Completely agree with your summary of Results, although I think I preferred it to Computer Chess. I may need to revisit the latter though, as my patience has grown stronger in the years since seeing it and I feel I'd appreciate it more after having seen and enjoyed Results.George Drooly wrote:I disliked Bujalski's earlier films, so it took me a while to get around to this, despite my interest in the subject matter and my being old enough to have lived through the era represented and been around a lot of the tech and the business. I loved it, and think it's one of the most slyly intelligent and ambitious (and knowingly funny without being condescending) science fiction films of this century.
It's curious how this kind of deceptively small SF film seems to be the mode for the more successful attempts at the genre of late. This, Primer, Her, Upstream Color all seem very intimate, even minor, but each have subtle, often inexplicit moments, or a succession of moments, where the themes bloom in your mind and there are implications of humanity being irrevocably altered.
I watched Bujalski's follow-up Results shortly after, and loved it as well, though I think it's a lesser film, perhaps by design. Always loved Kevin Corrigan and Guy Pearce, and they were smartly used here. All the negative reviews seem to harp on the film's lack of "structure" or "plot" but this is the first romantic comedy I've seen in maybe decades that interested me, precisely because of its storyline's openness and lack of resolution, while maintaining thematic concerns.
Very fascinating to see someone so associated with "mumblecore" take such ambitious formal and thematic steps with his last couple films. I hate to say that's what makes these last two films better than his earlier ones, but there's something to be said for meeting film history halfway.
As for the 'mumblecore' (or ex-mumblecore) filmmakers, I think Bujalski is one of the good ones and his films will have more longevity than many of his peers' work. He also seems to be more cineliterate which helps.