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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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 Posted - 08/02/2007 : 02:05:03
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I've never been bothered by movie violence at all. I don't see it as real, as it isn't. All I see is good makeup/FX and know that on the set nobody was suffering, and when the take is over the director says "Cut!" and the tortured corpse gets up and says "How was that?" 
Real violence is of course a different thing altogether, that's quite sickening.  |
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Shiv 
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 04:55:22
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
Do you include Black Hawk Down, Born on the Fourth of July and The Thin Red Line on your worst list for similar reasons? Actually, those films aren't very brutal at all; Saving Private Ryan would work better, but do you?
I thought I might get asked this. I have been dancing around the religious bit, and will continue to dance around it as best I can because I do not want to offend anyone's beliefs.
Those films (and others like them) have scenes that make me feel sick because I cannot, like Sean, dissociate from the reality that inspired them. Born on the Fourth has not much gore at all, but it still disturbed me because the Vietnam War disturbs me. Pointless death, on all sides.
These other films have additional elements - politics, human nature, bravery, cowardice, love, humour and so on - that go to make stories which capture both good and bad in the world. A broader picture of humanity and the world it has created. I agree that Saving Private Ryan is a better example of intense bloodbathing. However, what I am talking about is not the amount of screen time the gore gets, but what that gore is saying to the audience. In Black Hawk Down, two of the soldiers have their hands in a fellow soldier's body cavity, trying to keep him alive. This is factual. Think about it. I did and it made me feel sick. Nevertheless, I respond to this film in other ways too. The Somalian point of view is decimated - the book paints a much broader picture.
I am also a great digester of serial killer stories - both in print and on film. For me it is about trying to understand the human mind - nothing to do with the actual violence perpetrated. The Hillside Strangler film with C Thomas Howell was nothing but voyeuristic, and I didn't even watch it until the end. It focussed only on the crimes (and not even in a gorish way), and not at all on motivation or cause. The 1989 TV movie 'The Case of the Hillside Stranglers' was far superior.
So why do I respond to The Passion differently? Because is created by someone who believes something about Jesus that I don't. Gibson's goal was to remind people of what Jesus 'did for mankind' and the sufferings he went through. The film is very limited in the story it is telling. If you believe the same, I assume it is possible to watch this film and for it to confirm your beliefs. If you don't believe the same, it appears that you can watch this as fiction and nothing more. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that.
What sickened me was the intense and relentless cruelty to one human being carried throughout the film. I found the violence gratuitious, and not in the least did I feel redeemed as a human being because the person portrayed is supposed to have suffered this on my behalf. I felt like a voyeur - such as the scene where Jesus' mother and Mary M mop up his blood - this did indeed make me wonder what goes on in Gibson's head.
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Edited by - Shiv on 08/03/2007 00:38:52 |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 19:24:26
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 quote:
Originally posted by Rovark
quote:
Originally posted by ragingfluff
Fat, Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life, son
As I read this, I've just finished off a bottle of Pinot Grigio with my dinner, I'm mildly overweight and am, lets face it, not exactly gifted.
Damn you sir, it's a perfectly good way of going through life 
On the floor laughing so hard I can't remember the acronym. [Let's put a  smiley here so people will know I'm joking.] HEAR HEAR, sir! Me too!
THE GODFATHER absolutely does romanticize mob life, because that's all you get to see! In only one teensy spot does the picture let you glimpse the rest of the world: the opening monologue and resulting scene. For the rest of the picture, you're as swallowed up in the Corleone family as Count Dracula might do with his billowing cape were you a lissome blonde Brit actress in the early 60s. [Stupid simile alert--damn, too late!] Now you are actually judging relative morals based on the heinousness of different criminal families! In other words, because Don Corleone shuns drugs, he's some kind of relative hero? He's got gambling, prostitution, probably liquor too, blah blah, but he leads the "good" family because it's the only one we've hung out with! This is exactly the familiarity which conspires to trap "celebrity journalists," like those from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY or VANITY FAIR, who tend to sympathize with their subjects because that's the perspective they see.
Koff koff. Kubrick and BARRY LYNDON. Like every other Kubrick aficionado, I found this flick minor when I first saw it upon original release. [Remember, as most of you can't, that it was the follow-up to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, where Kubrick was rolling when I was a young turk in film school.] But also like every other post-KILLING Kubrick film, including EYES WIDE SHUT, it superhumanly rewards repeated viewings. I don't care about the style any more: after more than ten times through, I return to it every couple of years or so just to take me through the [Thackeray, not Seventies] period. I invoke Duke Ellington yet again for people who can't dig this one. |
Edited by - randall on 08/02/2007 19:27:21 |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 19:31:42
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
I've never been bothered by movie violence at all. I don't see it as real, as it isn't. All I see is good makeup/FX and know that on the set nobody was suffering, and when the take is over the director says "Cut!" and the tortured corpse gets up and says "How was that?"
Real violence is of course a different thing altogether, that's quite sickening.
I am a living, breathing example of the movies' power to desensitize people against ever-more-graphic depictions of carnage. Beginning with WILD BUNCH, etc., I've been able to cringe and watch more and more disgusting stuff every single year. But I still can't bear these "torture-porn" movies, and even though benj [whose horror flick opinion I value highly] says go-ahead, I just can't click the button to rent SAW. Yet I thought THE DESCENT was one of the best heart-pounders I'd ever seen. Go figure! |
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ragingfluff
"Currently lost in Canada"
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 19:38:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
THE GODFATHER absolutely does romanticize mob life, because that's all you get to see! In only one teensy spot does the picture let you glimpse the rest of the world: the opening monologue and resulting scene. For the rest of the picture, you're as swallowed up in the Corleone family as Count Dracula might do with his billowing cape were you a lissome blonde Brit actress in the early 60s. [Stupid simile alert--damn, too late!] Now you are actually judging relative morals based on the heinousness of different criminal families! In other words, because Don Corleone shuns drugs, he's some kind of relative hero? He's got gambling, prostitution, probably liquor too, blah blah, but he leads the "good" family because it's the only one we've hung out with! This is exactly the familiarity which conspires to trap "celebrity journalists," like those from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY or VANITY FAIR, who tend to sympathize with their subjects because that's the perspective they see.
Thank you, I think...I got shat upon from such a great height about my comments on The Godfather, I had decided to let it go...I didn't think anyone would feel even remotely the same as i do with regards to the film's perspective...
By the by, I found the Dracula simile quite sublime...
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 19:54:19
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quote:
Originally posted by ragingfluff
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
THE GODFATHER absolutely does romanticize mob life, because that's all you get to see! In only one teensy spot does the picture let you glimpse the rest of the world: the opening monologue and resulting scene. For the rest of the picture, you're as swallowed up in the Corleone family as Count Dracula might do with his billowing cape were you a lissome blonde Brit actress in the early 60s. [Stupid simile alert--damn, too late!] Now you are actually judging relative morals based on the heinousness of different criminal families! In other words, because Don Corleone shuns drugs, he's some kind of relative hero? He's got gambling, prostitution, probably liquor too, blah blah, but he leads the "good" family because it's the only one we've hung out with! This is exactly the familiarity which conspires to trap "celebrity journalists," like those from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY or VANITY FAIR, who tend to sympathize with their subjects because that's the perspective they see.
Thank you, I think...I got shat upon from such a great height about my comments on The Godfather, I had decided to let it go...I didn't think anyone would feel even remotely the same as i do with regards to the film's perspective...
By the by, I found the Dracula simile quite sublime...
Wait a minute, though: it's one of my favorite pictures ever, in the all-time top five. I'm simply aware of what I'm watching. |
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ragingfluff
"Currently lost in Canada"
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Posted - 08/02/2007 : 20:03:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
quote:
Originally posted by ragingfluff
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
THE GODFATHER absolutely does romanticize mob life, because that's all you get to see! In only one teensy spot does the picture let you glimpse the rest of the world: the opening monologue and resulting scene. For the rest of the picture, you're as swallowed up in the Corleone family as Count Dracula might do with his billowing cape were you a lissome blonde Brit actress in the early 60s. [Stupid simile alert--damn, too late!] Now you are actually judging relative morals based on the heinousness of different criminal families! In other words, because Don Corleone shuns drugs, he's some kind of relative hero? He's got gambling, prostitution, probably liquor too, blah blah, but he leads the "good" family because it's the only one we've hung out with! This is exactly the familiarity which conspires to trap "celebrity journalists," like those from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY or VANITY FAIR, who tend to sympathize with their subjects because that's the perspective they see.
Thank you, I think...I got shat upon from such a great height about my comments on The Godfather, I had decided to let it go...I didn't think anyone would feel even remotely the same as i do with regards to the film's perspective...
By the by, I found the Dracula simile quite sublime...
Wait a minute, though: it's one of my favorite pictures ever, in the all-time top five. I'm simply aware of what I'm watching.
Oh, Bugger 
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 01/06/2008 : 01:14:09
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Great news!
I've finally found another film I hate as much as "What Dreams May Come" - and that's saying something!
It's "Contact".
Both films mix some kind of religious pseudo-philosophy with saccharine sentimentality, so I guess this must be my recipe for a real stinker of a movie.
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 01/06/2008 : 01:21:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Great news!
I've finally found another film I hate as much as "What Dreams May Come" - and that's saying something!
It's "Contact".
Both films mix some kind of religious pseudo-philosophy with saccharine sentimentality, so I guess this must be my recipe for a real stinker of a movie.
PLUS ... it's got Matthew McConaughey. Between him and the saccharine, excuse me, I may throw up.
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Tori 
"I don't get it...."
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Posted - 01/06/2008 : 01:42:10
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| I also did not like "What Dreams May Come" |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 01/06/2008 : 11:22:11
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You gals have great taste! 
Both films are also mawkish and humourless, and feature a desire by the living to be reunited with the dead. Add these to the pot and stir!
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WORST FILMS EVER
