[Tech]

I watched Murderball on tv and thought it was a little


March of the Penguins on the other hand was good.

[Rocky]

Originally Posted by Lineski367

Penguins killed my mum.

[Rocky]

Watched Constant Gardner yesterday. Great film. Wife thought it was depressing, which it is, but at least there's a payoff at the end and you had to work at it at points.

[Lineski]

Glad to hear you liked it, Rocky...looks like you have good taste despite your inexplicable hatred of penguins



I found Raging Bull for $12 today so I had to snatch that up

[Rocky]

Did you not read what penguins did to my family. Hardly inexplicable.
Raging Bull - top film. Bargain price! That's what I managed to pick up Constant Gardner for! :)

[De_battre]

Originally Posted by Rocky

Did you not read what penguins did to my family. Hardly inexplicable.
Raging Bull - top film. Bargain price! That's what I managed to pick up Constant Gardner for! :)

Any one read Top Ten lists? Raging Bull was in the Top Ten best films amongst directors polled in 2002. The link:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/...directors.html

There is also a critics' Top Ten.

[thedon]

my girlfriend wants to watch the constant gardener so if its got the thimbs up from rocky i'll watch it

[skywalker]

munich is awesome, spielberg still has game

one of the most powerful closing shots ever

[Lineski]

Originally Posted by skywalker

munich is awesome, spielberg still has game

one of the most powerful closing shots ever

Sorry Sky but I thought it was one of the worst closing shots ever


It's a movie that after seeing it at first I felt that the average critical eye would award the movie *** out of **** but the more I thought about the "mistakes" that were made in it the more I disliked it.

First, the whole interpretation of the events of Munich itself were poorly done. The cinematography was weak at best and I'm not sure why we're constantly shown the events through the mindset of a character who was not there. The worst example of this being when Bana's character was making love to his wife towards the end and was having flashbacks of Munich spliced in between their lovemaking. Overlapping scenes like this work in some movies (for example Boogie Nights) but here it just came off as melodramatic and contrived. The scene was far from powerful because it tried to be too powerful. Brokeback had a much better "disturbing" love making scene in it with Heath Ledgar and Michelle Williams after he got back from Brokeback...yet I digress...

There were other mistakes that are just unacceptable like a man getting shot and falling on his stomach but then is found to be on his back; things like this just come off as sloppy. Then you have Spielberg trying to sum the entire Israeli and Palestinian conflict by having a calm, rational conversation between the opposing sides on a stairwell while Marvin Gaye's "Let's Stay Together" plays in the background. Scenes like this trivialize important political issues and it makes the entire situation between the two groups seem silly and elementary to fix; it hardly offers a sum-up of the two viewpoints because in reality there are so many more viewpoints than just those two.

More problems arise when you realize the film is littered with quick one-liners for comic relief purposes. Sorry, but in a "serious" film about an on-going territorial struggle you don't put in cheap jokes to make the teenage kids giggle or the seventy-year old woman awake. Then there's a subplot about a female assassin that succeeds in nothing other than wasting more of our time in a movie that already doesn't have enough content its screenplay to hold our attention as is.

Finally, the last shot tried to tie the events of Munich to 9/11 which is far from an apt comparison. I won't "spoil" the last shot but I felt as if I was being maipulated into "feeling" something from a film that cared little for the average suburban white American viewer. Trying to tie 9/11 themes into a movie simply in order for it to be accepted is cheap; it's as if the film is trying to say, "You have to feel sorry for the characters and like this movie because these issues affect you to!" Sorry, Spielberg, they don't.

[Rocky]

Well I got Munich the other day and will be watching it soon so whatever my verdict is on it - is fact! :)

Watched A History of Violence last night - great film. I know some people felt it to be not typical Cronenberg but I thought it was in many respects. The slightly quirky characters, slow burning scenes, and of course still had his trademark body-horror within the killings. Thought the performances were excellent and the way it was played was very realistic given the source material. Definately worth watching.

[skywalker]

Originally Posted by Lineski367

Sorry Sky but I thought it was one of the worst closing shots ever


It's a movie that after seeing it at first I felt that the average critical eye would award the movie *** out of **** but the more I thought about the "mistakes" that were made in it the more I disliked it.

First, the whole interpretation of the events of Munich itself were poorly done. The cinematography was weak at best and I'm not sure why we're constantly shown the events through the mindset of a character who was not there. The worst example of this being when Bana's character was making love to his wife towards the end and was having flashbacks of Munich spliced in between their lovemaking. Overlapping scenes like this work in some movies (for example Boogie Nights) but here it just came off as melodramatic and contrived. The scene was far from powerful because it tried to be too powerful. Brokeback had a much better "disturbing" love making scene in it with Heath Ledgar and Michelle Williams after he got back from Brokeback...yet I digress...

There were other mistakes that are just unacceptable like a man getting shot and falling on his stomach but then is found to be on his back; things like this just come off as sloppy. Then you have Spielberg trying to sum the entire Israeli and Palestinian conflict by having a calm, rational conversation between the opposing sides on a stairwell while Marvin Gaye's "Let's Stay Together" plays in the background. Scenes like this trivialize important political issues and it makes the entire situation between the two groups seem silly and elementary to fix; it hardly offers a sum-up of the two viewpoints because in reality there are so many more viewpoints than just those two.

More problems arise when you realize the film is littered with quick one-liners for comic relief purposes. Sorry, but in a "serious" film about an on-going territorial struggle you don't put in cheap jokes to make the teenage kids giggle or the seventy-year old woman awake. Then there's a subplot about a female assassin that succeeds in nothing other than wasting more of our time in a movie that already doesn't have enough content its screenplay to hold our attention as is.

Finally, the last shot tried to tie the events of Munich to 9/11 which is far from an apt comparison. I won't "spoil" the last shot but I felt as if I was being maipulated into "feeling" something from a film that cared little for the average suburban white American viewer. Trying to tie 9/11 themes into a movie simply in order for it to be accepted is cheap; it's as if the film is trying to say, "You have to feel sorry for the characters and like this movie because these issues affect you to!" Sorry, Spielberg, they don't.

great analysis man, but i stand by my original statement

to me the film felt like that Rage song "killing in the name", from a grunt's perspective, no pretentions, it showed the dangers of conviction and the importance of tolerance

bana wiping out all those individuals for a cause he ain't even conscious about, fueled by anger and blind hate. at the end, after all the bloodshed, he is disillusioned about his mission and his beliefs, reduced to a life of fear and guilt, finally grasping empathy for his rivals

the closing shot is courageous and ties in to issues closer to home, these terrorists that attacked the USA, as f8cked in the head as they might of been, were convinced of their motives, as was Bana's charcter, difference is they died for them where as bana's character said enough is enough...also the usa's response to the attacks parallels bana's mission, vengeance

moral of the story = revenge is a viscious cycle, not good

by the way anyone check out United 93? must check that out soon, heard it's insane

[Lineski]

Originally Posted by skywalker

great analysis man, but i stand by my original statement

to me the film felt like that Rage song "killing in the name", from a grunt's perspective, no pretentions, it showed the dangers of conviction and the importance of tolerance

bana wiping out all those individuals for a cause he ain't even conscious about, fueled by anger and blind hate. at the end, after all the bloodshed, he is disillusioned about his mission and his beliefs, reduced to a life of fear and guilt, finally grasping empathy for his rivals

the closing shot is courageous and ties in to issues closer to home, these terrorists that attacked the USA, as f8cked in the head as they might of been, were convinced of their motives, as was Bana's charcter, difference is they died for them where as bana's character said enough is enough...also the usa's response to the attacks parallels bana's mission, vengeance

moral of the story = revenge is a viscious cycle, not good

by the way anyone check out United 93? must check that out soon, heard it's insane

You definately make good points, I just think a lot of the message was lost in the errors I pointed out like the cheapened the issue. To each his own.

I haven't seen United 93 yet but would like to solely because it was well reviewed. I really don't know much about it but I hear it was given the blessing by the victims' family members so that's something I guess. Preliminary reports also say that the families of the characters in Oliver Stone's upcoming World Trade Center aren't quite as happy about it. We'll see what happens but I really don't like movies about issues you can't criticize because you're labeled as "unpatriotic" or "overly-critical" if the film doesn't "do it" for you.

In other news, I'm seeing MI: 3 tomorrow because of Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman staring in it. I'm really just looking for mi