I still want to see the movie. Hows about you give me a few reasons for why you liked it?

I wasn’t so much criticizing Poppy for not being a Christian, as I was calling her (or Mike Leigh?) a liar. Leigh gives her all this happiness and says, “Look, she does it all by her self, pure will!”

To which I say, “Not so! You, sir, lie.”

9:51:02 AM C: Eh,
9:51:05 AM C: we didn’t HATE it,
9:51:11 AM D: F did
9:51:14 AM C: but it was one of those garbage pomo movies,
9:51:18 AM D: lol
9:51:25 AM C: where you’re like “Ah! the protagonist is such a beautiful person,
9:51:33 AM C: if only they didn’t live in such an ugly world!”
9:51:46 AM D: Is that pomo?
9:51:49 AM C: Yeah.
9:52:07 AM C: Fundamental ontological conflict between character and universe,
9:52:10 AM C: I haven’t ironed it out,
9:52:15 AM C: but I think it’s a basic tenet of pomo literature.
9:52:32 AM C: Look no farther than Foer and books like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,
9:52:38 AM C: Virgin Suicides,
9:52:40 AM C: stuff like that.
9:52:43 AM D: Hm
9:53:01 AM D: Sounds Dickensian.
9:53:03 AM C: It’s narrative tension,
9:53:04 AM C: you know,
9:53:09 AM C: with no metanarrative,
9:53:17 AM C: we can’t have principled conflict and resolution,
9:53:24 AM C: it all originates in the individual,
9:53:25 AM D: Gotcha
9:53:43 AM C: and they still haven’t figured out how to end a good pomo story without killing off the protagonist entirely,
9:53:53 AM C: it’s the only honest form of relief.
9:53:58 AM C: Anyways,
9:54:04 AM D: What about Stranger Than Fiction?
9:54:13 AM C: this movie ends with her rowing a boat and talking to her boyfriend,
9:54:26 AM C: with whom she has had serendipitous and unpassionate sex a single time.
9:54:31 AM C: It was stirring, really,
9:54:39 AM C: that phone conversation was.
9:55:18 AM D: hm?
9:55:22 AM D: phone?
9:55:24 AM C: Oh,
9:55:37 AM C: she talked to her new boyfriend on a cell phone while she rowed a boat.
9:55:46 AM D: Ah.
9:55:58 AM D: Why did Austin like it?
9:56:25 AM C: I dunno,
9:56:34 AM C: the girl was very bubbly and unflappable,
9:56:53 AM C: admirably chipper but ultimately irritatingly so,
9:57:07 AM D: Hm.
9:57:14 AM D: It’s gotten almost universally good reviews
9:57:22 AM D: Confusing
9:57:28 AM C: like a caricature of his wife or her sisters.
9:57:41 AM D: lol
9:57:44 AM C: Like Cat B without any self control.
9:57:50 AM C: There were some good moments,
9:57:55 AM C: don’t get me wrong,
9:58:25 AM C: pomoism is certainly capable of poignancy, but like existentialism, comes up sort on answers.
9:58:39 AM D: Mhm
9:58:41 AM C: I dunno,
9:58:54 AM C: the protagonist (Poppy Cross) made me feel really panicky,
9:59:11 AM C: she was the type of person that always saw beautiful things and got excited and distracted by them,
9:59:22 AM C: and pulled them, disorderly, into her orbit until they floated back out,
9:59:40 AM D: Hm.
9:59:43 AM C: so she was always wearing mismatched and flowing clothing, twisted stockings, and bracelets that jangled incessantly…