Gangs of New York

[Guest Lethargic]

Bringing Out The Dead = lethargic exercise in tedium masked as a disturbing portrait of good ol' "gritty New York"

Neh. Bringing out the Dead was one of the best movies of that year.

Yeah, ok. You call me when the shuttle lands.

[Guest godthedog]

first, for the record:

 

let's not talk about people getting robbed out of oscars before the oscars are given out. can we at least wait till we've SEEN both of the movies in question?

 

'bringing out the dead' was decent, with some good stuff in it, but cage had no charisma at all, & schrader and scorsese were pretty obviously out of ideas.

 

now, on the topic at hand...

 

this does not look like a good movie to me, for 3 reasons:

 

1) until he proves otherwise, i think scorsese lost his magic touch. he's a very good craftsman, but all his movies since around 94 are forgettable and/or derivative.

 

2) let's see, a huge budget, production problems, delays in the schedule; this sounds suspiciously like the story behind the worst movie he ever made, 'new york new york'. it was supposed to be a big budget mainstream hollywood hit, and it bombed horribly. and oh my god was that a bad movie. scorsese works best with his monetary back against the wall, not with huge studio backing. if he couldn't pull it off at his peak ('new york new york' was done in the same period as 'taxi driver', 'the last waltz' and 'raging bull'), i don't think there's any way he can pull it off with his career waning.

 

3) oscar buzz already. this is just so wrong for a martin scorsese movie. like hitchcock, welles, kubrick & a handful of others, his movies exist in a plane beyond the oscars, because his strengths don't cater to the academy's taste. if the oscar people like it, it will most likely suck.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

Neh. Bringing out the Dead was one of the best movies of that year.

THANK YOU.

<~~~~ Doesn't think Scorsese has lost anything movie-wise

[Guest godthedog]

all the elements were there in 'bringing out the dead', but it just didn't all click together. it was episodic and wandering, & the 'climax' was pretty underwhelming. it didn't matter to me that he couldn't save rose, i couldn't understand why the hell he euthanized patricia arquette's father, & 'rose' looking at him saying "it's not your fault" in arquette's voice was more of a lame trick than a compelling dramatic device. it just didn't come together like it should have, it felt like it needed a few revisions. at the time i loved it, & it's still a pretty good movie, but it won't go down as anything to be remembered.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

a lot of movies in 1999 won't be remembered, including some of the best ones.

[Guest godthedog]

a lot of movies in 1999 won't be remembered, including some of the best ones.

i was actually talking about scorsese's career, not movies of 1999. 'dead' isn't another 'taxi driver', 'raging bull', or 'goodfellas', it isn't even another 'after hours' or 'cape fear'.

 

and the best ones of a year do tend to be remembered.

 

being john malkovich, american beauty, fight club, the war zone, boys don't cry, magnolia, the blair witch project, the matrix, the insider

 

^all better than 'bringing out the dead'. when i think of 1999, those are the movies i think of. i have to struggle a bit to remember that 'dead' came out this same year.

[Guest Incandenza]

all the elements were there in 'bringing out the dead', but it just didn't all click together. it was episodic and wandering, & the 'climax' was pretty underwhelming. it didn't matter to me that he couldn't save rose, i couldn't understand why the hell he euthanized patricia arquette's father, & 'rose' looking at him saying "it's not your fault" in arquette's voice was more of a lame trick than a compelling dramatic device. it just didn't come together like it should have, it felt like it needed a few revisions. at the time i loved it, & it's still a pretty good movie, but it won't go down as anything to be remembered.

You're completely forgetting what a horrible actress Patricia Arquette is.

[Guest godthedog]

i kinda like arquette, & her acting was partly responsible for my favorite moment in that movie (the shot of both of them in the ambulance set to 'these are days' where they're smiling & arquette hits her head).

[Guest godthedog]

and i know this isn't the place for it, but since i have your attention:

 

i saw the video for 'god's away on business' on m2 today. it creeped me the fuck out, in the best possible way. is all his stuff like that?

[Guest Lethargic]

a lot of movies in 1999 won't be remembered, including some of the best ones.

i was actually talking about scorsese's career, not movies of 1999. 'dead' isn't another 'taxi driver', 'raging bull', or 'goodfellas', it isn't even another 'after hours' or 'cape fear'.

 

and the best ones of a year do tend to be remembered.

 

being john malkovich, american beauty, fight club, the war zone, boys don't cry, magnolia, the blair witch project, the matrix, the insider

 

^all better than 'bringing out the dead'. when i think of 1999, those are the movies i think of. i have to struggle a bit to remember that 'dead' came out this same year.

Hell, I think the South Park movie is my favorite movie from 1999.

[Guest C.H.U.D.]

being john malkovich, american beauty, fight club, the war zone, boys don't cry, magnolia, the blair witch project, the matrix, the insider

 

^all better than 'bringing out the dead'.  when i think of 1999, those are the movies i think of.  i have to struggle a bit to remember that 'dead' came out this same year.

All better? Well, maybe to you, but difference of opinion is what makes us individuals.

 

Personally, I don't think American Beauty, War Zone, Magnolia, Blair Witch and The Insider are nearly as good as Bringing out the Dead. But hey, that's just me.

[Guest Lethargic]

Well, I have a reason to see Gangs of New York. The Kill Bill trailer will be playing with it.

 

Of course, I still won't go to the theater, but it makes me think about it at least.

[Guest godthedog]

wow...'kill bill' is actually coming out?

[Guest MDH257]

I was hoping for next summer, but I've heard October. Which is aggrivating, since it's being shown at Cannes in May.

[Guest Lethargic]

I was hoping for next summer, but I've heard October. Which is aggrivating, since it's being shown at Cannes in May.

Yeah, it's October next year. I wasn't really too exicted about it until I saw Uma in that Game of Death outfit. I wanna see that movie yesterday now.

[Guest MDH257]

Okay, I saw Gangs of New York last night. I'm not sure what to think. It was certainly a spectacle and epic. It was really good, but you could tell he filmed five hours of movie and cut it to 2hrr. and 40 mn. It was weird. Things felt crammed, but not rushed. Maybe I need more time to think about it. As it is I give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

 

Daniel Day-Lewis deserves to be in the Best Actor catagory, it's his movie as much as it's Leo's.

[Guest C.H.U.D.]

I agree. While I enjoyed every aspect of the movie, it really is worth seeing for the perfomance of Daniel Day-Lewis alone. He was incredible, probably one of the best perfomances I have seen in years.

[Guest Lethargic]

Well so far the movie looks like it's gonna open up with a 4th place weekend behind LOTR, 2 Weeks Notice (which I had no idea even opened yet) and Main in Manhatten. So it doesn't appear to be much of the hit that people expected.

[Guest NaturalBornThriller4:20]

Only made 2.7 Million on Friday....

[Guest MDH257]

I think this movie was getting a lot of hype for awards. I don't honestly see how anyone could think this was going to be a huge crowd pleaser like Titanic.

 

I heard the budget was at least $100 million (the most expensive Miramax film ever). It might not make it's budget back, but it's going to stay in theaters through the spring and the awards season so it will have a chance to make some money.

 

Basically, I don't think box office is going to affect people's judgement of the movie.

[Guest godthedog]

looks like it'll be more of a steady, 'word-of-mouth' hit than a traditional one, cause everybody i've talked to wants to see it.

[Guest El Satanico]

I'd say that it will still make enough money to pay for it's budget. It may not happen quickly, but I'm sure it will cover the budget by time it ends it's run.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Saw it. Not very good. Scorsese has lost his magic touch; it's there in the prologue to the main film, which features a fantastic battle scene, but it's gone throughout. The one-on-one Caprio/Day-Lewis storyline is the only compelling one, and all this broad and vague stuff about the draft and riots and America's roots get thrown in there pretty haphazardly. Diaz is awful, and Daniel Day-Lewis is so frickin' great that everyone but maybe Jim Broadbent absolutely pales in his shadow. The film's also engineered in a way that it has a very unsatisfying conclusion, and not in just the "Oh, that's sad" way; the plot kind of derails and what exactly this film is supposed to say becomes really, really muddled.

 

It's interesting, but it's bloated and awkward, and lacking that visual punch and subtlety that all of Scorsese's great movies have. Better than a lot of crap out there, or at least more interesting because of wasted potential, but a disappointment.

 

I do want the Daniel Day-Lewis hat, though.

[Guest C.H.U.D.]

Saw it.  Not very good.  Scorsese has lost his magic touch

I wish people would learn to say "I didn't think it was very good, I think Scorsese has lost his magic touch", rather than speaking for everyone else.

 

As for it's box office performance, I don't think anyone expected it to be a huge hit. It will probably do better business when it opens wide on Wednesday (it only opened in 1500 theaters on Friday).

 

Speaking of box office, did you notice the HUGE drop for Star Trek: Nemesis? It dropped like 75%, grossing about $4.5 million in it's second week. I wouldn't be suprised if this is the last Trek movie.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I wish people would learn to say "I didn't think it was very good, I think Scorsese has lost his magic touch", rather than speaking for everyone else.

Well, I think that's kind of implicit in the nature of making a statement about any sort of art, Grandmasta CHUD. I certainly don't presume to think that everyone will see this film the same way I do, but I think the fact that I'm typing out how I react to the film constitutes a pretty clear opinion in and of itself. I'm only speaking for myself here.

 

Scorsese hasn't been magical for me since Goodfellas, and I wish he were, cause damned if I don't love this guy's peaks.

 

Also, that's a pretty big drop, even for a Star Trek movie. In recent history they've done big opening weekends, but I think Insurrection dropped about 60% and First Contact even less. Kaboom goeth the franchise.

[Guest Incandenza]

Avoiding all the retarded talk about box office numbers, I'll say that I think this is easily his best film since GoodFellas. It isn't up to par with that film, but it is still a powerful work, and a welcome return to form for Martin Scorsese, who's had a decade filled with none-too-thrilling peaks (Bringing Out the Dead) and very, very awful lows (Cape Fear. I HATED that movie). I'm even willing to overlook Cameron Diaz's traveling accent.

[Guest godthedog]

just got back from seeing it, and i thought it was GREAT. it took about an hour & a half for me to get into, but once i bought into the style & the characters it was incredible. totally different from scorsese's known style, made exactly like a mainstream movie would be made, but it's easily the best example of mainstream moviemaking i've seen in years. THAT is how a sweeping american epic should be made.

 

and when did diaz's accent falter? daniel-day lewis had some weak points & dicaprio went in and out of his (especially during the narration), but i never heard diaz slip.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

I loved Bringing Out the Dead, and haven't seen Cape Fear, so I don't know what was so bad about Scorsese's movies post-Goodfellas

[Guest godthedog]

I loved Bringing Out the Dead, and haven't seen Cape Fear, so I don't know what was so bad about Scorsese's movies post-Goodfellas

i wouldn't say "bad" so much as "less good." i actually love 'cape fear' to death, cause as a mainstream thriller with really dark undertones, it works amazingly well. as entertaining as 'casino' was, it was an exact ripoff of 'goodfellas' without the substance attached to the style. while i did like 'kundun', it's really really forgettable (cause i don't remember a single god damn thing about it). and i've already said my peace about 'dead'.

 

it isn't that he's started making total crap like coppola did, we elitists just keep hoping he has another classic, groundbreaking & great movie like 'goodfellas' or 'raging bull'. while it's hard to argue that 'gangs' is a groundbreaking movie, i do think it's a great movie. coming from someone who's liked all his post-'goodfellas' movies, it blows all the post-'goodfellas' movies away.

[Guest Banky]

Cape Fear was a very good thriller remake. DeNiro defintatly adapted to the role of Max Cady. There isn't much thinking involved for the movie, but it serves its purpose.

 

Bringing Out The dead is a mixed bag. Some aspects of the film were too far out there for while others were enjoyable. I can't say I enjoyed it to the effect of his other shows.

 

Gangs of New York was absolutely awesome. The blend of actual historical accounts with an intriguing storyline are hard to come by. Elements such as the conscription, and especially Uncle Tom's Cabin tickled me pink. The screenwriter knew about the times exceptionally well and incorporated it nicely into a mainstream-friendly movie. Wonderful!@