Some clips from "Mozart And The Whale"!

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SpaceCase
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11 Dec 2006, 1:33 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOMimp9KDY


Enjoy!


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Tufted Titmouse
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11 Dec 2006, 4:08 pm

These new youtube snapshots are quite (0.o)



Lightning88
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11 Dec 2006, 11:03 pm

They seemed more like low-functioning autistics than aspies if you ask me... I just can't really see how people on the higher end of the spectrum can relate to them. Actually, they scared me a bit...



Panik
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11 Dec 2006, 11:20 pm

The woman seemed a bit LFA yeah, but I donno about the guy. Have you ever met any low-functioning autistics? They probably stereotyped it for a better impact, meh dont they always do things like that in american movies? :P



Lightning88
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11 Dec 2006, 11:32 pm

Yeah, I helped out with a gym class that had about twenty of them. The people in "Mozart" (and especially the lady) seemed a lot like those kids in gym. Some of them were worse than her, but not all of them. And yeah, America is known for stereotyping. lol



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15 Dec 2006, 6:09 pm

I rented the DVD. My impressions:

I loved it. Yay. The script was nice, the direction MOSTLY decent, and the acting was better than I expected from Josh "The Plank" Harnet and Radha Mitchell (AKA the Silent Hill Woman--no wonder she's so screwed up in this movie after getting chased by Pyramid Head!). Not everything about the film is good, though. For one thing, there were a lot of sh***y POP SONGS. Ewwwww. Also, some of it was a little...off in its portrayal of people with AS. In some parts the characters seemed too "normal," and in others they seemed even more low-functioning than a lot of people with AS do. (Not all Aspies have a COMPLETE lack of mannerisms and politeness!) I also would have liked a little more emphasis on sensory defensiveness, which has been one of the most significant aspects of AS for me. And there was this REALLY stupid part involving a baboon. (You know what I mean if you've seen it.) But overall...it got it right. The way Donald (Harnet) is so confused and overcome by awkwardness, the way Isabelle (Mitchell) seems a little obsessed with sex. (Based on what I've read at this site, many female aspies are either asexual or practically nymphomaniacs. Seriously.) The pets thing is also true--many aspies can relate to animals better than they can relate to humans. (I don't talk to my dogs the way Donald talked to his birds, though.) Best of all, the immediate obsession with someone you've just met, combined with the utter lack of skills with phones--that is TOTALLY aspie. On another note, I find it difficult to call this a "romantic comedy"--"Mozart and the Whale" is really more of a drama. It's an often-frustrating film, because the characters are so irritatingly foolish, but I wouldn't have a film about aspies be any other way. If the characters didn't irritate the audience with their social buffoonery, it simply wouldn't be accurate. Overall, despite some brief moments of retardation (on the part of the writer, not the characters), this is definitely going on my list of favorites.



ed
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TheWhale
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17 Dec 2006, 4:12 pm

Veresae wrote:
I rented the DVD. My impressions:

I loved it. Yay. The script was nice, the direction MOSTLY decent, and the acting was better than I expected from Josh "The Plank" Harnet and Radha Mitchell (AKA the Silent Hill Woman--no wonder she's so screwed up in this movie after getting chased by Pyramid Head!).

Whale: MATW was filmed before "Silent Hill" in 2004 :)


Not everything about the film is good, though. For one thing, there were a lot of sh***y POP SONGS. Ewwwww.

Whale: The worst fault by far is the soundtrack!! !

Also, some of it was a little...off in its portrayal of people with AS. In some parts the characters seemed too "normal," and in others they seemed even more low-functioning than a lot of people with AS do. (Not all Aspies have a COMPLETE lack of mannerisms and politeness!)

Whale: The film's support group was inspired by my original support group which is for the entire spectrum. It was never referred to in the movie as strictly one for aspies.


I also would have liked a little more emphasis on sensory defensiveness, which has been one of the most significant aspects of AS for me.

Whale: There were a couple of good scenes about that; Donald not enjoying the ride in the ferris wheel and Isabelle melting down when he tosses rings all at once at a ring toss.


And there was this REALLY stupid part involving a baboon. (You know what I mean if you've seen it.)

Whale: You obviously haven't read "Songs of the Gorilla Nation" by Dawn Prince Hughes, who learned about her own AS by working with gorillas. Also, the inspiration for Isabelle (my wife) has an exceptional rapport with animals in general that was well depicted by that scene. Have to disagree with you on this one.


But overall...it got it right. The way Donald (Harnet) is so confused and overcome by awkwardness, the way Isabelle (Mitchell) seems a little obsessed with sex. (Based on what I've read at this site, many female aspies are either asexual or practically nymphomaniacs. Seriously.) The pets thing is also true--many aspies can relate to animals better than they can relate to humans. (I don't talk to my dogs the way Donald talked to his birds, though.) Best of all, the immediate obsession with someone you've just met, combined with the utter lack of skills with phones--that is TOTALLY aspie. On another note, I find it difficult to call this a "romantic comedy"--"Mozart and the Whale" is really more of a drama.

Whale: Most sites about movies call it a drama which it is.

It's an often-frustrating film, because the characters are so irritatingly foolish, but I wouldn't have a film about aspies be any other way.

Whale:Many of us are irritating foolish. BTW, ALL of the people in the movie who spoke at least once are inspired by real-life people on the spectrum.

If the characters didn't irritate the audience with their social buffoonery, it simply wouldn't be accurate. Overall, despite some brief moments of retardation (on the part of the writer, not the characters), this is definitely going on my list of favorites.


Whale: The writer also wrote "Rain Man" and was really hard to budge off his obsession with the savant aspect and a generally patronizing opinion of autism. but you should have seen the first draft of this script in 1997 :) With its faults, the final one was a lot better.

I hope this leads to better movies about us. Thanks to all of you for your comments.

Jerry Newport aka The Whale



Veresae
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17 Dec 2006, 5:20 pm

Oh, wow, you're the guy who the film was based on? Congradulations!! ^__^ (Touche on the baboon thing, too!)

I have to ask--what did you and your wife think of the film?



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18 Dec 2006, 5:47 pm

Veresae wrote:
Oh, wow, you're the guy who the film was based on? Congradulations!! ^__^ (Touche on the baboon thing, too!)

I have to ask--what did you and your wife think of the film?


Mixed feelings and intensely so. It is very disappointing that the film didn't get a wide theater release. It has its flaws BUT it is the first and only film so far to specifically mention aspergers and also not focus on just one person as did "Rain Man." Rightly or wrongly, it showed a wide array of autistic and aspergers people grappling with a host of adult issues NEVER dealt with before in such a movie.

Rather than provide a completely accurate picture, it could have provided for masses a starting point: Agree or disagree with various parts of the story but at least you have a common reference point for people to use in discussion and further education. It is certainly more true of Aspergers than any autism movie has been so far of autism. It could have introduced AS, in theaters, to a lot of people who don't know it exists. But as a DVD product, I wonder if it will get beyond the population that already knows about asperger syndrome.

I am bitter that many people who helped make the film happen never got official credit because as in "Rain Man" and other films with autism as a subject, insurance companies prevented that from happening.

However, I think eventually the film will do some good even though not nearly as much as I hoped it would. You see, I learned about autism by watching "Rain Man." I hoped this film would do the same thing for others.

Jerry Newport aka The Whale



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18 Dec 2006, 11:56 pm

I couldn't relate to the characters very well, the only problems I had in social situations (Other than my extreme shyness and introversion) were when I was younger, and the sensory problems are less extreme, and those are the only things I could relate to in the characters.


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19 Dec 2006, 7:59 pm

Thought the movie was very enjoyable.
I have no time for the usual hollywood 'rom-coms' and was expecting to give up on this after 30 minutes. Well acted with some good dialogue: clearly wasn't a 'rom-com' as expected.

My major gripe was that i thought (until reading this thread), that characters such as Isabelle did not exist.
Where do i get one from ?

:lol: ( I don't think i could handle one if they did. Good luck Whale.)

Some minor faults...

The supporting cast were great, well acted with good sharp dialogue providing some comedy.
However, they did seem more like carictures, used just for comic relief. Which made me feel somewhat like i was 'laughing at the freaks'. Not that i minded this ( they were very funny), but a sub-plot may have helped.

On the whole, it was a light-hearted film, (also good), but i think a change of gear was needed when dealing with the attempted suicide. This seemed to be glossed-over: 5 minutes later, all is well & we have the standard happy ending.

Anyway.. much better than crap like 'Hitch' and 'Sleepless In Seattle', but not a patch on 'Punch Drunk Love'.
( 'Chuck & Buck' is also good.)



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21 Dec 2006, 1:53 am

I haven't been to this site for at least 6 months. However, I've had this movie on my netflix list all this time, and it finally got released to DVD, and I finally watched it tonight with my husband and daughter. After watching the movie, I wanted to see what the WP community thought of it, so here I am again (for the nonce) and since I'm here I'll share my thoughts:

1. It was GREAT to hear the word 'Aspergers' spoken out loud on film! That was so empowering, and I believe that many who see the movie by accident, i.e. who aren't on the spectrum, will want to learn more about it, or at the very least, the word will have been heard by them and the next time they hear it, they will already be familiar with it. To me that was the best thing about the movie.

2. My 18 year-old daughter kept saying how cute Josh Hartnett is. That's a good sign for the movie's appeal to female teenagers.

3. At one point I stopped the movie - the part where 'Donald' walks into his apartment after Isabelle has cleaned it - and the camera zooms in on all these different details - that blew my mind because that's pretty close to my visual perception!! ! So I got to explain and show them how the world often looks to me, and how overwhelming it can be when your visual brain has to process thousands of pieces of information PLUS manage to talk to a person - it was enlightening for them and it was really cool for me to see that portrayed visually in a movie. Kudos to the director and camarapeople for that!

4. I was disappointed by stereotypes. I do recognize, as someone above already pointed out, that portraying adults with AS would be too much like "normal" people, so that it is necessary to overdramatize, but it still made me cringe too much.



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21 Dec 2006, 11:55 am

TheWhale wrote:
Veresae wrote:
Oh, wow, you're the guy who the film was based on? Congradulations!! ^__^ (Touche on the baboon thing, too!)
I have to ask--what did you and your wife think of the film?

Mixed feelings and intensely so. It is very disappointing that the film didn't get a wide theater release. It has its flaws BUT it is the first and only film so far to specifically mention aspergers and also not focus on just one person as did "Rain Man." Rightly or wrongly, it showed a wide array of autistic and aspergers people grappling with a host of adult issues NEVER dealt with before in such a movie.

TheWhale wrote:
It could have introduced AS, in theaters, to a lot of people who don't know it exists. But as a DVD product, I wonder if it will get beyond the population that already knows about asperger syndrome.

TheWhale wrote:
However, I think eventually the film will do some good even though not nearly as much as I hoped it would. You see, I learned about autism by watching "Rain Man." I hoped this film would do the same thing for others.
Jerry Newport aka The Whale

I finally got to rent this movie last night, after all the build-up it's hard not to have gotten my hopes for it way up, leading to disappointment. I'm making no criticism of Jerry Newport's story or life, only of the portrayal/depiction I saw. My personal reactions speak only for one individual w/AS, and we all know it manifests differently in each person.
The soundtrack was frightful, blech. I disliked the actress. Apologize in advance if this is true reflection of real person-the way she kept yelling "HA!" was quite off-putting & irritating. Not fan of the actor, either, but he was less annoying here than in other roles.
My NT boyfriend liked film better than I did. I get stuck in "that's not like me" mode, so I can't step back & evaluate a book or film beyond my subjectivity. I'm certainly in favor of making more films that address the internal lives of marginalized people. That sounds obnoxious, which is not at all my intent. If more movies are made about people w/ASD's, truer/more-faithful-to-reality scripts might get through the process. I understand that this film started out that way, so please realize I'm knocking Hollywood's version/outcome, not the genesis of the project.


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23 Dec 2006, 9:55 am

Belfast wrote:
TheWhale wrote:
Veresae wrote:
Oh, wow, you're the guy who the film was based on? Congradulations!! ^__^ (Touche on the baboon thing, too!)
I have to ask--what did you and your wife think of the film?

Mixed feelings and intensely so. It is very disappointing that the film didn't get a wide theater release. It has its flaws BUT it is the first and only film so far to specifically mention aspergers and also not focus on just one person as did "Rain Man." Rightly or wrongly, it showed a wide array of autistic and aspergers people grappling with a host of adult issues NEVER dealt with before in such a movie.

TheWhale wrote:
It could have introduced AS, in theaters, to a lot of people who don't know it exists. But as a DVD product, I wonder if it will get beyond the population that already knows about asperger syndrome.

TheWhale wrote:
However, I think eventually the film will do some good even though not nearly as much as I hoped it would. You see, I learned about autism by watching "Rain Man." I hoped this film would do the same thing for others.
Jerry Newport aka The Whale

I finally got to rent this movie last night, after all the build-up it's hard not to have gotten my hopes for it way up, leading to disappointment. I'm making no criticism of Jerry Newport's story or life, only of the portrayal/depiction I saw. My personal reactions speak only for one individual w/AS, and we all know it manifests differently in each person.
The soundtrack was frightful, blech. I disliked the actress. Apologize in advance if this is true reflection of real person-the way she kept yelling "HA!" was quite off-putting & irritating. Not fan of the actor, either, but he was less annoying here than in other roles.
My NT boyfriend liked film better than I did. I get stuck in "that's not like me" mode, so I can't step back & evaluate a book or film beyond my subjectivity. I'm certainly in favor of making more films that address the internal lives of marginalized people. That sounds obnoxious, which is not at all my intent. If more movies are made about people w/ASD's, truer/more-faithful-to-reality scripts might get through the process. I understand that this film started out that way, so please realize I'm knocking Hollywood's version/outcome, not the genesis of the project.


Exactly, I didn't get the chance to hear the Soundtrack unfortunetly(?).


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23 Dec 2006, 9:57 am

aylissa wrote:
I haven't been to this site for at least 6 months. However, I've had this movie on my netflix list all this time, and it finally got released to DVD, and I finally watched it tonight with my husband and daughter. After watching the movie, I wanted to see what the WP community thought of it, so here I am again (for the nonce) and since I'm here I'll share my thoughts:

1. It was GREAT to hear the word 'Aspergers' spoken out loud on film! That was so empowering, and I believe that many who see the movie by accident, i.e. who aren't on the spectrum, will want to learn more about it, or at the very least, the word will have been heard by them and the next time they hear it, they will already be familiar with it. To me that was the best thing about the movie.

2. My 18 year-old daughter kept saying how cute Josh Hartnett is. That's a good sign for the movie's appeal to female teenagers.

3. At one point I stopped the movie - the part where 'Donald' walks into his apartment after Isabelle has cleaned it - and the camera zooms in on all these different details - that blew my mind because that's pretty close to my visual perception!! ! So I got to explain and show them how the world often looks to me, and how overwhelming it can be when your visual brain has to process thousands of pieces of information PLUS manage to talk to a person - it was enlightening for them and it was really cool for me to see that portrayed visually in a movie. Kudos to the director and camarapeople for that!

4. I was disappointed by stereotypes. I do recognize, as someone above already pointed out, that portraying adults with AS would be too much like "normal" people, so that it is necessary to overdramatize, but it still made me cringe too much.


They could have at least had a depiction of real Aspies, mixed in, that would have given a much clearer view


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"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat." - Terry Bisson