Gawker
The upcoming film The Tracey Fragments stars Ellen Page (the Juno actress who invented youth), is about a bleakly disaffected youngster, looks to take place somewhere in the great Northern wilds, features a score by Broken Social Scene (they also did Half Nelson!), and employs a "highly inventive and dynamic Mondrian-like" split-screen technique. Add all that up and you get what could be the trendiest, most mind-suckingly irritating movie ever to exist. It's called The Tracey Fragments for Pete's sake. Also, "Mondrian-like"? Split screen may work (sort of) on shows like 24 but a whole movie of it is like watching a two hour preview. Does anyone remember Mike Figgis' 2000 split screen experiment Timecode? Exactly. It's hard to tell what the, you know, plot of the movie is from the trailer, but I'm guessing it has to do with the interconnectedness of all things, the places our choices take us, and people coming to terms with things. (Disclosure: I never saw Juno. So fuck off.) Trailer after the jump, featuring the late J.T. from Degrassi.
The Tracey Fragments Could Be the Most Annoying Movie Ever
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11:30 AM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By Richard
2,446 views
54 comments
Comments
Juno sucked so don't worry about it.
@hypocriteoath: ok, that was way harsh but it wasn't GREAT, it was ok, at best.
Oh what shenanigans will they dream up next!
Freaky. Her dog, Sonny, looks like a human boy.
Gawker, you are becoming psychic. I just saw the trailer for this on Apple, and said, "I need to e-mail gawker.com to tell them how bloody irritating this looks." You beat me to the punch.
Please stop Ellen Page. Don't play another disaffected teenager, Ellen. It's going to get REALLY annoying.
Um, split screen is so Pillow Talk.
+ Watch video
This feels like the plot of "Labyrinth" but with emo kids instead of muppets.
The only excuse for split screen use is in three-way calls. Judging from the blood-curdling pantie shot, it seems like that's not the type of three-way they're going for.
I have a soft spot for Ellen Page since the faux-castration scene in Hard Candy but high concept indie films almost always suck sack. Like the anachronistic use of music in the self-indulgent and obnoxious Marie Antoinette. An idea that was put to better use in mainstream flick A Knight's Tale for Christ's sake.
dude. bruce mcdonald.
your tag is inaccurate, richard.
@mitchel_stevens:
and btw, did that "tour de force" pull-quote have a source? cause i watched the trailer again--it never gets attribution. not even to a jeffery lyons type.
Well, it ain't Gossip Girl.
For some reason, this reminds me...The Raw Shark Texts should be made into a movie. That's not supposed to be witty or sarcastic...just saying. Anyone else read that amazing, fantastically awesome book?
The best use of cinematic split screen is in one of my top 3 favorite films of all time, Carrie.
+ Watch video
Thank you, Brian DePalma, you crazy genius.
I believe the working title of this was "Me and You and Everyone Juno Knows Mutually Appreciates Taking The Stairs"
I'd say the film suggests something about the duality of man. The Jungian thing.
And I hope that we get to see Ellen Page's boobies.
Split screen never works out well for anyone:
+ Watch video
@BK_KT: Oop, DePalma jinx.
@dandles: Oh just wait for this one, directed by Drew Barrymore:
In Bodeen, Texas, an indie-rock loving misfit finds a way of dealing with her small-town misery after she discovers a roller derby league in nearby Austin.
[www.imdb.com]
@mitchel_stevens:
I'm going with Earl Dittman of Wireless.
@dandles: I see you found the perfect avatar.
@Bell County: I love him cause he's crazy!
@Bell County: Oh Christ that music nearly gave me a seizure.
Juno exceeded my expectations. But only b/c I had very low expectations.
90% of the Ellen Page character's dialogue was intolerable.
However she did have a certain onscreen charm.
Very Grudgy Elizabeth Town looking. Not good. The most annoying move I have seen is Open Water and this looks worse. We watched about 5 minutes of them bobbing in the water and shut it off.
@koala325:
I would have gone with pete hammond, personally. but i hear he's in a coal mine.
or maybe someone from FOX RADIO NEWS, the go-to-source for pull quotes.
... a highly "inventive and dynamic Mondrian-like" split-screen technique ...
That technique is really cool when people pretend to look at each other ..
@BK_KT: WOW. I'd forgotten how good those scenes were. Thanks.
Looks like everyone is doing the YouTube thing so, when in Rome ...
I knew this show was groundbreaking.
+ Watch video
@NinaHagen: (Doing my best Amy Pohler doing Kelly Ripa) Nina, nobody even knows who that is!
BTW: Richard, the slightly angry edge suits you really well, for serious.
@jackbarber: friendly suggestion/idea: can we just fuhgetabout EP? I mean, she's so over/overthetop too much, not much of anything, really? Juno?nah. SNL-puhleeze. this-cchuhhhrl.
Makeitstop.
plehz?
Didn't Diablo Cody invent youth?
@hypocriteoath: See, if we could just convince everyone else of that...
@mitchel_stevens:
Not to speak poorly of the deceased. But! I was always amazed at some of the blurbs provided by Paul Wunder (WBAI?) and Gary Franklin (KCOP?) in the day...Franklin once gave a film "a rare 13 on a scale of 1-10." I swear too it was for some awful Whoopi movie like Homer and Eddie.
I don't like my young upstarts making good in movies fresh out of the gate, I like them well salted. You know, a WB show or two under their belt, or if they must overexpose, it should be as little precocious moppets, the sassy type who mug for the camera in their break out roles opposite The Rock or Vin Diesel. Doing a reverse Jessica Tandy and getting their Kirsten Dunst on, making us all say "She's just so gifted", just seems immodest.
@YourGoldKeith: @shortagee: I think/agree DC more the problem than EP.
Keith, if it's important to you sure I'll forget EP.
I'm more into the dimmer, mass-market starlets in any case -- Lohan, Hayden Panetti-however you spell it.
Although I do have a soft-spot for Sarah Polley, crooked teeth notwithstanding. (or maybe b/c crooked teeth?)
And Zooey D. Although the M Ward project sounds a bit frightful.
@koala325:
mmm.
i, for one, can't wait to see the fall-out from the current critic cultural turning point.
then again, i am still a sucker for ed koch reviews. i forget which film, but koch loved it only because it was hot outside, the theater had air conditioning and there were no kids there. but it was some shitty spring c-grade comedy.
@Spirit Fingers: I find that a couple of debut roles in b-horror movies starring leprechauns, masked killers or murderous animals is also endearing.
"Annoying Canadians." I fear this may be why it took me so long to get a star, and then only got one after they were no longer cool and no one wanted them anymore. My people annoy Richard!
@Trixie from Toronto: Only some Canadians annoy me.
@jackbarber: thanx for that. Could be EP is an outgrowth of DC association, or vice versa. Re: your faves - don't you wish that someone would just grow into some talent?
@Trixie from Toronto:
your people gave us Strombo and The Hour.
all is forgiven.
@JudgeFudge: haha
@fiveinchtaint: Too often, I don't think of the consequences of my actions.
I'll wait to watch this on DVD. It's easier to set fire to a DVD than it is to a cinema screen. You can also put a DVD in your microwave and cook it, which you can't with a cinema screen, unless you have a huge microwave, which NASA probably has. And as I currently don't work for NASA, or know anyone who can get me access to their big microwave, I'll wait for the DVD.
@koala325:
Since she won't be notionally pregnant in this one, it might be unfair to expect too much in the chesticular realm.
@roodles: You forgot boxes of death carted around by "Pinheads" and anything involving a haunted house starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Liam Neeson. I can't believe they made that movie!