BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 08:01 PM

Damn right he was good in that movie! It's a wonderful film. He's also been quite good in some of his other movies, although they are a mixed lot when it comes to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:18 PM

And you should read the book! (Have you yet, LH?)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:59 PM

Thanks for your kind words, little hawk.

By the way, exactly which little hawk are you? Kestrel, prairie falcon?

Here's a story about motion pictures and motion sickness. After I saw 'Much Ado About Nothing,' I wrote the director a letter and told him that the movie was wonderful except for one thing - the dancing. He hadn't spent any time or money on the dancing - merely told the actors to fling out an arm or leg as the mood struck them. The result was that watching them made me feel almost sick. Those huge, unpredictable things coming at me!

I wrote that if he wanted people to spend money watching his movies he should give more thought to problems like this. (There are reasons by many people never go to the movies.) Well, I got a smart-alecky letter back from an assistant, who denied everything.

HOWEVER, I noticed that when Shakespeare in Love was made, the dancing was graceful, beautiful, and a delight to watch. That moment when four dancers held their hands up and described a slow circle while a high recorder played a beautiful air! It was the only thing in the movie I actually enjoyed.

I know it was a different director, but maybe, just maybe, somebody paid attention to my suggestion...   Profit motive and all that.

I didn't see the whole thing. We watched actors playing modern people while wearing Elizabethan clothes for a long time, and when somebody said something about wanting to see 'a daughter properly mutilated,' we looked at one another and said, 'Let's go.'

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:37 AM

The thread title is a good one. There are a lot of well made films, which I take no pleasure in watching. That includes most horror films and many violent ones. I also avoid films, in which people behave in cringingly embarrassing ways.
I will agree that "Schildler's List" was an assault on the senses. However, it was more than worth watching, because it was a profoundly moral film. It showed how a cynic changed immeasuarably for the better, yet still had to pretend that he was a greedy cynic. He was also placing his own life in enormous danger over a period of years. The strain left him a broken man. The number of people, whom he was able to save was small. Schindler was also a seriously flawed person himself. The beauty of the film was that it showed that his sacrifice and heroism were still worth it all the same.
Yes it was harrowing, yet it left you with a ringing endorsement of real humanity. It was a wonderful film.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:20 PM

I'm not sure which specific hawk I am supposed to be Leeneia. The name "Little Hawk" does not indicate it. It's an old name of mine, comes from well over a century ago (another lifetime).

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM

I read the book of Schindler's List and couldn't face seeing the film. that whole episode of history is just so incomprehensible. You can only feel sorry for the people caught up in it. So far into territory that you don't really want to think human beings venture into.

I can't see that the protagonists of the Jesse James story were any worse than The Goodfellas. Both stories were at base about people who had been forced to embrace a set of values, because of decisions thay had made about how they wanted to live. Its easy to identify with people in both films - they wanted to be somebody different from the run of the mill members of society.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:56 PM

Not films I cannot watch easily, but films (or scenes from) that I cannot watch at all:

The end of Ken Russell's The Devils, where Oliver Reed gets burned to death and you see every revolting detail second by second. I had no problem with the sexual hysteria and sacrilege and general weirdness, but that shot-in-closeup execution-at-the-stake scene still sickens me, even in memory. (The fact that the real-life Father Grandier suffered far worse tortures doesn't do wonders for my mind either.) Superbly made, stunningly acted, first rate theatre-of-shock - and I'm never ever going NEAR the damned thing again.   

Dustin Hoffman strapped down into that dentist's chair runs it a close second.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 04:15 PM

I had to walk out of Hang 'em High.

And The devils.

Strange really, I loved The Music Lovers and Women in Love, and all that stuff about Delius and and debussy and Elgar that Russell did for the BBC.

I suppose when an arist has given you that much delight, you sort of owe it to him to bear with him on his journey.

I think I must have been going through a sensitive period.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 04:24 PM

On subject of violence---and as said earlier Shakespeare also used it as part of the story line since it was an important factor. This aside from my comparisons of the various versions of Hamlet and Henry V.

Let me mention another film---to me a classic and not for the squeamish and tells a sad tale of the human condition and its failings with regard to frustration and to bigotry. THE OX BOW INCIDENT.   Hard to watch but moving, wrenching, and hopefully teaches us all something.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: kendall
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 04:26 PM

Even though I know it's just a movie, I can not tolerate rape scenes, or any such thing involving the harming of women and children. It brings out the "Don Quixote" in me.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:25 PM

And it's a dramatisation of Don Quixote - Man of La Mancha - that has one of the most horrific gang-rape scenes I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 04:51 PM

I usually percevere with films to the end - if they are remotely good, but the "Magdalen Laundry" was just too distressing to get through, no complaints about quality. I saw the documntary and that was harrowing enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:05 PM

Ever see Song For A Raggy Boy? Even more so -

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:08 PM

PS: Apparently they gave it a standing ovation at the Sundance Festival -

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: gnu
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:11 PM

Used to be that violence and such were triumphed in the end. The good guy won. Now, even when the good guy wins, it's extremely violent. I seldom watch movies or TV any more. Save for some Letterman and Fergusson. And, Cindy the Weatherbabe.... on Live At Five from Halifax... the closest I get to porn. She's fully clothed, of course, but... well, you know. (Friday is usually black sweater night.)

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: heric
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM

I must confess, as a pencilneck lawyer whose wife left him for a motorcycle cop, to a slight cringe last night, watching American Gangster, when Russell Crowe's wife screamed "FUCK ME LIKE A COP. LIKE A COP! Not like a lawyer!"

ah, well

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Slag
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:16 PM

I'm with you for the most part, Art. I won't boor you with a critique of every movie I've seen or an explanation for every movie I don't see. I DO have to disagree with you about "Natural Born Killers" though as Stone has really tapped into something and managed to portray on the screen what delusion and psychosis is like from the inside out (I would assume). It is art. The hack and slash garbage like "Texas Chain-saw Massacre" and Con-Air, etc. I will not waste time nor money on. Nor will I watch the delusional "Bambi" which has taught generations of children that animals are people with human feelings. For those of you who disagree with that last statement... I rest my case.

I also personally boycott certain actors or actresses who have used their fame and their ability to pretend that they are someone else to promote asinine ideas or radical political views with which I disagree. My choice. Generally I do not watch movies very often.

I agree with many of you who abhor the gratuitous violence and the "meanness" which is too often exploited. Ditto for unnecessary sex which does not figure prominently into the plot. Film makers today seem to substitute loud explosions and chase scenes for creativity. They have forgotten how to tell a story. Or better, how to SHOW a story.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:20 PM

Novocento/1900 had one of those scenes Kendall hates. I could describe the scene, but it ended with the boy's death and if I'd seen Donald Sutherland on the street after coming out of the theater, somebody would have needed to hold me back. That scene haunts me to this day. The movie itself was merely too long.

Like SRS, I hate those stupid movies. There is enough stupidity in real life and we don't need to celebrate it. I can watch just about anything: sex, violence (rock & roll), creepiness & horror, weirdness (as in Pan's Labyrinth) if done well. Accidentally bad movies can be entertaining, but I HATE it when it feels like the people who made the movie were trying too hard to impress.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: meself
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:32 PM

When one of my sons was about 13 or 14, and starting to develop sophisticated tastes, he brought "1900" home from the library. I would not let him watch it, because of that scene Jeri alludes to. It's just too disturbing. My son was quite indignant, of course ...

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:33 AM

I don't know if I want to watch "The Constant Gardener" again any time soon. It is an excellent film, which tells the truth. The bad guys win easily and crush the moral people. It may be the truth, but it is not easy to watch. That is why it is so satisfying to watch films, in which the good guys pull off unlikely vicotries. We do not see it so often in real life.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:55 AM

The thing about Shakespeare - you can't cut someone's head off onstage. You can on film.

That's why the best of his stuff is like Richard II where its all terrific poetry and speeches.

Richard III, where the violence is very overt, makes a good film, but it never really works well onstage.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:17 AM

Hate to think what Hollywood would do (or has done?) with Titus Andronicus -

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:48 AM

Bonnie did you ever see Deborah Warner's production of Titus with Brian Cox (nice Irish lad!) as Titus? probably the best production of any Shakespeare play I ever saw.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 07:06 AM

No I'm afraid I didn't - and I really hate to ask such a mega-dumb question but, was this production a film or live theatre? It's nice to see some positive feedback about this play. So hard not to get infected with Ken Tynan's Vivienne-Leigh-hating-but-lethally-funny review of it, which unfortunately tends to linger in the mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: alanabit
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 07:34 AM

I read a review of the play somewhere, which mentioned that there had been several great productions of it. I'd be interested to see one. The trouble with just reading it is that the catalogue of horrors becomes almost comical at times. Is the baddie called Amos? I think he actually makes a final defiant speech to say that if ever he did one good deed, he repents of it now. I can well imagine that if such a litany of horrors came from a modern playwright, it would have difficulties getting on stage. That is not to say that it's necessarily a bad play. Isn't Titus Andronicus the one with the stage direction: Enter Lavinia with bleeding stumps and tongue cut out?

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: kendall
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 08:07 AM

Women and children are to be loved, not brutalized.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 08:48 AM

It was at Stratford in the Swan Theatre.

When the bad guys cut his hand off with a ligature, it was like a conjuring trick - you heard it plop into a bucket. this woman on the front row fainted.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:30 PM

Slag, I understand what you are saying. I, too, thought N.B.Killers was an extremely well made film with a lot to say--and it did say it graphically well. That said, though, seeing it once was plenty, at least for me------------and I am glad to have it..... disappearing -------incrementally..........................







in the rear view......... mirror...

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:03 PM

People are meant to be loved, not brutalized.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Amergin
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM

Titus has been made into a film, with Anthony Hopkins as the starring role.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: meself
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:23 PM

Yes - and it's pretty unsettling - at least if you are unfamiliar with the play, and so don't know what's coming, as was my case when I caught it on TV late one night ... Not one to use to introduce the little ones to Shakespeare ...