BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!

Subject: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:27 PM

Recently, our son and his wife gave us five huge shopping bags stuffed with films on video cassette. They were getting rid of their TV. Now, that is something we can fully understand; we did that a good 8 years ago----except for NETFLIX -- where we can pick and choose from the cream of the crop.

First, you must understand that NO TV PROGRAMS can reach us "through the air" here in Peru, Illinois---so if you don't have cable, you get NOTHING at all. We listen to the Cubs and white Sox and Blackhawks on the radio.

Also, Carol won't watch r-rated films. Those are too much for her! Anything less than PG-13 I can endure---but barely--only if it's a great film

I was really happy to get all these films I'd not watched before from Chris. Watching them has been an education, as ALL of them are really WELL MADE.

Here's the RUB. Folks, I was NOT ready for the action violence and graphic blood. I could grasp that
Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers was a brilliantly made film; BUT it was quite SICKENING.

That crap can't be good for kids and some adults to see!!!
We live in a HUD building where four fifths of us are walking wounded of some sort---either physically, mentally, what-have-you. I generally take the videos down to our lobby for others in the building to watch if that is their wont! But today I put four of the films down the garbage chute----a form of censorship,
I guess.

There is NO WAY IN HELL that I'd want to inflict Natural Born Killers, Con Air, and others, on these people. That is a simple fact!!

How do other Mucatters draw their own lines? What films do you really dislike because of stuff like this they've got in them?

I did watch most of them once all the way through--- so I could make a judgment. Some few I even kept to watch again. But not many.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:43 PM

I get the creeps any time a little kid is in danger. And there seem to be a lot of those these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:43 PM

Art, we rarely see recent films...maybe one current film a year. Neither Mrs. JotSC nor I like movies which have excessive foul language, graphic gender or nudity, and gratuitous explosions and quick cuts in the action. And don't get me started on the cost of movie tickets, even for seniors. I say thank you to TCM.

As to your comment on censorship, hooray for you. Everyone should be their own censor as to what they'll tolerate in their own home. If you choose to destroy or dispose of your own property, all well and good.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:44 PM

Me, too, Art! I wanted to watch a couple of recent ones, Apocalypto for one, because they sounded very good, well made and all, but what was reported about the violence, guts, blood, and gore was something I have no use for. There is a way to tell these stories with finesse and implication without rubbing it in our noses.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:48 PM

I agree Art.

Fortunately we have two grandkids in our house
and we get to watch childrens movies over and over again.

It's much better watching Peter Pan or Cars or Monsters Inc. or Finding Nemo repeatedly than that violent crap.

Currently they are in a "Mr. Limpet" session and we're only on showing two. So we have a few more days of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:54 PM

Liquid Sky. Really, really unpleasant for me despite being (also IMO) well-made.

And the first time I saw One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, I started crying towards the end and couldn't stop, I had to be led out at the end by someone who could see. Now, I like the movie... but I had thought it was a comedy, and was unprepared for the ending.

But I still don't like meanness in movies. Violence I can deal with, but not meanness.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:01 PM

The other type of movie that bothers me is the ones that have an unrealistic love story. The "I hate you, I hate you, we have nothing in common, we argue all the time - but now that I've stopped and looked deeply into your eyes lets kiss and live happily ever after" Doris Day type films are the ones I'm talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:03 PM

I guess I've just reached a point in life where I don't want to see "entertainment" that is fulll of gratuitous violence (explosions, car chases, gory murders, etc -- all aimed, I think at 17-24 year old guys), depressing or disturbing. If I don't feel reasonably good after watching it, I really wish I hadn't wasted my time.

Unfortunately, some films that fall into those categories are really good films. "One-Hour Photo" was very, very good, but really disturbing. It was also a stunning role for Robin Williams. But, ya know what? I will never watch it again -- ever. I also just recently watched "Schindler's List" which I had been avoiding because it falls into the "depressing" category. Well, with some hope because of the people saved from the camps. Exquisitely filmed, wonderfully acted, well written. I might even consider watching it again sometime, but I doubt it. (Too many films; not enough time.)

"Usual Suspects" -- very violent, but very well crafted film. But again, I probably won't ever willingly watch it again.

All of these I watched recently so I could Freecycle the DVD or videotape. Tom and I are film magnets, but I'm trying to de-accession. (Cubic footage! Cubic footage!) But I'm compulsive and have to watch them before I find new homes for them.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:23 PM

It depends on the psychology of the film for me, I guess...what it's got to say. I could relate to Natural Born Killers because I could relate to what it had to say. (I've seen it 3 times.) I could follow what Oliver Stone was trying to say about society in that movie and I thought it had value. He made many good points about what's going on in the media and in people's heads these days.

I cannot relate to most other films which contain the kind of horrible, sadistic, graphic violence in Natural Born Killers, because I in no way relate to anything they're trying to say. They're not trying to enlighten anyone in most cases, they're just trying to exploit people's appetites for sensationalism and revenge fantasies.

I also don't really want to see films that leave me horribly depressed at the end...though I can make the odd exception, I guess, if the subject matter really interests me...and again, if I can strongly relate to what the movie is trying to say...and I think it's something of value.

So it isn't the violence itself, per se, the visual images themselves, that concern me...but rather the meanings conveyed by the movie. If the movie is saying something I find meaningful to me in a valuable way...then I can tolerate the violence.

I would not, however, want any child to be exposed to what's in Natural Born Killers. Children should not have such images inflicted on them at all, because they're too emotionally open and vulnerable at that age. It's bound to do them some damage.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:46 PM

I'm with John on the Sunset Coast--TCM is my main source for movies--our cable box has DVR, so I have a fair backlog of stuff to chose from, as well. For our kids, pretty much either animation or musicals. Our little girl is particularly sensitive to violence of any sort, so we have to be particularly vigilant.

There are a couple of online sites where you can download old movies that are in the public domain--I found this out by accident, when I installed a program called Miro, which started automatically downloading them. I've just watched "The 39 Steps", and "Royal Wedding"--the files are small, so you have to watch them in "Dinkyvision", but hey, it's free!

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:52 PM

Little Hawk,
Once was enough for me for N.B.K. It was enough to take note of the skill with which it was made. And Robt. Downey jr. was a treat to watch. Two thirds of the dialogue he and Tommy Lee Jones uttered was intentionally unintelligible, but that played up the fact that much of what is being said is not worth listening to anyhow. But we get the gist o' it just the same.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:04 PM

TCM, yes!

Linn, I wondered if I am the only one who hasn't seen Schindler's List. I just can't take crying so much, any more and I know it would make me cry a lot.

Morgan's current pick for children's movies is the one and only movie I own, Thomasina. We both absolutely adore it and have watched it numerous times. My dau. and I don't recommend Nemo. We thought it was really awful in that, once again, the little kid loses his mom, right away...the Bambi Syndrome, but much more realistically done in that kids relate more to things like that than we did, imo. Esp. if they have a single parent. In fact, I find most modern kids' movie to have too much violence in them; or maybe it's the violence seems more realistic, I don't know, but I don't like all of the violent action in a lot of them.

katgrandma

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:22 PM

...little kid loses his mom, right away...

I guess they could have cut that out and it wouldn't have affected the story at all.

But I lost my mum when I was a kid so it didn't seem too unreal for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:32 PM

Woody Allen films after "Annie Hall", with the exception of "Zelig" and "Radio Days". I just have no sympathy for his self-absorbed and over-analyzing characters.   I really don't care what happens to these people as there is no connection with humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: *Laura*
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:32 PM

This Is England.

I thought it was a GREAT film, in filmmakers terms.... but I felt soooo weird and unsettled after watching it. (partly how i know it's good... it affected me.) but I don't think I'll be watching it again....

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:33 PM

I remember quite vividly my reaction as a little kid to "Old Yeller" -- I bawled my eyes out. Never could watch the end of "Bambi" either -- or listen to the B-side of the 45 rpm record of "Bambi" -- and I have no desire to see either of them again. Just too sad. And I've never cried easily, even as a child. Nope. Don't wish to subject myself to that again -- even at age 58.

Kid movies can be painful, too, even without graphic sex or violence.

The world can be a depressing enough place without being depressed by what is supposed to be entertainment.

I haven't watched television since 1983 (except select shows on tape). I also don't need to see the violence and gore that's in the evening news -- newspapers or on-line in moderation and only when I choose to view.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:49 PM

The films I can't watch easily are the ones that I want to see but the studios can't decide when to release them. Or because the first week doesn't go well they pull them never to be seen again. If small-minded reviewers get their hands on and savage films that have modest openings instead of big film festival premiers, those films may never see the light of day.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:50 PM

I rarely watch more than the news and the weather channel. But....

IF the violence in a film is necessary to film, IF the language is appropriate for the film, IF the nudity and sex is necessary for the film, then yes. Otherwise, no.

To explain: A war film, be it "Hamburger Hill" or "Porkchop Hill" or "Sands of Iwo Jima" or "All Quiet On The Western Front" will have, by its subject matter, violence in it. A film on the Capone years in Chicago will have violence. Both genres could very well have sex, nudity, and language issues as well. In fact, I would expect it. I would not expect more than is necessary, however (and the last scene in "Hamburger Hill" is just plain haunting).

I would NOT expect to see sex in a "Harry Potter" film (although there's plenty of violence, it's placed in the realm of fantasy). Nor would I expect The Little Mermaid to say "Fuck you, Jack!" Context is all.

Which is probably why I haven't even hooked up my DVD player or gone to a movie since Harry Potter 2.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: GUEST,weelittledrummer
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 04:10 PM

always makes me jump when Joe Pesci gets shot in Goodfellas...

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 04:16 PM

Years ago I watched a couple of films that surprised me, because it took a little while to understand or remember the context. Often times the message of a film is in your face the whole time. It wasn't with these two:

Zardoz with Sean Connery. Sex and violence. The thing to remember--it is a farce.

Rollerball with James Caan. The violence is crucial to the film, but it took a while to realize where it was going. Sometimes a man should be an island.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 05:18 PM

Sometimes violence are intrinsic in making the film.   Most of the Coen Bros. films it is a central point---and, I feel, are good films. Perhaps my hang-up is more with the language in many films. The claim is it is realism. It is. Yet, I think of Shakespeare on stage or in film---violence but lyrical language that still speaks to you.

For violent and yet lyrical filming Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet and Henry V are not to be missed. HIs Henry V is so different than Olivier's---as is his Hamlet. Both artists have presented great interpretations but Branagh has the advantage of more technological improvements in filming---and also made an anti-war Henry V as opposed to Olivier's pro-war one---filmed just around WW2.

On a joyful note one should not miss the wonderful recent film--Waitress. Sadly the filmaker and star was murdered prior to its release. Another winner is Little Miss Sunshine and also, I add, Thank Your For Smoking.

An aside ---if you watch Thank You For Smoking you will find a lot of staging very similar to the long ago film The Hucksters.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 06:27 PM

Speaking of Goodfellas...that was one I could not stomach all the way through. Just couldn't. Accordingly, I did not see the part where Joe Pesci gets shot, and I probably never will. I gave up on that movie not too long after he beat the other guy to death in the bar and they took his body out to the woods to bury it.

I thought, "Do I want to see any more of this subhuman, sickening shit about these worthless people?" The answer was, "No".

I can't relate to it, and I don't want to. For the same reason, I quit watching the Sopranos after seeing one too many scenes of women being beaten to death by similar subhumans.

I could relate very much, however, to the sharp and very surrealistic satirizing of some of the more bizarre present social and media attitudes in Natural Born Killers.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 07:03 PM

"Liquid Sky. Really, really unpleasant for me despite being (also IMO) well-made."

I found that one witty and rather charming in its odd way. Something like a collaboration between William Burroughs and Douglas Adams. I'd love to see it again.

The most nauseating film I can remember seeing in many years was Peter Greenaway's "A Zed and Two Noughts". Revoltingly violent misogyny and ruling-class smugness mixed up with twee pretentious jokes about art history. I can't imagine why anybody ever gave Greenaway the money to make it, or bothered distributing it. (Whereas the gore in Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre" didn't bother me at all).

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 07:46 PM

Carol is off to a meeting tonight, so I think I'll watch another film from the pile. This one is called "The Ring" --- The sleeve is missing so I have no preconceptions.

Will be back later.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 08:50 PM

I simply WILL NOT ... no, make that CAN NOT watch any violance of any kind. I was raised in a home where extreme violance was a common occurance. The last film I saw in a movie house was "On Goldon Pond." I barely remember that we, as a family of five, went to the theater showing of "JAWS" As the tenion started to build, I simply stepped into the aisle and left. I was surprised and delighted to meet my youngest son in the lobby. Without a word to anyone, he also had decided on his own that he didn't need that shit.

We were in a mall and we had a delightful hour and a half, having all kinds of ice cream and watching people. We still talk about that day as one of our best. Bob Nelson ... movieless in Everett ... and not missing it a bit!

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:19 PM

Two movies that I thought were excellent but I don't think I can watch again are Raging Bull and Reservoir Dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Grab
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:48 PM

For me, it depends whether I can care about the characters I'm watching, and whether what's happening is an important part of the story they're telling. If so, then fine. So no problems at all with Night of the Living Dead, or Event Horizon, or Aliens, or 28 Days Later. Or on a less horror note, Con Air or Die Hard.

But Goodfellas was kind of pushing it for me, because frankly I wanted the lot of them shot for the good of the world as a whole - I don't see the point in making films celebrating scum. Seven, I couldn't stand another minute of Brad Pitt failing to act. GI Jane, the end scene of gratuitously invading a foreign country and shooting their people (whilst presenting this as a victory) left me sickened. Aliens 3 and 4 were just an excuse for having people eaten by rubber-suit creatures. For non-horror ones, having just seen the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I could happily drop the Great Glass Elevator and its cargo of monsters into the nearest Voracious Knid. And I'm entirely with Wesley about the battle-of-the-sexes crap.

I don't mind films which I can't watch again. Event Horizon is one such. I found it great, but it was so disturbing that I couldn't face it twice. Still, I'm very glad I saw it. I've not seen NBK, but I guess it might fall into the same category. Taxi Driver certainly did, as did Apocalypse Now.

Re your line: "That crap can't be good for kids and some adults to see". It certainly isn't good for kids to see, which is why there's film certification and rules about how old kids have to be to see stuff. But the point of being an adult is that you're supposed to be able to make decisions about whether you want to watch this stuff or not.

And FWIW, I quit my reading of the Iliad after multiple pages of "X kills Y like this" and handing slave girls round as commodities. Plus ca change...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:04 PM

I remember the wife and I loved the movie "Babe." When the sequel, "Babe, A Pig in the City" came out, we went to see it, too. Well, I came away from that movie thinking that bringing a youngster to see it was tantamount to child abuse; all those animals being abused, one even suspended in the river or lake or something. We nearly walked out on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:06 PM

The Ring is kinda fun if you don't take it too seriously.

But then I never take scary movies too seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: topical tom
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:38 PM

Films that I cannot watch, let alone easily, are those that contain gratuitous and/or graphic violence.I also cannot bear to watch films involving children suffering or in desperate need or victims of violence.
   I did watch a movie recently and, though the premise and plot were modern and the situations well-acted and realistic (the implication of the CIA in the torture of suspected terrorists) I could not stand to watch the violence and torture even though I knew it was only staged.
   Truthfully, I am hard put to find a good,enjoyable movie today. I guess age has caught up with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 12:46 AM

ON the other hand, network tv comes through with a gem once in a great while. I just watched the season finale of Eli Stone and it was fantastic. No violence, no raunchy language, no gratuitous sex, though there are some attractions going on, and a great cast with Jonny Lee Miller (The Flying Scotsman, Hackers, and Trainspotting) as the main character. It is truly an uplifting, funny, sad, poignant, and thoughtful show and well worth watching.

Sorry, Art, I know this is a movie thread, but just had to mention that.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:55 AM

I don't mind shows that have language, or sex, or violence....as long as they are an integral part of the plot....what irritates me is when movies and some tv shows use those just because....with the language the writers are so poor at writing dialogue they cannot write anything more than the word fuck or any of its derivatives. Violence for the sake of violence also irritates me. OOOOOO another car chase....4 millions bullets flying and the bad guys only scratch the hero....yet another object being blown up....whooopdidooo. Then the sex parts when the hero and the woman of the moment fall in love in five minutes and immediately hop right into bed...it's used as a filler to extend the film another 5 or 10 minutes or so....when everyone knows it should only extend the film about 20 seconds...with the scene usually ending up with him getting his face smacked and/or his balls being smashed by her knee.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Stu
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 06:23 AM

I remember seeing "The Greatest Story Ever Told" which despite the usual hackneyed Hollywood treatment was fine until Marion Morrison, playing the centurion standing at the foot of the cross delivered the line "truly he was the Son of God" in a manner that caused such convulsions of laughter I thought I was going to wet myself. That one should come with a warning.

The violence seen in movies these days is the film industry holding a mirror up to society and refelecting back our own casual acceptance of brutality along with it's causes and consequences. That's why it's so disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:35 AM

I have two things to say.

1. I don't think movies reflect our acceptance of brutality. They reflect the values of the people who finance and direct them. If you think about the financing of movies, it certainly seems suspicious. How can Hollywood keep producing expensive films which often lose so much money? What is really going on?

If you Google 'movie financing,' you will find almost nothing. How can this be?

2. We perceive movies two ways. One is the way everybody's been talking about - following the story and the dialogue. The other way is more simple. We also perceive movies as motion, lights, and color. Close your eyes during a movie sometime and notice the frequency with which you are bombarded with brilliant, flashing light. This is not natural.

Movies also contain motion far faster than anything in nature. In some people this causes something like motion sickness. In me, for example. I first read about this in a book about migraine, so I know I am not alone.

Remember the movie 'Room with a View?' There was a scene where Lucy was riding in a horse-drawn cart. In that quiet scene, the sunlight flashing on and off as the trees passed overhead made me feel very bad. So I just closed my eyes till it was over. Yes, I could tell it was over, even with my eyes closed, so brilliant where the flashes of light.

The next time you watch a movie, try not to get involved in the story and monitor your own body instead. You may find that movies are a lot harder on you than you ever knew.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:50 AM

I also have a problem with Star Trek and Star Wars movies. Too much hype and silly stories. I took my kids to see one of the films and I enjoyed a nice snooze.

Violence never bothered me since it is just acting. As long as it is part of the story, I don't mind violence, language or sex. I find it interesting that so many people get bothered by violence, and then when you read some of the nasty posts here on Mudcat you can detect a streak that is not pleasant. Sometimes violence is more than just a physical act, abuse via our words toward each other can be more dangerious in many ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 11:22 AM

Ron, that boosts the topic into an entire new realm--INTOLERABLY STUPID MOVIES. I can't stand to sit and watch nonsense with folks like Adam Sandler and most of Jim Carrey's films. Jackass the Movie will never grace my television screen. Anything with Stephen Segal, most of the Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Bruce Willis films don't interest me. My tolerance for films aimed at testosterone-riddled 15 to 27-year-old males is about non-existent.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Morticia
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 12:31 PM

Trainspotting fits into the brilliant but uncomfortable category for me.

Also what Stilly said.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 12:57 PM

Interesting comments, Leeneia. I think you're onto something. Yes, present day movies are a sensory bombardment of the viewer. They overdo both the visual and the auditory effects, and that can't help but disturb people's nervous systems.

Maybe it's a form of social conditioning? We might all be guinea pigs in a big giant experiment in control conditioning of a populace here, but not know it.

The same goes for video games. And TV.

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

Requiem for a Dream is a fabulously well done movie....but it does make one very uncomfortable watching it....

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:06 PM

It's like the strobe lights that seem to be in the climax of most monster movies. They're there for two reasons. To cover up bad special effects and to speed up your heart rate so you feel excited.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:20 PM

Naturally it is there for effect.   I don't think it is covering up bad special effects but rather to speedup your heart rate as Wesley said.   Look at Hitchcock's "Psycho" and the famous shower scene. The cuts there had the same effect. Good film makers are going to use the medium to help tell a story - just as a storyteller will use gestures or body movements to tell theirs. No real difference.

Film is perceived motion from a series of stills, and while the human eye cannot distinguish the individual frames at playback, there are some people who can be bothered by the flicker and not realize why. If you are prone to vertigo, you will notice it more.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:48 PM

Trainspotters. That bathroom scene caused about 1/3 of the audience to get up and leave. I put down my popcorn. Not one I will ever sit through again.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Greengal
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:52 PM

I agree that films that have meaningless violence and are just too stupid have become impossible for me the older I get.

Of course, I don't always know if I'm going to find a film unrelentingly stupid or not til I get to see it. Surprised myself when a few years ago I went to see Meet The Fockers. It was silly as anything but somehow I just laughed all through it.

But the films I know I will hate without reading a review - and I am surely in the minority here - is any film with Tom Hanks. I don't know what the fuss is about. And all his movies get great reviews, so I kept going to see them til it sunk in I don't like him (as an actor,may be a perfectly nice guy otherwise) and I haven't liked any movie he's been in. The cloying candy coated cliches spouted by Forrest Gump made me want to scream. The astronaut movie, (forgot the name) was so boring I was tempted to start doing crossword puzzles halfway through it. That overwrought never-ending Castaway where we have to watch him talking to himself for what seems like 4 hours, til he falls in love with a coconut, was the last straw. I know everyone thinks he's this great actor. But he just bores me to tears.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM

I was living in an apartment on Seattle's Queen Anne HillI in the mid to late 1970s, and the management of the building wanted to paint my apartment—on my day off. It had been a few years since I had gone to a movie. I had read "Jaws," and since the movie was in town, I decided to go see it while the painters were at work.

What can I say? Special effects had certainly got more realistic since I had last been in a movie theater. The scene after the shark had swallowed Quint whole and had just crashed through the transom and was after Chief Brody must have gotten to me, because for a couple of nights after seeing the movie, I woke up in a cold sweat and noticed that I had kicked the blankets off—which is a pretty good trick for someone whose legs were paralyzed by polio!

Having read "Alien," I went to see it on a double bill with "The Fury." In "The Fury," they must have used a supertanker-load of fake blood. Particularly juicy was a scene toward the end of the movie when John Cassavetes' head exploded in a fountain of gore. "Alien" managed its own share of blood, when John Hurt suddenly recovered after the "face-hugger" fell off and they were all sitting down for a meal. A sudden attack of tummy trouble!? I thought the alien was a very well conceived monster, though. Between "Alien" and a number of sequels, you know that the damned thing has an immense amount of cunning, but you never do find out if this apparent hybrid of reptile-insect is actually an intelligent being.

I believe the last movie I saw in a movie theater was "Jurrasic Park." Another movie from a book I had read. Stupendous special effects, but 'nuff said.

We watch movies on my laptop computer now. Netflix. We've watched a few pretty violent movies, such as the "Star Wars" prequels, and we started to watch a Japanese movie that we thought was something entirely different, but it turned out to be a martial-arts movie—warring gangs of samurai. The speed and acrobatics with which these folks moved was awe-inspiring (if you can invoke the "willing suspension of disbelief" and accept the "slow cranking" filming technique that allows them to display that kind of superhuman speed), but when the swords came out and the arms, legs, and heads started hitting the floor, we decided that was enough of that!

I think the most violent movie we've watch lately was "Quigley Down Under." But when Tom Selleck threw Alan Rickman out through his own front door, you figure Rickman's character deserved it (as someone remarked, "and their relationship went downhill from there."). Not really all that violent. Relatively speaking. Good movie. Fun!

I am a real fan of the "Lord of the Rings" movies. I have the full 12 DVD "platinum edition" set. I think Jackson could have devoted a little less time to the massive battle scenes, however.

Lately we've been watching the Jane Austen orgy on our local PBS station.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM

About the most violent scene in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" was the conversation between Miss Elizabeth Bennet and The Lady Catherine de Bourgh when The Lady Catherine demands that, if Mr. Darcy should ask Elizabeth to marry him, she will refuse him. Miss Elizabeth's rather heated answer sort of ripped the Lady Catherine a new one.

It was rather fun to see the pompous old dragon, used to having people kowtow to her and deferred to her every whim, get a pie in the face, even if it was only a verbal one.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM

Goodfellas was great, if only for the lasagne. And the soundtrack. The period detail.....

And the human detail. The people in organised crime aren't all like Jimmy Cagney, good boys gone wrong.......

The acting was ridiculously good. It sort of explained something most people just don't know about, a closed world - with its own strange values - it made them comprehensible.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 03:55 PM

I agree that the acting in Goodfellas was very good, and very realistic...but it happened to be about a kind of lifestyle and a group of people I just don't have any desire to see in that sort of excruciating detail.

Their values were comprehensible in their terms? Yeah, sure they were. Easily comprehensible. But so what? I still can't stand people like that and I don't wish to have to put up with watching them for a couple of hours. It's a total downer.

It reminds me of the sickest and most twisted bullies I ever witnessed in school...the most ignorant people I've ever known...only increased by a factor of about 100. No thanks. Life is hard enough already.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Greengal
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:08 PM

I also agree that I am no fan of Mafia movies, for many of the reasons Little Hawk stated. I have seen a few, such as The Untouchables, but I haven't seen ONE Godfather movie, and don't feel I've missed a thing.

Love the Star Wars stuff, however and almost all sci fi. Well, it's all a matter of taste. But my worst cinematic nightmare would be to have to sit through a Mafia movie starring Tom Hanks. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:49 PM

"a Mafia movie starring Tom Hanks"

There was one, wasn't there, Greengal? I think it was called "The Road To Perdition". I find Tom Hanks hard to warm up to also, although I'd say he's a pretty good actor...there's just something about the guy that doesn't appeal to me, that's all. I guess you'd say we don't have "chemistry", him and me. ;-) I felt the same about Richard Widmark, Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum, Anthony Quinn, and John Wayne. No mutual chemistry at all between me and any of those guys, so any movie they were in, it was sort of ruined for me just because they were in it.

I'm not saying that's necessarily fair to the various actors I mentioned, I'm just saying that's the way it is, that's all.

I felt that way about Leonardo DiCaprio too, at first, but I changed my mind completely after I saw him star in 3 or 4 absolutely great movies! I now look forward to seeing his next role.

Subject: RE: BS: Films I just cannot watch easily!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:59 PM

I thought Brad Pitt was incredibly good in the Jesse James film - although, he fairly crackles with menace throughout - certainly not for the faint hearted.

I wish I 'd seen more of his films now.

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 ...