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JANUARY 2015 MOVIE DISCUSSION


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The Academy does tend to be older and whiter and male, and I don't think you can ignore that while talking about Selma. But it was also a late release, picture didn't get locked until just before release, screeners were very late going out, it was a shorter nomination process than last year, and it got utterly blind sided by a historical accuracy controversy they clearly didn't see coming. And it still got a Best Picture nom.

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The action scenes in American Sniper were amateur hour and things like the morning of 9/11 were downright laughable. The dialogue was terrible. Also, firefight while wife is on the phone? Come on.  Hell, they didn't even take the time to get a real baby. Cooper is holding a doll, which would be fine if it wasn't ridiculously obvious. It's dreadful that this film was even nominated for Best Picture. They created a fictional Iraqi sniper villain and treated it like we were watching the movie Assassins.

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The action scenes in American Sniper were amateur hour and things like the morning of 9/11 were downright laughable. The dialogue was terrible. Also, firefight while wife is on the phone? Come on.  Hell, they didn't even take the time to get a real baby. Cooper is holding a doll, which would be fine if it wasn't ridiculously obvious. It's dreadful that this film was even nominated for Best Picture. They created a fictional Iraqi sniper villain and treated it like we were watching the movie Assassins.

 

Oh, God. Does Cooper walk slowly away from big explosions while being too cool to look back too?

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More Sniper thoughts..

To be clear, there is some speculation that an Iraqi sniper existed because there are videos out there but most people believe it's several snipers. What the film does is show this sniper as a fact and every time he kills off one of Kyle's brothers, Chris runs around going WAS THAT MUSTAFA?!. Then of course at the end the big duel between the two and Kyle shoots him between the eyes from like a mile and a half.  Such shit.

 

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Maybe Eastwood is being super smart and subtle here and pointing out that while war is a nightmarish, deeply horrifying experience, some people see it as a stupid and fun 'B' movie with "good guys" and "bad guys" and cool one-liners?  This could be Starship Troopers level of satire for all we know.

 

Probably not though.

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Not sure it this goes here or not but Lucy came out today is it worth 5.99 to rent on Amazon?

 

I thought it was God-Awful. Watch Under The Skin instead if you want your fill of ScarJo nudity and want to watch a decent film at the same time. Also on Amazon, free if you're a prime member.

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Not sure it this goes here or not but Lucy came out today is it worth 5.99 to rent on Amazon?

 

I thought it was God-Awful. Watch Under The Skin instead if you want your fill of ScarJo nudity and want to watch a decent film at the same time. Also on Amazon, free if you're a prime member.

 

Well if boobies are key then there are two issues.  ScarJo has no nude scenes in Lucy, but her nude scenes in Under The Skin are not arousing to say the least..  They are downright antiseptic, alien, and disturbing TBH, but that is the whole point of the movie.  It is an excellent movie.

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Not sure it this goes here or not but Lucy came out today is it worth 5.99 to rent on Amazon?

 

I thought it was God-Awful. Watch Under The Skin instead if you want your fill of ScarJo nudity and want to watch a decent film at the same time. Also on Amazon, free if you're a prime member.

 

Well if boobies are key then there are two issues.  ScarJo has no nude scenes in Lucy, but her nude scenes in Under The Skin are not arousing to say the least..  They are downright antiseptic, alien, and disturbing TBH, but that is the whole point of the movie.  It is an excellent movie.

 

 

Although they're different in a lot of ways, ScarJo's performances in Under the Skin and Her are just wonderful companion pieces to each other. One is disconnected and hollow but also physically there and very much a visible fantasy. The other is connected, engaged, and charming to its protagonist but represents nothing more than an invisible fantasy.

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I'm not so sure what American Sniper wanted to be.  Or maybe it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.  

 

There was some very poignant stuff in there.  The scene in the car post-funeral comes to mind.  His wife asks him about the letter, and Bradley Cooper opens up for a fleeting moment and gives her a glimpse of his worldview.  She doesn't ask a follow up.  Incredible scene. And, really, Cooper is a force throughout.  Great performance from him.

 

On the other hand, Eastwood is too good of a director to give him a pass on the propaganda.  Like, I expected it, but damn if it didn't screw up the film. The non-Bradley Cooper American soldiers are all just scared boys, while the insurgents are all hardened men.  Super sniper who just sits at home with his gun on the table waiting to get a call? Come on, Clint.  That works for certain types of movies, but not the one you are trying to make.

 

Mostly, I felt like Eastwood let Chris Kyle off the hook.  Too much glorification, no on screen voice to challenge his beliefs, etc etc..  That second part is frustrating because the role was actually there.  It's just that Sienna Miller was given awful, hollow dialogue and she doesn't have the acting chops to overcome that.

 

"I'm prepared to meet my creator and answer for every shot I took."  In a better movie this would be a very interesting line, but the therapist just nods and Eastwood treats it like some sort of resolution.  Weird.   Like, wouldn't super sniper bad guy feel the same way?  

 

Overall I thought Cooper was great, but would probably agree with Seth Rogen:

 

American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that's showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.

 
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Have you ever submitted a continuity error to the 'Goofs' section of IMDB?  Don't watch it..

 

 

LOL that is the best criteria.  I need to steal that.   "If you're a nitpicking, joyless douche, avoid this film." 

 

The "goofs" section so ridiculous.  My favorite is in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," where one viewer posted about how the apes, while riding horseback and firing guns, never reload.  Jesus Christ.  This is a film where apes ride on horseback and fire guns, and this is the hill you choose to die on.  That lack of reloading, while APES RIDE HORSES and FIRE GUNS, was just a bridge too far.

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I don't so much mind Eastwood trying to get into the mind and life of Kyle.

 

I'm just wondering when he churns out a movie from the mind and life of one of 500,000 dead civilians or 4,000 American dead troops who died for, eh, well no one is quite sure why.

 

Of course that would be pretty much admitting that the Iraq war was, in fact, a total disaster and a tragic waste of life. Which Eastwood, or Hollywood in general, aren't exactly keen to do, for some reason.

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The action scenes in American Sniper were amateur hour and things like the morning of 9/11 were downright laughable. The dialogue was terrible. Also, firefight while wife is on the phone? Come on.  Hell, they didn't even take the time to get a real baby. Cooper is holding a doll, which would be fine if it wasn't ridiculously obvious. It's dreadful that this film was even nominated for Best Picture. They created a fictional Iraqi sniper villain and treated it like we were watching the movie Assassins.

 

Maybe Clint was doing some sort of meta commentary on how fictional the book is.  ;)

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Well if boobies are key then there are two issues. ScarJo has no nude scenes in Lucy, but her nude scenes in Under The Skin are not arousing to say the least.. They are downright antiseptic, alien, and disturbing TBH, but that is the whole point of the movie. It is an excellent movie.

Hell, that's the whole point of nudity (if you're doing it right).

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If Clint makes a Letters From Iwo Jima companion for this... I'd be stunned and impressed.

 

I haven't seen American Sniper yet (although I probably will check it out if it's as laughably ridiculous as people are saying) but it seems genuinely quite depressing that a guy who could make one of the first movies that humanized Japanese soldiers really has turned out a propaganda piece where the Iraqis are all pretty much 1) savages 2) desperately in need of saving. 

 

Hey, Clint. If you want to argue with empty chairs on television, that's your business. But don't let your views mess with your often-spectacular directing skills.  

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The action scenes in American Sniper were amateur hour and things like the morning of 9/11 were downright laughable. The dialogue was terrible. Also, firefight while wife is on the phone? Come on.  Hell, they didn't even take the time to get a real baby. Cooper is holding a doll, which would be fine if it wasn't ridiculously obvious. It's dreadful that this film was even nominated for Best Picture. They created a fictional Iraqi sniper villain and treated it like we were watching the movie Assassins.

 

Maybe Clint was doing some sort of meta commentary on how fictional the book is.  ;)

 

Will the success of the movie bump up Jesse Ventura's payday?

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If Clint makes a Letters From Iwo Jima companion for this... I'd be stunned and impressed.

 

The big question is where the script would come from.  Letters From Iwo Jima was based on non-fiction books about WWII by Japanese authors.  It's way too soon for us to have anything written by Iraqis and accepted by Americans.

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They created a fictional Iraqi sniper villain and treated it like we were watching the movie Assassins.

 

You know who we have to blame for that part?

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/making-american-sniper-how-an-760963

 

For a few months after Kyle's funeral, it looked as if Steven Spielberg would be directing American Sniper. Spielberg had read Kyle's book and (writer Jason) Hall's screenplay and was willing to commit to it as his next movie, with DreamWorks co-producing. But he had some ideas of his own. For one thing, he wanted to focus more on the "enemy sniper" in the script — the insurgent sharpshooter who was trying to track down and kill Kyle. "He was a mirror of Chris on the other side," Hall explains of Spielberg's vision. "It was a psychological duel as much as a physical duel. It was buried in my script, but Steven helped bring it out."
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Late to the party here, but I love Almost Famous. Its a fun if not good movie with a couple great performances, a bit overlong and self indulgant but enjoyable despite its flaws. Speaking of Cameron Crowe, whats the general consensus here on Vanilla Sky? A strange turn for him, and Tom Cruise for that matter. Part of me liked it, part of me wished Crowe would not try to be David Lynch ever again.

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I forgot about Vanilla Sky, partially because I blocked it from memory. I did not like it. At all.

 

I will go the movie snobbery route. Vanilla Sky is a pale remake of Abre Los Ojos.

 

Find and watch the original movie.

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