Comments on: American Poll https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll Lollards in the high church of low culture Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:37:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Ed https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1531397 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:37:23 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1531397 @8, @9 Updike at his best is brilliant, I think. Try the Rabbit quartet, or Couples. He has a bleak world view, and often deeply unsympathetic protagonists, but his style is spectacular.

The Husker Du of dadcore.

Which would make American Beauty the Blink 182. A horrible film, worst of all in its grotesque and misogynistic use of Annette Bening as a caricature straight out of George and Mildred.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530788 Wed, 28 Jan 2015 23:17:47 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530788 I do think that films with an article (definite or indefinite) before ‘American’ are innocent bystanders here – it’s descriptive rather than declamatory. Although in The American Friend, Ripley is far from incidentally American – he’s hyper-Yank, as seen through a German Pop Art-ish perspective.

American Gangster is the one I feel leans most on the heft it hopes that the adjective provides – this isn’t just another crime movie, it hopes we believe, this is a Godfather-weight epic, surely, otherwise why would you sit through 158 minutes of this? Whereas in American Hustle, American Splendour and American Movie, there’s irony at play in the title.

Also, as noted, a number of these titles had done the rounds – American Beauty is the name of a Grateful Dead album as well as the rose that’s on the cover of that record and in the movie. American Gothic, too, has had multiple uses.

Best of the bunch? I think The American Friend just shades it over American Psycho, although I’m perfectly happy with the current punters’ choice of An American Werewolf In London.

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By: Rory https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530675 Wed, 28 Jan 2015 13:12:55 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530675 Well, Baz Luhrmann had a crack at it with Australia, and there’s This is England, The English Patient, Johnny English, and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, but yeah, not much competition really.

I’d give An American Werewolf a pass for being about a national abroad rather than Being American, and American Pie half a pass for being named after a much older song. Not that the song itself gets a pass—in fact, that may well have inspired George Lucas’s title for American Graffiti. It’s all Don Maclean’s fault!

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By: swanstep https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530661 Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:55:17 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530661 Yes, ‘American_______ ‘ titles are very odd. Filmmakers from other countries somehow manage to tell important stories without presuming or appending specifically national significance. Evidently since at least the revolutionary/founding fathers generation a big part of being American has been to bang on about being American, and this titling trend (which only really kicked off in the ’70s with ‘American Graffiti’, itself a lovely, unpompous title) manifests and continues that self-obsessed, self-mythologizing streak in the national character.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530378 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:46:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530378 Disappointed by the lack of love for American Movie so far.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530377 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:45:01 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530377 Re9: I occasionally feel I should give Updike another go now that I am middle-aged, but there’s always something more appealing to read first.

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By: Tommy Mack https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530372 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:25:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530372 Yeah, he realises he’s wasted his life in a tedious job, pursuing a hollow suburban ideal of the good life but if his reponse upon awakening is to be a prick to his wife and sleaze onto his daughter’s friend then perhaps he wasn’t cut out for anything much more life-affirming in the first place. All the other characters were quite interesting though with the possible exception of plastic bag boy.

Gotta say, the one Updike I’ve ever read, Of The Farm (which cost me £20 after I lost it inside a suitcase and had to pay brutal reparations to Wimbledon library), I found quite compelling, despite it definitely being guilty of male midlife crisis sulkfest.

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By: Mark M https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530368 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:10:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530368 Re3: Yes, that’s was my feeling too – ‘instant classic’ quickly downgraded when people realised that it was often laughable (the much-parodied plastic bag scene) or tedious (the whole of the main bloke’s midlife crisis and sexually fantasising, all very sub-Updike and Roth, as if those guys weren’t bad enough). And that people also realised that Mendes is a lousy film director.
But clearly not.

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By: weej https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530354 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:12:36 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530354 Please don’t deny us the pleasure of giving 0% to An American Carol.

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530342 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:30:12 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530342 #4 I have edited the poll to make it more brain-numbing

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By: Tim https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530340 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:21:59 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530340 The American President is West Wing: the Movie, for what it’s worth. I like Corbijn’s The American, but then I’ve always had a weakness for stories about hitmen.

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By: Pete Baran https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530339 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:18:22 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530339 If I were running this poll I would have taken out anything that doesn’t start with the word American – qualifying articles spoil the brain-numbing symmetry. Also I can’t believe we have An American Werewolf In London without An American Werewolf In Paris.

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530338 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:12:32 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530338 I never saw American Beauty, and was under the impression it had rather lost its reputation over time, on account of being too dadcore. But perhaps not (or perhaps that would make our voters like it MORE, certainly a possibility),

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530336 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:53:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530336 Peeeeete, now that word has lost all meaning.

Missing (and better than all except 3): The American Astronaut.

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By: Rory https://freakytrigger.co.uk/see/2015/01/american-poll/comment-page-1#comment-1530330 Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:15:42 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=28542#comment-1530330 Good to see American History X creeping up. One of Edward Norton’s best performances. He was on fire in 1998-99.

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