Who Gives Good Commentary?

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#251 Post by EddieLarkin » Sat Feb 20, 2021 1:01 pm

Maltic wrote:
Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:00 pm
FWIW, he makes a distinction between what he calls cinephile commentaries and cult commentaries, respectively.
Rather than just making a distinction, I recall the "current state of play" he refers to being that commentaries today are rarely of the scholarly analytical variety that Martin himself offers, but instead straightforward breakdowns of the production history with "attempts at interpretation", specifically referring to Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan. I don't want to claim anything else the article specifically says as I simply don't remember, but I do recall Martin coming across as quite disparaging of the pair. I really wish I'd saved the article somewhere as it was pretty interesting and included a list of what Martin considers the 10 best commentaries ever recorded.

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Maltic
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#252 Post by Maltic » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:04 pm

Yeah, I was reluctant to comment myself, not having the article at hand, but I guess I mentioned the distinction he proposes because it's arguably a more relevant one than the distinction between film historian and critic, academic and journalist, and so on.

As I recall, he names those two along with Tim Lucas as examples of cult commentators. On the one hand, it seems a bit rude to criticize and pigeonhole specific colleagues in that way. On the other hand, I tend to favour Martin's approach to commentary and criticism.

BTW. Nick Pinkerton apparently had said something unfavourable about Mark Kermode recently and Kermode responded on Twitter saying that film critics shouldn't criticize each other. I noticed that, in the replies to Kermode's tweet, Ellinger called out Adrian Martin. She speculated that Martin had made his comments because he was unhappy not to have the commentary jobs for himself.

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soundchaser
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#253 Post by soundchaser » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:15 pm

At the risk of justifying a thread split: I like Pinkerton’s work a lot, but his Twitter presence has always struck me as quite antithetical to the open-hearted approach he takes to film.

Case in point. (NSFW)

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MichaelB
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#254 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:27 pm

People have different styles and different approaches, and provided they manage to fill the track to the listener's satisfaction (or do a selected-scene commentary, which I'd frankly encourage more of when it's clear that they don't have enough material for a full-length feature), I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about it.

I personally prefer commentaries that maintain a regular dialogue with what's playing on screen (which to me is the unique strength of this medium), but I do appreciate that working out the timings is perhaps the most time-consuming part of the process and that it also helps if you're personally in control of the edit and mix, which I suspect only a minority will be. For instance, at one point in Viy I fade up the soundtrack to highlight that the witch isn't summoning vampires and werewolves, as claimed by the subtitles, but upiri and wurdalaki, i.e. specifically Slavic equivalents with their own distinctive traits, which meant that I could go on to discuss those traits in detail and fill another couple of minutes with firmly on-topic and hopefully interesting material.

And I can easily nominate superb commentaries from everyone mentioned in the above two posts, which is why I think this in-fighting is deeply unhelpful - for instance, Kat Ellinger's Georgy Girl (which I edited) is an absolute model of the form, and she clearly understands the film inside out. And I also strongly suspect that as a British woman she's personally a lot closer to the material than a male Australian like Adrian Martin could ever hope to be. (Which is not remotely a criticism of Adrian, merely an acknowledgement that some people are more suited to certain commentary jobs than others.)

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#255 Post by EddieLarkin » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:33 pm

Maltic wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:04 pm
BTW. Nick Pinkerton apparently had said something unfavourable about Mark Kermode recently and Kermode responded on Twitter saying that film critics shouldn't criticize each other. I noticed that, in the replies to Kermode's tweet, Ellinger called out Adrian Martin. She speculated that Martin had made his comments because he was unhappy not to have the commentary jobs for himself.
It was only a few days ago he tweeted about how his forthcoming commentaries for ViaVision would be the first time an Australian label had enaged him for such work for over a decade. So maybe she wasn't wrong.

At the same time, I can't deny that Martin is easily my favourite commentator today and I know that no matter the film I'll be able to listen to one of his tracks from beginning to end. Whereas I don't think I've ever made it more than 20 minutes through one by Ellinger or Deighan (though I will persevere with Georgy Girl when I get around to that particular disc!).

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L.A.
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#256 Post by L.A. » Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:46 pm

How is Ellinger’s audiocommenting on The White Reindeer? Has anyone listened to it?

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#257 Post by cdnchris » Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:19 pm


Maltic wrote:Yeah, I was reluctant to comment myself, not having the article at hand, but I guess I mentioned the distinction he proposes because it's arguably a more relevant one than the distinction between film historian and critic, academic and journalist, and so on.

As I recall, he names those two along with Tim Lucas as examples of cult commentators. On the one hand, it seems a bit rude to criticize and pigeonhole specific colleagues in that way. On the other hand, I tend to favour Martin's approach to commentary and criticism.

BTW. Nick Pinkerton apparently had said something unfavourable about Mark Kermode recently and Kermode responded on Twitter saying that film critics shouldn't criticize each other. I noticed that, in the replies to Kermode's tweet, Ellinger called out Adrian Martin. She speculated that Martin had made his comments because he was unhappy not to have the commentary jobs for himself.
Yeah, I can't recall Martin's article in detail but i do recall thinking "ugh, what an asshole!" before having to agree... to an extent.

I think a lot of it really comes down to whether their style or knowledge suits the film. I just sat through a track where all the guy did was going through whatever he could find on IMDB, going over filmographies. I guess that can work but it feels low effort. I've also listened to tracks where it's obvious they're not too fond of the film in question, though it can be at least admirable and interesting as long as they put in the effort.

But I recall him picking out Ellinger and Deighan specifically, which was really unfair. I know I've listened to less than optimal tracks from them, but they put a lot of effort in to them. I liked their contribution to the Dietrich set and recall liking their track for Images, and others. But I really like their stuff for giallo and other cult films. I wasn't terribly fond of giallo, and I'm still not, but their contributions on some titles helped me a lot.

And calling them "fan/cult" tracks is ridiculous (as Martin called them). Off the top of my head Ellinger's track for Flowers in the Attic could be classified as that but it's not like that's of no value. She's a fan of VC Andrews and has a soft spot for the film, but she knows it's bad and she delves into why it doesn't work but defends it where she sees fit, explains her reasoning, and so on. The film's still shit but the track had me looking at it from a different angle. Those two along with Newman and Lucas actually helped me look into films which I usually was dismissive of in the first place in a different light.

I like Martin and tracks of his type, and I know I've taken a lot from them too. But it's not like he's batting a perfect average. Also I doubt Martin could offer much to a number of films that those others cover and I wouldn't doubt it's more that he's annoyed he's getting less work because of the market and was venting. He's right that there is a "factory" feel to a lot now but he wasn't being entirely fair, dismissing these people outright, and there are still a lot of good contributors. I liked Imogen Sara Smith's track for Framed a lot, for example.

Martin's track for Crash is good (I'll just throw that outbthere).

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#258 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:54 pm

cdnchris wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:19 pm
I think a lot of it really comes down to whether their style or knowledge suits the film. I just sat through a track where all the guy did was going through whatever he could find on IMDB, going over filmographies. I guess that can work but it feels low effort.
Simply reciting filmographies is unforgivably lazy and blatant padding - in fact, in his commentary for Indicator's The Undercover Man, Tony Rayns has a dig at commentaries like that on the grounds that you can always look up this stuff yourself, and unless the commentator really is demented enough to recite complete filmographies, you're going to get a better service from the IMDB or whatever. I'm strongly in favour of identifying actors when they appear, but I think you really do need to put in a bit of effort to make them sound interesting. For instance, this is one of the potted biographies from my Viy commentary, where I deliberately didn't mention individual titles unless they were either known in the west or I could add a bit of anecdotal colour:
The actor under the beard is Pyotr Vesklyarov, a distinguished Ukrainian actor who appeared in a number of films but was probably most famous, at least locally, as the popular children's presenter and storyteller Grandfather Panas, initially on radio and later on television, where he controversially wore an embroidered Ukrainian shirt, which was considered unacceptably nationalistic in more Soviet-oriented circles. Grandfather Panas was his main job from 1962-86, but it ended in somewhat murky circumstances when he was alleged to have uttered an obscenity on air, but while a lot of people claim to have heard it at the time, nobody has ever found a recording, not even in the archives of Ukrainian television.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#259 Post by FrauBlucher » Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:18 pm

One of the most frustrating commentaries I've heard was Richard Schickel's track for the first Rebecca bluray. It was clear he wasn't a fan of the film. Thought is was not one of Hitchcocks better efforts. Sounded disinterested. Shame on the disc producers for hiring him

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#260 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:26 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:18 pm
Shame on the disc producers for hiring him
To be fair to the disc producers, you simply don't know what you're going to get half the time - I've commissioned loads of commentaries, some of which were absolutely what I was hoping for, while others were... perhaps less so, a particularly common problem with debutant(e)s, unsurprisingly, but I'm all in favour of giving newcomers a chance.

Sometimes below-par commentaries can be fixed (I once salvaged a pretty good commentary out of a recording that Arrow was seriously considering junking, mainly by cutting huge chunks out of an audibly nervous opening and replacing them with non-scene-specific stuff from later on), sometimes they get rejected outright - but the latter is pretty rare because it involves writing off investment and no independent label wants to do that if they can help it. And Richard Schickel's involvement is presumably likely to trigger sales.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#261 Post by tolbs1010 » Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:22 pm

Glowingwabbit wrote:
"And Deighan and Ellinger are both great when doing those because they clearly have a background and passion for those films, whereas some of their KL commentaries I've heard sound like things they've researched after getting "assigned a topic in class"."

This sums it up.

I've complained about Ellinger's commentary for KL's release of Losey's Accident in another thread, and I feel the need to say again that it is the worst commentary I've ever listened to all the way through. The fact that it's one of Losey's best films makes it all the more disappointing for fans. Her grating voice also doesn't help.
Conversely, KL's release of Secret Ceremony (one of Losey's worst films) has a wonderfully thorough and informative commentary by Tim Lucas. He almost convinces me that the film is not the putrid piece of garbage that it is.

Just thankful that KL gives us affordable, decent releases of films that have fan bases that are too small for the deluxe treatment.

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Maltic
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#262 Post by Maltic » Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:58 pm

I can see why Martin would use Tim Lucas as the primary "target" in the article, if he had to mention critics by name in the first place. Lucas is among the most acclaimed, well-known and prolific commentators, and you can't question his dedication or his research. Hence, Martin can't be said to "kick downward" and perhaps it makes clearer that the critique is about "a certain trend in audio commentary," not a lack of effort, etc.

I should add that I quite liked Lucas's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly commentary. In other commentaries, I did find he would get bogged down in background minutiae. He actually knew personally some of the cast and crew in Bava's films, though, so in a way it's understandable and commendable that he would highlight these "forgotten" people.

EddieLarkin wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:33 pm

It was only a few days ago he tweeted about how his forthcoming commentaries for ViaVision would be the first time an Australian label had enaged him for such work for over a decade. So maybe she wasn't wrong.

There might be some sour grapes, but he could simply be lamenting the recent state-of-affairs in Australia compared to the golden years with Madman Entertainment in the 2000s.

BTW, I recall he puts fellow Madman alum Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in his commentary top 10, and she gravitates towards horror and exploitation cinema. Imogen Sara Smith would probably also go in his cinephile commentator bin (I feel a bit silly using the term tbh).

I might also check out the Georgy Girl commentary, and definitely Viy! I haven't come across any of MichaelB's commentaries before. In fact, it's been far too long since I was on an Eastern Europe binge.

Perhaps all the commentary commentary should've gone into this thread
Last edited by Maltic on Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#263 Post by FrauBlucher » Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:28 pm

MichaelB wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 4:26 pm
And Richard Schickel's involvement is presumably likely to trigger sales.
Absolutely, as Schickel was Life Magazine's film critic for well over quarter of a century. Of course, that also made him lazy. I just wish the producers knew before hand that he was uninspired by the film, unless they didn't care, which wouldn't surprise me coming from a studio as opposed to a boutique. Thankfully Criterion didn't port that commentary over.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#264 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:45 pm

If there's a fee involved in licensing a pre-existing commentary, the label considering it has to think it's worth it! Although in quite a few cases commentaries come as part of the package (this is especially true of commentaries recorded by major studios for their own previous releases).

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#265 Post by FrauBlucher » Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:54 pm

My preference is an at least 45 minute doc of a film where they can use a number of film scholars as well as cast and/or crew if still alive, instead of a commentary. Doc's are probably more costly than commentaries, yes?
Last edited by FrauBlucher on Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#266 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:07 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:54 pm
My preference is a at least 45 minute doc of a film where they can use a number of film scholars as well as cast and/or crew if still alive, instead of a commentary. Doc's are probably more costly than commentaries, yes?
Considerably. Just think about the logistics - most commentaries these days are recorded by a single person in a home studio setup, and are sometimes even self-edited (but even if they're not, the chances are that they'll only need one other person for editing and mixing). But what you're describing involves a camera team (sometimes more than one depending on location accessibility), lighting, sound, sometimes extensive travel and of course extensive audiovisual postproduction afterwards.

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Maltic
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#267 Post by Maltic » Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:22 pm

Re: Involvement by cast and crew... and their descendants: For the first Blu-ray release of Kind Hearts and Coronets, Peter Bradshaw "moderated" a commentary with Terence Davies and Alec Guinness' son Matthew. Davies seemed a bit timid, as you can imagine, and he barely got a word in. Guinness jr was a highly enthusiastic type, laughing loudly, commenting joyfully on every move Dennis Price made and so on. Very charming, but it provided hardly any insights into the film at hand, as I recall. :)

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#268 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:35 pm

Sometimes people who originally participated in the film turn out to be disappointing, thanks to the inescapable biological fact that when you're dealing with what are sometimes very elderly people indeed, they may have limited or in some cases absolutely no recall of what it was like working on something that they made decades earlier. We've been lucky with the Indicator Hammer boxes in that there are still junior staff around (continuity supervisors, assistant directors, standby props chargehands) who have decent memories and anecdotes - continuity people are particularly good value as they were specifically paid to be observant, were on set throughout, and of course kept extensive notes - but the overwhelming majority of actors and directors are no longer with us.

(Covid-19 has also made filming such people extremely difficult, for reasons that hardly need spelling out.)

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#269 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:51 pm

Maltic wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:04 pm
BTW. Nick Pinkerton apparently had said something unfavourable about Mark Kermode recently and Kermode responded on Twitter saying that film critics shouldn't criticize each other. I noticed that, in the replies to Kermode's tweet, Ellinger called out Adrian Martin. She speculated that Martin had made his comments because he was unhappy not to have the commentary jobs for himself.
I can't remember where I read this - I want to say Brownlow's David Lean biography - but I was stunned how most critics back in the day were complete catty asses to one another. It seemed like a commonality among critics in general - rock critics are especially merciless to one another.

Go over to Glenn Kenny's blog, there are some entries a decade old where he, Kent Jones and maybe a few others excoriate some unlucky peer who would then pop up to confront them. It doesn't ever get out of control, but it's awkward.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#270 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:54 pm

soundchaser wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:15 pm
At the risk of justifying a thread split: I like Pinkerton’s work a lot, but his Twitter presence has always struck me as quite antithetical to the open-hearted approach he takes to film.

Case in point. (NSFW)
That sounds like him. He doesn't post on FB anymore, but one of the last ones I remember was when he said most critics hadn't "f***ed enough" to truly get Claire Denis's Let the Sunshine In (which then prompted someone to post "R.I.P. Gene Siskel")

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#271 Post by RitrovataBlue » Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:11 pm

Pinkerton's Twitter is just an outlet for hostilities. I finally unfollowed the guy for using The Mandalorian as pretext for curtly dismissing the entire science fiction genre, for the ostensible sin of "world building." And yet he's a perfectly tolerable writer.

In retrospect, I'm glad none of my favorite writers were ever on Twitter; it seems to be an outlet for many people's worst personality traits.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#272 Post by dustybooks » Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:15 pm

Pinkerton’s Substack newsletter is excellent, and I actually enjoyed his Twitter when I was still on that site regularly, though he definitely is an acquired taste. His commentaries, however, are decidedly hit and miss. I did really like the one he recorded for Murder! though.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#273 Post by Drucker » Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:29 pm

I love Pinkerton, his newsletter is excellent (I read the lengthy Mank/Welles entry end to end), and his Twitter personality is certainly an acquired taste but I much prefer it to anyone that is trying to maintain a brand. Wish we had more like him, quite frankly.

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Maltic
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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#274 Post by Maltic » Sat Feb 20, 2021 8:38 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 7:51 pm
I can't remember where I read this - I want to say Brownlow's David Lean biography - but I was stunned how most critics back in the day were complete catty asses to one another. It seemed like a commonality among critics in general - rock critics are especially merciless to one another.

Go over to Glenn Kenny's blog, there are some entries a decade old where he, Kent Jones and maybe a few others excoriate some unlucky peer who would then pop up to confront them. It doesn't ever get out of control, but it's awkward.
I'm reminded of this interview , where Lean says he basically stopped making movies because he'd been savaged by Kael, Schickel and others at an NYFCC meeting when Ryan's Daughter came out.

Pinkerton's commentaries on Modern Romance and Drive a Crooked Road were good imo, though perhaps still not quite on par with his written criticism, if one can make such a comparison. He has a tendency to pad them with bios even for minor players. In Drive a Crooked Road, he even gives bios on Jerry Paris and Dick Crockett after they've left the screen for the last time and haven't really been relevant to the story for half-an-hour or so. (They play Rooney's colleagues at the car garage where he works.) Bios can be justified, to be sure, but in moderation, as MichaelB described.

Pinkerton was actually one of the people I thought of who might do interesting commentaries on Chinese/Hong Kong films, despite not speaking Chinese or being an insider to the Hong Kong industry or the Asian festival circuit the way Frank Djeng and Tony Rayns are. He has taught a course on HK cinema, has a monograph on Goodbye, Dragon Inn coming out, etc.

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Re: Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

#275 Post by yoloswegmaster » Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:32 pm

Pinkerton was actually one of the people I thought of who might do interesting commentaries on Chinese/Hong Kong films, despite not speaking Chinese or being an insider to the Hong Kong industry or the Asian festival circuit the way Frank Djeng and Tony Rayns are. He has taught a course on HK cinema, has a monograph on Goodbye, Dragon Inn coming out, etc.
I always wondered why someone like David Bordwell never did commentaries or appear on any extras for recent HK releases. His book on HK cinema is truly fascinating and knowledgeable and helps bring a light to some of the more lesser-known and underappreciated directors and films.

While we're on the topic of commentaries, I just saw a less-than-flattering post about Michael Brooke today:
Didn't know he did commentaries -- the video segments I've seen him in were unwatchable, like a lisping speedfreak struggling to keep up with a teleprompter, completely unnatural and offputting.

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