Yes No Maybe So⁴: Before The Skeleton Tribe Goes To Sleep at St. Vincent's
Thursday, July 3, 2014 at 8:45AM Hooray. It's time for our weekly dose of hypocrisy. Less than 24 hours ago I suggested you abstain from trailers, and here's a post with not one... not two... not three... but four trailers for you to binge on. It's all for our communal 'Yes No Maybe So' consideration.
Three-pronged thoughts and the trailers to The Skeleton Twins, St. Vincent, The Tribe and Before I Go To Sleep are after the jump...
THE SKELETON TWINS
YES -"I have a very serious question for you. Will you go to prom with me?" LOL. The humor in this trailer is just so chill but still hilarious. No reaching strenuously for the laughs which is probably a great sign. It's easy to picture the movie being instantly quotable and a cable favorite for years to come. Also this trailer only reminds that Kristen Wiig proved to be a really really solid film actor. See also: Whip It and Bridesmaids
NO- This isn't really about the movie but I can't say I'm looking forward to the inevitable complaints about oppressive gay stereotypes!' since Bill Hader has a limp wrist and does drag and lipsynching to hits in his living room. Also, Bill Hader is funny but are we *really* still not going to give lead gay roles to gay actors ever in feature films?
MAYBE SO- brother/sister dramedies are pretty rare so, as such, they're always going to be compared to You Can Count On Me. Talk about a formidable task, measuring up to that one. I don't remember the reviews at Sundance being particular raveish though they were good.
Total "yes"
ST. VINCENT
YES - Melissa McCarthy pulls a curveball as the straight man in a comedy. The entire cast looks to be on point. Especially that bank teller with her hand gestures. Steal that scene from Bill Murray, biyatch
NO - This might veer very cutesy / sentimental. And ornery awful cantankerous old white man neighbors who are supposed to be hilarious and charming are sometimes just annoying and easy for movie stars to overplay (see: As Good As It Gets)
MAYBE SO - Surprisingly, I'm very excited to see Naomi Watts as a Russian hooker... excuse me "lady of the night". And though child actors are often hit and miss, Jaeden Leiberher (that's quite a stage name) looks like a natural and not a mugger.
The "Yes" takes it.
THE TRIBE
THE TRIBE TRAILER 2014 from Oleksiy Yevtukh on Vimeo.
YES - Love an audacious concept and this was a sensation at Cannes. I'm all for seeing a film in a foreign language without subtitles for the helluva it. Why not?
NO - Films that quickly get a 'shocking' rep from festivals are sometimes just exploitation with artistic pretensions. And it looks like it'll probably be somewhat nihilistic which I am into less and less at the movies. It's a shortcut to critical praise. It's way tougher to pull off a non-gaggy happy ending.
MAYBE SO - I understand that sign language is different from country to country which really sucks for deaf people. Imagine how worthwhile it would be for everyone to learn if it was the same everywhere? It'd be a workable Esperanto.
Yes from curiousity unless the reviews suggest total miserabilism
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP
Psyche! I'm not actually going to watch this trailer all the way through. Thrillers in particular give way too much away in the 2 minute format. So after 45 seconds of Nicole's selfie whispering and Nicole's bloodshot eyeballs I decided it was best to stop before it's revealed who is friend and who is foe... though from just 50 seconds I already have an idea, damnit!
YES -Nicole Kidman. Plus I figure Colin Firth owes her the spotlight after Railway Man which was all about him
NO -Kidman & Firth & Mark Strong are all very very talented but they're like a new generation's Michael Caine and will say "yes" to virtually any movie offer. Prolific workaholics usually make way more than their share of bad movies in their lifetime.
MAYBE SO -Rowan Joffe is a screenwriter turned director and the son of The Killing Field's Oscar nominated director Roland Joffe. But I didn't see his debut directorial feature Brighton Rock so skill level? Anyone?
I'd be a no without Kidman but...
Previously on Yes No Maybe So:
Fury | The Judge | Birdman | Magic in the Moonlight
Reader Comments (22)
YES to St. Vincent and Before I Go To Sleep.
Maybe So to The Skeleton Twins.
And I have no idea about the tribe.
ST VINCENT looks adorable!
ha I love Naomi Watts playing something different for a change!
She looks very Robin Wright Penn in WHITE OLEANDER here :)
I had dinner and drinks with Craig Johnson last week and he couldn't be a sweeter guy. So happy for his success and the reception of The Skeleton Twins.
St. Vincent and The Skeleton Twins look fantastic.
I'm a total sucker for the "ornery neighbour befriends the cute kid" narrative, so I'm interested in St Vincent. Skeleton Twins looks like a lot of fun, too.
Maybe all the straight guys who play gay characters are secretly gay, and it's all getting worked out without us knowing? Too optimistic?
Yes - The Skeleton Twins and Before I Go To Sleep
Maybe So - St. Vincent (hope McCarthy and Murray interact quite a bit) and The Tribe (totally curious now)
That's Greta Lee as the teller in St. Vincent. She's got crack timing in her appearances on Inside Amy Schumer and Girls (as Sookin the obnoxious gallerist Marnie ends up employed by), so I hope she can work towards bigger and bigger things since this is easily the most high profile project she's been in to date.
St. Vincent: It kind of lost me when the kid actually called him out on the Hitler thing. Maybe it's a little different in the US, but I wouldn't think they'd teach WWII until high school. Maybe. Also: Good on Jack for not doing this.
The Skeleton Twins: Okay, that ending gag was funny, but I almost found it TOO chill overall and Bridesmaids didn't sell me on Kristen Wiig as a live-action presence (I substantially prefer her voice work (How to Train Your Dragon 1&2 and Despicable Me 1&2), to be frank). Probably not.
Before I Go to Sleep: Oh man were you right about not watching that full trailer. Seriously, if you're going to make the answer that obvious, why even release a 2 minute trailer? Dodged that bullet.
The Tribe: Audacious concept for a short film, but I don't quite buy that this will sustain itself for a feature. Maybe.
Before The Skeleton Tribe Goes To Sleep at St. Vincent's.
My first thought was that this was the title and I was so excited. I imagined Zombie nurses haunting the ruins of St. V's and stopping the building of yet more over priced condos in the Village.
Yes to Skeleton Twins (love Wiig's super-deadpan lip-syncing), Maybe to St. Vincent and The Tribe, I also won't watch the Nicole trailer.
You know what, I agree with you about the gay actors thing totally. More gay actors playing gay roles, yes please. And yet I was pretty won over by that trailer for The Skeleton Twins. I think Wiig is a really good actress and I like Hader. Also, I feel like there's been this sort of pushback to not wanting to portray gay characters as being too stereotypical, which...I don't know. I'm gay. I like singing pop songs with elaborate arm choreography. Some of us do. Some straight people do. Some gay people don't. I'm getting some real hints at character specificity that I'm willing to reserve judgment. It's a yes for me. I want to see it.
TPKIA -- oh i do too. I hate the gay desire for performative masculinity. it's so... vanilla. Like gay culture is only of worth if it becomes straight culture. BUT I'm just saying it will be annoying when people argue about it.
I'm a yes to all of them. The Skeleton Twins in particular looks really good. And I'm one of the few who enjoyed The Invasion, so I'm excited for another Nicole Kidman thriller.
OMG, "gay desire for performance masculinity..." YES. This. This topic is thinkpiece worthy in and of itself. It's like the "Butch Realness" category from Paris is Burning has finally infiltrated mainstream Hollywood, but they're missing the point.
Re: St. Vincent, I just...am I the only one who loved Lost in Translation, yet feels that Bill Murray has exhausted almost all the goodwill since then? I love Melissa McCarthy and it's good to not see her playing, like a martian who doesn't adhere to the way that socialized humans act (though I think she's great at that too and I of course think she's hilarious, as do we all). I'm here for that. But Bill Murray represents for me something icky about entitled masculinity of a certain age post-Lost in Translation (his fans are partly to blame for this. It's not all Murray's fault) and he's been giving me pause these days.
I saw the Skeleton Twins, and the jokes land - unforced dark humor, mostly. Some of the dramatic stuff didn't work for me, but overall it's pretty great.
They all seem to have something of value but I'm not excited about any of them.
ST. VINCENT seems the kind of movie that if done excellently I could love it. But how many movies are done excellently?
The trailer to "The Skeleton Keys" is giving me life! Will be there opeing weekend for that one! Can't wait for Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader to slay this one out. YES!
"St Vincent" though? Meh. Love Bill Murray, but that trailer gave me no indication that this would be anything more than the "cranky old white man is changed by young person/woman/ethnic/dog," etc. Barf. I'll call BS if Murray gets that "you make me want to be a better man" noise. NO!
Yes for Skeleton Twins - seems like the actors found a good tone;
No for St. Vincent (we complain about sequels, but what about the amount of non-declared-remakes that are made every year?);
YES for The Tribe. It looks visually interesting and "French-like" in its dramatic pull
NO for Before I go to sleep - Yes, I did watch the trailer and not only it reveals a lot, but it also reveals how bad it must be. I would see it only if the reviews compared it to Mulholland Dr., so, no.
Brighton Rock took itself too seriously. I didn't see any indication of a "personal style" in Joffe's direction. Its tone remained more or less the same throughout and I thought the actors, in general, were too aware of the type of movie they were in, almost as if they were playing their types in a calculated and distanced manner. It was one of the most boring experiences I've had in the movies in a while (It was a special screening at the IFC, so I didn't really pay to see it, but went to see it because I was curious to see Andrea's and Mirren's performances)
YES to St. Vincent. Bill Murray looks great and has some great line readings in their like when the kid asked to use his phone in his house. lol. Plus McCarthy is on fire and is funny even when playing straight.
No to the Tribe. Not my kind of movie at all. I don't care how good it's reviews are.
Maybe so to the Skeleton Twins and Before I go To Sleep. Both look like potential rentals to me - although if they get bad reviews, maybe not even that.
Yes for Before I go to sleep, looks like a fun popcorn thriller!
YES to Skeleton Twins. I got a very understated, very real The Savages vibe. Dyke night!
NO to St. Vincent's. Every moment felt like a curmudgeon cliche that I'd seen before.
YES to Before I Go to Sleep. Love a well-written thriller.
MAYBE SO to The Tribe. The trailer exhausted me. A whole movie of that?