I had no idea the scene was going to be there, it hits you right away without warning and only happens for less than a minute. There but by the grace of God go I.
The Movie Thread
- Thread starter Maddox
- Start date
Recently had some down-time due to life circumstances. I forgot what having nothing to do feels like, so sitting to watch a few movies was a bit difficult without feeling guilty for wasting time. I decided to watch a couple of Gene Hackman movies: The Poseidon Adventure and Crimson Tide. I had seen The Poseidon Adventure as a kid in the early 90s and remembered it fondly. Crimson Tide I hadn't seen, so it was fun to catch a movie I had missed back in the day.
The Poseidon Adventure I still found enjoyable, if for nothing but the disaster aspect and trying to survive in a literal upside-down situation. Gene Hackman is a wonderful actor and I enjoyed his performance, along with other standouts like Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters and Red Buttons. Each character and portrayal was memorable in its own way, and these felt like real life characters you'd find in a cross section of 1970s America. They reminded me of my grandparents generation, there's a certain ruggedness and vitality, along with the strong complimentary characteristics that distinguish the masculine and the feminine roles that you really don't find so much in today's Hollywood output. Boys were boys and girls were girls -- and somehow it all worked -- there didn't need to be 50 shades of genders/identities in-between to make the story some bland grey pudding of globalist slop. These actors painted in bold strokes and it was an adventure.
On to the negative stuff: re-watching it now through an adult lens and also somewhat post-red pilled and as an Orthodox Christian, it's hard not to see the seeds of Talmudic thought being spread out in a major fashion through this film. For instance, Gene Hackman, as great as his portrayal is, plays a minister who comes off as argumentative toward God, as if he might know better than the Creator. It reminds me too much of having read about Rabbis arguing with God and winning the argument in the Talmud. Hackman's minister is also adversarial (yet sympathetic) toward a Catholic Priest who decides to remain with his "flock" even though it means death -- Hackman refuses to accept death, but this comes off as a preacher who loves the material world too much to let it go.
Another element that is more overt on this recent viewing, is the older couple, the Rosens, portrayed by Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson. They are retired shop owners from New York traveling to Israel to meet their grandson. This kind of subplot is enough to pull at anyone's heartstrings, but in retrospect, it seems like a ploy to keep sympathy for Israel going, as I imagine the mideast troubles at the time were pretty fresh on people's mind and Israel was a young country only 25 years old at that point. That's not to say I dislike the couple at all, Shelly Winters portrays a motherly/doting wife who doesn't dovetail into some millennial existential crisis when she is called fat by Ernest Borgnine's very thin and shapely wife in the film.
Overall a good film and still enjoyable thirty-years after seeing it on cable TV, but a bit eye-rolling with the Talmudic subtext running underneath it. It's still worth a watch in my book.
Crimson Tide, another Gene Hackman film that takes place underwater, (topside up this time!) is a great watch overall. I enjoyed the story, the characters and the portrayals by the actors. There's a lot of tension in this film that feels real and had me glued to my seat. The negative? This film was almost derailed by Gene Hackman's character hinting at some racism toward Denzel Washington -- on a submarine called the Alabama, no less. It's a point that didn't need to be in the story, because much of it was an argument between two men about their approach to a cryptically worded set of orders that had been cut off. Washington and Hackman portray strong, masculine characters who are disciplined in their approach to both sides of the issue, which is a sort of clash of Titans. The hinted racism angle almost seemed tacked on to give Denzel's character an edge over Hackman's that wasn't needed. I'd still watch it again, but that one point was a depth charge that almost sunk this submarine film for me.
Bonus film: The Hunt for Red October. I saw this in theaters before the Iron Curtain fell, with a crowd full of Naval officers at a Naval Station in Hawaii, no less. So I remember this being a fun film to watch on the big screen, and now 35 years later watching it on my small mobile screen, the film still holds up well. This film feels so much more real and weighted in ways than Crimson Tide does. The Naval jargon, the personalities of the sailors of all ranks, all could be lifted out of my memories of being around similar people as a boy living on a Naval base. Sean Connery is fun to watch, along with Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Fred Thompson (who ran for president), and yes, even Alec Baldwin. It's not as tense as Crimson Tide is for most of its duration, but all the pieces are there to make this a fun watch.
Overall, I'd say these three films hold up decently well, and stay afloat after a fresh re-view.
The Poseidon Adventure I still found enjoyable, if for nothing but the disaster aspect and trying to survive in a literal upside-down situation. Gene Hackman is a wonderful actor and I enjoyed his performance, along with other standouts like Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters and Red Buttons. Each character and portrayal was memorable in its own way, and these felt like real life characters you'd find in a cross section of 1970s America. They reminded me of my grandparents generation, there's a certain ruggedness and vitality, along with the strong complimentary characteristics that distinguish the masculine and the feminine roles that you really don't find so much in today's Hollywood output. Boys were boys and girls were girls -- and somehow it all worked -- there didn't need to be 50 shades of genders/identities in-between to make the story some bland grey pudding of globalist slop. These actors painted in bold strokes and it was an adventure.
On to the negative stuff: re-watching it now through an adult lens and also somewhat post-red pilled and as an Orthodox Christian, it's hard not to see the seeds of Talmudic thought being spread out in a major fashion through this film. For instance, Gene Hackman, as great as his portrayal is, plays a minister who comes off as argumentative toward God, as if he might know better than the Creator. It reminds me too much of having read about Rabbis arguing with God and winning the argument in the Talmud. Hackman's minister is also adversarial (yet sympathetic) toward a Catholic Priest who decides to remain with his "flock" even though it means death -- Hackman refuses to accept death, but this comes off as a preacher who loves the material world too much to let it go.
Another element that is more overt on this recent viewing, is the older couple, the Rosens, portrayed by Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson. They are retired shop owners from New York traveling to Israel to meet their grandson. This kind of subplot is enough to pull at anyone's heartstrings, but in retrospect, it seems like a ploy to keep sympathy for Israel going, as I imagine the mideast troubles at the time were pretty fresh on people's mind and Israel was a young country only 25 years old at that point. That's not to say I dislike the couple at all, Shelly Winters portrays a motherly/doting wife who doesn't dovetail into some millennial existential crisis when she is called fat by Ernest Borgnine's very thin and shapely wife in the film.
In an act of bravery that gives her a heart-attack, she swims a long distance underwater with a rope to reach the next air pocket and lay out the path for the other survivors to follow.
Overall a good film and still enjoyable thirty-years after seeing it on cable TV, but a bit eye-rolling with the Talmudic subtext running underneath it. It's still worth a watch in my book.
Crimson Tide, another Gene Hackman film that takes place underwater, (topside up this time!) is a great watch overall. I enjoyed the story, the characters and the portrayals by the actors. There's a lot of tension in this film that feels real and had me glued to my seat. The negative? This film was almost derailed by Gene Hackman's character hinting at some racism toward Denzel Washington -- on a submarine called the Alabama, no less. It's a point that didn't need to be in the story, because much of it was an argument between two men about their approach to a cryptically worded set of orders that had been cut off. Washington and Hackman portray strong, masculine characters who are disciplined in their approach to both sides of the issue, which is a sort of clash of Titans. The hinted racism angle almost seemed tacked on to give Denzel's character an edge over Hackman's that wasn't needed. I'd still watch it again, but that one point was a depth charge that almost sunk this submarine film for me.
Bonus film: The Hunt for Red October. I saw this in theaters before the Iron Curtain fell, with a crowd full of Naval officers at a Naval Station in Hawaii, no less. So I remember this being a fun film to watch on the big screen, and now 35 years later watching it on my small mobile screen, the film still holds up well. This film feels so much more real and weighted in ways than Crimson Tide does. The Naval jargon, the personalities of the sailors of all ranks, all could be lifted out of my memories of being around similar people as a boy living on a Naval base. Sean Connery is fun to watch, along with Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Fred Thompson (who ran for president), and yes, even Alec Baldwin. It's not as tense as Crimson Tide is for most of its duration, but all the pieces are there to make this a fun watch.
Overall, I'd say these three films hold up decently well, and stay afloat after a fresh re-view.
Iakobos
Orthodox
Boy can I relate. So hard to enjoy so much of the films and series that I used to. Which is of course a good thing but it leaves options short when you can't stop noticing.
For me, Baldwin's Jack Ryan character is much more enjoyable than Harrison Ford's in the later Tom Clancy movies. Baldwin gets the job done, whereas Ford's attempts at gravitas always make him look like he's on the verge of tears.
Well speaking of Alec Baldwin he's always been an alpha Chad in all of the movies he's played in, not sure what happened to him.
A thoroughly entertaining film which I watched again recently is The Man Who Would Be King, after the story by Kipling.
Two British ex-soldiers (Sean Connery and Michael Caine) who remained in India after their service in the later 1800s are up to all sorts of schemes and grifts. When they determine India is too small for characters such as them they settle on the idea of heading to the untamed lands of Kafiristan, where they will impress the natives with their military prowess and become their kings. Christopher Plummer plays the role of Kipling, who witnesses their contract to each other to foreswear drink and women for the duration of their adventure.
Freemasonry is an important plot point in the film, the significance of which was lost on me the first time I saw it (several years and many red pills ago) so it was interesting to see it in a different perspective, although the film is no less entertaining for all that.
The story is set in what was still a great age of British explorers and calls to mind something else I had read about:
When John McDouall Stuart was crossing the barren centre of Australia in 1860, he came across a group of Aborigines who greeted him with a Masonic handsign. Clearly he had not been the first white man to pass there, but he never found who preceded him, and that is something that appears to be lost to history.
Two British ex-soldiers (Sean Connery and Michael Caine) who remained in India after their service in the later 1800s are up to all sorts of schemes and grifts. When they determine India is too small for characters such as them they settle on the idea of heading to the untamed lands of Kafiristan, where they will impress the natives with their military prowess and become their kings. Christopher Plummer plays the role of Kipling, who witnesses their contract to each other to foreswear drink and women for the duration of their adventure.
Freemasonry is an important plot point in the film, the significance of which was lost on me the first time I saw it (several years and many red pills ago) so it was interesting to see it in a different perspective, although the film is no less entertaining for all that.
The story is set in what was still a great age of British explorers and calls to mind something else I had read about:
When John McDouall Stuart was crossing the barren centre of Australia in 1860, he came across a group of Aborigines who greeted him with a Masonic handsign. Clearly he had not been the first white man to pass there, but he never found who preceded him, and that is something that appears to be lost to history.
Important to remember that they're just actors. Robert De Niro always plays a tough guy and in real life he might be the biggest whiny liberal cuck in Hollywood.