I'll second that.
Posted on 02/25/2008 12:20:00 PM PST by Caleb1411
I'm didn't watch the Oscars. Normally I do. But I've spent enough time and money on the most depressing, dark and disturbed lineup of movies I ever can remember. I don't need to see them get rewarded.
Am I the only one who remembers when they actually gave Oscars to movies that had happy endings? There's not one happy ending in this lot — unless you consider an unplanned teenage pregnancy resulting in someone else's adoption a happy ending. That's the big payoff in "Juno."
Otherwise, you have "There Will Be Blood," in which a tyrannical oil baron destroys everyone and everything around him; "No Country For Old Men," in which a serial killer destroys everything and everyone around him; "Michael Clayton," in which greed gets nearly everyone killed; and "Atonement," in which a false accusation ruins the lives of all involved.
Um. Remind me again.
Why do we go to the movies?
THERE'S NO DEBATE HERE
Now, I'm not a Pollyanna. I enjoy films. I collect them. And I understand that not every story ends with music swirling and heroes walking off into a sunset.
But lately there's this sense that unless a movie is dark, violent and hopeless, it can't be "real." It can't be "art." It can't truly "matter." I put these words in quotes because it feels as if critics and awards committees define things that way.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Why do we go to the movies?
To look into the mirror.
I can only watch films w/violence at home with my fast forward button at the ready.
The movie did not transform a novel into a left wing political vehicle. Upton Sinclair was an avowed socialist who himself admitted that he wrote the novel Oil! only to portray capitalism (through Day’s character) and religion (through Dano’s) character as evil. If anything, the movie toned down these societal references.
The novel was by Cormac Maccarthy who has been called one of the most violent writers in American history.
He’s a brilliant stylist in an age when about six people care about style or brilliance. Oh wait, Harold Bloom is dead. Make that five people.
I do have “The Prize” and it is fascinating.
I also recommend a more recent book by Professor Yergin titled: “The Commanding Heights” about the slow postwar ascendence of Hayekian economics over statist Keynsianism.
What I don't get is that the Left seems to think that humans are basically "good" (in contrast to Christians who see our nature as inherently flawed) and that the reason Man appears damaged is that our social institutions are flawed. Through the Social Gospel (and lots of government programs) Man will eventually achieve perfection.
Now, I think that's a flawed way to look at the human situation, but I believe that's how the Left sees us.
Question: with a worldview like that, why on earth does the Left constantly make movies showing people who are totally messed-up, in hopeless situations, and with no happy ending in sight?
“Isn’t No Country full of violence?”
Only about half full. Some of it’s graphic. Great movie though.
Last movie I saw in a theater was Saving Private Ryan.
Before that, I don’t remember...or care.
My opinion, it is not overly gruesome. It is sadistic in a psychological way, not in a physical way. The story line: about a paid killer who is looking to kill to retrieve money stolen during a gone-bad drug deal.
Thanks for the note. I hadn’t realized that took place. I enjoyed the first three quite a bit over the years, but don’t remember Lila. I’d probably recognize her if I saw her picture.
Rex Harrison and Peter Ustinov were great.
You don't need to spend $10 on "depressing, dark and disturbing" when Lou Dobbs gives it away for free every day. ;~))
The studio was advertising Michael Clayton on the radio heavily in New York in the lead-up to the Oscars. Apparently some Academy members listen to NY radio. The spots were hilarious because they talked about what a wonderful movie it was and what a masterful actor George Clooney was. Interspersed with all of this were three sound clips of George Clooney in which he spoke with the same over-acted Hillary-Clinton-in-a-lower-register voice. These three clips made William Shatner sound like Sir Lawrence Olivier. I could not imagine anything more painful than listening to George Clooney going on and on like that for two hours.
Love the Broken Lizard guys. Beerfest wasn’t as great as Super Troopers, but better than Club Dread. Chloris Leachman was hilarious.
DD Lewis’s voice sounds THE SAME as his Bill The Butcher voice in Gangs of New York.
Wasn’t that impressed. And yes, even a 6 yr old son of 2 Dumocrats can make the connection between oil baron...greed...profit.
Lame and easily predictable lefty crap from Hollyweird.
I stopped watching The Oscars after Smokey and the Bandit got snubbed.
Juno was an average indy movie of no better quality than Garden State or the Battle of Shaker Heights. I have no idea how it was nominated. Michael Clayton was an average movie that was carried by the acting of Clooney and the guy from Batman Begins (forgot his name).
There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were excellent vehicles for the talents of the actors and directors of the movie’s, but they lacked a message that stuck with you. The best movie of the year, I believe, was 3:10 to Yuma. The acting was on par with the two aforementioned movies, but the movie had a uplifting theme, i.e. redemption.
Bloom is alive. Were you joking?
Did you see There Will Be Blood? It was fantastic filmmaking.
I'll second that.
No, I really thought he was dead! Ha!
Okay, back to six.
My mistake.
Here’s a Yeats poem by way of apology:
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees—
Those dying generations — at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come
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