Films Recently Watched

[lumpenprol]

that's a very forgiving score for killing them softly. i thought they laid the political commentary on so thick that the movie collapsed. because, you know, they play cspan and msnbc at bars that mob guys frequent in working class neighborhoods.

you're probably right, I just enjoyed the languid pace and pretty shots (and some fine acting). Agree with your comment about Ivan's Childhood too. I always remember that one shot, with the camera zooming/tumbling down the hillside to look at his mom (maybe it's at the very beginning?) Been a while since I've seen the film but there are a few shots that are quite memorable for some odd reason. Another one with the kid in the back of a truck with a young girl and some apples? It has some great dreamlike shots. The ending was surprisingly Spielberg though, from what I remember.

[Guest A/D]

Yeah I would watch the shit out of a Cohen bros movie on Dave Van Ronk. Love that guy.

[Guest Mirezzi]

Is there a difference?

Interchangeable...

[YO303]

new coen brthers movie trailer

 

 

I love the Cohen brothers but after watching that trailer i have zero interest in watching this film.

 

And don't get me wrong i love Dave Van Ronk but the movie looks like shit and not interesting at all, they should've done an actual Dave Van Ronk biopic rather than a weird looking movie about a fictional dude thats suppose to be Dave Van Ronk but it isnt.

[awepittance]

i have no idea who the fuck Dave Van Ronk is but it seems awfully Gus Van Santy of them to do a biopic about someone who isn't actually literally that someone. I have a fundamental problem with that type of story about a famous person. I tried watching Primary Colors a couple months ago and it was just really bizarre how they didn't just make him Clinton.

[lumpenprol]

Edit: re: Eugene's post

 

I understand that perspective, but I don't buy it. I had to ask myself why I was left with such an uneasy feeling while watching the film. It wasn't due to seeing torture onscreen, or the idea that Americans torture. It was due primarily, I think, to the decision to focus on the clearly largely fictionalized figure of Maya. As I said she’s basically just an avenging angel who never questions her gut instinct…hmm, sounds a lot like George W. Conveniently (and I thought, very implausibly), the film places her at both the hotel bombing (in Pakistan?) and makes the lady who is blown up at the base one of her best buddies. This is all to provide ongoing motivation for the character (various other terrorist attacks are peppered throughout the film for the same reason, hell some of them were probably mostly unrelated and not on orders of UBL). It’s a carefully cloaked revenge fantasy. If I was asked to summarize the narrative of the movie, it would be “We’re a good people, we never asked for 9/11, we don’t want to torture and kill – damn you UBL for forcing us to come destroy your ass with our terminator-like persistence, and supersoldiers”.

In fact, that’s the very narrative we Americans want to have about ourselves. She’s done an extremely able job of making the al qaeda threat as emotionally trouble-free as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It’s a “feel good” movie. We are allowed to satisfy our desire for revenge, and our vision of ourselves as a deeply moral people. That’s why the torturer guy is shown as actually having a heart of gold (the sappy moment with his monkeys), and why Maya cries at the end. It’s all about us – our anger, our revenge, our grieving. Why did you force us to do this pretty fucking awesome revenge on you?

Sorry, but I don’t believe any war can be cast so simplistically, and any war movie that doesn’t have a deep ambivalence towards its subject is troubling. On the surface the film shows “fuck ups” as you say, but its emotional core is never ambivalent.

one interesting thing is that she deliberately included torture as an element despite cia saying that it was not crucial in getting to osama. so why is that ? to portray that it's awesome and it works ?

That's easy. Because she needed a snappy opening to her film. It's the aforementioned revenge fantasy in a different guise; we can get off on it vicariously, but then we see him playing with the monkeys so we know he's really a nice guy under it all. Thereby two of our impulses are satisfied: our desire for revenge, and our own image of ourselves as a moral people.

Edited January 25, 2013 by lumpenprol

[Guest zaphod]

that's a really great summation of everything that bothered me about zero dark thirty.

[syd syside]

ZD30 was bad. I'd give it a 5/10. Propaganda film that is boring.

[eugene]

Edit: re: Eugene's post

welp, i just dunno i just read it in a completely opposite way, especially that part with the monkeys. where you see it as film's attempt to prove his inherent niceness and humanity, i see it as hitler's vegetarianism (so to say).

 

would be interesting to see some non-americans' thoughts on this..

Edited January 25, 2013 by eugene

[awepittance]

do they ever talk about in Zero Dark Thirty how no proof has ever been offered about Bin Laden's involvement in 9/11

[lumpenprol]

we need an "opens can of worms" emoticon :-)

 

Eugene, did you really read the overall tone of the film as critical of Americans and American response to 9/11?

[Nebraska]

 

peter fonda and warren oates' roadtrip adventure is terrorized by a group of satanic worshipping hicks after they witness a little hoodoo fueled nude bimbo ritual killing in the woods complete with upside dogs. it's also got satan approved mama lara parker from dark (when will it be over) shadows

[syd syside]

 

That’s a good question, and I don’t have an easy answer. On the surface it seems as if it has no agenda; it positions itself as a dispassionate retelling of the manhunt and killing of Bin Laden. Then the question becomes, why even tell it? Wouldn’t a documentary just be easier and more honest? I guess that’s where my reservations lie, why not try to make it a documentary (sure, access would be hard, but could use the typical combo of talking heads with re-enactments).

 

The direction she chose instead, to focus on Maya, who becomes this unwavering, almost telepathic force of retribution, bugged me. She seems to personify the flaw that is the biggest flaw we Americans need to guard against – namely, always believing our gut impulses are right. I was bothered that I didn’t know if Maya was whole or partly fictional, if waterboarding and other torture did or did not help us locate Bin Laden, etc. It seems like a very well-made piece of propaganda…possibly (although not as much as say, Saving Private Ryan).

 

That’s what I mean about being “politically opposed”. I probably could have worded it better as it’s not a left or right thing. In fact when it comes down to it, I’m supportive of the decision they made to go after Bin Laden (wish they could have nabbed him alive but…). The whole situation was just so monstrous and incredibly thorny, that I don’t think any Hollywood-izing of it is appropriate. The direction Bigelow took was too keep most details cut and dried, but totally Hollywood-ize the character at the center of the story – make her a “tough chick” that is fighting the patriarchy because of her “hunch”, a vulnerable but tough-as-nails broad who fights for what’s right and triumphs in the end (but has a good cry to show she’s still human). But in reality, the situation was we were violating a sovereign nation under cover of darkness in a vigilante move to murder a guy without a trial, a guy who was linked to people we in fact trained to fight the Russians…talk about a clusterfuck. There can be no heroism or glory there. The reality was it was probably mostly analysts in a room who sifted through a bunch of data to find Bin Laden. But that doesn’t make good entertainment.

 

I guess that’s what I mean by politics. Making such a film is an inherently political act, because of the subject matter. And if I judge by effects, the only effect I can imagine the film having is giving people who like the idea of American revenge and “smoking ragheads” a big fat boner. Would have been better not to make it at all (and just make the documentary).

 

sorry for the late reply, was a bit busy, looks like we're still not far off topic here in the thread so..

 

i think the issue might be the "american perspective" which you could have in mind when you watched the film. if one considers OBL an ultimate evil that must be dealt with at all costs then this film might indeed appear quite "fuck yeah, america"-ish, "mission accomplished", pro-torture friendly and so on.

but i had no problem watching the film as bigelow intended (if you trust her), the film clearly shows things such as: torture whose efficacy is dubious, the numerous fuckups which lead to death of cia members, a bureaucratic fuckup that prevented crucial evidence from reaching the right hands that could spare torture, the reliance on gut feeling instead of hard evidence and most importantly the raid itself, which imo, was simply chilling and flawlessly directed, and all that for a guy who was pretty much disabled when it came to his ability to mess with americans (if i understood correctly).

 

one interesting thing is that she deliberately included torture as an element despite cia saying that it was not crucial in getting to osama. so why is that ? to portray that it's awesome and it works ? doesn't make sense. her argument for the inclusion was that she doesn't want to whitewash it. the (almost) facts themselves can be inherently political and i believe she's going for that but without saying it outright.

 

regarding making a docu, im sure you can think of many reasons for making a feature instead of docu, she's hardly unique in that. i also doubt the people who were celebrating on the streets when it was announced that osama got got are the target audience of that film, they wouldn't get past its first hour. although one might argue (and awepittance will) that this was aimed at the dronebama crowd..

 

but still, my argument hangs on whether there are good enough reasons to distrust bigelow and so far i haven't seen those.

 

mirezzi linked an article earlier in the thread that shares my view, you might want to take a look.

 

Fle

s

h + Blood - 10/10

 

yes.

 

 

This is an interesting perspective, but my general impression is that it affirmed the tactics used because in the end the job was successful and revenge was executed. The final shot of the film could be seen as a realization that she has lost herself through this emotionally driven pursuit, but the overall depiction of the situation is that there are constant urgent threats on the horizon and without strong confident (go with your gut) and torture.. innocent lives will be lost (per the earlier parts of the film "setup" that showcase the bombings in London etc as a fault to the Osama crew for not getting anywhere closer to finding him).

 

There wasn't a clear link with torture being inneffective, nor was there much transition in the main protagonist from being disturbed by torture to instructing it herself. We didn't see an emotional moral conflict within her and while her determination and pursuit may have been the cause of the 6 CIA people dieing, that dealt more with over-confidence with that CIA ladies 25 million proposal. It never occurred to any of the characters that the info they were receiving from torture was inaccurate.

Edited January 25, 2013 by compson

[syd syside]

Dredd - 7.5/10 Enjoyed the first half more than the second. Started to get a tad repetitive. Enjoyed the music and the 80s action aesthetics. Was refreshing even for a pretty standard story/characters. Some of the slow-mo sequences were quite good.

[eugene]

we need an "opens can of worms" emoticon :-)

 

Eugene, did you really read the overall tone of the film as critical of Americans and American response to 9/11?

i just think that it doesn't have much of a tone, it's as critical as you want to be. it does give you the facts, that is if you trust bigelow enough.

[Guest zaphod]

the other thing that bothered me about zero dark thirty, besides all the shit lump pointed out, is the fact that it portrays people in the intelligence community as having little to no interest in the cultures they're working with. some of the characters don't speak arabic and seem completely, proudly oblivious. but then when the movie needs them to upstage an arab guy, they break out fluent language skills. like, americans who would probably all have masters degrees and years and years of experience also act like red state hicks who are "just dealing" with this shitty other culture in a paternalistic way because they have to.

[Guest isaki]

I saw Life of Pi in the cinema yesterday, and I enjoyed it. Some parts were emotional but not enough to make me cry. also, the blonde douche kinda ruined it for me. 7.8/10

 

I also noticed that before the blonde douche said to Pi "that's really an amazing story", he scratched his nose and looked downwards, which is body language for negativity and disbelief. lol

Edited January 25, 2013 by isaki

[Guest Mirezzi]

The Imposter - I recommend this one for sure. As the latest of many attempts in recent years from documentary filmmakers trying to jock Errol Morris's style, this one was better than most. The story itself is jaw-droppingly weird. Toward the beginning, I had zero sympathy for the "imposter" and thought the entire project was morally repugnant. After all, there's no greater fear in the world for a parent than to have their child go missing. However, without spoilers, everything turns inside out in the story.

 

 

 

The filmmakers took a big gamble on the backyard gravedigging scene. If they had discovered Barklay's body, it would have thrust The Imposter into the ranks of the greatest documentaries ever made. Instead, they found sweet fuck all. It was a majorly deflating reveal, but I don't blame them for the parallel editing. It was incredibly suspenseful.

 

 

[Atop]

End of Watch - 9/10 - Best buddy cop film ever. The chemistry between Jake and Michael is gold. The portrayal of the cop "brotherhood" is is filled with variant dynamics which makes the film have a depth i was not expecting. Really fucking good. Really made me feel uneasy about the rabid gun culture that seems incurable here in the states. And the fucked up corrupt/insider supported drug and immigrant trade. Very effective film making.

[Guest Mirezzi]

End of Watch - 9/10 - Best buddy cop film ever. The chemistry between Jake and Michael is gold. The portrayal of the cop "brotherhood" is is filled with variant dynamics which makes the film have a depth i was not expecting. Really fucking good. Really made me feel uneasy about the rabid gun culture that seems incurable here in the states. And the fucked up corrupt/insider supported drug and immigrant trade. Very effective film making.

 

Okay, Cody, I'm gonna rent this one. If I hate it, I'm going to mail you a scathing review, COD for $5. <3

[Atop]

and expect to hate it, it will go down easier that way.

[Guest Mirezzi]

By the way, is it violent?

 

Every time I rent a heinously violent movie, I'm one step closer to divorce. I told Rae that Dredd was a fun comic book movie. Oops.

[Atop]

fuck yea it is. Not like Dredd. A lot more realistic but seriously man, watch it by yourself.

[Guest Jimmy McMessageboard]

Into the abyss

finally caught up with this herzog documentary. not an enjoyable watch but I expected that. was hoping for something deeper perhaps. A really bleak look at small town america. I already think the death sentence is wrong so what do I take away from this film?

 

I just read that there was a series too. on death row. not sure i want more of this, although i do think that focusing on one crime/2 criminals worked against the film

Edited January 25, 2013 by Jimmy McMessageboard

[Guest Mirezzi]

I felt very much the same way about Into the Abyss. I think I reviewed it here, but I can't figure out how to use the search function. :(