Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, July 13, 2018) Movie • Page 4

This was great obviously.

 

“what.” is a fantastic special as well. Feels like that one doesn’t get referenced as much probably because it gets pretty weird for a while, but it’s some shit that could only come from the mind of Bo

 

Oh yeah I love what. too but Make Happy hits me in a different way. I think the songs on what. are funnier though as a whole.

 

The last 15 minutes of Make Happy are genuinely moving in a way that most dramas can’t even reach.

 

He also directed Jarrod Carmichael's special 8 which is an all time special for me, and from a visual perspective it is so interesting.

 

First time I heard these lines it gave me chills:

“I can sit here and pretend
Like my biggest problems are
Pringle cans
And burritos
But the truth is,
my biggest problem is you
I want to please you
But I want to stay true to myself
I want to give you the night out that you deserve
But I want to say what I think
And not care what you think about it

Part of me loves you
Part of me hates you
Part of me needs you
Part of me fears you

And I don't think that I can handle this right now
I don't think that I can handle this right now.

They don't even know the half of this right now
Look at them, they're just staring at me
Like come and watch the skinny kid with a
Steadily declining mental health
And laugh as he attempts to give you what
he cannot give himself.”

 

I cried the first time I saw Make Happy lmao. Bo is really very special.

 

Bo is my all time favorite comedian and a big part of that is the fact that his songs are genuinely really catchy. Like, they would still be really good songs even if they had serious lyrics


Also unpopular opinion but I think I still like what. slightly more than Make Happy. There isn't a single weak part of the former but in Make Happy I'm not that crazy about the Making PB&J Sandwich or the Breakup Song segments. Both are among my favorite specials of all time though

 

Me too. And also like the third and fourth time.

 

what and Make Happy are on Netflix.

My SO recently told me that she can tell I’m having a mood when: listening to The Front Bottoms, listening to Captain We’re Sinking or watching Bo’s specials.

To that I responded, “huh. that sounds accurate”

 

His book, Egghead, is pretty good too.

 

what. is probably my favorite comedy special of all time

Saw Eighth Grade Saturday night and Bo came out for a Q&A afterwards. It was amazing, as is everything he does. Even after following his career for over a decade, I still can't get over him. Such a unique voice/talent with wisdom far beyond his years. I'm incredibly excited to continue watching his career because if he's already done all of this before 30, I can't imagine what's to come.

 

Hey Reddit, my name is Bo Burnham and I wrote and directed the film EIGHTH GRADE which is now in theaters NATIONWIDE. AMA. • r/IAmA

 

I liked this a lot!

 

agreed completely. a little surprised to see people say that it felt out of place. reflecting back on the movie, it leads up to that scene for about 10 minutes. her lashing out at her father and telling him that she'll get on her own ride home, the older kid's off-hand awkward comment to Kayla when they're at the food court (can't remember his name or exactly what he said but it was super awkward and made me feel uncomfortable), Olivia getting dropped off first, it all set up for this brutal scene that felt so realistic. so traumatic.
side-note: the quick cut to the "school shooter" about 30 minutes in made my heart drop. I thought it would've been way too dark to take it there, but I did think he was going to take it there. my whole body had to recover from that. I thought he was going to actually include a school shooting in the movie for all of 10 seconds, which was enough for my body to freak out.

 

It feels out of place because it doesn’t match the tone of the rest of the movie at all. Has nothing to do with them subtlety leading up to it or whether it’s realistic or not. Describing it as hard to watch and so traumatic just confirms this point.

 

Saw this a couple nights ago. Loved it. Obviously Bo Burnham put his heart and soul into this film and MAN Elsie Fisher’s performance is one of the most natural I’ve seen in a while. She carried it and made me feel every second. Would love to see her and Toni Colette go head to head at the Oscars.

Most heartbreaking scene for me, oddly enough, was her giving the present to that rich girl. I’ve just been there so many times. The entire pool party sequence was unbelievable.

Last scene with Gabe was hilarious and necessary. It was as much of a payoff as the terrific scene with her dad and the fire.

Also, “ARE YOU MY MOM” made me laugh harder than I have in a while.
Too many great moments. Loved it.

 

Think I’ll go see this by myself tomorrow on my day off. So excited.

 

This is awesome. It looks like Bo's in a better place compared to his what/Make Happy days. Good for him.

 

This is the best take in the car scene so far.

It was awkward and cringey, but I took it as, “this is something young girls have to deal with.” I thought it was valuable insight into the life of girls these days.

 

Yes. I truly want people to understand that their discomfort is because it’s so real, not because it doesn’t fit. There’s never a time where a sexual assault “fits.” Idk. I might just be over protective of this movie because it feels so close to my own life, but the criticism of that scene has been very baffling to me as a modern woman.

 

The car scene was terrifying and super insightful to me. When she started apologizing afterward it broke me and really helped me understand how psychologically damaging something like that is. Only disappointing thing about it to me is how it’s never followed up on. It would have given me more comfort to know she’d talked to her dad about it, and maybe the following scene implies that, but that seemed like a traumatic thing for the movie to just move on from.

Edit: Not really a complaint though. A lot of stuff like that is unresolved. The fact that it troubled me so much speaks to the power of that scene.

 

That was kind've my point. No doubt it was realistic because I know very close friends who have had similar things happen to them. Not trying to demean the realness of it. Just saying that it felt out of place in the actual movie. The immediate breakdown and fire discussion with her father are definitely a result of that incident, but also a result of the incidences that made up the rest of the film. The more I think about it, the more it was foreshadowed by her interaction with the douchebag kid in her class about nudes/blowjobs. I was surprised to see that storyline fall off as well, but I suppose the incident in the car is what caused her to lose interest in the boy? I need to rewatch it.

 

I assume it was discussed in the music only scene when the dad goes into the bedroom and she is in the floor crying. It’s possible she just told him it was a bad night, it is left to the audience to decide what is being said.

The line that really spoke to me was when she asked him to not tell Olivia. As if she was the one who did something wrong. As if she should be ashamed of what happened. Like, damn...

 

That's what I assumed. The car scene felt like the close of that saga even though it was a different guy.

That killed me. On top of being traumatized, she's worried about losing her only friend. And then he lays all that guilt on her to make himself look noble, like the further down he buries her the less likely she is to speak out. Whole scene was awful, but that in particular made me sick.

Also, the long wait between her saying "dare" and him daring her to do what we all know he's going to dare her to do... and then the camera just holds on her face. I've hardly ever felt that tense in a movie. It felt so real it seems almost intrusive to analyze it.