BLASPHEMY!
Score was godly in this brilliant movie.
I'm surprised this movie is so polarizing. A friend of mine thought it was one of the worst movies he ever seen, and we generally like the same kind of stuff.
BLASPHEMY!
Score was godly in this brilliant movie.
I'm surprised this movie is so polarizing. A friend of mine thought it was one of the worst movies he ever seen, and we generally like the same kind of stuff.
Some people have the patience for the amount of build up this movie took. From about "session 2" I had the remainder of the movie all figured out so it was sit back and watch the story I wrote in my head unfold.
The audio was obnoxious because they used the "make the noise louder, louder, louder, deafening... and silence" way too often.
Jurassic World - 2/10
WTF did I just watch? It was horrible. HORRIBLE. I give it 2 stars only because of the dinosaur roars cranked through the sound system kept my wife awake upstairs Did I mention it was horrible? Even as a popcorn flick it sucked. Ugh. This was almost as bad as Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls. At least I didn't care too much for the JP franchise. Chris Pratt, whom I have loved since S1 of P&R couldn't even save this.
Thank you, I thought the story was awful and the CGI was laughable at times (Motorcycle scene). Don't know why people like it so much.
Thank you, I thought the story was awful and the CGI was laughable at times (Motorcycle scene). Don't know why people like it so much.
Since Hollywood loves doing movies in two's (period biopic about genius English scientist):
Imitation Game - 8/10
Theory of Everything - 7/10
Life of the Party (1920) 9/10 Attorney Algernon Leary (Fatty Arbuckle), "pure milk" candidate for mayor, attends a party for grown-ups dressed as children. Going home in a blizzard, he is robbed of his fur coat leaving him bare legged wearing rompers. He takes refuge in the first building he can reach, creating havoc in various apartments due to his appearance. He blunders into the rival candidate (Frank Campeau) in a compromising situation with a vamp and forces him to withdraw, ensuring Leary's election as mayor after a whirlwind campaign
September 5, 1921, Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and, despite suffering from second degree burns to both buttocks from an accident on set, drove to San Francisco with two friends, Lowell Sherman (an actor/director) and cameraman Fred Fischbach. The three checked into three rooms: 1219 (Arbuckle and Fischbach), 1220 (empty), and 1221 (Sherman) at the St. Francis Hotel. They had rented 1220 as a party room and invited several women to the suite.
During the carousing, a 30-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe was found seriously ill in room 1219 and was examined by the hotel doctor, who concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication and gave her morphine to calm her. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident.[2]
Virginia Rappe suffered from chronic cystitis,[16] a condition that liquor irritated dramatically. Her heavy drinking habits and the poor quality of the era's bootleg alcohol could leave her in severe physical distress. She developed a reputation for over-imbibing at parties, then drunkenly tearing at her clothes from the resulting physical pain. But by the time of the St. Francis Hotel party, her reproductive health was a greater concern. She had undergone several abortions in the space of a few years, the quality of care she received for such procedures was probably substandard, and she was preparing to undergo another (or, more likely, had recently done so) as a result of being impregnated by her boyfriend, director Henry Lehrman.[2][17]
At the hospital, Rappe's companion at the party, Bambina Maude Delmont, told Rappe's doctor that Arbuckle had raped her friend. The doctor examined Rappe but found no evidence of rape. Rappe died one day after her hospitalization of peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder. Delmont then told police that Arbuckle raped Rappe, and the police concluded that the impact Arbuckle's overweight body had on Rappe eventually caused her bladder to rupture.[2] Rappe's manager Al Semnacker (at a later press conference) accused Arbuckle of using a piece of ice to simulate sex with her, which led to the injuries.[18] By the time the story was reported in newspapers, the object had evolved into being a Coca-Cola or champagne bottle, instead of a piece of ice. In fact, witnesses testified that Arbuckle rubbed the ice on Rappe's stomach to ease her abdominal pain. Arbuckle denied any wrongdoing. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle's attorneys.[19]
Arbuckle's trial was a major media event; exaggerated and sensationalized stories ran in William Randolph Hearst's nationwide newspaper chain. The story was fueled by yellow journalism, with the newspapers portraying him as a gross lecher who used his weight to overpower innocent girls. In reality, Arbuckle was a good-natured man who was so shy with women that he was regarded by those who knew him as: "the most chaste man in pictures".[3] Hearst was gratified by the Arbuckle scandal, and later said that it had "sold more newspapers than any event since the sinking of the RMS Lusitania."[20] The resulting scandal destroyed Arbuckle's career and his personal life. Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death, while studio executives ordered Arbuckle's industry friends and fellow actors (whose careers they controlled) not to publicly speak up for him. Charles Chaplin, who was in England at the time, told reporters that he could not believe Roscoe Arbuckle had anything to do with Virginia Rappe's death; having known Arbuckle since they both worked at Keystone in 1914, Chaplin "knew Roscoe to be a genial, easy-going type who would not harm a fly."[21] Buster Keaton reportedly did make one public statement in support of Arbuckle's innocence which earned him a mild reprimand from the studio where he worked. Film actor William S. Hart, who had never met or worked with Arbuckle, made a number of damaging public statements in which he presumed that Arbuckle was guilty. Arbuckle later wrote a premise for a film parodying Hart as a thief, bully and wife beater which Keaton purchased from him. Keaton both directed and starred in The Frozen North, the resulting film, and Hart refused to speak to him for many years.[22][23]
The prosecutor, San Francisco District Attorney Matthew Brady, an intensely ambitious man who planned to run for governor, made public pronouncements of Arbuckle's guilt and pressured witnesses to make false statements. Brady at first used Delmont as his star witness during the indictment hearing.[2] Although the judge threatened Brady with dismissal of the case, Brady refused to allow Delmont, the only witness accusing Arbuckle, to take the stand and testify. Delmont had a long criminal record with multiple convictions for racketeering, bigamy, fraud, and extortion, and allegedly was making a living by luring men into compromising positions and capturing them in photographs, to be used as evidence in divorce proceedings.[24] The defense had also obtained a letter from Delmont admitting to a plan to extort payment from Arbuckle. In view of Delmont's constantly changing story, her testimony would have ended any chance of going to trial. Ultimately, the judge found no evidence of rape. After hearing testimony from one of the party guests, Zey Prevon, that Rappe told her "Roscoe hurt me" on her deathbed, the judge decided that Arbuckle could be charged with first-degree murder. Brady had originally planned to seek the death penalty. The charge was later reduced to manslaughter.[2]
The first trial
On September 17, 1921, Arbuckle was arrested and arraigned on the charges of manslaughter, but arranged bail after nearly three weeks in jail. The trial began November 14, 1921, in the city courthouse in San Francisco.[2] Arbuckle's defense lawyer was Gavin McNab. The principal witness was Ms. Zey Prevon, a guest at the party.[25] At the beginning of the trial Arbuckle told his already-estranged wife, Minta Durfee, that he did not harm Rappe; she believed him and appeared regularly in the courtroom to support him. Public feeling was so negative that she was later shot at while entering the courthouse.[20]
Brady's first witnesses during the trial included Betty Campbell, a model, who attended the September 5 party and testified that she saw Arbuckle with a smile on his face hours after the alleged rape occurred; Grace Hultson, a local nurse who testified it was very likely that Arbuckle did rape Rappe and bruise her body in the process; and Dr. Edward Heinrich, a local criminologist who claimed he found Arbuckle's fingerprints smeared with Rappe's blood on room 1219's bathroom door. Dr. Arthur Beardslee, the hotel doctor, testified that an external force seemed to have damaged the bladder. During cross-examination, Betty Campbell, however, revealed that Brady threatened to charge her with perjury if she did not testify against Arbuckle. Dr. Heinrich's claim to have found fingerprints was cast into doubt after McNab produced the St. Francis hotel maid, who testified that she had cleaned the room before the investigation even took place and did not find any blood on the bathroom door. Dr. Beardslee admitted that Rappe had never mentioned being assaulted while he was treating her. McNab was furthermore able to get Nurse Hultson to admit that the rupture of Rappe's bladder could very well have been a result of cancer, and that the bruises on her body could also have been a result of the heavy jewelry she was wearing that evening.[2] During the defense stage of the trial, McNab called various pathology experts who testified that while Rappe's bladder had ruptured, there was evidence of chronic inflammation and no evidence of any pathological changes preceding the rupture; in other words, there was no external cause for the rupture.[citation needed]
On November 28, Arbuckle testified as the defense's final witness. Arbuckle was simple, direct, and unflustered in both direct and cross examination. In his testimony, Arbuckle claimed that Rappe (whom he testified that he had known for five or six years) came into the party room (1220) around noon that day, and that some time afterward Mae Taub (daughter-in-law of Billy Sunday) asked him for a ride into town, so he went to his room (1219) to change his clothes and discovered Rappe in the bathroom and vomiting in the toilet. Arbuckle then claimed Rappe told him she felt ill and asked to lie down, and that he carried her into the bedroom and asked a few of the party guests to help treat her. When Arbuckle and a few of the guests re-entered the room, they found Rappe on the floor near the bed tearing at her clothing and going into violent convulsions. To calm Rappe down, they placed her in a bathtub of cool water. Arbuckle and Fischbach then took her to room 1227 and called the hotel manager and doctor. After the doctor declared that Rappe was just drunk, Arbuckle then drove Taub to town.
During the whole trial, the prosecution presented medical descriptions of Rappe's bladder as evidence that she had an illness. In his testimony, Arbuckle denied he had any knowledge of Rappe's illness. During cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Leo Friedman aggressively grilled Arbuckle that he refused to call a doctor when he found Rappe sick, and argued that he refused to do so because he knew of Rappe's illness and saw a perfect opportunity to rape and kill her. Arbuckle calmly maintained that he never physically hurt or sexually assaulted Rappe in any way during the September 5 party, and he also claimed that he never made any inappropriate sexual advances against any woman in his life. After over two weeks of testimony with 60 prosecution and defense witnesses, including 18 doctors who testified about Rappe's illness, the defense rested. On December 4, 1921, the jury returned five days later deadlocked after nearly 44 hours of deliberation with a 10–2 not guilty verdict, and a mistrial was declared.[2]
Arbuckle's attorneys later concentrated their attention on one woman named Helen Hubbard who had told jurors that she would vote guilty "until hell freezes over". She refused to look at the exhibits or read the trial transcripts, having made up her mind in the courtroom. Hubbard's husband was a lawyer who did business with the D.A.'s office,[26] and expressed surprise that she was not challenged when selected for the jury pool. While much attention was paid to Hubbard after the trial, some other jury members felt Arbuckle guilty but not beyond a reasonable doubt, and various jurors joined Hubbard in voting to convict, including – repeatedly at the end – Thomas Kilkenny. Arbuckle researcher Joan Myers describes the political climate and the media attention to the presence of women on juries (which had only been legal for four years at the time), and how Arbuckle's defense immediately singled out Hubbard as a villain; Myers also records Hubbard's account of the jury foreman August Fritze's attempts to bully her into changing her vote. While Hubbard offered explanations on her vote whenever challenged, Kilkenny remained silent and quickly faded from the media spotlight after the trial ended.[27]
The second trial
The second trial began January 11, 1922, with a new jury, but with the same legal defense and prosecution as well as the same presiding judge. The same evidence was presented, but this time one of the witnesses, Zey Prevon, testified that Brady had forced her to lie. Another witness who testified during the first trial, a former security guard named Jesse Norgard, who worked at Culver Studios where Arbuckle worked, testified that Arbuckle had once shown up at the studio and offered him a cash bribe in exchange for the key to Rappe's dressing room. The comedian supposedly said he wanted it to play a joke on the actress. Norgard said he refused to give him the key. During cross-examination, Norgard's testimony was called into question when he was revealed to be an ex-convict who was currently charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, and who was also looking for a sentence reduction from Brady in exchange for his testimony. Further, in contrast to the first trial, Rappe's history of promiscuity and heavy drinking was detailed. The second trial also discredited some major evidence such as the identification of Arbuckle's fingerprints on the hotel bedroom door: Heinrich took back his earlier testimony from the first trial and testified that the fingerprint evidence was likely faked. The defense was so convinced of an acquittal that Arbuckle was not called to testify. Arbuckle's lawyer, McNab, made no closing argument to the jury. However, some jurors interpreted the refusal to let Arbuckle testify as a sign of guilt. After over 40 hours of deliberation, the jury returned February 3, deadlocked with a 10–2 guilty verdict, resulting in another mistrial.[2]
The third trial
By the time of the third trial, Arbuckle's films had been banned, and newspapers had been filled for the past seven months with stories of alleged Hollywood orgies, murder, and sexual perversion. Delmont was touring the country giving one-woman shows as "The woman who signed the murder charge against Arbuckle", and lecturing on the evils of Hollywood.
The third trial began March 13, 1922, and this time the defense took no chances. McNab took an aggressive defense, completely tearing apart the prosecution's case with long and aggressive examination and cross-examination of each witness. McNab also managed to get in still more evidence about Virginia Rappe's lurid past and medical history. Another hole in the prosecution's case was opened because Zey Prevon, a key witness, was out of the country after fleeing police custody and unable to testify.[2] As with the first trial, Arbuckle testified as the final witness and again maintained his denials in his heartfelt testimony about his version of the events at the hotel party. During closing statements, McNab reviewed how flawed the case was against Arbuckle from the very start and how District Attorney Brady fell for the outlandish charges of Maude Delmont, whom McNab described as "the complaining witness who never witnessed". The jury began deliberations April 12, and it took only six minutes to return with a unanimous not guilty verdict—five of those minutes were spent writing a formal statement of apology to Arbuckle for putting him through the ordeal; a dramatic move in American justice. The jury statement as read by the jury foreman stated:
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him. We feel also that it was only our plain duty to give him this exoneration, under the evidence, for there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and woman who have sat listening for thirty-one days to evidence, that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.
After the reading of the apology statement, the jury foreman personally handed the statement to Arbuckle who kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life. Then, one by one, the entire 12-person jury plus the two jury alternates walked up to Arbuckle's defense table where they shook his hand and/or embraced and personally apologized to him. The entire jury even proudly posed in a photo op with Arbuckle for photographers after the verdict and apology.
Some experts later concluded that Rappe's bladder might also have ruptured as a result of an abortion she might have had a short time before the September 5 party. Rappe's organs had been destroyed and it was now impossible to test for pregnancy. Because alcohol was consumed at the party, Arbuckle was forced to plead guilty to one count of violating the Volstead Act, and had to pay a $500 fine. At the time of his acquittal, Arbuckle owed over $700,000 (equivalent to approximately $9,862,624 in 2015 dollars[1]) in legal fees to his attorneys for the three criminal trials, and he was forced to sell his house and all of his cars to pay some of the debt.[2]
Although he had been cleared of all criminal charges, the scandal and trials had greatly damaged his popularity among the general public, and Will H. Hays, who served as the head of the newly formed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) Hollywood censor board, cited Arbuckle as an example of the poor morals in Hollywood. On April 18, 1922, six days after Arbuckle's acquittal, Hays banned Roscoe Arbuckle from ever working in U.S. movies again. He had also requested that all showings and bookings of Arbuckle films be canceled, and exhibitors complied. In December of the same year, under public pressure, Hays elected to lift the ban, but Arbuckle was still unable to secure work as an actor.[2] Most exhibitors still declined to show Arbuckle's films, several of which now have no copies known to have survived intact. One of Arbuckle's feature-length films known to survive is Leap Year, which Paramount declined to release in the United States due to the scandal.[28] It was eventually released in Europe.[29] With Arbuckle's films now banned, in March 1922, Buster Keaton signed an agreement to give Arbuckle 35 percent of all future profits from his company, Buster Keaton Productions, to ease his financial situation.[23]
Hatchet (2006) - 5/10
Lots of blood, boobs, and lame humor.
Fatty was huge in his time (pun intended.) He had a dramatic (and undeserved) fall from grace, though. It's a fascinating story . . . well, at least to me!
Admit it. You peeked! :biggrin:
I peaked but...
It's been all downhill from there?
About that era? Irl, yeah, AG Palmer and his red squad went nuts under the Sediton Act. On the screen? Buster Keaton is almost criminally under appreciated. He was THE MAN!
Beasts of No Nation (Netflix): 9.5/10
Just finished this tonight after beginning it last night. I think what struck me the most. It was just such a scene(s) that could've been in Black Hawk Dawn, or Platoon, or Saving Private Ryan... but these were f'ing little KIDS. It was just such an incredibly discordant scene to me and it really hit home I guess.was when Agu, after seeing Strika's wound, proceeds to prop Strika up on his back and haul him along. Pretty much from that point until they cover him with the banana leaves
Now I'm going to have to read the book. As far as I've read, the author hasn't had any personal experience as a child soldier but man, the movie seems quite realistic with a lot of small details. Anyway, a good story and incredible acting by Idris Elba and Abraham Attah (Agu); highly recommended.
Band of Brothers 10/10: I haven't watched it since it was released in 2001, but I rewatched it over the past 2 weeks. Small part documentary, mostly drama about World war 2. It's the best TV show I have ever watched and I can't recommend it enough. It's brutal at times and it nearly had me in tears by the end.
Band of Brothers 10/10: I haven't watched it since it was released in 2001, but I rewatched it over the past 2 weeks. Small part documentary, mostly drama about World war 2. It's the best TV show I have ever watched and I can't recommend it enough. It's brutal at times and it nearly had me in tears by the end.
I'm not sure I'd say it's the best show I've watched, but it certainly ranks as one of the most memorable in a VERY good way. Exceptionally done, great acting, great sets, great costumes...
The Pacific on the other hand, I just cannot get into. I can barely remember who is who. Maybe it gets better as it goes on, but I just can't get very far into it.