In the Company of Men (1997)
Directed by Neil LaBute
Two business executives--one an avowed misogynist, the other recently emotionally wounded by his love interest--set out to exact revenge on the female gender by seeking out the most innocent, uncorrupted girl they can find and ruining her life.
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What critics compared In the Company of Men to
If the film is erotic on the surface, its undercurrent is as hard and cynical as " In the Company of Men ."
Some reviews have compared the film to Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men or Kubrick's still-misunderstood Eyes Wide Shut, both of which suggested reasonable conclusions to their sexual experiments.
Birdman’s best moments involve the frenetic intensity of staging a major production, and it is here that Iñárritu’s roving camera has the most impact, snaking through the tiny corridors of the aging theater, following various characters as they cross paths, interact, fight, try and fail to connect, all of which is propelled by jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez’s nerve-rattling percussion score, which sets up the interpersonal conflicts by hammering away at our nerves (I was reminded of the excellent use of a similar kind of score in Neil LaBute’s caustic 1997 directorial debut In the Company of Men).
George is played by Aaron Eckhart , who was so dominant in " In the Company of Men ," but here, wearing a twerpy John Ritter beard that he doesn't seem comfortable with, he's a shallow cipher.
George is played by Aaron Eckhart, best remembered as the bigger of the two bastards in Neil Labute's fabulous black comedy In The Company of Men.
Co-stars Albert Finney (Simpatico) and Aaron Eckhart (In the Company of Men) do themselves proud too.
A romantic sub-plot between Erin and her biker boyfriend George (Aaron Eckhart, In the Company of Men) doesn't distract from the story but rather focuses our attention on the other gender conflicts running through the film.
Between pursuing the case and having her kids baby-sat by the Harley Davidson biker next-door (Aaron Eckhart of "In the Company of Men"), she runs herself ragged while discovering the many stories of individuals in the ailing town of Hinkley, Calif.
Erin, it seems, was not a lawyer and didn't look like one, but bossed and manipulated a poor lawyer played charmingly by Albert Finney ("Miller's Crossing") into giving her a job at his firm where she just happened to spend her time when she wasn't emasculating her biker boyfriend played by Aaron Eckhart ("In the Company of Men") or bossing and manipulating him into taking care of her three kids so she could go uncover just how shitty the bad people at PG&E were and how they let hundreds of people get gross and sickly before ending up in court because Erin bossed and manipulated them into being there.
More direct and emotionally genuine jabs at institutionalized sexism would be Neil LaBute’s “In the Company of Men” (1997) and Kitty Green’s fictional take on all things Harvey Weinstein, “The Assistant” (2020).
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Neil Maskell as Jay reminds me a little of Matt Malloy in " In the Company of Men ," and in Michael Smiley as Gal, there are aspects of Peter Stormare .
A Martian watching Closer (or In the Company of Men or Your Friends & Neighbors) would conclude that human reproduction is a distasteful duty.
Again, we have a much cleverer precedent for this with Neil LaBute's masterful In the Company of Men (1997).
There's also a little of Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men in the way Boiler Room depicts the relationships between the men - a false sense of camaraderie overlying deeper feelings of greed and self-centeredness.
If it ever lags, Ben Affleck arrives for what amounts to a cameo, delivering a rip-roaring speech that consists of foul language and offensive observations a la "In the Company of Men" before whipping out of the room, out of the scene and out of the film.
The school looks depressingly ordinary, from the naked walls to the staff (Matt Malloy, best known for playing Aaron Eckhart's buddy in "In The Company of Men", is the only known actor in this movie.)…
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He was the epitome of evil male chauvinism in Your Friends & Neighbors and In the Company of Men.
That is a period where films like In the Company of Men and even Fight Club question traditional ideas of masculinity, so The Art of Self Defense continues in that tradition.