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lady wakasa
Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:03 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Marj wrote:
PS. I'm sending you a PM.


About "Suzi" and Les Six? That's the only film I've seen.

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Marj
Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:05 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan
Nope.
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Marc
Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
You know you're in for a long mindnumbing ride when early in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" we are shown a closeup of Jim Morrison's boot brushing past a lizard on the desert floor. Lizard King, get it? This kind of in your face symbolism pockmarks the movie like a bad case of existential acne. The triteness of the film is astonishing. Jimbo meets cute with Pamela and utters immortal lines like "I feel most alive confronting death. Does death turn you on?", the camera panning across a coffee table cluttered with books by Artaud, Mailer and Rimbaud (the law firm of). We get "Hang On Sloopy" on the soundtrack while Jim slithers along the beach and a sailboat (sloop) bobs on the horizon. Native American mysticism is tossed into the mix with a mysterioso goofiness that borders on racism. Haloed moons rise and fall, crows caw, snakes coil and hiss, soulful eyes stare into deep space as go go dancers frug like frogs on a hotplate.
The Doors is tightly compressed but still a slow slog. We see montages of silly acid trips ("kiss the snake on the tongue"), badly staged and unexciting "live" performances by the band, hippie dippy and extremely corny shots of the Haight Ashbury. The scenes where The Doors appear on the Ed Sullivan Show features a Sullivan impersonator so mechanical he appears to be some kind of animatronic creation. The same is true of Crispin Glover's Warhol, Paul Williams' Capote and Christina Fulton's Nico. They are all gross caricatures. Worse, they are betrayals, insults and cruel. Nico is portrayed/betrayed as a lascivious, dumb, horny, pouty mouthed slut. In fact, in real life, Nico was cool, remote, Aristocratic and intelligent. Glover's Warhol is the stuff of Saturday Night Live sketches. As Glover drones on in a faggy monotone, someone off screen actually says "everybody will be famous for 15 minutes". Williams' Capote, though visually perfect, makes a mockery of Truman's affectations. It is cruel. The whole scene at The Factory is so wrongheaded, so cliche-ridden and silly, I am shocked it didn't end up on the cutting room floor. This is "Pop For Dummies".
Stone's ineptitude rivals Ken Russell's when it comes to the dramatization
of rock and roll. Morrison drinking blood and dancing naked in a gothic castle while heavy opera churns on the soundtrack reminded me of Russell's worst excesses. For a moment I thought I was watching "Lisztomania" with a soft porn spin.
Regarding Val Kilmer's oft-praised performance as Jim Morrison, it sucks. Kilmer is a lightweight. He's pretty, he undulates and sings like Jim. But, he has zero depth. Granted he's not given much of a script to work with, but still. There's nothing behind that pretty face. There's no real rage in the tantrums and self-destruction. There is nothing about Kilmer that captures the demons roiling within Jim Morrison. Morrison's beauty is undeniable, but there was much more to him than that. You don't become a universally adored rock icon without having some substance. Otherwise, we'd be worshipping P.J. Proby and Peter Noonan.
While the The Doors and the hippie thing were in full swing, Oliver Stone was in Vietnam. He missed out on it all. It is clear watching the movie that Stone is clueless about counterculture, pop culture and rock and roll. I think he's pissed off he wasn't part of the party. "The Doors" is his revenge.

At one point in "The Doors", Kilmer's Morrison proclaims "Teenage girls want my dick, not my words". Oliver Stone made a movie about penis envy.
He wanted Morrison's dick.
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billyweeds
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:39 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
ehle64 wrote:
Loved The English Patient, liked A Beautiful Mind, liked certain parts of Gladiator. The last two being anything BUT Best Pictures of the Year.

HATED? Ooooh, so many. Will have to gather up me thoughts and get back to ya later on those.


This is the kind of thing a forum like this can become. "I liked it." "Well, I didn't." If you're gonna disagree, at least give some cogent reasons why you liked it, or hated it.
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billyweeds
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:39 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Marc wrote:
I loved TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. I liked GLADIATOR.


Ditto.
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Marc
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:46 am Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
Quote:
This is the kind of thing a forum like this can become. "I liked it." "Well, I didn't." If you're gonna disagree, at least give some cogent reasons why you liked it, or hated it.


Well, I'm doin' my best to set the tone. I just posted a substantial review and, billy, you leapfrogged over it to diss ehle. In fact, ehle said he was gathering his thoughts and was gonna get back to us. Sometimes you gotta post something just to let people know you're in the mix

Having said that, I agree with you that this forum could become an "I like, I don't like" snoozefest. That's why I very deliberately chose the word "hate". I am hoping it will arouse some passion and some enjoyable rants.
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Syd
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:54 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
For Terms of Endearment it was partly that I detested the two characters played by MacLaine and Winger and found spending an entire movie with them to be agony. Then we have a tearjerker ending when I just wanted them to be run over by a steamroller. Slowly.

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billyweeds
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:54 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Just to set the record straight: I did not intend to "diss" ehle. He just happened to be the first one I noticed (besides Marc and, I think, myself) to start just knee-jerking off about "I liked, I didn't like" stuff. But seriously, if someone says "I hate Movie X" and you respond "I loved it," doesn't it make sense in the context of a forum like this one to explain what it is about Movie X that makes you love it, if only possibly to educate the hater?
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billyweeds
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:55 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
I have never seen The Doors, but have tried to and failed. Maybe will try again just to be able to respond to Marc.

Was a huge non-fan of the band The Doors.

Warching dull Val Kilmer play scenes with genius Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant was a working example of "comparisons are odious." Even so, Cage brought Kilmer out of his bubble occasionally.
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chillywilly
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:00 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8250 Location: Salt Lake City
billyweeds wrote:
First and foremost on any list of Films I Hate is the Oscarwinning snore-and-barf-fest called The English Patient. The reasons why I hate it are many and varied. A minor reason is that it's set in the desert, the setting for another Oscarwinning movie I hate and one I seem to be the only one who does--Lawrence of Arabia. But back to The English Patient. The desert is a momentarily beautiful but ultimately monotonous setting for a movie. But that is soooo minor a reason in comparison with the big one--that we are asked to sympathize with an adulterous relationship that is nothing but selfish.

A second reason is that the two people in question have no chemistry whatsoever with each other. Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas, fine actors though they are reputed to be (though never favorites of mine, ever, either), are sexual clams. He can't light a fire with anyone in any movie I've ever seen him in, and she hasn't had that much chance but has pretty much blown her few opportunities. In The Horse Whisperer Robert Redford has more chemistry (albeit platonic) with the preteen Scarlett Johansson than with her screen mom Scott Thomas.

Another reason I hate this film is that it won the Oscar over one of my top ten films of all time, Fargo. Enough said? Well, not nearly, but enough for now. I will comment further when people have responded.

Billy, you know I agree with each and every point on why I hate The English Patient so much.

And an extra emphasis on you last reason. For me, it was one of the worst films ever to have won best picture.

How could someone who made The Talented Mr. Ripley end up making this garbage?

The only reason I ever saw TEP was because a girl I was dating told me I would enjoy it. Good thing we had sex after the movie. It was the only enjoyable moment of that night.

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Marc
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:02 am Reply with quote
Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424
Billy,

yeah, if I'm gonna get into "I like, don't like thing", I'm gonna balance it with some reviews.

I was a huge Doors fan. They were literally lifechanging for me. Which may help explain why I hated the movie so much.
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marantzo
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:58 am Reply with quote
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I saw The Doors a long time ago on TV. I'm not even sure if I saw the whole thing. It was in an afternoon and I was watching and not watching throughout. I realized right away that it was a comic book version of Morrison, but I liked the goofiness of the whole thing. Unintentional for sure, but I got a kick out of it. The colours were very nice and Kilmer looked a lot like Morrison (probably why he was praised for his performance.) I was luke warm toward The Doors when they existed, but i have come to appreciate them much more as time has past. If I knew more about Morrison on a par with Marc's knowledge of the man, I might have had a different reaction to the film.

My opinion of Oliver Stone; He's a prick. I remember passing a huge poster for the movie Alexander in a theatre. I stopped to read who was in it and such, thinking, this could be good. I mean really, Alexander the Great had a short and fantastic life. Then I saw it, "Directed by Oliver Stone". That let all the air out of my balloon. I actually said "Oh shit!" out loud. No one was around. My disappointment proved justified when I read all the dreadful reviews. I never saw it and I hate it!
Rod
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:00 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 Dec 2004 Posts: 2944 Location: Lithgow, Australia
Everything the rest of you like.

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marantzo
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:01 am Reply with quote
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How are you doing, stranger?
Rod
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:03 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 Dec 2004 Posts: 2944 Location: Lithgow, Australia
Leave me alone, I'm hating. Grrrrrr.

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