The mixed response to Emerald Fennell’s 00s-set thriller evinces a movie-going conundrum: how do we assess entertainment that is predominantly indexed on vibes?

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/movies/t/664183

The mixed response to Emerald Fennell’s 00s-set thriller evinces a movie-going conundrum: how do we assess entertainment that is predominantly indexed on vibes? By now, the buzz around Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s sweaty, lascivious sophomore feature about a middle-class interloper in a vacuously rich family, has begun to settle into two camps. On one side, viewers and the plurality of critics who find the film, which had one of the most successful limited releases this year in the US before expanding nationwide last weekend, to be a flashy, self-satisfied mess of empty provocations. And on the other, those who see Fennell’s remix of Brideshead Revisited and the The Talented Mr Ripley with a dash of mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch as a successfully absorbing erotic thriller with titillating shocks. Depraved, but in a fun way, to summarize the predominant sentiment on TikTok.

Everyone agrees that Saltburn, for the most part, looks good – lush, attractive, expensive. (It helps that it stars the Euphoria actor and ascendant screen heartthrob Jacob Elordi.) But are its squirm-inducing visuals – a character slurping another’s cummy bathwater, a literally cocky ending – the mark of perverse genius, or cheap, hollow tricks masquerading as it?..

    • Blaze@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      You are welcome! We should probably decide which community to keep at some point, it might be more interesting than crossposting everything both sides ha ha. Would you like to help us mod [email protected] ?

      • livus@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        @Blaze thanks for the invite, that’s an interesting idea - but I don’t know if federation currently allows us to cross-moderate between Lemmy and Kbin yet?

        We should probably decide which community to keep at some point

        !moviesandtv is obviously the bigger/main community on the threadiverse so definitely it needs to be kept!!!

        Also everyone already migrated here once after the old instance shut.

        Kbin is a relatively small instance, but I’m still committed to helping it maintain some basic communities because I think it’s an important aspect as it grows. So I’m thinking for now, keep little !movies going too, maybe lean into theory/art/history type stuff over there a bit more.

        Back when I was on reddit I used to enjoy both the big movies sub and the much smaller ones like flicks and truefilm, and now that Kbin has multi-communities that seems promising in terms of access.

        • Blaze@discuss.tchncs.deOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          @Blaze thanks for the invite, that’s an interesting idea - but I don’t know if federation currently allows us to cross-moderate between Lemmy and Kbin yet?

          Yes, unfortunately you would need a Lemmy account to be able to mod :-/

          !moviesandtv is obviously the bigger/main community on the threadiverse so definitely it needs to be kept!!!

          Alright, let’s do this!

          Also, I agree that small communities are also nice, but probably too early for now

          • ernest@kbin.social
            2·
            1 year ago

            Yes, unfortunately you would need a Lemmy account to be able to mod :-/

            This is one of the things I am currently working on; something should change in the near future.