Movies (recently seen)

[End Master]

Has anyone seen Blood Diamond? I wondered if it sucked or not.

[xnull]

It sucked. I had to watch it and then write a paper about how it applied to sociology in the modern world. Here is the essay before I edited and spell checked it (which I seem to have not saved a copy of). Warning, contains spoilers. I don't suggest watching the movie anyway. You already have.

____The movie "Blood Diamond" is about a man with questionable morals, a beautiful woman who always says the right thing, a country in a desperate situation being overlooked which has bad guys that are bad because they are, and it is about something worth putting everything on the line for. The man with questionable morals finds that there are things worth more in life than a stone and finds peace rapidly even after being hardened by years and years of army work. I have seen "Blood Diamond" before. I saw it when I saw Star Wars, Kill Bill, E.T., and Rocky (to name a few). They have the exact same format. This movie is basic melodrama with a swirl of poorly placed romance and a little bit of unstrategicly injected politics (which is meant to make the film seem like it is standing on the moral highground). The setting could have been anywhere, the plot could have had any "blood diamond" and the moral message could have been any of thousands of large-scale issues in our world today.
____It is interesting to look at the sociological aspects of the movie from a real-world standpoint. Why are we as a society so obsessed with this type of movie layout, this melodramatic structure? Why do we look up to the half-god who always seems to dodge every explosion and every bullet fired from every automatic weapon? I think each individual truly wishes to rise to the top of their social niche – to be praised by all of their peers for being full of action and for dodging bullets (in a literal or metaphorical sense). We look up to these characters because they are superior to those around them, but interact on the same level and are still integrated into society. Stories about heroes who do good deeds and who dodge bullets but aren't integrated into society are not looked up to (for example Dead Man and Phantom Stranger whose comics never made it to a tenth issue, as compared to a plethora of integrated heroes who persist nearly a hundred years later). People need to feel like the hero is threatened as well, or there is no glory in their surviving through a two hour spectacle (as seen in many bad action movies, such as "They Live" and "Black Fist", where no threat in percieved).
Without there being some obstacle, the accomplishment isn't much, and that person shouldn't be held high by the rest of their society. In the same sense, the higher the accomplishment, the greater the reward. This is why the hero can be a hacker (the best hacker) or a sailor (the best sailor) or a mathematician (the best mathematician). So why did the romantic hero need to come to peace of mind at the end? Why couldn't he have screwed over his helpless and trusting comrade and left on the plane with a super-precious diamond? When the movie was written, I'm sure Charles Leavitt entertained the idea for a few seconds. Movies with such endings have been made before (usually just to "give the audience a suprise ending"). It doesn't change the format of the movie; we still have a perfect gunslinger and the form of the movie is identical. These types of films do not typically sell as well.
____We as a group, with our group-think, have agreed that good must triumph on all fronts (unless of course there is to be a sequel) in order to feel like the movie is finished. We want to see the resolution of a battle. If our Blood Diamond hero got on his plane and the lowly fisherman had been left below, tears falling from his eyes, it would imply that the problem in Africa would persist past the end of the movie and the audience would feel like they were missing out on the rest of the story. I believe Vandy is brought into Congress at the end to testify on the conditions and affects of the dirty diamond trade for precisely this sociological reason.
____The closure of "Blood Diamond" displayed some very inspirational sentences after the falling action. The sentences expounded upon how the individual can help save a country and all of these poor people. To be honest, I don't expect the movie will make any difference. If you assume every person who watched the movie had a sudden change of heart and set up a personal boycott of diamonds (ignoring the fact that many of the people would already have diamonds or will only feel pressure to buy diamonds several years later), it would make no large difference in the trade. Diamond sales are highly regulated. At the head of most diamond sales is a large amount of computational work to keep diamonds in demand and at high prices through group manipulation techniques in advertising and by controlling the number of diamonds available for purchase. I feel that a good number of people today like to feel they need to be on the moral highground – that they suscribe to some value which will make peoples' lives better or fix global warming or save cows from slaughterhouses but rarely ever put any personal effort forth to ammend the situation (there are also groups who engage in deviant behavior and purposefully go out of their way to be the anti-thesis of these groups). These people who dream of their morality play the part of the audience not only to the movie, but also to the ongoing stories of these world issues. For the audience member, this helps them to rationalize certain things about themselves and helps them to feel good about themselves in (unfortunately) an non-constructive way.
____All of this plays to Blood Diamond's advantage – Hollywood knows that. The movie was not made to aid the African World. Peace negotiations were in progress before the movie was released, and of the appromiately 57 million dollars grossed by sales from Blood Diamond, I have not read anywhere of any money being used to aid these conflict regions. In all – I think we can tell more about our society from the format and content of the movies we enjoy and from which movies do well in the box office than the instances recreated inside these films. Films are (generally) representational of real life, but are then skewed by the addition of romantics and inspirational dialog.
____This adds a lot of room for error and manipulation to take place. Music is added to the movie to enforce feelings and reactions from viewers. The villians are ugly and the heroes are beautiful. In fact, heroes can be seen to reflect the concept of beauty at the time a melodramatic piece such as this is recorded. When a script is rerecorded in a different era there is a stark contrast in the dress and look of the heroes. Few movies recreate stories that are accurate portrails of society. However, no matter what the format or flavor a movie is made with, it will say something about the people who enjoy the movie and it will say something about the person or group that created the movie (I need only cite "Birth of a Nation") and it will say something about society.

[apotheosis]

Oh, I saw a few movies I should probably review. I'm going to be brief because I feel lazy.

I Am Legend- Had a pretty solid beginning and I was enjoying it up until the last third of the movie. It had a horrendous ending which I hated. The writer and director managed to take a great thing they had going and completely and utterly destroy it. I was disappointed overall. First half is really good though. Oh, and the infected people looked way to benevolent. They should not have gone with CGI, people with make up would have worked much better for the film.

No Country for Old Men- Great movie, but I really have to watch it again to fully understand it. I don't really want to say much about it because I went in to see the movie knowing nothing about it and I think that is really the best way to see it. I suggest everyone watches it. Best movie of the year IMO

The Devils Rejects- Not as terrible as house of a thousand corpses. It entertained me.

[End Master]

The chicken scene in Devil’s Rejects is hilarious. Personally I liked William Forsythe’s psycho “good guy” bit. As much as I liked the Fireflys I started rooting for Sheriff Wydell near the end.

As for Blood Diamond, I kinda figured that’s how it would play out with Leo being the merc with the “conscious” by the end of the movie. That’s why I liked Lord of War, the protagonist just stays the same throughout the movie. No “redemption” path at the end and it still got across whatever social message it was trying to convey. (Arms dealing is bad, all the major powers do it, blah blah, etc)

Guess I’ll give that and I am Legend (Which sounds disappointing too) a miss. Probably watch them when they come on TV.

[End Master]

Quick question, what was the name of that story that was very similar to Lord of the Rings except it had more of the setting like as if Sauron had won the war? Or did I just imagine this?

[ChubbyTeletubby]

I haven't the foggiest idea.

I think you may be imagining things. It's okay. Take deep breaths. It's gonna be alright. We're all rooting for you.

*whispers to the others: Can you believe this asshole? What a nutjob.*

[Shabti]

Sweeney Todd sucked ass!!!

[ChubbyTeletubby]

I'm confused. I mean coming from you - does that mean it was good or bad?

I only joke.

[donteatpoop]

Sweeney Todd sucked ass!!!

It couldn't have sucked ass. I saw the previews.

[Vesnic]

It didn't suck ass at all. Blood. Johnny Depp. A bloody Johnny Depp. Does life GET any better than that? Really, Shabti, I'm surprised at you.

[Shabti]

LOL Chubby I had a good laugh. The movie was horrible. Would have been decent if it wasn't a musical.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

LOL Chubby I had a good laugh. The movie was horrible. Would have been decent if it wasn't a musical.

Okay, now I KNOW you're a raging Hetero.

[Vesnic]

Holy fucking monkeyplops. I just saw I am Legend at an IMAX. Holy fucking monkeyplops. I will not be able to sleep tonight. The pale bat zombies are gonna get me! They're gonna eat me! This place had a blasting Bose sound system that shook the shit out of all the chairs. Every time one of those bat people jumped out of nowhere....AAAAAAGGHHH!!

Heart attack. Heart attack! Fucking scary shit that movie, mmhmm. Only redeeming moment was that glistening body using the chin-up bar.

[Dragavan]

I just got "Stardust" from NetFlix and I will now have to buy this movie (I hope there is a special edition DVD with more extras). What a beautiful fairy-tale they made. I am sorry I missed this in the theaters. Good acting, great multiple thread story, wonderful visuals. All in all this was a great movie watching experience, without the need of excessive gore, over the top action and explosions, or constant swearing. I think I shall watch it again before returning it.

[Vesnic]

Juno

Unplanned teenage pregnancy has never been so witty and cute. "Juno" plays out like an after-school special while trying at the same time to deliver a very serious message. What that message is can't be determined for sure because it's buried under mountains of contrived dialogue and cinematography tricks that can only be described as "tres artistique". Don't get me wrong. If I had to sum up the movie in one word or less, I would probably spout out "good" while waving my arms in protest trying to qualify this answer with everything I am writing down here. It's "good", because all of the director's and screenwriter's acrobatics taken in isolation are entertaining. Ellen Page also did an excellent job in the title role. But now for the arm-waving. From the very beginning, I got the overwhelming sense that "Juno" was trying to appeal to too many different audiences at once. It wanted its street cred with the kiddies, so it loaded in all sorts of new slang. It wanted to get some viewership in the Bible Belt, so it made Planned Parenthood look like a cold and incompetent hellhole, out of which Juno was right to escape. However, it then got afraid that all this would make it too square, so it rationalized Juno's choice to not abort her fetus for no other reason than that it had fingernails so early on in its gestation. This undoubtedly ruffled the feathers of the pro-lifer audience, but they'd already gotten their cake and eaten it too when Juno walked out of the clinic untouched by the hands of Satan. For all the witty dialogue and emotional richness that fell into Ellen Page's hands, the rest of the characters were frustratingly one-dimensional. By the end of the movie, I wanted to line up Juno's parents, little sister, boyfriend, best friend and adoptive baby parents against a wall and shoot them execution style. Let's also throw in Rainn Wilson in his strange cameo appearance as the vaguely psychotic cashier in the convenience store where Juno first finds out the bad/good news. The ultimate representation of the insane amounts of audience pandering can be found in the soundtrack, which could aptly be named "Smattering of the Last 50 Years or so"--there is one song for each subset of the American population. I can think of lots of different people I would be comfortable taking with me to see this movie, but I can't think of anyone who would stand up afterwards and declare, "That was the best movie ever!" before dashing out the door to pre-order it on Amazon.