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- Mar 1, 2011
Originally Posted by CP1708
Anyone biting the bullet and spending the money on the Star Wars Blu Rays like me?
I pre-ordered them the second they went up on Amazon.
Oh I'm sorry, Did I Break Your Conversation........Well Allow Me A Movie Thread by S&T
I pre-ordered them the second they went up on Amazon.
- 3,107
- 13
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2011
Originally Posted by CP1708
Anyone biting the bullet and spending the money on the Star Wars Blu Rays like me?
I pre-ordered them the second they went up on Amazon.
darthska
Staff member
- 46,205
- 30,360
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2004
I loved it, but I've been told I have weird taste in movies.
Right off the top, I like that it's more real than... well... nearly everything else Hollywood churns out.
So many scenes had me like "Well that's not how Hollywood would normally script that."
Like one scene [that won't really spoil the movie for you] where the main actor in the movie chooses not to help the main actress even though she's clearly in dire straits. THAT... is real life. In real life, at least in my life, people don't just drop everything to help out. And what's beautiful about that scene is that someone he works with is trying to tell him "C'mon, she's obviously needs a hand," while he's persistently denying the main actress. I was thinking in my head the SAME thing I think in real life when people try to tell someone ELSE to help out: "Man, you do it. What the hell? How you gon' tell someone else to do something YOU can do, too?"
That's real life.
I can't talk about movies the way y'all do... talking about angles and cinemat-whatever and slow/fast scripts and lighting and coloring and costume choices and hints and whatever... but I just have a feeling y'all are going to rip this one apart. Just didn't seem like something worth talking about.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not campaigning for the movie or anything, like it's not getting it's due recognition.
But I do think the main 3 issues it touches on were a liiiittttttlle too real for people to really absorb and be comfortable with. People want to go watch some batdude or some dude w/ a big hammer swoop in and save the day.
*yes, this will absolutely spoil the movie for you if you click*
The masses want some 'Love conquers all' bullcrap where everything turns out great and the good guy always gets the girl and... life is beautiful. Actually, thinking about the title, that *#!$ should be 'Life Sucks'.
Right off the top, I like that it's more real than... well... nearly everything else Hollywood churns out.
So many scenes had me like "Well that's not how Hollywood would normally script that."
Like one scene [that won't really spoil the movie for you] where the main actor in the movie chooses not to help the main actress even though she's clearly in dire straits. THAT... is real life. In real life, at least in my life, people don't just drop everything to help out. And what's beautiful about that scene is that someone he works with is trying to tell him "C'mon, she's obviously needs a hand," while he's persistently denying the main actress. I was thinking in my head the SAME thing I think in real life when people try to tell someone ELSE to help out: "Man, you do it. What the hell? How you gon' tell someone else to do something YOU can do, too?"
That's real life.
I can't talk about movies the way y'all do... talking about angles and cinemat-whatever and slow/fast scripts and lighting and coloring and costume choices and hints and whatever... but I just have a feeling y'all are going to rip this one apart. Just didn't seem like something worth talking about.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not campaigning for the movie or anything, like it's not getting it's due recognition.
But I do think the main 3 issues it touches on were a liiiittttttlle too real for people to really absorb and be comfortable with. People want to go watch some batdude or some dude w/ a big hammer swoop in and save the day.
*yes, this will absolutely spoil the movie for you if you click*
Spoiler [+]
Illegal immigrants, teens living on the streets, and family rape. The masses ain't trying to see that on the big screen, because the masses know those 3 things exist all around us anyways. People go to movies to escape. Me? I love 'real'.
The masses want some 'Love conquers all' bullcrap where everything turns out great and the good guy always gets the girl and... life is beautiful. Actually, thinking about the title, that *#!$ should be 'Life Sucks'.
darthska
Staff member
- 46,205
- 30,360
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2004
I loved it, but I've been told I have weird taste in movies.
Right off the top, I like that it's more real than... well... nearly everything else Hollywood churns out.
So many scenes had me like "Well that's not how Hollywood would normally script that."
Like one scene [that won't really spoil the movie for you] where the main actor in the movie chooses not to help the main actress even though she's clearly in dire straits. THAT... is real life. In real life, at least in my life, people don't just drop everything to help out. And what's beautiful about that scene is that someone he works with is trying to tell him "C'mon, she's obviously needs a hand," while he's persistently denying the main actress. I was thinking in my head the SAME thing I think in real life when people try to tell someone ELSE to help out: "Man, you do it. What the hell? How you gon' tell someone else to do something YOU can do, too?"
That's real life.
I can't talk about movies the way y'all do... talking about angles and cinemat-whatever and slow/fast scripts and lighting and coloring and costume choices and hints and whatever... but I just have a feeling y'all are going to rip this one apart. Just didn't seem like something worth talking about.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not campaigning for the movie or anything, like it's not getting it's due recognition.
But I do think the main 3 issues it touches on were a liiiittttttlle too real for people to really absorb and be comfortable with. People want to go watch some batdude or some dude w/ a big hammer swoop in and save the day.
*yes, this will absolutely spoil the movie for you if you click*
The masses want some 'Love conquers all' bullcrap where everything turns out great and the good guy always gets the girl and... life is beautiful. Actually, thinking about the title, that *#!$ should be 'Life Sucks'.
Right off the top, I like that it's more real than... well... nearly everything else Hollywood churns out.
So many scenes had me like "Well that's not how Hollywood would normally script that."
Like one scene [that won't really spoil the movie for you] where the main actor in the movie chooses not to help the main actress even though she's clearly in dire straits. THAT... is real life. In real life, at least in my life, people don't just drop everything to help out. And what's beautiful about that scene is that someone he works with is trying to tell him "C'mon, she's obviously needs a hand," while he's persistently denying the main actress. I was thinking in my head the SAME thing I think in real life when people try to tell someone ELSE to help out: "Man, you do it. What the hell? How you gon' tell someone else to do something YOU can do, too?"
That's real life.
I can't talk about movies the way y'all do... talking about angles and cinemat-whatever and slow/fast scripts and lighting and coloring and costume choices and hints and whatever... but I just have a feeling y'all are going to rip this one apart. Just didn't seem like something worth talking about.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not campaigning for the movie or anything, like it's not getting it's due recognition.
But I do think the main 3 issues it touches on were a liiiittttttlle too real for people to really absorb and be comfortable with. People want to go watch some batdude or some dude w/ a big hammer swoop in and save the day.
*yes, this will absolutely spoil the movie for you if you click*
Spoiler [+]
Illegal immigrants, teens living on the streets, and family rape. The masses ain't trying to see that on the big screen, because the masses know those 3 things exist all around us anyways. People go to movies to escape. Me? I love 'real'.
The masses want some 'Love conquers all' bullcrap where everything turns out great and the good guy always gets the girl and... life is beautiful. Actually, thinking about the title, that *#!$ should be 'Life Sucks'.
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 66,688
- 72,827
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2005
Whoa at that Triangle chart, I click on the spoiler and was like @$*$ this.
All this talk about horror movies piqued my interest. I downloaded the movies RyGuy mentioned as well as The Descent 1 & 2, and the Wrong Turn Trilogy.
Plan to watch these over the next few weeks/months.
Finally watched Paranormal Activity after having it on my laptop for months; I think all the talk of how scary it was had me shook.
And while it has some tense moments it wasn't overly scary; I wanted to slap Micah for continually messing with the demon.
Anyone know where I can watch all the alternate endings for PA? I found the 3rd ending online and I see why they didn't go with that one.
And Dub, I started the 2nd Game of Thrones book yesterday, really enjoying it so far.
All this talk about horror movies piqued my interest. I downloaded the movies RyGuy mentioned as well as The Descent 1 & 2, and the Wrong Turn Trilogy.
Plan to watch these over the next few weeks/months.
Finally watched Paranormal Activity after having it on my laptop for months; I think all the talk of how scary it was had me shook.
And while it has some tense moments it wasn't overly scary; I wanted to slap Micah for continually messing with the demon.
Anyone know where I can watch all the alternate endings for PA? I found the 3rd ending online and I see why they didn't go with that one.
And Dub, I started the 2nd Game of Thrones book yesterday, really enjoying it so far.
T0INE
formerly toine2983
- 66,688
- 72,827
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2005
Whoa at that Triangle chart, I click on the spoiler and was like @$*$ this.
All this talk about horror movies piqued my interest. I downloaded the movies RyGuy mentioned as well as The Descent 1 & 2, and the Wrong Turn Trilogy.
Plan to watch these over the next few weeks/months.
Finally watched Paranormal Activity after having it on my laptop for months; I think all the talk of how scary it was had me shook.
And while it has some tense moments it wasn't overly scary; I wanted to slap Micah for continually messing with the demon.
Anyone know where I can watch all the alternate endings for PA? I found the 3rd ending online and I see why they didn't go with that one.
And Dub, I started the 2nd Game of Thrones book yesterday, really enjoying it so far.
All this talk about horror movies piqued my interest. I downloaded the movies RyGuy mentioned as well as The Descent 1 & 2, and the Wrong Turn Trilogy.
Plan to watch these over the next few weeks/months.
Finally watched Paranormal Activity after having it on my laptop for months; I think all the talk of how scary it was had me shook.
And while it has some tense moments it wasn't overly scary; I wanted to slap Micah for continually messing with the demon.
Anyone know where I can watch all the alternate endings for PA? I found the 3rd ending online and I see why they didn't go with that one.
And Dub, I started the 2nd Game of Thrones book yesterday, really enjoying it so far.
- 24,717
- 436
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2006
Wow what a Friday. Not only do the Star Wars BD's come out, but then I go see one of the better psychological thrillers I'd seen in a while, Straw Dogs. This movie definitely isn't for everyone though.
Going to re-post something I put on a different board about it..
I just watched this with my girlfriend, and all I have to say is wow.
At times, this movie is gut-wrenching, at times it's heart-breaking.
This is the best movie of it's kind I've seen in a very long time. If you enjoyed the remake to Last House, this DEFINITELY right up your alley.
I'm going to get into spoilers from here on out, so be forewarned.
Prefacing by saying I never saw the original. Expectations were very reasonable.
I went into this with hesitation. I had read no real reviews on it other than the RottenTomatoes score of low 30s and I was scared it might be in similar vein of what the media likes to call torture-porn. Let me get this off the bat straight off, this isn't a gorefest, almost all of the intense-horror is psychological.
The cast in this one is amazing. Not a single bad performance. I was kind of shocked to see James Woods in this, as I hadn't seen him in any of the trailer. He was hilarious and frightening at times. But IMO who really stole the show was Marsden and Bosworth. Relating to another thriller, Last House, I found these two to be a much more believable couple, and they played off each other superbly. Mr. Eric Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard was a complete and utter creep in this movie. The rest of his cronies fit the bill.
The tension builds up quickly. You realize after a while that these redneck hunters don't just hunt livestock, they hunt whatever it is that opposes them. Marsden does a great job of playing the city-man who's by-the-book, while Skarsgard is a good-'ol country boy. The dynamic between the two is clear as day. From the moment they meet, there's tension already.
It builds up to the rape scene, which was extremely hard for me to watch. Very few things in movies make my stomach turn, and a well-portrayed rape scene does it. That's why this movie is getting slammed in the reviews on RT.com. They don't show anything in this movie, no breasts, no real gore outside of a few nasty shots, and the rape scene is purely emotional. It's one of the most graphic things I've ever seen, and it was all shot so that you didn't need to see any of it actually happening to feel the anguish Bosworth was in. The fact that she's scared beyond her wits and won't tell her husband about it really bothered me at first, but she had to have been scared for her life.
A big stickler for me is suspending my disbelief in movies as they like to say... If I'm going into a zombie film, I say.. Alright, cool, zombies running around eating people, I know how to adjust my viewing experience to enjoy this enough while not taking it seriously.
There is no supernatural in this film, there's no real textbook horror elements, it's a thriller through-and-through. I was scared for the characters and their well-being by ordinary people, and that's the biggest fear anyone can have. This isn't Michael Myers running rampant around Haddonfield, or Freddy stalking your dreams, this is your neighbor, threatening you and your families lives.
Back to the gore, they show very little gore throughout until the last scenes, and of the actual gore, there's only about a combined minute of gore on-screen, and most of that is the final death, which I will not spoil, because it's too awesome to spoil. There are a few brutal squib-shots, but beyond that, there's two "gory," scenes, and they are nothing by Saw or Hostel standards. As previously stated, this is a thriller that wants to make you as uncomfortable as you can be.
On a side note, the Jeremy character was kind of left up in the air. I don't believe we ever saw his demise on screen, which is kind of odd, but I could just be mistaken.
END SPOILER.
I could write a ton more about this film, but it needs to be seen. If you enjoyed the Last House of the Left remake, you'll definitely enjoy this. Not just because they are somewhat similar thematically, but because it's well-told script on-screen. The acting all-around was top-notch. It won't win any Oscars or anything of course, but this film did it for me. This is one that we'll be talking about for a while, one of those which the horror community will remember for years when we're debating a list of the best films of the decade.
Overall, it's a stab-in-the-heart ride. It's my kind of genre that I enjoy most, so I am biased to an extent, but as far as my own personal opinion, I thought it was fantastic. Marsden, Skarsgard, and Bosworth really make it a worthwhile experience.
It seems to be getting very mixed ratings though. Ebert praised it, while a ton of others are bashing it relentlessly.
I watched the Star Wars prequels tonight too, and man The Phantom Menace really holds up poorly. Not only does the CGI look very dated, but the digital noise reduction makes the film seem so off. 90% of the movie is an eye-sore. When it's fast-paced action, like the final duel, it's more tolerable, but only between the Sith/Jedi; the Naboo scene looks like garbage. It honestly looks like a SyFy experience with tons more effort put into the CGI, but still has that crap SyFy feel.
Episode II improved all the way around. Not only is it a better film, but the presentation is much better.
I'm not a huge fan of Episode III, but it's the only one of the three that looks amazing. Added to the fact it's a much better film, it made for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
I hear the transfer on the OT is downright stunning. I'm hoping I can watch IV and V tomorrow, but I've got to pack.
Even if you're only mildly interested in Star Wars, you have to pick up the set sometime. Don't miss out.
Going to re-post something I put on a different board about it..
I just watched this with my girlfriend, and all I have to say is wow.
At times, this movie is gut-wrenching, at times it's heart-breaking.
This is the best movie of it's kind I've seen in a very long time. If you enjoyed the remake to Last House, this DEFINITELY right up your alley.
I'm going to get into spoilers from here on out, so be forewarned.
Prefacing by saying I never saw the original. Expectations were very reasonable.
I went into this with hesitation. I had read no real reviews on it other than the RottenTomatoes score of low 30s and I was scared it might be in similar vein of what the media likes to call torture-porn. Let me get this off the bat straight off, this isn't a gorefest, almost all of the intense-horror is psychological.
The cast in this one is amazing. Not a single bad performance. I was kind of shocked to see James Woods in this, as I hadn't seen him in any of the trailer. He was hilarious and frightening at times. But IMO who really stole the show was Marsden and Bosworth. Relating to another thriller, Last House, I found these two to be a much more believable couple, and they played off each other superbly. Mr. Eric Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard was a complete and utter creep in this movie. The rest of his cronies fit the bill.
The tension builds up quickly. You realize after a while that these redneck hunters don't just hunt livestock, they hunt whatever it is that opposes them. Marsden does a great job of playing the city-man who's by-the-book, while Skarsgard is a good-'ol country boy. The dynamic between the two is clear as day. From the moment they meet, there's tension already.
It builds up to the rape scene, which was extremely hard for me to watch. Very few things in movies make my stomach turn, and a well-portrayed rape scene does it. That's why this movie is getting slammed in the reviews on RT.com. They don't show anything in this movie, no breasts, no real gore outside of a few nasty shots, and the rape scene is purely emotional. It's one of the most graphic things I've ever seen, and it was all shot so that you didn't need to see any of it actually happening to feel the anguish Bosworth was in. The fact that she's scared beyond her wits and won't tell her husband about it really bothered me at first, but she had to have been scared for her life.
A big stickler for me is suspending my disbelief in movies as they like to say... If I'm going into a zombie film, I say.. Alright, cool, zombies running around eating people, I know how to adjust my viewing experience to enjoy this enough while not taking it seriously.
There is no supernatural in this film, there's no real textbook horror elements, it's a thriller through-and-through. I was scared for the characters and their well-being by ordinary people, and that's the biggest fear anyone can have. This isn't Michael Myers running rampant around Haddonfield, or Freddy stalking your dreams, this is your neighbor, threatening you and your families lives.
Back to the gore, they show very little gore throughout until the last scenes, and of the actual gore, there's only about a combined minute of gore on-screen, and most of that is the final death, which I will not spoil, because it's too awesome to spoil. There are a few brutal squib-shots, but beyond that, there's two "gory," scenes, and they are nothing by Saw or Hostel standards. As previously stated, this is a thriller that wants to make you as uncomfortable as you can be.
On a side note, the Jeremy character was kind of left up in the air. I don't believe we ever saw his demise on screen, which is kind of odd, but I could just be mistaken.
END SPOILER.
I could write a ton more about this film, but it needs to be seen. If you enjoyed the Last House of the Left remake, you'll definitely enjoy this. Not just because they are somewhat similar thematically, but because it's well-told script on-screen. The acting all-around was top-notch. It won't win any Oscars or anything of course, but this film did it for me. This is one that we'll be talking about for a while, one of those which the horror community will remember for years when we're debating a list of the best films of the decade.
Overall, it's a stab-in-the-heart ride. It's my kind of genre that I enjoy most, so I am biased to an extent, but as far as my own personal opinion, I thought it was fantastic. Marsden, Skarsgard, and Bosworth really make it a worthwhile experience.
It seems to be getting very mixed ratings though. Ebert praised it, while a ton of others are bashing it relentlessly.
I watched the Star Wars prequels tonight too, and man The Phantom Menace really holds up poorly. Not only does the CGI look very dated, but the digital noise reduction makes the film seem so off. 90% of the movie is an eye-sore. When it's fast-paced action, like the final duel, it's more tolerable, but only between the Sith/Jedi; the Naboo scene looks like garbage. It honestly looks like a SyFy experience with tons more effort put into the CGI, but still has that crap SyFy feel.
Episode II improved all the way around. Not only is it a better film, but the presentation is much better.
I'm not a huge fan of Episode III, but it's the only one of the three that looks amazing. Added to the fact it's a much better film, it made for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
I hear the transfer on the OT is downright stunning. I'm hoping I can watch IV and V tomorrow, but I've got to pack.
Even if you're only mildly interested in Star Wars, you have to pick up the set sometime. Don't miss out.
- 24,717
- 436
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2006
Wow what a Friday. Not only do the Star Wars BD's come out, but then I go see one of the better psychological thrillers I'd seen in a while, Straw Dogs. This movie definitely isn't for everyone though.
Going to re-post something I put on a different board about it..
I just watched this with my girlfriend, and all I have to say is wow.
At times, this movie is gut-wrenching, at times it's heart-breaking.
This is the best movie of it's kind I've seen in a very long time. If you enjoyed the remake to Last House, this DEFINITELY right up your alley.
I'm going to get into spoilers from here on out, so be forewarned.
Prefacing by saying I never saw the original. Expectations were very reasonable.
I went into this with hesitation. I had read no real reviews on it other than the RottenTomatoes score of low 30s and I was scared it might be in similar vein of what the media likes to call torture-porn. Let me get this off the bat straight off, this isn't a gorefest, almost all of the intense-horror is psychological.
The cast in this one is amazing. Not a single bad performance. I was kind of shocked to see James Woods in this, as I hadn't seen him in any of the trailer. He was hilarious and frightening at times. But IMO who really stole the show was Marsden and Bosworth. Relating to another thriller, Last House, I found these two to be a much more believable couple, and they played off each other superbly. Mr. Eric Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard was a complete and utter creep in this movie. The rest of his cronies fit the bill.
The tension builds up quickly. You realize after a while that these redneck hunters don't just hunt livestock, they hunt whatever it is that opposes them. Marsden does a great job of playing the city-man who's by-the-book, while Skarsgard is a good-'ol country boy. The dynamic between the two is clear as day. From the moment they meet, there's tension already.
It builds up to the rape scene, which was extremely hard for me to watch. Very few things in movies make my stomach turn, and a well-portrayed rape scene does it. That's why this movie is getting slammed in the reviews on RT.com. They don't show anything in this movie, no breasts, no real gore outside of a few nasty shots, and the rape scene is purely emotional. It's one of the most graphic things I've ever seen, and it was all shot so that you didn't need to see any of it actually happening to feel the anguish Bosworth was in. The fact that she's scared beyond her wits and won't tell her husband about it really bothered me at first, but she had to have been scared for her life.
A big stickler for me is suspending my disbelief in movies as they like to say... If I'm going into a zombie film, I say.. Alright, cool, zombies running around eating people, I know how to adjust my viewing experience to enjoy this enough while not taking it seriously.
There is no supernatural in this film, there's no real textbook horror elements, it's a thriller through-and-through. I was scared for the characters and their well-being by ordinary people, and that's the biggest fear anyone can have. This isn't Michael Myers running rampant around Haddonfield, or Freddy stalking your dreams, this is your neighbor, threatening you and your families lives.
Back to the gore, they show very little gore throughout until the last scenes, and of the actual gore, there's only about a combined minute of gore on-screen, and most of that is the final death, which I will not spoil, because it's too awesome to spoil. There are a few brutal squib-shots, but beyond that, there's two "gory," scenes, and they are nothing by Saw or Hostel standards. As previously stated, this is a thriller that wants to make you as uncomfortable as you can be.
On a side note, the Jeremy character was kind of left up in the air. I don't believe we ever saw his demise on screen, which is kind of odd, but I could just be mistaken.
END SPOILER.
I could write a ton more about this film, but it needs to be seen. If you enjoyed the Last House of the Left remake, you'll definitely enjoy this. Not just because they are somewhat similar thematically, but because it's well-told script on-screen. The acting all-around was top-notch. It won't win any Oscars or anything of course, but this film did it for me. This is one that we'll be talking about for a while, one of those which the horror community will remember for years when we're debating a list of the best films of the decade.
Overall, it's a stab-in-the-heart ride. It's my kind of genre that I enjoy most, so I am biased to an extent, but as far as my own personal opinion, I thought it was fantastic. Marsden, Skarsgard, and Bosworth really make it a worthwhile experience.
It seems to be getting very mixed ratings though. Ebert praised it, while a ton of others are bashing it relentlessly.
I watched the Star Wars prequels tonight too, and man The Phantom Menace really holds up poorly. Not only does the CGI look very dated, but the digital noise reduction makes the film seem so off. 90% of the movie is an eye-sore. When it's fast-paced action, like the final duel, it's more tolerable, but only between the Sith/Jedi; the Naboo scene looks like garbage. It honestly looks like a SyFy experience with tons more effort put into the CGI, but still has that crap SyFy feel.
Episode II improved all the way around. Not only is it a better film, but the presentation is much better.
I'm not a huge fan of Episode III, but it's the only one of the three that looks amazing. Added to the fact it's a much better film, it made for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
I hear the transfer on the OT is downright stunning. I'm hoping I can watch IV and V tomorrow, but I've got to pack.
Even if you're only mildly interested in Star Wars, you have to pick up the set sometime. Don't miss out.
Going to re-post something I put on a different board about it..
I just watched this with my girlfriend, and all I have to say is wow.
At times, this movie is gut-wrenching, at times it's heart-breaking.
This is the best movie of it's kind I've seen in a very long time. If you enjoyed the remake to Last House, this DEFINITELY right up your alley.
I'm going to get into spoilers from here on out, so be forewarned.
Prefacing by saying I never saw the original. Expectations were very reasonable.
I went into this with hesitation. I had read no real reviews on it other than the RottenTomatoes score of low 30s and I was scared it might be in similar vein of what the media likes to call torture-porn. Let me get this off the bat straight off, this isn't a gorefest, almost all of the intense-horror is psychological.
The cast in this one is amazing. Not a single bad performance. I was kind of shocked to see James Woods in this, as I hadn't seen him in any of the trailer. He was hilarious and frightening at times. But IMO who really stole the show was Marsden and Bosworth. Relating to another thriller, Last House, I found these two to be a much more believable couple, and they played off each other superbly. Mr. Eric Northman himself, Alexander Skarsgard was a complete and utter creep in this movie. The rest of his cronies fit the bill.
The tension builds up quickly. You realize after a while that these redneck hunters don't just hunt livestock, they hunt whatever it is that opposes them. Marsden does a great job of playing the city-man who's by-the-book, while Skarsgard is a good-'ol country boy. The dynamic between the two is clear as day. From the moment they meet, there's tension already.
It builds up to the rape scene, which was extremely hard for me to watch. Very few things in movies make my stomach turn, and a well-portrayed rape scene does it. That's why this movie is getting slammed in the reviews on RT.com. They don't show anything in this movie, no breasts, no real gore outside of a few nasty shots, and the rape scene is purely emotional. It's one of the most graphic things I've ever seen, and it was all shot so that you didn't need to see any of it actually happening to feel the anguish Bosworth was in. The fact that she's scared beyond her wits and won't tell her husband about it really bothered me at first, but she had to have been scared for her life.
A big stickler for me is suspending my disbelief in movies as they like to say... If I'm going into a zombie film, I say.. Alright, cool, zombies running around eating people, I know how to adjust my viewing experience to enjoy this enough while not taking it seriously.
There is no supernatural in this film, there's no real textbook horror elements, it's a thriller through-and-through. I was scared for the characters and their well-being by ordinary people, and that's the biggest fear anyone can have. This isn't Michael Myers running rampant around Haddonfield, or Freddy stalking your dreams, this is your neighbor, threatening you and your families lives.
Back to the gore, they show very little gore throughout until the last scenes, and of the actual gore, there's only about a combined minute of gore on-screen, and most of that is the final death, which I will not spoil, because it's too awesome to spoil. There are a few brutal squib-shots, but beyond that, there's two "gory," scenes, and they are nothing by Saw or Hostel standards. As previously stated, this is a thriller that wants to make you as uncomfortable as you can be.
On a side note, the Jeremy character was kind of left up in the air. I don't believe we ever saw his demise on screen, which is kind of odd, but I could just be mistaken.
END SPOILER.
I could write a ton more about this film, but it needs to be seen. If you enjoyed the Last House of the Left remake, you'll definitely enjoy this. Not just because they are somewhat similar thematically, but because it's well-told script on-screen. The acting all-around was top-notch. It won't win any Oscars or anything of course, but this film did it for me. This is one that we'll be talking about for a while, one of those which the horror community will remember for years when we're debating a list of the best films of the decade.
Overall, it's a stab-in-the-heart ride. It's my kind of genre that I enjoy most, so I am biased to an extent, but as far as my own personal opinion, I thought it was fantastic. Marsden, Skarsgard, and Bosworth really make it a worthwhile experience.
It seems to be getting very mixed ratings though. Ebert praised it, while a ton of others are bashing it relentlessly.
I watched the Star Wars prequels tonight too, and man The Phantom Menace really holds up poorly. Not only does the CGI look very dated, but the digital noise reduction makes the film seem so off. 90% of the movie is an eye-sore. When it's fast-paced action, like the final duel, it's more tolerable, but only between the Sith/Jedi; the Naboo scene looks like garbage. It honestly looks like a SyFy experience with tons more effort put into the CGI, but still has that crap SyFy feel.
Episode II improved all the way around. Not only is it a better film, but the presentation is much better.
I'm not a huge fan of Episode III, but it's the only one of the three that looks amazing. Added to the fact it's a much better film, it made for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
I hear the transfer on the OT is downright stunning. I'm hoping I can watch IV and V tomorrow, but I've got to pack.
Even if you're only mildly interested in Star Wars, you have to pick up the set sometime. Don't miss out.
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we have talked about the movie before ska. it's one of the best i have ever seen
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we have talked about the movie before ska. it's one of the best i have ever seen
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I went into the store last night to scoop Good Will Hunting and Rounders for like 15 bucks and came out with the Star Wars box set, too...
I knew I would buy it eventually, but I talked myself into it last night. Might crack it open today and get started.
I knew I would buy it eventually, but I talked myself into it last night. Might crack it open today and get started.
- 25,234
- 13,300
- Joined
- May 30, 2006
I went into the store last night to scoop Good Will Hunting and Rounders for like 15 bucks and came out with the Star Wars box set, too...
I knew I would buy it eventually, but I talked myself into it last night. Might crack it open today and get started.
I knew I would buy it eventually, but I talked myself into it last night. Might crack it open today and get started.
- 29,630
- 1,863
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2003
Presented here is a modest collection of George Lucas quotes pertaining to film preservation and the public's right to their own cultural heritage. I present this collection in order to demonstrate the hypocrisy of George Lucas, but also his own admirable stance towards film preservation--a stance which he demands of everyone but which he does not apply to himself. I believe these quotes are important to highlight that George Lucas, by his own views, is violating the ethics of both the responsibilities of copyright holders but also the ethics of United States law. Unfortunately, motion picture law has many holes in it--which is why Lucas legally gets away with his suppression, neglect and destruction of the original Star Wars trilogy. I will also provide greater context to the quotes, so as not to be accused of picking them out of context or distorting their meaning. This collection will proceed chronologically, beginning with the 1970s, into the 1980s, through to the 1990s and up until the 2000s of our present day.
Our first rendezvous is 1979. In an interview with journalist Alan Arnold for the book Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back, Lucas expresses the importance of letting future audiences see films as they were, that films are historical documents which give insight into the tastes and technologies of the time they were made, comparing it to the sociological value of vintage comic strips. He states on page 222:
"To me, film is historical document and therefore it has practical value. People 500 years from now will look at our films and be able to figure out what we were like...They are technological extensions of, a derivation from, the comic strip."
Our second rendezvous is the year 1988. In that year, filmmakers, preservationists and businessmen were fighting a fierce battle to enact legislation which would give motion pictures protection from being altered from their original form. This battle went all the way to Congress, where such high profile filmmakers as Jimmy Stewart, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas himself testified on the importance to preserve the past. Lucas and company tried to enact this law through entering the Berne Convention for Moral Rights, which would prevent filmmakers from having their work distorted without their consent--however, this also extended to, not only allowing them to alter their own works in derivative copies if they so wished, but also protecting those historical films as well, so that future generations could continue to view them in as high a quality as possible (as by that point, Eastern Bloc countries were being scoured for better sources than the neglected American vaults). This is part of what Lucas had to say about the issue:
"A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."
"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work."
Unfortunately, because protection was sought through Moral Rights, Lucas and company failed in their crusade. They failed because, as was rightfully pointed out by people such as MPAA head Jack Valenti, it is simplistic to argue that the collaborative nature of films should be controlled just by one person, since in real life producers and studio executives can tell a director what to do. For that matter, with Moral Rights, the other artists involved, such as editors and cinematographers, should also be protected from having their work distorted after release, and so the argument fell apart. Had they framed the issue purely in terms of preservation of the past--cultural heritage protection law--the legislation may have gone through. Cultural heritage protection law exists for all other art forms, such as landmarks, paintings and buildings, but because of the fallout from 1988, this has not been extended to films, and so they are vulnerable to destruction by whomever owns the copyright. Which, in the case of the Star Wars films, is Lucasfilm.
The next rendevzous we have with Lucas is five years later, in 1993. In that year, he wrote a message on the Star Wars Trilogy boxset in which he expresses hope for the continued long-term, generation-spanning viewing of these films:
"Star Wars was my elaborate fantasy, but its popularity has gone beyond anything ever I had imagined...I hope that you, your children, and your children's children will enjoy experiencing this saga as much as I have."
Our next rendezvous point is 1996. Lucas was by then working on the Special Edition of Star Wars, which presents a dilemma, and one which Lucas himself recognized: he would be altering a culturally significant film. Lucas, in this quote, is uncomfortable with his own actions, expressing some reservations that he is going against his own philosophy--even that he fears this practice could become common. In this example, he even acknowledges that what he is doing is wrong, the only time he would own up to what the Special Edition represents. He states to Cinefex in 1996 (issue 65) on the ongoing construction of the Special Edition:
"On your special edition, do you expect any backlash from fans who might resent your tampering with a classic?
I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
With rendezvous five we arrive in 2004. Lucas by then had resolved his earlier dilemma by simply going into denial about it. He states in 1997: "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'...What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]". He further states in 2004: "The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...To me, it doesn't really exist anymore." And here is where the hypocrisy is truely bewildering. That very same year, Three Stooges shorts were released on DVD in colourized versions, which Lucas protests. His protests were a bit inflated, however, as the DVD contained the original black and white versions in identical quality, and so the issue of the past being distorted was slightly overstated. But what is bewildering, however, is that he still insists that the public ought to be able to see films as they originally were released! He states to the Associated Press:
"I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."
This goes hand in hand with his continued distortion of the history of Star Wars itself: starting in 2005, he began to claim that Star Wars was really "The Tragedy of Darth Vader", and that this was what his earliest story material was about--which, as I have demonstrated in my book The Secret History of Star Wars, is not only factualy untrue but also a little absurd.
Of the Three Stooges issue is a comparitively rarer quote (see: here) where he may be suggesting, as the shorts were availble in black and white as well, that the very idea of having an alternate version in existence is distasteful and dangerous, since audiences may be exposed to the alternate version and not the original.
"Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore? Maybe just the fact that they're in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. By putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was. But you try to make it in full, living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it's hard for young people to understand."
Our final rendezvous point is the year of this writing, 2011. In his introductory letter for the Profiles in History catelog featuring Debbie Reynolds collection of memorabelia (PDF link), Lucas speaks about his respect for film history:
"As a filmmaker and a lover of cinema, I have always appreciated the many disciplines that go into making a film-- the props, the costumes, all the aspects that come together to make the whole as great as the sum of its parts. I have archived all the important pieces from my own films, and I am a staunch believer it's important that we all make an effort to preserve our cinematic heritage-- before it's too late."
So, why does Lucas speak out about the suppression of film history, when he has been the biggest theft of it? It is quite puzzling, to such extent that some online critics have wondered about what sort of psychological profile Lucas' mind would yield. Perhaps it is total egomania, an inflated sense of entitlement or simply denial--but I will leave any armchair psychology out of this. It would be interesting to see how he justified his actions when confronted with such excerpts. I hope these quotes demonstrate the hollowness with which Lucas has insisted that he has the right to deny and suppress the cultural heritage of you and I.
Our first rendezvous is 1979. In an interview with journalist Alan Arnold for the book Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back, Lucas expresses the importance of letting future audiences see films as they were, that films are historical documents which give insight into the tastes and technologies of the time they were made, comparing it to the sociological value of vintage comic strips. He states on page 222:
"To me, film is historical document and therefore it has practical value. People 500 years from now will look at our films and be able to figure out what we were like...They are technological extensions of, a derivation from, the comic strip."
Our second rendezvous is the year 1988. In that year, filmmakers, preservationists and businessmen were fighting a fierce battle to enact legislation which would give motion pictures protection from being altered from their original form. This battle went all the way to Congress, where such high profile filmmakers as Jimmy Stewart, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas himself testified on the importance to preserve the past. Lucas and company tried to enact this law through entering the Berne Convention for Moral Rights, which would prevent filmmakers from having their work distorted without their consent--however, this also extended to, not only allowing them to alter their own works in derivative copies if they so wished, but also protecting those historical films as well, so that future generations could continue to view them in as high a quality as possible (as by that point, Eastern Bloc countries were being scoured for better sources than the neglected American vaults). This is part of what Lucas had to say about the issue:
"A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."
"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work."
Unfortunately, because protection was sought through Moral Rights, Lucas and company failed in their crusade. They failed because, as was rightfully pointed out by people such as MPAA head Jack Valenti, it is simplistic to argue that the collaborative nature of films should be controlled just by one person, since in real life producers and studio executives can tell a director what to do. For that matter, with Moral Rights, the other artists involved, such as editors and cinematographers, should also be protected from having their work distorted after release, and so the argument fell apart. Had they framed the issue purely in terms of preservation of the past--cultural heritage protection law--the legislation may have gone through. Cultural heritage protection law exists for all other art forms, such as landmarks, paintings and buildings, but because of the fallout from 1988, this has not been extended to films, and so they are vulnerable to destruction by whomever owns the copyright. Which, in the case of the Star Wars films, is Lucasfilm.
The next rendevzous we have with Lucas is five years later, in 1993. In that year, he wrote a message on the Star Wars Trilogy boxset in which he expresses hope for the continued long-term, generation-spanning viewing of these films:
"Star Wars was my elaborate fantasy, but its popularity has gone beyond anything ever I had imagined...I hope that you, your children, and your children's children will enjoy experiencing this saga as much as I have."
Our next rendezvous point is 1996. Lucas was by then working on the Special Edition of Star Wars, which presents a dilemma, and one which Lucas himself recognized: he would be altering a culturally significant film. Lucas, in this quote, is uncomfortable with his own actions, expressing some reservations that he is going against his own philosophy--even that he fears this practice could become common. In this example, he even acknowledges that what he is doing is wrong, the only time he would own up to what the Special Edition represents. He states to Cinefex in 1996 (issue 65) on the ongoing construction of the Special Edition:
"On your special edition, do you expect any backlash from fans who might resent your tampering with a classic?
I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
With rendezvous five we arrive in 2004. Lucas by then had resolved his earlier dilemma by simply going into denial about it. He states in 1997: "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'...What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]". He further states in 2004: "The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...To me, it doesn't really exist anymore." And here is where the hypocrisy is truely bewildering. That very same year, Three Stooges shorts were released on DVD in colourized versions, which Lucas protests. His protests were a bit inflated, however, as the DVD contained the original black and white versions in identical quality, and so the issue of the past being distorted was slightly overstated. But what is bewildering, however, is that he still insists that the public ought to be able to see films as they originally were released! He states to the Associated Press:
"I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."
This goes hand in hand with his continued distortion of the history of Star Wars itself: starting in 2005, he began to claim that Star Wars was really "The Tragedy of Darth Vader", and that this was what his earliest story material was about--which, as I have demonstrated in my book The Secret History of Star Wars, is not only factualy untrue but also a little absurd.
Of the Three Stooges issue is a comparitively rarer quote (see: here) where he may be suggesting, as the shorts were availble in black and white as well, that the very idea of having an alternate version in existence is distasteful and dangerous, since audiences may be exposed to the alternate version and not the original.
"Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore? Maybe just the fact that they're in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. By putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was. But you try to make it in full, living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it's hard for young people to understand."
Our final rendezvous point is the year of this writing, 2011. In his introductory letter for the Profiles in History catelog featuring Debbie Reynolds collection of memorabelia (PDF link), Lucas speaks about his respect for film history:
"As a filmmaker and a lover of cinema, I have always appreciated the many disciplines that go into making a film-- the props, the costumes, all the aspects that come together to make the whole as great as the sum of its parts. I have archived all the important pieces from my own films, and I am a staunch believer it's important that we all make an effort to preserve our cinematic heritage-- before it's too late."
So, why does Lucas speak out about the suppression of film history, when he has been the biggest theft of it? It is quite puzzling, to such extent that some online critics have wondered about what sort of psychological profile Lucas' mind would yield. Perhaps it is total egomania, an inflated sense of entitlement or simply denial--but I will leave any armchair psychology out of this. It would be interesting to see how he justified his actions when confronted with such excerpts. I hope these quotes demonstrate the hollowness with which Lucas has insisted that he has the right to deny and suppress the cultural heritage of you and I.
- 29,630
- 1,863
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2003
Presented here is a modest collection of George Lucas quotes pertaining to film preservation and the public's right to their own cultural heritage. I present this collection in order to demonstrate the hypocrisy of George Lucas, but also his own admirable stance towards film preservation--a stance which he demands of everyone but which he does not apply to himself. I believe these quotes are important to highlight that George Lucas, by his own views, is violating the ethics of both the responsibilities of copyright holders but also the ethics of United States law. Unfortunately, motion picture law has many holes in it--which is why Lucas legally gets away with his suppression, neglect and destruction of the original Star Wars trilogy. I will also provide greater context to the quotes, so as not to be accused of picking them out of context or distorting their meaning. This collection will proceed chronologically, beginning with the 1970s, into the 1980s, through to the 1990s and up until the 2000s of our present day.
Our first rendezvous is 1979. In an interview with journalist Alan Arnold for the book Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back, Lucas expresses the importance of letting future audiences see films as they were, that films are historical documents which give insight into the tastes and technologies of the time they were made, comparing it to the sociological value of vintage comic strips. He states on page 222:
"To me, film is historical document and therefore it has practical value. People 500 years from now will look at our films and be able to figure out what we were like...They are technological extensions of, a derivation from, the comic strip."
Our second rendezvous is the year 1988. In that year, filmmakers, preservationists and businessmen were fighting a fierce battle to enact legislation which would give motion pictures protection from being altered from their original form. This battle went all the way to Congress, where such high profile filmmakers as Jimmy Stewart, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas himself testified on the importance to preserve the past. Lucas and company tried to enact this law through entering the Berne Convention for Moral Rights, which would prevent filmmakers from having their work distorted without their consent--however, this also extended to, not only allowing them to alter their own works in derivative copies if they so wished, but also protecting those historical films as well, so that future generations could continue to view them in as high a quality as possible (as by that point, Eastern Bloc countries were being scoured for better sources than the neglected American vaults). This is part of what Lucas had to say about the issue:
"A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."
"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work."
Unfortunately, because protection was sought through Moral Rights, Lucas and company failed in their crusade. They failed because, as was rightfully pointed out by people such as MPAA head Jack Valenti, it is simplistic to argue that the collaborative nature of films should be controlled just by one person, since in real life producers and studio executives can tell a director what to do. For that matter, with Moral Rights, the other artists involved, such as editors and cinematographers, should also be protected from having their work distorted after release, and so the argument fell apart. Had they framed the issue purely in terms of preservation of the past--cultural heritage protection law--the legislation may have gone through. Cultural heritage protection law exists for all other art forms, such as landmarks, paintings and buildings, but because of the fallout from 1988, this has not been extended to films, and so they are vulnerable to destruction by whomever owns the copyright. Which, in the case of the Star Wars films, is Lucasfilm.
The next rendevzous we have with Lucas is five years later, in 1993. In that year, he wrote a message on the Star Wars Trilogy boxset in which he expresses hope for the continued long-term, generation-spanning viewing of these films:
"Star Wars was my elaborate fantasy, but its popularity has gone beyond anything ever I had imagined...I hope that you, your children, and your children's children will enjoy experiencing this saga as much as I have."
Our next rendezvous point is 1996. Lucas was by then working on the Special Edition of Star Wars, which presents a dilemma, and one which Lucas himself recognized: he would be altering a culturally significant film. Lucas, in this quote, is uncomfortable with his own actions, expressing some reservations that he is going against his own philosophy--even that he fears this practice could become common. In this example, he even acknowledges that what he is doing is wrong, the only time he would own up to what the Special Edition represents. He states to Cinefex in 1996 (issue 65) on the ongoing construction of the Special Edition:
"On your special edition, do you expect any backlash from fans who might resent your tampering with a classic?
I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
With rendezvous five we arrive in 2004. Lucas by then had resolved his earlier dilemma by simply going into denial about it. He states in 1997: "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'...What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]". He further states in 2004: "The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...To me, it doesn't really exist anymore." And here is where the hypocrisy is truely bewildering. That very same year, Three Stooges shorts were released on DVD in colourized versions, which Lucas protests. His protests were a bit inflated, however, as the DVD contained the original black and white versions in identical quality, and so the issue of the past being distorted was slightly overstated. But what is bewildering, however, is that he still insists that the public ought to be able to see films as they originally were released! He states to the Associated Press:
"I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."
This goes hand in hand with his continued distortion of the history of Star Wars itself: starting in 2005, he began to claim that Star Wars was really "The Tragedy of Darth Vader", and that this was what his earliest story material was about--which, as I have demonstrated in my book The Secret History of Star Wars, is not only factualy untrue but also a little absurd.
Of the Three Stooges issue is a comparitively rarer quote (see: here) where he may be suggesting, as the shorts were availble in black and white as well, that the very idea of having an alternate version in existence is distasteful and dangerous, since audiences may be exposed to the alternate version and not the original.
"Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore? Maybe just the fact that they're in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. By putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was. But you try to make it in full, living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it's hard for young people to understand."
Our final rendezvous point is the year of this writing, 2011. In his introductory letter for the Profiles in History catelog featuring Debbie Reynolds collection of memorabelia (PDF link), Lucas speaks about his respect for film history:
"As a filmmaker and a lover of cinema, I have always appreciated the many disciplines that go into making a film-- the props, the costumes, all the aspects that come together to make the whole as great as the sum of its parts. I have archived all the important pieces from my own films, and I am a staunch believer it's important that we all make an effort to preserve our cinematic heritage-- before it's too late."
So, why does Lucas speak out about the suppression of film history, when he has been the biggest theft of it? It is quite puzzling, to such extent that some online critics have wondered about what sort of psychological profile Lucas' mind would yield. Perhaps it is total egomania, an inflated sense of entitlement or simply denial--but I will leave any armchair psychology out of this. It would be interesting to see how he justified his actions when confronted with such excerpts. I hope these quotes demonstrate the hollowness with which Lucas has insisted that he has the right to deny and suppress the cultural heritage of you and I.
Our first rendezvous is 1979. In an interview with journalist Alan Arnold for the book Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back, Lucas expresses the importance of letting future audiences see films as they were, that films are historical documents which give insight into the tastes and technologies of the time they were made, comparing it to the sociological value of vintage comic strips. He states on page 222:
"To me, film is historical document and therefore it has practical value. People 500 years from now will look at our films and be able to figure out what we were like...They are technological extensions of, a derivation from, the comic strip."
Our second rendezvous is the year 1988. In that year, filmmakers, preservationists and businessmen were fighting a fierce battle to enact legislation which would give motion pictures protection from being altered from their original form. This battle went all the way to Congress, where such high profile filmmakers as Jimmy Stewart, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas himself testified on the importance to preserve the past. Lucas and company tried to enact this law through entering the Berne Convention for Moral Rights, which would prevent filmmakers from having their work distorted without their consent--however, this also extended to, not only allowing them to alter their own works in derivative copies if they so wished, but also protecting those historical films as well, so that future generations could continue to view them in as high a quality as possible (as by that point, Eastern Bloc countries were being scoured for better sources than the neglected American vaults). This is part of what Lucas had to say about the issue:
"A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten."
"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work."
Unfortunately, because protection was sought through Moral Rights, Lucas and company failed in their crusade. They failed because, as was rightfully pointed out by people such as MPAA head Jack Valenti, it is simplistic to argue that the collaborative nature of films should be controlled just by one person, since in real life producers and studio executives can tell a director what to do. For that matter, with Moral Rights, the other artists involved, such as editors and cinematographers, should also be protected from having their work distorted after release, and so the argument fell apart. Had they framed the issue purely in terms of preservation of the past--cultural heritage protection law--the legislation may have gone through. Cultural heritage protection law exists for all other art forms, such as landmarks, paintings and buildings, but because of the fallout from 1988, this has not been extended to films, and so they are vulnerable to destruction by whomever owns the copyright. Which, in the case of the Star Wars films, is Lucasfilm.
The next rendevzous we have with Lucas is five years later, in 1993. In that year, he wrote a message on the Star Wars Trilogy boxset in which he expresses hope for the continued long-term, generation-spanning viewing of these films:
"Star Wars was my elaborate fantasy, but its popularity has gone beyond anything ever I had imagined...I hope that you, your children, and your children's children will enjoy experiencing this saga as much as I have."
Our next rendezvous point is 1996. Lucas was by then working on the Special Edition of Star Wars, which presents a dilemma, and one which Lucas himself recognized: he would be altering a culturally significant film. Lucas, in this quote, is uncomfortable with his own actions, expressing some reservations that he is going against his own philosophy--even that he fears this practice could become common. In this example, he even acknowledges that what he is doing is wrong, the only time he would own up to what the Special Edition represents. He states to Cinefex in 1996 (issue 65) on the ongoing construction of the Special Edition:
"On your special edition, do you expect any backlash from fans who might resent your tampering with a classic?
I don't know. It's my classic. On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed--which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
With rendezvous five we arrive in 2004. Lucas by then had resolved his earlier dilemma by simply going into denial about it. He states in 1997: "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rought cut', it'll be the 'final cut.' The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this.'...What ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]". He further states in 2004: "The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it...To me, it doesn't really exist anymore." And here is where the hypocrisy is truely bewildering. That very same year, Three Stooges shorts were released on DVD in colourized versions, which Lucas protests. His protests were a bit inflated, however, as the DVD contained the original black and white versions in identical quality, and so the issue of the past being distorted was slightly overstated. But what is bewildering, however, is that he still insists that the public ought to be able to see films as they originally were released! He states to the Associated Press:
"I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them."
This goes hand in hand with his continued distortion of the history of Star Wars itself: starting in 2005, he began to claim that Star Wars was really "The Tragedy of Darth Vader", and that this was what his earliest story material was about--which, as I have demonstrated in my book The Secret History of Star Wars, is not only factualy untrue but also a little absurd.
Of the Three Stooges issue is a comparitively rarer quote (see: here) where he may be suggesting, as the shorts were availble in black and white as well, that the very idea of having an alternate version in existence is distasteful and dangerous, since audiences may be exposed to the alternate version and not the original.
"Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore? Maybe just the fact that they're in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. By putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was. But you try to make it in full, living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it's hard for young people to understand."
Our final rendezvous point is the year of this writing, 2011. In his introductory letter for the Profiles in History catelog featuring Debbie Reynolds collection of memorabelia (PDF link), Lucas speaks about his respect for film history:
"As a filmmaker and a lover of cinema, I have always appreciated the many disciplines that go into making a film-- the props, the costumes, all the aspects that come together to make the whole as great as the sum of its parts. I have archived all the important pieces from my own films, and I am a staunch believer it's important that we all make an effort to preserve our cinematic heritage-- before it's too late."
So, why does Lucas speak out about the suppression of film history, when he has been the biggest theft of it? It is quite puzzling, to such extent that some online critics have wondered about what sort of psychological profile Lucas' mind would yield. Perhaps it is total egomania, an inflated sense of entitlement or simply denial--but I will leave any armchair psychology out of this. It would be interesting to see how he justified his actions when confronted with such excerpts. I hope these quotes demonstrate the hollowness with which Lucas has insisted that he has the right to deny and suppress the cultural heritage of you and I.
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- Nov 24, 2002
Heat by Michael Mann is my favorite film of all time, and as I was re-watching it, one main thing keeps bugging me about the film.
In the film, the bank robbery is foiled because someone tips off the cops. Given the prior information, it looks to have gone down like this: Van Zant needed Neil and Co. dead because he had screwed them earlier in the drive-thru for the bonds (which is why he's held up in his office indefinitely). Waingro, presumably in search for a new score, hears through the wire that Van Zant is looking for information on Neil. Waingro then supplies Van Zant (and his assistant Hugh Benny played by Henry Rollins) information.
This is where I can't find a connection and I begin to infer.
Waingro tells Van Zant that Trejo is on his crew. They go after Trejo's family, basically beating the information out of him regarding their bank heist. Hugh Benny tips off the police and voila.
My main question is this. In the beginning of the film, Waingro is talking about "doing another score, if things go well" and even asking about Neil's crew (because he is a newcomer). Based on the fact that Waingro only did one score with Neil, how would he know how to locate Trejo (much less know anything about him)? Are we to assume that Waingro somehow knew Trejo before?
In the film, the bank robbery is foiled because someone tips off the cops. Given the prior information, it looks to have gone down like this: Van Zant needed Neil and Co. dead because he had screwed them earlier in the drive-thru for the bonds (which is why he's held up in his office indefinitely). Waingro, presumably in search for a new score, hears through the wire that Van Zant is looking for information on Neil. Waingro then supplies Van Zant (and his assistant Hugh Benny played by Henry Rollins) information.
This is where I can't find a connection and I begin to infer.
Waingro tells Van Zant that Trejo is on his crew. They go after Trejo's family, basically beating the information out of him regarding their bank heist. Hugh Benny tips off the police and voila.
My main question is this. In the beginning of the film, Waingro is talking about "doing another score, if things go well" and even asking about Neil's crew (because he is a newcomer). Based on the fact that Waingro only did one score with Neil, how would he know how to locate Trejo (much less know anything about him)? Are we to assume that Waingro somehow knew Trejo before?
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- Nov 24, 2002
Heat by Michael Mann is my favorite film of all time, and as I was re-watching it, one main thing keeps bugging me about the film.
In the film, the bank robbery is foiled because someone tips off the cops. Given the prior information, it looks to have gone down like this: Van Zant needed Neil and Co. dead because he had screwed them earlier in the drive-thru for the bonds (which is why he's held up in his office indefinitely). Waingro, presumably in search for a new score, hears through the wire that Van Zant is looking for information on Neil. Waingro then supplies Van Zant (and his assistant Hugh Benny played by Henry Rollins) information.
This is where I can't find a connection and I begin to infer.
Waingro tells Van Zant that Trejo is on his crew. They go after Trejo's family, basically beating the information out of him regarding their bank heist. Hugh Benny tips off the police and voila.
My main question is this. In the beginning of the film, Waingro is talking about "doing another score, if things go well" and even asking about Neil's crew (because he is a newcomer). Based on the fact that Waingro only did one score with Neil, how would he know how to locate Trejo (much less know anything about him)? Are we to assume that Waingro somehow knew Trejo before?
In the film, the bank robbery is foiled because someone tips off the cops. Given the prior information, it looks to have gone down like this: Van Zant needed Neil and Co. dead because he had screwed them earlier in the drive-thru for the bonds (which is why he's held up in his office indefinitely). Waingro, presumably in search for a new score, hears through the wire that Van Zant is looking for information on Neil. Waingro then supplies Van Zant (and his assistant Hugh Benny played by Henry Rollins) information.
This is where I can't find a connection and I begin to infer.
Waingro tells Van Zant that Trejo is on his crew. They go after Trejo's family, basically beating the information out of him regarding their bank heist. Hugh Benny tips off the police and voila.
My main question is this. In the beginning of the film, Waingro is talking about "doing another score, if things go well" and even asking about Neil's crew (because he is a newcomer). Based on the fact that Waingro only did one score with Neil, how would he know how to locate Trejo (much less know anything about him)? Are we to assume that Waingro somehow knew Trejo before?
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- Aug 21, 2005
I don't know if its been discussed here but a really good sports movie thats kind of under the radar is Win Win.
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
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- Aug 21, 2005
I don't know if its been discussed here but a really good sports movie thats kind of under the radar is Win Win.
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
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- Nov 24, 2002
It was solid and one of my faves of the year. Only issue is:Originally Posted by Stringer Bell 32
I don't know if its been discussed here but a really good sports movie thats kind of under the radar is Win Win.
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
Spoiler [+]
The end just ties up too neatly. Kind of unexpected considering the build-up to a "court case scene" that never materialized. Still, great acting all around, especially by Amy Ryan.
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- Nov 24, 2002
It was solid and one of my faves of the year. Only issue is:Originally Posted by Stringer Bell 32
I don't know if its been discussed here but a really good sports movie thats kind of under the radar is Win Win.
High school wrestling flick with Paul Giamatti
Spoiler [+]
The end just ties up too neatly. Kind of unexpected considering the build-up to a "court case scene" that never materialized. Still, great acting all around, especially by Amy Ryan.
Ill, I have never liked that scene before. They were already in the bank BEFORE the cops get the tip. Then they make it all the way thru downtown LA and are in position before this precise crew can exit the bank? As for the tip from Trejo, I doubt Waingrow knew him, probably just a random guy knew how to find him. I consider that a smaller error than all those cops showing up under 3 minutes.
Ill, I have never liked that scene before. They were already in the bank BEFORE the cops get the tip. Then they make it all the way thru downtown LA and are in position before this precise crew can exit the bank? As for the tip from Trejo, I doubt Waingrow knew him, probably just a random guy knew how to find him. I consider that a smaller error than all those cops showing up under 3 minutes.
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I think they took the time aspect into consideration, but in terms of how everything flowed, it was better to have the police station scene cut into the main bank sequence. If they would have placed the police station scene right before the heist (possibly after the diner scene, where Neil recruits Breedan as the driver), you would never really get the feeling that they'd even have a chance to walk out alive. At least it creates some suspense when they cross cut it in between the bank sequence.
Going back to my original point, I wish they would have just changed that one line in the beginning (when Cheritto picks up Waingro) where Waingro says something like, "Trejo tells me you run a tight crew," instead of just "real tight crew huh?" At least it would have given some explanation on why Trejo was the one who snitched on them.
BTW, just saw Rain Man for the first time today. Incredible performances by both Hoffman and Cruise. Loved the ending.
Going back to my original point, I wish they would have just changed that one line in the beginning (when Cheritto picks up Waingro) where Waingro says something like, "Trejo tells me you run a tight crew," instead of just "real tight crew huh?" At least it would have given some explanation on why Trejo was the one who snitched on them.
BTW, just saw Rain Man for the first time today. Incredible performances by both Hoffman and Cruise. Loved the ending.
