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 Frank 

What grade would you give this film?
A 25%  25%  [ 1 ]
B 50%  50%  [ 2 ]
C 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
D 25%  25%  [ 1 ]
F 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 4

 Frank 
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Frank

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Frank is a 2014 British-Irish comedy-drama film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy and Michael Fassbender as the title character. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released on 9 May 2014 in the United Kingdom and Ireland.


Tue Aug 05, 2014 1:11 pm
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Post Re: Frank
forced weirdness

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Tue Aug 05, 2014 1:45 pm
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Post Re: Frank
I thought this was great. I had no expectations and ended up finding it pretty hilarious and heartfelt. The final few scenes were very moving. All three of the leads were great, particularly Domnhall Gleeson (who is going to be a big star) and Michael Fassbender. Definitely recommended. A-


Sat Aug 16, 2014 6:12 pm
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Post Re: Frank
From within the claustrophobic confines of his cubicle, part-time songwriter and keyboardist Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) dreams of fame and fortune, but is headed slowly in an unproductive direction. One day, however, he chances upon the scene of a seaside suicide attempt. The troubled man plays in a band with an unpronounceable name and an enigmatic vocalist, Frank (Michael Fassbender), who always dons a large paper head bearing a rudimentary face painting reminiscent of Pinocchio. Jon is recruited as a last-minute replacement for the night's gig and is later spirited to a remote cabin in Ireland to record the band's upcoming album. There, they write songs and experiment with sounds for a year. As Jon's savings deplete, he explores the unusual group's intense dynamic and tries to find his place therein. He is treated with acidic disdain by Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a theremin-and-synthesizer player who fiercely guards the counterculture authenticity of the group. Jon quietly films their rehearsals and tweets news from the studio. The ensuing public interest forces the other band members to debate whether they are truly interested in rising from obscurity. Then comes a coveted invitation to perform a set at the South by Southwest festival in Texas.

Directed with wit and a sure hand by Lenny Abrahamson (What Richard Did), this is a bold and original film, at times downright hilarious and at other intervals moving and even profound. It raises various relevant questions regarding popular culture and music. For example, how do artists reconcile the left-of-center credibility they aim for with the compromises demanded by ambition? More intriguing still is the film's substantial investigation of the relationship between mental illness and celebrity. Society diagnoses and demands treatment for despairs and disorders in most contexts, but responds to them in another way entirely when writ extra large in lights, romanticizing desperation and instability as shortcuts to genius. In the film, Jon's eyes light up at the thought of his band leader's surely troubled coming-of-age in small-town America and regrets his own content suburban upbringing; perhaps if it were more tragic and volatile, he, too, could write perfect pop music and wear an outsize papier-mâché costume. It is a problematic line of thought perfectly upended by the conclusion.

The ensemble cast is tremendous. The fact Fassbender, a red-hot star on the rise who just received his first Academy Award nomination for 12 Years a Slave, performs for the most of the film without the benefit of his angular and demonstrative face has turned heads and received a significant amount of media coverage. It is a satisfying high-wire acting feat. He is able to convey the mysterious character's electrifying blend of boisterous creativity and temperamental self-doubt with his fretful hands and rich voice. For a while, Frank experiments with saying his facial expressions to the people around him (for example, he reassures a band-mate with a "welcoming smile"). We are uncertain whether this partly stems from the character's peculiar sense of humor or if it is intended as solemn and lasting substitute for face-to-face interaction, and this ambiguity—playful, a bit sad—is an example of the power of the spell cast by the performance.

Her face may be on display, but Gyllenhaal also vanishes into her role as Clara. Imagine Wednesday Addams, but hardened further by the demands of adulthood in the real world. Each of her dryly ferocious one-liners cuts with the precision of scalpel and drips with vinegar. And as protagonist Jon, Gleeson has a role comparable to Alan Bates' in the enduring cult favorite King of Hearts: he is the audience's straightforward guide into an improbable circus which spins his head (and ours) and then slowly shapes or even enriches him. With his inviting face and a presence as eager as it is earnest, he proves a charming and stout anchor for the film.

A

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Wed Aug 27, 2014 2:28 am
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Post Re: Frank
It goes a bit too dramatic in the third act after a very lighthearted first two acts but it is a very enjoyable film. The entire main cast shine in their own way.


Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:24 pm
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Post 
Frank

Hipster crap. Domhnall Gleeson is good, but the film is just stupid. It's great for people that are so obsessed with finding something unique and 'out there' for them to obsess over so that when they say they like it we will all supposedly think they're cultured or noticed something we didn't. Probably the what the director intended. I'm glad it didn't find an audience. It restores my faith in film fans that, besides pretentious lectures and study groups, Frank will be unknown to movie lovers.

D

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 8:49 am
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Post Re:
Algren wrote:
Frank

Hipster crap. Domhnall Gleeson is good, but the film is just stupid. It's great for people that are so obsessed with finding something unique and 'out there' for them to obsess over so that when they say they like it we will all supposedly think they're cultured or noticed something we didn't. Probably the what the director intended. I'm glad it didn't find an audience. It restores my faith in film fans that, besides pretentious lectures and study groups, Frank will be unknown to movie lovers.

D


Is this your break-up speech to David?

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 9:18 am
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Post Re: Frank
:funny:

I still love David and his hipster tendencies.

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 9:44 am
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Post Re: Frank
I hear what Algren is saying, but I believe it is a sentiment misapplied to Frank, which has an absurd and quirky veneer, but is ultimately a very heartfelt and open comedy/drama. I do not see it as this film trying to be aloof or perch itself atop a mountain of specialized inscrutability.

And it is critical of certain "hipster" tendencies, such as the Gleeson character's romantic visions of Frank's surely tortured suburban childhood.

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:24 pm
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Post Re: Frank
So you hear what Algren is saying, but when I say something similar about Boyhood or other films, it's just "so classic Arthur" ;)

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 4:20 pm
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Post Re: Frank
David wrote:
And it is critical of certain "hipster" tendencies, such as the Gleeson character's romantic visions of Frank's surely tortured suburban childhood.

Maybe the band are all just ex-mental patients, but it seemed to me like they were all (especially Clara and the two French) trying to remain non-mainstream. They sort of hated that Jon put them on YouTube and communicated with fans on Twitter, and when he tried to inject some "normal" sounding compositions to the band, they rejected them. They were trying too hard to be unique, which is a the very foundation of being a hipster ("Oh, look how different and edgy we are. We don't play by the rules. We do it for the love of music, not the money. We're pioneers"). Just look at the instruments they used. Frank is the only one that seemed accepting of the potential popularity. So what does the film do to him? It blatantly outs him as a mental. What does it do to the sane one (Jon)? It ejects him from the "in group" as an outcast. The core group of hipsters stay together, producing music in a rundown, vacant club. They're so hip, they don't need the masses.

Sorry David, but Frank is pure hipster bait. It's for those people that are looking for something that nobody else likes. I'm not casting aspersions about you. If you truly found something within the film that you cherish, then so be it, but I can't see (nor have I been convinced of) anything redeemable in the film besides a few lines here and there and Gleeson's performance.

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:37 pm
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Post Re: Frank
Algren wrote:
David wrote:
And it is critical of certain "hipster" tendencies, such as the Gleeson character's romantic visions of Frank's surely tortured suburban childhood.

Maybe the band are all just ex-mental patients, but it seemed to me like they were all (especially Clara and the two French) trying to remain non-mainstream. They sort of hated that Jon put them on YouTube and communicated with fans on Twitter, and when he tried to inject some "normal" sounding compositions to the band, they rejected them. They were trying too hard to be unique, which is a the very foundation of being a hipster ("Oh, look how different and edgy we are. We don't play by the rules. We do it for the love of music, not the money. We're pioneers"). Just look at the instruments they used. Frank is the only one that seemed accepting of the potential popularity. So what does the film do to him? It blatantly outs him as a mental. What does it do to the sane one (Jon)? It ejects him from the "in group" as an outcast. The core group of hipsters stay together, producing music in a rundown, vacant club. They're so hip, they don't need the masses.

Yes, this is the plot of the film. ;) But I believe you are reading it wrong. You are reacting defensively and reading a negativity into it which is not there. The film both respects and lightly lampoons both sides of the coin. The outcasts are happiest in their niche, earning a minor living from town to town and creating the sounds they want. Jon realizes he should move on because his ambitions are larger and lie elsewhere, and he does. Neither is right. Neither is wrong. They are just humans whose lives go on. It is an evenhanded and warm film in its exploration of the art-versus-commerce tension.

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 11:23 pm
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Post Re: Frank
Lol, the film celebrates the fact that one member wears a fucking paper head for the majority of the film. If that's sitting neutral and respecting both sides of the fence, then you're right and I did read it wrong, but obviously that is not the case. Just look at the poster and trailer; Weird big head man centre stage. "We're so avant-garde", the mainstreamers will hate it, but we'll definitely appeal to our niche.

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Sat Dec 20, 2014 11:30 pm
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Post Re: Frank
What is wrong with having a niche and finding a way to live and create and be satisfied?

It would be different if the film vilified Jon as this evil corporate square versus the Perfect Artists, but Jon is the protagonist and a sympathetic character. And the film clearly portrays negative veins of codependency and social anxiety among the band, even though they ultimately love one another. The film vilifies no one.

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Sun Dec 21, 2014 1:09 am
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Post Re: Frank
That's not the only reason I disliked it. I also found it boring and uneventful, and for a film about musicians, the score was shit. The film is also quite distant. Apart from Jon, who I gradually liked less and less, there's no anchor (narratively or thematically) driving the film. Thankfully, though, it is a short film. I've had to wait at bus stops for more time than I spent watching Frank. Sadly, though, waiting for the bus was more entertaining.

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Sun Dec 21, 2014 5:58 am
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Post Re: Frank
I haven't seen Frank (but I want to), but some of the reasons Algren disliked it apply to me and the film's of Wes Anderson, which I consider to be hipster tripe (aside from The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is wonderful). Don't get me wrong, Anderson is obviously a skilled filmmaker in a technical sense, but his oh-so-quirky films make me so angry.

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Sun Dec 21, 2014 8:44 am
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Post Re: Frank
I'm not interested if you agree with me or David as I am sure you will have your own take on it, but I am interested to see if you like it.

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