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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Oliver Stone makes mostly horrible films, including a few I truly hate--Born on the Fourth of July, U-Turn, etc., etc. But when he's on point he can be terrific--JFK, Any Given Sunday, Salvador, no etc., that's it.
Some will say "Born on the Fourth of July??? Why? That's one of his good films!" No, no, no. Read the book and see how Stone fucked it up, mainly through the casting of plastic Tom Cruise in a role Ron Liebman or someone like that was "born" to play.
There has seldom been a worse film than U-Turn. A cast that looks great on paper in a bid for "worst ensemble performance ever." |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:04 am |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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billyweeds wrote: Oliver Stone makes mostly horrible films, including a few I truly hate--Born on the Fourth of July.....
Time goes by, and it's the same scene, same vets; only now there's no staff, no nothing. That's powerful film making. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:12 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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marantzo wrote:
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!
Alexander was my worst movie of 2004. Here's my review from when the movie came out:
Here's a vision. Take a mediocre epic, say Troy, remove the coherence of the screenplay, suck the life out of the entertaining camp elements, add a droning narrator, stretch it to two hours, edit the battle sequences until they're just about incomprehensible but make up for that by raising up so much dust or setting in a jungle so you can't see most of what is going on, tell two thirds of the events rather than show them, add titles now and then so you can distinguish the current scene from the previous one that looks exactly the same, take a five minute scene from its natural place one hour into the film and place it 90 minutes later where it brings the picture to a dead halt, and turn your supposed passionate affair into hand-holding and an occasional hug. You can keep the same low level of acting and uncharismatic and somewhat wimpy lead actor, but be sure to take out all the magic.
See, you just saved yourself the time and money you might have wasted seeing Alexander.
I am grateful for Oliver Stone for this. I didn't have the heart to name a worst movie for 2004, because King Arthur wasn't quite bad enough, but Alexander is, far, far worse. It's pompous, boring, weirdly cast and acted, with a wretched screenplay and mediocre cinematography. All the mideast seems to be yellow, and it must be uninhabited because there surely isn't any vegetation. Some of the sets look like someone grabbed anything Greeklike from the scene shop and cobbled it together without worrying whether it made sense. (Okay, the walls of Babylon looked nice.) Angelina Jolie is suitably weird as Olympias, and her accent sounds really odd until you hear Rosario Dawson's. Colin Farrell is a poor choice for Alexander, but he is way outdone by Jared Leto's terrible Hephaistion.
You know you've got a problem when you're showing the battle of Gaugamela and the audience is rooting for the Persians.
When I saw Platoon way back when, I was really impressed by the battles because I thought they caught the confusion of jungle battle very well. After Any Given Sunday and Alexander, I realize that the truth is Oliver Stone can't direct an action scene at all. |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:18 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| You have unaccountably made me want to see Alexander. That's a side effect of this forum. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:21 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: You have unaccountably made me want to see Alexander. That's a side effect of this forum.
It's one of those films others are measured against. You know, "This really sucks, but at least it's better than Alexander." |
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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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:22 am |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:47 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, like Alexander, takes a potentially promising idea and totally blows it. Great charactes of 19th century fiction such as Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray and Tom Sawyer (!) band together to fight an evil menace.
Okay, most likely this would at best have turned into something like Young Sherlock Holmes, but it doesn't come close to that. It has exactly one good scene, at the very beginning when the Bank of England is raided by an armored vehicle. The great threat is underwhelming, as are the special effects, topped by a musclebound CGI Mr. Hyde who looks like a refugee from a particularly bad World of Warcraft III clone. Imagine a flesh-toned Hulk after training for the Mr. Universe title. You suspect that the screenwriter only knew the heroes from their D&D Character Sheets. And the identity of the chief villain is as trite as possible. |
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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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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:23 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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The worst thing about "The Doors" movie is there isn't a single moment in the film in which Morrison is shown to be an exciting performer. If you didn't know who Morrison was, the film gives you no compelling reason to seek out his music.
One of the very few rock biopics in which an actor captures the energy of the rocker he is portraying is Gary Busey in "The Buddy Holly Story". Any others? |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:53 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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Quote: Everything the rest of you like.
once an asshole, always an asshole. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:51 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| my next selection is the vile CRUISING. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:34 pm |
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| Yeah, Busey's Holly was excellent. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 6:13 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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For me there is hated, as in it was so stupid that I was angry to have wasted the time and money - and then there is hated as in left a blur of distaste or disgust in my mouth.
The first is easy - Bad Boyz 2, the 3rd mummy movie, and so on.
The second is trickier because some of them are either classics or possibly well done, but I hated anyway. I have said this before, but I really hated Last House on the Left. It quite literally made me feel nauseous. Now I was young, 20 or so, and did not have a good stomach for that type of thing anyway - but it was just too grotesque for me. I watched in abject horror and my boyfriend made me sit through the whole thing - never again.
I also hated Blue Velvet and Last Exit to Brooklyn. The movies were just hideous to sit through, thus the hate.
I will keep thinking. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 6:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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This forum is taking off!! I guess I'm not much of a movie hater. But ask me what Broadway musical I hated the most.......easy.......A Chorus Line.
Wendy and Lucy should be banned by the Humane Society. It takes character, intelligence, and responsibility to be a good dog owner. Having my own Lucy, plus Guy and Franny I know that you can not abandon a dog in a stranger's fenced-in back yard and think everything is going good for the dog. SPOILER (Wendy did this at the end of the movie.) Some dogs can climb fences. Some people never bring the dogs in. Some people don't give the dogs fresh water every day. Some people don't care if their dogs bark day and night.
Do we need spoilers for this forum??
I dislike It's a Wonderful Life alot. Not sure I hate it. But it glorifies martyrdom and self-denial. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:06 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Betsy,
I say spoilers aren't necessary in this forum. Most of the movies are "spoiled" by their very existence.
Will be going off on CRUISING later tonight. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:19 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Quote: Most of the movies are "spoiled" by their very existence.
to watch one of these a second time seems cruel and unusual punishment...... |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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