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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

oh. my. fucking. god.

10:18 / 13.11.01

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/11/11/stiusausa02011.html?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:28 / 13.11.01

Yeah.

Although it's not as bad as it looks - a lot of those movies are nearly anti-war movies. "First Blood" was a weirdly negative post-Vietnam trauma movie, and even Rambo (FBII) featured the line 'Do we get to win this time?' about his return to Vietnam, spoken from behind prison bars...

That's pretty much engaging with the issues. As long as they don't whitewash it...and a lot of those movies would die of whitewashing - 'Black Hawk Down' for example.

Contrast with the shameful and cowardly British response:

British producers are dusting off "heritage" films based on Victorian novels as a safer bet. One British producer said: "Guns come in and out of fashion, but a nice bonnet is for ever."

I puke liberally on my industry.

10:59 / 13.11.01

Black Hawk Down was actually a pretty interesting and balanced book, once you get past your gut "Tom Clancy" reaction. The author interviewed many Somalis involved in the gunfight, as well as the first on-the-record interviews with former Delta Force members. It is definitely required reading for the current conflict, as it details the tactics and make-up of the US "special forces" that are going after the Taliban.

I'd like to read Killing Pablo, by the same author, which is about Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his eventual death at the hands of US backed Colombian forces.

11:36 / 13.11.01

Please. Somebody.

Put Stallone on the next bloody plane they bring down. Please...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:44 / 13.11.01

Oh, yeah, 'cos that would so help.

Think before you post - and read the article. I see where Kooky gets the 'oh no' from, but actually, it may not be so bad. A thousand 'Pearl Harbour' movies would be a disaster. Ten 'Cross of Iron's would be a triumph.

12:53 / 13.11.01

quote:
Other directors are going out of their way to avoid violence. Steven Spielberg has edited his new version of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial to remove guns and scenes he fears are now unacceptable.

Do they really think audiences are that thick?

Are audiences that thick?

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

13:07 / 13.11.01

I agree with Todd, Blachawk Down was very good, though I'm less sure about balanced.

Will Spielberg be removing guns fro the Indy films? Saving of Private Ryan?

Films about soldiers, proper war films as opposed to action films, I think may be a goos idea.

13:59 / 13.11.01

But Hollywood have always been making dodgy militaristic thrillers about helicopters taking off and men with big chins saluting in the rain at funerals - y'know - 'Men of Honour', 'A Few Good Men', 'The Generals Daughter' - all those crappy films we generally ignore. I guess there must be a market for them amongst old right-wingers or something..

14:42 / 13.11.01

>>>Although it's not as bad as it looks - a lot of those movies are nearly anti-war movies. "First Blood" was a weirdly negative post-Vietnam trauma movie, and even Rambo (FBII) featured the line 'Do we get to win this time?' about his return to Vietnam, spoken from behind prison bars...<<<

Yeah, but I bet you a fiver that Stallone scripting a new Rambo film set in Afghanistan has nothing to do with expressing his personal feelings on the current situation, and everything to do with him desperately trying to exploit current events to revive his rapidly decaying career...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:48 / 13.11.01

Possible. But that need not be a bad thing. Stallone is weirdly in tune with American manhood. From porn star to boxer to Vet...

Would it revive his 'flagging career' to make some ill-considered propaganda drivel? Doubtful. Old action heros in tight pants do not look cool.

So who knows what he'll turn out?

15:27 / 13.11.01

I feel boggled by that Spielberg quote. scarier in its way Lucas re-edited the violence in the first three Star Wars films to make the deaths of the stormtroopers (etc.) more clean and less grisly. (and ensured that in the Mos Eisley Han Solo shoots after the other guy to defend himself rather than before he does.) that sends a great message to the kids.

15:36 / 13.11.01

oh and responding to some of Nick's comments... in one of the earlier versions of the Rambo mythos (in the novel and/or an earlier draft of the adaptation which turned into the first in a film series) he killed himself.

as for the "we will get to win this time?" line... I have heard this from many patriotic Americans throughout the '90's... "we" did not win in Viet Nam because "they" (politicians, generals, bureaucrats) had not allowed "us" to commit enough force. I have heard this again and again and again. "we" could have won if "they" had let us.

IMHO a nice little strategy for managing cognitive dissonance concerning the US ever losing a war.

gentleman loser

20:20 / 13.11.01

Hollywood can make whatever kind of movies they want. It's not going to bother me.

What pisses me off is the massive self censorship that's gripping the entertainment industry. Steven Spielberg sucks! This just gives me another reason to hate him and his sentimental tripe.

BTW, Robert Altman is a pompous hypocritical windbag too.

Entertainment executives haven't figured out that the public's tastes haven't changed.

(I highly recommend "We Were Soldiers Once. . . and Young". It's well written and is by no means an antiwar book.)

20:40 / 13.11.01

Because taking the guns out of ET will magically make everything all better...

I was 7 when I saw ET in the movie theater, and I didn't even notice the gun-wielding police officers in that scene. What truly freaked me out in that movie was when the agents stormed the house in moonsuits and hazmat gear, tearing Elliot away from his mother (a far more primal child fear than the armed adults that the kids were able to easily outfox anyway).

Proof that the child's POV and the overly anxious adult's POV are two radically different things...

[ 14-11-2001: Message edited by: Malle Babbe ]

02:42 / 14.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
Although it's not as bad as it looks - a lot of those movies are nearly anti-war movies. "First Blood" was a weirdly negative post-Vietnam trauma movie, and even Rambo (FBII) featured the line 'Do we get to win this time?' about his return to Vietnam, spoken from behind prison bars...

This was not anti-war; it was more "just give us another chance..." A way of rewriting the ending so America could stop eating it's own shit.

Andrew Dice Clay was "in tune" with American masculinity in the same manner.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:26 / 14.11.01

'Rambo' is on the cusp, as I said. No sure which way it goes. The rest stands, though. Stallone's movies are not all-American love-fests. And the others...well. I just don't think it's a disaster - yet.

Unlike the thing with the bonnets...

Jack The Bodiless

16:04 / 14.11.01

If you're thinking that this potential Rambo: Revisited is going in some manner to restore the credibility of the franchise back to First Blood-era Stallone, you be living in cloud-cuckoo land. The last movie Stallone was in was a racing movie where he was playing the Gary Busey role. The Ego cannot permit this to continue. This is the man who was so convinced of his talent for comedy that he carried on making them after Oscar. Run away! Run away!

17:22 / 14.11.01

But apparently he was pretty good in Copland where he even did some 'proper acting'*

* proper acting = eating like a pig to get fat before making the film

Mister Remington Finn

14:43 / 20.11.01

Darn, I love Barbelith. Here I was venting steam about this and there already was a thread going! Beautifull. I feel a less lonely...
Anyways, here´s what I wrote:

quote: They are going to make a new Rambo movie with Sylvester Stallone as Rambo hunting down Osama Bin Laden (keep in mind that in the last flick Rambo help the Afghani kick out the russians....)
Is it me or is this just plain wrong? It´s like showing Battleship Potemkin or any of these other Russian films they made, just before the Russians start to invade Germany (read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancey for this refference. Tom was real good when the Russians still were the "Bad Guys". It mentions a radar invisble bomber called `Frisbee´ years before the USAF showed the F117. He also predicted 11th september.....but anyways...)

Is there really a need for a movie like this. I mean ...Rambo!!! I can´t even begin to count the ways how they are going to fuck this up. Does Rambo really embody the way the US wants to picture their war on terrorism? Better not attack the US or we´re gonna send Rambo and he´ll use his exploding arrows to wack your ass!!!
It´s enough for me to reach for the semtex myself and see how things end up....

Envision a horde of Rednecks seeing that movie and agreeing with it!!!
"Yeah, Rambo is right!!! Let´s get our guns and find us a 7-11!!! Let´s show these ragheads!!!"

I´m not a pacifist. I think sometimes showing force is a way to show that your not to be messed with. But in a more mature way. What´s more menacing? Rambo wih a M-60 in each hand cutting people like grass or Eastwood with his `Don´t mess with Clint´ stare.....

I wonder what sucker is going to direct this abomination anyways.....
("Hey, I did it for the money.....")

GRrrmble.....

also...

quote: The thing that really gets my goat (and the dear thing is already fidgitty....)is that the us goverment asked Hollywood to make this movie!
If some money-blood-sucking movie sharks thought the thing up, it would be just that. Just jump that wagon and ream it for all that it´s worth. It would be plain.
But that the goverment asked for this.....
What´s next?

Kay...that about it....

PS.....what´s a rover...god I feel like first grade again...

[ 20-11-2001: Message edited by: Mister Remington Finn ]

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:49 / 21.11.01

(Un)fortunately one of my best mates works for Universal... so for irony value I got him to grab me a newly-released DVD of the third one (in which he helps the Afghans kick commie butt, thus paving the way for the Taliban and bin Laden)... haven't watched it yet, cos I figure it's not gonna be the sort of thing I watch repeatedly, so I have to make sure I'm in EXACTLY the right headspace for that one launch window (as it were)...
And yeah, David Morrell (spelling?)'s novel "First Blood" which predated the movie was very anti-US Vietnam policy, and DID end with... well, not him killing himself exactly (bear with me... it's been about 15 years since I read it) but with him and the Special Forces guy called out to get him shooting each other more-or-less simultaneously...
Was well impressed when I was a kid... when I found out the same guy had written the novelisation of the second one, I figured any "good" political sentiment in the first was wiped out by the offer of a paycheque...
So, the fourth one. Is he gonna kick "towelhead ass", and, if so, is he gonna apologise for singlehandedly installing the regime in the first place?
Anyone finds out, let me know... I probably won't be arsed to see the movie.
btw... Rambo III is so much funnier if the first time you see it, you're already aware of Hot Shots Part Deux... I never realised how much dialogue they'd lifted directly. (Also HSpII has that great Apocalypse Now/Platoon crossover bit).

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:22 / 21.11.01

Not to mention the love scene from 'Lady and the Tramp'.