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| carrobin |
 Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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I can't take scenes of fake cruelty to animals, either. Just the suggestion that some dog or cat or mouse is in for some kind of pain will bring tears to my eyes. I'm not sure why I'm not quite as sensitive about cruelty to humans--maybe because I know the animal didn't deserve it, but the human might have. I'm not sure I could take "Taxi to the Dark Side" either, though. Just the description makes me angry and hurt and embarrassed for my country.
But speaking of animals, and since thisis the movie forum--did anyone else besides people in our film class ever see "Romeo and Juliet"--the one with cats? All cats. Except for John Hurt, who played a little old lady who owned "Juliet" before she ran away and met Romeo. Vanessa Regrave and some other well-known British actor did voice-overs of the Shakespeare lines. By the time the film was over, there were only about a dozen of us left in the theater--but I found it rather lovable. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:03 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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carrobin wrote: I can't take scenes of fake cruelty to animals, either. Just the suggestion that some dog or cat or mouse is in for some kind of pain will bring tears to my eyes. I'm not sure why I'm not quite as sensitive about cruelty to humans--maybe because I know the animal didn't deserve it, but the human might have. I'm not sure I could take "Taxi to the Dark Side" either, though. Just the description makes me angry and hurt and embarrassed for my country.
But speaking of animals, and since thisis the movie forum--did anyone else besides people in our film class ever see "Romeo and Juliet"--the one with cats? All cats. Except for John Hurt, who played a little old lady who owned "Juliet" before she ran away and met Romeo. Vanessa Regrave and some other well-known British actor did voice-overs of the Shakespeare lines. By the time the film was over, there were only about a dozen of us left in the theater--but I found it rather lovable.
I said REAL cruelty...such as movies made in countries where no one's ever heard of PETA. Animals' throats are REALLY slit, etc. Mexico and China come to mind.
Otherwise - no big deal. The animals are tranquilized or they substitute a stuffed one. I've been on sets where people are decapitated, shot, etc. I know the tricks. It doesn't bother me. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Amores Perros has brutal scenes of dog-fighting. They included a documentary on the video to show how they created the illusion. Even after you know how it's done, it's still shocking to watch. Great movie, though. At least the first and last thirds. The middle third seems slight in comparison. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:10 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Mo: I know you said real cruelty. My point was that even fake cruelty is too much for me. (Sometimes watching a really old western on TV makes me wince, because those horses probably weren't covered under any animal protection laws at the time.) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I once was watching a Wild Kingdom where they were tripping antelope for some reason. Shots? Capturing for a zoo?
In any case, I never watched the show again. That's a damned good way to break an animal's legs. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Trish |
| Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:27 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2438
Location: Massachusetts
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| I saw Amores Perros only once because of the dog fighting. However, I made the mistake of watching I am an Animal a documentary on the founder of Peta and its movement. They had some REAL horrific scenes of animal cruelty particulrly one at a chicken ranch - that I will never forget |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:28 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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mo_flixx wrote:
I said REAL cruelty...such as movies made in countries where no one's ever heard of PETA. Animals' throats are REALLY slit, etc. Mexico and China come to mind.
How dare you malign the Motherland!
I'll have you know that last year's dog slaughter was called off, and the current round-up of wild cats is limited to Beijing and will end by the Olympics. And not all of these cats are being starved or beaten to death with sticks by kindergarten teachers ... many end up being being cooked and eaten.
As for films, the slaughterhouse scene in In a Year With Thirteen Moons is effective but quite horrifying. And I saw another film recently which had some awful pig vivisection. Think it was the Korean film, Green Fish.
I also get a bit squeamish or uncomfortable with animals being messed with in films. A month back I watched Under My Skin with John Garfield as a jockey, and a number of horses take tumbles and headers. Russian and Eastern European war films often have horses tripped or upended violently.
Cornel West's The Naked Prey has an apparent mix of stock and actual footage of elephants being gunned down. There is one surreal scene where an African native emerges from the slit-open belly of a downed elephant carrying a handful of internal organs which he then places over the open fire.
There's also Jacques Cousteau's first film The Silent World, where the crew accidentally runs over and kills a small whale, who then gets devoured by sharks. For some reason the men take out their frustration on the sharks, going on an ugly frenzy of gaffing and clubbing the poor bastards who are merely making a meal (and some use) out of the men's negligence.
Actually it's a very good film, and a nice reminder that our modern enlightened practices might just look incredibly stupid and wrong 30, 40, 50 years from now. A fine example is how Cousteau's marine "scientists" go about identifying the variety and number of sea animals around one coral reef in a lagoon. As Homer J. Simpson might do, they simply dynamite the place and then tally up all of the dead animals they find. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:18 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Costeau was on;y ever a psuedo-scientist and his environmentalism was...er...somewhat superficial.
Animal cruelty still abounds, especially in what I now believe we have to call the developing world, but this is nothing compared to the loss of wild habitat and other stresses being placed on eco-systems. Even in geological terms, we are truly in an end-of-days age of mass-extinction. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:17 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| Cheer up, Jeremy--we humans might make ourselves extinct first. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:53 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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jeremy wrote: Even in geological terms, we are truly in an end-of-days age of mass-extinction.
My sister (the biologist) believes this, and gives us until the end of the century, tops. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:51 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Back to movies: I saw the new Stephen Chow movie, CJ7, yesterday. I’m not a Stephen Chow expert (I’ve seen several of his late 90s / early 00s movies, but none of the ones that made him famous), but this is a little different. There’s a hint of Shaolin ET in there, and there are some really funny bits (what? Shaolin ET isn't funny enough?), but it’s really more about the kid and his father. It’s also billed as a kid’s movie, which it definitely is – although in a slightly different way than that would be defined here.
Someone told me that
SPOILER wrote: Among the kids, all the characters were played by actors of the opposite gender.
I don't know if that's true; but, thinking about it, it makes sense - I thought something was slightly off, on a really really minor level. It seems to work; although if it's true, I have no idea why he would do that.
It was enjoyable, I'd let a kid of mine watch it. Not quite what I'd expect from a Stephen Chow movie, but worthwhile all the same. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:07 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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I also saw Peur(s) du Noir (Fear(s) of the Dark) before Stephen Chow. I'm actually in the middle of doing something, so no long take here; but it's a French animation omnibus of horror, done by some well-known (I think) animators - not all French - who usually do comics. Some of the five stories do evoke intermittent edge-of-seat feelings; some are just unpleasant to contemplate. The segments are threaded together in a way that's maybe 80% successful - this keeps the different styles from becoming an issue, at least - but I left with a sense of incompleteness. And I didn't know enough about the animators to even sort out who did what during the Q & A.
The last segment looked similar to the animation style in Persepolis - which is what originally got me interested in the film - but there is no relationship, as far as I've been able to suss out.
The film is slated for release by IFC sometime in the near future.
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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| There's some excellent Charles Burns animation in the film-- I sent the link to my kids last week and they're pumped. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:06 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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tirebiter wrote: There's some excellent Charles Burns animation in the film-- I sent the link to my kids last week and they're pumped.
Ah - Charles Burns was #2: the kid who collected the specimens. He and Richard McGuire were the two animators there, with one of the producers, for the Q & A.
I'd say that segment was one of the unpleasants (more "you really don't want this to happen to you" than "that's disgusting"), rather than scarys. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:46 pm |
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