What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

I finally watched "The Deer Hunter" - 1978, a movie I always had regretted missing.

Boy did I miss nothing. The movie is so bad I can't even hardly stand to write about how bad it is. Mostly, besides being ridiculously way too long, suspending disbelief is completely impossible. How did people suspend it back in 1978?

Take this for example [I refuse to honor the concept that there is anything to spoil in such a bad movie btw]. You could scour the earth for the stupidest people in it, just refrigerator cold IQ readings, and never, ever, in a million years find anyone stupid enough to force Russian roulette on their prisoners and not observe one aspect of the procedure that would be essential. And that would be, you would tie them up and point the gun at the prisoner and pull the trigger yourself. It would be absolutely impossible to find someone too stupid to not do this. Yet, in the movie, the Viet Cong hand the revolver to the prisoners.

This Cimino guy [writer and director, pretty much never made a decent movie ever] was somehow fascinated by Russian roulette and goes on to include it on and on and on in the movie ad nauseum. Not for one second does any of it feel real.

If you want to read more I give you the "hated it" reviews.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077416/reviews?filter=hate

Well, it's no more realistic than many old war time flicks, which were still good movies.

There's a bunch stuff wrong with WWII based movies as far as accuracy, but people love hero action and drama often more than details, or how people really acted in those situations.

I guess it depends on your starting point of reference and general knowledge and what you are willing to accept.

I think I liked the last scene of this best.

Quote: odiousgambit

I finally watched "The Deer Hunter" - 1978, a movie I always had regretted missing.

Boy did I miss nothing. The movie is so bad

LOL! So bad it won 5 big Academy Awards.
Best picture, supporting actor, director, editing,
sound. 3 Golden Globes for picture, director,
actor. It won so many awards I can't list them
all. I saw it at least three times in the theater.

It was made a few years after the war ended,
it had a huge impact on audiences. Especially
the at home scenes. We related to how that war
effected the country, we were there, we were adults
at the time. Still one of the all time best war movies.

Quote: Evenbob

LOL! So bad it won 5 big Academy Awards.

From that it would appear my opinion is an outlier [I was aware of it] but the only thing I can figure is people were so strung out about the war that there was something about it emotionally that you had to be in that time to get it. Whatever that was has completely evaporated now.

I'll just say that for anyone who can't go back to re-experiencing having seen it when it came out, seeing it now for the first time, if they liked it I would know that me and that person are poles apart in what we like. Watching that interminable wedding scene is a form of torture for someone without the nostalgia for it.

Quote: odiousgambit

From that it would appear my opinion is an outlier .

You have no idea what a hit this movie
was. If I watch a 1940's movie, it has to
be in the context of when it was made.
Otherwise it sucks. The Maltese Falcon
sucks if you don't do this. Casablanca
sucks if you compare it to recent movies.

I liked the Deer Hunter
The wedding scene was way too long
Most war movies glorify war
The point of the movie was to show how horrible war really is.
The 1st Russian roulette scene was a metaphor for the whole war showing how brutal and inhumane war truly is
Back home was weak, the last Russian roulette scene was not realistic and just too much and weak also

Quote: terapined

The point of the movie was to show how horrible war really is.

No it wasn't. The point was to show the
stark contrast between what they thought
war was and what it really is. The point was
to show the contrast of life at home and
life in a foreign war zone. In movies meant
to show the horror of war, 95% of it is at
the front lines, nothing but killing and
maiming and action. Deer Hunter was not
like that at all.

Just saw Christopher Walken again in another movie.

Let me see if I can keep from stepping on Bob's toes on this.

"Catch Me if You Can" 2002, a movie about a con-man. I tend to like those kinds of movies, and this is a real-life story, even better. Walken plays the flaky father of the con-man. I recommend the movie; I don't remember any fuss about it when it came out, and it is possible I ignored it because I took an instant dislike to DiCaprio before I actually saw him in anything LOL. Since then he has won me over, and that is not easy for a young actor to do with me.

I think it's debatable whether Walken or DeNiro did the better job of acting in 'Deer Hunter', but it was Walken who got an Oscar, for Best Supporting. Since then DeNiro has been more impressive in his roles for sure, while I get the feeling Walken burned out right away. Debatable, I guess, since I haven't seen many of those movies, and he has been getting work, it's just that the roles he gets seem minor to me. In this 'Catch Me' movie he plays an unstable guy again, it's as if he can't get away from his finally crazy status he portrayed in 1978. But, like I say, I haven't caught much of his stuff, so I could be off on the wrong track. In any case, he does that role well.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_42

PS: I didn't have a problem with the acting in 'Deer Hunter' - that wasn't the problem for me.

Walken is quirky, he seldom fits well into any
roll. He was believable in CMIYC. He plays a
good bad guy, or Mafia guy. He's a natural
villain. The book CMIYC was much better
than the movie. They really downplayed how
much of a crook the kid was in the movie.
When he went to prison in France, it was
unspeakable what they did to him there.
That isn't in the movie at all.