Most effectively choreographed use of violence
S D
Perdition......shot in the dark of night, a bunch of criminals about to
get into a touring car begin to drop.... perspective shifts to shadows
down the street and the repetitive flash of the muzzle of a sub machine
gun. After everyone but the leader is dead, Tom Hanks, the shooter,
walks over to Paul Neuman and finishes the job. Done in silence but for
appropriate low key music.
william
Never lost its comic book roots. Terribly over-rated and what a waste
of a good cast.
William
ralph
bravura as its quietest.
David O.
choreographed to be both naturalistic & stylized, shocking & comic, &
it completely succeeds.
There are scenes so daring that they remind one of the dancing farmer,
shot in the moonlight, in Dovzhenko.
moviePig
> On Mar 5, 12:07 pm, forn...@webtv.net (S D) wrote:
>
> > Bonnie and Clyde is usually the choice, but I like The Road to
> > Perdition......shot in the dark of night, a bunch of criminals about to
> > get into a touring car begin to drop.... perspective shifts to shadows
> > down the street and the repetitive flash of the muzzle of a sub machine
> > gun. After everyone but the leader is dead, Tom Hanks, the shooter,
> > appropriate low key music.
>
> Never lost its comic book roots. Terribly over-rated and what a waste
> of a good cast.
Good lord, I think we almost completely agree about a movie. Except
maybe that I think Hanks was miscast, in that his "Tom Hanks" persona
(i.e., his inherited stereotype) pretty much dictated his fate in
PERDITION, and thus sapped whatever suspense the comic-book roots
hadn't already sucked dry.
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moviePig
I'll contribute an obscure cameo favorite: the fight that breaks out
in Clayton's GATSBY. Borrowing from Hobbes, it's "nasty, brutish, and
short".
Flasherly
Choreographed, as in dancing -- one, and a, two, and a, three -- in
metre to swing time, guess that have to be the world renowned and
devastatingly beautiful, but awfully disturbed Gogo of the School
Seventeen-Year-Old Uniformed Girl Tradition in Fists of Golden
Dragon's Balls. Although she does most mightily assay her mortal
nemeses, The Bride, she nevertheless is a sadist and fated, as cute
woman sadists who know to wear girl clothing are, to the mortal doom,
whereupon a chair leg is driven through her thick skull.
william
> Good lord, I think we almost completely agree about a movie. Except
> maybe that I think Hanks was miscast, in that his "Tom Hanks" persona
> (i.e., his inherited stereotype) pretty much dictated his fate in
> PERDITION, and thus sapped whatever suspense the comic-book roots
> hadn't already sucked dry.
>
Would that make it "mildly recommended"?
William
moviePig
Seriously? Too much good stuff going on not to be at least
"recommended", iirc...
william
> On Mar 5, 2:35 pm, william <wlahe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 5, 1:34 pm, moviePig <pwall...@moviepig.com> wrote:
>
> > > Good lord, I think we almost completely agree about a movie. Except
> > > maybe that I think Hanks was miscast, in that his "Tom Hanks" persona
> > > (i.e., his inherited stereotype) pretty much dictated his fate in
> > > PERDITION, and thus sapped whatever suspense the comic-book roots
> > > hadn't already sucked dry.
>
> > Would that make it "mildly recommended"?
>
> Seriously?
Of course not.
William
moviePig
Oh. Well, in that case it's a celestial barge, rowed to perdition.
william
> Oh. Well, in that case it's a celestial barge, rowed to perdition.
>
I was just having jest with your incremental modality of criticism.
Really. Just joking. That's all.
William
tomcervo
It didn't keep ENOUGH of its comic book roots--a good pulp action
story turned to mush by Sam "I'd rahther direct for the THEATUH"
Mendes.
tomcervo
Not having had others' extensive experience of automatic weapon
violence, I'd say the barfight in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is as
close to the real experience of violence that most of us will ever
see--and as close as I want to get to it.
nick
Nice work from Conrad Hall though. He was the only good thing about
American Beauty too.
moviePig
So was I.
Iirc, Harkness used to bitch about having to paste a metric onto his
judgments. One guy at RottenTomatoes likes to pronounce, e.g., 3.5391
out of 5 stars. Another guy used to give, say, 4 out 5 fresh bathmats
to PSYCHO...
moviePig
> On Mar 5, 12:11 pm, william <wlahe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 5, 12:07 pm, forn...@webtv.net (S D) wrote:
>
> > > Bonnie and Clyde is usually the choice, but I like The Road to
> > > Perdition......shot in the dark of night, a bunch of criminals about to
> > > get into a touring car begin to drop.... perspective shifts to shadows
> > > down the street and the repetitive flash of the muzzle of a sub machine
> > > gun. After everyone but the leader is dead, Tom Hanks, the shooter,
> > > walks over to Paul Neuman and finishes the job. Done in silence but for
> > > appropriate low key music.
>
> > Never lost its comic book roots. Terribly over-rated and what a waste
> > of a good cast.
>
> story turned to mush by Sam "I'd rahther direct for the THEATUH"
> Mendes.
I didn't read the comic book, but figure its death panels were filmed
pretty well ...whereas its deadly "roots" reached for moral and
literary significance, the hallmark of the Graphic Novel.
william
> Iirc, Harkness used to bitch about having to paste a metric onto his
> judgments. One guy at RottenTomatoes likes to pronounce, e.g., 3.5391
> out of 5 stars. Another guy used to give, say, 4 out 5 fresh bathmats
> to PSYCHO...
>
There are some things that I just do not get. For example, someone
pointing out that Fess Parker was in "Them!" as if that was a bonus.
Maybe as a baby boomer self-reflecting culture point but not much
else. He was never much of an actor and wasn't particularly good in
the one scene he had in the film. Or someone will say, "What about
that one scene where such-and-such happened?" One scene. Take the
movie "Bullit." Sucky film with a good car chase. That's it.
Absolutely forgettable film otherwise. Why bother. Catch the chase on
youtube and call it a day. Or a movie is really good because some
actress is in it. Movie stinks, she stinks, but either she's in a
tight skirt or you get to see her nipple and -- whoa -- what a movie.
How people latch on to a minor item in a film as a saving grace and
become a fan of that film as a result boggles my mind. To me, films
should work as totalities and not as pieces. Which is why most of the
so-called "film noirs" really suck as movies. Because the Hays Code
ripped their balls off. Dan Duryea in bloody underwear is not an
ending. (Well, it would be but they'd never show that.) Ah, nevermind,
I'm just rambling.
William
Scaly Lizard
Up at the top of the list must be Hero (2002, Hong Kong, imdb
title #299977).
A film one would expect to be in the chopsocky martial arts
style, with the Crouching ThisAndThat options package.
In truth, though there is plenty of combat, there is remarkably
little direct exposition of the violence. It has the (now standard)
slomo effects, but most of the "action" is shown just off frame,
just beyond focus, or with a cut just ahead of where, in any
other Eastern martial arts flick, blood would spray.
The result is understated violence, sublime and made all the
more serious by its insistent absence. The film carefully avoids
the violence, allowing the story to mature from a typical genre
cartoon into more of a character piece.
I went into the film expecting lopped limbs and rolling heads
and ridiculously geysering blood. The unexpected alternative
was refreshing, letting the plot drive the movie instead of the
fighting driving the plot.
SL
Rockinghorse Winner
S D <for...@webtv.net> wrote:
Actually, I think West Side Story would be the obvious choice, but that is a
filmed play, so maybe it doesn't count.
I think the gang fight in Rumble Fish, which borrows from West Side Story,
is one of my favorite filmed fights. Very stylized, even beautiful, it
expresses violence, sexuality, passion and virtue all at once.
*R* *H*
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S D
of Neuman who made his career out of playing outsiders, not leaders, and
the manner in which Hanks was supposed to die ( first time ) . Hanks was
an odd choice but effectively carried the story cast against type. I
liked the quiet, almost poetic/stylized presentation of a violent world
, sort of reminded me of the film about WeeGee ? the tabloid
photographer.
william
Not that piece of junk with Joe Pesci?
William
moviePig
My knee-jerk reaction is to put BULLITT among the near-greats. And I
still prize it for having startlingly revitalized the car chase -- an
important staple of an important genre. It's asking a lot of a movie
to break ground on *any* front, much less multiple ones. But, yeah,
before recommending even an established "great", one maybe should've
watched it in, say, the past year. (Apart from his dead-mammal
headgear, my Fess lore is that he was a real-estate savant.)
Mack A. Damia
Not certain where you are coming from in this thread. Many films,
including the recent "Saw" series are produced merely for their
gratuitous violence that exceeds any of the films mentioned in this
thread so far.
Also, "Bloodsucking Freaks" comes to mind.
What the hell is "choreographed violence" as compared to any other
violence in a film?
S D
it good or ok, but definately watchable.
william
> Can't recall enough about the WeeGee story ( Eye something ? ) to think
> it good or ok, but definately watchable.
The Public Eye. Ebert loved it and said it reminded him of Casablanca.
It's a piece of junk, a faux noir created by a greetings card company.
Was on hulu.com or one of those free sites recently.
William
S D
rather than visceral effect. Clever blocking of the action or
imaginative gore would not fall into this category. Jackie Chan fights
are really not violent.
Howard Brazee
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Kingo Gondo
"S D" <for...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:27504-4D7...@storefull-3253.bay.webtv.net...
> Bonnie and Clyde is usually the choice
Really?
A Clockwork Orange is almost literally choreographed. My winner.
Other classics include the final shoot-out in The Wild Bunch and the
explosion of violence in the penultimate scene of Taxi Driver.
The classic John Woo Hong King films would also seem to fit.
Beezle Bub
wrote:
> "S D" <forn...@webtv.net> wrote in message
You know what I done love? The ending of Zabriskie Point, though the
violence may be more coordinated than choreographed. It's like action
painting or something.
And of course, Apocalypse Now has a great battle scene that works like
a rock opera. Rock and War, bebe.
Beezle Bub
> Bonnie and Clyde is usually the choice, but I like The Road to
> Perdition......shot in the dark of night, a bunch of criminals about to
> get into a touring car begin to drop.... perspective shifts to shadows
> down the street and the repetitive flash of the muzzle of a sub machine
> gun. After everyone but the leader is dead, Tom Hanks, the shooter,
> walks over to Paul Neuman and finishes the job. Done in silence but for
> appropriate low key music.
One might say the big bloodletting at the end of Godfather is a
wonderful example of choreographed violence, but I always found it a
bit too much. And too heavy on the irony. Baptism of kid and baptism
of blood, and the organ music to organs being splattered. I much
prefer the violence in Godfather II which is less show offy.