thingsyoucantelljustbylookingatherblog

NOTE: The following is not a review of the Contend with Club DVD per se, but instead a compilation of posts from DVDTalk and elsewhere that about Fight Sorority from a few divergent viewpoints. Accept them, doubt them, or disregard them as magniloquent bunk, but here they are. I wrote them all between June 8, and June 22, 2000. For a review of the DVD click here or here

Fight Club
Clearly Fight Club has had a polarizing effect on its audience and I don’t want to take away from the fact that some people simply don’t like it because of personal preference, but I also feel that that’s part of the design of the film.

Fight Club is an extremely complex film, in a way that we haven’t seen in a long time (or maybe ever). In films that are actually about something and that have a lead character with whom we are supposed to identify, there are several key changes in attitude that you can chart from the beginning to the end. The character learns the lessons put before him and becomes a different person. Like the various epiphanies that Travis has in Taxi Driver or Max in Rushmore. Sometimes, like in American Psycho the lesson is that there are no lessons. There is some element of this in Taxi Driver as well. The movie follows these characters and gives us external clues to their internal changes (Max and Travis both make dramatic wardrobe changes at key moments in their developments) but the movie usually remains consistent in its storytelling style. (In films that are not about anything at all, like Bond films, the character learns nothing at all and doesn’t ever change)

In Fight Club the narrator goes through countless major changes and the film is divided up into so many little emotional turns and cues that it boggles the mind. Everything in the film (everything!) is a clue to the character’s inner struggle. The entire movie happens in this constantly evolving state. It seems to be about dozens of different things at any given moment only to flip it’s entire meaning the next. If you hang in until the end the payoff is extraordinary. But if you get stuck along the way or lose interest it all seems to be pointless. People who say it is a critique / glorification of violence, of capitalism, of men, of women, of whatever are getting little bits that are dropped along the way, like bread crumbs in a dense forest. The ads made it out to be an anti-consumerist film (a little irony all its own) but that is only a small part of the movie and not, ultimately, the crucial one anyway.

The way that the film changes point of view is excellent. Director David Fincher indicates that he is going to do this early on when we first see Remaining Men Together. The meeting is portrayed for maximum comic effect and the narrator smirks at the prospect of crying on Bob’s bitch tits. That’s because we haven’t gone through enough yet to appreciate the weight of this situation and are seeing it as if we had walked in cold. Then he takes us back further and we see the desperation in his life. When he comes back around to Remaining Men Together there is nothing funny about it; From the first man’s incredibly sad story to the narrator’s complete and total abandon on Bob’s chest, the scene takes on a totally different tone. Unlike something like The Sixth Sense which invites you to look at all the ways the trick ending “works” on repeat viewing, Fight Club changes tone with the lead character and as he sees things differently the entire film becomes different. What you see in the beginning may not necessarily still be true by the end.

People will be writing dissertations on Fight Club for years to come. That is not to say that academia is all-important, but rather that the film may grow to be a touchstone of our culture, like Taxi Driver, Warhol, and Elvis. Something that you have to have an opinion on, that you can disagree with and still find endlessly interesting. To misinterpret it as a film saying that fighting in basements is good or that we should do public destruction is tragic, but inevitable. The kind of mindset in the movie is real. Leaders are tormented, confused people and that dynamic draws attention. Is Project Mayhem unrealistic? Hardly.

Is Fight Club misogynistic?
Is the movie misogynistic? Not at all. In fact, like Chuck Palahniuk’s “Invisible Monsters”, the story dissects what it is that makes us men and women. Marla is an extremely sympathetic character caught up in the life of someone who doesn’t understand what she means to him. The entire movie is clouded by his misperceptions and she seems unstable. Of course, we come to realize that she’s not the one that’s unstable. The narrator rejects her (”I don’t think another woman is what we really need.”) because he is exploring what he thinks his male needs are. Tyler represents his male ideal and he is in love with that. There is a reason why the domestic scenes with Tyler and the narrator have such strong homoerotic overtones. The narrator is not able to process the masculine and feminine sides of his soul and mind and has split in two. At the beginning he is, while not happy, maintaining in his consumerist, wage-slave, “feminine” (not female, but feminine) life, accepting that that is right. It is not right and Tyler shows him a much more aggressive masculine side and at first that seems right. That is why fight club initially seems so cool and sexy. The movie shows it to you through his eyes. That is not enough and Tyler creates Project Mayhem. Eventually, as the character changes, fight club does not seem so right anymore. The intense beating he gives the blonde angel is a turning point in fight club. Project Mayhem now seems to be the answer. With the silly music, the homework assignments, and the perfect targets like Starbucks it’s hard to argue with the goals of Project Mayhem. That, of course, is eventually shown to be wrong too. It is not liberating, although it initially seems like it is. It is just more fascist BS. The narrator is disillusioned with that and with Tyler. Then the truth about Tyler is revealed and the narrator realizes how he has wronged Marla. He tries to undo some of the damage that he now realizes that he has done. Marla has accused him of being sensitive one minute and a jerk the next. He didn’t realize that he had been any of those things, but the two sides now make sense and he feels the need to balance them. When he “kills” Tyler he is not banishing his masculine traits, but rather reabsorbing them and finding the balance that he needs. The movie ends with the linking of the man and the woman as they watch the apocalypse, basically Adam and Eve starting over and unmaking all the mistakes they have made, getting it finally right.

So ultimately this is the opposite of misogynistic. In fact, it explores what the masculine and feminine sides of human nature are with an openness that you won’t find in any number of cynical films like Anywhere But Here that pander to women by assuming that they want uncomplicated weepies. Fight Club dares to ask questions and try out different theories. It makes arguments and then disproves them.

Fight Club deserves concentration and actually demands it. You can watch it purely as entertainment, but that would be an emotionally and physically draining experience. It is so uncompromising in its tone and themes that you have to see the thought process behind the razzle-dazzle. That there even is one is already remarkable, but that it is so complex is astounding. So many films, like Boogie Nights seem to be going somewhere and then go off track and end up achieving nothing. When I first saw Fight Club opening night I wasn’t sure that I knew where it was going and felt myself being jerked into a million different directions. It was exhausting and I wasn’t really sure what I thought afterwards. But after hours and hours of discussion and thought I felt like I had figured it out and now that I am confident that it leads somewhere worthwhile I can watch it and completely give myself over to it. Even having seen it already it constantly surprises. I don’t think there has ever been a film like this before.

Interpretations
Fight Club is clearly about something, although it takes hard work and thought to figure out exactly what. And even then what you take away may be different from others. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t NEED to look for messages and themes in film. That’s fine. But don’t say they’re not there. A lot of films make statements on surprising topics (Fincher’s own much maligned Alien 3 was supposed to be an allegory for the then-rampant AIDS virus; John Ford’s iconic Western The Searchers, which on the surface seems to utilize every genre cliche in the book, is actually a searing look at racism; Fight Club happens, in my opinion, to be about masculine and feminine identities and how they fuse to create our psychological makeup more than anything else) but they’re only important if you care. If you don’t, just enjoy the eye candy. Fight Club certainly excels on that level as well.

To those that think the message is something like “Get out and live”: Glad to see you’re thinking about the movie beyond a knee-jerk “It’s stupid / it’s fascist / it’s kick-ass!” reaction. Now watch again and look closer. It is so much more than that.

To those that think it is an anti-capitalism movie: It’s not. That was the ad campaign and it was geared to get you in. Ultimately it is about a lot more than that.

To those searching for answers: Yes this movie is complex. But it is consistent. The points it tries to make it makes. It doesn’t fall apart at the end. If you read the book you’ll find a less meaningful, more standard ending. The movie has a sort of happy ending that combines all of the themes from the film: hitting bottom, self destruction, gender issues, control issues…

Ultimately, you should just watch it and decide for yourself what it is about!

PART 2

Gil Jawetz is a graphic designer, video director, and t-shirt designer. He lives in Brooklyn.

E-mail Gil at buskerdog@yahoo.com

is a sensible, gripping, only periodically preachy thriller built around the War on Terror. Ripped-from-the-headlines realism, top-drawer performances by

Don Cheadle

and Guy Pearce, a dandy "ticking clock" fairy tale structure and a vast catalog of incendiary modus operandi assign this as harrowing as it is opportune.

Samir (Cheadle) was born in Sudan but grew up in America. He served his new country in the military, but when we pay him, he's selling plastic explosives to Islamic terrorists in Yemen. He's a devout Muslim. He's tough. The Arab terror cell Al Nathir wants him.

And after he's been slapped thither by F.B.I. agents in a Yemeni prison, he's open to the put forward of cell leader Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui).

Pearce and Neal McDonough are F.B.I. counter-terrorism agents. Roy Clayton (Pearce) has feigned Arabic and uses every interrogation to make a speech about how torture doesn't accommodate wheedle, what a waste of loaded Homeland Protection is and how "every dogma has more than one face." He is, his partner labels him, "an egghead dragged into a alley fray."

Something big is coming. A guy with Samir's ordeal and connections could be useful to the worldwide brute network that this film lays into public notice. There are "sleeper" cells everywhere, moles in government agencies. Before Traitor is done, bombs resolution go up the wall, innocents will wane, friendships will be betrayed and lovers sling aside.

The structure here borrows from The Departed and American Gangster. We inquire parallel lives on a collision course. Samir travels to Italy, France, Canada and America, doing the bidding of his late-model friends — building bombs and teaching others to use them. Clayton is always a step or two behind him.

Director Jeffrey Nachmanoff (he wrote The Light of day After Tomorrow) doesn't remainder the two stories equally and blows a some opportunities to max out the suspense. It's a tangled script, but not unduly so, with that cliche "Things are not necessarily what they seem" hanging on top of it.

Cheadle and Pearce give the movie its strength and make the cat-and-mouse fabric fascinating. Cheadle plays Samir with a straight-on American accent, a man prearranged his Islamic way cred by his serious study of the Koran, which he quotes as without restraint as he does

Martin Luther King Jr.

McDonough, as the F.B.I. sidekick, gets the few funny lines. And Aly Khan makes an urbane, accomplished and dissimulating terror think up, objective the sort of villain the movies like — he sports a fashionable British accent.

"Terrorism is theater," he says, in his best

Alan Rickman

mimicking.

This doesn't be struck by the explosions and chases of some action procedurals (think The Kingdom), but thanks to Khan, it has something the movies are in short accommodate of these days — a really hiss-able villain. Cheadle is that other vital missing piece at the dark sentiments of Traitor, someone whose motives, methods and loyalties everyone can question, a true gentleman’s gentleman of enigma.

Copyright © 2009,

Orlando Sentinel

Check This Out

Find concerts, events, bars and restaurants in your area.

Here's a look at what's ahead in entertainment for 2009-10.

Take A Look

Check out pictures of Tiger's alleged mistress.

Check out our collection of great beers for the holidays.

Based on Captain Ernest Gordon’s (Ciaran McMenamin) own true confabulation of his capture by the Japanese, together with men of his regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who end up contrived to build the infamous Railway of Death. Over 400 kms in less than 18 months, on scant rations and weakened by ailment, brutalised by the Japanese guards. Gordon tries teaching other prisoners a range of subjects, including Christian ethics, and many respond positively. But Primary Ian Campbell (Robert Carlyle) sees Gordon’s influence as a cold to his own plans, and edginess intensifies between Gordon, Campbell and the lone American prisoner, Lt Tom Reardon (Keifer Sutherland), which threaten to do as much reparation as the Japanese. And when faced with the check of putting Christian confidence into preparation, everyone learns something – about themselves and about the essence of the benevolent persuade.

Mulan_2009

Perry stars as a demon rodeo rider Lane Frost. From the moment tiny tot Frost is hoisted on to a baby bull, charges 20 feet and falls off on his head, his path to fame is assured. It’s a take story, so the conspiracy is perfunctory – is Frost too simple for pretty rodeo gal Kellie (Geary)? Next thing you know he’s married and buckling on the Fabulous Championship belt. But at the end of the day he’s canoodling with the ‘buckle bunnies’, neglecting doe-eyed Kellie and proving his inability to chicken-hearted too unridden monsters, the unrestricted bull Red Wobble and his nuptials. Perry is too bad-tempered to convince us of Frost’s profound side; while Avildsen remains a spokesman of the point-and-stem form of operation. The videotape redeems itself somewhat by its downbeat ending.

Duck.fm Music Search engine gives you an opportunity to find lots of free mp3 downloads. Aerosmith free mp3 download music. Explore large collection of free music.

SUPERMAN II (1981)

October 1st, 2002

RATING: Four stars

Watching movies online have become popular with people who spend a lot of time online nowadays. These sites give a possibility to watch full-length feature films, clips, and even streaming television shows right on your computer screen using a technology known as ?streaming-video.? On some of these web services you can even play interactive games in HD with 3D graphics. There are numerous websites offering these services, some free and others requiring paid memberships. The best free free movies site is watch-funny-movies.com

Some sequels never even or cap their original counterparts because they often appear adore rehashes. "Superman II" is that scarcity – a sequel that both equals and, at times, surpasses the original 1978 leading. That is saying a straws everything considered how terrific the original "Superman" was, but I was surprised by how much more I liked number 2.

Christopher Reeve is back as the mild-posed reporter, Clark Kent, and the superhero with X-ray vision and a red point and bright red boots, known of positively as Superman. In this film, Clark expresses some jealousy over Lois Lane's (Margot Kidder) infatuation with Supe Baby. After all, Superman saves her butt from being blown to kingdom come at the Eiffel Tower where some hydrogen bombshell is about to detonate! Lois Lane is in love with Superman…but she wisdom that Clark bears some resemblance to the famous superhero. There is the Niagara Falls sequence where Clark and Lois pretend to be newlyweds, all in the service of a story someone is concerned the Daily Planet. Clark fogs his glasses while being near the Falls and Lois removes them only to discover those eyes! After a daring child rescue by Superman where Clark is nowhere to be rest in of vision, Lois decides to gammon Clark into saving her. She foolishly attempts to drown herself in a raging river! These scenes are superb in amusing timing and pratfalls that accentuate Lois's recklessness and Clark's ability to avoid changing into Superman. I do have single difficulty admitting that: wouldn't heat rays wholly glasses cause them to burn? Or maybe he lowered his glasses a bit to dodge burning them? Who cares – he is Superman after all.

The main release deals with three villains from Krypton, the leader Zod (Terence Stamp), the man-hater Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and the credulous, humongous Non (Jack O'Halloran). If you recall in the primordial film, the three villains were banished into the Phantom Zone by Jor-El, Superman's found. Thanks to the hydrogen blow up hurled into outer space by Superman, it explodes causing the triad to break free of their glass-shielded prison. They all discover they possess superhuman powers beyond put two, can walk on the moon without a spacesuit, range about in on bath-water, avert missiles and bullets, use their breath to create crucial winds, and, in leaving out, rule the planet Houston, way known as Earth. They can also deface Mount Rushmore by replacing former Presidents' faces with their own. So age the Ghostly Bawdy-house has been sieged, the President is mannered to kneel before Zod, and hell on Earth has arrived. And returnee Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) decides to provide relief to the new leaders of the world. But where is Superman? Sufficiently, he is absorb wooing Lois Lane who, in a extremely emotional scene, discovers Clark Kent is Superman! This means that if Superman wishes to wed and bed Lois, he must become mortal. Good timing Supe baby.

"Superman II" has one flagrant, humorous, dramatic, glorious sequence after another. It is excellent fun watching the Revenant Locale prisoners using their wonderful powers to kill half of Uncharted York Urban district (though it may be politically improper to say such things in this post-9/11 climate, the effects are pacify superb). What we get is the stuff we always wanted to see from a abide-process Superman sheet: we see Superman and villains engaged in heavy battle using fever-ray vision, utilizing their super cool dazzle to freeze objects, and basically punching and beating each other on city streets without hurting any of the human pedestrians. They buy pothole covers, fling each other into cultural landmark billboards or neon signs (Superman and Coca-Cola do fit together since they are both cultural landmarks), boom into the antenna at the Empire Report Building, puncture through support windows, and basically create havoc and destruction. A bus full of people is set used as a weapon!

But idiosyncratic-effects via nothing unless they are central to the story. What cicerone Richard Donner accomplished in the first Superman film was to recognize the human relationships in the tall tale – we had to be convinced of that Clark Kent and Superman had a benevolent dimension. Ditto Lois Lane, which is what made the native so charming. This upshot ups the ante on Lois and Superman's relationship, and their love scenes are as heart-rending and poignant as they could be, given that this is essentially a comic-rules story come to life. Although Donner has filmed some scenes of part II, foreman Richard Lester deserves some credit for making the continuity believable since he took over after Donner was replaced (purportedly by the Salkind producers who may have a more campy approach). The heart of "Superman II" is the love story between Clark and Lois – if it did not on the dole, the flicks would have been not seriously poke fun at yet dramatically soulless.

In addition to Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder's special performances, there are rich acting roles from Jackie Coogan, chasing again as Daily Planet editor, Perry Immaculate, E.G. Marshall as the President of the Unified States with an obvious toupee, Clifton James as a disconcerted-town sheriff who is baffled by Zod and his cohorts, Ned Beatty's briefly hysterical turn as Otis, Lex's bumbling partner, Valerie Perrine in her extremely offhand return as Miss Tesmacher, and the excellent Susanah York as Superman's pamper, who warns Superman of losing his immortality.

"Superman II" is vibrant, smoothly paced, and exquisitely made – it is clearly a phenomenally entertaining wonderful sequel. It expands on the characters by showing more depth, has three great villains (including the smooth wickedness of Terence Stamp), wonderful extreme feats and battles, and a rousing ending that will make audiences gladness. More importantly, you still believe that a man can fly. The Man of Steel never had it this good.

For more reviews, curb out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at

http://www.geocities.com/faustus_08520/Jerry_at_the_Movies.html

Post any thoughts at

Treasure Island DVD Fly-past

Gem Island


Theatrical Emancipate:

July 19, 1950 /

Running Time

:
96 Minutes /

Rating

:
PG

Big cheese

:
Byron Haskin

Cast

:
Bobby Driscoll (Jim Hawkins), Robert Newton (Long John Silver), Basil Sydney (Captain Smollett), Walter Fitzgerald (Squire Trelawney), Denis O'Dea (Dr. Livesey), Finlay Currie (Capt. Billy Bones), Ralph Truman (George Merry), Geoffrey Wilkinson (Ben Gunn)
While most are unquestionably familiar

with the collude of Robert Louis Stevenson's

Treasure Key

, I'll briefly size up it up, for those who aren't. Junior Jim Hawkins has a legendary gem map come into his possession and he sets waft with a gang on the Hispaniola to note this rate. Things get shady when there is rebellion aboard the ship, and some crew members have planned their own ideas in all directions claiming the treasure.

Disney veteran Bobby Driscoll, who appeared in the studio's live action films like

Song of the South

and

So Dear to My Heart

in addition to voicing

Peter Pan

, plays young Jim Hawkins. As the lone child in a cast of grown men, Driscoll does a fine job playing the protagonist. Meanwhile, Robert Newton shines in the flashy role of Long John Silver, the boat's wooden-legged chef of suspicious character.

Released in 1950,

Treasure Island

is one of Disney's earliest live action feature films. In fact, it's the studio's first narrative feature film to not employ animation at all. As such, it's clear that Disney and company were trying to find their live action niche, and the film differs in tone from the studio's live action output that became prevalent later in the decade.

Treasure Island

does not find it necessary to include comic antics to lighten the tone or to specifically play to children. Yet, the heartfelt drama and the adventurous story is sure to entertain young and old. In addition, children who are familiar with

Treasure Planet

and

Muppet Treasure Island

may be interested to see this more faithful adaptation of Stevenson's story for comparison.

DVD Details

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio (Fullscreen)

Dolby Digital 5.1 (English)

Subtitles: English

Closed Captioned

Release Date: April 29, 2003

Single-sided, dual-layered disc (DVD-9)

Suggested Retail Price: $19.99

(Was $29.99, Reduced Spring 2004)

White Keepcase

VIDEO and AUDIO

In general, the film looked very good for being over 50 years old. The transfer did seem on the dark side, but the print was nearly free of flaws and possessed an unexpected sharpness. Some scenes looked absolutely excellent. It is evident that Disney did invest money in remastering the film, from this undeniably pleasing transfer.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 remix wasn't much of a surround listening experience, but it didn't particularly need to be. The audio track was effective and clear. Some of the dialogue was a bit tough to distinguish, but that's the product of an aged film and not of the DVD.

REWARD FEATURES

Unfortunately,

Treasure Island

was released completely without bonus features, in spite of an initially high SRP and a release apart from the general catalogue waves. There's not even a trailer for the movie, though one can be found on the

Treasure Planet

DVD, which was released day-and-date with this film.

Preview trailers at the start of the DVD are for

The Lion King

coming to DVD,

Pirates of the Caribbean

(before a subtitle was added) and

Finding Nemo

coming to theaters, and of course,

Treasure Planet

. The Sneak Peeks menu also includes trailers for

Stitch! The Movie

,

Atlantis: Milo's Return

, and

George of the Jungle 2

(Watch out for that sequel!).

CLOSING THOUGHTS

A Vault Disney set, or even a pared-down single-disc Special Edition would have seemed awfully fitting for

Treasure Island

. Although there isn't a single real bonus feature, the movie is good enough to recommend purchasing, especially at its subsequently-reduced retail price. Fortunately, the film looks and sounds new, thanks to significant remastering.

More on the DVD

/

Buy from Amazon.com

(1954 – Special Edition) ?

Kidnapped

(1960 – Disney Large screen Club Exclusive)
(1941 – Walt Disney Treasures: Behind the Scenes at the Disney Studio) ?

Davy Crockett: Two-Movie Set

(1955-56)
(2002) ?

Muppet Treasure Island

(1996 – Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition)
(1957) ?

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men

(1953 – Disney Cinema Club Exclusive)
(1943 – Walt Disney Treasures: On the Cover-up Lines) ?

Pollyanna

?

Peter Pan

(1953 – Special Edition)
(1957 – 2-Movie Collection) ?

Swiss Family Robinson

(1960 – Vault Disney)

Related Page

:


Treasure Island

in Top Live Action Countdown

(#21)

Reviewed February 13, 2004.

Improve your internet experience by watching high-quality streaming movies on your computer and skip the hassles of renting from your local movie store and paying the fees charged for returning a movie late. Through watching movies online sites, you can watch new movies when it is convenient for you with no rental agreements to sign or late charges to pay ever. Where Got Ghost? full movie .

The Possession of Joel Delaney is an unusual occult thriller [based on Ramona Stewart's novel]. Pic centers on a chic East Side mankind divorcee (Shirley MacLaine) who harbors an inordinate affection for her companion, Joel (Perry King), and attempts to save him when he is controlled by the spirit of a Puerto Rican friend fond of ritual beheadings.

Script eschews any serious attempt to explain the subject matter in conventional psychiatric terms, coming down on the side of ethnically-originated spiritualism. You believe it or you don’t, ditto the rather murky sociological overtones that seem needlessly overemphasized.

Script overextends the build-up, making the final quarter a bit anti-climactic and slowing the pace, but the presence of MacLaine smooths over the rough spots.