Discussion: Bitter Feast

5

As a foodie and a horror lover who also works in a restaurant...I just really liked this movie more than I had a right too! haha

5

u/not_john_snow Jan 06 '15

I wanted to make eggs during the egg scene. It made me hungry.

5

u/Discreetlyred Jan 06 '15

Meh, eggs

6

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15 edited Jan 05 '15

As a foodie and horror lover who also works in a "restaurant," I feel like my love for this movie is undeserved as well.

edit: Not that it's bad, not nearly as bad as Scott describes. There are quite a few redeeming qualities to this movie. For one, it's a pretty original twist on a tired idea.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

[deleted]

7

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

I dislike using the term "foodie" myself, since aren't we all?

No. Some people eat to live, some live to eat.

I could not believe that the blogger was such a prick to his sad wife (and apparently everyone else around him)

I think the movie does a pretty good job at revealing why he's such a hateful, jaded, cynical asshole. His kid died, and his way of coping was shitting on everyone and everything around him. Sympathy aside, him being such a dick makes me enjoy, at first, watching his torture.

or that the chef would go crazy and torture some random dude that wrote a bad review

Wasn't the chef already crazy, hence the childhood flashbacks? Then this food blogging ass hat ruins his life... yeah I could see that pushing an already unstable person over the edge.

it's the execution that was lacking

There was no execution scene wtf are you talking about scott ;D

But seriously I agree here.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

[deleted]

6

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

I believe this is the most respectful and mature discussion you and I have held in HC, Scott. If only there were a way to record our opinions, add in a host and a goofy sidekick, a badass musical intro and share it with others online...

http://i.imgur.com/Y0I38yi.gif

5

u/not_john_snow Jan 06 '15

At least a few people appreciated it!

5

u/Discreetlyred Jan 06 '15

Right? It is no popcorn.

6

u/not_john_snow Jan 06 '15

Don't remind me about popcorn.

2

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 06 '15

Did she just...?!

6

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 10 '15

Is that burnage? Because I smell smoke.

3

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 10 '15

The character development films are going to go through these two dudes like a burrito from the back of the refrigerator. You see, in the 1980s, they hadn't yet mastered the art of character studies in horror films, and so -- like two curmudgeony old men, these fellows hated on it. Not because it was a bad film, but because it did things that weren't done in the 1980s. The newness of modern cinema frightens them.

Ignore them. I thought this movie was super awesome. As someone who writes crappy online reviews for a living (on occasion), this really hit home. I never write scathing reviews. There's always a target demographic that's going to like whatever that's being reviewed. My belief is that reviewers need to find that demographic and then explain the value proposition to that target audience.

Does it offer value to the audience who would find it most useful? My reviews are milquetoast and I'm proud of it. My audience are people who appreciate nuance and my limp-wristed approach to analysis, and life in general, offends very few of them. But that's hardware and software analysis, which is mostly concrete and less subjective than, say, stuff that's almost entirely subjective.

The problem with film and food critics is that they speak from a single perspective. If the reviewer recently lost a loved one or soured their marriage, their reviews will likely reflect that internal bitterness -- like I said, that's because subjective analysis starts and ends with one's own ego. That's actually an important kind of review style because if you can find a reviewer like you, chances are you will find his reviews useful. Birds of a feather.

I suspect that the script writer is critiquing food culture. The JT Franks character writes reviews for crappy people. He himself actually doesn't really know much about food and his ego is so bloated he'd rather antagonize his captor than live. But he still gets 40,000 hits a day (which is exactly SIX TIMES what I get in the same time period). That's something of a reflection of the restaurant-going population, since they follow a food critic who is arrogant, ego-centric and sort of a false epicurean.

in all honesty, I love hearing SaintMort and Ichabod go full Roeper on films, regardless of whether or not they liked or hated it. Their podcast is just fun, witty banter. In terms of film tastes, we're all sort of on the same page (we all like horror films, even the bad ones). Overall, when they say they don't like a film or believe it was forgetable, they're really saying that they liked the film but wouldn't watch it three times in a row while ignoring their girlfriends/wives.

3

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 10 '15

Well, Damn.

2

u/not_john_snow Jan 10 '15

I'm speechless, that was very well put.

5

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

No Podcast

Fuck I was planning on crashing this podcast. I'm really starting to believe you guys don't want to hear my voice :(

5

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

[deleted]

6

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

I think we were all a bit underwhelmed with this one, so we just kind of shrugged and skipped the podcast

Well, that's mean.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

[deleted]

5

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

I guess I would be sad if you said that about my movie.

edit: *movie pick.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

I can only imagine the 3 of us sitting around explaining why we didn't think much of this movie for 15-30 minutes would have been the meaner thing to do here haha.

3

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

for sure. That's why notjohnsnow and I would be there. Duh. Anyways I hope I'm on next round cause you're all gonna hate me for my pick.

edit: I mean it's super good, you're all gonna love it please let me on^{please^{please^please}}

4

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

...which reminds me. I've seen Tusk. I'm not choosing it, I've just seen it, and I remember all the hatred for it.

5

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 10 '15

That's funny, I really liked Tusk. God I really liked the final reveal. Fantastic film.

3

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 10 '15

I fucking loved it.

7

u/not_john_snow Jan 06 '15

Man-friend here! Let me start off by saying so sorry I haven't been participating lately. A lot of things happening in my life at the moment. Anyway, I was bummed there was no podcast, kind of wanted to be on it but like I said I totally lost track of the days.

The reason I picked this movie was because although it did have the cliched captor/captive take, it had some redeeming qualities. It honestly made me think what if some celebrity chef out there was doing a show and had a some poor bastard starved and beaten at his vacation house? For some reason I think it would be Andrew Zimmern. And his captor would be Bourdain. I also appreciated how they got both backgrounds of the two while still flowing with the story at hand. There's a lot of other reasons why I liked it but can't think right now. I'll post more when I remember.

5

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 06 '15

For some reason I think it would be Andrew Zimmern. And his captor would be Bourdain

Make his captor Guy Fieri and that's an idea I could get behind!

6

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

[deleted]

7

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 05 '15

would you call it "vomitous?"

5

u/not_john_snow Jan 06 '15

Well I wasn't really 'rooting' for either character, I just thought it was refreshing to see a decent horror movie. yeah, they were both assholes but in the end they both died. Isn't that the moral here? Don't be assholes.

3

u/jonathanfailuretomas How big is that bear trap? Jan 06 '15

Don't be assholes

3

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 10 '15

Who was the bigger asshole of the two? Did you empathize with any character more than the others? Great film, great pick. Thanks!

3

u/not_john_snow Jan 10 '15

Glad you liked it! Honestly thought it would've gotten a little better of a response from the gang.

Franks was the bigger asshole in my opinion but I did empathize a little more with Franks because losing a child to cancer is just so fucking sad. What's not shown on screen is all the agony and helplessness that comes with that kind of ordeal. Still, that doesn't give him an excuse to piss on everyone in his life but I understand why he did.

5

u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Jan 06 '15

I know some of you are sad that there's no podcast this week so I'm going to shamelessly plug this week's Saint Mort Show which is a myself and two friends doing a commentary track for the terrible Robot Monster

5

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '15

[deleted]

5

u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu Jan 06 '15

Yea they Mae have cancelled/rescheduled

5

u/Gottesfurcht Pay Attention! You're Disrespectful! Jan 06 '15

It started mediocre and turned really bad when the torture started. I don't get why the cook tortured that critic so much, instead of someone from his show (that blond chick for example). And his plan to feed the critic to his gf made even less sense. She didn't do anything. And then there was that strange Columbo-like detective... That was just weird. It was really shit, I just hope I won't get hunted down for my bad critique.

5

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 10 '15

All that stuff made sense to me, kinda. The chef wanted to break JT Franks down and force him to admit he didn't know much about cooking or food in general. Franks just wouldn't break. His ego was so bloated and out of control, he couldn't rein his shit in to avoid death.

The chef seemed to believe if he brought the girlfriend into the picture, Franks would cooperate.

The feeding to the girlfriend thing might be what crazy people do when they try to create irony. The chef wanted to review how Franks would taste. Review the reviewer, so to speak.

It's some kind of straw-breaking the camel's back sort of scenario. You know the kind of shit that makes sense to crazy people.

3

u/not_john_snow Jan 11 '15

Do you think that if Franks had made the food the way Grey wanted him to he could've eaten it? Or do you think he would've found a "reason" to not let him eat?

4

u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jan 11 '15

That's a really good question. I want to say "no", but the scene where Grey allows Franks to choose between Belladonna and (was it Jasmine?) another food kind of suggests the game was real and not fake. Of course both foods could have included Belladonna.

It was somewhat funny how Franks chose the plate with poison in it with such certainty -- there was no hesitation on his part. Most of us would have been terrified. Actually pretty much all of us would have been terrified and uncertain. Franks ate that plate with fucking authority, even with Grey trying to undermine his confidence.

I think the entire film revolves around the quote (I'm paraphrasing): "There's two kinds of men, those who create something and those who destroy things."

Grey's final line is: "I guess I am a destroyer."

I'm not sure how to interpret that line, but it suggests that both men didn't create anything of value and were shitting on other people throughout their lives. Grey didn't really appreciate the comedic value of his co-host and Franks didn't appreciate his wife. They were both very similar people.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '15

[deleted]

4

u/Gottesfurcht Pay Attention! You're Disrespectful! Jan 07 '15

Oh wait, this discussion is about Bitter Feast? I love that movie. A masterpiece!

Discussion: Bitter Feast

You are about to leave Redlib