Mitchell, 1975… Joe Don Baker… Andy V. McLaglen… 'nuff said. So many wasted opportunities to capture the Burt Reynolds/drive-in crowd, it’s unreal. He has sex with Linda Evans, then busts her for pot-possession… she returns to him at the end, they start to have sex, he smells pot on her, and busts her again. I guess that’s supposed to be funny. The film should’ve been scriptless and directorless… My Dinner With Martin Balsam.
Then again, Lincoln has been accuseed of “statist propaganda” (which it isn’t) and many charges have been levelled against Zero Dark Thirty which you reject. I take it all with a large pinch of salt.
Well, that the Iranian government can’t be happy with the events Argo tells from the American perspective can’t be a surprise to anyone.
With Zero Dark thirty it surely is more complicated. Many seem to project on it what they expect it to be, and have therefore problems to look at it from an unbiased point of view.
well, i wouldn’t say worst, but superboredom is guaranteed
anyway, i forced myself to finally watch a movie
yes, Deer Hunter - it was good, but if i should pick up my favorite Cimino, it would be Heaven’s Gate without hesitation, second fav Year of Dragon, and this one would be on the third place
[quote=“Col. Douglas Mortimer, post:8958, topic:1923”]Finally got around to watching 300. Great film. Very well made. The only problem I have of it is that it seemingly espouses white supremacy or at least Greek supremacy. I can’t help but wonder, the film is bordering on racial propaganda.
White guys are good, non whites are bad, and Spartans are the greatest fighting force ever known and vastly superior to anything that the east or “Asia” as the film calls it, has to offer. Its also weird at how the Persions were played by black actors. While I highly question the film’s attempt to aggrandize the spartan warrior, but I enjoyed the film nonetheless, but I can’t help but think that this film is probably quite offensive to real Iranians.[/quote]
I remember when i first watch 300 (in the cinema), quite an indifferent film for me. in any case I don’t think the director was in some white supremacy propraganda mode, and there isn’t that much manicheasism in the film. Back then The Persian empire at its zenith was one the bigest in the known world (it didn’t last long thought), with 20 provincies in different places so it was indeed normal that the army was a very heterogeneous one in terms of people, actually many of the ranks were Greek mercenary soldiers, so many of the wars beteween persinas and greeks were almost civil ones. And the Immortals weren’t any specific special group of soldiers, Immortals was as the all Persian army was known, because, they were so many, that those who died were immediately replaced
Ancient greeks were the inventors of democracy but society only worked the ones considered Greeks, and in Sparta things weren’t different from Athens in that matter or from any other Greek state city. Also the spartans even if born to fight, lost and won battles. So the thing is you really can’t change history, yes they were all greek and white.
Is like a movie about Genghis khan, they all came from Mongolia, and they didn’t conquer all of Europe just by chance (they didn’t lost a battle, and only went back cause of a civil war that had started back home), but none of the films I’ve seen about Genghis Khan is about Mongolian supremacy, but about that particular part of history.
If the iranians are not happy welcome to club, in most of Anglo Saxonic films Portuguese guys only appeared in the form of some morbid priests that worked for the Inquisition we all worked for the inquisition after burning all the other who don’t, that or a bunch of fat drunken guys, but hey I always had fun with that, I do like to have a few drinks.
Watched a part of 300 and turned it off after several minutes. I loved the muscles on Spartans’ stomachs - on every guy identical - CGI I guess? 
Not exactly my cup of tea, but I may watched it some day.
I thought the first twenty (or so) minutes of 300 were great, then it all fell to pieces.
Among other things we get this trick with speeding-up, slowing-down and speeding-up the action over-and-over-again. Yuk.
The TV-series Spartacus has this same trick on offer almost permanently. I can only watch ten minutes or so.
The thing is that Persians are not black, so why make them black if it’s not to make a certain point? I don’t think it means that black people are evil, but black is a color that in our culture has negative connotations, and knowing the original material is based on a Frank Miller book who’s extremely anti-islam and anything arabic seems the same to him, I think that’s why the Persians are shown as black. I don’t think it’s about race (black vs. white) but about cultural and religious bigotry (christian against islamic)
I think this Cochino fella’s going to be trouble ???
Hi Idiot :D. Nice to meet you in a non penis-joke context.
Among other things we get this trick with speeding-up, slowing-down and speeding-up the action over-and-over-again. Yuk.The TV-series Spartacus has this same trick on offer almost permanently. I can only watch ten minutes or so.
This is the most annoying aspect for me in the film.
I kinda liked the exploitation style of Spartacus but those fighting scenes made it unwatchable.
TRUE CONFESSIONS - From imdb: A worldly ambitious monsignor clashes with his older brother, a cynical L.A.homicide detective investigates the brutal murder of a young prostitute.
Wasn’t intrigued much by the story and found it a bit on the boring side as a whole. I thought Duvall was kind of miscast as well. Not bound to watch it again any time soon.
The speeding-up, slowing-down and speeding-up the action looked pretty cool in 300. Still overall the action was a bit bland, as was the whole film.
It is NOT speeded up ;D
Give it some time!
The thing is that Persians are not black, so why make them black if it’s not to make a certain point? I don’t think it means that black people are evil, but black is a color that in our culture has negative connotations, and knowing the original material is based on a Frank Miller book who’s extremely anti-islam and anything arabic seems the same to him, I think that’s why the Persians are shown as black. I don’t think it’s about race (black vs. white) but about cultural and religious bigotry (christian against islamic)
I think there is a political subtext, yes, and I guess it’s anti-islamic. At the same time it is a sub-text, and no more than that. Persians aren’t black (and not Arabic for that matter), but we have this long history of East-meets-West-in-a-not-so-friendly-way, so it’s understandable that people write stories about it, and use our symbolism of black-is-bad. By making them black, and therefore by definition symbols, the whole thing seems less offensive - at least to me.
[quote=“autephex, post:721, topic:1923”]Takashi Miike’s Audition
Had been sitting on my shelf for at least a year now. After much time building this film up in my mind, expecting it to be very graphic, I found it to be nowhere near my expectations in this regards. I knew the first part of the film was going to be more of a drama, but I expected much more from the ending. That said, it wasn’t really a let down, just less than expected in the gross out department. Its funny how building up a perception of a film before watching can completely change the experience.
All of this aside, I thought it was an excellent film. The dream like sequences were extremely effective… It reminded me of David Lynch, but more to the point. Many different layers and ways to look at things in this film[/quote]
I pretty-much gotta agree, having just watched it. Ishibashi said he preferred an older applicant, but there wasn’t an explanation of why he chose a younger one. That seemed important to me. ( I know why, literally… lol, cuz director Miike wanted a hot Eihi Shiina as a guaranteed audience draw ) There’s 1-or-2 minor plot gaps, but the ‘art house’ horror still pays-off. I expected some stalking, but that might’ve pushed the film’s length beyond the watchability point. Overall, it’s definitely worth checking-out.
Yesterday I watched Don Siegel’s The Big Steal (1949) a film noir that is a true pleasure to see and not entirely serious. It benfits from being shot on location in Mexico (a rarity) and from the laconic performance from Robert Mitchum and Janet Greer who is, refreshingll, neither a damsel in distress or a devious, manipulative femme fatale but a woman who will actually do something (another rarity in Hollywood). A deserved classic where its seventy two minutes fly by like a hail of bullets. Next up is Dreams that Money Can Buy (1947) which certainly looks… interesting if not entertaining.
@ i…i…idiot
who wrote about 300: “It is NOT speeded up”
Probably. I don’t remember and only quoted from someone else. But what we all meant is the in scenes changing speed of action.
I think I…I…idiot is right if you take ‘speed up’ literally, but there’s a pitfall.
If i’m not mistaken, they slow the action down, then speed it up again to normal speed. It’s what they do in Spartacus too.
Yes, that’s it.
i…i…idiot was responsing in fact to the speeding-up in Bullitt, which we discussed a few centuries earlier.