forestine
whoa, synth legend Suzanne Ciani did the score for this! #TheIncredibleShrinkingWoman #comedon
this makes sense because Ciani did a lot of advertising scores and this movie is full of jingles for fake products. perfect choice in fact.
Here's her advertising playlist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CchYT2lUR6o&list=PLJPztq7aAo9zR17frOo6-SUuzsmDWcDaw
Suzanne Ciani - Columbia Pictures Introduction Logo
well i didn't see anyone else at the watch party but:
- Ciani score
- Pointed commentary
- When she's on Mike Douglas and she says before she shrunk, nobody listened to her, and then they cut to commercial instead of letting her speak
- Lily Tomlin rules
- Pastel colour blocked everything
- Tiny Lily Tomlin smoking a huge cigarette
recommended
#TheIncredibleShrinkingWoman #comedon
bonus: 10 minute behind the scenes of Suzanne Ciani doing the music for an 80s dishwasher commercial. i spy a buchla and a synclav?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxUTtUue5RQ
#TheIncredibleShrinkingWoman #comedon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxUTtUue5RQ
#TheIncredibleShrinkingWoman #comedon
Suzanne Ciani - GE Dishwasher Production Session
more thoughts but i'll stop spamming the local timeline
One of the letterboxd reviews was by someone who loved it as a kid and rewatched it now and said "it's definitely a kids' movie" but... i really disagree!
There is quite a bit of feminist bent in this film, comparable to something like The Stepford Wives that way.
Nobody listens to Pat and it gets worse and worse as she gets smaller. There is a point where she is so small she has to live in a doll house and she is trying to control her rowdy kids but it is as if she isn't even there.
As I said before, Pat goes on a talk show and when asked about the pros and cons of shrinking, says well nobody listened to her before. For example... And the show cuts to commercial before she can speak.
While she does insist on being independent as her circumstances change, her family expects her to continue with housework and cooking despite becoming so small it becomes dangerous to cook bacon. It becomes extremely laborious for her to do regular tasks like folding laundry when the clothes are much larger than she is.
When 6 inch tall Pat suggests that advertising got them into this mess (she has been shrunken by commercial household products), her husband gets so angry at her criticizing his field of work that he takes the kids and leaves.
+ the repeated gag of her husband reading a book about getting used to a sexless marriage.
But fine there is also a guy in a gorilla suit.
handmade ghost@forestine I think it's not intended as but can be a good film for kids though--my kiddo loved it when young bc they noticed it was just like their picture book about a little boy's dragon who gets bigger and bigger every time his parents and neighbors pretend they don't believe in dragons. Such an easy way into talking about feminism, the power of controlling the narrative, who gets believed/gets voice/gets space and how that feels, but in story/kid language. But gorilla suit parents might have other aims lol.
@handmade_ghost yeah. the review was basically saying the movie didn't hold up because the person is an adult now. i think it has lots for adults
The Other Brook@forestine @handmade_ghost I was 15 when it came out and even though I didn't see it I read all the reviews of every new movie. I don't remember any discussion of it as a kids' movie, but lots of discussion of it as a feminist statement. I probably missed all the marketing for it though.
@theotherbrook @handmade_ghost yeah. might have some elements kids would like but not a movie specifically "for kids"
@forestine @theotherbrook oh yeah, absolutely not made as a kids movie
greenpepper22@forestine im glad it was a good watch! I’ll have to get to it tomorrow or over the weekend
I would’ve normally been there but I work remotely and the chances to actually meet some people I work with in person are pretty rare so I figured I should show up
@greenpepper22 @forestine I need to watch it too but unsettled life is unsettled. Glad someone did, and especially glad to see the Suzanne Ciani appreciation. Hearing the score is one of the reasons I need to see it.
@theotherbrook @greenpepper22 yes, please report back when you have seen it
@forestine @theotherbrook it’s been a couple weeks but I finally got around to watching this. I do love lily tomlin in it, and ya the theme of her getting smaller and people pay less and less attention shows pretty strong
Personally I’m not really a fan of stuff steeped in 80s culture, and that’s also really strong in the film. So it’s good, but not for me. Idk if it’s really much of a comedy but I’m assuming the gorilla stuff used to hit a lot harder on that note
@greenpepper22 @theotherbrook yeah i get that. i didn't really laugh very much but for feminism, aesthetic, and suzanne ciani reasons i really liked it
@forestine @theotherbrook oh ya, like it’s a solid film, and what I think is the artist message is well done, I just think it was made to be watched in 1981
Still tho, can’t be mad about lily tomlin getting a chance to shine
@greenpepper22 @forestine I still haven't made time to watch it, but I gotta do that. Your comment about it being made to watch in 1981 got me thinking about the first show I worked when I got hired as the sound engineer at a small theatre. (Where I learned theatre people in the US always spell it "theatre" when it's like people on stage doing plays and "theater" when it's anything else. The rules may be different in Canada.)
Anyway, that first show was a staging of the 1985 one-woman show "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" by Jane Wagner, which Lily Tomlin performed on Broadway. It's a good show, and she would have been great in it. (There's a movie version I haven't seen.)
But we were doing it in 1991. I'd been out of college for two years, and the material already felt dated. I love social satire but the problem with it is that often when it's done really well it's so of its time that it ages quickly. And there was a huge generational shift happening in feminism right then which I maybe am not qualified to talk about, but I was very much at ground zero for part of it. The way feminism was expressed by women in my peer group was really different from how it was being expressed just a few years earlier.
(As an aside about Suzanne Ciani, there's a clip of her on David Letterman's short-lived morning show that sometimes pops up. I actually watched that live in a hotel room in John Day, Oregon.)
@theotherbrook @greenpepper22 oh yeah feminism changed a lot in that time. kinda comparable to internet years in terms of how that would have aged
i love that letterman clip. she's got a prophet five and some kinda vocoder