Movie Talk (New Films, Old Films... doesn't matter) (54 Viewers)
- Thread starter Elvin
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I watched The Deer Hunter for the first time properly the other night. Man, that is exactly what a film about war should be. It really does affect you. I'd contrast it with some of the most awful war films I've seen recently - 1917, Fury and Dunkirk which I all saw with friends who raved about their magnificence afterward. It really shitted me that 1917 got an Oscar nomination.
1917 was, I suppose, a good looking film but it really was a reallllyyy shallow adventure story. It reminded me of very poor man's Lord of the Rings in a WWI setting in a lot ways.
Fury is just embarrassing. It's so cheap in every sense. It looks completely inaccurate, the battle scenes are ridiculous and the dialogue is cringe especially between the characters inside the tank - cheesy lines and bad accents. And there's a completely random scene where it looks like Brad Pitt is about to rape a young German or Dutch girl but I don't think that was the intention. I don't think there was any intention to that scene. It just came out like very obviously like a rape was about to occur.
Dunkirk - Boring. So boring. It was an expression of British patriotism and a harking back to the old British attitude - the 'stiff upper lip' and and a sense of togetherness and duty. But it was just a big overhyped snooze.
I'll add one last one - The Thin Red Line. That movie tries wayyy to hard to add depth to itself with those repetitive narrations scattered throughout. They make you cringe so hard "what is man? why do men do what they do? blaa blaa".
War films MUST say something important about war. That's a responsibility which lies with the director. Any good war film is an anti-war film (how could they not be?) They should be full of pathos and poignancy and reveal the absurd contradictions in war...the futility of war. Soldiers, as trained killing machines, show compassion among the slaughter and that reveals man's most natural state - love, not hate. The Deer Hunter is a perfect example of this and De Niro is at his absolute peak in it. Also, one of my all-time favourite actors, Jon Cazale had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and had only months to live during the filming.* Other good ones that achieve this are Kubric's Paths of Glory (the end scene is absolute genius) and the newest version of All Quiet on the Western Front.
**There's a nice story relating to that - the producers could never be allowed to know about Cazale's illness because the death of a main character during a shoot is so costly. The secret about his illness remained only between director Michael Cimino, Meryl Streep (Cazale's girlfriend) and De Niro who fronted the cash necessary to guarantee any loss in case Cazale did pass away mid shoot. i've watched all five of Cazale's films. He was truly, truly great and could have done so much more.
By the way. I'm very keen to catch Minari. Old boy and Parasite were so good. Koreans really know what they're doing.
1917 was, I suppose, a good looking film but it really was a reallllyyy shallow adventure story. It reminded me of very poor man's Lord of the Rings in a WWI setting in a lot ways.
Fury is just embarrassing. It's so cheap in every sense. It looks completely inaccurate, the battle scenes are ridiculous and the dialogue is cringe especially between the characters inside the tank - cheesy lines and bad accents. And there's a completely random scene where it looks like Brad Pitt is about to rape a young German or Dutch girl but I don't think that was the intention. I don't think there was any intention to that scene. It just came out like very obviously like a rape was about to occur.
Dunkirk - Boring. So boring. It was an expression of British patriotism and a harking back to the old British attitude - the 'stiff upper lip' and and a sense of togetherness and duty. But it was just a big overhyped snooze.
I'll add one last one - The Thin Red Line. That movie tries wayyy to hard to add depth to itself with those repetitive narrations scattered throughout. They make you cringe so hard "what is man? why do men do what they do? blaa blaa".
War films MUST say something important about war. That's a responsibility which lies with the director. Any good war film is an anti-war film (how could they not be?) They should be full of pathos and poignancy and reveal the absurd contradictions in war...the futility of war. Soldiers, as trained killing machines, show compassion among the slaughter and that reveals man's most natural state - love, not hate. The Deer Hunter is a perfect example of this and De Niro is at his absolute peak in it. Also, one of my all-time favourite actors, Jon Cazale had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and had only months to live during the filming.* Other good ones that achieve this are Kubric's Paths of Glory (the end scene is absolute genius) and the newest version of All Quiet on the Western Front.
**There's a nice story relating to that - the producers could never be allowed to know about Cazale's illness because the death of a main character during a shoot is so costly. The secret about his illness remained only between director Michael Cimino, Meryl Streep (Cazale's girlfriend) and De Niro who fronted the cash necessary to guarantee any loss in case Cazale did pass away mid shoot. i've watched all five of Cazale's films. He was truly, truly great and could have done so much more.
By the way. I'm very keen to catch Minari. Old boy and Parasite were so good. Koreans really know what they're doing.
Dunkirk I can understand people thinking that they liked it because it's a Christopher Nolan movie. Anything Nolan makes and anything Tarantino makes are bound to have blind fanatics singing the praises of anything they decide to do.
But Fury? Really? There was so much to dislike about it. I was actually desperately hoping Brad Pitt would rape the young German/Dutch girl. Not because I'm a sadist but just because it might have injected some kind of feeling and reality into the thing. I'm a bit of a war buff but even people without an abiding interest in the subject would have thought that Fury's depiction of WWII was a poultry effort. I recall a scene where the Germans were marching, headed in the direction of this lone tank (just going rogue through western europe, what's that all about?). It was vividly reminiscent the guards in The Wizard of Oz, I swear. It looked cheap, the story was vacuous rubbish. It had no plot, no pathos, no feeling, no humanity and Shia Labeeuufff just killed me with his awful accent.
And let me just say a thing or two about Dunkirk. A bunch of poms standing on a beach trying to organise a few ferries to get them across the channel cannot constitute a two and half hour film. Who were the memorable characters in that movie? Does any moment stick out? What sticks out in my mind is the old man taking his yacht across but to me that was just crass British patriotism. Not that I have beef with patriotism but it was just obvious. The important thing is that neither movie really lamented war. They glorified war and that's dishonest and an abomination in my eyes because it's so boring.
Let me just provide you with some scenes that make films great. The type of scenes those movies completely lacked. Most of them are Jon Cazale because I've got a bit of thing for him at the moment.
I recommend watching the whole film. Kubrics early stuff, from a cinematic point of view, was wayyyy ahead of its time.
And here's the whole of All Quiet on the Western Front. Not the fanciest production, but great acting.
Another oldish but great war movie (a true Australian story) is also on youtube.
But Fury? Really? There was so much to dislike about it. I was actually desperately hoping Brad Pitt would rape the young German/Dutch girl. Not because I'm a sadist but just because it might have injected some kind of feeling and reality into the thing. I'm a bit of a war buff but even people without an abiding interest in the subject would have thought that Fury's depiction of WWII was a poultry effort. I recall a scene where the Germans were marching, headed in the direction of this lone tank (just going rogue through western europe, what's that all about?). It was vividly reminiscent the guards in The Wizard of Oz, I swear. It looked cheap, the story was vacuous rubbish. It had no plot, no pathos, no feeling, no humanity and Shia Labeeuufff just killed me with his awful accent.
And let me just say a thing or two about Dunkirk. A bunch of poms standing on a beach trying to organise a few ferries to get them across the channel cannot constitute a two and half hour film. Who were the memorable characters in that movie? Does any moment stick out? What sticks out in my mind is the old man taking his yacht across but to me that was just crass British patriotism. Not that I have beef with patriotism but it was just obvious. The important thing is that neither movie really lamented war. They glorified war and that's dishonest and an abomination in my eyes because it's so boring.
Let me just provide you with some scenes that make films great. The type of scenes those movies completely lacked. Most of them are Jon Cazale because I've got a bit of thing for him at the moment.
I recommend watching the whole film. Kubrics early stuff, from a cinematic point of view, was wayyyy ahead of its time.
And here's the whole of All Quiet on the Western Front. Not the fanciest production, but great acting.
Another oldish but great war movie (a true Australian story) is also on youtube.
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