earthquake and fire!

March 16, 2006 2:33 AM

The first clip (QuickTime movie, 15 MB) from The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry's new film, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg (set photos), out later this year and hailed by reviewers at Sundance as a "a glorious mess", "loaded with gags and gimmicks and spectacularly beautiful and memorable images", a "wild visual phantasmagoria... and a lot of fun".
posted by funambulist (33 comments total)

Oh Gael!
posted by creeky at 2:51 AM on March 16, 2006

press kit (.pdf)
posted by matteo at 3:00 AM on March 16, 2006

so when does pepsi blue: the sequel come out?
posted by spiderwire at 3:48 AM on March 16, 2006

So is this the movie that's finally going to make Gael Garcia Bernal a huge star?

I've been waiting ever since "Amore Perros". I thought "Motorcycle Diaries" might do it, but it was apparently of too limited interest.
posted by hwestiii at 4:09 AM on March 16, 2006

Agreement, hwestiii.

Thanks for this funambulist, some good stuff here. I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I love Gondry's music videos, so I'm looking forward to this one.
posted by biscotti at 4:23 AM on March 16, 2006

Man.... that's the first thing i've ever seen that made me really wish i could be at Cannes. If this is pretty much a sample of the style and editing that's to be happening through most of the movie it will either be a) nearly unwatchable or b) the best film ever made.

p.s. movie posts are not exactly like product endorsement posts.... unless Pepsi is directly involved. Note the difference [and similarities] between products and artforms.
posted by phylum sinter at 4:38 AM on March 16, 2006

Absolutely, underline this point.
How goddam attractive does a guy have to be before the entertainment press takes notice of a foreigner? Obviously the acting isn't going to help, because he's speaking Spanish, ergo it's of no interest.

I realise that, if he does get picked up, he'll be lost to us for a while in a foggy maze of remakes and relationship comedies with Sarah Jessica Parker, but when he's rich and popular he can fund his own quiet intensities and we'll all be better off.

Come on ladies (and gents): this is the new face of your bedroom wall!
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:59 AM on March 16, 2006

I am looking forward to this.
posted by fire&wings at 5:56 AM on March 16, 2006

Does it matter if he becomes a huge star as long as you had a chance to enjoy him?
posted by furtive at 5:58 AM on March 16, 2006

The problem with Señor Bernal is that, according to my sister, he is too beautiful. She's not wrong.

I'm quite looking forward to this film, being a fan of Gondry's for a while now. I'm just worried that this time around, the story and emotion is going to get lost under his visual aesthetic (as some of the reviews seem to be implying). And there's only so much thematic looping/repetition you can do before it gets boring.

Having said that, the clip is amazing and that is the White Stripes playing, right?
posted by slimepuppy at 6:03 AM on March 16, 2006

spiderwire, STFU.

1) The FIRST FPP on Metafilter was about a movie.
2) Gondry consitantly puts out good (or at least very interesting work)
3) This was a well put together informative post.

All of that put togther makes your bitching especially obnoxious.

funambulist, thanks for this post, I'm looking forward to this.
posted by piratebowling at 6:09 AM on March 16, 2006

Looks like a great Zappa video.

A few months ago, I set foot in his edit room for this for a whole ten seconds. That's right. Bow before me.

Surprising thing was, it was no bigger than a closet. Michel Gondry works out of a closet. That's pretty weird.
posted by fungible at 6:13 AM on March 16, 2006

furtive, my enjoyment of him isn't really affected by whether he's a big star or not. I just think he deserves to be.
posted by hwestiii at 6:21 AM on March 16, 2006

*touches fungible*
posted by slimepuppy at 6:26 AM on March 16, 2006

I agree that, depending on how well the whole movie hangs together, it'll be either the best or the worst in a long while.
posted by craven_morhead at 6:46 AM on March 16, 2006

Every time a spanish-speaking actor 'crosses-over' into hollywod, I cringe. The prospect of seeing a good actor, with memorable parts and talent out the whazzoo reduced to cute-accented-latin-lover type parts is heartbreaking. Antonio Banderas made some kick ass movies in Spain, as did Penolepe Cruz and Paz Vega. Now they're inflatable sex-dolls with pronounciation issues.
So let's hope Gael never becomes a 'huge star'.
posted by signal at 7:31 AM on March 16, 2006

i saw this at sundance this last year. it was pretty amazing. keep an eye/ear out for the 'dirty sanchez' reference! garcia bernal's charecter can't determine whether he's asleep or awake. but when Gondry, Garcia Bernal and Serge's daughter get together ... you can't go wrong.

its an intelligent and fuk'd up film
posted by punkbitch at 7:33 AM on March 16, 2006

Rock on, Gael + Gondry! Gracias, funambulist.
posted by shoepal at 8:18 AM on March 16, 2006

From the press kit matteo posted it sounds as if The Science of Sleep is in part about lucid dreaming or exploring the idea of shared dreams.
posted by nickyskye at 8:43 AM on March 16, 2006

I'm incredibly excited about this. thanks for the great post, and I second piratebowling's sentiment toward spiderwire.
posted by shmegegge at 12:27 PM on March 16, 2006

Oh, god. I'm in love with Gael Garcia Bernal, but I hate Gondry (he's too goddamn clever). This will be hard for me to watch.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 6:33 PM on March 16, 2006

um, excuse me? with all due respect, this FPP doesn't have any sort of insightful analysis, and all those informative links are short teaser reviews or IMDB profiles. it reads like theatre-poster copy. but hey, whatever. does this mean i'm now allowed to post the teaser trailer to X3 with a link to hugh jackman's IMDB page and some bitching about brett ratner on defamer.com? would that be controversial enough for you guys? would that count as 'best of the web'?

personally, i like michael gondry and gael garcia bernal, but that doesn't mean that this post isn't just so much fluff -- and if you weren't clear, that's where my criticism was directed. shmeg, stick to political threads, and piratebowling, you damn well better have a more useful reply than that before you go throwing 'STFU' around in threads, you little twerp.

personally, i felt that my right to my opinion that this is vapid promotionalism was my intellectual prerogative, but hey, maybe you guys don't agree. honestly, couldn't care less.
posted by spiderwire at 11:08 PM on March 16, 2006

'Best of the web' is the new Godwin.
posted by signal at 5:04 AM on March 17, 2006

1. I don't participate in most political threads.
2. this was the best of the web because it was a web-only clip of 6 minutes from an interesting movie by an interesting director.
3. there was nothing promotional about this fpp.
4. you have a right to your opinion, and we have a right to tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about.
5. you have no idea what you're talking about.
posted by shmegegge at 5:41 AM on March 17, 2006

Please. Just b/c it's a director we all like doesn't mean it's not masturbatory fluff: "coming out later this year and hailed by reviewers at Sundance as..." --I mean, come on, if that isn't promotional material, what is? All it needs is a serious Focus-Features-style male voiceover. It's a .mov clip, a half-assed bio, three fluff teaser reviews, and friggin' IMDB links, for crying out loud. "Well put together informative post," my ass. I could've gotten a better set of links from Google, thanks much.

However, that's not the point. I like the clip. Honestly, I would have been perfectly happy with a link to the clip and maybe a bit of context with a [more inside], but given the content of the post (glowing movie review quotes!?), I'm still having trouble seeing how the Pepsi Blue jab was totally off-base, let alone justifying the accusation that I "have no idea what I'm taking about," and the exhortation to "STFU." Seriously, what are you guys, 11? You both deserve to be called out on that -- it's not as if that particular jab hasn't been made at many far less deserving FPPs (and you're not doing a stellar job of defending this one), and it certainly doesn't warrant that sort of childishness on either of your parts. We've all been here for a while (some of us longer than others), and you should both know better and show a little basic respect.
posted by spiderwire at 6:45 AM on March 17, 2006

there's nothing pepsi blue about posting complimentary movie reviews. You go find me some overwhelming majority of reviews that hate the movie and I'll say, "okay, he's trying to fluff the movie." but if almost all of the screening reviews like the movie, and they do, then it's just a realistic sample of critical reaction. earn your respect, and you'll get it. what you're doing here? just garbage.
posted by shmegegge at 8:28 AM on March 17, 2006

You're completely missing my point. I don't care how good the movie is. In fact, I already mentioned that I liked Gondry and Bernal, if you were paying attention.

What I am saying is that even if you two think that my claim that this post is blatant promotionalism is unjustified, even if you disagree, saying that I should "shut the fuck up" is rude, immature, and disrespectful. Period. Full stop. I defy you to point out how that reponse is at all in proportion to what I said even if you're right about your movie and about the post.

Second point, which is entirely separate, is that I don't really give two hoots how well-received the movie was or how much you like the director, this sort of crap isn't remotely worthy of a FPP, and your own criteria prove it.

I can point you to many other movies that have met with critical acclaim, and easily dredge up quotes about how it's a "mature, tense, frightening and altogether masterful film," how it's "an intelligent, visually seductive and mostly very satisfying fantasy epic of the first order." You know this film is oh so edgy and different -- "Death, torture, humour and even budding eroticism -- now this is more like it."

And then, just like the post above, I could link to the IMDB profiles of the main characters as well as a trailer.

What I would then have would be precisely the same as the material in the FPP. And, like the FPP, it would still be absolute shite that any halfwit could find in less than 2 minutes on Google. Then all I'd have to do is defy you to find some negative reviews of it. Incidentally, here's a negative review of the flick you're defending. Took about 15 seconds to find. Happy now?
posted by spiderwire at 11:42 AM on March 17, 2006

no, I'm completely getting and responding to your point.

I never cared what you thought of the movie, or whether you were justified in disliking it, if you even did. that's why I never defended the quality of the movie in any of my comments to you.

my response to you specifically said "you have a right to your opinion, and we have a right to tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about." If you think it's rude to post STFU, then grow a thicker skin or stop browsing the internet. In all likelihood, virtually everyone on this site has probably had STFU thrown at them at some point, and usually it's because that's what they should do. piratebowling found your remark obnoxious, rude, immature, disrespectful and all that. Period. Full stop. I defy you to point out how STFU is as big a deal as you're making it.

your second point is utter nonsense. I said the movie was largely well received, and that unless there was some overwhelming majority of negative press out there, that the reviews provided were representative of current critical appraisal, and thus INFORMATIVE. so who's completely missing whose point? I'm not talking about the quality of the movie. I'm talking about the information provided in the post. the overwhelming majority of critics at sundance liked it, so the post reflects that. get over it.

So cut the "old man of metafilter" bullshit. You're making a huge fucking deal out of someone telling your comment was uncalled for because their acronym happened to involve the word "fuck." grow up. you don't have some senior immunity, and if you make a crappy comment people are going to call you on it, and that just might involve chatroom acronyms which just might have the word fuck in them. deal. I called that ridiculous post about the new Volkswagen ad campaign a pepsi blue and was told to STFU and then had my comment deleted by the mods, and that was a link to an ADVERTISEMENT. did I go and throw a shitfit? no. I moved on and accepted that I was so vastly in the minority that my opinion was just noise in the thread. you can go ahead and do the same, now.
posted by shmegegge at 12:46 PM on March 17, 2006

Cool, so I can go post the Harry Potter FPP now? Because all that was "representative of current appraisal," as far as I can tell. Then again, I suppose a misspelled 'STFU' and an 'I second that' puts me 'vastly in the minority' now?

Look. You're both (well, just you, now) being insulting pricks about a comment that was perfectly reasonable in the context of what preceded it: namely, a Google-able FPP with shitty links, a press kit, and "I heart Gael!"

Your response is nonsensical: If 'STFU' is a blowoff chatroom comment, then why does a 'Pepsi Blue' comment deserve a pileon of insults? Are you calling my one-line comment a 'shitfit,' or the one following it that told me to shut the fuck up with 3 bullet points that said I was 'obnoxious' and 'bitching'? You know, the one that you 'seconded'?

Do you honestly not see how someone could find that insulting?
posted by spiderwire at 5:23 PM on March 17, 2006

you're the first one to call names. I have yet to insult you. spiderwire told you to shut up. you don't have to like it, but acting like it's totally uncalled for is absurd, and every single point of reasoning you've attempted since is patently ridiculous.

there was no pile-on of insults. there was one tame comment that told you to shut up because you were wrong (which is true) and which called your bitching obnoxious (which is accurate.) hell, everything I've said to you since your absurd shitfit has been reasoned, even though I'm taking absolutely no care to couch it in terms that won't hurt your tender sensibilities. pirate's bulleted list defended the post in question, and didn't mention you. His final statment to you only said that your bitching was obnoxious. guess what? you bitched. it was obnoxious. if you find it insulting to be told that what you said was obnoxious bitching, then next time don't bitch obnoxiously.

What you need to understand is that what you said was wrong AND annoying. what did you think would happen? were we all supposed to rally behind you? get over yourself. you said something stupid. if you don't think it was, then who gives a fuck? do you honestly care that much about what I think? because I can honestly say that while I don't care if you're too sensitive to hear STFU without flipping your shit, i DO care that you think that you're free to say whatever ridiculous thing comes to your mind without any retaliation just because you get insulted.

since you're the one who pointed out user numbers, I'll go ahead and say that you should know by now that when you call something out, either in meta or in the thread, and people don't agree, you get snarked at. If you don't like it, leave metafilter. this isn't unreasonable, uncalled-for, or even unexpected behavior. You are not a special snowflake, and if you say something stupid and obnoxious, someone will call you on it. learn your lesson or throw a shitfit. it's up to you. but you don't deserve any special treatment, and nothing that was said here was over the line, except for your own behavior.

and I'll tell you what: if you find a 6 minute clip from the next harry potter movie before it comes out and back it up with contextual information about the actors and directors involved, EVEN FROM IMDB, and couple it with a representative sample of movie reviews from critics who saw the film at a screening at a film festival, then by all means go post it. I bet no one will have a problem with it. I know I don't.

if you can't see that no one, absolutely no one, agrees with you on this, and that that should tell you something about your own behavior, then you're hopeless. enjoy your shitfit. if you come up with some argument that isn't just schoolyard whining, I'll respond, but otherwise you're on your own.
posted by shmegegge at 6:08 PM on March 17, 2006

Yes, shmeg, I acquiesce. I was wrong to find piratebowling's "shut the fuck up" insulting, and everyone in this thread that's chimed in supporting your litany of self-righteousness was clearly correct. I stand chagrined. Also: wherever it was that I mentioned "user numbers," I henceforth retract it. That sort of rank-pulling has no place on MetaFilter. Mentioning blue Pepsi was inappropriate in light of this well-researched post and that most excellent press kit to which I was responding.

Well played, sir.
posted by spiderwire at 5:17 AM on March 18, 2006

Wow, I ignore this post for a while, and so much has happened. Anyway, shmegegge, well played.
posted by piratebowling at 12:32 PM on March 18, 2006

l2sarcasm.
posted by spiderwire at 5:18 AM on March 19, 2006