Movie Details
| Title: | Metropolitan | |
| Director: | Whit Stillman | |
| Year: | 1990 | |
| Genre: | Comedy | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.11.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Barcelona
- The Last Days of Disco
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.11.23 | Blu-ray | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2023 roll: 3 spine: 326 Last year I watched Last Days of Disco and liked it so I picked up this and Barcelona to complete the "set." Depending on how I roll I may get to watch both today, we'll see. For now, let's watch Whit Stillman's first movie. I don't know about you, but every once in a while a movie comes along that so perfectly describes your own life experience that it's not only like the movie is about you but it's also like the actors are playing people you knew. You know... late night black-tie after parties, talking about social mores and discourse, sipping tipples in upper east side apartments. giving your tophat to a new friend. That sort of thing. I suppose if I were Whit Stillman then all of that might be true, but for the most part, watching this movie, I was astonished at how foreign this scene is. Beyond foreign. Alien. How crazy was the birth of 90s american independent cinema that you had these kids, Do the Right Thing, and King of New York all happening at the same time? People talk about the magic of New York City... it's right there. How can one metroplex contain such drastically different viewpoints!? Throw in Night on Earthk, Johnny Suede and In the Soup a year or two later and you have quite the cinematic stew going. It's funny, having watched it first, to think about Last Days of Disco being the polished bigger budget version of a Stillman film, but I suppose it makes sense. At its heart this movie is the same - it's about a group of friends hanging out and talking - but the sets are more modest, the photography less slick, and the actors a few years younger. I can't help but think of this whole graduating class of actors coming from this era... the post-modern educated upper/middle class white kids... as one body, and then I watch this movie and find out that it's literally true. I think of them as all the same because they're all in every one of these movies! Just a moment of appreciation for that early wave of 90s indies that hit video store shelves. None of them played local theaters for me, but thanks to the previews in front of rental VHSs I feel like I knew about all of them. You'd rent Reservoir Dogs and get a trailer for Barcelona, Gas Food Lodging, and Bad Lieutenant. Watching Miller's Crossing would let you know about Roger & Me, Drugstore Cowboy, Sex, Lies, & Videotape. That was the start of what became late-decade shit like Pi and Rushmore and Kids, Swingers, Welcome to the Dollhouse... culminating in 1999: arguably the best year for movies since my birth. It was a hell of a time to come of age and spend hours in a video store staring at box art wondering if Lair of the White Worm was gonna have naked women in it or not. Anyway, back to the deb parties and preppy kids (sorry, Urban Haute Bourgeoisie). I liked this more than Wild Strawberries which is funny because it's no faster paced or more exciting... I think just by virtue of being in English and made thirty years later I found it more palatable. For all of there homogeneity I do like actors like Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols (who I most closely associate with an early 2000s hbo show called Mind of the Married Man) so it's fun to see them so so young. So evocative of its time and place in cinematic history, but also tinged with a bit of nostalgia for me and right in my strike zone for witty dialogue that borders on too arch (is that my strike zone? huh!). So basically exactly what I thought about Last Days of Disco a year ago. I have a hunch that I'll feel the exact same for Barcelona. Next! |
