Dirty Harry 3 was very weak but the first 2 were very good. The first is always going to be the best but the fourth one with Sandra Locke I also enjoyed.
The Movie Thread
- Thread starter Maddox
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I was excited to see this movie as the trailer made it look really good but it ended up being softcore porn.
One good scene doesn't constitute a good movie. These movies are structurally decent but the bad guy(s) are horribly contrived and the movies are no works of art. They were commercially successful and Clint is obviously a decent enough actor (but ain't no Marlon Brando) and as a director makes structurally sound movies that work from beginning to end, but keep in mind that he is/was a liberal politician from California and that his films and life ultimately reflect the JQ globohomo agenda. He'll do the right versus wrong theme but then water it down with feminism (in The Enforcer he philosophically goes off on Tyne Daly for being a weak woman cop but then she propositions him with out of wedlock sex over a couple of beers, saves his life, and then she dies a hero which hurts our "hard"-hearted hero deeply) and race bating (in Gran Torino he plays a "racist" who ultimately capitulates by unnecessarily martyring himself by going to his death over an Asian-gangs treatment of an Asian kid, his sister, and their family).
That's what I was saying about the Dirty Harry franchise in general... "trashy," and you can see (((they))) are the beginning of DEI in Hollywood and programming our young women (and men) to be rootless, depressed, vengeful sluts via graphic displays of violence and sexuality.
His 1960's westerns were great, slow paced, great cinematography, solid acting, no gratuitous violence with brain matter splashing across the screen, no profanity, no nudity, the sexuality was "suggested" not shown, and the scripts were well constructed from beginning to end.
Recently watched the latest Indiana Jones movie because a friend thought it had the old Indy feel. While it was superior to the Crystal Skull, I still felt turned off by a lot of the cgi action and the many times one had to suspend one's disbelief, like the main villain not dying after a certain scene, the whole diving scene, etc. I also thought the premise was ridiculous on its own, with Archimedes and the antikythera. Indy himself didn't seem all that great of a character. He didn't have the it-factor, he didn't have the same sense of control during the action. They also never made him seem tired, which they did with the old Indy stuff. I found the yellow tint distracting, and the ugly mystery-meat kids. John Rhys was in it, but he seemed a shadow of himself. I guess that's what one notices with movies, how much people shrivel over time.
Overall, found the movie boring and I still can't help but feel I wish there'd be an end to cgi enhanced action movies. I think that's why I prefer war movies that focus on realism. I can't take the fake so much anymore, especially when it tries to sell itself as scientific.
Overall, found the movie boring and I still can't help but feel I wish there'd be an end to cgi enhanced action movies. I think that's why I prefer war movies that focus on realism. I can't take the fake so much anymore, especially when it tries to sell itself as scientific.
I've been considering giving this a watch but after reading your post and listening to The Critical Drinker's take on it, it doesn't sound like it's worth the digital film it's captured on.
It's a background movie if you have other things to do and don't mind not being 100% dialed in to what's going on (because it doesn't matter).
I ended up watching it and surprisingly enjoyed it. While there’s some sex and nudity, it’s no more than what you’d expect from most mainstream Hollywood films these days.
The movie touches on themes like science versus religion, the male character is saved by nuns praying for him, and lust ends up being the villain's downfall... dare I say, it almost feels like a Christian film.
Ever since I watched The Penguin, I've been rewatching the Batman films and have been seeing them in a whole new light. The Penguin is repeatedly likened to the Devil, and if you follow the analogy through, then Batman would be a Christ-like figure. I knew that superheroes are a Jewish fantasy and so they are in some ways Messianic, but I underappreciated how far some of the films go in their symbolism. Of particular interest to me is The Dark Knight Trilogy:
Bruce Wayne's "Original Sin" is prompting his parents to leave the movie theater. The film even begins with him and his girlfriend playing in his dad's garden. His dad takes a bullet for the wife (like Christ does for the Church). Bruce Wayne is left to feel both guilty and afraid, however, Gordon covers Bruce in his dad's coat, like how God covers Adam and Eve in animal skins. The Batman costume continues this theme of covering, it is even modeled after an animal, the bat. The covering is meant to cover the sin, guilt, fear, and shame.
The first film follows Batman's character progression as he goes from a fearful child (Adam) to an angry young man seeking revenge (the Wrath of God) to the Batman (a balance between God's Wrath and Mercy). The villain of the first film is Ra's Al Ghul (Head of the Demon) played by Liam Neeson, who never really escapes Batman's second phase, he stays in the anger phase but never gets to the mercy phase.
The Joker in the second film, which is still one of the greatest films ever, is also an incarnation of the Devil. Check out the card, it's a clown with a devil's tail:
He hates what the Batman mask stands for. Batman's followers are able to put on the mask and the mask frees them from fear, it goes back to the covering of the first film. It makes me think Romans 13:14: Put on (clothe yourselves with) the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are many other connections I've noticed in all three films but these were a couple I found to be very interesting.
Bruce Wayne's "Original Sin" is prompting his parents to leave the movie theater. The film even begins with him and his girlfriend playing in his dad's garden. His dad takes a bullet for the wife (like Christ does for the Church). Bruce Wayne is left to feel both guilty and afraid, however, Gordon covers Bruce in his dad's coat, like how God covers Adam and Eve in animal skins. The Batman costume continues this theme of covering, it is even modeled after an animal, the bat. The covering is meant to cover the sin, guilt, fear, and shame.
The first film follows Batman's character progression as he goes from a fearful child (Adam) to an angry young man seeking revenge (the Wrath of God) to the Batman (a balance between God's Wrath and Mercy). The villain of the first film is Ra's Al Ghul (Head of the Demon) played by Liam Neeson, who never really escapes Batman's second phase, he stays in the anger phase but never gets to the mercy phase.
The Joker in the second film, which is still one of the greatest films ever, is also an incarnation of the Devil. Check out the card, it's a clown with a devil's tail:
He hates what the Batman mask stands for. Batman's followers are able to put on the mask and the mask frees them from fear, it goes back to the covering of the first film. It makes me think Romans 13:14: Put on (clothe yourselves with) the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are many other connections I've noticed in all three films but these were a couple I found to be very interesting.
I went to see the Chalamet Dylan film 'A Complete Unknown' the other day.
I don't think I can talk about this film without first giving my thoughts on Bob Dylan as a person or should I say the Jewish son of a dentist Robert Zimmerman's 'character' Bob Dylan. As I truly believe the construction of the truth seeing above the rabble commentator and cynical bard genius 'Dylan' is one of the great fictional personas ever concocted.
I never resonated with Bob Dylan's music. Even as a teenager I got the frustrating sense that none of this really made any sense. That this man couldn't actually sing and this music wasn't enjoyable. It did indeed feel like someone throwing around obscure phrases that sounded meaningful and then obfuscating the meaning so that people would feel that if they were just intelligent enough or analytical enough they do could pick the lock of the Zimmerman mind. But one thing I want to be made clear is that I always respected the creation for how convincing it was. The thing that actually bothered me more was the reaction to Dylan as some absolute genius for his poetry and songwriting where I thought and still do think the accolades should be given for the con artist work. The fact that Dylan won the nobel prize for literature was confirmation to me that there is no serious world of literature to aspire towards and the whole thing is and always has been some sort of a sham.
So with that out of the way, I will touch a little on the film itself which has Chalamet mumbling and singing too many Bob Dylan songs. Song after song. It was just too much of his music without any resonant storytelling alongside it. Chalamet's performance is surprisingly good but after a while that too became grating, like watching a YouTuber perfectly deliver Eminem verses without making obvious errors or mistake. One is impressed to a point but then ultimately shrugs ones shoulders. 'Good job, pal,' you think, 'but still I'd rather just listen to the real thing.'
One thing the film got right is that Dylan does not come across very well. He appears like a self-indulgent jerk. There were two moments in the film where is great self-myth making was referenced - the fact his real name is 'Zimmerman' and that he fradulently created stories of being in a carnival and how he learnt guitar. That to me, is where the real heart of the movie should have been. How a clever and driven man plotted and successfully took over the music scene in New York City with a carefully constructed musical and public (and even private) persona. That's the truth of Bob Dylan.
The 'Judas' moment (where a fan yelled at Bob and called him Judas for betraying the folk roots) has been talked about a lot. However, what is not often mentioned is what people were most upset by is not so much the switch from acoustic to electric instruments (something that obviously does not resonate at all as a dramatic moment to young audiences) but that Bob went from of the people to confrontational and sneeringly above. People were less mad at the musical shift than the ego transformation. This movie could have focused more on that. It even did to an extent while still trying to keep the Dylan myth alive and present the whole thing in a positive light at the same time. One comes away feeling they just watched a recreation of some events in history and not a story much at all.
There has always been a dark side to Dylan in this period as written about in an essay by Ian MacDonald:
" Dylan had a mission in 1965-6, no matter how much he denied it, even to himself - as much of a gospel to expound as he'd had when standing up for Hattie Carroll and Hollis Brown in 1963. In a phrase (from Henry Miller) it was: to inoculate the world with disillusionment. This was a suitably serious ambition for the most sustainedly confrontational artist in popular music and he applied himself to it with perverse relish and, as audience resistance persisted, an increasing militance.'
One thing of note is that Dylan did later convert to Christianity:
After 1967, only intense conviction could substitute for chemical inspiration. It's no accident that the best music he's made since then — the most considered and carefully wrought — came with his conversion to Christianity. His touring band in 1979-80 gave added focus to his writing, as video footage from his Massey Hall concerts in Toronto in April 1980 demonstrates
Yet it's questionable whether this 'conversion' was just another hat Dylan chose to wear to serve his own purposes:
'...even here, his obstinate sense of self remains in place. ‘Ain't Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody’ is a powerful song and a thrilling performance, but a bizarrely egocentric expression of ‘Christian’ faith. ‘Have I surrendered to the will of God/Or am I still acting like the boss?’, ponders Dylan in ‘Are You Ready?'. The constant wonder of his career is that a man so often close to spiritual breakthrough so consistently winds up bumping his head against the ceiling of his own ego. Dylan can draw all the correct conclusions but, rushing to turn them into art, fails to transcend himself. To recognise the ‘disease of conceit! is fine; to grab the phrase and write a song about it is conceited.'
So ultimately I was unimpressed with Dylan the movie and I have always been suspicious of the man and the artist. I'd give this film a skip unless you have some curiousity in seeing Chalamet do a great cos play performance.
I don't think I can talk about this film without first giving my thoughts on Bob Dylan as a person or should I say the Jewish son of a dentist Robert Zimmerman's 'character' Bob Dylan. As I truly believe the construction of the truth seeing above the rabble commentator and cynical bard genius 'Dylan' is one of the great fictional personas ever concocted.
I never resonated with Bob Dylan's music. Even as a teenager I got the frustrating sense that none of this really made any sense. That this man couldn't actually sing and this music wasn't enjoyable. It did indeed feel like someone throwing around obscure phrases that sounded meaningful and then obfuscating the meaning so that people would feel that if they were just intelligent enough or analytical enough they do could pick the lock of the Zimmerman mind. But one thing I want to be made clear is that I always respected the creation for how convincing it was. The thing that actually bothered me more was the reaction to Dylan as some absolute genius for his poetry and songwriting where I thought and still do think the accolades should be given for the con artist work. The fact that Dylan won the nobel prize for literature was confirmation to me that there is no serious world of literature to aspire towards and the whole thing is and always has been some sort of a sham.
So with that out of the way, I will touch a little on the film itself which has Chalamet mumbling and singing too many Bob Dylan songs. Song after song. It was just too much of his music without any resonant storytelling alongside it. Chalamet's performance is surprisingly good but after a while that too became grating, like watching a YouTuber perfectly deliver Eminem verses without making obvious errors or mistake. One is impressed to a point but then ultimately shrugs ones shoulders. 'Good job, pal,' you think, 'but still I'd rather just listen to the real thing.'
One thing the film got right is that Dylan does not come across very well. He appears like a self-indulgent jerk. There were two moments in the film where is great self-myth making was referenced - the fact his real name is 'Zimmerman' and that he fradulently created stories of being in a carnival and how he learnt guitar. That to me, is where the real heart of the movie should have been. How a clever and driven man plotted and successfully took over the music scene in New York City with a carefully constructed musical and public (and even private) persona. That's the truth of Bob Dylan.
The 'Judas' moment (where a fan yelled at Bob and called him Judas for betraying the folk roots) has been talked about a lot. However, what is not often mentioned is what people were most upset by is not so much the switch from acoustic to electric instruments (something that obviously does not resonate at all as a dramatic moment to young audiences) but that Bob went from of the people to confrontational and sneeringly above. People were less mad at the musical shift than the ego transformation. This movie could have focused more on that. It even did to an extent while still trying to keep the Dylan myth alive and present the whole thing in a positive light at the same time. One comes away feeling they just watched a recreation of some events in history and not a story much at all.
There has always been a dark side to Dylan in this period as written about in an essay by Ian MacDonald:
" Dylan had a mission in 1965-6, no matter how much he denied it, even to himself - as much of a gospel to expound as he'd had when standing up for Hattie Carroll and Hollis Brown in 1963. In a phrase (from Henry Miller) it was: to inoculate the world with disillusionment. This was a suitably serious ambition for the most sustainedly confrontational artist in popular music and he applied himself to it with perverse relish and, as audience resistance persisted, an increasing militance.'
One thing of note is that Dylan did later convert to Christianity:
After 1967, only intense conviction could substitute for chemical inspiration. It's no accident that the best music he's made since then — the most considered and carefully wrought — came with his conversion to Christianity. His touring band in 1979-80 gave added focus to his writing, as video footage from his Massey Hall concerts in Toronto in April 1980 demonstrates
Yet it's questionable whether this 'conversion' was just another hat Dylan chose to wear to serve his own purposes:
'...even here, his obstinate sense of self remains in place. ‘Ain't Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody’ is a powerful song and a thrilling performance, but a bizarrely egocentric expression of ‘Christian’ faith. ‘Have I surrendered to the will of God/Or am I still acting like the boss?’, ponders Dylan in ‘Are You Ready?'. The constant wonder of his career is that a man so often close to spiritual breakthrough so consistently winds up bumping his head against the ceiling of his own ego. Dylan can draw all the correct conclusions but, rushing to turn them into art, fails to transcend himself. To recognise the ‘disease of conceit! is fine; to grab the phrase and write a song about it is conceited.'
So ultimately I was unimpressed with Dylan the movie and I have always been suspicious of the man and the artist. I'd give this film a skip unless you have some curiousity in seeing Chalamet do a great cos play performance.
I've always thought Rodriguez was a much better version of him. His lyrical talent was just as good if not better, the arrangements were more varied and interesting, and plus, he could actually sing....whereas Dylan could not.
Rodriguez should have been the one with the long and illustrious career.
I never heard of this happening although I'm guessing it's much too late for him. He did an interview awhile back where he alluded to the fact that he had sold his soul to get where he wanted to go in life.
I watched this over the weekend and I liked it only slightly better than you did. Which is to say, I didn't like it.
While the film looks great because Ridley Scott directed it, he was also responsible for all of the unrealistic inclusions you referred to in your post, plus terrible CGI. You didn't mention the oversized "killer monkeys" or whatever they were in an early battle scene. So add that to the list. But between animals that didn't exist, filling the Colisseum with water (from where!!!) and importing sharks to swim in it (How???), the film had so many inconceivable things going on, I was turned off right from the start.
In addition to these problems, the main actor, Paul Mescal, does not have the onstage presence that Russell Crowe possesses. While he does an admirable job, he just doesn't command the screen with the same charisma as Crowe.
One thing I keep hearing is how Denzel might get an Academy Award nomination for his performance. This baffles me as I didn't see anything special from him in this picture. Sure, his acting is strong, but it's nothing like his performance in Training Day or even Flight. Maybe it's a weak field this year.
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That doesn't sound like a Gladiator movie but more like a circus. Denzel Washington is a great actor but he probably will win the clown academy just because he's a black man in a movie set in the Roman empire.
If anyone hasn't seen it, I strongly recommend the documentary 'Searching for Sugar Man'.
Even if you've never heard of Rodriguez (like I hadn't), it's an incredible story.
They did flood the colosseum back then, but I think the sharks might be over the top.
The Flooding of the Colosseum: Guide To Colosseum Naval Battles - The Roman Guy
The Colosseum is famous for its arena and gladiator fights. But did you know the Romans also hosted massive mock ship battles in the Colosseum—on water? In this article, discover how the Romans were able to flood the Colosseum to host epic naval battles. Pro Tip: Planning your visit to the...
theromanguy.com
I watched a very entertaining suspense thriller called Speak No Evil (2024). Had a lot of similarities to the Creep franchise but I won’t give away too much. Only downside is there is some wokeness in the family dynamics where the “Karen-like” wife/mother is the strong leader and the husband is basically weak and worthless. But if you can put blinders on to that aspect, it’s a pretty intense and entertaining thriller.
Soul-bleach for all you weary film buffs from the filth of today. This one is pure and honest, and shows a better side to Canada and it's nature before it was ruined by politics. More suited for children, young adults, and naturalists:
"My Side of the Mountain (1969) - Full movie"
"My Side of the Mountain (1969) - Full movie"
I love this movie. I had the book when I was a kid. The book has the boy living in NYC and running away to live in the Catskills mountains, but some kind of Canadian Arts Council funded this film, so they had him starting in Toronto. Other than the change in location, they did a pretty good job of representing the story in the book.
I wanted to run away and do this for several years, but I never even ended up getting into hunting and camping, let alone Survivor style bush craft.
Side note: In both the movie and the book, the boy started out living down town in a big city, and could go around freely in safety. Much different from now!
Yeah, I read that book too as a child, was probably my favorite.