Another violent, dark movie. The difference between No Country For Old Men and The Departed, the previous Best-Picture Oscar winner (which was also a violent, dark movie) is that this one is more like a scalpel than a bludgeon. No Country adds wit, humor, and a certain odd charm to the violence and darkness. Most […]
Entries Tagged as 'F-Word'
Departed, The
November 6th, 2009 · No Comments · 2006, Adaptation, C-Word, Color, Composer: Howard Shore, Departed, Drama, F-Word, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, N-Word, Nudity, Sex, Warner Bros. Pictures
Few movies are as violent, foul-mouthed, and bloody as The Departed. I can’t help but wonder what audiences in, say, 1939 would have thought of The Departed had this film been inserted into the projector instead of Gone With the Wind. I dare say every last one of them would have run, screaming, out of […]
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Crash
November 5th, 2009 · 1 Comment · 2005, Color, Crash, Drama, F-Word, Lions Gate Films, N-Word, Nudity, Original Screenplay, Paul Haggis, Racism, Sex
I honestly thought Paul Haggis was a better writer than this. After all, it was his script – a first draft no less! – that became Million Dollar Baby, the Oscar-winner a year before the release of Crash. According his entry on Wiki, “Paul Haggis is the award-winning filmmaker who, in 2006, became the first […]
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Braveheart
October 26th, 2009 · No Comments · 1995, Braveheart, Color, Composer: James Horner, Drama, F-Word, Freedom, James Horner, Mel Gibson, Original Screenplay, Paramount Pictures, Scotland, William Wallace
“The problem with Scotland is that it is full of Scots,” says Longshanks, King Edward I at the start of Braveheart. And so the king sets out to break the spirit of the savages in Scotland by taxing them, beating them, and raping their women. At first William Wallace (Mel Gibson) wants no part of […]
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Forrest Gump
October 25th, 2009 · No Comments · 1994, Adaptation, Color, Drama, F-Word, Forrest Gump, Paramount Pictures, Robert Zemeckis, Robin Wright, Saddest Movie Of All Time, Tom Hanks
After Schindler’s List ended a minute or two before midnight last night, I waited until the new day official began and then popped Forrest Gump into the DVD player. I didn’t want to attempt sleep with visions of Schindler’s List jack-booting through my dreams. Not that Forrest Gump is all sweetness and light. There is […]
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Schindler’s List
October 24th, 2009 · No Comments · 1993, Adaptation, Black and White, Drama, F-Word, Nationalization, Nazi Socialist Germany, Oskar Schindler, Schindler's List, Seinfeld, Sex, Smoking, Steven Spielberg, Universal Pictures
In my mind, Schindler’s List will forever be associated with the two-part episode of Seinfeld (Season 5, episodes 18 and 19: “The Raincoats 1 and 2”) that aired in 1994. Jerry’s parents are staying with him while they’re visiting from Florida. Consequently, he hasn’t any privacy. And he wants time alone with his girlfriend, Rachel. […]
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Unforgiven
October 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · 1992, C-Word, Clint Eastwood, Color, F-Word, Gene Hackman, Mid-Point, Morgan Freeman, Original Screenplay, Plot Point I, Plot Point II, Screenplay Structure, Sex, Unforgiven, Warner Bros. Pictures, Western
With a cast that includes three of my favorite actors (Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman), there’s no way this movie could fail. And it doesn’t. (WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Don’t read on unless you want to know how the movie ends.) But how could it? All those actors, direction by Clint Eastwood, and it’s […]
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Silence Of the Lambs, The
October 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · 1991, Adaptation, Anthony Hopkins, C-Word, Color, Composer: Howard Shore, F-Word, Hannibal Lecter, Jodie Foster, Mid-Point, Orion Pictures Corporation, Plot Point I, Plot Point II, Screenplay Structure, Silence of the Lambs, Thriller
“Good evening, Clarice.” The Silence Of the Lambs creeps me out. It did when I first saw it nearly 20 years ago. And it still does. There’s a grotesqueness to this movie that emits a kind of psychic stench that clings to me, like the cloying smell of maple-flavored bacon that lingers in the kitchen […]
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Rain Man
October 19th, 2009 · No Comments · 1988, Color, Drama, Dustin Hoffman, F-Word, Mid-Point, Original Screenplay, Plot Point I, Plot Point II, Rain Man, Screenplay Structure, Sex, Swearing, Tom Cruise, United Artists
I almost didn’t get to post my blog this evening. My MacBook Pro died and the Apple geniuses had no openings for me until tomorrow morning. Good thing my wife is using my old iBook G4. Rain Man has always been one of my favorite movies. Talking like Raymond Babbitt is something my wife and […]
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Platoon
October 17th, 2009 · No Comments · 1986, Color, Drama, F-Word, Left-Leaning Politics, Oliver Stone, Original Screenplay, Orion Pictures Corporation, Platoon, War
Oliver Stone is to directing movies what a croquet mallet is to carving a turkey. Platoon is yet another movie – the most heavy-handed to date – that proves war is hell. War is hell. I get it, Hollywood. I get it. In fact, I’ve been getting it since All Quiet on the Western Front […]
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