L'il Darlin'...and she is, too.
15118. don s. - 1/23/2001 12:08:23 PM
Was she in "Paint Your Wagon"?
15119. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:10:28 PM
Cast Away
Bob Zemeckis films are usually better technical achievements than aesthetic, and Cast Away fits this mold perfectly. Cast Away features a compelling, if understated performance by Tom Hanks, and drop-dead gorgeous island cinematography. Where Cast Away fails is in parsing the existential questions inherent in its subject matter. Although engrossing as a narrative, Cast Away is the ultimate "who cares" movie.
Grade: B-
15120. don s. - 1/23/2001 12:24:54 PM
"Although engrossing as a narrative, Cast Away is the ultimate "who cares" movie."
Bring on da Oscars!!
15121. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:25:11 PM
Snatch
Snatch is another over the top, balls to the wall, pedal to the metal and jittery eyeballs effort from Guy Ritchie. It is crude, violent, incomprehensible, unlikely, silly, and in your face. Its probably fattening too. No matter. Snatch is a rollercoaster for the eyes and ears.
Grade: B-
15122. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:28:00 PM
If you're scoring at home, I love Snatch, I wasn't into Dick or Pecker, and I really enjoyed Head. I'm hoping that Blow lives up to its potential.
15123. CalGal - 1/23/2001 12:34:50 PM
More on Traffic:
I forgot to mention Dennis Quaid as a sleaze, god love him. It's so nice to see him back.
Catherine Zeta Jones is quite good in a largely unbelievable part. I have read some reviews that consider her an innocent housewife and this is just silliness. But this interpretation is manageable for the clueless, and Soderbergh or the writer could have made that impossible with a few different choices.
In fact, the script is the weak link, despite a few kickass speeches. It's certainly well above average in many ways, but if you want to pick the movie apart, that's certainly where to start.
15124. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:41:17 PM
CalGal:
"Catherine Zeta Jones is quite good in a largely unbelievable part. I have read some reviews that consider her an innocent housewife and this is just silliness. But this interpretation is manageable for the clueless, and Soderbergh or the writer could have made that impossible with a few different choices."
I think that this is one of the film's sly points. The film is saying that at least some people who appear to be all-american, housewife-next-door types are really funded, either directly or indirectly, by drug money. There is plenty of drug money affluence in the mainstream world.
15125. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:42:29 PM
I also want to mention that Orrin Hatch's cameo is outstanding, and that I respect him perhaps for the first time for his willingness to be in Traffic.
15126. CalGal - 1/23/2001 12:44:34 PM
I really can't put together a "Best of" list for this year. I have only seen two movies that I think qualify as superb: Traffic and You Can Count on Me.
High Fidelity is probably in third place, and at the moment I can't think of anything better than Chicken Run for fourth--I may change on this, but it still hits me as the movie that most thoroughly confounded my expectations and the best pure comedy of last year. I saw a lot of other enjoyable solid movies: Thirteen Days, State and Main, even Finding Forrester, but none of them really deserve a Best of ranking.
Haven't seen O Brother, Where Art Thou, the Dragon and the Tiger, and Wonder Boys.
15127. CalGal - 1/23/2001 12:46:39 PM
Fielding,
Yes, I know--but her reaction and behavior is only believable if you realize that she's ruthless Eurotrash who was only "innocent" because she hadn't needed to know about it. Many people seemed to think that she was just a hausfrau, poor sweetie.
And for all the performance mentions, I still forgot George Clooney's cousin, Miguel Ferrar.
15128. CalGal - 1/23/2001 12:47:39 PM
It wasn't just Orrin Hatch--William Weld, Barbara Boxer, and a few other politicos were in it. I was quite surprised--did they know what they were doing?
But I agree that of the group, Orrin Hatch was the most natural.
15129. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 12:49:18 PM
Miguel Ferrar.
Oh yum....
15130. Fielding - 1/23/2001 12:57:14 PM
CalGal:
"And for all the performance mentions, I still forgot George Clooney's cousin, Miguel Ferrar."
If you are going to mention his cousin, you may as well also mention that his father is Best Actor Oscar winner Jose Ferrer (Cyrano de Bergerac), his mother is Rosemary Clooney, and his wife is the lovely Leilani (Basic Instinct) Sarelle. :)
15131. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 12:59:56 PM
Is he evil in this one? Because he does evil so very well...
15132. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:01:02 PM
No, his grandfather is Jose Ferrer. His father is Mel Ferrar. Don't you be trying to outgeek me on movie trivia, dude.
15133. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 1:02:16 PM
I thought Mel Ferrer was married to Audry Hepburn at one time...
15134. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:02:21 PM
Hey, wait. The IMDB says that he's Jose Ferrer's son--so maybe you are outgeeking me!
But that does not sound right at all.
15135. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 1:03:36 PM
Yes, it does, because Rosmary Clooney was married to José, not Mel.
15136. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:04:33 PM
Good lord--all this time I thought Mel Ferrer was Jose Ferrer's son! They even look alike. I not only stand corrected, I'm grateful for it--I hate it when data is incorrectly associated.
15137. Fielding - 1/23/2001 1:06:41 PM
CalGal:
"No, his grandfather is Jose Ferrer. His father is Mel Ferrar. Don't you be trying to outgeek me on movie trivia, dude."
Not according to Leonard Maltin or imdb.
Miguel Ferrer's biography at IMDB
(Not a geek, but not lazy either).
15138. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 1:08:41 PM
I guess it pays to have been alive when some of this stuff actually happened. She said dryly.
15139. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:08:52 PM
Get caught up, Fielding. Hell, I can make mistakes, look them up, and post two corrections before you can even get a word in. (g)
15140. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 1:09:35 PM
Helllll-ooooh?
15141. Fielding - 1/23/2001 1:09:51 PM
I see you've got damage control down to a science. :)
15142. Fielding - 1/23/2001 1:11:33 PM
Actually it does take me a lot longer to post than to think. I type with one finger, and it takes me about two minutes to do the HTML for linking.
15143. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:12:08 PM
Judith, I saw your posts but not until after I'd made mine. I was tweaking Fielding for correcting me after I'd posted twice on my mistakes.
15144. Fielding - 1/23/2001 1:13:11 PM
Get caught up CalGal! Judith is feeling left out.
15145. don s. - 1/23/2001 1:15:16 PM
William Weld's cameo (something like "Everyone's first instinct is to 'Blame Mexico!'") was really piquant, especially when you remember that his own party (Hatch, et al.) derailed his nomination by Bill Clinton to be ambassador to Mexico.
15146. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:19:50 PM
Don--I didn't pick up that it was Weld until after his bit was over. It took me all the way to Orrin Hatch to realize that these were the real folks, rather than faceless actors playing nameless pols.
15147. Adrianne - 1/23/2001 1:37:24 PM
(off topic)
Cal, when you get a minute, will you repost that link I saw explaining the power situation in CA and how it happened in "All Stupid, All the Time" in MWT? Thanks.
15148. CalGal - 1/23/2001 1:52:43 PM
Ad, I'll dig it up. I've written up some of it in the Slow Thread.
15149. JudithAtHome - 1/23/2001 2:28:06 PM
Sundance Lineup Reflects Age of Indie Eclecticism
(I didn't realize "eclecticism" was a word.)
15150. PelleNilsson - 1/23/2001 2:30:30 PM
I fear "electicist" may be a word too.
15151. Fielding - 1/23/2001 2:35:52 PM
Traffic
Traffic is a nuanced film about the US war on drugs. It covers a wide divergence of view points, and covers nearly every aspect the process that brings drugs from the Mexican desert to a neighborhood near you.
Director Stephen Soderberg has pulled off that rarity, a film that combines commercial scale with art house technique and intellectual heft. Soderberg manages lots of wonderful touches (colored film stock, staggered editing, impressionistic sound, etc.) without intruding on the narrative. Fine performances abound, from Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Miguel Ferrer, to even Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman. What makes Traffic so terrific is its portrayal of the full depths of the horrendous drug problem without preaching easy answers or turning characters into straw men.
Grade: A+
Barring a miracle (I haven't seen Before Night Falls yet), Traffic is my number 1 film of the year.
15152. jexster - 1/23/2001 2:56:06 PM
Enter "Faithless" Sweeps - Grand Prize - Trip to Stockholm - Pelle's Gravlax
15153. Fraaankster - 1/23/2001 3:39:45 PM
Fielding,
I enjoyed Traffic also, although the friends I was with at the time didn't care too much for its staccato segmentation. They found it a bit tiring.
If I'm gonna fault it anywhere, it is how it left out some of San Diego's most beautiful locations ... I might as well have been watching Silk Stalkings when it came to avoiding this city's best scenery. ;-)
A neat part [jab] I enjoyed, was at the very end when Douglass enters a cab for the airport in Washington D.C. and tells the cabdriver to take him to National and not Reagan National Airport.
...Leave it to me to notice the little things.
Time for lunch! :-)
15154. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 3:55:39 PM
My review of "Traffic":
I haven't seen it yet, but I'll give it a thumbs up sight unseen because it was filmed in part - in very small part - here in beautiful downtown Columbus, Ohio.
15155. janjon - 1/23/2001 3:58:24 PM
Ohio - with all due respect, I've been to downtown Columbus and.....
15156. CalGal - 1/23/2001 3:58:39 PM
I thought it was filmed in Cincinnati?
15157. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:01:40 PM
Maybe there too, but some scene or scene with Michael Douglas is shot in Columbus.
I think a side entrance of the Ohio State House is supposed to be Douglas's courthouse. (Is his character a state Supreme Court justice?)
15158. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:02:15 PM
. . . but some scene (or scenes) with Michael Douglas . . .
15159. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:04:57 PM
janjon: You are slighting our beautiful capital city?
Admittedly, it's no Dayton.
15160. janjon - 1/23/2001 4:07:15 PM
Ohio. There isn't a lot of there there, in my humble opinion.
15161. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:09:40 PM
Hey, we've got hockey now!
15162. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:10:49 PM
(And I was kidding: Columbus is, in fact, somewhat better than Dayton.)
15163. rubberducky - 1/23/2001 4:11:06 PM
OH is nice enough (speaking as a recent transplant).
fun is what you make of it, imho
15164. CalGal - 1/23/2001 4:14:05 PM
Admittedly, it's no Dayton.
I actually get this joke. I am quite proud.
I liked Columbus and Dayton has great restaurants.
15165. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 4:23:56 PM
Ducky: Good slogan! I think "Ohio is nice enough" should go on our license plates.
15166. don s. - 1/23/2001 4:24:03 PM
Bow down before North Industry!
15167. wonkers2 - 1/23/2001 4:58:08 PM
"Federal officials are considering a closed circuit TV broadcast of Timothy McVeigh's execution because of the large number of relatives of the victims interested in watching."
Fox, CBS and NBC reality TV producers have also submitted bids for live broadcast rights to the event.
15168. Fraaankster - 1/23/2001 5:09:29 PM
Since we're knocking cities ... Some outtakes from today's local sports rag on the lovely city of Tampa Bay -- where the Superbowl is being held this year:
... Staging a Super Bowl in this town is like putting Disneyland in Minsk. It's not that it's a hellhole. But there is nothing here. Nothing resembling a pulse.
... I've been to livelier mortuaries.Solemn high mass in church is like the Ceasars Palace next to this place...
Driving in from the airport Sunday night, our van driver said she was a Tampa native."They roll up the streets here at 6, you know." she said.
What she didn't say was that she meant 6 a.m.
...Bad enough Jacksonville is getting a Super Bowl, and Tampa is like Paris next to that place...
...You can walk across a downtown street at night blindfolded and wearing dark clothing without concern for your life.
Sunday evening, I was looking out m hotel window at about 8 o'clock, facing what downtown there is. There were two cars on the streets. Two. I counted them, and they were on one avenue.
It's as though the place is under a continuous bomb threat
Ohio,
Are you sure that scene wasn't filmed here, in San Diego ? Maybe you had the coast scene ? ;-)
Oops, wrong thread. Sorry, Cal.
( Maybe a thread on the worse places we've ever visited should be suggested ? )
15169. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 5:17:29 PM
No, Fraaank, some of "Traffic" was definitely filmed here. The day Michael Douglas was in town there was much excitement among us simple Midwest folk.
(And don't you know your geography? The big city on America's North Coast is Cleveland, not Columbus!)
15170. janjon - 1/23/2001 5:20:15 PM
Ohio - I suspect that, technically, Columbus now has significantly more people than Cleveland. (Probably not if you count the metro. area though.)
And, Cleveland still has those wonderful old institutions - that terrific museum, the Symphony.
And, a river than no longer will burn.
15171. OhioSTOPAS - 1/23/2001 5:21:00 PM
"Federal officials are considering a closed circuit TV broadcastof
Timothy McVeigh's execution because of the large number of relatives
of the victims interested in watching."
"Fox, CBS and NBC reality TV producers have also submitted bids for live broadcast rights to the event."
If the networks are going to be involved, McVeigh can be given the punishment he deserves: After strapping him in the chair, make him watch "Bette".
The bastard will be begging for someone to throw the switch.
15172. Fraaankster - 1/23/2001 5:28:03 PM
Ohio,
I am not that geographically challenged. Of course I know about your coastlines. I was just funning you, kid.
By the way, as a child, when our father was playing parent and around to take us places, the one place we did frequent on occasion was the bay scene ( Bonita Cove ) where Catherine Zeta Jones ( God, I get turned on by her by just saying her name ) is threatened with her child's potential kidnapping.
Can you believe it, Catherine and I now have something in common ?!
(sigh) They really did leave the most scenic parts of this city out.
15173. don s. - 1/23/2001 5:29:58 PM
Hello....? Jacobs Field anyone???
I've been there once and (here's the on-topic part) seen it on TV numerous times.
15174. Fraaankster - 1/23/2001 5:39:46 PM
Well, I don't know about Jacobs Field, but I've been to Candem(sp?)Yards, so if it tops that place, that's saying a lot. That ballpark is absolutely beautiful!
15175. CalGal - 1/24/2001 12:55:02 AM
Saving Private Ryan has been on HBO a lot lately, and I've watched the first half hour a few times. It's not a great film, IMO, although the combat scenes are so well done and moving that it achieves more than many better movies. The non-combat scenes are mediocre or worse, with one exception.
I remember when the movie came out it sparked a lot of discussion about whether or not the squad should have been risked to save one person. I have always fallen squarely in the camp that says you don't spend lives to save lives in such a haphazard fashion, and lord help the army that sent my son out on a junket like that to save a general some bad publicity.
But then there's that sequence with the Ryan boys' mother: washing the dishes, seeing the car, getting a bit apprehensive, watching it drive up the dirt road, going out onto her front porch, seeing the minister alight, backing up, dropping down to the ground when her knees can't take it any more.
And so far she thinks she's only lost one son.
If there was a case to be made for valuing one guy over eight, that was the scene that did the job.
15176. Toenails - 1/24/2001 9:20:01 AM
As I've said here before, I think the Academy Awards show is missing a bet by not creating a special award for each year's best vignette -- without regard to the overall quality of the film in which it appears. The "mother on the porch" scene out of Private Ryan is a perfect example -- a stand-alone (sorry) scene that is memorable and compelling in its own right.
I've frequently gotten pleasure equal to the price of admission from individual film scenes in movies that otherwise were anything but memorable...and think of what a great gimmick it would be on awards night, to intersperse five short sequences of real quality during the presentations. (It would sure be better than reproducing the five nominated SONGS!)
15177. rubberducky - 1/24/2001 9:30:52 AM
Toe:
but still not as good as the Best Hissy Fit category on the MTV awards, imho.
15178. rubberducky - 1/24/2001 9:42:34 AM
not sure if anyone here watches it (or will admit to same) but Talk Soup has a new host:
The [E!] network has named a relative newcomer, comedian Aisha Tyler, as the permanent host of its long-running talk-show yukfest.
Tyler becomes the fourth host in the Emmy-winning show's nearly 10-year history--not to mention the first woman and first black host. She makes her official debut Friday on the show, which currently airs weeknights at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT.
"What I hope is we'll be able to make the most of what Talk Soup already is and maybe bring in my own kind of sensibility," she says. "I think [the writers] are jazzed that, because I'm a woman, maybe they can get away with a lot. I can get away with a lot of stuff a guy couldn't say."
...
The self-proclaimed "improv class junkie" and Dartmouth graduate has appeared on shows like Politically Incorrect, VH1's The List, Nash Bridges and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. Her résumé also includes the indie films Dancing in September and The Whipper, and she can be seen on the new syndicated Universal series, The Fifth Wheel--a follow-up to Blind Date--currently being sold to stations at this week's National Association of Television Program Executives conference.
i haven't watched it in a while since they stopped running the previous day's reruns at 6 EST - so i hope she doesn't suck.
15179. JudithAtHome - 1/24/2001 9:58:36 AM
The "mother on the porch" scene out of Private Ryan is a perfect example -- a stand-alone (sorry) scene that is memorable and compelling in its own right.
....and directly lifted almost in its entirity from a French war film called Bolero which was done by Claude Lelouch in 1981.
I like the scene from Saving Private Ryan , too, but I think it's odd that the most effective scene in the entire movie was not original at all.
15180. CalGal - 1/24/2001 10:05:32 AM
Really! That makes it much cleaner. The only thing Spielberg did right was the combat scenes, then.
15181. Fielding - 1/24/2001 10:06:04 AM
Spielberg is not an innovator, but rather, a technician. Spielberg is very good at identifying things that have worked well for other film makers and incorporating them into his movies. He is also smart enough to realize that originality is not a strength, and thus doesn't unnecessarily call attention to himself the way so many other directors do. I give him credit for this.
(The only time I can remember him screaming for attention in any of his movies was the little girl with the red dress in Schindler's List. The effect was spectacularly successful.)
15182. JudithAtHome - 1/24/2001 10:08:30 AM
Fielding:
If you want to see an innovative director who does war extremely well, find a copy of Lelouchs Bolero .
And no, it doesn't star Bo Derek.
15183. Fielding - 1/24/2001 10:17:15 AM
Thanx for the recommendation, Judith. I shall seek it out.
Please keep in mind that I am not saying that Spielberg is the greatest director or anything like that. I think that he's creates a polarizing debate: Those who praise him tend to overstate his goodness, and those who criticize him tend to overstate his weaknesses. Kind of like Bill Clinton.
15184. JudithAtHome - 1/24/2001 10:25:44 AM
I've liked a few of his films but as you say, he's technically very good. I actually like the originality of directors more than the technical correctness.
15185. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 11:41:32 AM
Spielberg can innovate when he needs to. I don't think he borrowed many of the cinematic techniques he used for the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
But it is true that this isn't all that common in his work. Which isn't really a problem anyway, as I agree with Fielding's assessment. Being a great director doesn't necessarily mean you are constantly inventing new visual techniques.
15186. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 11:46:31 AM
The beach shot of Scheider in Jaws, when he realizes that something bad has just happened, is a technical crib from Vertigo. But who cares? It is perfectly appropriate for the moment, and has the desired impact.
15187. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 11:46:37 AM
(The only time I can remember him screaming for attention in any of his movies was the little girl with the red dress in Schindler's List. The effect was spectacularly successful.)
I was aghast by that, and I am aghast that so few people were aghast by it.
I suppose it's a matter of good taste. Those who were aghast have it, those who weren't lack it.
The technicolour red ruined the texture of those scenes.
15188. JudithAtHome - 1/24/2001 11:49:48 AM
I suppose it's a matter of good taste. Those who were aghast have it, those who weren't lack it.
Well, according to you...others might say differently.
15189. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 11:50:32 AM
I never understood your distaste for that scene. It fits in well with the film, which chronicles how Schindler moves from amoral Nazi collaborator to selfless hero, by personalizing the victims around him. The "red dress" scene is another instance of personalization.
15190. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 11:50:52 AM
Yes, but they can't say it as convincingly as I can.....
15191. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 11:53:15 AM
I never understood your distaste for that scene.
It's aesthetically tasteless.
It fits in well with the film, which chronicles how Schindler moves from amoral Nazi collaborator to selfless hero, by personalizing the victims around him.
Schindler had no contact whatever with the girl in the red dress.
The "red dress" scene is another instance of personalization.
The movie had lots of personalisations already -- without ruining the texture of those scenes.
15192. JudithAtHome - 1/24/2001 11:54:33 AM
Well, PE...I doubt anyone would argue with that.
15193. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 11:56:18 AM
"Schindler had no contact whatever with the girl in the red dress. "
He was watching her. The red dress shots are shown through Schindler's eyes (at least metaphorically- I can't recall whether they are all explicit POV shots).
15194. Francis Urquhart - 1/24/2001 11:56:35 AM
Spielberg is a fine director. His problem is simple. He often cannot resist the maudlin, and he rarely trusts communication of emotional import without aid of a sledgehammer.
15195. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 11:57:59 AM
And I think that scene was the first time Schindler personalizes the victims of the holocaust. But I haven't seen the film in 7 years, and am going by memory.
15196. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 11:59:03 AM
It fits in well with the film, which chronicles how Schindler moves from amoral Nazi collaborator to selfless hero, by personalizing the victims around him. The "red dress" scene is another instance of personalization.
No, I think Schpielberg wanted to insert a good "kid" scene, because that's his thing, to have kid scenes.
What's interesting is that so many people remember such a tacky, garish device while the infinitely more poignant kid scene -- where the boy looking for a hiding place ends up in a pool of ordure -- is rarely remembered.
15197. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:01:36 PM
FU: yes indeed. That is where the criticims of the red dress scene are usually coming from, they think it is maudlin and manipulative. Spielberg is often guilty of this, and I think he comes close in the red dress scene, but I think he avoids crossing the line through the use of long shots rather than close ups.
15198. Francis Urquhart - 1/24/2001 12:03:01 PM
Rask
In the lexicon of Spielberg, the red dress scene could be held up as an example of his restraint.
15199. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:03:26 PM
But it isn't a typical Spielberg kid scene - The lack of close-ups is a major departure for him. Consider how he uses them in the other kid scene you mention, which *is* more typically shot, and is also good.
15200. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:03:58 PM
FU: yes.
15201. CalGal - 1/24/2001 12:04:16 PM
where the boy looking for a hiding place ends up in a pool of ordure
This is the one that always gets me. He goes to one place after another, with kids telling him to fuck off, and finally jumps in the latrine.
I agree with PE about the red dress, and I agree with FU about Spielberg in general.
15202. Fielding - 1/24/2001 12:10:08 PM
PE:
"What's interesting is that so many people remember such a tacky, garish device while the infinitely more poignant kid scene -- where the boy looking for a hiding place ends up in a pool of ordure -- is rarely remembered."
This is not true. This scene was in the trailer, the television commercials and is shown routinely at awards programs.
15203. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:11:25 PM
I think it is only less discussed than the red dress scene because the red dress scene is controversial - a lot of people hate it.
15204. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 12:13:00 PM
Message # 15194: Perfectly put.
Message # 15198: Amazing! Here is a film, in a black & white photography so pretty & sensuous as to be an ironic contrast to the grisly goings-on; and then the man ruins the integrity of the visual texture by inserting something as colourfully scarlet as a baboon's vulva. This is not restraint. It is the very height of Spielberg's incontinence for the intrusively maudlin.
Message # 15199: Your argument that the Red Riding Hood thing is not typical of him rests entirely on the distance of the shot, which seems to me restricted and reductionist. The scene was typical of him for being maudlin, for underlining emotion rather than depicting it.
15205. Fielding - 1/24/2001 12:13:22 PM
The clinker scene in Schindler's List is the scene when Schindler breaks down in anguish, crying out that he should have done more. This scene is more typical of Spielberg's manipulative and maudlin impulses.
15206. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 12:15:55 PM
#15205, that's true, but I think the problem there was not Schpielberg, but the fact that Neeson was incapable of making that scene true.
15207. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:22:56 PM
" Amazing! Here is a film, in a black & white
photography so pretty & sensuous as to be an ironic contrast to the
grisly goings-on;"
I think you are completely off about why he chose black and white. I don't think it was ironic so much as documentarian. And anyone who calls the photography in Schindler's List "pretty and sensuous" is out of their tree.
"Your argument that the Red Riding Hood thing is not typical of him rests entirely on the distance of the shot, which seems to me restricted and reductionist."
I think it is a major shift in emphasis. The lack of close-ups shifts attention to Schindler who is hardly chewing scenery. This is a lot more subdued than Spielberg's patented "camera starts low and pulls up, focused on a child whose eyes are looking up in wonder" brand of manipulation. The long shot makes it much more subdued. The red dress doesn't add emotional content so much as focus.
"The scene was typical of him for being maudlin, for underlining emotion rather than depicting it."
Not applicable in this scene. We *do* get depicted emotion in reaction shots of Schindler. The scene is important for its impact on *him*.
15208. Fielding - 1/24/2001 12:26:58 PM
I am also unhappy with the Ben Kingsley character, who is a cardboard saint, a virtual plot device.
These quibbles do not bother me enough to keep me from ranking Schindler's List as one of the top ten films of the 1990s.
15209. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:27:06 PM
"The clinker scene in Schindler's List is the scene when Schindler
breaks down in anguish, crying out that he should have done more.
This scene is more typical of Spielberg's manipulative and maudlin
impulses."
Yeah, but I don't think it clinked. I find that the impact of scenes like that all depend on how caught up you are at the moment. If you are intellectually, but not emotionally, engaged you roll your eyes, wince, and squirm uncomfortably. I have done this many times at films that I *would* call maudlin (including the final cemetary scene in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan). But for that scene I was involved enough that it worked.
15210. Fielding - 1/24/2001 12:31:29 PM
Rask:
"Yeah, but I don't think it clinked. I find that the impact of scenes like that all depend on how caught up you are at the moment. If you are intellectually, but not emotionally, engaged you roll your eyes, wince, and squirm uncomfortably. I have done this many times at films that I *would* call maudlin (including the final cemetary scene in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan). But for that scene I was involved enough that it worked."
You would have to have a heart of stone not to need an outlet for your emotions by that point in the movie. Even if the scene provides its intended bathetic effect, that does not take away from its excessive mawkishness.
15211. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 12:41:15 PM
Message # 15207
I think you are completely off about why he chose black and white. I don't think it was ironic so much as documentarian.
He may have intended to produce a documentary effect, but who gives a shit about that. The effect was not documentary. What documentaries are that pretty looking.
And anyone who calls the photography in Schindler's List "pretty and sensuous" is out of their tree.
I don't mean the contents of the images themselves. I mean the cinematography. It was artful, with hues & tones & gradations one would not ordinarily find in a documentary.
I think it is a major shift in emphasis. The lack of close-ups shifts attention to Schindler who is hardly chewing scenery. This is a lot more subdued than Spielberg's patented "camera starts low and pulls up, focused on a child whose eyes are looking up in wonder" brand of manipulation. The long shot makes it much more subdued.
I just love these overripe cineaste rationalisations. The net effect of the redness is: "LOOK AT ME. SEE ME. WATCH ME".
The red dress doesn't add emotional content so much as focus.?
Focus? Nice euphemism. I didn't say the red dress adds emotional content, but that by making the audience fixate on the girl and knowing her fate he go for the maudlin: "oh look that cute little girl got killed" -- as though there weren't enough personalised deaths already in the film.
Not applicable in this scene. We *do* get depicted emotion in reaction shots of Schindler. The scene is important for its impact on *him*.
I think you're hallucinating.
15212. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 12:53:26 PM
"I don't mean the contents of the images themselves. I mean the
cinematography. It was artful, with hues & tones & gradations one
would not ordinarily find in a documentary. "
Artful I can buy, but not sensuous and pretty, which I think cannot be completely separated from content.
"I just love these overripe cineaste rationalisations. The net effect of the redness is: "LOOK AT ME. SEE ME. WATCH ME". "
I don't think you remember the scene all that well. Long shots (we never see the girl's face), intercut with close-ups of Schindler. He is watching the action, and we are seeing what he sees. My take was that the red dress was how Schindler noticed and remembered her. The entire scene is very subjective. Would everything have been fine with you if Spielberg had avoided colorization, and used some other identifier so that we could know it was the same girl, such as a white dress?
15213. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:00:53 PM
I don't think you remember the scene all that well. Long shots (we never see the girl's face), intercut with close-ups of Schindler. He is watching the action, and we are seeing what he sees. My take was that the red dress was how Schindler noticed and remembered her.
Please. Schindler was depicted as witness to the liquidaton of the ghetto of Krakow, a place with narrow streets. He stood from a hill far away. The conceit that he was fixating on and following the girl, even if it was Spielberg's intention, is silly.
Would everything have been fine with you if Spielberg had avoided colorization, and used some other identifier so that we could know it was the same girl, such as a white dress?
No. He should have excised that little girl motif entirely. The liquidation of the ghetto was horrible enough.
15214. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:09:37 PM
"Please. Schindler was depicted as witness to the liquidaton of the
ghetto of Krakow, a place with narrow streets. He stood from a hill
far away. The conceit that he was fixating on and following the girl, even if it was Spielberg's intention, is silly. "
I don't see your reasoning here at all. Why is it silly that he would follow what was happening to a little girl?
"No. He should have excised that little girl motif entirely. The
liquidation of the ghetto was horrible enough. "
Not generally. Watching anonymous people killed in movies usually lacks emotional impact, even if it is a depiction of historical reality. Mass murder just happens in movies too often. In order to drive the point home, directors almost always give us characters that we identify with in order to give the scenes more emotional heft. In a movie already top-heavy with characters, I think Spielberg, instead of developing a handful of minor characters to be killed, knew that everyone identifies with children.
15215. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:11:09 PM
I still think the best thing about Schindler's List is that there is no Big Decisive Moment where Schindler is transformed from indifferent to deeply involved. It just happens and the film does not tediously explore the causes of his transformation. Rather it makes Schindler's goodness just as mysterious as the evil that surrounds him.
That's also the film's biggest weakness. Schindler's character, instead of being an interesting enigma, is mostly opaque, a hollow shell.
By contrast, in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia where the protagonist's motivation is equally mysterious, Lawrence is truly enigmatic, not opaque.
15216. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:16:18 PM
I don't see your reasoning here at all. Why is it silly that he would follow what was happening to a little girl?
Because he was so far away and it's not plausible that he could have fixated on her and followed her progress. It's hokum.
Watching anonymous people killed in movies usually lacks emotional impact...Mass murder just happens in movies too often. In order to drive the point home, directors almost always give us characters that we identify with in order to give the scenes more emotional heft. I
This is the biggest canard of the red riding hood thing. The movie is full of personalised deaths. From the boy who gets shot for not scrubbing the bath hard enough, to the young woman who gets shot for suggesting a better construction plan.
15217. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:24:33 PM
Well, you are right that Schindler's transformation is gradual, but I don't think it is mysterious at all. I earlier mentioned personalization as the ongoing theme of the film.
The movie contrasts the dehumanization efforts of the Nazis (removing names, no personal interaction, etc.) with Schindler's more personal relationship with the Jews. Schindler works with them, knows their names, and knows their personalities. As such, he can't dehumanize the way the Nazis do, and eventually is driven to help save them, through a series of baby steps (such as one instance where he is told that if he fires an elderly worker, the man will be killed). Schindler is also contrasted with Ralph Fiennes character, who *also* has to relate with jews as his personal servants, but his position is one where he is directly responsible for keeping them in the camps. The contradiction drives him insane.
My take has always been that the film posits that if the Fiennes and Neeson characters had switched places, the same events would have happened. This may not be factually true, but it is meant to drive home a point about future holocausts can be prevented by not allowing the first step of dehumanization.
15218. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:26:14 PM
that's a good point.
15219. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:28:53 PM
"Because he was so far away and it's not plausible that he could have
fixated on her and followed her progress. It's hokum."
what? That was part of the point of showing the red dress. It made her easier to track.
"This is the biggest canard of the red riding hood thing. The movie is
full of personalised deaths. From the boy who gets shot for not
scrubbing the bath hard enough, to the young woman who gets shot
for suggesting a better construction plan."
But these just prove my point. Spielberg *wants* the murders to be personalized as much as possible. Why do you expect him to make an exception with the liquidition of the ghetto? I think it would have been jarring if he *hadn't* found some way to personalize it.
I think you can quibble over the method. He could have developed a few more minor characters, used a different visual cue for the little girl, or excised the liquidation scene entirely, but I think all of these make for a weaker picture.
15220. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:33:00 PM
Well, perhaps not such a good point, on second thought.
The Fiennes character is not driven insane by the contradiction between his duties and his personal contact with servants. That's overgenealised. He doesn't see his personal servants as less any human than those in the camps. He kills one (or several?) of his servants, after all. So you can't generalise so much from his love for the girl.
Also, Schindler is not the only one with personal contact with Jews! There are other industrialists using slave labour. Yet Schindler is the one to change dramatically.
15221. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 1:40:26 PM
Message # 15219
My objection to the red dress is just a quibble, you must remember. I'm not objecting to the film as a whole.
what? That was part of the point of showing the red dress. It made her easier to track.
I think compulsive cinephilia has exacted a severe cost. Aren't you confusing your reality with the reality within the film? I don't think Schindler perceived the world in varying hues of pewter, punctuated by the occasional baboon-vagina-red.
Spielberg *wants* the murders to be personalized as much as possible. Why do you expect him to make an exception with the liquidition of the ghetto?
Well, he could have found some other way of personalising the liquidation of the ghetto other than putting in that garish red in there.
15222. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:48:35 PM
"The Fiennes character is not driven insane by the contradiction
between his duties and his personal contact with servants. That's
overgenealised. He doesn't see his personal servants as less any
human than those in the camps. He kills one (or several?) of his
servants, after all."
I do think there is more to Fiennes' character than what I briefly said above. That character is additionally dealing with power issues. Spielberg was clearly saying that the man was having difficulty dealing with the power over life and death that he had. But I still think that personalization holds as an argument. Fiennes *can't* take the attitude that Schindler does and avoid getting shot.
"Also, Schindler is not the only one with personal contact with Jews!
There are other industrialists using slave labour. Yet Schindler is the one to change dramatically."
I agree that the film doesn't explain the historical Schindler, but I think it works to explain the Schindler character in the film. We don't see much of the other industrialists.
I also think this partially explains our difference over little red riding hood. I see it as one of Schindler's "baby steps" that helps explain his actions. The fact that he *does* focus on one individual is crucial to his character development.
15223. Indiana Jones - 1/24/2001 1:50:12 PM
Lord of the Rings
Nice site.
15224. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:53:21 PM
"I think compulsive cinephilia has exacted a severe cost. Aren't you
confusing your reality with the reality within the film? I don't think Schindler perceived the world in varying hues of pewter, punctuated by the occasional baboon-vagina-red.
How many Jewish girls in the ghetto do you think wore red dresses? Maybe they were common in Poland, but for the American audience that the film was aimed at, red dresses are pretty damned rare. I saw no difficulty in believing that Schindler was tracking her by the color of her dress.
"Well, he could have found some other way of personalising the
liquidation of the ghetto other than putting in that garish red in there. "
Yes, I mentioned a few possibilities. I probably would have used a white dress, and had no one else in the scene where white. The switch to color has proved a distraction from the scene.
15225. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 1:53:41 PM
"wear white"
15226. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 4:44:33 PM
Message # 15222
That character is additionally dealing with power issues.
I despise the psychobabbly idiom "dealing with ____ issues". Please use more antiquated language.
"Also, Schindler is not the only one with personal contact with Jews! There are other industrialists using slave labour. Yet Schindler is the one to change dramatically." I agree that the film doesn't explain the historical Schindler, but I think it works to explain the Schindler character in the film. We don't see much of the other industrialists.
Come now, lover of Sonya (does your wife know about that?), you can't expect to make a film about the Holocaust, one of the most publicised historical tragedies of all time, and then expect to hermetically seal it from the world. Besides, people other than Schindler, including those in the film, had daily contact with Jews.
I also think this partially explains our difference over little red riding hood. I see it as one of Schindler's "baby steps" that helps explain his actions. The fact that he *does* focus on one individual is crucial to his character development.
I don't think he did. I still think you're hallucinating.
15227. AceofSpades - 1/24/2001 4:51:36 PM
Toe,
"I think the Academy Awards show is missing a bet by not creating a special award for each year's best vignette -- without regard to the overall quality of the film in which it appears."
Think about it. Think about what a left-handed compliment that is.
"And now... here are some good scenes from BAD MOVIES otherwise underserving of an award!"
15228. AceofSpades - 1/24/2001 4:53:25 PM
"Spielberg is not an innovator, but rather, a technician. Spielberg is very good at identifying things that have worked well for other film makers and incorporating them into his movies. He is also smart enough to realize that originality is not a strength, and thus doesn't unnecessarily call attention to himself the way so many other directors do. I give him credit for this."
I give CalGal credit for this analysis and this un-PC defense of Steven "Despised by the Art House Crowd" Spielberg.
15229. AceofSpades - 1/24/2001 4:54:36 PM
I guess I give Fielding credit for that.
15230. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 4:56:33 PM
"I despise the psychobabbly idiom "dealing with ____ issues". Please
use more antiquated language. "
I was using the phrase humorously. But to translate, Fiennes went power mad.
"you can't expect to make a film about the Holocaust, one of the most
publicised historical tragedies of all time, and then expect to
hermetically seal it from the world. Besides, people other than
Schindler, including those in the film, had daily contact with Jews. "
Who that were in a position to do anything about it? Or that had a person like Kingsley's character subtley leading them along? I think the focus on humanization is almost inarguable. The first word of dialogue is "Name". We are constantly barraged with the names of characters who are only fleetingly in the film. Think of the scene I referred to earlier, when Kingsley tells Neeson that elderly man will be killed if fired. His name is given, and (if I recall correctly) a very brief bio is given. I am sure more examples would occur to me if I had seen the film again in the past 7 years. The name/number dichotomy is used as an obvious symbol of Nazi dehumanization.
15231. pseudoerasmus - 1/24/2001 5:17:17 PM
Who that were in a position to do anything about it?
Well, Fiennes could have shown more leniency and less harshness toward his Jewish captives. One thing which is shown over and over again in the film, and is historically accurate, was that the Nazis were far more brutal than strict adherene to duty required them to be -- despite having daily contact with women, children and old men.
Most human beings are not pure evil and have moments of weakness. That some of these Nazis didn't show much weakness, is a true mystery.
I think the focus on humanization is almost inarguable.
I can only repeat that Schindler was not alone in having close contact with Jews, even within the confines of the semi-fictionalised plot.
So the mystery of his transformation remains.
And that's both a strength and weakness of the film.
Strength, because it is a nice parallel to the mysterious evil that surrounds Schindler.
Weakness, beacause it makes the Schindler character a hollow shell, a strangely empty character.
15232. Raskolnikov - 1/24/2001 5:26:08 PM
It isn't just close contact with the jews - it was personalizing/humanizing them. Schindler progress was helped by Kingsley. They could have chosen to contrast him with other industrialists to show how he was different, but they chose instead to use Fiennes as the foil, to what I think was better effect.
As to why Fiennes wasn't more lenient, I think the point was that once you dehumanized the Jews, voluntarily inhumane treatment was inevitable. My take on Fiennes was that he was forcing himself to dehumanize the jews in order to do his job, despite his better instincts, and that this is partly what drove him insane.
15233. arkymalarky - 1/24/2001 9:32:44 PM
I'm late to this conversation on Spielberg, but I agree totally with FU's
"Spielberg is a fine director. His problem is simple. He often cannot resist the maudlin, and he rarely trusts communication of emotional import without aid of a sledgehammer," and Schindler's List was the first film of his since The Duel (still love that movie) that didn't make me feel that way. I detest ET.
I was sort of ambivalent about the red dress (I actually thought it was a little overcoat), but the hiding in the latrine scene was the one that made the big 11th grade boy student I'd taken with 32 other kids have to head for the bathroom to throw up.
I personally was really affected by the scene when the Nazis first came into the ghetto and people were going to hiding places, swallowing diamonds in balls of bread, etc, and the Nazis shooting through the floor at those hiding underneath. Those are the scenes I remember most vividly about the movie, not having seen it since it came out in theaters.
15234. Toenails - 1/25/2001 6:17:55 AM
"Think about it. Think about what a left-handed compliment that is.
"'And now... here are some good scenes from BAD MOVIES otherwise underserving of an award!'"
ACE -- RE your #15227:
My point wasn't that these short takes HAD to come from bad movies. I would expect that most nominated vignettes would, in fact, come from excellent movies. It's just that it is conceivable that you could have a nominee, or even a winner, from an otherwise undistinguished film.
This happens often enough for best song nominees and winners, and it happens fairly frequently for supporting actor/actress awards as well. The individual's good work is recognized despite its having been in a mediocre context.
15235. DocBrown - 1/25/2001 3:57:13 PM
Last night was the season championship of Junkyard Wars.
15236. JudithAtHome - 1/25/2001 6:19:47 PM
Here's a little something to whet your appetite for Shadow Of The Vampire :
Prince of Darkness
"Art -- authentic art -- is simple. But simplicity demands the maximum of artistry. The camera is the director's pencil. It should have the greatest possible mobility in order to record the most fleeting harmony of atmosphere. It is important that the mechanical factor should not stand between the spectator and the film."
-- F.W. Murnau, as quoted by Ludwig Gesek (from Lotte Eisner's `The Haunted Screen)
15237. Cellar Door - 1/25/2001 7:41:01 PM
Is this a good time to bring up "1941"?
Saw a wonderful Spanish movie lastnight called "Nico and Dani." It's about teenage best friends: one gay one straight. I'll post my review when it runs next week.
But suffice to say it's really nice to see a film that isn't condescending to teenagers. The boys are neither comic dorks, as in "American Pie," or wet sops as in "Summer of '42."
And they're not freaks as in "Kids," either.
15238. ChristinO - 1/25/2001 8:09:25 PM
Toe,
It would mean that John Voight could be recognized for his outstanding performance in Anaconda, a truly awful movie, and Ashley Judd could've taken home an Oscar for her 3-minute cameo in Smoke which is quite possibly the best she will ever be (no small acheivement if you've seen the clip I'm talking about).
15239. AceofSpades - 1/25/2001 8:50:40 PM
Hey-- voigt was pretty damn good in anaconda, wasn't he?
I didn't think the film was "terrible," though. Considering what it was -- a giant animal monster movie-- it was great.
Compare it to total misfires like The Relic, etc.
15240. Rosetta Stone - 1/25/2001 8:59:25 PM
Of the subject, but we just rented "Road Trip." I don't think I've ever been grossed out more than watching Tom Green eating that pet mouse.
15241. wonkers2 - 1/25/2001 10:36:30 PM
Saw "Oh Brother Where Art Thou." Very funny movie. Rack up another winner for the bros. Coen. The music was good, too.
15242. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 9:35:03 AM
the obligatory ‘Top Superbowl Ads’ article
15243. tucker - 1/26/2001 9:38:08 AM
Hello. I've never posted in the movies thread here - I usually hang out in Table Talk.
So anyway, I saw Gohatto (Taboo) last night. It was directed by the same guy that did Realm of the Senses about 12 years ago, if any of you saw that. Gohatto was compelling and certainly very visually beautiful, but boy, did I not get it. Did anyone else see it?
15244. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 9:41:13 AM
hi tucker
is Gohatto a recent movie? i've never heard of it, but then sometimes i don't keep up.
15245. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 9:43:07 AM
Cool link, Ducks...did you vote? I voted for Mean Joe Green before I read the article all the way through and realized the "When I Grow Up" ad was listed, too...I love that ad! But I also recall my first reaction to the Coke ad, too...it was pretty powerful advertising.
We should have an informal vote on best ad on Monday. I hope they have great ads because I fear the game will be a yawner.
15246. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 9:44:28 AM
I never saw it, either, but welcome to Movies & TV, Tucker!
15247. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 9:46:00 AM
i think the Monster ad was more effective, but that could be cuz i am a little young to remember the Apple and Mean Joe Green ads - i only know them in the abstract.
15248. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 9:49:56 AM
Well, I'm very much old enough to remember all of them...and I was a huge fan of Greene. It was almost a sappy ad but for some overly emotional people, it was a choker and misty eyes were not rare...
15249. tucker - 1/26/2001 10:03:45 AM
Hi, rubberducky. Gohatto has been in Chicago for about a week.
15250. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 10:28:59 AM
Tucker:
Try this link for some viewer comments on Gohatto.
15251. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 10:33:53 AM
I saw it, Tucker. It was on my Top Ten list.
What didn't you "get"?
15252. tucker - 1/26/2001 10:41:45 AM
Thanks, Judith. I love IMDB - but I feel like I saw a different movie than most of the other people who commented. To me the homosexuality and the samurai stuff was beside the point - the film seemed to treat desire itself - any desire - as fatal.
15253. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 10:47:21 AM
homosexual samurai ?
well well
looks like something i'll have to catch!
15254. tucker - 1/26/2001 10:51:18 AM
There are some very beautiful men in it, and excellent fight scenes!
15255. tucker - 1/26/2001 10:57:22 AM
CellarDoor - Pretty much the last fourth of the movie. Why not execute Kano's lover publically, if they believe he had been killing the others? What happened at the very end? Did he go back to kill Kano? Why? Why tell the story of "A Vow Between Two Men"? What was implied by the vow Kano was keeping with regard to not cutting his hair?
15256. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 10:59:53 AM
I love Japanese movies. Cellar, I don't suppose this is on video yet?
Tucker, did you ever see Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence ?
15257. tucker - 1/26/2001 11:04:07 AM
No, I didn't see it.
15258. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 11:06:18 AM
It's a truly mysterious movie, and very, very Japanese.
Set at the end of the Samurai era, it concerns an elite unit where an incredibly beautiful recuit joins and by his very presence alone drives his fellow-samurais wild with desire. (So much for Gays in the Military!)
One of them formally declares his attraction for the dreamboat. But instead of the expected blossoming for a love affair, the beloved steers clear of the rejected suitor and instead takes up with a much less attractive older samurai who he holds in thrall.
The entire samurai tradition, competent historians have noted, is held together by same-sexuality. It was neither "celebrated" nor derided. Just accepted as part of the way things are. Oshima's story, however, deals with same-sex passion as potentially destructive. Moreover, it's told from the standpoint of a samurai not directly involved with the leading participants. Played by Beat Takeshi, he's something on the order of a detective in a police procedural. The thing is, he's examining the situation before a crime has been committed. He wants to find out why people are behaving the way theydo. And he wants to do so in a way that's particularly Japanese -- eschewing psychology as it's normally dealt with in the West.
The crux of the mystery is Just What Is It with this hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin' Samurai, anyway? Why does he reject someone who loves him directly for someone who wants im more furtively? And why does he prefer the older man to the younger, farmore suitable one? A clue is in the fact that he declares that the reason he wanted to become a samurai was in order to kill. And he does dispatch several people for one reason or another in the course of the action. Yet he remains as mysterious and elusive as Gene Tierney in "Leave Her To Heaven."
15259. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 11:09:48 AM
It all reaches aclimax in the last shot, in which Takeshi, in one swift move, cuts down a tree. Why does he do it? Because it's beautiful.
And beauty is dangerous.
Oshima,BTW, directed this entire film from a wheelchair. He has suffered a series of strokes in recent years that has greatly debilitated him. it's the reason why this is his first film since "Max Mon Amour" in 1986. He was planning to make a film about Rudolph Valentino and Sessue Hayakawa. But that went south some years back when his health went south. I'm told he's almost fully recovered now. He's in his 70's, I believe.
15260. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 11:31:57 AM
Thanks for that background, Cellar...I'd have loved the movie about Valentino/Hayakawa.
Boy, how the mighty (lucky) have fallen...here is a sobering announcement on the fickleness of fame:
"Brett Butler performs at 8&10pm Friday; 7&9pm Saturday at Hyenas Comedy Night Club in Fort Worth...
Not only is she appearing in comedy clubs but she's doing multiple shows...what a comedown for a lady who had her own show on network TV.
15261. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 11:36:00 AM
outta control drugs and alcohol will do it every time
she was amusing enough at Rob Reiner's roast (shown on Comedy Central), but i think she was on more as a 'hey - i'm still alive' kind of appearance
15262. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 11:42:34 AM
Her story is a really, really sad one. She's very talented, and her show was quite interesting for what it was. The producers saw her as a low-key Roseanne. Little did they know they were going out of the frying pan into another frying pan.
15263. rubberducky - 1/26/2001 11:43:53 AM
i liked it for about 2 seasons - and then it really tired after that and i think she knew it
15264. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 11:46:29 AM
I know it's unrealistic to think people can learn from others mistakes...look at Liza Minnelli!....but you'd think eventually someone would say, "Hey...look at those washed up has-beens..that could be me" and get some control.
15265. DanDillon - 1/26/2001 11:49:38 AM
Welcome to The Mote, tuck.
Did you happen to see Gohatto at that supreme monument to the cinema? The Music Box?
sigh
Oh, how I miss the Music Box! Hope to see you around here often.
15266. tucker - 1/26/2001 11:55:22 AM
Yes, I saw it last night at the Music Box, following a fabulous meal at Bistro Zinc. hehehehehehhehehe.
15267. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 12:02:56 PM
Where's The Music Box?
New York? Chicago?
(I live in L.A.)
15268. DanDillon - 1/26/2001 12:03:27 PM
And Bistro Zinc, too! Oh, woe is me! My wife and I used to frequent there for the patés, cheeses, and charcuterie. Le poulet grande-mere, le cassoulet en hiver.... mon dieu.
Of course, the bar-b-q in K.C. surely does the trick.
We need a Travel & Food thread.
15269. DanDillon - 1/26/2001 12:05:00 PM
Chi-town. Windy city. The midway. City of big shoulders. Hog butcher to the world.
15270. tucker - 1/26/2001 12:06:09 PM
Music Box is in Chicago.
I had the poulet-grand mere last night. And the creme brulee.
But it's true, I haven't found any good barbeque here.
15271. DanDillon - 1/26/2001 12:07:48 PM
Best fucking creme brulee in the world.
15272. tucker - 1/26/2001 12:09:24 PM
I agree!
15273. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 12:10:20 PM
Dan:
We need a Travel & Food thread.
It starts on Feb 1...
15274. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 12:46:01 PM
"Why not execute Kano's lover publically, if they believe he had been killing the others? What happened at the very end? Did he go back to kill Kano? Why? Why tell the story of "A Vow Between Two Men"? What was implied by the vow Kano was keeping with regard to not cutting his hair?"
These are all excellent questions that Oshima leaves deliberately unanswered. And the reason for that is Kano so discombobulates everything. Because of his disruptive beauty, all bets are off.
I think he keeps his hair long for the very reason that it sets him apart from the others, and they'll have to wonder why he does so. The "vow" us a ruse in this regard.
15275. tucker - 1/26/2001 2:30:51 PM
Cellar Door, thanks for your response. I guess I just find that unsatisfying, that "Beauty is dangerous" and that's it. I know that he is saying beauty is dangerous and disruptive, as is desire, but so many questions were raised (for me) about Kano and his motivations, that it's frustrating not to be able to answer any of them.
15276. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 6:14:16 PM
Well that's the conflict between Western psycologizing and Eastern acceptance. What the Takeshi character is trying to do is not discover "motive" in the sense we're used to, but reasoning. In going over the events he's trying to rediscover the path Kano toward his deeds, and make sense of them in -- for want of a better word -- moral terms. He wants to be able to put himself into Kano's shoes. That's the only level of"understanding"required.He can't do that. And so in the end he cuts down the tree. It's the only logical thing to do. The tree is beautiful, and therefore threatening, and therefore must die.
15277. JudithAtHome - 1/26/2001 6:46:11 PM
The tree is beautiful, and therefore threatening, and therefore must die.
I hope this philosophy doesn't catch on.....
15278. CalGal - 1/26/2001 7:22:44 PM
Has anyone seen the Zulu DVD yet? Does it have extras? I have a gift certificate from Amazon and am debating what to buy.
15279. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 9:28:08 PM
I have "Zulu" on laser. I wrote the notes for it. It's a fantastic action-adventure movie. Cy Endfield is a neglected minor master. Some film encyclopedias list him as being South African because of this film. He was actually from the midwest! An assistant to Orson Welles, Endfield was like Welles a magician. He was also an inventor. Blacklisted, he moved to England. His greatest film is "Try and Get Me" aka. "The Sound of Fury" (1951, I think) starring Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges. It's the most excoriating critique of capitalism's effect on the lower middle-class and poor that I've ever seen, ending with a lynch-mob scene whose power has never been equalled.
Considering the timesin which it was made, it's ample reason for throwing himout of the U.S.
15280. CalGal - 1/26/2001 9:43:31 PM
I just read the Amazon comments on the DVD, and apparently it's pan and scan?
15281. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 9:57:59 PM
WHAT?!?!
Outrageous! My laser is letterboxed.
15282. CalGal - 1/26/2001 10:10:57 PM
Yes, that's why I'm glad I checked. It is a 6 week wait for the DVD and I'm not going to take any chances. I've seen it on AMC twice, letterboxed. I'll tape it before I buy pan and scan.
I saw Ride the High Country on TMC over the weekend. Letterboxed. Nirvana.
15283. Cellar Door - 1/26/2001 10:27:24 PM
Just got DVD's of "The Wild Bunch," "Bride of Frankenstein," "Round Midnight," "Bird," and "Mo Better Blues." I'm reviewing them all for CDNow.
15284. Shannon - 1/26/2001 10:56:19 PM
Ah, Round Midnight. My first college boyfriend's (AKA Psycho Republican Boyfriend) favorite movie. His second favorite was Repo Man.
15285. Fraaankster - 1/26/2001 11:55:23 PM
(snif)
I know it's been knocked in here by several posters ( Can't think of them at the moment ), but I think I've discovered that it is possible to reheat a souffle. I'm talking about the TV series, The Fugitive, which is on at the moment. The writing on this show surpasses the original by leaps and bounds, particularly when it comes to the depth of the characters -- all the characters.
Alcoholism and an estranged mom and daughter form the backdrop to tonight's episode.
15286. Fraaankster - 1/26/2001 11:58:38 PM
...It's gonna get axed, I know it, but hey, I bet Nash Bridges comes back for another season.
sigh
15287. Fraaankster - 1/27/2001 12:01:54 AM
Hey, the plug just mentioned that the program has been moved an hour later for next week, with a new episode placing Kimble hiding out in a psychiatric ward. I hope the new slot breaths new life into it. It ranked a pitiful 80th last week -- 80th!
15288. Fraaankster - 1/27/2001 1:50:44 AM
Out of the 136 shows rated last week, here are just some of the shows that trumped The Fugitive last week:
9th - "Temptation Island": Does it really warrant comment ?
10th -"Friends" : I suppose comment is possible, if I subtracted 20 years off my age -- make that 30 (I'm 43).
17th - "Everybody Loves Raymond": Yawn
23td - "Touched By An Angel": People actually make time to watch this slop, huh ?
24th - (Tied) "Becker": Does Ted Danson really need the money this bad ?
24th - "The Weber Show" : ???
26th "King of Queens" : What next, Welcome Back Kotter ?
41st "Dharma and Greg": Yawn. I tried watching it. I tried, I tried ...
(More crap)
45th - "The Mole": Is it the sabotage premise, or the fact that its set in Europe ?
48th "Walker, Texas Ranger" : Another martial arts hero long ago displaced by your average Nintendo games...the Nintendo games are actually more reality based.
50th "The X-Files": The original Outer Limits, with its $6.29 production budget set a standard this show, and others like it, have tried to usurp since its introduction. I never saw what all the fuss was about.
53td "Whose Line Is It Anyway" : Psssst. The British original still shown on the Comedy network still rocks -- your endorphins would know the difference. Trust me.
Continued...
15289. Fraaankster - 1/27/2001 1:51:34 AM
58th "Nash Bridges": sigh The only thing that saves me from completely ripping this "gem", is the classic car he drives on the show.
61st "Diagnosis Murder": ... Maybe if Van Dyke would begin the show by tripping over a gurney, or having an episode on autopsies, a perfect role for his former co-star, Morey Amsterdam ?
Sorry 'bout the mixing of genres and time slots, et all, but I certainly hope The Fugitive's chances improve with its new time slot. Give it a chance, CBS, give it a damn chance!
G'night,y'all!
15290. AceofSpades - 1/27/2001 1:55:38 AM
"The original Outer Limits, with its $6.29 production budget set a standard this show, and others like it, have tried to usurp since its introduction. I never saw what all the fuss was about."
Outer Limits set the standard?
Didn't Twillight Zone set the standard for Outer Limits?
I'm younger, and I wasn't around when either debuted, but I thought that TZ was the "original," and OL a competent, well-liked imitation, featuring less Apocalypse-Noir philosophy and more monsters in rubber suits.
15291. CalGal - 1/27/2001 2:01:14 AM
Yeah, TZ was first.
15292. Fraaankster - 1/27/2001 3:22:15 AM
Well, yeah, the Twilight Zone was first in terms of setting off this genre at the time, but TZ suffered from what were obviously rushed, compressed scripts -- they only had all of 22 minutes to make it work, mind you. If suspending belief is what you are aiming for, the Twilight Zone, with its time contraints and tongue firmly in place, came up short -- big time.
The Outer Limits had twice the time to work in its magic. Great writers ( They owned the patent on introspective and soul searching scripts ), character development, music scoring, direction, and the subsequent beautiful work those directors employed involving camera angles and lighting took a viewer to a level that The Twilight Zone rarely could approached. Watching just about every Outer Limit episode made me wonder whether the studio had paid its electric bill -- an effect frequently employed by the aforementioned "X-Files"...Talk about a show making the most out of a situation ( director's talents ) while working with shoestring budgets ?
...They played to different audiences: I happen to think that Serling's Twilight Zone's aim was to entertain, leave one with a smile. The Outer Limits was there purely to scare the shit out of one -- and it often succeeded. That's why I compared it to The Outer Limits, and not The Twilight Zone.
Also, I certainly don't remember all of both show's episodes, but I believe that the Apocalypse-Noir philosophy you brought up, Ace, came out with The Outer Limits dominating that, on a ratio basis, of course. The Twilight Zone's run was a hell of a lot longer.
Oops, Politically Incorrect is on.
Good night again, y'all!
15293. AceofSpades - 1/27/2001 3:33:26 AM
...but I believe that the Apocalypse-Noir philosophy you brought up, Ace, came out with The Outer Limits dominating that, on a ratio basis, of course...
No way. I don't know either damn show, to be honest, but Apocalypse-Noir philosophy is what TZ traded in. Every damn show I've ever seen (and I haven't seen many) is about:
1) The End of the World due to atomic apocalypse
2) Astronauts who arrive on a desolate planet, only to eventually discover it's EARTH!!!, destroyed by an atomic apocalypse
3) Aliens warning us about atomic apocalypse
4) Astronauts who land on "Morgue Planets" filled with realistic-looking human manikins in 1950's era small town "sets," which turn out to be a big museum exhibits of what Earth was like, that is, before the atomic apocalypse destroyed it
5) Astronauts who leave a planet, just as it's destroyed by an atomic apocalypse, only to land on a nice planet where this male and female astronaut decide to re-start the human race... and it turns out their names are Adam and Eve, and the new planet is really earth (a million years before it will itself be destroyed by an atomic apocalypse)
and:
6) Humans who are kept in zoos by aliens. Atomic apocalypse figures somehow in the back-story.
15294. CalGal - 1/27/2001 3:42:59 AM
TZ scripts were rushed? Are you joking? I believe that was their greatest strength.
15295. Cellar Door - 1/27/2001 11:24:14 AM
I prefer "Nash Bridges" with the original cast.
15296. don s. - 1/27/2001 12:41:51 PM
I got an e-mail from buy.com on Thursday informing me that they had shipped my copy of the The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie DVD. USPS Priority, which means I might get it today. I ordered it on Oct. 14.
15297. CalGal - 1/27/2001 12:50:56 PM
Why did it take so long? Is that normal? (asks a confirmed Amazon user)
15298. AytchMan - 1/27/2001 2:42:46 PM
Hey, don't nobody tap dance on Twilight Zone. I knew Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone was a friend of mine. Outer Limits was no Twilight Zone.
With a couple of exceptions toward the end, Serling's TZ scripts were superb. Working deep social commentary into an entertainment show is a fine and, apparently, lost art. Witness the hit-and-miss floundering of West Wing after a good start.
Ace is right in 290:
TZ was the "original," and OL a competent, well-liked imitation, featuring less Apocalypse-Noir philosophy and more monsters in rubber suits.
but misses a point. Serling captured the dark side of human nature but always left an out. His scripts were thought-pieces that ruminated "There's an Apocalypse out there unless...", usually leaving it to the audience to solve the "unless".
15299. AytchMan - 1/27/2001 2:50:35 PM
Serling's aim with TZ was very definitely not to make the audience smile. If anything, he wanted us to frown and then think. Naturally, he was bound by the market values of TV in those days (which is to say, somewhat less than today) and a few of the shows were lighter in tone. But he had some serious battles with the suits toward the end over the show's focus.
15300. CalGal - 1/27/2001 4:45:16 PM
Finding Forrester:
Nothing original in this tale, although I don't see the major resemblance to Good Will Hunting that is touted, but rather a thousand previous pieces of schlock on fish out of water youths and their inspirational teachers who have withdrawn from society. The pedestrian story is further undercut by a really god-awful ending, which was lousy enough the first time I had to suffer through it in Scent of a Woman.
But this one is worth a watch anyway, once it's out for rental. Sean Connery doesn't phone it in as yet another reclusive writer who disappeared after writing The One Great Book, but takes it a bit farther into a worthwhile performance--certainly not one of his best, but much better than any of his recent work. Rob Brown is excellent in an impossible part--a brilliant, incredibly well-read black kid who uses his knowledge of the writer's identity as a mild form of blackmail.
The other reason for tuning in: a really remarkable basketball competition between the only two black kids at a tony prep school where Brown ends up after his extraordinarily high test scores are discovered. Very informative, in its own way, and explains more about inner city priorities and values than a hundred earnest tracts on the subject.
Halfway through the film, Spawn turned to me and whispered, "This is a great movie!" That, too, is information worth registering. Any movie that values writing, brains, and honesty and doesn't turn off teens has clearly done something right.
15301. mgleason - 1/27/2001 7:04:52 PM
A little something for everyone this evening chez moi: The Art of War and High Fidelity.
15302. CalGal - 1/27/2001 7:27:21 PM
I wish I could remember where I read the term "white guys in suits movie". Great phrase, and an apt description of Thirteen Days, a solid entry in this sub-genre of political thrillers, although certainly not up to Seven Days in May or Advise and Consent.
Good performances by everyone with the exception of Costner, who is never much fun when he's in dogmatic mode. Of particular note is Bruce Greenwood as JFK, who focused on substance rather than mannerisms. Watch the guy move. While I've known for some time that Kennedy lived in continual pain and wasn't all that healthy, Greenwood's performance really brought this fact home, while never once overplaying the winces as he shifted to a more comfortable position.
Lots of fun, intelligent, nicely paced, well worth seeing.
15303. JudithAtHome - 1/27/2001 7:43:35 PM
Cal:
We just watched Way Of The Gun. Do you happen to recall when a discussion about it occurred? Did you see it?
15304. AceofSpades - 1/27/2001 7:48:26 PM
JAH:
Niner and I argued about it some time ago. Perhaps three weeks or a month ago.
15305. JudithAtHome - 1/27/2001 7:53:41 PM
Ace:
Did you like it? My husband thought it was derivative of a Japanese movie he'd see years ago...we both liked it somewhat but were glad for the rewind function...dialogue was really muffled at times.
15306. AceofSpades - 1/27/2001 7:55:39 PM
I didn't like it, except for the first five minutes. Niner liked it much more, rating it something like a B.
15307. JudithAtHome - 1/27/2001 7:59:40 PM
Well, maybe he'll talk to me about it sometime...off to watch The Limey and Boondock Saints now...it was Keonis week to pick the videos!
15308. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 10:53:55 AM
Went to a special screening of "The Day of the Locust" last night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was part of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association tribute to Conrad Hall, who won our Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Quite a nice crowd showed up. Robert Towne interviewed Hall on stage and clips from "American Beauty," "In Cold Blood," and "Tequila Sunrise" were shown, with Hall discussing how storytelling is the most important aspect of his craft. Then "Day of the Locust" came on, and my God it's better than I remembered it. I haven't seen it since 1974 when it came out and failed. No surprise on that score. It's a faithful adaptation of a novel that tells this culture precisely what it doesn't want to hear about itself.
Karen Black, in the utlimate Karen Black performance is extraordinary, and Schlesinger directs it all with amazing proficiency and precision. When a film's really working certain moments in it will stay with you forever. For me it was a haunting shot of Leilia Goldoni dressed to the nines standing in the windwow of the brothel (whose Madame is Natalie Schaffer!), glimpsed by William Atherton's Todd Hackett. Billy Barty brought down the house, as usual, when he climbs up on abar,walsk across it and pours himself a drink -- and the sequence of the set collapsing has never been bettered.
Donald Sutherland, also brought down the house for reasons unforseen when the film was made, for his first line is "Hello, I'm Homer Simpson."
15309. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 10:57:49 AM
My date for the evening, BTW, was Jon Scher -- who's still running into people telling him how crazy they are about "Urbania." His next film is going to be about the New York Club scene in the 80's-- but not the famous disco murder club kids story that Bailey and Barbato have wrapped up. Rather he wants to talk about real estate,and how Giuliani reshaped the city. it will also deal with a storysimilar to the one James B. Stewart related in his "Death of a Partner"piece in the "New Yorker" several years ago -- about a real estatetycoon with important Times Square properties -- who was killed by one of the black teenage drug addicted hustlers he fancied.
15310. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 11:03:45 AM
And now for some bad news.
Jerome Hellman was there. He produced "Day of the Locust," and "Midnight Cowboy," and other notable films,including one of my personal favorites,"The World of henry Orient." He told mehe'salways running into 40 year-old women who tell him that tha they had a best friend exactly like th girls in thatmovie. He said both he and George Roy Hill had teenage daughters at the time the film was made, so they knew exactly what they were doing.
Then he toldme that Hill, who hasn't worked in years, is now suffering from the most advanced stages of Parkinson's disease. He's at home in Connecticut, completely discombobulated. His memory is gone, and occasionally he'll rise up and announce that he has to fly to Paris for an important engagement. Really, really sad.
He's directed some of the most beloved popular entertainments of all-time ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" anyone? How about "The Sting"?), and he's never really gotten his proper due for them.
Now it's too late.
15311. CalGal - 1/28/2001 11:24:28 AM
That is really sad--although I've always thought that George Roy Hill was highly regarded.
He directed both Redford/Newman movies (winning an Oscar for The Sting), as well as Waldo Pepper and Slapshot with each of the stars individually. He also made the goofy Thoroughly Modern Millie and, I believe, discovered Diane Lane, who he cast in A Little Romance--another teen coming of age movie. I prefer it to Henry Orient, but that's due in part to my preference for Lane over the two girls in Orient. And of course, he made Garp and Slaughterhouse Five, two books that really were tough to convert.
He's not that old at all, either.
15312. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2001 12:43:37 PM
Day of the Locust has been one of my favorite movies since it's release...I couldn't believe it wasn't a huge hit. I was responsible for having it as one our Film Society's showcase films for one week back in the early 80s and many members had never seen it...we ran it for 4 days, twice a night, and I watched some or all of the showings. Our FS had the advantage of access to one of the last old theaters in Fort Worth...unfortunately, both the theater and the society are things of the past now.
I loved the "orange" motif that ran through the film...from the rotting oranges falling from the trees in Homers yard to the shot of the smog choked sun in the sky over LA...there were orange sightings all through the film. I thought it was because of the "your own orange tree in your own yard" come-on lure of the California dream.
15313. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 1:31:36 PM
Seeing it again brought home the fact that a lot of Los Angeles isn't as disposable as I once thought. The courtyard apartment building that Todd and the others live in was there at the time of the story, there in 1974, and still there today. Likewise the Frank Lloyd Wright house where the Art Director lives.
15314. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2001 1:33:07 PM
I love that house! It's been used in several pictures...
15315. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 1:35:47 PM
"Blade Runner" to name one.
15316. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2001 1:39:17 PM
Yes...and didn't they use the Bradbury Building in that one, too?
15317. Cellar Door - 1/28/2001 2:22:39 PM
Oh yes! Not just the building, but they re-created the entire corner. The "Million Dollar Theater" is right across the street from the Bradbury Building -- as shown in "Blade Runner."
15318. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2001 2:31:52 PM
Last night, we watched Way of the Gun and The Limey ,both of which we liked, and then tried to watch 2 others which were dreadful, something called The Boondock Saints which Willem DaFoe must have owed the director or producer a big time debt to be in it, and Cradle Will Rock ,an abysmally slow piece of dreck which we quit watching about 45 minutes in though it seemed like 4 hours....
After all that, we decided to try something completely different and watched The End Of The Affair ....it was fantastic and we both were in tears throughout much of it. Julianne Moore was robbed of that oscar...what a beautifully sad movie.
15319. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2001 2:32:17 PM
...big O oscar.
15320. mgleason - 1/29/2001 1:14:34 AM
Gosh, three Arnold movies today: Total Recall, Terminator, and T2 (the one with the extra bits).
15321. AceofSpades - 1/29/2001 1:40:08 AM
"I love that house! It's been used in several pictures..."
It's been used in so many pictures that Ridley Scott's cinematographer told him "You simply cannot shoot this building again. It's been done too many times. Being British, you don't realize how many goddamn movies this has already been in. You can't shoot it again without people immediately knowing they've seen it before."
"Not the way I'm going to shoot it," Scott replied.
I have no idea if he succeeded, because I don't remember really seeing the buidling before.
Other news:
Survivor II looks pretty good. I liked it, and I did not find it wanting compared to the original.
The secret sauce? Probably editing. Probably some story sense. Good casting.
Deb was very funny tonight. Too bad she won't be around any longer. She's such an outrageously grandiose, bad liar, it's a shame she won't be around to provide further amusing lies.
15322. Toenails - 1/29/2001 8:10:28 AM
Let me suggest, early-on, a special thread for "Survivor II" buffs, so the rest of us can avoid wading thru inane discussions of which Yuppie idiot is going to outlast the other Yuppie idiots and earn $1 million and 15 minutes.
15323. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2001 8:43:02 AM
Yes, it's not as though it were some obscure movie starring a has-been Albanian actor about the meaning of life in a bleak futuristic universe with furry, squeaking aliens who fly around in teakettles.
God forbid someone would want to talk about something millions of people actually watch.
15324. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2001 8:55:01 AM
At the risk of being frivilous, I liked the "running of the squirrels" ad last night and thought the rest were lousy, except for one or two I can barely recall this morning.
15325. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 9:15:29 AM
Traffic
Political issue dramas grappling with the questions of our day, as Traffic attempts with the war on drugs, are tough nuts. Bad ones, such as televison's "The West Wing", don't really have characters. They have caricatures, all designed to reflect the essential goodness of the particular issue (or the badness of a caricature who differs on the issue). I laughed out loud last week as as I watched the unveiling of a sop to the conservatives, a lithe blonde who interviews for a position with The White House, witnesses the essential goodness of those saintly souls, and thereafter, upbraids her snobby, bad conservative friends who have the audacity to call the folks in the White House worthless (and she took the job, thereby verifying her worth).
Decent political dramas honor character over political message, even if the message is heavy-handed ("Salvador," "Philadelphia").
The best ones inject the political in the natural language of the story, with all the nuances of any policy debate emanating from people in conversation, not platitude ("Dead Man Walking", "Fail Safe"), or the political message is subordinate to a seemless script, so much so that it hits you later ("The Parallax View", "The Best Man").
15326. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 9:16:50 AM
Traffic is hit or miss on this front. Some of the message in this three track story - Mexican policeman Benicio Del Toro, San Diego affluent drug couple Catherine Zeta Jones and Steven Bauer, and Ohio family Michael Douglas and Amy Irving (he has just been appointed Drug Czar) - is properly tempered and blended (primarily, the track in Mexico). The rest is well-written but largely disinteresting melodrama seeking too much cover under the nagging self-importance of its mission. Yes, the drug war is futile. We got that in an early scene when the former Drug Czar (James Brolin) tells Douglas that
the drug war is futile.
So, the message is clear early. Let's get to the story. Except, there isn't much of a story. Director Stephen Soderbergh juggles the intersection of several lives in the "war on drugs", but nothing happens that is surprising, only a few things draw you in, and when you do become involved, Soderbergh is compelled to take you elsewhere to keep things balanced. With his frentic camera and his leap from place to place, you get the sesne that Soderbergh knows he is selling an empty vessel, so he juggles to keep you off balance. As such, the characters barely develop in a sometimes involving, sometimes
sleepy pastiche that would probably have been better written by John
Sayles, who has mastered multi-character films .
15327. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 9:17:21 AM
Worse, writer Steve Gaghan stacks the deck, in the form of stilted speeches, again pronouncing the futility of the drug war. By my count, Miguel Ferrar (a busted middleman who is held by the detective Don Cheadle so that he can testify against Bauer) had two, a classmate of Douglas' drug-addict daughter had one, Brolin had one, and Douglas had a symblic one scarily reminiscent of the putrid "The American President" (thankfully, while the set-up for his speech was cheesy, it did not sink into the nauseating).
Also, Douglas, as the new drug czar, is almost laughably naif-like, thus allowing all the difficulties facing the suppression of drug importation and drug use to be introduced to the audience as even more daunting ("See, even the drug czar and his staff are stumped! And his daughter is freebasing! This must really be futile!") Albert Finney (the White House chief of staff who hired Douglas) may as well have hired Andy Griffith.
Finally, if security is anything as bad for immunized witnesses testifying against a major point of contact for a drug cartel as was depicted by Traffic, well, indeed, the drug war really must be futile.
15328. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 9:17:51 AM
A few absurd plot contrivances mar the film further. Zeta-Jones becomes a cold, hard drug queen after her son is threatened. Her transformation is quicker than Bridget Fonda from housewife to money-grubber in last year's "A Simple Plan" and similarly unconvincing.
And Zet-Jones' problems are solved by way of a baby doll head that is made of cocaine (she offers this ingenious method of smuggling as a way to save her husband, child, and social standing). I would have preferred that she offer to have cocaine implanted in her breasts for ferry across the border, but apparently, inexplicably, out-of-nowhere baby doll heads constructed out of cocaine won the favor of Gaghan.
And unforgiveably, Gaghan actually uses the "Daddy drinks scotch, and it's the same as freebasing" argument from an old "Eight is Enough" (or is that "Room 222"?) This might have worked if the Douglas character were Walter Matthau, but the tired discussion between relatively young Douglas and Irving was painful.
Not to say that Traffic lacks genuine moments. The patter between the upper crust private school kids as they get high on various and sundry narcotics is well-written, as is most of the dialogue between del Toro and his Mexican counterparts and the easy patter between Cheadle and his partner. And, with the exception of Zeta-Jones (who sports a refined accent that would make Madonna cringe) the performances are all very convincing. Dennis Quaid, though his existence in the film is largely unnecessary, is comfortably slimy as a double-crossing sleazeball and del Toro will get a deserved supporting actor nomination as the policeman who gets wise to the
game.
In the end, however, this is a fair-to-middling issue drama best appreciated as a series of sketches. It gets pumped to an Oscar-worthy film because Hollywood has trumpeted it (and thus, itself) for political boldness on the issue. See "Bulworth."
15329. CalGal - 1/29/2001 9:21:11 AM
Ha, ha, ha.
I had a small bet with myself that you'd hate it.
Thus far, I haven't run into anyone pro-legalization or pro-morality who has thought it did a good job.
15330. wonkers2 - 1/29/2001 9:23:09 AM
Finally got around to watching the new Lolita last night. It held my attention, but the performances of none of the characters struck me as slice of life realism. Humbert didn't strike me as a real life pedophile nor did Lolita as a victim. Throughout I found myself picking holes in the logic or credibility of actions and lines. Seemed to me Humbert's and Lolita's relationship progressed too quickly and without much subtlety. Maybe the movie was intended as a phantasy rather than reality? Or maybe I'm just not in touch with the reality of nymphets and pedophiles.
15331. CalGal - 1/29/2001 9:37:26 AM
And unforgiveably, Gaghan actually uses the "Daddy drinks scotch, and it's the same as freebasing" argument from an old "Eight is Enough"
Well, actually, scotch and freebasing are the same, although you're off by about 20 years (if you're going to complain about something being hackneyed, then get your eras right).
Addiction is a disease. Douglas' daughter is an addict because she is genetically predisposed to the disease. That is several large countries away from making a tired old complaint about them being the same.
I agree about Zeta-Jones, although to my mind they made it barely plausible because to me, it's entirely believable that someone who whored to get a husband would have no qualms in turning to drugs to maintain her standard of living. But then, I thought it was pretty clear she was no "housewife" prior to that point.
The one complaint I have about Traffic is that the stories could have been more original. Zeta Jones could have been dealing with cops who arrested her because she used drug money, the daughter could have been a casual user, rather than an addict.
Oddly enough, though, it is when I read or hear from people like you that I realize that no, he couldn't be more original.
15332. rubberducky - 1/29/2001 9:47:13 AM
J@H:
that squirrel commercial was ok, but the one that made Ripley and i laugh out loud was the ETrade one with the chimp on the horse going thru a war zone type area littered with failed dot-coms (pimentoloaf.com & twistytie.com come to mind). at the end he is looking and taking it all in in and then you see a single tear roll down his cheek - very funny and completely unexpected. then the fade out to 'Invest Wisely'
the best of the bunch imo.
15333. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 9:50:19 AM
Juditha
What did you think of Way of the Gun?
Cal
We can talk about "people like me" in the "People Like FU" thread. (g)
15334. CalGal - 1/29/2001 9:51:00 AM
Ha, a takeoff on the Injun litter commercial.
I saw the Bob Dole on that morning, and I thought it was extremely amusing, particularly the 7-11 worker.
15335. CalGal - 1/29/2001 10:00:41 AM
Frankie,
Well, as usual, there are many more people like you than like me. Maybe one of these days I'll be in the status quo.
Seriously, though, I haven't run into anyone who has an agenda about the WoD one way or another who liked it--and in all cases they make the same complaint about the movie.
I didn't see it as a polemic at all; I saw it as a very enjoyable action picture. But then, I have no agenda in the WoD, so I merely appreciated the fact that, for the most part, the environment in which the stories played out was accurate.
15336. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 10:03:02 AM
Cal
If you get the chance, direct me to other reviews of the movie (I thought I'd seen one by you, Ace and Fielding).
As for Traffic being an "action" picture, I missed the action.
15337. CalGal - 1/29/2001 10:09:20 AM
Hmm. I thought that movies with explosions and shootings were generally considered action? Perhaps I was incorrect.
15338. rubberducky - 1/29/2001 10:17:24 AM
here's hoping all you Law & Order fans watched the new episodethis past week:
In what Wolf has labeled a "dangerous precedent," NBC announced it will never again air this week's episode of the Emmy-winning cop-and-lawyers drama, after the network fielded complaints from Hispanic groups who argued that it cast the Latino community in a bad light.
The episode in question, "Sunday in the Park with Jorge," aired Wednesday night and was inspired by the real-life "wildings" that occurred last June in Central Park, following the city's Puerto Rican Day Parade. The episode depicted a parade day rampage and a murder for which a Brazilian kid is convicted.
NBC had been discussing the matter with Hispanic groups, including the National Puerto Rican Coalition, prior to the episode's airing. But the network decided to let it run anyway.
By Thursday, the network apparently changed its mind, releasing a statement apologizing for "offending members of the Latino community" and vowing not to air it again.
how grossly stupid.
a 'community' is 'offended' by a story based on actual events! oh - the horror. whiney dumbfucks.
15339. glendajean - 1/29/2001 10:19:08 AM
I saw Hiddren Dragon, Crouching Tiger this weekend (or whatever it's real title is -- I am unsure about what is hidden, what is crouching and which comes first.
Lovely sets The wire acts were fun, at least at first. Best scene was the sword fight on the edge of an bent tall bamboo.
I've always lived my life with the belief that a hot cup of tea can settle one's nerves, and these characters do that, too, as they sit and reflect on life and a Jedi-like cult of crime fighters called the Wutan. But they also scramble up walls and and run over rooftops like snow boarders skiffing along snow bluffs. Perhaps, too much tea is too much.
15340. CalGal - 1/29/2001 10:19:40 AM
Francis,
I haven't found Fielding's review. Ace's is Message # 14869, mine is at Message # 15081. Ace also mentions the TNR review as one he agreed with.
However, given the fact that Ace likes it, I am forced to admit error. Ace has occasionally expressed strong support for the WoD, and he speaks well of it and notes that it isn't boring at all.
So it must be some other attribute that just correlates well with strong opinions on the Drug War and dislike of the film.
15341. CalGal - 1/29/2001 10:21:07 AM
Ducky,
That was really weird, wasn't it? Especially since they never mention what was wrong with the ep.
It was a pretty weak ep, so no terrible loss. But still.
15342. Francis Urquhart - 1/29/2001 10:27:34 AM
Cal
Thanks. Now I can find out what people like Ace and people like you think.
As for action pictures, to the extent eating is an action, you are correct. Traffic is an action picture, as is My Dinner with Andre.
15343. CalGal - 1/29/2001 11:10:09 AM
Francis,
Did Wally make Andre dig his own grave and blast the man's brains out while I went out for popcorn?
If you don't think Traffic is an action picture, or a good action picture, I'm sure there is a case to be made. Ignoring the explosions, the shootings, the murders, and the various cop stick 'em ups to liken the movie to a mild talk fest like Andre is a weak way to begin.
I think there is a good argument to be made for it not being a great picture, although I thought it was excellent. I can even point out most of the flaws myself, but always have to add that I enjoyed it more than any movie I'd seen that year (although I just saw Brother, which topped it), and that it handled addiction extraordinarily well, without overstating it.
I really do think that you, and others, greatly oversimplify the Douglas story, which is much stronger than a simple Afternoon Special. It seems to use the format deliberately to highlight the ways in which its message differs from those polemics.
15344. rubberducky - 1/29/2001 11:22:08 AM
i feel so left behind sometimes...
Rented Hollow Man this past weekend. taken as just a thriller with special effects, it was pretty good. some inventive ways were used to show the outline of Bacon's nude body and the face consistently looked right. it's a little heavy handed at times and obvious, but, for the genre, that's hardly uncommon enough to warrant criticism.
if you overlook various plotholes (one of which was shown to be an editing mistake in the DVD outtakes), bad science, and just sit back and wait for the killing, then you won't really be disappointed. there could have been more killing, i thought, but that's a common complaint from me from these types of flicks.
all in all, a good renter and gets 2.75 quacks outta 5.
15345. Raskolnikov - 1/29/2001 12:17:37 PM
Cellar: Has Hannibal been screened for critics yet? A friend wants us to take the afternoon off on the 9th to go see, and I am trying to figure out if it is worth the vacation time.
15346. CalGal - 1/29/2001 12:19:42 PM
You have to take vacation time to take an afternoon off? What sort of heathens do you work for?
15347. Raskolnikov - 1/29/2001 12:23:25 PM
Well, I could make up the time elsewhere in the week and piss off my wife, but that doesn't change the need for an upside.
15348. CalGal - 1/29/2001 12:26:21 PM
You don't just work a short week on occasion, to make up for all the times you work long weeks? Wow.
I am questioning the need to account for the time, not the need for an upside given that you don't get the time for free.
Heck, just sniffle and look pale all morning and announce that you're going home early.
I have no good feelings about Hannibal.
15349. Raskolnikov - 1/29/2001 12:29:52 PM
Different work cultures. I rarely have to work a long week.
15350. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2001 12:55:58 PM
FU:
What did you think of Way of the Gun?
I liked it, which is odd because I usually don't care for movies with lots of shooting and bullets blowing into peoplee bodies. My husband liked it a whole lot more than I and swears it is a Japanese Samurai movie.
I realized who the girl was as soon as James Caan said the words "my daughter"....one thing I liked a lot was the blonde looming in so many scenes; she was everywhere, floating past.
How'd you like it?
15351. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2001 1:00:12 PM
Ducks:
I missed a few commercials last night because we left the party to drive home in the torrential downpour that hit our city shortly after the second half got underway...when we got home, there'd been 2 more touchdowns scored!
The monkey ad sounds great; hope they run it sometime when I'm watching.
15352. PelleNilsson - 1/29/2001 1:24:35 PM
I guess it's bad form to post a magazine review here, but I cannot link because it's a subscription site. The Economist on Traffic:
STEVEN SODERBERGH, in "Traffic", aims for a wide-angle view of the American drugs scene, with three parallel but barely connecting storylines intended to convey the enormity of the drugs issue and to suggest that America's war against drugs is being lost. One story involves policing the United States-Mexican border, one the efforts of an arrested drug baron's wife to win back her comfortable way of life, and the third the discovery by a narcotics overlord that his own daughter is addicted. The structure comes from a British TV mini-series of the 1980s with the same name, updated to a contemporary American context.
Even at two and a half hours, however, entire aspects are overlooked. "Traffic" shows the pushers, the users and the war, but nothing about teaching young drug-takers to distinguish safe from not safe, nor about the supply lines to the dealers and the widespread corruption or tacit government support in producing countries. "Traffic" is a drama, after all, not a documentary or a newspaper editorial. Yet half-developed views on many aspects of drugs underlie much of the plot, without being articulated.
15353. PelleNilsson - 1/29/2001 1:25:24 PM
What Mr Soderbergh does achieve, wearing his pseudonymous hat as the cameraman "Peter Andrews", is a hand-held visual texture that distinguishes the American scenes from the Mexican ones by colour coding. In the American sequences, a wintry blue filter washes across the screen as if there were no end to misery; south of the border, it is all golden filters, as drug runners make a mockery of overworked and underpaid cops.
The script, however, struggles to fashion a coherent narrative out of a theme that perhaps needed four hours. And some scenes beggar belief. Would a parent, even a drugs tsar (Michael Douglas), snatch his daughter from the classroom and drag her across town in search of her drugs supplier? And could a gangster's wife (Catherine Zeta Jones) turn overnight from frivolous lady-who-lunches into a ruthless killer?
"Traffic", an Oscar possibility that is in contention at the Berlin film festival, is doing well, not brilliantly, at the box office.
15354. Cellar Door - 1/29/2001 1:43:59 PM
The All-Media of "Hannibal" is next week.
15355. CalGal - 1/29/2001 2:00:44 PM
And could a gangster's wife (Catherine Zeta Jones) turn overnight from frivolous lady-who-lunches into a ruthless killer?
She was Eurotrash prior to her marriage and apparently a mid-level whore. She also wasn't a killer herself, but rather someone who knew how to order the help around. I agree that Zeta Jones character was weak, but it seemed reasonably clear to me that it wasn't a transformation, but a removal of recently applied varnish.
Would a parent, even a drugs tsar (Michael Douglas), snatch his daughter from the classroom and drag her across town in search of her drugs supplier?
Actually? Yes. I found that quite believable. Not all of us are well-behaved. Were my son in trouble and I knew a kid who could help out, woe betide the idiot who tried to stop me from co-opting him into the effort.
One of the things not mentioned about the Douglas story line is that they are pretty realistic about their daughter. They don't go overboard in blaming other people--and both are willing to at least hint at the possibility that she gets it from them.
15356. wonkers2 - 1/29/2001 10:23:06 PM
I thought the daughter and the Benicio del Toro character did the best acting jobs in the movie.
15357. AceofSpades - 1/30/2001 3:42:46 AM
"I laughed out loud last week as as I watched the unveiling of a sop to the conservatives, a lithe blonde who interviews for a position with The White House, witnesses the essential goodness of those saintly souls, and thereafter, upbraids her snobby, bad conservative friends who have the audacity to call the folks in the White House worthless (and she took the job, thereby verifying her worth). "
hee hee hee. I thought I was the only one who noticed.
The Message: Conservatives are merely liberals who haven't had a Religious Conversion via spneding five minutes with a saintly liberal.
15358. CalGal - 1/30/2001 3:47:26 AM
Well, it was a rerun. And I do believe we all sniggered about that the first time it ran.
She was supposed to be a regular but only showed up twice. Actually, I liked her 2nd amendment spiel quite a bit. The voucher one was weaker.
15359. AceofSpades - 1/30/2001 3:51:52 AM
"I would have preferred that she offer to have cocaine implanted in her breasts for ferry across the border, but apparently, inexplicably, out-of-nowhere baby doll heads constructed out of cocaine won the favor of Gaghan."
They weren't "out of nowhere," FU, and I'm surprised you of all people didn't notice.
Where did they come from? Why, directly from the James Bond Drug War movie "License to Kill." There, cocaine was chemically mixed with gasoline; here, it's chemically polymerized into soft rubber. Same trick.
It is, I admit, sort of hard to take a "serious movie" very seriously at all if it cribs spy-tech plot devices from James Bond films of the Timothy Dalton era.
I suppose my own expectations -- I desperately wanted to *NOT* see it -- may have played a role in my general satisfaction with the film. I agree it's flawed, and I didn't like much of it, but I was expecting a heavy handed liberal polemical, and, while it had brief moments of that bullshit, there was enough cops-n-robbers stuff to keep me happy.
It's much like the pro-gang-bang film "The Contender." They tried to make Gary Oldman odious, but I just kept rooting for him and cheering for him. Here, they tried to show me that the drug war was "futile," but I just ignored that as Eric Communist type ravings, and rooted for the cops to bust the dope dealers.
Hey, in the end, the cops pretty much win, even though both cops' partners are killed by the Bad Guys. Pretty much standard action movie fare, it seems to me.
15360. CalGal - 1/30/2001 4:26:58 AM
That was a spoiler, you know. Here's more, folks, so blitz on by.
Actually, I think the cops "win", but not by fighting the War on Drugs. Del Toro turns in his own and Cheadle is far more likely to nail them on murder than on dealing.
Also, how unbelievable were those dolls, really? Cocaine is certainly water soluble, isn't it? I wasn't wowed by it--it seemed entirely probable to me.
15361. Cellar Door - 1/30/2001 10:12:54 AM
"but I was expecting a heavy handed liberal polemic"
Ace gets to have so little fun at the movies. Them libruulls is everywhere!
"They tried to make Gary Oldman odious, but I just kept rooting for him and cheering for him."
Yep. Can't imagine why Uma Thurman left him and Isabella Rossellini decided not to marry him.
15362. iiibbb - 1/30/2001 11:40:11 AM
Stupid Kids... Stupid Show
What do you do about something like this? The inane stupidity of these kids boggles my mind. The appeal of that show is basically lost on me.
I mean, I guess I did some dome sh*t when I was a kid... but cripes... I new better than to set myself on fire.
15363. Fraaankster - 1/30/2001 12:23:56 PM
iiibbb,
I found it hard to believe when I first saw it on the news yesterday, also.
Are kids so different today today that they wouldn't find, say, Gilligan's Island appealing on some level instead of crap like this ? I guess I just don't get it with today's kids. Let's not excuse the parents in this incident. Where were they while their son was being shish kebobed ?
15364. Raskolnikov - 1/30/2001 3:34:49 PM
Kids have always been dumb shits, but I suspect TV allows more inspiration toward dumb shit creativity.
Dumb shit things I did as a kid: drank lighter fluid (age 2), got stuck in the laundry chute at a friend's house (age 9), regularly ignited aerosol propellant indoors (age 10-13), did an inward flip on a low dive (age 18), called three starting members of the University of Minnesota hockey team "fucking pussies" (age 19). I like to think I wouldn't have lit myself on fire if the idea had occurred to me and friends had dared me, but given the above, I am not so sure.
15365. Fraaankster - 1/30/2001 3:56:57 PM
Rask,
Ha-ha-ha! By the way, should I leave it to my imagination as to what might have followed that hockey team remark ?
... Hmmmmm...A whole new thread in itself.
I did lots of stupid things as a kid, but light myself on fire ? No... No.
I must have been all of eight years old when I and my best friend at the time, a kid next door named Alfonso, decided to make believe we were camping on a vacant lot across the alley from our apartments.
Naturally, one can't pretend they're out camping without the piece de resistance, or the focal point of a campsite -- the campfire.
We spread out some newspapers over dry, very dry, California sagebrush and you can guess the rest -- within seconds the two acre lot lit up like only the driest(sp?) of Christmas trees ever could. Luckily no structures were ever threatened.
... The only thing I remember from that afternoon was the fire chief coaxing me out from under my parent's bed with my "friend" alongside him repeating, "He did it. He did it."
I got a whuppin' that evening needless to say.
There was one bright spot to this. The fire cleared the lot to a point where we could now find our kickballs and softballs a hell of a lot easier. :-)
15366. Raskolnikov - 1/30/2001 4:04:36 PM
"Ha-ha-ha! By the way, should I leave it to my imagination as to what
might have followed that hockey team remark ? "
A lot of running.
15367. Fraaankster - 1/30/2001 4:23:08 PM
LOL! I thought for sure you were the recepient of a couple of lovely black eyes.
By the way, as much as I would love to be verbally abused, beatened and whipped by Cal, I think we're straying a bit from the topic at hand. ;-)
15368. iiibbb - 1/30/2001 4:23:12 PM
This begs the question:
Should MTV (or any network) be held in any way finacially accountable for the actions of children who may be influenced by these programs? Certainly the artical looks like someone is going to sue someone.
I personally believe that MTV should not be held financially responsible.
15369. Fraaankster - 1/30/2001 4:29:17 PM
iiibbb,
I don't care for a lot of the crap kids are exposed to today, but sue MTV over this ? No. If that's the case, why not just sue the match maker or the oil company that provided the gasoline ?
It was apparently a kid with a lot of time on his hands, and parents without the faintest of clues as to what their kids are into.
15370. JudithAtHome - 1/30/2001 8:44:52 PM
Deev, have you and Adrianne been holding out on us?
Sweeps Week
ABC TV to Wake Up Airwaves with Live Childbirth
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The ABC network is adding a new dimension to ``reality'' television with plans for an unprecedented live broadcast of childbirth on ``Good Morning America'' next week, the network announced on Tuesday.
The morning talk show hosted by Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer has arranged with obstetricians at three hospitals -- in Boston, Dallas and Houston -- to televise any of several births expected on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
Any bets on who goes first?
15371. Fraaankster - 1/30/2001 9:52:42 PM
Judith -- (sigh) Oh Geez, anything goes for sweeps.
...What next, the bowel movements of the new Survivor cast ?
15372. Cellar Door - 1/30/2001 10:00:21 PM
Should MTV be held responsible for Eminem-inspired gay-bashings iiibbb?
(I'll bet we all know the answer to thi one, don't we folks?)
15373. rubberducky - 1/31/2001 9:41:32 AM
Ally McPublic gets another year for those of you who watch the show.
15374. Adrianne - 1/31/2001 9:51:55 AM
Fraaaank
Not for nothing, but if you are ever involved with a woman who gives birth, you might reconsider comparing the birth experience to having a bowel movement.
I'm just saying.
15375. JudithAtHome - 1/31/2001 11:50:42 AM
Ad:
I think Frank was commenting more on the fact the networks will trivialize anything for ratings...I'm sure he wasn't implying what you suggest. Frank is not a man to make light of something so serious and profound.
15376. theDiva - 1/31/2001 12:21:48 PM
True, about Frankie.
And as far as giving birth on live TV is concerned...well, geez. I. Think. NOT.
15377. Adrianne - 1/31/2001 12:34:55 PM
Well, um, me neither. But I don't think it's comparable to pooping, either.
Except...heh heh....
well, I won't go into it.
But Diva knows of what I speak.
15378. Adrianne - 1/31/2001 12:36:27 PM
And Judith, pooping is pretty trivial, actually. I don't think televising a bowel movement would trivialize it. Maybe you mean "exploit"?
15379. Jenerator - 1/31/2001 12:43:02 PM
The show "JackAss" on Mtv is the most vile, disgusting, and worthless show I have ever seen. I watched *one* episode to see what the fuss was about and it was definitely worse than I pictured. They had the pranks, the stupid stunts, the guys doing silly things, but the worst part of it was a tie. Either it was when they should one of the men actually getting an enema (complete with "fecal material" passing down the hose in plain view) or the drinking contest which showed two contests continually vomitting on the floor and each other.
I'm not talking about camera shots from a far, I'm talking about close-ups showing chunks and everything.
Mtv will be banned from house, I hate it.
15380. theDiva - 1/31/2001 12:43:18 PM
Ad
'push, honey. PUSH!'
15381. Adrianne - 1/31/2001 12:48:05 PM
(snerk)
Jen, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I am SO. GLAD.
15382. DocBrown - 1/31/2001 12:48:30 PM
Again I am saddened to see that when the thread swings toward television the posts here become negative. This thread has an amazing pro-movie anti-television bias. Of course there is crap on American television! Is anyone really surprised by this? Why waste bandwidth discussing the lousy stuff?
Yet the thread tries to mention the finest motion pictures at least once.
I'll take two hours of Junkyard Wars over Traffic any time. The worst Junkyard Wars are more entertaining, more informative, and all around higher quality than all Michael Douglas' pictures put together.
15383. CalGal - 1/31/2001 12:51:55 PM
Doc,
I love TV. I am not down on it at all. I even tried to watch Junkyard Wars, but every time it says that it's on, something else pre-empts it.
15384. DocBrown - 1/31/2001 12:54:29 PM
Last week, History's Lost and Found did a reasonable job telling the mostly unknown story of Garret Morgan, the African American hero and inventor from Cleveland.
History Channel recently started its series of History vs Hollywood shows. Considering hom many among us got most of our history knowledge from the big and small screens, this seems like a noble undertaking.
15385. DocBrown - 1/31/2001 12:56:25 PM
Cal Gal, Junkyard Wars is now on Mondays at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET/PT and Sundays at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Does that help? It's not opposite West Wing or Drew Carey anymore.
15386. Jenerator - 1/31/2001 1:01:51 PM
Doc,
There's plenty of good television on. I just think that it is amazing that Mtv (and our culture) have sunk so low as to feature shows with graphic vomitting and pooping.
15387. DocBrown - 1/31/2001 1:05:48 PM
Thanks, Jenerator. May I point out that recent movies have given us Adam Sandler encouraging a child to urinate in public and termites crawling through Jim carrey's teeth?
This country's television is not culturally inferior to its motion pictures.
15388. Dr.XavierTColtrane - 1/31/2001 1:06:01 PM
The first time I participated in a delivery I realized why so many mothers refer to their children as "little shits."
15389. DocBrown - 1/31/2001 1:08:58 PM
One of the best TV shows to come out of