Last night HBO had "Renditon" with Reese Witherspoon. Has anyone here ever seen this movie? It wasn't real popular but boy it sure was sad. An American man of middle Eastern decent gets abducted from an airport and is suspected of being a terrorist and goes through hell.


TIS

I never heard of it, TIS. Sounds interesting.

Care to elaborate why you think so about Crash and Munich?

I haven't seen either in a while. I saw Munich twice on the big screen.

Excuse the pun, but Crash renders racism as a black and white bubonic plague-like syndrome; it isn't interested in interrogating real issues, what goes into the many differing and different circumstances that cause people to view the world in the way they do. Paul Haggis is a hack; his scriptwork for Eastwood's Oscar-friendly pictures is in much the same vein. None of its narrative contrivances ring true; I hated pretty much everyone in the film. They're all cartoons; it's entirely implausible. It reeks of preachy educative bullshit, and it's completely empty.

As for Munich, I can't think of a more obvious attempt by Spielberg to make a mature, adult film; all those grim blue hues and the gritty, bloody violence - OMG here's full frontal nudity of a near-to-be corpse! OMG here's somebody getting shot in the skull! OMG here's Spielberg turning violence into attractive gimmick. The film is philosophically inept, politically numb and fatally flawed narratively - it's based on real events, of course, but the narrative is like a Peter Greenaway parody... here's a list of people who we're going to kill, and the film finishes when we get to zero. But we literally drown in the numbers.

Then, of course, you've got a multi-national cast speaking English in put-on accents. And the characters are caricatures; someone starts namepdropping Hegel at one point; LMFAO.

Spielberg's a kid, deep down; Schindler's List isn't the masterpiece it aspires to, nor is Saving Private Ryan; his best films are guilty of unashamed emotional prostitution, too, of course - Jaws is excellent - but at least they're not acting under false artistic pretences. He needs a new editor, as well; he's fine at beginning films, but since Saving Private Ryan, all of his films have dipped fatally in the final third.

He's a fine director of individual set-pieces - some of the murder scenes in Munich are finely done in themselves; as a narrative film, it's fucking rubbish.

Well, I agree with you on Crash. And I never understood Spielberg. I can't say I was crazy about any of his movies. I didn't care for the Jurassic Park series, the same goes for Indies. Jaws was just okay. He has that sense of pure black and white in most of his movies, which doesn't go so well with my taste most of the times.

Here though he maintained to stay clear from taking sides. I find what you put as being "politically numb" to be a plus, when you make a movie that's bound to be politically sensitive. The subject matter is purely humane; it has nothing to do with politics. It is a take on vengence, and what it does to some people.

I believe the Character "Steve" didn't feel much anyway, before or after what they went through. Maybe many professional assassins are like that. But their story has not a philosophical point. And I totally disagree that you would put it down as philosophically inept. If anything, the film was pure philosophy. It is about what happens to you when you take a life, justified or not. It takes you to show how you end up on the floor of your bedroom closet, and I did at the end of the movie; so I think it made the point beautifully, at least IMHO.

A film isn't of philosophical worth by premise alone, though, and as far as the finished product goes, I found Munich seriously lacking.

I disagree, too, that the film "has nothing to do with politics". All art is political, of course, but here Spielberg is trying to abandon his commercialised image and make a more adult film. (Interestingly, Godard said once that Schindler's List was black and white in order to look more more mature and serious. ;D As it is, those "poetic" moments of the red dress are silly.) He's making the conscious decision to fictionalise a very political event that really happened.

Vengeance is a very politically loaded word, especially when it's used in this context. And by "politically numb" I perhaps gave the wrong impression; I meant it to mean cold, detached - and not in a positive, deliberate way, but in a frightened-to-commit way. Spielberg's not very ambitious, nor is he all that daring.

If Spielberg is more interested in the humane side of things (I don't know how this is exclusive from the political side), he's shooting himself in the foot by making a film on those events; and no character in the film is human - they're cardboard cut-outs, they could be anybody.

You don't agree Spielberg turns violence into a gimmick? I think he does; and I definitely think he renders philosophically, morally and politically promising questions into mundane, painting-by-numbers clichés.

I'd like to see it again so that I could give more of a refreshed critique.

Not really. Nor do I agree that characters are cardboards cut outs. And the humanity has bid farewell in the Mid-East political crisis. That's why I think a political look can't be and won't be humane, in this very matter.

I felt his attempt to be sincere and the violence not to be in any way comercial. But then I also approve of Apocalypto and it is one of my favorite movies.

Ah.

What? Apocalypto falls in the same category for you?

Somehow Mel Gibson scarred my psyche irreparably with his Braveheart. I don't have any courage to visit his movies now

Well, my view is, if you show someone is being killed, make it as gore and as believable as it is in real life and don't save us from anything.

I loved Apocalypto. I cried with it, I smiled with it, I felt terrible, I felt excited, moved to the edge of my seat, chewed my nails, and all was great. I felt something.

What is your view on Braveheart?

I watched it at least 5 years ago. I don't really remember much, but it never stopped me from watching his other movies obviously, so I wasn't outraged for sure. I vaguely remember liking the movie, with a score around 8/10 perhaps.

It is a bannable offense to rate it that high

Well, it was many years ago and many movies I rewatched didn't appeal to me as they did back then, but in general, I didn't watch anything from Gibson that I totally dislike.

"What women want" and "Ransom" are borderline annoying, but okay. "A man without a face" was nice, as I remember it. Braveheart is atrocious.

"What women want" isn't a Gibson picture. Though it was okay. Haven't seen the other two I think. How exactly is Braveheart atrocious?

What Women Want is a Gibson picture. Plus it was made by his company, ICON.

I always thought that "Rob Roy" told a similar story and did it way better than "Braveheart".

It has the formula slacker/underdog story, romance, grandiose "epic" aspirations based on totally unengaging story, characters and plot. Fake tensions, melodrama. I could either laugh loudly at how awful it was, or cringe in my seat while others are in deep awe of the melodrama.

Well, I should watch it again.

I don't know why I first brought up "Crash" in this conversation. I knew both "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams" were directed by the same guy (Alejandro González-Iñárritu) but it didn't really struck to me and I thought of it as a conversation about non-linear-garbage movies and "Crash" is the worst of them all. I am watching it right now and I have to say I was wrong. I don't feel embarassed for watching it anymore. actually it is amusing. it is really, really bad. stories couldn't have been told in a worse way. I believe the scene with the black couple in the beginning is supposed to be a joke. you wanna show authorities abusing people? fine, but that is NOT the way it happens. not to mention every other single line spoken and carachter "developed" and ALL the fuckin' "situations-turned-upside-down" scenes, just everything is so unnatural and cliché, it makes the movie just a bunch of mistakes one after another. you can just pick a random scene and start laughing. the hipocrit black cop who doesn't want to make a report, the hard-working-straightup-homie, the two young black friends... which one is the worst?

as for "No Country For Old Men" I absolutely agree that it's the kind of movie that only gets better as you watch it again and again. Tommy Lee Jones' speeches specially are open for interpretation and I believe the key is when he says "I feel overmatched". that's it.

Tony refresh my memory here, where was Crash non-linear? Are your referring to parallel story lines?

yes exactly. both are used together all the time but in Crash it's just parallel stories that bump into each other in the end. it only works when the movie is overall a great one.

I didn't really mind Apocalypto as a "chase him through the jungle" thriller. Death, it seems, is the ultimate escape for Gibson - and violent death at that. I respect his decision to film in archaic languages, too; though I'm not sure what the purpose of that is beyond general mannerism. Still, it's better than Spielberg's "put on a fake accent even though we're still speaking English" kind of authenticity.

But it's always bordering on pornographic; it's not grim at all - it's lavishly brutal, and it likes being brutal. It's stirringly brutal. It's not off-putting. It's baroque. It's arousingly violent. Not only do these people kill each other by throwing spears, but the spears have to go through the heart each and every time and the blood has to splatter the screen. If Gibson wasn't rich enough to fund these projects, they'd be straight-to-VHS B-movies that you pick up in garbage cans on the street.

Passion of the Christ is hilarious.

He's very masturbatory, and I don't like the taste of his cum. He needs to take a course in when and when not to shoot in slow-motion; his politics are repugnant - though I've not really viewed them beyond the surface; Passion is one of the worst films ever made; Braveheart is dull in its grandeur; Apocalypto has promise unfulfilled.

Well, I think I agree with you that Gibson is very self gratifying. But as for the taste of his cum, it is very subjective.

For instance, I can see a Jewish person does not like Passion. Or an English doesn't care for Braveheart to say the least (Though I should watch that again, I find my taste of six years ago now shameful at times) To me, being of a Muslim background and brain-washed that it was not Christ who was crucified, and crucifixion to be the crime of Romans anyway; I would watch it very objectively. The story may be flawed and the facts be twisted and self serving. It might anger me as 300 would, if I was not detached from the subject matter. (I've not seen that one just yet.) But all in all, technically, it wasn't as bad as you say it is. It could deliver what it was intended for it, whether we like the taste or not.

But I really don't see your point about the problem of spears going through hearts each and every time. 007 has the worst record for such coincidences and many wouldn't care. It is entertainment and if they didn't have the money, that franchise may as well would've came out as B movies. But it doesn't and no one takes them that seriously, it is British masturbation and we don't credit it any more than that. So why should we credit Apocalypto, Passion or 300 with more than that either?

I think Gibson is being attacked more than he has got merit. He is not that fantastic that you make it out to be, to need the extra bashing to balance the quota. But he is better than many out there making movies. I've not totally disliked anything he has done.

Now as for Spielberg and his Munich, I still think it made the point it wanted successfully at least for me. Muslims and Jews have one thing in common among many other things, and that's the right to vengeance. It is religiously instated in our culture to seek retaliation. Let us see, as graphically as possible, how it never ends. It was about time for an objective and masterful view of Spielberg and I loved it.

Seriously? Maybe I need to study these more. Besides my Catholic upbringing, and a few years of agnosticism yet back again, I've only otherwise studied Eastern Religions (in college)... and those were quite peaceful. Ahh, well. Maybe someday they'll all be peaceful? (Wishful thinking I suppose )

Yes, eye for an eye literally. If you make someone blind, they could ask for the same about you and be granted by our judicial system. A case in a million, a family forfeits their right to the death penalty. It's very rare. Turning the other cheek? Never! God forbid! That's for the weak!!

Though I should mention that in Islamic verses, you could forgive, but just as well you could retaliate. No one blames you for that.

That's sooooooooo old school!

Afs, you know I love you, and you know I respect diversity... and "an eye for an eye" even often makes sense to me -- but -- I gotta stick with the God that encourages love and forgiveness (tho it may be difficult at times, due to human nature just needing to self destruct itself for some reason lol). I respect differing opinions/beliefs, but don't necessarily need to agree with them.

I'm a non-violent Don.

Oh! What a pussy! J/K! (You know that, right? And that I love you as well. )

See, what I said above is not my personal belief. Frankly, I'm not sure what my personal belief is anymore. Watching both sides pitying the other side is going to hell has become really amusing to me. It is just the fact and state of things around here that I tried to explain. I'm not exactly opposed to it, nor in favor of it. I can see there are people who don't deserve to live. But then I'm thankful that I'm not the one to make such decisions.