Terry Gilliam (actually, Stanley Kubrick) gets Schindler’s List right in this clip, IMO. What’s everyone watching today?
Reader Interactions
154Comments
Comments are closed.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.
You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.
Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.
Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.
If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.
The revolution will be supervised.
There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.
Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.
American History and Black History can not be separated.
Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.
“I was told there would be no fact checking.”
This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.
Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.
If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.
Cermet
So right on the money and true to what amerikan’s like. We require a simple world, with simples answers that always – and this is why we are the most stupid people you only address problems after they bite- the movies must always follow a good, moral ending. What shit – yes, we all like our chance to turn their brain’s off but that most all movies and those that make real money require such childess simplicity says a lot about us.
c u n d gulag
Interesting thoughts on Speilberg. I never thought of his films like that, but he’s right.
Of course, nothing ‘Python’ could ever have a nice nifty conclusion. Funny, yes! Nifty, uhm, not so much…
Bnut
“Exit through the gift shop”, Banksy’s (fake?) documentary about the rise of the street artist. Amazing work as always.
Joey Maloney
I watched the new Alice in Wonderland for my wake-n-bake this morning. Now I’ve got a bunch of MIyazaki films to get through, some of the ones that Disney has yet to release.
And some really amusing 70s porn.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
I’d never really collapsed Spielberg’s work down like that either, but it’s really apparent when you think about it. It’s interesting the way that comes together in AI–you can see the dividing line between Spielberg and Kubrick really clearly there. Kubrick would have ended it about half an hour earlier than Spielberg did, and certainly wouldn’t have brought in those visitor-style aliens, which is the reason I haven’t gone back and watched that movie since I saw it in the theater.
No plans to watch anything in particular, though if I have some time later while Amy is playing with the CS5 Production Suite her family and I got together and bought for her, I might watch some more episodes of The Prisoner (the original one, not the remake).
Uloborus
@Joey Maloney:
…wait, what? I thought they went back and got them all. I’ve been out of touch on Miyazaki news, but he can’t have had time to make more than a single movie since Ponyo. They got Laputa and Nausicaa, even if they’re not easy to find. I don’t think they did Porco Rosso, but that’s the only one that’s coming to mind.
General Stuck
I’m watching the chickens come home to roost. A few stragglers to go.
Nom de Plume
I agree with Gilliam, and it always makes me wonder why Kubrick seemed so anxious to turn “A.I.” over to Spielberg (Spielberg directing and Kubrick producing was the plan before he died). He must have had an inkling what Spielberg intended to do with it (i.e., happy ending tied up with bows), so it leads me to speculate that Kubrick had more or less given up on it. Either that, or we might have had one of the more interesting director/producer teams in history.
Erikthe Red
I might be watching 500 Days of Summer, which my daughter got for a present…or not.
I concur with the view put forth by Gilliam (and Kubrick), but I also have to say that the “comforting” aspect doesn’t necessarily make a film not worth watching. I still think Schindler’s List is very good, myself.
Shade Tail
Oddly enough, this is what draws me to the Pixar movie, The Incredibles. This next bit might sound silly, but honestly, it really happened: A lot of people jumped to the conclusion that The Incredibles is some simplistic Randian “the powerful people should be allowed to dominate the low-down schmucks” fairy tale.
The thing is, that’s precisely what it isn’t. The central message is much more nuanced than that, and the movie purposefully doesn’t answer the questions it brings up. It really does make you think by bringing the Supers down to the level of ordinary people and making analogies to larger society. What does it mean to be super? Is it something inherent within certain people, or can anyone aspire to the top? And what happens if, for some reason, someone isn’t allowed to push themselves as far as they’re able to go?
Triassic Sands
I’ve never cared for Spielberg’s work. The idea that any of his films belong high on a list of greatest films has always annoyed (even offended) me. There is always a slickness about his films that leaves me cold. He’s a man of considerable talent and mediocre taste.
Kubrick was among the all-time greats…for a while. Then, I don’t know what happened.
Paths of Glory, 2001, Doctor Strangelove, and Clockwork Orange all belong on serious film greatest lists.
Full Metal Jacket missed for me. Eyes Wide Shut was easily his worst film and almost unwatchable — certainly not worth watching to me.
Lolita would have been better if it had been made later with fewer censorship considerations (perhaps), but a recent viewing gave me added respect. Barry Lyndon was a study in cinematography and has some of the best music ever chosen for a film — especially the Schubert Trio and Handel’s Sarabande (duel). Kubrick got as much out of Ryan O’Neal as anybody could, but even that wasn’t quite enough. Watchable, but disappointing.
His early film The Killing was a hoot. I’ve seen it several times and always enjoyed it.
I absolutely hated The Shining; I could never understand why people thought Nicholson’s grotesque overacting and Shelley Duvall’s inability to act (who cast her, anyway?) added up to anything beyond a silly waste of time. Until Eyes Wide Shut I thought this represented the worst that Kubrick could do.
Given that his last three films were The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, I had concluded that Kubrick was finished when he died.
As always, tastes vary (greatly).
Nellcote
“The Lion In Winter” w/Peter OToole and Katherin Hepburn. Best Christmas movie ever!
Hal
AI’s ending makes far more sense when you realize the Aliens are actually evolved mechas, not aliens from outer space. I found that to be really fascinating, but I’m a sucker for the post-apocalyptic prologue.
But he is correct about Spielberg. Even Saving Private Ryan had to have something of a happy ending.
debit
I’m re watching Babylon 5. I’d watched when it was on network TV, despite finding the first season uneven; great world building, acting that ran the gamut from horrible to wooden to fabulous, and the tendency to have a dreadful episode post climax wrap up that usually ended with a hearty, fake laugh.
I’m still seeing all of those things, but don’t find the bad parts as wretched as I remember. I can’t wait to finish season 1 and move on to 2 when the good stuff finally starts and the acting also improves about 200 percent.
You can watch online for free here. If you’ve never seen it before, check it out. And watch all of the first season, painful though it might be. There’s a reveal in season 2, IIRC, that will just blow you away.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Dead on, pretty much. Anybody see “A.I.” ? It’s kind of a mess, but Kubrick’s script visits places Splbg doesn’t like to go. I think it’s the only film of his that I’d like to see again.
We watched the compulsory “It’s a Wonderful life” last night. I’d never really noticed before, but practically every word out of Potter’s mouth when he’s trying to close the Building and Loan is a RepubliTea talking point.
Hmm… how ’bout “It’s A Conservative Life!” The angel Ronald is sent down to make sure that hardworking businessman Harold Potter doesn’t ruin everything by giving back the $8000 he got by mistake, and shows him how he can destroy the dastardly B&L that has unjustly taken his profits in order to build palaces for lazy bums, running up massive, unsustainable deficits in the process.
mk3872
Interestingly, as Nom de Plume stated above, Spielberg completed Kubrick’s vision of “A.I.”, based on stories that drove the original work between Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke on “2001”.
Yet Spielberg’s version of A.I. looks & feels like pure Spielberg with an E.T. feel to it, including an entire ending that explains step-by-step exactly what happens in the end. No mystery. Just Hollywood-style feel-goodery.
General Stuck
Otherwise, rented Inception from the local mart, so will watch that, The Town was an excellent flick BTW.
debit
@Nellcote: Agreed! “Of course he has a knife! We all have knives!” I’m going to have to pull out my copy this evening when my guests leave.
Three-nineteen
Well, people may think that Schindler’s List had a comforting ending, but I would say the first 3 hours balances the movie out. I also think that it made a whole lot of people think about the Holocaust and WWII that had never before really considered what happened there and why.
MikeJ
@Three-nineteen: Yeah, I find it hard to believe that somebody as smart as Terry Gilliam could walk away from Schindler’s List thinking the message was the holocaust wasn’t that bad because one guy got some people out.
dr. bloor
@debit:
“What shall we hang… the holly, or each other?”
Wonderful movie.
Phyllis
We’ll be putting in the Harry Nilsson documentary I gave the SO for Christmas here in a bit. Later it’ll be ‘The Apartment’, an annual tradition in these parts. Next to ‘Stalag 17’, my favorite off-beat Christmas movie.
JD Rhoades
Ah….Munich?
NeenerNeener
I’m killing time while waiting for the Doctor Who Christmas special on BBC America tonight by watching the latest movie version of Robin Hood. It’s …meh.
David
If you like old movies here is a 1949 movie about the Hatfields and the McCoys — fascinating to watch through today’s political/social lens:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/113932/roseanna-mccoy
It’s one of Farley Granger’s best performances and boasts an early startlingly creepy Richard Basehart before he became a parody of himself.
Don’t have to register and free to watch.
JBerardi
As long as we’ve got movie thread going, anyone else here hate The Black Swan? I’m baffled by the praise it’s receiving. There’s plenty of things about the film that are technically or objectively impressive, but it’s the most joyless thing ever. Every single character is a boring creepy asshole, it turns art into this cold, pointless, life-destroying monster, and it it does the same or worse to sex. Basically, it just takes a huge dump on everything that I love.
True Grit was spiffy, though. I don’t know what people are talking about with this “it’s not like a Coen bros movie” stuff, though. Was anyone LISTENING to that dialog?
Trainrunner
It’s my job to go around the Internets correcting facile A.I. analyses falsely based on misleading Kubrick/Spielberg contrasts:
The ending of A.I. was in Kubrick’s script; Spielberg did not add it. And that ending was NOT happy. Humanity is long dead. All that is left in the remaining robots/androids are these memories of shadows of human life, self-animating and trying to ape human experience. Yes, Haley Joel gets his wish (a mother forever), but even SHE wasn’t real, either. And that’s the point. Tragic.
(Though I agree with what Gilliam says about SL.)
KRK
This morning I’m watching Late Spring by Yasujiro Ozu. Later on, it’ll be either more episodes of Deadwood season 1, rewatching Three Days of the Condor (“I just read books!”), or rewatching Gold Diggers of 1933. Maybe all of the above.
de stijl
Netflix was kind enough to deliver Zodiac and the special edition 1922 Nosferatu this week. I’m a sucker for (most) Fincher movies plus German expressionist horror!
I’m fairly psyched for tonight – especially for the Nosferatu commentary extras.
sven
@Triassic Sands: This sounds like a new thread:
Worst film by a great director
I nominate Robert Altman’s Popeye
what a mess
blogbytom
Zombieland. Hilarious. Violent. And Bill Murray in one of his funniest (albeit brief) roles since…. a long time.
Amir_Khalid
There’s certainly something to be said for movies that questions and leave them for us to ponder, rather than spoonfeeding us the answers. But if Schindler’s List is guilty of spoonfeeding its viewers with an easy and reassuring moral conclusion — I’m not so sure myself that it is — then Thomas Kenneally, whose book Spielberg followed very closely, is as much at fault as Spielberg.
As for Saving Private Ryan, I thought the D-Day scene was an awesome piece of filmmaking. The rest of the movie, i,e, the actual mission to save Private Ryan, was pedestrian. It resembled an extended episode of Combat, the 1960s TV show that starred Vic Morrow as the sergeant of a rifle platoon in late-1944 France. Just soldiers walking through countryside with rifles and stumbling into an occasional firefight.
Allan
I said at the time I saw it that Munich was Spielberg’s first movie for grown-ups.
And it seems to confirm Gilliam and Kubrick’s hypothesis for what distinguishes escapist entertainment, even masterfully done, and meaningful film art. There’s no happy ending and lots of signals that while killing killers may be morally defensible, it also perpetuates the cycle of killing.
Which brings me to a picture I finally watched the other day, the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man. This is one feature-length sucker-punch of a movie that plays with our desire to see movies tied up with a bow at the end. It takes you through one man’s personal season of Job-like crises and how each of them ultimately resolves until you think everything’s safely back to the film family’s peculiar version of “normal,” then…
Rihilism
@Nellcote: “I’d hang you from the nipples but you’d shock the children”. One of the best movies ever….
Nemo_N
The problem with the concept of “movies that make you think” these days is that anyone can put together an incoherent mess and then a wave of people will come and tell you you have to think about it.
I’m okay with movies not giving answers but just because an answer is not neatly delivered it doesn’t mean it has some profound meaning.
Also, I suppose any movie where someone is even remotely nice or survives is considered a happy ending movie.
Desert Rat
@JD Rhoades:
Yep. Munich was the first thing that went through my mind as well. It’s hard to call the self-loathing the protagonist develops and ends the film with a happy ending. Not precisely, anyway. He’s a sympathetic character simply because he hates what he’s become, but it’s hard to call it a Disney-esque ending.
Then again, if the comment thread is any indication, you and I are the only ones whoever saw it.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Terry Gilliam…though like Spielberg, who probably should have stopped before making Saving Private Ryan, he would have been better off if he’d stopped making movies after 12 Monkeys.
The trouble with Gilliam’s vision of Schindler’s List is that no Hollywood studio would greenlight something as grim as his vision of the Holocaust when Schindler’s List was made. Heck there was a lot of controversy when he made it about whether a mainstream audience would accept it.
And nobody in Hollywood would have ever greenlighted Terry “Late and Overbudget” Gilliam doing anything as ambitious as Schindler’s List.
As for AI, it was shite. And for those who think the Stanley Kubrick of the Eyes Wide Shut era would have done any better with it, you’re delusional. Eyes Wide Shut was easily the worst large budget piece of shit greenlighted by a Hollywood studio since Ishtar.
While I’m not crazy about Spielberg as a whole (I think he’s hit or miss, even making popcorn movies), I think Gilliam’s criticisms are better aimed at the Hollywood system in general.
Speaking of which, Terry, can I have the 2+ hours of my life back I wasted watching The Brothers Grimm. Thanks.
eemom
@sven:
did you see the one about the ballet company? GOD but that sucked.
As for Schindler’s List, I liked it overall, but there was a scene that I thought almost ruined it, though I’ve never heard it mentioned anywhere: the scene where some people arrive at Auschwitz and are taken to a shower that turns out to really be an actual shower and not a gas chamber. I don’t know if that historically happened or not, but it struck me as an unbearably ill-placed bit of Hollywoodism.
Southern Beale
We’re going to try to get into see True Grit but if it’s sold out I guess we’ll do Black Swan.
Mr Stagger Lee
I am fan of German movies, loved Goodbye Lenin and Sophie Scholl. I recommend The Baader-Meinhof Complex. If you want some kick-ass foreign films District 13 or The Crimson River from France, or Shiri from South Korea. South Koreans makes some good films.
Southern Beale
I have to say I really loved “Schindler’s List.” But that’s just me.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Mr Stagger Lee:
I forgot to add a cool dark comedy from Hungary, called Kontrol.
MikeJ
@NeenerNeener: I was watching Dr Who this morning before they interrupted it with some old queen.
Southern Beale
@Desert Rat:
I saw “Munich” and thought it was amazing, as well. What did you think of the final scene, shot with the World Trade Center in the background? Was it overkill? Some folks I know thought it was just too much, putting an exclamation point where a period had already been placed. I liked it.
Bob
@Nellcote:
There are two movies I can view over and over, you named one. My other one, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Montysano
@sven:
Ummm…… Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. We were so excited when it came to town, and then, so very disappointed.
eemom
….and for a quality Holocaust film, see Polanski’s “The Pianist.” effing brilliant.
Southern Beale
@sven:
Worst film by a great director has GOT to be Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.” That movie was a parody of a parody of a parody of a Kubrick film.
Although “Vanilla Sky” was pretty awful too. But I’m not sure anyone would call Cameron Crowe a “great” director.
Southern Beale
@JBerardi:
In other words, your typical Darren Aronofsky film.
:-)
PurpleGirl
I’m in a strange mood — sort of melancholy and still suffering with flu. So I think I might rearrange the monitor and netbook/DVD drive and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Mr. Furious
I won’t be watching anything today, but listening to the kids watch Toy Story 3 in the backseat while we drive to Grandma’s.
Watched “Atonement” last night while we waited to make sure the kids were fully unconscious. Pretty good, but not what I’d call an enjoyable experience.
Last excellent rental? “Winter’s Bone.” Fantastic.
Last theater? “127 Hours” Also very good.
Amir_Khalid
@eemom: Schindler’s Lisr follows Keneally’s book Schindler’s Ark very closely. Keneally doesn’t describe precisely such an incident taking place; but the women being transported were indeed half-expecting to wind up being gassed rather than relocated to a new camp as promised.
Keith G
Although taking place at Thanksgiving, Home For The Holidays is a great antidote for any holiday blahs.
The Lion In Winter is simply the best, “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.”
Hillary Rettig
@Nellcote: The Lion in Winter
great holiday family dynamics in that one!
brent
I don’t really agree and I think its an incredible oversimplification to suggest that great film making requires ambiguous endings. Spielberg is a different sort of storyteller than Kubrick and I don’t think its a really helpful or useful view of any sort of art to say that the type of narrative it employs makes it a lesser example of that form of art. I don’t know Spielberg but I would venture to guess that he appreciates all sorts of narrative styles including those of Kubrick. Its just that Indiana Jones exemplifies the sort of storyteller he is and is truer to his style of expression.
I also think its a little silly to claim ownership of a historical event as only being presentable from a specific perspective. “The holocaust was about failure” and cannot possibly be about anything else is not a very well considered notion in my opinion. As long as humans have been alive, we have told stories about the small triumphs of our humanity in the context of our most disturbing failures as a species. Aside from the fact that that sort of story, of which Schindler’s List is certainly an example, certainly doesn’t downplay or sugarcoat the extent to which our human societies fail, the attempt to find positive stories inside of relentlessly negative ones is about as inherent an element of our humanity as anything I can think of. Whatever one thinks of Spielberg or SL, how can it possibly be helpful to dismiss such a narrative out of hand as some sort of failure of expression.
NeenerNeener
@MikeJ: Yeah, she came on right after “The Girl In The Fireplace”; that’s when I started the Robin Hood movie.
Mr. Furious
Any thoughts on the upcoming Terrence Malick film? Saw the trailer the other day. Not sure what to make of it…
I thought The Thin Red Line and The New World were both very good, and for my money, no one makes a more beautiful film, cinematagraphy-wise.
MikeJ
@NeenerNeener: If asiangrrrlmn shows up we have to tell her Kylie’s on an ep this afternoon.
Erikthe Red
@Montysano:
Now THAT was a serious mess!
I still have no idea what the fuck was the deal with the Heath Ledger character. He ended up being killed like a bad guy, but he seemed to be playing a good guy role, too.
GregB
Anyone who wants to venture out. The Fighter is one hell of a film.
Well worth the trip.
asiangrrlMN
I haven’t seen much of Spielberg’s work or Kubrick’s, but I did see AI, and, I, too, knew exactly where Kubrick ended and Spielberg began. I didn’t much care for the movie, anyway, but the ending completely ruined it for me . I tend to be on Gilliam’s side, which is one reason I don’t care much for American (non-indy) movies.
ETA: I’m watching the NBA destroy America by playing on Christmas.
ETA, Part Deux: Mike Tirico is very annoying.
Valdivia--phone
Not to get flames but I thought Munich was the most simplistic American take of the issue. Too wimpy to write or do a movie about Bush and 9/11 he choose to do that. The sex-remembering the dead athletes scenes were gross. Want a good movie about the cost and true darkness of killing terrorists watch Walk on Wayer made by an Israeli film maker
On a cherrier note I would rec the French film A Prophet just fantastic.
You Don't Say
I’m reading up on the latest brouhaha at Dkos, about a PUMA posing as a poor black woman to post some incendiary diaries.
To tie it into the movie theme: It reminds of me of when as a teenager I saw “Shoot the Moon.” A friend’s mother asked what I thought of it and I said it was OK, but didn’t seem very realistic because the adults were so childish. She just laughed and said, “Oh, that’s realistic. Adults often act like children.”
asiangrrlMN
@MikeJ: Kylie! Nom nom nom. I have no idea of what you are talking, but everything goes better with Kylie.
GregB
We’d also like to acknowledge the freakily prudish Senator Tom Coburn who objected to Schindler’s List being shown on TV because of the nudity.
Valdivia--phone
That should say flamed and later Water
Damn phone!! Shakes fist :)
JBerardi
@Allan:
Staggeringly good film that nobody saw.
“The uncertainty principle. It proves that we can’t ever really know what’s going on. But even though you can’t figure anything out, you will be responsible for it!”
Seriously, you all need to watch this.
quaint irene
“don’t interrupt, dear, Mother’s fighting.” One of the best.
Well, dipped into ‘A Christmas Story’ a few times, of course. Saw the beginning of ‘Scrooged’, movie that unfortunately dissolves into mush in the last few scenes. Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim. Genius.
TCM keeps showing, in my opinion, the worst adaptation of ‘Christmas Carol,” the Reginald Owen’s one. Where’s Alistair Sim?
Also wish they showed ‘Desk Set’ a sweet movie with Hepburn and Tracy.
Now looks like TCM is getting heavy into the religiosity- ‘Ben Hur’ and later, ‘King Of Kings.” Cue the cast of thousands.
Gotta go in put in the chicken.
Yutsano
@Valdivia–phone: And for some bizarre reason you made me think of Like Water for Chocolate, which was a shit movie from a great book. Though I did have to read it translated. My español isn’t THAT good. :)
@asiangrrlMN: Not understanding MikeJ’s reference either, but def on the Kylie nom. Hi hon. Trying to gather family for Chinese outing. Not going well so far.
John - A Motley Moose
I’m looking at an ad on this page for Michelle Bachmann and trying to figure out why I keep seeing those ads on all of the political sites I visit. Most of those sites are liberal ones, so I have to conclude that she is running a really big ad campaign. Is she building up a fund to make a run for the presidency? If not the presidency, could it be for a senate run? I’ve read that’s a possibility. That would be great. She wouldn’t be able to run for the House and Senate in the same year, so a senate run should get her out of Congress. That is, assuming she can’t win state-wide in MN.
Brachiator
So far this holiday season, I’ve watched Inception, Slumdog Millionaire, and Jurassic Park 3 with various family.
Love Kubrick. Love Spielberg. Both, along with Scorcese and Hitchcock and others are real film makers. They know how to use the camera and editing to propel the narrative. They do not just do pretty photography, and they are not doing filmed theater.
Gilliam, on the other hand, insightful, but not nearly as talented a film maker.
You want some tough minded Spielberg? Minority Report.
Valdivia--phone
Yut–merry merry to you! :)
Book of like water was fantastico even if I’m not a huge fan of later magic realism.
The Israeli film is great & the actor very hawt. :)
Off to see mr library of congress. Love to you all
Mark S.
So I take it that Schindler’s List would have been a much better movie if it ended ambiguously and it was open to interpretation as to whether any of the Jews who worked for Schindler were saved. Maybe the last scene should have been a big fetus up in space looking down on earth.
I’m sorry, that was all very wrong. Merry Christmas everyone!
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Dr Who is on BBC America most of today. New episode tonight. But this afternoon (2pm PST) they’re running an old episode with Kylie in.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Uh-oh. That won’t make wifey too happy there. She no haz teh cable. Unless there’s a streaming option out there somewhere. Then she’ll be satiated.
SiubhanDuinne
I gave my relatives a DVD of “The Last Station” and I think we’ll watch it after dinner. And my cousin is treating me to a matinee tomorrow of “The King’s Speech,” which makes me very happy.
Brick Oven Bill
Being banished to the moderation bucket, I would also add the following:
Post-Weimar: Suppression of the free exchange of ideas.
US: Well, never mind.
JBerardi
@Southern Beale:
Basically, it’s The Wrestler (which I like), minus all the humanity, plus all of the worst parts of Requiem for a Dream (which I think is trash). Specifically, Swan/Dream both feature main character who’s driven by something entirely divorced from human ambition. In Requiem, it’s a chemical addition. In Swan, it’s an insane super-creepy mother character and a joyless obsession that’s not really explained in any way. The mother/daughter relationship in Swan is actually played beautifully, but the way the film is structured, it doesn’t matter– the characters suck so much that, the better the actors are, the MORE I hate them.
Plus, his soundtrack guy still suuuuuuuuucks.
eemom
@quaint irene:
Best version of A Chrismas Carol evah, imho, is the George C. Scott one from the 1980s. We’ll be watching it later.
Trainrunner
One last time, with feeling: The ending of A.I. is Kubrick’s ending. It’s in his treatment, in the script he worked on with Sara Maitland. It’s his darned end, like it or not.
Btw, all the Pinocchio references (Blue Fairy, “I want to be a real boy”) also originated with Kubrick not Spielberg.
I can see why people think Spielberg sugared A.I.‘s ending because he did so on War of the Worlds and Minority Report–both have contrived happy endings seriously jarring their darker stories.
But A.I.’s ending is neither happy nor Spielberg’s.
Andy K
I just got the box set of the first five Marx Brothers films. I think I’ll read a few chapters of Ellroy’s Blood’s A Rover before I drop The Cocoanuts in the dvd player, though.
asiangrrlMN
@MikeJ: Gah gah gah! ::Splutters incoherently::
Maybe the Hulu has it.
@Yutsano: I thought that, too , from Valdivia’s post. And, the movie sucked. Haven’t read the book.
asiangrrlMN
@John – A Motley Moose: Rumor has it that she will run for one or the other (Senate or President) in 2012. My reaction here.
@Yutsano: Well, maybe I will read the book. And, you need to eat Chinese today. Otherwise, Jewish tradition FAIL!
ETA: Oh, hello. The ep of Kylie is on the Youtube. I will have to watch it later from my desktop (graphics shot on my laptop).
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Believe it or not the sex is better in the book. Plus there are all sorts of neat nifty little details about how she exactly does what she does. Subtleties that don’t carry into a movie script well I admit.
JMC_in_the_ATL
@debit: Departure is a simple act. You put your left foot down, and then your right.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
Anyone who thinks that Schindler’s List has a nice pat ending with no amiguity really paid no attention to the character of Amon Goeth (masterfully played by Ralph Fiennes). He is very clearly evil, and also very clearly self-loathing. He even tries at one point to stop being evil, but can’t do it. He confuses forgiveness for redemption. He’s not exactly ambiguous, but he isn’t a part of the movie Gilliam describes, either.
For that matter, Oskar Schindler is pretty ambiguous, too. Since the movie only shows the period between his arrival in Krakow and the end of the war, this isn’t as clear, though there are hints in the way he treats his wife. What’s fascinating about Schindler is that he was an incredibly weak man. Before the war, he ran several companies into bankruptcy, losing lots of money for friends and investors. After the war, he was a complete failure at everything he tried, and basically survived by leeching off of the people he had saved.
Schindler failed every single test of character he ever faced, except the most difficult one. I spend a lot of time questioning the meaning of a story in which someone so flawed and so useless can, through one decision, redeem himself. I wonder how a man so unaware of the feelings of people around him at all other times can be so touched by them under a particular set of circumstances.
I also recommend Kennealy’s followup book, Searching for Schindler, which recounts both his writing of the book and the making of the movie. The whole thing is fascinating, but he also describes how the characters in them came about, many of whom are composites of multiple figures in the true story.
As for the scene at Auschwitz-Birkenau, that’s something that really happened, if not to these particular prisoners, then others. Even the ones that the Germans intended to keep alive as slave labor were sent through humiliating delousing and disinfection procedures.
SIA
@ Gen Stuck,Inception is on demand today so we’re going to watch it later. Will be interested to see what you think of it.
I’m also recording 1938 A Christmas Carol, with, I think Reginald Owen. I can’t find the one with Alistair Sim unfortunately.
And if Steeplejack is around, I would like to hear your thoughts on the latest Masterpiece Sherlock. I thought it was amazing.
ETA @quaint irene: I see I’m not the only one. If you find the version with Alistair Sim, post it OK? Thx!
SIA
@Brachiator: My favorite Hitchcock film, Stage Fright, is hilarious mainly owing to the Alastair Sim character. Marlena Dietrich, Jane Wyman co star. Top notch.
Phyllis
@JBerardi: I’ve watched it twice here in the last two weeks. I agree.
@quaint irene: I love ‘Desk Set’, and it’s one that has disappeared from the airwaves in the last couple of years. Terrific adult relationships, great workplace stuff. And like ‘Nine to Five’, a movie that could be remade today with little tinkering and still be on point about women, ambition, and the workplace.
Sigh.
ETA: Just learned from IMDB that ‘Desk Set’ was written by Nora Ephron’s parents.
gene108
I can’t get into the new Doctor Who series. It seems all the three new Doctors they have cast seem to basically be the same, no real significant change in appearance or personality. They are all a bit off-beat and the plots are a bit to hyper-frenetic compared to the older series.
I do wonder how they will get around the rule of Time Lords only getting 12 incarnations, since the Doctor is on his 11th. They will think of something, but I rewriting the internal consistency of an alternate universe can be a bit annoying.
EDIT: I also think originally watching the series commercial free on PBS in the 1980’s made a bit spoiled. I find the commercials on BBC America to be very annoying, compared with what I saw in the 1980’s.
JAHILL10
I think Gilliam’s and Kubrick’s point isn’t a happy versus sad ending issue. It’s the digestibility of the film. A lot of American cinema is see it then forget it. There’s nothing to think about or discuss because it’s prepackaged for maximum enjoyability/forget-ability. I wouldn’t throw all of Spielberg’s work into that cubbyhole, but a lot of it, the films he built his reputation and his fortune on are certainly that. Gilliam has had some misses too, of course, but I give him some leeway because he is following an interior vision (spot on or misguided as that may be), not producing the most marketable product. It’s like Coppola says in the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, we need more film makers following their personal visions, not studio slaves. It’s the difference in critiquing the quality of a artisanal bread and a McDonald’s hamburger.
I admire the Coen Bros. immensely because, though I am not a fan of all their films (just most of them!), I cannot deny that they are doing their own thing their own way and not really caring whether they make a ton of money in the process.
We’re going out to see True Grit and, if I can talk my husband into it, The Fellowship of the Ring, which I always want to watch around Christmastime for some reason.
Rock
Has anyone seen Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun”? If not, I think it’s worth watching. It was not a happy movie, regardless of the survival of Christian Bale.
Spielberg’s body of work doesn’t all fall into the category of over-simplistic with a Hollywood Ending. It’s more varied than that, filled with movies that are good and bad (in my opinion). I think Empire of the Sun was pretty good. Not a Christmas movie though….
Gina
In light of the new TSA fear of the thermos, we re-watched The Jerk. I missed out on Christmas Vacation. I watch it for the Snotz scenes.
Joey Maloney
@Nemo_N:
So you’ve already seen Inception, then? I was underwhelmed. Interesting world-building but they kept adding new rules, only telling us about them just in time for the new rule to be used to get characters out of a pickle. Which made it feel like they were just making it up as they went along, whether or not that was true. And the mind-bending final twist that was supposed to blow you away I was expecting by the five-minute mark.
@asiangrrlMN: Wow, nothing would make me happier than Bachmann running for Senate in Minnesota, since that would be the end of her career as an elected official. Of course we’d have to listen to her addled screeching for years to come on FOX. Oh wait, no I wouldn’t, because I never watch FOX.
Gina
@Mr Stagger Lee: Loved Kontrol. Have you seen the Russian films Night Watch and Day Watch? The wiki makes it sound so corny, but it was really well done and well acted. Not sure if it’s still on Netflix streaming or not, worth a look if it is.
asiangrrlMN
@Joey Maloney: I do not want her to run. I really don’t. It’s just selfish, though, because I loathe the woman. She has a very slim chance of winning a Senate seat (I never say never), but I have a hunch she will run. Sigh.
Mike E
@eemom: The Pianist–agreed.
The last scene of Schindlers where the survivors visit his grave, makes me cry. As does the end of West Side Story. I’m a sucker, I guess.
Just finished Scott Pilgrim with Miss E–tears of joy!
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Gina:
The books are vastly superior. Although, the movies changed so much they’re almost completely different stories. Both books, along with the third, Twilight Watch, have been translated into English.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: This sounds like a situation where the third parties in Minnesota could really fuck things up like they almost did with the governor’s race. That in and of itself is sufficiently disturbing to keep her from running if at all possible. But if Klobuchar is pretty safe against her (can’t really see a reason how she wouldn’t be) then I’d say let her go for it and enjoy her sweet concession night tears. This will be in 2012 so there will be Obamentum helping. Also.
MattR
@Nemo_N:
I feel the same way about movies with a twist at the end. The Sixth Sense was fantastic and the film works very well if you rewatch it knowing the twist. OTOH, the twist at the end of Fight Club pretty much ruined the movie for me. Same with The Book of Eli, which I finally watched last night, though it was not quite as bad since there was a whole bunch of “suspension of disbelief” involved even without the twist.
MikeJ
@gene108: When I was a young geek back in the 80s all my geeky friends loved Dr Who. I never got into it. I did like Blake’s 7, so obviously it wasn’t the production quality that drove me away. Don’t know what it was, but meh.
My favorite things about the newer eps are Amy Pond and Martha Jones. I don’t hate Billie Piper, but she doesn’t do it for me like the others.
Gina
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Thanks for the head’s up!
Bettencourt
@Trainrunner:
Thank you, Trainrunner, for repeatedly attempting to correct the common misperception that Spielberg Spielberg-ized the ending of A.I. I’ve been reading the recent book on the development of that film, and, for better or worse, Kubrick’s structure and ending (and nearly everything in between) was the same as the final film.
I read Schindler’s List within the last year or so and it was amazing, highly recommended. Schindler actually has a great speech to the workers at the end, which I wish Spielberg/Zaillian had kept instead of that “I could have saved more people”/group-hug ending they added.
And I’m pretty sure that real-shower-not-a-gas-shower scene was right out of the book, but I’m too damn lazy to look it up.
The ending of Munich has always driven me crazy, one of Spielberg’s worst serious-film wrapups (though I like most of the film a lot). Why intercut between Bana having sex with his wife and the massacre of the Israeli athletes? If Spielberg had intercut between the sex and the killing of the (virtually naked) female assassin, I could see how the film might be trying to show how Bana’s work/mission had tainted even the most innocent/pleasurable moments of Bana’s life, but the sex/massacre ending seems like just a rather tasteless attempt to give the film a big ending when the story has none.
de stijl
@MattR:
If you think it’s a flaw, it’s a flaw of the book, not the movie.
MattR
@de stijl: Well, I never read the book so I don’t know if it was the twist itself that was the problem or if it was the way that the movie tried to pull it off. All I know is that when I rewatch the movie knowing “the truth”, I start laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
Emerald
Regarding “A Christmas Carol,” really, the Alistair Sim version can’t be touched. George C. Scott did a truly wonderful characterization also, and that version certainly is the closest to the original story. And believe it or not, Michael Caine did a really good job as Scrooge in the Muppets Christmas Carol–and did a sort of tribute to Alistair Sim by deliberately copying him in the ending.
I just finished listening to Tim Curry’s narration of the unabridged story from Audible. Recommended.
But Alistair Sim is magic.
fraught
Did anyone else NOT like “The Kids are All Right?” I watched it last night and found so many things just not quite right. Including Annette Benning, whom I usually really like. I thought she was stage acting, over prepared and her technique was more theatrical than filmic (a word I once swore I’d never use.)
Too many scenes with people drinking red wine in huge glasses, too much California everywhere. Too many tangled sheets in the sex scenes. And a scene with a Mexican gardener that seems to have leaped in from another movie.
And what does it really say about gay marriage? That it’s going to create just more closed system families which exclude outsiders because the wage earning male substitute (Benning) starts to feel territorial?
I think it was made to make straight liberals feel secure in their acceptance of otherness in sexual orientations.
NeenerNeener
@MikeJ: I missed out on all the original Doctor Who episodes, never heard of it until the revival with Eccleston. I ordered some old Who dvds from Netflix so I could get at least some of the back story on Sarah Jane, Susan, the Brigadier and the 14 foot scarf, but the cheap special effects yanked me right out of the story every time. They should have gotten awards for creative use of bubble wrap, tho.
The UK members of televisionwithoutpity are finally weighing in on the new special; so far it’s all favorable.
cckids
@SiubhanDuinne: Can I perhaps get some advice on The King’s Speech movie, from people who’ve seen it? I’ve got an 18-year-old who stutters & is very self-conscious about it. Is it very hard to watch from the standpoint of someone who stutters? Or does the “happy” ending of overcoming it make it ok? He is prepping for college & really agonizing about the stutter, which of course makes it worse. Anyone know?
Hob
@Trainrunner: Not sure what you mean about War of the Worlds. The deus ex bacteria ending was directly from the book, and was also used in all the other film adaptations. The main character finding his family again was kind of contrived, but that’s more of a problem with the entire script, not with the ending; those characters had no purpose except to fulfill the Hollywood requirement that every ordinary-guy character must have a family.
Yutsano
Watching Bill Murray ham things up in Scrooged. Not everyone’s taste I know. Still love it.
Southern Beale
@Rock:
Empire of the Sun was an awesome movie. I think Spielberg has done some enormously wonderful films. The one I hated the most was “E.T.” I found it emotionally manipulative.
Maybe because I really really had to pee at the end of that film but didn’t want to miss the climax … I kept thinking, “OK now we’re nearing the end…” and then there’d be some emotional manipulation and then that would get resolved and I’d think “OK now it’s close to he end…” but no it would just be another plot twist to manipulate the audience until finally I was like, “Oh Jesus Christ just send the little fucker back to the goddamn moon already this is ridiculous.”
But I liked “Munich” and “Schindler’s List” ….
shecky
@Gina:
My 13 year old son like the Nightwatch/Daywatch movies. I have a hard time getting into special effects flicks with flashy camera shots and touches like loud metal music as sound effect. They do get high marks for presentation, though.
And interesting alternative to the mostly good Munich is the made for TV movie based on the same book, Sword of Gideon, if you can find a copy. I like them both, for different reasons. Spielberg almost always manages to grate on me for one reason or another, sometimes minor, sometimes not. I think the only movie of his that doesn’t have this effect on me was Duel.
Anne Laurie
@Trainrunner: __
A.I. (the worst movie I have ever watched all the way through) demonstrates all the worst gimmicks and tics of both Kubrick (whose films I do not care for) and Spielberg. Spielberg’s flaw is sentimentality, but Kubrick’s films seem to have been made by a highly intelligent entity that was never exposed to the behavior of actual human beings. Just to mention the crowning example, the Big Heartbreaking Expose… there is a considerable global market for inert human replicants, aka “dolls”, that are carefully customized and detailed to the exact specifications of their owners. The idea that top-of-the-line robot child replacements would be less individualized than the trinkets sold by the American Girl corporation, much less the boutique doll artists, simply doesn’t make sense economically, much less psychologically. But it does make the perfect capper to a movie full of gross economic and psychological impossibilities.
quaint irene
I’m thinking of renting it OnDemand, it’s been a lot of years since it’s been broadcast. (Could say the same about ‘Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.’ Criminal)
Just I remember David Warner giving a really odd interpretation of Cratchit.
Dennis SGMM
“Street of Crocodiles,” the Quay Brothers.
“Metropolis,” dir, Fritz Lang.
“M,” dir, Fritz Lang.
“Fitzcarraldo,” dir, Werner Herzog.
“Zelig,” Woody Allen.
“Stardust Memories,” Woody Allen.
“Women Haters,” The Three Stooges.
“It’s a Gift,” W.C. Fields.
Bill H.
I’m not sure how anyone see the ending of Schindler’s List as a “happy ending.” The man sees himself as the failure that he knows himself to be, a failure made worse by the one good thing he did which redeems him in the eyes of others but not in his own view.
In any case, I don’t see Shindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan as being about the ending but as being about the process that led to the ending. The futility and the horror of the things that man does in the name of whaterver he is doing it in the name of. It asks the question, “No matter how it turns out, why? We got here,” it says, “but oh my god, the journey…”
Sirkowski
Why can’t we have both?
A Humble Lurker
I love symbolism, but all too often the characters, the settings, the plot, all of it becomes a vehicle for it. And the integrity of them all suffers. How can you be a good, believable character if you’re only purpose in the story is to be a symbol?
What I love is color. Saturation. I want a movie that creates a world I wanna hang out in, people who’d have conversations I’d want to ease drop on. I want immersion, damn it! It doesn’t necessarily have to be happy, or sad, or light or dark. Just engaging.
{sigh} Reliance on symbolism can make a film stiff and pretentious. Even people who are called great stab blindly forward with butcher’s knives while they should be delicately teasing the flesh open with a surgeon’s scalpel.
I shouldn’t be talking like this when I’m +0.
General Stuck
Schindler’s List to me was not about the ending, but about recreating raw scenes of sheer murder in all it’s forms, premeditated, impulsive, engineered and the purely pathological, all of it human on the dehumanized, without remorse. Schindler was the control, the tiny light of conscience that framed this horror. It was not only a testament and in your face reminder to what happened, but what could and has since happened, and someday will likely happen again. Somewhere, to some peoples.
Bill E Pilgrim
Meh. I see Spielberg as mostly a much more “Hollywood” director that either Terry Gilliam or Kubrick, so in that sense I agree with Gilliam here, but it’s really apples and oranges were comparing, and I’m sorry, but Eyes Wide Shut was a pretentious mess.
They each have their place. The best of Gilliam’s work is as good as anyone’s, same with Kubrick and same with Spielberg, in his own realm. Close Encounters was fantastic, seen purely from a visual perspective, which of course some claim is how movies should be considered.
@A Humble Lurker:
That’s just the sobriety talking.
Actually, I agree with you. I feel the same way. The film that George Roy Hill made of Slaughterhouse Five for example completely missed the book in some senses, and on the other hand got it better than anyone could have, by virtue of the music, the long lingering shots, the general mood, and so on. Vonnegut was so happy with it he sat through it three times in a row, he said, and claimed he was one of the few serious authors who ever had a really good movie made from their books.
Console
I like what Gilliam has to say specifically about Schindler’s List. But I think his analysis only works on a case by case basis. Not every movie needs to upend audience expectations or present ambiguous endings.
The Departed wouldn’t be a worse movie if it had a nice tidy ending. The City of God wouldn’t be a better movie if the protagonist didn’t make it out of the slums.
Or to take two movies that are both fairy tale-like, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Whale Rider, I don’t know if something like Pan’s Labyrinth ends up being as powerful a movie if its ending wraps up nice and tidy. I like that the ending is both cynical and hopeful at the same time. On the flip side, a movie like The Whale Rider gets its power from fulfilling its simple moral equation. It’s the definition of a fairy tale, but it’s an absolutely beautiful and inspiring movie.
There are movies that are pushed to greatness by their moral complexity (speaking of korean movies, the vengeance trilogy by chan woo park comes to mind) but I don’t think it’s a necessary ingredient.
debbie
For me, the worst part of Schindler’s List is when Spielberg follows the little girl and, assuming his audience will be too stupid to pick up on his nuance, he has her dressed in a red coat (the only colored object in the sequence). I think Gilliam’s use of word balloons in his Monty Python animations were more subtle.
A local station just showed a movie I had missed, “Stranger Than Fiction.” Pretty good for Christmas Day.
gbear
@asiangrrlMN: I’d be willing to bet my house on Bachmann losing a senate race against Klobuchar. I’d like to see that matchup. I would watch those debates. I wouldn’t want her running against Franken because that contest would become too insane – a total circus. Everyone would lose.
And I’ll throw in my vote for Alastair Sims as the best Scrooge.
NobodySpecial
I just got done watching Despicable Me. Talk about movies with a bow on the end….but then again, what Gilliam forgets is that it’s okay for movies to be like that, as well. I don’t need every piece of entertainment I watch to be mentally stimulating and Questioning Existence In A Novel Way. Sometimes you just wanna watch things blow up and the world be saved.
As far as Worst Movie by a great director? That’s easy. The Abyss by James Cameron, or as my family calls it, the Abyssmal. Worst. Ending. Ever.
MikeF
@Nellcote:
Awesome flick. Anyone who likes Lion in Winter should also check O’Toole’s other great Henry II movie, Becket.
4jkb4ia
The movie industry has let us down. The local Landmark has “The King’s Speech” in two theaters, which is for tomorrow, “Black Swan” in two theaters, and “All Good Things” in one theater. The last two actually deserved to be R-rated, so my husband will not see them. My husband has rejected “True Grit”. So our choices are to go to “Tron” grumbling all the way, to go to “Fair Game”, or to watch the Dr. Who Christmas Special. I think it is going to be the last one.
Yutsano
@4jkb4ia:
Any particular reason why? I’ve been hearing amazing things about it.
NeenerNeener
@Nellcote: The Lion In Winter is also the only movie I thought was worth buying on VHS, laser disc AND dvd.
NobodySpecial
@MikeF: Becket is truly awesome, if only to watch Peter O’Toole chew every single bit of scenery to shreds.
Lysana
I am so huge on the Lion in Winter love, too. When I found out my mother’s father’s family originated in the Aquitaine region of France, I was ecstatic for reasons mostly related to Hepburn’s portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I researched her further and remain deeply pleased overall.
I haven’t watched any movies today. The household collection of Christmas tunes is running the entertainment show while the goose roasts. Last night I watched Die Hard, The Secret of Kells, and The Princess and the Frog before catching up to the rest of Book 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I would recommend all but the Disney film. Frog’s failure at the box office wasn’t because of the female lead. It was a combination of being released against Cameron’s Avatar and the fact it was the most mediocre ink-and-paint Disney’s released with a princess lead. I will spare y’all the rants I could get off on about several key parts of the film. Because it could get messy.
Tom
I have Greenberg and The Kids Are Alright from Netflix… having a tough time deciding between the two, anyone seen either?
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: Yeah, I’m fairly confident Bachmann would lose to Klobuchar. I just don’t want to hear more of Bachmann’s screeching. Sure, she’d still be on my teevee if she ran for rep again, but it’s not as big a deal. Plus, it would enrage me to hear the comparisons (“Two female lawyers go head to head!”) as if the only difference between them is ideological.
Bachmann against Franken? Oy.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
But he would have fun absolutely destroying her on both policy and subtle comedic mockery. It’d grate on the citizens of your state but outside we’d be enjoying the popcorn moments mightily.
Triassic Sands
@sven:
What a mess indeed. And isn’t a common thread here, Shelley Duvall?
Mark S.
Bachmann’s a lawyer? Really?
I would love to see her run against Franken.
SiubhanDuinne
@cckids #108: I will be glad to weigh in after I’ve seen the movie. We were going to go tomorrow afternoon, but may wait until Monday if the roads are bad tomorrow (SNOW!! Lovely to see, but sloppy now and possibly icy later). Hard to know at this point whether the film offers some general approaches or if the technique the speech therapist used was specific to the King. Anyhow, I’ll know more in a day or two, and meantime I think there a few others around BJ who have seen it.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: It’s not that surprising if you consider Orly Taitz is one as well. Seems like as long as you can stay awake in class that’s all it takes. Of course being a lawyer and a politician tells you nothing about how they finished in their relative classes. Remember, Grandpa Walnuts finished 894 out of 899.
Uriel
@Nellcote:
Hells to the yeah. This has been my position for decades. Best dialogue ever.
Mark S.
@Yutsano:
Oh, I know there are plenty of dumb ones, at least going by what they display on their blogs. But I admit I was surprised by Michelle, since she sounds like she learned the Constitution from one of Glenn Beck’s weekend seminars.
Huh, looking for something else, I turned up this: Justice Scalia to Teach Bachmann’s Constitutional Seminar.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Not JUST a lawyer, but a US Treasure Department attorney. Sigh.
@Yutsano: Oh, I know it would be fun to see Franken decimate her, but remember, Franken is not as popular in MN as he is nation-wide. I could conceivably see Bachmann making it very interesting (in a not-so-good way).
JAHILL10
Back again from the theater. For anyone who might be wondering and has missed all the reviews I can highly recommend True Grit. I know the original by heart because it was required viewing at my house growing up. The Coen Bros have done wonderful things with it. The cast was great, the look of the movie is gorgeous and the Bros. managed to make another internal reference to “Night of the Hunter.” What more could you ask for?
4jkb4ia
@Yutsano:
He knew that it was Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne part, so I think it was probably that no one could substitute for John Wayne/the original.
Saw none of them. Went to the Ritz and had sandwiches the same way we do every year. Then my husband went home and played with his new camera.
jefft452
Triassic Sands @ 11
I have to disagree in re “Paths of Glory”
In Kubric’s film Col Dax (Kirk Douglas) is outraged by the injustice and personally defends the accused at the court martial. Although the accused are executed, at the end we have a nice happy ending wrapped up in a bow – Gen “Sharkface” Assolant (Adolph Menjou) has his career in ruins and brave, honest Col Dax replaces him
In Cobb’s book, Dax is quite happy to use his skills at fawning and telling his superiors what they want to hear to reduce the number of executions from 80 to 4, but when he might look like he was “not a team player” he happily went back to brown nosing and ordered his company commanders to pick a victim each
In the book, Sharkface insisted on at least 4, but one company commander simply ignored the order. They cut this character out of the movie entirely. And he wasn’t the hero of the book, unlike the movie the book had no heroes, but he proved that almost anybody involved in the chain of events could have done something – but they didn’t
And of course, in the book, Assolant faces no consequences at the end
4jkb4ia
A boyfriend sat me down in front of the TV and made me watch “Schindler’s List”. I remember being very moved by it. I do not remember another thing about this movie.
OTOH, as anyone who actually saw my comment on EW’s about it knows, “Survival in Auschwitz” does mean a great deal to me. Primo Levi didn’t have any faith to lose or gain, so it is simply a very eloquent document of what it was like there.
Joey Maloney
@asiangrrlMN: Is there video of her hiding-in-the-bushes stunt? My vague recollection is that she was confronted by a reporter or someone with a camera at the time. Get that in heavy rotation and that’ll be the end of her Senate aspirations.
Batshit insane is a positive selling point for too much of the electorate, but cowardly and ridiculous won’t play well with anyone.
Dennis SGMM
@Uriel:
Agreed, the dialogue crackles. Best writing since “The Big Sleep,” with Bogart and Bacall. Before that, “Bringing Up Baby,” with Hepburn and Grant.
cmorenc
Quite a few soldiers who participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the succeeding weeks of WW2 combat in France against the Germans confirmed that Spielberg managed, in “Saving Private Ryan”, to capture very accurately what the experience was like of participating in the more intense parts of the D-Day landings, of being in such intense combat is like, and in general what it was like to be there and live through the experience of a combat soldier in the European theater during WW2. Spielberg did a tremendous service to not just those who participated, but all of us coming after, in conveying so viscerally, tangibly, and comprehensibly the immensity of what a huge number of ordinary Americans went through, with the world at stake. The movie was about the journey, and not really the destination of “saving Private Ryan”, and would have been utterly ruined had it simply been another “war is hell” ambiguous type movie such as Gilliam seems to think necessary to have worthwhile meaning. Yes, in a sense there’s a neat, satisfying ending with the aged Private Ryan (who survived) visiting the graveyard at Normandy at beginning and end of the movie, but OTOH any movie that ends in an immense graveyard does not really have a neat, happy ending – because a big part of the story is to make vivid and personal the kinds of ugly, sudden, often gruesomely painful ends lots of those buried soldiers came to, in order that the rest of us can get on with our lives if the then-unknown outcome of the war succeeded. There’s no “John Wayne” type character in “Saving Private Ryan”. The inscrutably reserved Captain played by Tom Hanks turns out to have been a schoolteacher, for example, who while cool most of the time was nonetheless vulnerable to moments of paralyzing shell-shock under the intensely fearful, chaotic conditions.
EVERY film need not be artsy-fartsy and ambiguous to be hugely successful as worthwhile storytelling and even art.
Triassic Sands
@jefft452:
Well, Jeff, I won’t argue about Paths of Glory, first because I’ve never read the book and can only judge the film as film and second, because, as I noted, tastes vary. Certainly, the consensus about the film rates it very highly, but the consensus is not unanimity.
Books are not films and vice versa. Since I haven’t read the Humphrey Cobb novel, I can’t offer an opinion. If I were to read the book and decide it is better than the film, it wouldn’t be the first time I thought a book was better than its subsequent film version. War fiction has never been a reading preference of mine, so I can’t say that I will ever get around to the book, but I will keep it in mind. And thanks for your opinion, since I was unaware of the existence of the book until your comment.
magurakurin
except that Saving Private Ryan becomes a “beat the evil Nazis” war propaganda film by the end. Undoubtedly the open scene is one of the finest achievements of cinema and Spielberg deserves all his praise as a technician who has produced several masterpieces. But I personally am not a fan of his story telling. The final scene where the German soldier returns to the battle was, in my opinion, over done. The bitter ironies of war would have been better portrayed if the scene had merely ended with the GI who had shown mercy simply shooting and killing the very same soldier as he discovered him in the room upstairs. Overall, I felt it was a very good film that he ruined at the end with that final scene. The final scene of battle as well was war propaganda in my opinion. As a contrast the final scenes of Full Metal Jacket left me with a feeling of the utter sense of futility and foolishness of war and its destructive effects on both the vanquished and the victors.
And while I more or less agree with Gilliam, I also think this thread disproves his point somewhat as there is obviously quite a bit to discuss and ponder in Spielberg’s films. Much of the differences of opinion towards the two directors come down to personal tastes in my opinion.
A nice change of pace this thread.
Joey Maloney
I don’t think this thread should or can be used to prove or disprove anything, due to the well-known “someone is WRONG on the internet” effect. Which definitely needs a catchier name.
J. Miller
In Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg showed the horror and the reality of the Holocaust in a way I have never seen from any other film maker. It is an epic work, filled with unforgettable scenes and brilliant performances, a movie that film critic David Thomson has called the most emotionally moving film he has ever seen. It is a triumph at every level, and it is a film that Terry Gilliam would be utterly incapable of making. Why? Because Gilliam lacks the ability to convey that kind of emotional depth. Nothing Gilliam has ever done has ever struck me as being anything more than emotionally shallow and superficial. And Gilliam, for all his visual genius, can’t really tell a coherent story to save his life. His attempt to convey the reality of the Holocaust would be an utter failure because he’d spend too much time indulging every visual whim, noticing every odd detail, and filling the frame as densely as possible with unusual, artsy visuals. The story would be shoved aside, and the Jews being exterminated would be reduced to visually striking props.
And Gilliam (and Kubrick’s) opinion of Spielberg in regard to the Holocaust is downright insulting. Does Gilliam REALLY think that Spielberg doesn’t “understand” what the Holocaust was?!? Does Gilliam think that Spielberg doesn’t know about the true depths of the horror? Is Gilliam actually that condescending? Does he really think his own grasp of the meaning of the Holocaust is superior to Spielberg’s? Astonishing. But I guess when your last few films have been utter failures, bitterness toward those who can actually tell a genuine story just sort of overflows.
bob h
So far this holiday season, I have seen “The Fighter”, “True Grit”, and “Rabbit Hole”, all excellent.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
I just want to point out that Terry Gilliam is wrong when he says that six million people were killed in the Holocaust. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The total number of people killed in the Holocaust was about twice that.
jefft452
Triassic Sands @148
I don’t disagree in re the quality of the film as a film,
But I thought that the film vs book was on point to the original post because Kubric changed the story to Hollywood good guy (Dax) vs bad guy (Assolant)
When the book was about how people in an organization react to bad policy decisions by that organization
Even Assolant wasn’t the “bad guy” in the book.
Yeah, he ordered his own troops to be shelled by his own side, then covered it up
But he wasn’t just a pompous ass, when high command told him his division would lead the attack, his initial reaction was that it would be suicidal and would fail anyway
He argued for alternative plans and asked for more resources
But once he realized that this was the decision that was going to be made, he convinced himself that that it must have been a great idea
I do recommend the book, but I do warn you that it is the most depressing book that I ever read