the long, subdued, nearly action-free "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"

Hey, if Dylan can appear in a Billy the Kid story...

yeah, NC wrote the score w/ Warren Ellis, but just sings in his one scene. Dylan actually "acted."

also, THIS movie kinda wants to be that one, only less "Seventies."

i kinda want to see this! roger deakins means it will look v v pretty

very brown, amber and wintry blue.

If you're determined to see this, go now, cuz the per-screen averages are not encouraging.

I want to see this, but it's already gone here. :(

Saw this on Sunday, like it a lot. Here's what I said on the Chicago thread:

Why Jesse James movie is good:
1) Casey Affleck is amazing in it
2) Cinematography is also amazing, courtesy of Roger Deakins, especially the opening train robbery sequence
3) It is long, but I think it works because you get lulled into the rhythms of the movie - that is, it is slow-paced with not much action and some weird stylistic choices but you kind of get into it after an hour or so, and the last half-hour is great
4) Brad Pitt, while slightly unbelievable as Jesse James, is pretty good and is an inspired casting choice given that the whole movie is basically about the relationship between celebrities and fans
5) Lots of good character actors in it, like Sam Rockwell and the creepy dude from Deadwood who murdered those prostitutes
6) Score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

Sam Rockwell and Paul Schneider (the David Gordon Green guy) were fine. Affleck too, but de Niro did it better in The King of Comedy.

Mostly disposable narration. As for the star-worshipping/slaying thing, no All About Eve by a long shot.

For all the dialogue they lifted straight from the novel, the line they couldn't was JJ's "I'm a no-good, I ain't Jesus," cuz Jesse mostly IS Jesus in the movie.

The narration was a little weird. Not so much the content, but the voice. Not very authoratative or narrator-y. Bothered me at the beginning, got used to it after a while.

it's malick-y!!

i liked some moments a lot. but man it was too long.

i actually dug the narration.

In that Australian director's dreams, it was malick-y.

Stephanie Zacharek called the narration "Books on Tape."

ya i kinda liked that about it.

It didn't seem that long or slow to me, I guess I was "engrossed."

the quotation marks suggest you are using that word as a euphemism for something.

it's a euphemism for engorged

Saw this on Tuesday.

too many shots of hands brushing wheat in a field. otherwise pretty good. Casey Affleck does twisted and disturbing rather well.

i think this was my favorite movie i saw in the theater in 2007

maybe the most heavy-handed film i saw in the theater in 2007

looking forward to seeing this on dvd in a month

i probably ruined it by hyping it, i think the reason i liked it so much was that i went in with few expectations

I loved it, by the end. Not just because of Zooey Deschanel's charming turn.

Andrew Dominik said he was more thinking about Barry Lyndon than Malick when he was making it.

if only those thoughts translated into anything onscreen.

No one saw 3:10 to Yuma? Not much more involving.

Whole less than sum of parts, for me. Great acting, cinematography, music, but it didn't really engage my sympathies or interest and I grew increasingly bored as it went on. And the LOTR III trick of extending what should have been a short coda into a whole extra chapter was especially frustrating.

(xp - i'm talkin about jesse james not 3.10 to yuma)

i thought the coda was the best part of the movie.

i want to see 3:10 to Yuma, just came out on dvd huh

And the LOTR III trick of extending what should have been a short coda into a whole extra chapter

This section was drastically shortened from the novel. Since the story is actually about Ford, doesn't really make sense.

Yeah, saw it last night. Russell Crowe is quite excellent; so is an unrecognizable Peter Fonda. I was surprised and gratified by the high body count. Mangold is no fun at shooting action sequences: they lack fluidity or continuity. The unsurprising surprise ending is a botch too.

No, I never saw the original.

(xpost)

i thought the coda was the best part of the movie.

you could be right; it was certainly necessary, and provided a refreshing counterpoint - but by that point i felt i'd been there long enough and god would you hurry up and finish already!

Keeping the coda and lopping 1/2 hour of the main movie would have made sense.

or just rescreening The King of Comedy

3:10 to Yuma was fun, but it doesn't seem like these movies have much in common besides being westerns? 3:10tY was an actiony trad western w/maybe better acting etc. than it needed.

morbs, do you actually have anything substantive to say about this movie other than that it's "heavy-handed"? i see upthread you use your standard trope of comparing the movie unfavorably to another from 50 years ago that has a vaguely similar theme, which is as retarded an argument as it always is

I grew increasingly interested as it went on, but there is no reason why it couldn't have been longer - and as you say about the coda is a lot more interesting than its running time suggests. Casey Affleck was terrific I thought, though partially due to looking enough like Ben in places for me to turn against him - making him thoroughly unsympathetic even when I started feeling for him.

Who'd want to be a woman in this picture though! (Clearly filming on the Weeds backlot)

self xpost, nevermind, who cares

xxp: yeah, but I don't write long things for ILX for obvious reasons persons. Eat it.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/movie_review/the-assassination-of-jesse-james-by-the-coward-robert-ford.htm

i took the bait :(

or just read Manohla Dargis, ie, let's turn another psycho killer into Jesus.

Qu’est ce que c'est?

Unpopular opinion of the year: Casey was better in Gone Baby Gone.

Movie's as pretty as its lead actors, but ultimately hollow.

I second that afflecktion.

yeah, i don't know about that. there's at least a subtheme about pop culture and mass behavior, though i too am at least skeptical about how much they intended that to get over.

pretty decent movie, though. and i was maybe more impressed by pitt than affleck - where people just surprised that the bro could act?

where

i cant believe i didnt post on this thread. i liked this movie a lot....but, and this probably sets me apart from almost every other person ever, i kinda wish there was MORE narration from the ken burns guy and less acting and talking. i like the literary conceit, the sense of someone sitting down and telling you a story.

don't need a movie for that.

this is pretty fkn boring tbh

is that james carville? wtf.

The shamelessness with which this movie rips off Malick was infuriating.

I got "interviewed" for a local publication (more of a "complete the sentence" thing) and I said I could watch this repeatedly. What won't make print is that my girlfriend likes to fall asleep with a quiet movie on, and this one has been it for a long time. Not my favorite film, but it's really tranquil, even in the violence, with the exception of the scene where Pitt is railing on that kid for information.

this film is like the cinematic equivalent of that guy phosphorescent - all earnest and croaky and 'old timey'

this is pretty fkn boring tbh

OTM.

Also, fucking impossible to work out what anyone was saying half the time.

The shamelessness with which this movie rips off Malick was infuriating.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, June 15, 2009 5:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm not sure in what universe ripping off Terrence Malick is a bad thing.

no? how about just mangling his tropes?

his tropes? i suppose they're both about societyazzawhole, but one's just about celebrity and the other's about life, the universe and everything, no?

ya what tropes and mangled how?

i wasn't NUTS about this movie but i kinda got into its slow groove

i like the narration too.

"Trope" doesn't mean what people think it means.

it means testicles

I loved this movie on first viewing, though I think it just caught me right when I was in the perfect mood for it. I watched it again with my wife and didn't love it quite as much but would still consider it one of my faves for 2007.

is it as dull as dead man?

yeah me too--i dug it a lot. casey affleck was surprisingly great and brad was ok, too

it's not as good as dead man

doesn't really have anything to do with it tho

sort of like cricket and baseball are entirely different sports

only, with movies

the fact is i can get into any boring movie about life and shit if its shot as well as this one was

i watched like half of this on TV last weekend, no real clue what it was about but it was really pretty

That's how I feel about most Malick.

max i believe it's about the assassination of jesse james by robert ford, who some say is not the most courageous dude around

the fact is i can get into any boring movie about life and shit if its shot as well as this one was

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, June 16, 2009 2:43 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too kinda, i like long slow burn type movies. not every movie has to be as action-packed as star trek, dr morbius!

Still not sure what's up with the head-on view of the train shot, although the shot with lights coming through the woods before it is pretty great.

this is pretty fkn boring tbh

OTM.

Also, fucking impossible to work out what anyone was saying half the time.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 16 June 2009 09:15 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Thirded, if they were trying to explore the relationship between between James and Ford then they did a poor job, which is a shame because the story has so much potential, much scope for drama and tension but it largely failed to exploit this.

actually as long as this doesn't have a sound track by neil young i think i'll be ok w/it

you're in luck, it's by neil diamond

Nick Cave + Warren Ellis. xp oh now you've made me look boring.

not every movie has to be as action-packed as star trek, dr morbius!

hahahahaaaaa

This is one of the great american folk tales, famous in song and penny dreadfuls the films seems like such a missed opportunity.

jesus christ - why not throw in a couple of will oldham tracks while they're at it

This is one of the great american folk tales, famous in song and penny dreadfuls the films seems like such a missed opportunity.

yeah it could have been as good as

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Young_guns.jpg/200px-Young_guns.jpg

xpost Especially when there is the fantastic Bruce Springsteen version of the Seegar collected ballad from a few years back.

now that's a soundtrack right there

xpost

WTF this movie wasn't even boring, there was tons of tension and intrigue.

This is one of the great american folk tales, famous in song and penny dreadfuls the films seems like such a missed opportunity.

yeah but the movie makers made it the way they wanted to, they didn't view the material in the same way you did--i think a lot of people enjoyed the slanted take on the western, i know i sure did

Lookit all those dreadful pennies (xxxxpost)

netflix of dead man has been sitting on my desk, staring at me, for three months now. i never seem to be in the right mood :-/

me too kinda, i like long slow burn type movies. not every movie has to be as action-packed as star trek, dr morbius!

― s1ocki, Tuesday, June 16, 2009 10:47 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

slow "burn" no pun intended

if i wasnt clear--i like to "burn" marijuana cigarettes and watch movies like this

I liked what they were aiming for, I think they went way off target, however I might add it to netflix and re-watch.

i think you mean "rescreen"

I like to reburn when I rescreen.

re-burn

xp haha

man tombstone was a really great movie

it's also really great pizza

and a really great way to remember who's buried where

great creedence song

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/tombstone_tombstone.jpg

do you see what i did there

lol @ andrew g. vajna

Finally watching it, after my dad mentioned it a while ago. One fucking great movie. I like Brad Pitt's "bad" acting in it. Ben A is just perfect. But most of all I like the cinematography. The way they portray the scenery is just so beautiful

BTW should I read the book?

Just convinced my wife to watch this, and she really liked it, though she wasn't quite as impressed as I was. Sometimes I suspect existential westerns in particular appeal more to guys than gals, at least as far as genre films go, but maybe I'm wrong.

I guess I'm the exception to the rule then? I absolutely love existential westerns (because of the existentialism; not so much the western part). That said, I hated Dead Man so much. Maybe I should try it again?

I think what I like most, are American films: from your typical LA film to, well, whatever incorporates/depicts the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6w0r-ScEG4&feature=player_embedded

That's some great animation. Possibly the most esoteric satire ever, too.

it's the actual yogi bear guys who did it

actually, turns out it's just a guy who saw the trailer and decided to do a parody:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/13/yogi-bear-alternate-ending-booboo-kills-yogi-parody-video-creator-speaks/?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=48

Is there a thread for Killing Them Softly? The best-directed ideological con of the year. Seriously, I feel like Morbs did script-doctoring on this one, what with all the long ironic interludes of Obama hollowly speechifying amid the killings.

Scoot McNairy, however, has emerged as my #1 new celeb crush of the year. Not bad for someone who looked like Kip Dynamite in his last movie.

Dominik is obv is better identifying real-life psycho killers than dramatizing them.

"America is just a business" seems way less toxic and/or challenging a thesis to me than, say, "There's no place like home."

If you're named "Scoot McNairy" you look like one.

"America is just a business" seems way less toxic and/or challenging a thesis to me than, say, "There's no place like home."

That's because you're always welcome to vote with your dollar, but you're not welcome in a lot of homes.

That you're going to mount an argument that this movie's heart (sic) is in the right place, Morbs, is going to be downright delish.

I'm not going to make it as I have no plans to see it.

Look for Obama's heart while you're at it tho

You can always put Obama's heart where yours ought to be.

thought about that one, thought u guys shd keep yr shtick going.

I wouldn't worry about our shtick. You can always put our shtick where your fart ought to be.

burrito + Metamucil = no shortage there

I'm not going to make it as I have no plans to see it.

Was your new years' resolution to start praising movies you haven't seen in addition to trashing them?

I didn't praise shit. Foisting an unimportant deathdrone like Barry O on a cinema audience sounds like a misjudgment anyhoo.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/killing-them-softly/6680

"The film doesn't exactly pride itself on subtlety."

this is awesome

best opening credits of the year, great jimmy gandolf scenes, great Higgins dialogue.... surprised more people arent liking this. the on the noseness of it is really a virtue tbh.

It's a massive debit.

it owns

It owes.

lol now i'll see it

fight the power

yo when the dude is shooting heroin and "heroin" is on the soundtrack, omg, fuck this movie. also it is supposed to be in boston but they filmed it here in new orleans and there's palm trees and shit? hey let's read this terrible stagey dialogue for 15 minutes. obama!

yeah, it's a very silly movie

How much Johnny Sack is there is this movie?

he gets a good scene in the beginning

shooting it in new orleans was the only on the nose touch i didnt like

yeah i loved this

woot

ILX : Cosmopolis :: me : this movie

So much of this is so self-evidently terrible.

great jimmy gandolf scenes

this is sortof the perfect way to express this

xpost except McNairy and, yeah, Gandolfini

ben mendelsohn was awesome too.

i wanted to like the movie, and some of the performances were great, but i couldn't stand the clanging DID YOU SEE THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE? desperateness that culminated in the brad pitt speech at the end. i wish the director had just left the obama stuff out after the admittedly great opening credits sequence.

desperation, i suppose... i don't think desperateness is a word.

enjoyed the slickness of this and mcnairy and gandolfini, didn't really feel much oomph or find any of it surprising. closing speech left me cold. went home and watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy again after.

i do agree the last scene is prob the weakest & could similarly prob do w/o the financial crisis backdrop entirely

im just in love w/ the dialogue & integrity of the scenes/plot; where else anywhere in a crime/mob flick nowadays or ever? can scenes breathe & evolve like this w/o like constant "surprises", cuts, nods to the audience idk lots of fantastic performances too

also i thought mcnairy was casey affleck this entire movie. ive seen that 'in search of a midnight kiss' thing too, guess he didnt make v much of an impression on me

needs its own thread :)

OK, even I think an "F" is a little over the top for this:

http://www.pajiba.com/box_office_round-ups/the-8-films-all-time-to-receive-an-f-from-cinemascore.php

Another movie that got an A+ from CinemaScore (not mention in that blog post): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courageous_%28film%29

i lol'd when the car blew up. then i lol'd when dude had "heroin" on the soundtrack and then that nico song and then the last shooting scene when that fucking like fallout 3 music was playing, and when SPOILERS NOT REALLY ray liotta gets it the blood looks like the blood in the new judge dredd movie, which was 100000000x better

Well, Morbs, if this Armond rave (?) doesn't entice you, nothing will: http://cityarts.info/2012/12/05/pitt-beats-clooney/

Killing Them Softly earns a footnote in cultural history for being the first dramatic film to question the Obama cult.

Mainstream media reaction rejected Coppola’s summary consequences (including Michael’s repentance), eventually leading to the guilt-free Sopranos—which Obama told Oprah he loved. Bill and Hilary Clinton even emulated that show in a political campaign ad.

Given Dominik’s grandiose conceit—featuring anachronistic presidential speeches and ironic pop songs—the film is only a little less hyperbolic than a junkie’s paranoia. This outsider director sees America’s economic woes as a gangster movie purgatory. It’s debatable, but it has a much greater effect than the recession documentary No End in Sight and the drab, socially conscious thrillers Michael Clayton, Syriana, Margin Call. Dominik and Pitt go where those films wouldn’t dare. Putting Obama in the tradition of bought leaders sharpens Killing Them Softly’s pretenses.

Killing Them Softly earns a footnote in cultural history for being the first dramatic film to question the Obama cult.

IKR?!

I feel like he confused 'recession documentaries' there with "No End in Sight".

Got his liberal-baiting wires crossed there.

don't think he knows what "anachronistic" means

maybe he meant ironic presidential speeches and anachronistic pop songs

he means we know O is an asshole shit now

That's PRESIDENT asshole shit to you, son

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/4B/esq-obama-oval-office-0709-lg.JPG

Rooms seemed hotter when he was in them. Rains fell straighter. Clocks slowed. Sounds were amplified.

Killing Them Softly was pretty bad

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/20/movies/killing-them-softly.html

^p intersting re: sound fx...f/ sounds of norman mailer punching himself apparently

the director's name isnt even in the fucking thread title

i watched 'chopper' this morning - did v little for me; reminded me of 'bronson', which obv 'chopper' came 1st, but that is prob a better movie in every way i can think of

choppers better/less boring

Yeah I've always conflated Chopper and Bronson as well, but prefer the former.

does not compute in the slightest but w/e

i talked this up enough that my 62 yr old mom is curious enough to go see it (and im shocked its still playing near her)

also im ttly taking out like 4 george v higgins books from my lib over the holidays

Eddie Coyle if you haven't already

only have seen the film, which is great obv

My friend and I thought Killing Them Softly was worth watching, if a little sketchy in its construction. The constant political dialogue was definitely trying to drill in the parallel between criminal economies but it was a little overwrought in that it was mostly an extended implication without really fleshing it out.

It was great to be at a film where people were grumbling about "next time /I/ get to pick the movie, blah blah" on the way out. Hadn't heard that in a while/

political notes the most interesting thing about KMS.

(also from all the Dem whining you'd think they were pissing while the W clips were on)

Gandolfini much less interesting here than in the Chase rock movie, so yeah I'll probably never watch The Sopranos.

Scoot McNairy giving one of the performances of the year was the most interesting thing about KMS. The second-most interesting thing was the notion that you would, indeed, bend over backward to side with Armond.

but I haven't, as he claims to think it was a very good film.

certainly no Cabin in the Woods

KTS btw, KMS will be the Roberta Flack biopic

Scoot's versatility will be put to the test in that one.

what's with the Scoot hard-on? he was fine, but it's an awfully familiar character type and he's no Elisha Cook Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/business/media/a-fans-mission-resurrect-a-little-watched-movie.html?_r=0

Rad. I love this movie.

Garret Dillahunt's career shift from stuff like this and "Deadwood" to being the dad in "Raising Hope" is still so weird to me.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/terrence-malick-thought-it-was-too-slow-10-things-learned-from-the-revival-screening-of-the-assassination-of-jesse-james-by-the-coward-robert-ford-20131209?

interesting that he sez hes making 'Blonde' next from JCOs novel -- he tried to make it back a few yrs ago -http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010/05/andrew-dominik-returns-with-marilyn.html

dominik sounds cool

Anyway, Dominik took the opportunity to say, bluntly, that he is “embarrassed by the stylization in 'Killing Them Softly.'”

otm

He should be embarrassed by some of the the stylization in this one too.

“Have you seen 'Bonnie & Clyde' lately?” Dominik interrupted, scrunching his face in disapproval. “Has some good editing in the end, I suppose...“

lol f u

bonnie & clyde sucks, hes right

only if you insist on long, subdued, and nearly action-free

my friend went to this, said dominik came across as a dick.

johnny crunch and hungry4ass otm re: killing them softly. i did actually worry when 'heroin' came on the soundtrack and also i thought 'the man comes around' was a dreadful choice for pitt's intro song (i think dominik's music library must consist entirely of other movie trailer songs) but overall it was a strong movie imo.

dominik is finally getting blonde off the ground, naturally for netflix

https://thefilmstage.com/news/andrew-dominik-begins-production-on-marilyn-monroe-biopic-blonde-as-full-cast-is-announced/

Based on JCO book?

yessir

"my friend went to this, said dominik came across as a dick.

― akm"

weird, I have no recollection of writing this or who this person may have been.

The Character Assassination of Andrew Dominik by the Coward akm

Killing Them Softly seems to have been getting some defense lately from people who don't want to be on the wrong side of the film's thuddingly obvious politics, so I finally watched it. I had put it off because I didn't want it to diminish my estimation of the source material, Cogan's Trade, which I consider a masterpiece of lowlife dialogue. I'm afraid it's so bad it might have done just that. I feel bad for ever criticizing Nicolas Winding-Refn or Zack Snyder for ever having some crass and dumb ideas because Dominik belongs in movie jail. Plenty of people have mocked the ubiquitous C-SPAN footage and the moronic music cues, but ripping off the use of "Love Letters" from Blue Velvet is particularly annoying.

I will say Ben Mendelsohn is great playing an all-time disgusting loser. James Gandolfini gave his character an even more sinister dimension than I remember him having in the novel. He used to complain about what a toll playing a dark character like Tony Soprano took on him, this role might have finished him off.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/11/marilyn-monroe-biopic-director-says-movie-will-be-nc-17-rated/

“It’s a demanding movie,” Dominik said. “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the f–king audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office.”