I’m with you on this one. Not only did Spielberg bend over backwards to overpoliticize the message and humanize the terrorists, he did it badly. Overemoting, splicing scenes of love-making and violence (Gee, there’s a first! :rolleyes: ), the ham-handed shot of the twin towers in the end, and misrepresenting what the agents actually did. This movie doesn’t even deserve to be called a hackjob.
I couldn’t agree more. I did a 26 page Histriography paper on the 72 Munich Olympic Massacre in college and I was hoping they would, you know, actually PORTRAY what happened in this movie.
If anyone, particularly HPL, sees this over the supersized deluxe hijack, I’d really like to hear more about this.
Does it have to do with the fact that the house they ended up in…
…was where that (child?)murderer from the 40’s lived?
Gotta say I’m damned curious. I didn’t feel like that movie was much to read into too much, but I enjoyed it back in the day (probably wouldn’t now).
We learn at the beginning of the movie when Heather is interviewing various townspeople that the Blair Witch way back when would kidnap two kids and make one stand in the corner as she killed the second. Thus when The two hapless documentarians chase each other through the house and Heather makes it down the the basement, she finds her friend standing in the corner. Well, that can only mean one thing for Heather.
I remember that part, but I was thinking that we were supposed to be able to figure out what really happened to them because of what the townsfolk said.
Man, that’s disappointing.
>>BLAM!!<< ::: Moderator pounds gavel for attention :::
OK, the Gandid/lissener show will now come to a halt.
You two want to insult each other, go to the Pit. You want to play in here, then you lissen quietly and respectfully to what the other person has to say. You can disagree, but you can NOT INSULT. I’m getting tired of you two hitting on each other. Get a room. Preferably in the Pit. Go at it all you want there. But keep it out of Cafe Society.
We clear on this??? I don’t know who started it this time, I don’t much care, it tends to be the two you in this tango, and it’s stopping now.
The documentary One Day in September focuses exclusively on the events of the Munich Olympic Games. It saddened and pissed me off in turns, but due to the nature of the events rather than anything the filmmakers had done.
Later on, when I learned from reviews that they had left out the fact that American athletes had helped the terrorists get over the fence into the Olympic Village, I was pissed that one detail had been left out.
Why? It’s not as if they did it intentionally…they thought the guys were just athletes coming home late from partying.
Actually, I have it on DVD and I’m relatively sure it’s in the version I have. It’s described by the one surviving terrorist.
Hey I like that show!
grumble: They are always cancelling the shows I like :grumble
Your Freudian slip is showing. 
Yeah, yeah, bolding mine. Duh.
Holy Hell! Are you sock… of me? That is my exact sentiment for that movie. The only scene I liked was when the Gray’s Anatomy chick beat the snot out of the guy from Wings with a motorcycle helmet, if only she would have continued with the other star, the director, the screenwriter, etc. could that movie been turned around.
It’s easier that way.
Never saw English Patient , but have seen and concur with the panning of the other two.
Actually, I only saw about 30 minutes of Out of Africa . Ran Out of Caffeine. The movie was a real snoozer. Highly recommended for insomniacs with medical problems preventing their use of common sleep drugs.
The Hours really bugs me, not so much that it’s a pointless movie about maudlin self-absorbed twits,but that the critics all lacked the balls to pan it simply because the self-absorbed twits were gay. It’s not homophobic to point out that there are probably as many bad stories written about gays that don’t deserve to be filmed as there are such stories about heteros.
I,too, dislike Gump and Titanic .
I would add Cast Away to the list. Tom Hanks’ character was dumb as a box of rocks and in real life would have been dead in about a week.
And the makeup crew was really asleep at the switch near the end when “4 weeks later” Hanks’ rescued character, whose face was horribly windburned to the point of bleeding looked like a that of a cosmetic ad model’s. And why was the part that was under the beard exactly the same shade as the cheeks and forehead?
Oh, God, yes. I HATED that movie. I’m incredibly liberal, but even I was insulted by the strawmen and Mary Sue-ing going on there.
My favorite part:
The Republicans complain that since she’s a defector from the GOP herself (and thus unlikely to be rewarded by a Democratic president with such a high office), the nominated VP can’t be attacked on political grounds since she can’t be that liberal.
Then, during the nomination hearings, she openly admits to being an atheist (no more our business than her sex life, IMHO), and advocates banning all firearms. That’s liberal. That’s goddamn liberal. No Democrat in his right mind would nominate that person for anything, especially with a Republican controlled Congress.
The subplot with the other potential nominee was also asinine.
Another of the Director’s films was Deterrence, which was about the president, trapped in a small diner due to a blizzard, deciding whether or not to order nuclar strikes against Iraq. The movie took place in the near future, “Saddam Hussien Jr” had just invaded Kuwait (I think, it’s been a while). The US military was already overextended elsewhere, and the only meaningful response they could give Saddam was to nuke him. Problem was, Saddam had his own nukes, bought from the French, which he promised to launch at US allies as retaliation.
Anyway, while considering his response, the President had the time to explain to a slack jawed diner patron that he was an atheist. In fact, all presidents were atheists since they had to put their duty to their country first (which I’m sure would surprise Carter and Lincoln, among others). The movie’s taut pace just paused for a bit for a bit of impromptu atheist preaching, coming out of nowhere.
The ending was a total copout too: Turns out, the French had conspired with the late former US president to sell the Iraqis dud nukes. So the US could nuke Iraq without worrying about their retaliation. Of course, the French never told the US this, and the late president never mentioned it to anypone until he was on his deathbed and everyone thought he was delusional.
Despite all these flaws, I actually thought it was a decent movie. Quite suspenseful, and it least it tried to be smart. But the warning signs for The Contender were there, loud and clear.
Sometimes tiny bits of movies will piss me off: The part in “It’s a Wonderful Life” where the horrible fate that befalls the heroine is that she - gasp - becomes a librarian. Aargh. Oh, and that scene in “Gone with the Wind” where Scarlett’s so dang happy after Rhett assaults her.
Or an entire movie can piss me off permanently; the one I have mentioned most often being the Jim Carrey/Ron Howard trashing of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. That book is so darn wonderful and that movie is so darn wrong in every way, I start spluttering like Donald Duck just thinking about it. Gah.
Wasn’t it later revealed that it was just someone (a DJ?) dressed up as Michael Moore as a gag?
Is this what you were looking for?
Lincoln was an atheist. See What Lincoln Believed by Michael Lind – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385507399/sr=8-1/qid=1139596991/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0220983-2906505?_encoding=UTF8.
I haven’t been able to force myself to watch it. I have, at the very least, the most awful reservations about it, in spite of the fact that I like Ron Howard and would’ve married Christine Baransky at any point.
But everything I hear about it seems so wrong – like “The Cat in The Hat” which I couldn’t finish watching it was so wrong.
Maybe they’re through trashing Dr. Sues and have moved on to “Curious George.”