I was excited to see this during its opening week here in New York City, but man was my experience ruined by the Otaku on my left and the White-washed hipsters on my right. Did anyone else think that every single seen was so funny that they had to laugh SO LOUD every single time?
Did anyone else have this experience of having ignorant kids who think anything and everything Japanese HAS to be funny?
I mean, there was definitely a lot of humor in it.
Best of the year:Whiplash, 12 Years a Slave, Life of Pi, Drive, the Social Network
Humor sure. But the type where you laugh at practically every scene in the loudest and most obnoxious way? Then why weren't the Japanese in attendance laughing? Or well, about 83% of the crowd?
shareI had the same thing happen when watching The Artist a few years ago. A lady behind me was laughing out loud at everything, which was fine in the more comedic first half-hour, but made no sense when the story became much more dramatic. I laughed out loud (not hysterically) at a few scenes in Kumiko, but the movie was certainly more of a drama than a comedy (unless there is something hilarious about depression that I'm not getting). The viewers around you were clearly high.
So I haven't posted on a message board here in probably years..
But.. I just couldn't resist the urge to echo my same sentiments!
I'm in basically "hipster-ville" in Los Angeles, and I just got out of the movie.
The two *beep* idiots sitting behind me felt it necessary to laugh at every action, funny or not. Made utterly zero sense, what made even less were there terrible "hilarious" wise crack jokes back and forth between one another.
Completely ruined my experience to the point when I thought some moments were very laughable, I didn't want to because the "cleverest" hipsters in the world were basically laughing sooo loud I thought they migtth have fell out of there seat.
I must go see the film again, because even in those horrid conditions I found it to be a very good, touching film with great dialogue that blended the line of funny/sarcasm and meaningful/serious tones.
I thought the movie was sad more than anything. There were certain moments of intentional humor in the movie but it certainly was no comedy. I didn't even come close to laughing at any point.
shareI guess I'll chime in this thread instead of creating new one...
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My viewing had about 20ppl. Most of the audible laughs were blatent gags... my favs were the mock cell phone stabbing (that would make an awesome gif!) from her friend, & the older lady in Minnesota who takes her in.
The 'hardcovers are for showoffs' line earned huge laughs, that was such a delivery & landing!
Having said that, I found it to have quite a heavy undercurrent which I never really deviated from. I admired that aspect & enjoyed it for its courage.
While they didn't play it up too much throughout, there were several moments which allowed the drama to bleed through;
- Bunzo onto the subway... that was emotional because she was essentially sending her one true friend away forever.
- Her first phone call to her mom from Minnesota, when she's asked 'if this is about dating/marriage/pregnancy' , Kumiko can only bring the courage to reply 'no, this is nothing to do with that at all' before hanging up because alas it's true, & because sadly she'd never yet invited any of that into her life.
- Some of her lost in translation in Minnesota, when it finally becomes too much for her & she cries/screams. I could really feel this journey was all she truly had in the world.
I both laughed & cried with this film.
Agreed. IMO there was definitely humor but was also for the most part blatant.
That's a pretty small screening! The showing I had I believe maybe had 100 people? Maybe a tiny bit more. It was a full house. And I had the unfortunate experience of sitting to possibly drunk hipsters on my right and then these young Otaku on my left. The rest of the crowd were a little older. Some Japanese, some much older, etc. And man were the LOUD LAUGHS every other minute obnoxious.
Yeah it was 20 something ppl give or take. Monday 9:30pm showing downtown Toronto @ Bell Lightbox Theatre (i.e. TIFF's home).
I purchased my ticket online hours earlier, I wonder if most of the crowd didn't maybe buy theirs on a whim during the evening.
The older lady who took Kumiko in definitely had the funniest lines. My favorite was the "house dust is mostly dead skin cells" line. But other than that, the jokes were few and far between. I think it would have been unbearable to sit through a screening of hipsters guffawing throughout the entire film.
shareI missed the point of cell phone stabbing . What was that about?
my vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13767631/ratings
May go a bit off topic, or ramble a bit on one thing
I wouldn't say otaku types would show for this movie, it's not animated which is their forte, but damn were the hipsters out for this. The whole hipster thing has got to be even obviously dumb to them, do they really think that they and only they know all the indie movies and bands? Do they think it's ironic to laugh at stuff that doesn't really need a laugh, even if it's comical? I live in what I guess you would call the hipster section of Buffalo, but really it's a mix of hipster, hippies, artists, and students; but it's the hipsters that try to make themselves stand out from the rest, as if they were unique. I'm almost fearful of going to a less than popular movie for fear of having to sit in the theater with a handful of hipsters who critique everything or laugh at stupid stuff because it's ironically funny....honestly I could probably ramble on about the inane nature of the hipster movement. It just rarely gets brought up in threads here on IMDB so I rarely get to vent about how I went to see an indie movie and had to put up with some neckbeard in flannel, tight pants, wearing a scarf and thick rimmed glasses critiquing the movie as if he was the end all say all of what it was about.
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I wouldn't say otaku types would show for this movie, it's not animated which is their forte
Hmm... I think I'm dead inside then. I didn't find anything funny in the movie and no scene could draw a grin on my face.
The tone of the movie felt very sad to me and the comedic scenes seemed like they were included to portray a sense of normality in the people around Kumiko.
There is NO humor in Ms. Konishi Takako actual death circunstances.
You shoukd watch https://vimeo.com/66512803
Please excuse my terrible redaction, english is not my native language IMDb = Catch-22
I thought the movie was hilarious, I laughed at a couple dozen scenes throughout. I don't think that makes me a bad person, the movie was just funny, and it was shot more or less as a dark comedy.
-sometimes I feel like I'm on everyone's ignore list
I didn't even realize this was supposed to be a comedy, there's nothing funny in it. It's a very good film, but it's not a comedy.
"Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
What are "white-washed hipsters" ?
share