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09-14-2001, 05:06 PM
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#1 of 25 
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wow i just saw blow. AMAZING
This movie brought me to tears, it was truly great imho
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09-14-2001, 05:11 PM
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#2 of 25
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I thoght it was pretty good too with the last final drug deal both suprising intense. Thumbs up manolo.
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09-15-2001, 09:07 AM
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#3 of 25
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Sounds good - I'll have to rent this...
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He thought on homeland, the big timber, the air thin and chill all the year long. Tulip poplars so big through the trunk they put you in mind of locomotives set on end. He thought of getting home and building him a cabin on Cold Mountain so high that not a soul but the nighthawks passing across the clouds in autumn could hear his sad cry. Of living a life so quiet he would not need ears. And if Ada would go with him, there might be the hope, so far off in the distance he did not even really see it, that in time his despair might be honed off to a point so fine and thin that it would be nearly the same as vanishing.
-- Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
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09-15-2001, 10:13 AM
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#4 of 25
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Todd, what exactly do you think made this movie great? I'm just curious because I hated it and I will explain what I didn't like.
First, I couldn't sympathize with the protagonist. His story wasn't interesting in me. Was I supposed to feel sorry for a low-life criminal who was such a fuck up? His daughter didn't want anything to do with him and he chose a low-life for his spouse.
Second, the movie lulled between drug deals. Nothing of any interest was going on. I felt like this movie tried to be GoodFellas and Scarface but actually failed in its weak attempts. Both of the aforementioned had plenty of story during the arc of the character while Blow did not.
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[Edited last by Tom_G on September 15, 2001 at 10:14 AM] |
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09-15-2001, 10:29 AM
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#5 of 25
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I think I will give it a rent see what I think.
Regards,
Ricky
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Please help convince Warner to release Stephen King's IT On DVD
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/...ML/003344.html
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09-15-2001, 12:49 PM
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#6 of 25
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A terrible movie.
A Scorsese ripoff, through and through, with the same narrative template as Goodfellas/Casino, but without one whit of soul or artistry. Completely by-the-numbers and completely boring, it's the stiffest and least compelling gangster tale yet offered by any of the Marty-lites that have been polluting the theaters with their bland, derivative retreads over the past five years.
Ray Liotta, who plays Dep's father and unfortunately serves as a constant reminder of a much better film, looks much more like his brother in the early scenes. In one scene, he even manages to look like Dep's younger brother. Until, that is, the horrendous age makeup is applied...
And this is easily the worst makeup I've seen since the awful For the Boys. Ray Liotta's old man look is simply ridiculous. But it doesn't even come close to the absurd "fatpack" that Dep wears throughout the final scenes. Same skinny ass and bony face, but he looks like he's wearing a quarterback's flakjacket or an overstuffed fannypack underneath his billowy button-up. There's simply nothing at all convincing about it. The shot of him walking with his daughter had us rolling. In that scene, the film finally went from excruciatingly awful to hilariously so... and Dep's presence then recalled thoughts of the master-hack, Ed Wood.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Rachel Griffith's portrayal of Dep's mother is the single worst performance I've seen in years. Completely unbearable.
But to give credit where it's due, Paul Reubens managed to make his character (which is, on paper, merely another bad cliche) into something surprisingly interesting and almost real despite its campy excessiveness. But that's small solace in a film this lousy. Dep, too, manages a convincing Boston accent and invokes a few true emotions, but it simply can't save this film.
I've avoided most of the stinkers from this past year, but this one takes the place of Town & Country on my worst list. Flat, uninspired, and thoroughly hokey, this is the Battlefield Earth of Scorsese ripoffs.
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09-15-2001, 12:57 PM
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#7 of 25
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One more thing...
The ending made me sick. We're supposed to believe that the main character is a real mensch who loves his daughter to death and would do anything for her. That he's just a loveable fuck-up who deserves our sympathy.
So we live him in prison, pining away for his daughter's love. The final text on the screen reads (paraphrasing): "To this day, George Jung's daughter has still not bothered to visit her father".
It has the effect of completely demonizing this poor girl, turning her into a shrew like the mother. Which, I suppose, might be tolerable to some if this film was in anyway true. But, apparently, it's a massive 'snow job'. In truth, he's just another asshole in it for the money - his family and daughter be damned - but then the film actually demonizes his daughter?
Fucking bullshit!
According to Edelstein at SLATE.com, here's the real scoop:
Quote:
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Normally, Slate devotes a separate column to the ways in which historical movies hold or depart from facts, but no critique of Blow can ignore the astonishing ways in which events have been altered to turn its protagonist into a man of high moral principle and capacious soul. Jung skipped bail on his first arrest (agents intercepted 660 pounds of marijuana) because he didn't want to go to prison, not because he needed to tend to the cancer-ridden love of his life. (The Love Story angle is a howl when you know it's pure fantasy—Porter reports that Jung was apprehended at the Playboy Club putting the moves on a Britt Ekland look-alike.) In the movie, George is brought up short when a steely Colombian (Dan Ferro) asks a pilot charged with flying drugs for photos of his family and addresses of his children's schools, but we learn from Porter it was George who routinely obtained that information. The real Jung didn't retire from the business in disgust when his partner, Carlos Lehder (here called Diego Delgado), double-crossed him: He planned an assassination and only called it off when Colombians warned of a Mafia-style war. The movie's George spends years devoting himself to his little girl and is arrested (ironically!) when his wife insists on throwing him a birthday party at which his ex-associates (and their drugs) are present. The real George was nabbed by an undercover agent after bringing 50 kilos of cocaine into the county. And what about the scene in which his hysterical wife calls him a "faggot," forces his car off the road, then screams to the arriving police that George is a cocaine fugitive—one of the most florid pieces of male victimization ever filmed? Her betrayal might have seemed less monstrous if scripted the way it happened, with Jung walloping his wife in the face and breaking her nose.
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09-15-2001, 01:49 PM
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#8 of 25
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Just because someone chose the wrong path does not mean they are a bad person for it. I in no way condone drug use, nor am GOD to decide who is evil and who isn't. But many sources claim he did love his daughter and missed her dearly.
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09-15-2001, 02:43 PM
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#9 of 25
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Well, I'm gonna reprint my mini-review from this thread:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/...ML/029038.html
quote:
I'm sure others will see it differently, but this movie just struck me as one big, badly done Scorsese homage. Freeze frames, split screens, obscure 60's/70's/80's songs, voiceover narration, Ray Liotta...it's all been done before and done better. Even Rachel Griffiths looks like a dead ringer--physcially and vocally--for Lorraine Bracco from GoodFellas.
I'm not saying Ted Demme used GoodFellas and Casino exclusively, but he sure as hell used it as a template. The point the movie makes is one that has been done to death (crime/drugs eventually destroy your life) and I can't say anything new was brought to the table. And I dare you to find one moment in the film where you DIDN'T want to strangle Penelope Cruz; her performance may be the worst I've seen this year.
Depp was great as always, and Paul Reubens stole the show, but it's too little to warrant a recommendation. There are some interesting moments, but those are few and far between. Only towards the last five minutes did I give a damn about Depp's character, and even then it was fleeting. I will admit that final photo that closes out the film was quite scary and disturbing.  [/quote]
(Oh, and Al Brown is completely right: Bruce Porter's book on Jung is a very different and infinitely superior experience.)
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Have you ever noticed anyone driving slower than you is an idiot? And anyone driving faster than you is a maniac!! - George Carlin
ICQ: 55259446 (or just search for "John Shaft"...can you dig?)
[Edited last by Kevin Leonard on September 15, 2001 at 02:44 PM] |
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09-15-2001, 06:08 PM
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#10 of 25
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The Slate.com article really shows how with some truth, this could have been a really good movie. This wasn't just a case of changing some detail to make it more dramatically interesting, this was almost a canonization of a drug smuggler (Watch the interview footage of the real George | |
