as engaging as ever as an acid-tongued critic who is effectively an art-world kingmaker. He creates an affectedly dainty and pretentious caricature without being entirely devoid of humanity and sympathy.

As a horror film, this is unfortunately very mediocre. Dan Gilroy infused his directorial debut Nightcrawler with an enormous amount of nocturnal menace and propulsive energy, but the gore-and-suspense beats here (slasher-film sequences, more or less, in which a painting briefly moves as a character wanders through a space alone and then abruptly dies in an almost Final Destination-lite manner) are bizarrely listless and decidedly not pulse-raising. Only the Francis Bacon-indebted paintings are modestly eerie. The more the genre-driven side of the film of the film rises to the fore, the more the overall enterprise feels inadequate.

[MJD64]

NIGHTCRAWLER had its darkly satirical elements as well (aimed squarely at the local news outlets who relish a lurid angle), the difference there is the characters were well-defined, flesh-and-blood realistic (and terrifically acted); they gave the film intensity and dramatic weight. VELVET BUZZSAW gives us nothing more than campy and cartoonish stereotypes of the art world in a horror milieu which, despite the great cast, effectively negates any impact whatsoever. This silliness winds up a bust as either satire or horror.

[xbs2034]

Any suggestion if this is worth seeing on the big screen? I have a free Atom tickets pass to use in the next two weeks which works for Landmark, and isn't a lot of indie releases which seem very interesting right now.

[Creed]

Originally Posted by xbs2034

Any suggestion if this is worth seeing on the big screen? I have a free Atom tickets pass to use in the next two weeks which works for Landmark, and isn't a lot of indie releases which seem very interesting right now.

Elswit's cinematography and Gilroy's direction makes it worth the experience.

[Monterey Jack]

C-

Man...I hated this. Pretentious, murky and just plain boring, a huge letdown compared to Nightcrawler.

[Monterey Jack]

Wait, THAT's where I recognized the name Natalia Dyer from, it was Nancy from Stranger Things! The glasses totally threw me.

[Creed]

I knew it was her, but yeah, sure looks different and hotter with glasses, lol.

[Hoke Moseley]

Originally Posted by Creed

Elswit's cinematography and Gilroy's direction makes it worth the experience.

Elswit's cinematography?

This is one of the most boringly shot films I've seen in a while. People have compared it to looking like a network pilot, and I don't disagree. Stunned it was such a dud considering Elswit's pedigree.

[Monterey Jack]

Compared to Elswit's gorgeous lensing of Nightcrawler, Velvet Buzzsaw was incredibly flat-looking.

[Creed]

It looks fine, I guess. Sure, it's nowhere near Nightcrawler's level, but as stated, looks okay.

[prkchopexpress]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

C-

Man...I hated this. Pretentious, murky and just plain boring, a huge letdown compared to Nightcrawler.

if you hated it, how is it only a c-?

[Monterey Jack]

Um...it was in focus, I guess.

It wasn't atrocious, or technically inept, or morally repugnant, I just found it boring, and considering how brilliant Nightcrawler was, it was a colossal disappointment.

[Creed]

Grade went down to 6/10. It really could've been better.

[Member-275053]

A bit of a disappointment after the wickedly thrilling Nightcrawler and severely underrated Roman J. Israel, Esq. 3/5

[leeb]

Very unpleasant and terribly tacky movie, lots of heavy handed pretense

[Worship.my.wreck]

Watched it last night. 3/5
Weird movie, and I tend to like those but this one was just okay.

[MattJ1991]

Originally Posted by Worship.my.wreck

Watched it last night. 3/5
Weird movie, and I tend to like those but this one was just okay.

Pretty much my thoughts too. This is 1/2 art snob parody and 1/2 horror. I wish the horror elements were better, that would have gone a long way to making this more enjoyable. Not bad though, especially by Netflix standards.

[Cremildo]

This is Dan Gilroy's third film as a director and the first one that fell almost completely flat for me (yes, I'm a fan of Roman J. Israel, Esq.). I think it should have committed more to its own extremes: it should've been way funnier and way scarier. And the ending is an anticlimactic fizzle.