Cool News
8MM review
Before you head to the theater... exorcise your anger
about BATMAN AND ROBIN... Don’t carry it in the
theater with you, don’t wear it like a Purple Heart...
Let the scar tissue heal. Just go into this movie
expecting the director of FALLING DOWN, LOST
BOYS and THE CLIENT to deliver a pretty durn
good film.
8MM could have been a trip to the David Fincher
xerox machine. Joel could of hired Darius Khondji
as his cinematographer and Gary Wissner to ape the
look of Fincer’s SEVEN... but it was obvious to me
that while Joel was headed in a similar world of the
dark sewer of our reality... he did want to keep it in
reality.
Fincher’s SEVEN with it’s deep textures and glorius
filters and obtuse angles and sets was more of a
descent into madness. But reality was not (in my
opinion) a key issue with the film. Instead it felt like
a bit of a reinvention of a hardcore Film Noir shot in
color... and done right.
Now sure... this film could have painted a very
textured arty world to devour poor Nick Cage... But
that’s not what Schumacher went after. Instead it felt
that he was striving for the real world. When Cage is
in Miami... it didn’t feel like some sort of Hollywood
MIAMI... it looked like Miami (it was Miami too).
The world of sleaze that Cage’s character dives into
feels authentic and not overdone. It’s not very
glamorous. And I think this was instrumental in
telling this story.
We’re dealing with a normal All American P.I. The
type of guy that will cease the love-making process to
put his screaming baby to ease and to sleep. He’s a
regular joe. He’s clean cut, if he knocked on your
door you’d look at him and say, “Are you the
police?”
He’s investigating something... horrible. Now... it’s
real easy to just sort of blow this ‘ewwww that’s
horrible’ right on off, but let’s face it folks... We exist
in a world where Milk Cartons are cardboard
billboards for the missing. The runaways, the
kidnapped and the murdered.
There are untold thousands of missing people that we
never hear from again. Where do they go? How are
they found? Are they found? Alive? Dead? For
each of them... there is a file. There are investigators
and there are family members that just want to
know... anything.
Now I don’t have any ‘related story’ of how a snuff
film touched my life... THANK GOD. But just 7
blocks from my house a group of 4 girls were
massacred in a Yogurt Shop one night... not so long
ago... And they have never caught the killer/s. One of
the girls babysat my sister when she was young... I
knew her vaguely. But I can’t imagine spending my
days, weeks, months, years staring at a pretty
headshot from some Sears Portrait Studio.... next to
the Crime Scene photographs of... well... whatever
was done to her.
What does that do to a person? In SEVEN... well it
made Morgan Freeman a bit cold and calculating. It
made Brad Pitt... a bit angry. Well... in 8MM, a
character by the name of Max Hollywood says
something along the lines of “ya dance with the devil
long enough, you don’t change him, he changes you.”
When I lived up in North Texas, I had to help a fella
‘clean’ a deer. As a result... well BAMBI and
PREDATOR are a bit different for me to watch than
they were before.
But what if you spent months diving into an
investigation... you found the folks that did it... and
the proof was destroyed. What then? That’s a bit of
what 8MM is about. It also takes a look at the victim
side, the investigator’s side and the criminal’s side. I
like that.
Now, I don’t want you to think that I categorically
love this film. I don’t. I do have a few problems here
and there.... The main one being that I REALLY
think it was a bad idea to cast Bad Guy Actors as Bad
Guys in this film.
Sure... sometimes Bad Guys look like Charles
Manson and you can point and say “that’s a bad guy”.
But the type of film this is... that’s so anchored in the
real world... It needed to have that.... ‘ARLINGTON
ROAD’ angle where the bad guys look like....
suburbanites. The idea that these guys do evil
things... well it just didn’t disturb me cause well....
That guy is willing to kill whores with a shotgun....
that guy will feed his partner into a woodchipper and
that guy will torment the criminally insane to satisfy
his own sadistic urgings.
You know that the SECOND ya see them. And the
part that makes it all the worse is with the character of
MACHINE... they make it painfully obvious that evil
can look like a guy that takes care of his silver haired
mother.... just like Clark Kent.
The film feels like a good movie, and I think it is one.
It’s a bit darker than some will like... but hey... that’s
what it was attempting. The detective work is real
good (imho) and that... by itself was worth the price
of admission.
Good work Joel. Now imagine if you were to set
Batman in a universe where crime had significance.
Where deaths were felt and changed the course of
lives. Ultimately that’s the story you told in 8MM.
It’s what you did in FALLING DOWN. Batman is
no different. He’s a product of violence. Nick Cage
was affected by the violence he saw. It doesn’t have
to exist in a universe with giant statues and neon
lights and black rubber nipples.
Batman has a profound lack of humor, he’s the dark
knight. How often did you let Nick Cage laugh and
be cheerful... even when the investigation was over?
Not often. Crime has punishment even on those that
survive it.
8MM is an example of what Schumacher can do
when he wants to. I like this Schumacher, and I hope
he continues along this line a while. Choosing good
projects with good scripts.... casting solid actors and
making solid movies.
-
+ Expand All
-
I hated this movie because of what it could have been. The whole snuff angle was never played out. It was just left there. And what about all the dead bodies? No way in hell out heroic PI is going be able to just slip back into his old life. Damn, another wasted movie!
-
Cool! I was First Poster!
I feel I need to expand on my comments. I was really looking forward to this flick. I'm a fan of Cage's and the subject matter was not your everyday Hollywood fluff. I'm thinking cutting edge stuff, like the The Exorcist maybe. Films about snuff films are something Hollywood has flirted with, but never really embraced. The first problem I had was with the "snuff." The way Schumacher presented it was, well, just to nice. We didn't need to see a lot more then was shown, but I felt he really needed to explore the snuff film angle more. The "snuff" was not at all what we've been led to believe a snuff film is like, if they do exists. There was no sex involved at all. It was just a straight forward killing. The entire movie revolves around the porn industry, yet the snuff film has not a second of sex in it.
Then there is the investigation itself. Damn, I know there is some luck involved in all good investigations but come on. The diary in the water-closet is a long shot, but finding a suitcase of girl that went missing 7 years earlier on top of a shelf in a church that helps the homeless and downtrodden is out right stupid. I mean there wasn't even dust on it, let along 7 years worth of crap. I wish I could find a storage place so good!
Along the way a good number of people end up dead. Almost all of the bodies would be connected to Cage -
Cool! I was First Poster!
I feel I need to expand on my comments. I was really looking forward to this flick. I'm a fan of Cage's and the subject matter was not your everyday Hollywood fluff. I'm thinking cutting edge stuff, like the The Exorcist maybe. Films about snuff films are something Hollywood has flirted with, but never really embraced. The first problem I had was with the "snuff." The way Schumacher presented it was, well, just to nice. We didn't need to see a lot more then was shown, but I felt he really needed to explore the snuff film angle more. The "snuff" was not at all what we've been led to believe a snuff film is like, if they do exists. There was no sex involved at all. It was just a straight forward killing. The entire movie revolves around the porn industry, yet the snuff film has not a second of sex in it.
Then there is the investigation itself. Damn, I know there is some luck involved in all good investigations but come on. The diary in the water-closet is a long shot, but finding a suitcase of girl that went missing 7 years earlier on top of a shelf in a church that helps the homeless and downtrodden is out right stupid. I mean there wasn't even dust on it, let along 7 years worth of crap. I wish I could find a storage place so good!
Along the way a good number of people end up dead. Almost all of the bodies would be connected to Cage -
Hmm, I'm interested to see Harry finally making light of his relating in reviews, i.e. 'if I were in that position, Thin Red Line is my film', 'Fear And Loathing is just like my drug experience.' To be honest I think it goes too far lots of the time, but I suppose it's an interesting method. I just hope we don't get on May 21st, 'If I were a nine-year old living on Tatooine, this is my story...'
-
I wondered what Harry would think of this film compared to my impressions, especially after our violently differing views on Beloved. I find that our 8mm opinions are basically the same. I did, however, really like "the wood chipper guy" in this film. (a villain still, but a very different character) My problem with 8mm was the swing it took towards "action flick" towards the end, though there was good reason. People were going to get away with something and there was no way to prove they were guilty. I agree with Harry - if Batman had been more like this, it would have been a much more accurate portrayal of the character. Nice to know ol' Joel still has it in him.
-
The character is not Max Hollywood, but Max California.
---Dave -
Saw the movie last week at a packed theater near Chicago and was not overly impressed.
Weirdest thing I noticed was alot of parents brought their children along to this movie (WTF) then were so shocked they left half way through the show. Were they expecting a kindler gentler version of Seven?
Anyway, had to agree with the first poster that the repurcussions of the PI's action were never shown or even thought about (let's see, the lawyer of a recently dead tycoon found dead near a pornographer in New York also dead, tycoon's wife commits suicide, after depositing a large sum of money to two persons') You know, I can't see police seeing a connection here. This movie did have more glaring plotholes than Seven ever could muster despite being by the same writer. Oh well.
Truth was the movie was boring. The revelations were never that shocking and you knew Machine was going to turn out to be one of those guys who in high school took gym showers with his underwear on. The lamest part was when he begged the mother for permission to hurt the guys hard. Of course until this movie, I had always thought snuff films existed, now maybe the idea of killers making a record of their crimes makes me reconsider. And no I don't count faces of death. Live till you die. -
You know I had a similar reaction(WTF) when I saw kids not only at 8MM but at PAYBACK and VARSITY BLUES...I saw kids there ages 5,6,7 and sometimes even younger. I couldn't belive it. Here are moviies that are promoted as being about sex or violence and then parents acted shocked when the movies turn out to be that way. Sure I was shocked when I took my 9 y/o brother to see DR DOOLITTLE at vulgarity and innuendos in that movie, one desgined to be for children. But at least I know he wasn't going to act on language, like he MIGHT with violence. My girlfriend recently mentioned to me that she wouldn't have a problem taking her kids, if she had any, to see PAYBACK but would have a problem with ANTZ becasue the said the word "ass" and was desgined to be a children's movie. I couldn't belive I took my brother to see ANTZ andhe loved it and I didn't have a problem with the language in that movie. I wouldn't take him to see 8MM or PAYBACK or VARSITY BLUES. Something seems to be seriously wrong. Either the marketing isn't working and people aren't paying attention or something else is seriously fucked up with our society. I remember having to close my eyes during the sex in RISKY BUISNESS as a kid and during the more bloody parts of the Dirty Harry movies. I remember being sent out of the room during PLATTOON and PREDATOR. My folks wouldn't let me watch stuff then that is considered tame by today's standards. oh well there' snothingelse I can do about it but so I guess I should shut up huh?
-
Just saw this and loved it. So many issues were either addressed or touched upon. One that people haven't spoken about is very "Remains of the Day"ish. How do you react when someone who is a part of you, that you've known for a lifetime, is not what they seem? Could you truly cope, or would you do as Mrs. Christian?
I loved Machine's role in the film. I applauded his assertion that he is only what he is and there is no deeper meaning to what he does.
Personally, I didn't find the imagery or sexuality as shocking as I was prepared for. I, too, had a few issues.... Ok, I liked Machine, but how could a guy like that get through life with a tattoo so visible on his hand? Secondly, and this is just a fun "huh?" .... In the beginning of the movie, wasn't Nicholas Cage's house shown to be rather isolated, the last on a dead end street on the edge of a culvert or gorge? If I caught that correctly, why on earth did a mailman walk right past the house - where could he be going?
-
Mar 06, 1999 8:55:33 PM CST
Several specific reasons why this film failed to entertain.
by paul robinson
In a movie of this type, the engine that should have driven the plot forward *should* have been the crime itself --in this case 'the film'. But when the camera so obviously and artificially 'flinched', I immediately knew I'd be protected from those atrocities for the rest of the film. I wasn't going to be taken to the dark place that Seven took me to (though Seven's material was not dependent on voyeurism, as this film was).
The whole notion of the 'snuff film,' while repugnant, is that it is real, that the camera does not move away, and you see something horrible -horrible because of its authenticity. The crime should immediately set up a thirst for revenge in the audience, which keeps their bums firmly in their seats until the movie ends and the bad guys get it. In this movie, I didn't believe in the film and I certainly didn't believe Nick Cage's spastic reactions to it. From that point onward the movie begins to lose steam.
The middle act of the movie is basically a travelogue of the S&M world. I don't have an intimate first hand knowledge of this scene, but somehow I didn't believe in the representation of it on the screen. I was reminded of television Hollywood representations of punk rockers, decked out in huge blue hair and mega-jewellry, so unlike the real punkers and goths that I pass in the downtown. Somehow, this same feeling occured to me as this movie dug up the porn underworld.
Finally, the last act of the film turned into a pseudo action picture, but didn't succeed at that either. With several bad guys to kill, the one gut-wrenching scene (if you saw it, you know the one I'm talking about) occured far too early in the movie. The rest of the bad-guy mop-up, for the next 20 minutes, was really anti-climatic. The 'answers' are simply bad-guys, telling us in plain english (sometimes inexplicably), why they are the way they are. Schumaker doesn't trust the audience to 'get it' just from looking at Machine.
Where Seven was an intelligent movie, using metanarrative to chastise and play with the audience, with a postmodern awareness of the conventions of the serial killer flick, 8mm was just standard fare. When I left the theater I didn't feel like I had really gone anywhere. 8mm brought nothing new or interesting to this genre -with the exception of one well-done scene. Not a terrible movie, just not a particularly entertaining one. -
Now, personally, after reading this review, I'm kinda havin' second thoughts. Although it's
not the violence that bothers me, it's just the fact that I kinda have a limit of intensity. I still haven't gotten over that Rumble In The Bronx sequence with the wood-chopper & the black guy. It just.....eeeh, just bothers me.
Then again, I'm only 12. (yeah, a 12 year old who watches violent movies, go figure)
This film sounds like a pretty intense film. But, I still gotta see it. Eversince I saw Falling Down(which wasn't long ago), I've been able to forgive Joel for B&R.
Also, on the subject about the children going to see really violent films. Another example is ALIEN RESSURECTION. I went to see it(with my dad, of course), and about 90% of the audience was under 16. Hmm.....I don't think it's the marketing. I think it's the title. You see, some people DON'T watch TV (*gasp!*), and they see these films on instinct. They just goto the theater in the neighborhood, and see something. Usually if it's a group, they'll say "so, whadda wanna see?"
Like I said, when going to see Alien 4, I saw this mother and a 3 year old boy, and he said "I wanna see the ALIEEEEEEN!"
And the mother was like "all right! Let's go see the alien!"
I had to contain my giggling at that moment.
But wait, there's probably more.
I wonder how long until John Woo has 5 year olds coming home sayin' all the words, and then pointing TWO fake-guns (the index finger thing, I mean) instead of one. -
What will be interesting to see is if when Rodriguez makes his kids film, what kind of audience goes then?
-
I know this has nothing to do with "8mm," but I just had the radio on, and received shocking news: Stanley Kubrick is dead at the age of seventy!
-
The biggest problem with the flick for me
****SPOILER WARNING***
was the casting of
Anthony Heald as the lawyer, which is the instant giveaway that he's in on the snuff film...he's the Scooby-Doo level villian in anything I see (as cheesy as Anthony Zerbe!), so part of the plot is instantly ruined as soon as he shows up as a supposed "blank slate" character with unclear motivations. I won't even get into the silliness of some of scenarios, esp. guns/knives being knocked out of reach every 10 secs so you could have yet ANOTHER struggle to reach the weapon just in time. -
The best reason to see the movie, truth be told, is because James Gandolfini (Eddie Poole) is so sexy in a dirty, filthy way that I can't even explain it! He looks so good witha goatee & those evil sideburns..and then when he licks that gun...woo hoo! He's a GREAT actor to boot (Sopranoes rule! God bless HBO).
-
No actually I should be but I am just one of those rather unkown filmakers that he doesn't know. If he did, I'd be writing it in a second. Life just works that way I guess....wish he actually read this site...:)
-
It's guys like Schumacher that make Kubrick's death all the more tragic.
-
An earlier poster was right, the scene with the mailman delivering mail from the deadend side of the street was BS. So was the shot take from behind the shadowy figure following Cage in the street. For that shot to have been taken, the shadowy figure would have to have been suspend over the street 30 feet in the air. Also, the crap about "oops, dropped the gun, must crawl to get gun, oops dropped knife, must roll around with bad guy to get the knife, etc.etc." CRap crap crap....
-
This was a movie that almost was. Was it disturbing enough? Nope. They needed to go much further. Push the envelope that SEVEN set. Cage was most dissapointing. It was like he was reading from a script the whole movie. His overacting was annoying too. His initial reaction to the snuff film was laughable. Where the movie did succeed, was where the lead character got his revenge. Almost all movies have the lead character think better and turn the bad guys in. It was entertaining, but not as good as it could have been.
-
8MM Bleongs in that class of films that piss me off the most. The films that have genius lying just beneath the surface, but are ruined by bad acting, contrived and stupid scenes, horrid editing, and stuttered pacing.
8MM should have been great. The script was cool, the motivating force was darkly unique (not the death, but the is it or isn't it real aspect that should have been more at the forefront of the film), but then a number of factor intervened to kill it.
1.) The actress playing Nick Cage's wife was horrid. Not only was the acting bad, but her personality left one wondering why the hell Cage's character gave a damn.
2.) BAD BAD BAD Editing. Poor cuts to inappropriate angles, disjointed "flow" of images, strangled pacing, starts and stops of annoying regularity. Just plain bad. Hard to articulate how off the editing was. Feels like a film where they cut the real film, then took all the outtakes and alternate takes and slapped them together to make a second film and released the second.
3.) Overly "clean" evil. In an industry with as dark and nasty little corners as the porn industry has; this was the best 8MM could do? Nothing here was terribly shocking, just a lot of naked flesh. And we are never given enough viewing time of the "snuff" film(s) to become truly horrified. You can't have your principal motivating force happen entirely off screen (unless your making a spy/paranoia flick), especially when that force is a VISUAL.
4.) Overdone, flamboyant, hell, even funny villans. Only the producer character was REAL (the guy from the Sopranoes). All the others were playing cardboard character bad guys from the 70's "Captain America" movies.
5.) And lastly, unbeleiveable "emotional" moments between Cage and the girl's mother (the actress who played the mother was excellant, but Cage seemed stoned in all his scenes with her). Especially the "do I have your persmission" scene. Which totally destroyed any shred of remaining suspension of disbelief.
6.) Lastly, what makes it all the worse is the one GREAT scene in the film. The death of the producer. A cool "Mad Max" style scene. Should have been the end of the film. Machine should have died of the gut wound.
Just my $1.50 (inflation) -
Does it show sophistication if you hate every movie that you see? It must be a miserable existence to spend your entire movie going experience trying to find the parts of the movie that are unrealistic. I mean, do you like ANY movies? I'm not saying anyone should like 8mm, necessarily, but some of you all talk like it's the worst piece of film making ever (which it can't be). Go watch your lame Bladerunner director's cuts (man, now that's an unrealistic movie, but let's not try and poke any wholes in it).
-
I agree with much of what has been said here: 8mm was okay but not great. It's funny, but after all of the buzz about how upsetting "the film" is, I was frankly surprised by its relative tameness. It is handled in a "Psycho" way--we see the knife picked up, we see Machine head toward the girl, then we see blood. No nudity, no shots of actual violence; it's merely implied. Moreover, at several points the camera cuts AWAY from the film to show Nick Cage's horrified reaction--a reaction I found I didn't share. While I'm no sicko, and I know that implied violence can be particularly powerful (like "Psycho"), I found it a poor choice for this flick. The point of the movie is that the killing of the girl is so realistic that both Nick and the Mrs. Christian want desperately to believe that it's fake, and neither can cope when the truth is revealed. Schumacher pulled his punches in the first reel, and the rest of the movie suffered as a result.
-
First off I'd like to say I don't think anyone who has commented here has any inkling about pornography. Watching it does not make one automatically understand it.
The problem with 8mm (not MM) is in the script and has nothing to do with Schumacher. When Paul Schrader went to the bowels of Hollywood for a year or so and came out with his Calvinist upbrining in tatters - he at least had enough to make HARDCORE as believable as 90% of it is. Morally he was confused and it showed.
Andrew Kevin Walker appears to be a middle class poser who wouldn't know inhumanity if it came up and sodomised him.
The film aims for high pretension and collapses under its own weight of preposterous art direction and the like. Everyone is woefully miscast and then to have them try to deliver the clangers Walker has written - it's no wonder the film is devoied of tension, reason or any semblance of logic.
Why would a character who knows the score (MAx) walk into an underground distribution network and say something as banal as "por favor - Snuff????" I mean give me a fucking break! The script if full of these little gems - the tracking down of the killers is from Pluto. Harry you're way off here.... 750,000 missing girls with brown hair... Cage finds her like that. He doesn't even go to one wrong address!
Did Walker ever talk to anyone in the business? Andrew Vachss should have been a consultant. The Phil Prince story would have been the ticket. This film is what is so wrong with Hollywood. They take subject matter like SNUFF and try to make a dark yet morally correct feel good flick out of it. Don't tackle the subject matter if you can't represent it with purity.
We could not stop laughing at all the things wrong with this film - the genius Walker - needs to go back to Syd Field 101 and ask for his money back. The guy consistently writes shitty scripts. RED WHITE AND BLUE ugh... 8mm ugh... Fincher made SEVEN what it was... he was so assured and commanding behind the camera, the glaring inconsistencies in Walkers mess of a script were overlooked.
I'm hoping someone will write a massive and detailed rubbishing of this flick on JABOOTU's website.
Anyone who finds this drivel disturbing needs to come with me on a visit to the darkside.
Watch KISS THE GIRLS GOODBYE (not the Freeman flick) and see what 8mm should have been.
Please no more unsolicited hype about Walker - the guy cannot write. Period. Anyone who thinks so needs to read more scripts. I've read over 500 so no pointers thanks.
Over and out
Hairy Reems -
that the lawyer handed Cage early on, not an 8mm can. It was pretty much downhill from there. The goofballs who made this train wreck made every possible mistake that could be made. The script opened up plot holes so wide the entire company could walk through broadside. The pornographer dialed 13 numbers, not the 11 that showed up on Cage's gizmo. Did it never occur to Cage that the snuff guy might be just a little cautious about two guys from nowhere showing up the day after the alarming phone call, wanting to have a custom porno made, using the EXACT SAME KILLER IN THE SNUFF FILM? I guess it was just me. Are the police so stupid as to ignore the mounting pile of bodies coast to coast, all related. How exactly does one explain the rear window shot out of a rental car? If you can't shoot one bad guy because it the ballistics might be traced to you, why is it okay to shoot another one with the same gun? Or maybe it's not the same gun. He dropped it so many times perhaps he picked up another by mistake. If the nun remembered the girl's name, WHY DIDN'T SHE BOTHER TO LOOK HER UP ON THE MISSING CHILD DATABASE? I used to date a model who got made at me when I didn't recognize her face in newspaper ads, although I had photographed her thousands of times. How, then, is Cage able to find one average brunette white girl in a database of millions? Immediately. First one. Boy is the FBI dumb. Buenos dias, compadre, tiene snuff film? How stupid can you get? May I have your permission to BEAT THESE GUYS TO DEATH? Please! This movie was offensive, not because the subject matter was offensive, but because everyone connected with it was so utterly stupid.
-
As with many of the posts I too had to see 8mm with people who brought thier little kids. It seems like every time I see an R rated movie some idiots bring children like it's no big deal. With theaters getting louder and louder, young children are frightened by the noise then start to cry and yell. I really think there needs to be an age limit on R rated movies even if they are with a gaurdian. I am glad I am not the only one that is getting aggrevated by these idiot parents.
-
Was the ending changed? I heard Cage explicitly requested that it be altered (and it was). Does anyone know the original ending? If so, post it here and email me a copy too, I'd be interested in reading it, because from what I understand it was a little more on the Se7en side of the writer's history. Thanks!
-
The main problem is not the bodies that piled up during Tom's tour through the porn world. Yes, bodies can be disposed of. It's that those bodies are going to be missed. Max will be missed at the porn shop. The cops get a call, "hey, my best clerk has gone missing. A PI flew him out to New York and he never came back." Eddie Poole will be missed. He had lots of porn movies in the production stage I'm sure. I'm sure one of the "actresses" in the waiting room of Eddie's fine office will remember a man walking through like he was a little bit upset at fine ol' Eddie. A quick check of the phone records will show Eddie received a call from a cell phone belonging to a Tom Welles. Dino will be missed. Let's see, a man comes to see Dino, Dino goes missing. What did that man look like? Well what do you know, he looked a lot like a PI named Tom Welles. Longdale will be missed the most. What was Longdale working on at the time he went missing. Well lets see, he had gone out to that old rich womans house, you know the one that killed herself. Cops go to the house, ask the butler, any one been round here lately? "Why yes, a man named Tom came out and visited with Longdale and the Mrs. right before he left and we never saw him again". A quick check of records will show calls, and payments to one Tom Welles, a PI. Yeah, I could see how all those bodies would be overlooked and good ol' Tom would live happily ever after.
-
During the opening week of 8MM in San Francisco, The Castro made no mistake in screening a brand new print (that
-
I saw it on video last night and you know I thought it was OK.
I'm last , I'm last, I'm last -
I know it came out quite a while ago but I was deterred from watching it by an endless barrage of poor reviews. Having just watched it on satellite TV, I have to say that I think it is a brave challenging film to come from the mainstream for the mainstream and that it is a very competent thriller and thought provoking moral dilemma poser. BUT, Nic Cage (who I love as an actor) is surely woefully miscast here. He has the same haunted look on his adorable puppy-dog eyes from start to finish! The excellent Gandolfini is given little more than a nasy bastard caricature and Fargo's Stormare is just a few steps away from a Pantomime psycho. And has Cage's wife (Keener) really got nothinbg other to do than spend an entire movie glued to the phone with a mournful look in her eyes? And as for the itchy cute baby Cinderella...ugh! Come on Schmacher couldn't hAVE MADE MORE OF A DISTINCTION between good and evil if he had put Bambi versus Texas Chainsaw Massacre on at a passing cinema!!
-
I hate 8mm because it is the only movie that made me want to leave a cinema.
It is not the disgusting "Snuff" topic but it is the way Mr. Joel " I have ruined Batman" Schuhmacher deals with that theme
that made me almost puke.
First of all, and thats an ethical question:
" Should someone make a very average thriller, with that old-fashioned revenge, good versus evil attitude about "Snuff-films" no matter if those Snuff movies really exist or not? I don't think so( but thats only my opinion).
But now to the movie itself.
When you investigate in such a awful crimes as rape, murder and torture exclusively performed to make a video for perverts, where would you look to find information?
Nick Cage goes to the first dirty porn shop and gets into a world of ugly perversion.
Is this a very subtle campaign against pornography?
I have been in a pornshop once or twice (only for investigating reasons of course lol) and you would not find criminal things there and I do not think it is much different in the USA.
The second reason I hate the movie is the revenge part.
Just when you thought the nightmare is over Cage starts his " Iam gonna get them all, dead or alive-Tour" which is dramatugically totally misplaced.
That "Kill them all" attitude -
Orcus, you are Satan himself, so I have no doubt in my mind that this is not a coincidence but in fact the work of your lesser imps and goblins. For what apocolyptic reasons, I don't know, but I warn you now, the truth is out, flee you bastard!
-
Yep.
-
Preachy, stupid bullshit. "Ooh, ooh, look, I look just like your neighbor, ooh, ooh, the evil that men do, ooh, ooh." And the "snuff" reel itself... give me a break. Even Faces of Death had more realistic scenes.
-
Jun 12, 2006 12:29:58 PM CDT
By the way, I suspect that would've been the review now
by jackpumpkinhead
I guess the AICN audience was more "innocent" in 99, or whatnot. That's actually why I searched for it now, to see the past reactions. Still, it's damn disappointing that it got so much praise. Especially since it's just a stupid ripoff of ""Hardcore"
-
Oct 01, 2011 9:04:45 PM CDT
Wow saintofkillers is still ranting. Looks like Orcus' work is done
by orcus
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Quint sees some DJANGO UNCHAINED footage at CANNES!!! -- 290 total posts 285 posts
- A Fire Definitely Rises In The New DARK KNIGHT RISES One Sheet!! -- 202 total posts 201 posts
- Tom Cruise Saddles Up For A Remake Of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN!! -- 102 total posts 100 posts
- Mark Millar Offers Some Interesting Insight Into The KICK-ASS Movie Sequel!! -- 77 total posts 77 posts
- "Some Men Are Coming To Kill Us. We're Going To Kill Them First." Teaser To SKYFALL! -- 245 total posts 77 posts
- "I Don't Remember An Episode." The Teaser For THE MASTER Is Here!! -- 146 total posts 65 posts
- Charlize Theron thinks it is pretty badass to be in a Ridley Scott Space Movie! PROMETHEUS featurette -- 86 total posts 61 posts
- When there’s no more room in Hell The Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day will walk the earth. -- 48 total posts 48 posts
- When there’s no more room in Hell The Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day will walk the earth. -- 48 total posts 48 posts
- Is Official!! BREAKING BAD’s Final Season Begins In Under Two Months!! -- 48 total posts 48 posts