Last Movie You Watched

[The Killer of Heroes]

They both have...black people?

(????)

I was referring more about how they both are based on true stories (One recent, one not-so-recent), both are about people forced into captivity against their will, both are about 2 hours and 10 minutes long, both end with each main character

SPOILER: Show

crying as they are freed thanks to outside forces (Brad Pitt/the Navy) and are then able to rejoin their family, and both end with textual epilogues about the captors being taken to trial.

However the one surviving Somali pirate is successfully prosecuted and imprisoned, while all of the slavers walk away free as Solomon can't testify against them as a black man.

It's just something kind of interesting to think about.

[Justacrazyguy]

Saw: Meh, how did that many sequels come out of this?

[Ænimal]

Saw: Meh, how did that many sequels come out of this?

Six. Six sequels. None of which are as good as the original.

And a reboot is in the works.

[Gus Hanson]

Godzilla (1998) - I don't recall ever hating it as intensely as many tend to. Sure it's campy at times and the monster looks too fake as well as the Jurassic Park raptor knockoffs passing themselves off as the offspring but overall it has that feel of watching any of the 60s/70s Godzilla movies in which it's not meant to be taken so seriously.

[Oz]

Earlier this weekend I saw the later half of Ator: The Fighting Eagle and the first two Urusei Yatsura films, directed by Mamoru Oshii. Only You was a fun film, but Beautiful Dreamer completely trumps it with its complex and mindfuck-inducing plot. I also rewatched the first Ghost in the Shell film which was just as magnificent as I recalled. In addition, Keisuke Kinoshita's Ballad of Narayama was a hugely interesting film with its heavy reliance on kabuki traditions and gorgeous sets, but some parts of the film didn't work that well so it is hard to call it a masterpiece either.

Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills: Starts off promisingly, but gradually turns into one heck of a trainwreck. With a running time of 150 minutes it's not only unnecessarily long, but poorly structured and paced. It sort of moves into climax mode midway through the film and then it just feels like the film goes on and on and on. It is all capped off with an ending that aims to be ambiguous and sophisticated, but ends up being shallow and nonsensical as hell. For a film that's about love and caring in a society which lacks understanding for other people (be it church, hospital or orphanage) it's ultimately screwed up by the awkwardly off-putting characterization of its main characters (one of them mainly characterized by her unhealthy obsession with the other main character, which completely destroys her key role) and the final act of the film that blows the thematics of the film completely apart. At least the film is visually very well directed with lots of memorable shots and its insistence on using long takes worked quite well.

[gatotsu911]

Watched Clockers last night. The inspiration for The Wire (season 1 in particular) is easy to see, but since the novel had the misfortune of being adapted by Spike Lee (with his nigh-pathological aversion to subtlety in full force), the film is pretty well ruined by random bouts of soapbox editorializing, distracting skin-deep stylistic flourishes, campy overacting galore, and a fucking awful score that undermines nearly every scene. Should've just read the book.

[Oz]

^ It's been a long time since I last saw Clockers, but I remember liking it back then. However, your description is quite spot-on based on what I can recall.

[gatotsu911]

If you ever have the desire to watch Clockers again just buckle down and watch season one of The Wire instead.

Somewhere along the line I got the impression I liked Spike Lee, but the more films of his I see that aren't Malcolm X the more unsupported this notion begins to feel.

[Oz]

Yeah. I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Do the Right Thing. I hate the film because it manages to do the exact reverse of what it is trying to do.

[gatotsu911]

Still haven't seen Do the Right Thing. If I watch it and I'm not impressed, I think I'll be ready to call it quits on Spike Lee for good.

Malcolm X was still actually really good though

[Guy Nacks]

The performances in Do the Right Thing are really good and the camerawork is bold and in your face, it's the finale of that film and the aftermath that i have a couple of beefs with.

I think Spike Lee just likes to think that everyone is racist to the extent where it becomes annoying.
It's also hard to keep his real life antics (suing Spike TV over the name of the netowrk, claiming he owns the right to anything named "Spike", and berating Tarantino over use of the n-word in his scripts when even former Black Panther Samuel L. Muthafuckin' Jackson is in love with the Q man and continues to work for him again and again.) from interfering with the messages that his films are trying to convey.

Yeah. I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Do the Right Thing. I hate the film because it manages to do the exact reverse of what it is trying to do.

Yeah, pretty much this.

When it comes to films about racism, I'd prefer American History X any day of the week over DTRT.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Yeah. I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Do the Right Thing. I hate the film because it manages to do the exact reverse of what it is trying to do.

What do you think the film is trying to do?

and berating Tarantino over use of the n-word in his scripts when even former Black Panther Samuel L. Muthafuckin' Jackson is in love with the Q man and continues to work for him again and again.

To be fair Guy Nacks it's not like Spike Lee hasn't criticized Samuel L. Jackson as well. He's not going to give QT a pass just because another black man is okay with him.

I like Tarantino's movies personally though.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

Do the Right Thing is one of my favorite movies. For one thing, it's a movie that starts an actual discussion about race relations, rather than just invoking white guilt as an one of those "feel good about yourself for feeling bad" movies *coughcrashcough*. More importantly, I admire its aesthetic qualities.

Since I don't currently feel the power to properly elucidate my feelings on the film, I'll let Ebert explain.

[gatotsu911]

Spike Lee may not be one for delicate understatement... or humility... or authenticity... or paying any kind of attention to the shit that comes out of his mouth at all, but he is far from the worst offender in the always-intensifying Everything Is Racist game. The fact that he is even capable of talking about racism and problems in the black community in terms that do not exclusively revolve around The White Man already puts him in a league of his own.

Not that any of this excuses him from being a fucking anti-Semite.

[The Killer of Heroes]

Not that any of this excuses him from being a fucking anti-Semite.

Explain.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

As far as the anti-Semite accusations go, I'm pretty sure it stems from the controversy surrounding Mo' Better Blues and the "Shylock" stereotypes, followed with a statement about Jewish people running Hollywood.

[The Killer of Heroes]

followed with a statement about Jewish people running Hollywood.

What was the context of the statement?

Because I know Hollywood had a lot of Jewish heads of studios at least back in the day, but that doesn't mean there's like a "Zionist conspiracy" or anything.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

Basically it was something along the lines of how he would never be allowed to make an anti-Semitic movie because "Jews run Hollywood." I don't really interpret any "Zionist conspiracy" in the statement, more so referencing the fact that there were in fact several Jewish studio heads, but it definitely sounds unflattering.

He did bring up a good point while defending himself: it was unfair that his film would be controversial for having two Jewish characters that had negative traits, while hundreds of films with negative stereotypical portrayals of Black people pretty much go by without a word on the matter.

I haven't seen Mo' Better Blues, though.

[gatotsu911]

That's an absolutely bullshit defense, though, and a pathetic way to try and excuse his own bigotry. Grotesque Jewish stereotypes keeping the black man down are a recurring archetype in Lee's movies (see also: Bamboozled, Inside Man, that Louis Farrakhan movie), harkening back to the anti-Semitism frequently associated with the black power movements of the 60s and 70s that Lee so desperately tries to associate himself with. (Like the kind that is conveniently glossed over in Malcolm X. Did you know that X once met with top representatives of the KKK to discuss their common ground regarding the "Jewish problem"?) The only characters I can think of in Lee's movies who are portrayed as truly, irredeemably evil are almost all Jews.

[Oz]

For one thing, it's a movie that starts an actual discussion about race relations, rather than just invoking white guilt as an one of those "feel good about yourself for feeling bad" movies *coughcrashcough*.

I prefer even white guilt films to Do the Right Thing since all it manages to do is make me hate other races more than ever. The climax of the film turns all the characters into stereotyped assholes.