movies

[JL21]

That's definitely a great example. Or spending 100+ minutes beating off over Vanishing Point in Death Proof, which is the only QT movie I've disliked to date.

[Radbird]

'Twilight' named worst movie of all time

[cardinalkarp]

Tarantino is by my favorite current director, although I'm more of a fan of his older than the newer stuff. Haven't seen django yet though.

[JL21]

'Twilight' named worst movie of all time

That's hilarious. When I saw the link, I thought "That's funny, but surely it's a film site being a little overzelaous." Then I saw that it was the MST3K guys. For crying out loud, if anyone knows bad movies, it's them. Which makes the whole thing that much more funny.

I can't say I disagree with anything else in their top 25.

[jim]

Here is a tidbit I will share about the movie Lincoln. My nephew has a M.A. in History, and being born in raised Springfield he had a special interest in Lincoln and made it his specialty in his studies. He loved the movie, and was very impressed with the attention to detail and historical accuracy. He said some of those folksy type of stories that Lincoln told in the movies were exactly the same renditions he had heard. I thought maybe that was just some creative writing, but apparently these were stories Lincoln was known to tell. There were a couple of things he wasn't sure about - the letter he sent to congress saying he knew of no efforts by the South for resolving the war - but he said that if they got other details so right that he did know about that he'd almost be surprised that it was made up.

So apparently if you are a history buff and need historical accuracy you will get it with this movie. I need to see it again.

[Arthur Dent]

Here is a tidbit I will share about the movie Lincoln. My nephew has a M.A. in History, and being born in raised Springfield he had a special interest in Lincoln and made it his specialty in his studies. He loved the movie, and was very impressed with the attention to detail and historical accuracy. He said some of those folksy type of stories that Lincoln told in the movies were exactly the same renditions he had heard. I thought maybe that was just some creative writing, but apparently these were stories Lincoln was known to tell. There were a couple of things he wasn't sure about - the letter he sent to congress saying he knew of no efforts by the South for resolving the war - but he said that if they got other details so right that he did know about that he'd almost be surprised that it was made up.

So apparently if you are a history buff and need historical accuracy you will get it with this movie. I need to see it again.

The movie is fairly meticulous about details including that letter which was interesting as I'd never read about efforts at negotiations to end the war. In fact, one thing watching the movie reminded me is how exclusively discussion of the Civil War in school focused on battles. We learned almost nothing about the politics, which I think are a lot more helpful in understanding ourselves and our past than troop movements.

That said, there's been some good commentaries on the movie's narrow focus allowing it to portray emancipation as a gift given by great white men, and on theme of compromise versus principled radicalism. See, for example this New York Times op-ed and this essay for Jacobin.

[The Third Man]

Heh... I kind of think of it as "Who will he use movies to get revenge on next?" He used film to reverse the history of the Holocaust in Basterds, and now he's struck a blow for slavery with Django.

There have been rumors about a third Kill Bill film- it's even listed on his IMDb page- but there's no telling how interested he really is in making that movie.

Yeah, me and a friend were discussing where he'd go next if he kept up this theme - assuming that he'd stick to historical events related to Americans, and that it's unlikely he'd go back in time further than the Civil War, since anything further back tends to be hifalutin period pieces. A Vietnam film would be interesting, albeit doing another war film might feel like a retread given how much he switches up genres (war, western, blaxploitation, kung-fu/samurai, slasher, heist films, and obviously revenge - and he's touched plenty on organized crime).

I'd love to see him do a real horror film as opposed to the wink-and-a-nod Death Proof. Or a straight-up John Woo-style bullet opera. I have no doubt he's familiar with heroic bloodshed in general, especially since Reservoir Dog takes several elements from a Chow Yun-Fat flick called City on Fire.

[Freed Roger]

Here is a tidbit I will share about the movie Lincoln. My nephew has a M.A. in History, and being born in raised Springfield he had a special interest in Lincoln and made it his specialty in his studies. He loved the movie, and was very impressed with the attention to detail and historical accuracy. He said some of those folksy type of stories that Lincoln told in the movies were exactly the same renditions he had heard. I thought maybe that was just some creative writing, but apparently these were stories Lincoln was known to tell. There were a couple of things he wasn't sure about - the letter he sent to congress saying he knew of no efforts by the South for resolving the war - but he said that if they got other details so right that he did know about that he'd almost be surprised that it was made up.

So apparently if you are a history buff and need historical accuracy you will get it with this movie. I need to see it again.

The movie is fairly meticulous about details including that letter which was interesting as I'd never read about efforts at negotiations to end the war. In fact, one thing watching the movie reminded me is how exclusively discussion of the Civil War in school focused on battles. We learned almost nothing about the politics, which I think are a lot more helpful in understanding ourselves and our past than troop movements.

That said, there's been some good commentaries on the movie's narrow focus allowing it to portray emancipation as a gift given by great white men, and on theme of compromise versus principled radicalism. See, for example this New York Times op-ed and this essay for Jacobin.

How Accurate is "Lincoln"?

[slide_into_first]

[SHOW]

In Les Miz, Anne Hathaway, she played this peasant named Tantine I think which would be a funny name for an American but she was in France and she got fired from her factory job and thrown out into the street and she was upset because she needed money to care for her daughter, Cosette which is another unAmerican name except in New Orleans and Tantine sold a locket and her hair and two molars and it still wasn't enough so she tried prostitution and then she got in trouble with the law which was represented by that guy who played Maximus in Gladiator and she became ill and Jean Valjean who was posing as the Mayor of Montreul took her to the hospital where she sang a sad song which was so beautiful she will win an Academy Award for best supporting actress and then she died.

Plus the whole movie was all singing.

[JackofDiamonds]

SPOILER ALERT! Sheesh!