Synopsis
Murder made Beautiful
Billy is a fetish photographer whose models begin to turn up dead. Michael, a melancholic cop, is tasked with investigating him.
2013 Directed by Joe Swanberg
Billy is a fetish photographer whose models begin to turn up dead. Michael, a melancholic cop, is tasked with investigating him.
Dude, if after directing fifteen motion pictures you are still making crap that looks like this maybe it's time to hang it up. In fact, Joe Swanberg, I wonder if you ever stopped for a minute to look around the set and wonder where Amy Seimetz and Greta Gerwig had gone. They've moved on. But luckily you still have Adam Wingard to help you perpetrate ridiculous and barely credible stories on unsuspecting actresses to get them naked. Considering Wingard just made You're Next I would consider him an extremely loyal friend, or maybe he was just taking one for the team. Who's to say; you mumblecore people are weird. Hopefully now you've learned that it takes more than just turning on a camera and calling up some friends to craft a thriller. There's a whole world out there of editing, and framing, and plot, and character, and intellectual fucking curiosity. Maybe the sixteenth time will be the charm.
gets closer to a zero-budget indie/s.o.v. take on actual eurogiallo sleaze than all yr neon amers & berberians by embracing it in spirit instead of stylistically - rather than a "look" its how & where it looks, a gaze instinctual & dreamlike & way 2 horny: jess franco for that weird moment in obama's 1st term when people had flip phones and iphones in equal measure. yeah its goofy, sleazy, boring, adam wingard's facial hair is a crime... but too singular to dismiss. shot in atlanta!
I was quite shocked to see this was made in 2013 as it looks so much like one of Swanberg's ultra low budget chillout films from considerably earlier. I was also a little surprised that it had an actual plot among the usual plentiful nudity and characters thinking their dreams and ideas are sacrosanct, there's a proper storyline and everything.
It really comes across as a student film though and knowing Joe's made better things both before and after this makes it stand out as a bit of an outlier, not necessarily in a good way.
Halfway between a run-of-the-mill Joe Swanberg mumblecore movie and bottom of the barrel VOD genre movie. Much better as the former, in which Adam Wingard plays a sleazy "fetish photographer" who captures scenes of women being murdered (and then sleeps with the models), than as the latter, in which Simon Barrett plays a detective trying to find the murderer of one of Wingard's models.
Kind of fun, even if Joe does the thing at the end where he (literally, a character he's playing) voices a number of criticisms of the story we just watched, kind of like how he closed out The Zone with his wife talking about how we just watched a shitty movie. Sort of feels like Joe's first "real movie," probably because I was able to watch it on Tubi.
Swanberg made an effective and compelling thriller, expanding upon his usual style in a way that feels true to him as an auteur. The final 10 minutes are bonkers in a satisfying way.
Mumblecore is a sub-genre in the film industry I wasn't introduced to till a few months ago. I thought it sounded like a continuation of Dogma 95, an independent film movement in which a group of film makers made the lowest of low budget films on a set of rules.
Much like Dogma 95, a Mumblecore flick is characterized by the low budget and a set of rules including the use of a digital camera and frequent improvisation by the actors to make the movies seem more genuine.
I was introduced to Mumblecore through Drinking Buddies, which I thought was a really good film that dealt with some real heartbreaking issues in an adult and genuine manner. I then saw…
Hey, Joe Swanberg. How about instead of doing 3 movies a year that have no script, professional actors or budget, you maybe do one movie every three years that DOES have a script, actors and a budget?
Eh? Maybe, Joe Swanberg?
There's some metatextual stuff going on here but it's not explored in any satisfying way. It's much more memorable for justifying Swanberg's decision to star in his own films, because if you thought Swanberg was an unlikely leading man just wait til you get a load of twin shmoes Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett.
joe swanberg's take on the "erotic thriller," with more emphasis on "erotic" than "thriller." swanberg's most divisive films seem to be the ones in which he plays around with genre, but i don't mind; like a lot of his movies, they serve as interesting commentaries on the connection between exploitation and art and the nature of voyeurism. 24 exposures isn't a weak movie at all, as it presents a lot of interesting ideas, and with his cameo at the end of the movie, swanberg essentially reveals his intentions (like he always does). however, the ending feels very rushed, a lot of the "thriller" aspects are pretty unnecessary or at least mishandled, and i'm not sure how much i buy the…
44/100
The Dissolve review. Finally popped my Swanberg cherry (ewww), not counting his V/H/S short, and got what's either a self-justifying statement of pervy principle or a nose-thumbing parody of same. Either way, I was mostly creeped out.
2 years after Adam Wingard (director) and Simon Barrett (writer) created the critical acclaimed horror movie "You’re Next", they decided that it was good idea to star in "24 Exposures", a "movie" that is one penetration away from being from being a pretensions homemade porn.
This one blows my short running time theory fleetly. It's only around 80 minutes, but felt interminable. Ultra-low budget flick released through IFC Midnight about a goofy photographer who likes to stage murder-set-pieces and fuck lots of marginally cute indie lesbian grrls. The nudity was abundant and that's the only thing that kept me watching. It's mumblecore horror or something. Wasn't my thing.