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A look at FOUR FEATHERS!!! Possibly the Best Film of... 2002'
Harry here, I love the original film FOUR FEATHERS, but I've been looking forward to Shekhar Kapur's run at the flick. We've seen tiny, oh so tiny teaser footage, but the film has been long in the pipeline (much like GANGS OF NEW YORK) but this is definitely one to keep your eye on!
Hey Harry - I went to a test screening tonight of Shekhar Kapur's "Four
Feathers" and it was best movie I saw this year, last year, and the year
before that. Out of my uttmost respect for the film and it's filmmakers, I'm
not going to tell you anything about plot - other than I thought it was
amazing.
Wes Bently is brilliant - this is the best he's ever been - better
than American Beauty - I'm almost certain he'll be up for supporting actor.
Heath Ledger is perfect too - his pretty boy look doesn't get in the way of
how awesome he is in this movie.
Djimon Hounsou is better than in Amistad.
The weakest off all of them is Kate Hudson - and she is very good. Robert
Richardson is the DP (oliver stone's films, horse whisperer, snow falling on
ceders), and this is the most amazingly beautiful movie since Kundun. The
script is pitch perfect as well, and although it was temp music, the "feel"
of each piece of music used felt perfect with the "feel" of the scene. At 2
hours and 20 minutes it was perfectly paced. The only complaint I had about
it was that it has a silly "graduation speech in the finale of a teen flick."
It's too bad that this totally original film leaves us with this one very
cliche thing - and that's what the audience will walk away thinking about.
Other than that one moment of the film, it was practically perfect. I am not
particularly a war-movie fan, and I'm a harsh critic on them, but this one
is definitley different than most. Mostly because it's not a war film, it's
about a man's journey to prove himself (among many things), with war as the
backdrop. I LOVE this film! (and I'd love to intern on the post production
of this film - eh? eh? Mr. Kapur?)
AKASoze
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+ Expand All
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If we don't know squat about the plot, how do we know if it's a movie to watch?
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He's called Glyn and he's a bit of a prick- thought you should all know
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If it's such a great movie, some details about the actual story would have been appreciated.
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The report sounds promising. I am so glad that Paramount and Miramax have not fucked it all up with all the usual studio bullshit and instead have backed a solid cast and diretor with a decent budget. I love Scorsese, but the trailer for GONY was underwhelming and didn't exactly get me excited, I hope that I won't be disappointed.
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You had me interested until you mentioned that pointless and completely shallow exercise in blind praise called "Kundun". Its funny how a review is tainted or gathers credibility when you learn what else the reviewer thinks of as quality. In this case it almost makes me want to skip it. I'll have to learn more.
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A British officer resigns his post just before battle and subsequently receives four white feathers from his friends and fiancee as symbols of what they believe to be his cowardice.
(I got this from the IMDB) -
Since Hollywood seems to be in the process of remaking every single goddamned film ever produced, it was only a matter of time before they "re-imagined" this minor classic. Here's hoping it doesn't suck. Heath Ledger isn't a piece of crap, but he has yet to prove himself as a star. Maybe this will do it. God knows First Knight didn't.
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Jan 23, 2002 8:15:29 AM CST
funny how he can lavish so much praise on a film without actuall
by jon l. ander
I heard the studio were meddling in this one because Kapur was making the romantic aspect to bleak, and also they wanted to be able to get a teen friendly certificate so they were trying to cut the battle scenes. Hate to sound pessesmistic because i love the story and i rate Shekar Kapur pretty damn highly.
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This review just yells "I'm a fuckin' PLANT!!" right into your face. Wes Bentley is cool, though ... seen 'Ride with the devil'? What a performance!
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Wes Bentley was not in Ride with the Devil! You got him mixed up with Tobey Maguire!
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Heath Ledger wasn't in First Knight, either. He was in A Knight's Tale. Unless you mean Richard Gere, though I don't see how Richard Gere's performance could prove a then-unknown Australian is a good actor. Maybe you meant Julia Ormond. Man, she's hot!
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Sure! Why not? Let's start talking best film of 2002 right now in the first month of the new year. Heaven knows ludicrous hype has never hurt a film on this site.
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I went to a test screening of Four Feathers late fall. I have rarely seen such a horrible film. Pacing that crawls along, lousy acting minus Honsu and heavy handed storytelling. If this is what Harry thinks could be the best movie of 2002 then we are in for a really shitty year at the movies.
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Don't you think so? :)
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Every year stupid phrases arise in pop language, but 2001 saw one of the stupidest of them all. Unfortunately, "pitch perfect" seems to be spreading like an ugly virus. As far as I can tell, it originated with Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times and has been used by Stephen Holden of the New York Times, and now AKAsoze has latched onto it. "Pitch perfect" is a stupid meaningless nonsensical phrase that has been carried along on its alliterative power alone, with no substance supporting it. It seems to be a mulish hybrid of "pitch black" and "perfect pitch," but leeched of all meaning. "Pitch black" (or "pitch dark") makes sense because pitch actually is inherently black. Therefore, comparing something's blackness to that of pitch is metaphorically legitimate. Pitch has no inherent perfection, though, so comparing something's perfection to it carries no meaning. The fact that certain musicians have perfect pitch is a comment not on pitch but on the musicians. The very fact that these musicians' pitch has to be modified by "perfect" underscores that the pitch itself is not perfect. Phrases like "pitch perfect" arise from sloppy thinking and the instinct of the hack writer to run with a phrase that sounds good, despite its foolish, stupid emptiness. They're picked up and proliferated by persons for whom sloppy thinking would be an improvement. Spitting into the wind like this is so thankless and vain, but the rampant meaninglessness of which "pitch perfect" is prominently symptomatic makes me nuts. Do you disagree? Suit yourself.
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Jan 23, 2002 11:29:38 AM CST
Interesting, and I thought Wes Bentley was Spider-Man...
by aronld scazziger
... hell I got mixed up on that. And why? 'Cause all these up-and-cummin' megastarz are so interchangeable. We need sum new Charakters out there. Perhaps Knoxville will save us all.
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Which is a shame. And I guess he was confusing Ride with the Devil and The Claim, which is understandable since both are vaguely westerns. Still sloppy though. I am sceptical of anything with quite such a pretty cast, and worried by Kate Hudson doing an accent, because I was one of the unfortunate few who saw that film About Adam, or whatever the hell it was called. Her Dublin accent is right up there with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
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As long as Elijah Wood's not in it and Peter Jackson didn't direct it and they don't cut to bad digital crowd shots every ten minutes, I'm there!
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Jan 23, 2002 12:09:46 PM CST
sutureself, thank you for your analysis was "pitch perfect".
by deputydoofus
...I think you're right. Kenneth Turan is perhaps dyslexic and Stephen Holden is a leech. I'm happy that I have heard a satisfying explanation to demystify one of trendious review words of the past year. The popularity of the phrase is really nonsensical; how could someone think pitch defined perfect? Again, I greatly appreciate your commentary.
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I'm pretty sure that this is just another remake of the same Four Feathers story, of which there's been 4 or 5. This is not a "totally original film". Go rent the 1939 version with C. Aubrey Smith, directed by Zoltan Korda. That's not the original either, but I'd bet it's better than Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson. Jane Duprez beats out Kate Hudson easily, 24/7.
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Impostor? Snow Dogs? Whoever the hell this person is, it's a plant. This film has a less than stellar production history and I certainly wouldn't put it past Miramax (I think they're distributing this)to try and get some phony buzz going. Best of 2002? Come back in 12 months and we'll talk.
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"I saw a trailer for the new movie Apocalypse Now starring Jason Biggs from American Pie II, Freddie Prinze Jr and Matthew Lillard from Scoobie Doo, and Britney Spears from Crossroads. I'm not going to spoil the plot of this amazingly original movie, which I have the utmost respect for, except to say it is AMAZING! Easily the best movie of 1865, 1902, or 2004, when it will be released. Jason Biggs is SO good, it is his best performance ever. Prinze and Lillard are great. Prinze has that pretty-boy thing going but it didn't spoil his acting. Lillard is even better than his performance in 13 Ghosts. And Britney Spears is SO HOT! We're going to be hearing more about her, mark my words. The movie was directed by the DP of Freddy Got Fingered, and is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, even more than The Gods Must Be Crazy III: Pepsi Strikes Back.
It's too bad that this totally original film leaves us with this one very cliche thing - and that's what the audience will walk away thinking about - a speech by Kurtz where he tells Willard that the biggest problem in the Universe is that nobody is willing to help anybody out. Other than that one moment of the film, it was practically perfect. I'm a harsh critic on road movies, but that's irrelevant because this is a war movie. Mostly it's about a man's journey to prove himself (among many things), with war as the backdrop. I LOVE this film the MOST! (and I'd love to shill for this film - eh? eh? Mr. Paul Anderson?)"
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This has got nothing to do with the four feathers I admit.But can anyone out there tell me how to access , the * Beginning of the End* Hidden speacial feature/easter egg on the Memento Dvd?????.I've tried everything I can think of, and it's driving me bonkers!.Ta
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Just out of curiosity, what precautions DOES Harry take to avoid being taken in by reviews sent him by studio shills? Does he only take reviews from people he knows personally? Might be worth a short article by Harry.
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It is really kind of pathetic that a movie studio will do this. It's even more pathetic to see Harry put this on his site and hype it even more. Totally Original!! Only been re-made 4 or 5 times! Oh, and am I the only one that thinks people that put the web addresses of their own sites in their subject lines is fucking retarded? www.yourmomsucksdonkeycock.com
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It ends with a graduation scene? What the hell? This doesn't sound like "Four Feathers" to me. Oh, and to Redbox and his (or her) point about "Kundun." Watch it again, this is not a pretenious film. It is an experiment, a very brave one at that, but Scorsese made a very personal film that mirrored his own coming to understand the Buddhists' belief and the character of a man, a child, who has this thrust upon him. It is in a way a romantic film, but showy it is not. It is very beautiful and if you can't say that is, even if the subject matter was not your tastes, I'd like to know what films you do think are beautiful. Whatever. We are all entitled to our opinions...
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Enjoyed the rant about the phrase "pitch perfect", although I have no idea if you are right or not. I find it hard to believe it originated with Kenneth Turan. Furthermore, the phrase might have nothing to do with perfect pitch or pitch black, pitch dark, etc. Pitch would not be the first word with multiple meanings. That said, I loved the rant, and like I said, you might be right. As for this Best of 2002 hype... the last time I heard this kind of premature hype bullshit was last year when this site posted reviews of a movie that was suppossed to be the Best of 2001, and suppossedly would have been the Best of 2000, had it come out that year. The movie was "Blow", and the hype would prove to be one of the biggest "blown calls" I've ever seen on AICN, and that is saying something, since I've seen a lot. Did "Blow" make one critic's top ten list? Even the title of the movie proved to be somewhat self prophesying.
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Jan 23, 2002 1:34:58 PM CST
When my penis is flacid, and I stand over a mirror, it kind of l
by boris grushenko
Serious, the resemblence is uncanny.
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I saw a screening of this film many months ago. While it was quite good, it was excessively long. I don't mean Braveheart long. I mean Bible long. It reached the point where I stopped caring for the characters and actually hoped they die, so the movie could end. I really hope they chopped a lot out for the theatrical release. I did really like this, but it was just too damn long. It's called editing people. Trim footage and stick it on the DVD. Though, I am afraid its longness also had a lot to do with pacing. It film moves slowly, which combined with a lot of footage, makes for a long film. I really hoped they were able to trim the film well. Otherwise, it will not be well received by audiences. This was a good film, but definately in need of merciless trimming
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To begin with, the writer throws out a red herring when he (I'm going to assume it is a "he" because I can't picture a woman writing it) talks about "pitch black." The term "pitch perfect" has nothing to do with tar-pitch, and the writer should know it. So to rant about blackness, or the perfection of tar-pitch is completely irrelevant. It would make just as much sense (probably more) to suggest that "perfect pitch" is akin to Sandy Koufax breaking off a wicked left hook after throwing two straight 100-mph fastballs.
As used by Kenneth Turan, the term "pitch perfect" is derived from the music lexicon. In music, it denotes a performer whose pitch--i.e. the "highness or lowness of sound"-- is "right on the mark." A musician whose performance is "pitch perfect" is a musician who never hits a "sour note." I assume the reviewer intended to refer to an exquisite performance by an actor. He might have said that the actor was "right on target," a phrase undoubtedly borrowed from the sport of archery. He could also have said that the performance was "letter perfect," a phrase that is found in Webster's dictionary. This, however, connotes a slightly different feeling--a performer who "hits all the marks," but perhaps is a little on the mechanical side.
One of the wondrous things about the English language (as opposed to French, for example), is that we welcome new uses of the language with open arms. We don't cut off our lexicon at a particular time, but allow it to adapt. There are times, of course, when the adaptation is tiresome (such as the over use of "like" by some speakers), or irksome (such as the use of "I'm all" to as a universal introductory phrase to a segment of dialog), or simply vulgar (such as the overuse of the "f" word as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb several times in the same sentence). But there are times when the adaptation is pleasant, because it avoids repeating old clich -
If you are going to use the phrase "pitch-perfect" it should be presented with a hyphen as shown in order to show that you are referencing them together. "Pitch perfect" suggests that the pitch is perfect and that pitch is an object not a description. That's not an official rule or anything, it's just how our silly language works according to grammarists (twits that they are). Now, as far as editing goes, I hate to break hearts but editing has very little to do with length of a movie but everything to do with pacing. The length is up to the director and/or producer, it is up to the editor to get it to that length given guidelines set by aforementioned producer or director. For example, a director wants the movie to come in at around 2 hours, but wants specific scenes to move quicker then others. He tells his lead editor that he wants scene A to be quick cuts between four actors with no one shot lasting longer then four seconds. This is in order to establish urgency in the conversation. Later, however, he wants a different conversation between the same characters to show how relaxed they are, so the scenes are longer, there are hardly any cuts whatsoever. He (editor) may use two-shots or four-shots to establish comraderie and a relaxed atmosphere whereas before it was all one-shots. He is establishing the pacing and the psychology of the scene. Walter Murich suggested that our emotions are triggered to our eyes blinking, if we are angry we blink more, if we are calm we have more time in between blinks. He thinks film should be cut in a similar way in order to suggest the mood of a scene. While it is true that a good editor should be able to cut ten minutes out of any film, it is not his final decision. That belongs to the director/producer or whoever has final cut priveleges. So, never blame the editor for a long movie, but you can blame him for a poorly paced one (actually, blame him and the director, but it's one area where the editor can have say).
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I think the guy's great, but that technique gets a little wearing after a while.
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Well....it does!
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..i read that the beginning to end feature is only available on the canadian dvd..dont know which version you have..hope this helps
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this might be off topic, but on the upcoming movie Resident Evils homepage (http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/residentevil/) they actually have links to fan reviews on AINT IT COOL NEWS. now why some people might be patting themselves on the back, harry and co., it seems to me that this was the whole point of people fearing plants. Some Joe Schmoe writes a ridiculously positive review, next thing you know it pops up on the Resident Evil official page. Doesn't this seem slightly sinister? is it just me? i'm outta this place, peace out
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***Although Canada is a region 1 Disc, this next Egg can ONLY be found on the Canadian Disc.***
On the main menu, just to the right of "Set up", there is a selection which looks like it's been crossed out. Highlight it and press enter. You'll find an amusing little note from Mr. Shelby and an alternate scene index which puts the scenes in "Chronological" order. Unfortunately, it wont let you play the whole movie in this new order, just one scene at a time. Lame, but I knew the "Program" function on DVD players had to be good for something eventually! -
Since we're talking about a Miramax film, I think it's safe to assume this will sit on the shelf for at least another year, while Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein tries to mold it into a classic on the level of his own masterpiece, PLAYING FOR KEEPS.
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I came across that link as well. It's fucking creepy.
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Jan 23, 2002 5:10:00 PM CST
I just TTT and it was so good I am not going to tell you about i
by mrcere
The plot was amazing, the actors will all get nominated for awards and this film was just awesome. I have written you to tell you that I cannot tell you anything about it.
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the backwards (or is it forwards?) option is indeed on the Canadian DVD, but that's the ONLY extra we get. Apparently Americans get the original short story, interviews, etc. We get the film scenes put in chronological order (without a "play all" option...and the black and white intercuts are all grouped at the beginning). Still a good movie, though. "Maybe your whore of a wife sucked one too many diseased cocks and gave herself a venereal disease!"
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you might want to try something less obvious than saying the new Kate Hudson/Heath Ledger movie is the best movie, like, ever. Just a suggestion. Hugs and kisses!
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four feathers....oh gee i am so excited......wait no i am not
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Thanks everyone who posted to help with that problem.I was under the impression that it was the USA version , that had no extras{apart from the trailer} The Brit version at least has some extras: A tatoo gallery , showing pics of the *remember Sammy Jenkins* tattoos and their original artwork designs. An Interview with the director{30mins } The original short story*Memento Mori*{Which is kind of the same , but with a different angle to the same subject}, The original shooting script and some cast bios.For the first time ever it sounds like a Region2 DVD got the better deal.Usually it's the other way round.Mind you , it seems criminal , that this movie didn't get a directors commentary.Stuff like Cats N Dogs gets one, and Memento doesn't .What sort of sick twisted world are we living in?
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This review must be a plant because I have also seen this film and, while mildly entertaining, it is by no means great. The script by Michael Schiffer WAS great until Kapur and Hossein Amini rewrote it, exchanging excitement for melodrama. The film has some good action scenes, but there are so many drawn-out moments of people crying and (rather awkwardly) sharing their feelings that, ultimately, it feels as if Oprah Winfrey directed the thing. Why does Hollywood mess up so many good scripts?!
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"We're ventriloquists"
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My Bently look-a-like is Welsh. If yours is Scottish then maybe there's a pattern here. Maybe Wes is the American version. Glyns of the world unite.
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Yes, this film is soooooo original that it is a REMAKE. For God sake don't believe everything you read!!
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Would that be the same length as a piece of string, or possibly as many peas as there are in a pod? No matter. Just a quick word, Herr Guzman Fan, there is no phrase 'pitch perfect'. Sorry, but there just isn't. Don't blame me, that's just the way it is. Perfect Pitch (or Absolute Pitch - which is the correct phrase, btw) is related to the ability to identify a note on the musical scale with no reference note. Look it up. It's real easy. Use the bloody internet ferchrissake. But please don't burden us with your unenlighted, yet superbly immodest reflections on how good a column writer you are. I must admit a certain surprise that scribbling on one's manhood could be judged gainful employment. Just don't get me started on 'pitch black'. There is a world elsewhere...
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(with a hyphen) DOES exist, and has for a long time. GuzmanFan summed it up very well. How long it's been around exactly I don't know. "Pitch Perfect" (without the hyphen) on the other hand is just two words strung together. Just because you idiots don't use a phrase, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than
are dreamt of in your philosophy." 'N Sync sucks. -
PJM, I most humbly apologise. Can't hang about, got to go tell the guys at the O.E.D. that they're wrong. Have a good weekend. There is a world elsewhere...
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Where? OED can kiss my {this portion has been deleted to protect the innocent}. Just kidding, I don't really care either way...
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