Hacker Cinema
Marriage Story
2019 · Film · 137 min
Directed by Noah Baumbach
A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.
8 positive1 negative1 mixed4 neutralfrom 14 commenters
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14 comments on Hacker News
Then maybe Boîte Noire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Box_(2021_film)
or
Das Leben der Anderen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
I can't think of many contemporary American films that exactly fit the bill (which I interpret as: enthralling, everyday dialogue, without a pop singer's voice on the soundtrack competing for attention, or production like a music video).
Maybe Gone Girl, or Marriage Story, or something.
> The Netflix catalog is full of not so good movies, and the video rental shops in the 90s were too.
I subscribed to Netflix for a year or two when the platform became popular, but I quickly realized it resembles those old school rental shops too much. Yes, you could get some popular classics like The Godfather or Goodfellas, but apart from that you were stuck with another crime story or a comedy with Steve Martin or John Candy. Actually, my analogy may not be 100% fortunate, because I still have good memories about watching these comedies as a kid with my dad. Now I wouldn't have time and patience to go through movies of "that" quality. Anyhow, my point is that you were very unlikely to get there anything that wasn't already proved to be popular. Forget about anything more niche / arthouse. Netflix has produced plenty by itself, but how many of those movies are actually any good? I remember a handful of them: Marriage Story, Roma, Don't Look Up and a movie for kids called Okja.
I dunno, 2015, I'm a little weak on this year: It Follows, Creed, Ex Machina, Max Max: Fury Road, Sicario, The Hateful 8. I'd watch those again with someone any time, and recommend all of them often. Several on my to-watch list most of which I expect to be good, like Queen of the Desert, While We're Young, Slow West, and The Overnight, just haven't made it to them yet. Not an exhaustive list, just gleaned from some titles I have at hand.
2016: Green Room, The Nice Guys, Hail Caesar!, The Neon Demon, Swiss Army Man, Hunt for the Wilder People, The VVitch, Train to Busan, Shin Godzilla, Moana (hey, I like this one), Arrival. Moonlight's on my to-watch and is supposed to be really good.
2017 (I've done OK on catching up with these!): The Lost City of Z, Dunkirk, Low Life, Good Time, Logan Lucky (absolutely slept on, kills it as a feel-good lightweight small-stakes heist movie), Blade Runner 2049, The Death of Stalin (I liked this less than a lot of folks, but given how widely-loved it was, I'm probably the idiot here), One Cut of the Dead, You Were Never Really Here. The Planet of the Apes movie from that year, plus Phantom Thread, and The Little Hours are to-watch for me and come highly recommended.
2018: Annihilation, Isle of Dogs, Upgrade, Sorry to Bother You, High Life, Eighth Grade, the Suspiria remake. To-watch that I expect to be good include Champion (Korean arm wrestling movie—there's another movie by the same name that year), First Reformed, BlacKkKLansman, The Favourite, The Wolf House, Climax, and some others.
2019: HUGE year for the particular (small) set I'm seeing on my list, including a ton to-watch but a bunch I've seen. Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse, Knives Out, Little Women, JoJo Rabbit, Ready or Not, Parasite, Midsommar, The Art of Self Defense, maybe Marriage Story (but if you've seen one Baumbach movie, you've kinda seen them all, and I'm not sure I'd put it above The Squid and the Whale). Midway's a well-above-average war movie and pairs great with Tora, Tora, Tora! as a crazy-long double feature in a really fun way. To-watch list is nuts and I really need to dedicate a month or so to filling out my watched-list for this year: First Cow, The Irishman, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Bacurau, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Farewell, The Souvenir, Blow the Man Down, The Vast of Night, Her Smell, Funan.
It basically just keeps going like that, year after year, and I've barely even tried to dredge up good movies for most of those years, the bulk of it's just stuff that's risen to my attention one way or another, and I'm terrible at keeping up with foreign film especially. I also left off some that a lot of folks would probably include, like at least one Mission Impossible (aside from MI2, I think these are all pretty good action movies, though quality varies a bit) and Avengers: Endgame which, opinion on the rest of Marvel aside (I think it's mostly kinda lazy crap? But was basically entertained for most of them regardless, so I guess I can't complain too much) was a hell of an event. Also Black Panther, which everyone loved but I was pretty meh on (I hate the entire end fight, and it's looooong)
The talent on this film is stacked. I was interested the second I saw who was attached.
Greta Gerwig was an indie darling for a decade before she went on to make two highly praised, award-winning films back-to-back.
Noah Baumbach is known for mumblecore indie dramedies like The Squid and the Whale and recently got an Oscar nomination for Marriage Story. The irony of him working on a Barbie movie is intriguing enough.
Margot Robbie has brilliant charisma on screen and this role seems tailor-made for her.
And if you've seen The Nice Guys, you know how hilarious Ryan Gosling can be.
Also a plot point in Noah Baumbach's movie Marriage Story.
I've long pondered building exactly this, an anti-recommendation engine. You'd go through and mark some favorite films or genres, and it'd come back with something great but totally unlike your usual picks.
Foreign flicks not your thing? Try Parasite.
You don't remember what it's like to be an awkward pre-teen? Eighth Grade will remind you.
Not a big action movie person? Maybe you need to watch Die Hard.
Kids movies are just for kids? Spirited Away!
You can't connect with female protagonists? You've got to see The Invisible Man.
Don't find food interesting? Try Tampopo.
Sick of movies which try to make a statement and fall flat? Promising Young Woman.
Most dramas feel too contrived? Marriage Story.
Musicals and plays aren't really your thing? Hamilton.
Cigarettes still have their place in art, and not just film. Smoking and cigarettes are a huge theme in Car Seat Headrest's Twin Fantasy, which was releaased in 2011. Even if you restrict your view to film alone, there's plenty of smoking in movies. You only have to go as far as Wes Anderson, or Marriage Story, or every other A24 film.
Roma? The Irishman? The Two Popes? Marriage Story? Mank? Beasts of No Nation? Power of the Dog? Tick Tick Boom?
Can't really take a comment seriously that puts Apple's film output over this. Besides Coda has Apple produced or even just distributed anything of comparable quality?
You're 100% right. Most functional divorces I have seen, are those where process end up quickly, especially if there are children. For the sake of their kids it's the best thing that can happen.
The movie "Marriage Story" it's a great reflection of your point, in how the lawyers weaponize resentment in relationships (affairs, deadbedrooms, chores neglect, etc) to get the process going for as long as possible with the promise of getting the best %... but in the end, their funds are eaten away by legal fees.
#NotAllLawyers of course, they already have (with some exceptions) an underserved bad rap, and I have meet some with an ethic code of steel. But it's better the be aware that can still happen.
I went through this but with a child in the US. My ex wife decided to move away 3,000 miles away with our child. I spent a year fighting in court and spend $150k+ in lawyers fees. Being a man with a child under 6 y/o, you have almost no chance to block a mom to move away with the kid across the country. Most men think it won't happen to them, until their wife decides that "she's not happy". Even though the workforce is changing, the family law is still stuck in the 1960's, considering the dad as the breadwinner and the mom as the caregiver. Watch the movie marriage story.
I disagree. There are quite a few interesting movies out there. From 2019 alone: Uncut gems, Marriage Story, the Irishman, Us, 1917, Jojo Rabbit and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. All of those are good movies depending on the preference. In fact, they are innovative and creative. The main problem with judging now vs past, is the survivorship bias of the good movies, the bad ones are forgotten and lost.
Two of those are netflix movies - Irishman and Marriage Story, I don't see them any more synthetic than 1980's RAMBO 2-5? or God Father 2,3 etc. Movies were always based on the popularity, the difference being the better data.
> bad comic adaptations, getting their rating from wide fan base
The amount of haters and lovers might not offset each other perfectly, yet it should not matter after the hype dwindles. Besides, the top rated comic books adaptations are quite good - Joker?
My wild speculation is that the longer time people spend in the menu the more likely they are to close the app, and the more likely they are to cancel a subscription next month. The streaming services are all about reducing churn.
So for daily content. Show ends, you go back to the menu. Do you pick the next thing to watch? I don't know - but they've tried a number of "daily" or "weekly" shows before, and they haven't appeared to be successful. I suspect it's because they didn't improve metrics. Versus say releasing a show all at once - people binge for 3-4 hours and come back the next night to do the same thing.
I think going with amateur youtubers who produce lots of cheap, short content would be smart for like, Snap or Instagram but very bad for Netflix. Netflix's original content hit it off in terms of quality, long form narratives with dramas like House of Cards, while syndicating shows after air gave them second life (Breaking Bad, the Office, Friends) and absolutely crushing it with "must see" films (recently, the Irishman, Marriage Story, but also in the past stuff like Beasts of No Nation).
Conversely, their cheap shows from nobodies tend to die in the womb, and I don't think Netflix does that without good data to make such a decision.
I guess this is most useful if you don't live in the country you want to learn the language for. Native English speaker living in Germany here who speaks fluent German, but still lives most of his life in English. Movies are a good way to keep up language practice, but there's no way I'd want to dub "Marriage Story" or whatever in German. There are plenty of German films on Netflix which I can simply watch with CC German subs, if needed. At any rate, it's still a cool idea, particularly if you lived in, say, Spain, but wanted to see German subtitles.
I did wonder how two such mediocre long and boring films The Irishman & Marriage Story got such rave reviews. I’m annoyed with myself, having been swayed by the the critics, so wasting over 5 hours of my life - watching these in the vain hope that some excitement or entertainment would emerge - thoroughly disappointed.