FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: wwwes on September 20, 2009, 11:14:07 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu8zYsz04oE
I can't decide whether I have to see this movie for Sandra Bullock's horrible southern imitation or avoid it like the plague so I don't have to hear anyone ever call it a movie about tolerance.
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I remember seeing the actual news story on something like 60 Minutes or 20/20 or some other "news" show like that. The white people in the story were just so self-congratulatory that it was hard to feel good about the situation. "See, we white folks are decent people so we saved the black man from the miserable world he lives in" is kind of a hard message to get behind.
And of course, there is the inevitable mention of Christ helping them. Plus, the lady didn't seem nearly as sassy as being portrayed here.
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All I know is Sandra Bullock hasn't let me down yet.
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She went to ECU - she's definitely spent some time around southern accents. One might even go further, if one were willing to speak ill of Greenville in front of a bunch of northeasterners. Which one is not.
What's really funny is that this story is EXACTLY what happened to me.
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Oh, I thought this was gonna be about Trash Humpers.
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Oh, I thought this was gonna be about Trash Humpers.
I might be offended by the Trash Humpers trailer if I could understand a second of it.
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I saw the real story on a tv news magazine too, and thought it would have been a nicer story if it wasn't so heavily tinged with old-fashioned southern white paternalism and the massive sham that is big time prep school/college football.
But man, Left Tackles make a massive amount of money in the NFL... those rich white folks hit the jackpot.
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Haven't you guys heard about the concept of "pay it forward"?
Only a reverse racist wouldn't want to see that movie.
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She went to ECU - she's definitely spent some time around southern accents. One might even go further, if one were willing to speak ill of Greenville in front of a bunch of northeasterners. Which one is not.
I had no idea she went to ECU. Both my parents got their Master's in Music from ECU. I suppose perhaps she just knows the type all too well. I haven't spent much time in South Carolina personally, my area of expertise mostly lies in the triangle of Chattanooga, Atlanta and Birmingham. Which isn't far from where the movie's events took place.
What gets me isn't even what events the movie is based on, it's how they chose to interpret it. They turned it from a story of a good kid who took advantage of his lucky break to work hard and accomplish something with his life... to what looks like a story of a woman who finds one of "the good ones" and rescues him from "the bad ones" by bringing him into white society. Were the story based 40 years ago, her story would be more interesting, but it still wouldn't excuse blowing right past the circumstances of his life.
Perhaps it's just that trailer and the movie actually presents Big Mike the human being.
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She went to ECU - she's definitely spent some time around southern accents. One might even go further, if one were willing to speak ill of Greenville in front of a bunch of northeasterners. Which one is not.
What's really funny is that this story is EXACTLY what happened to me.
It may well be a horrible movie, but you got to give her a break on her "horrible" accent; she grew up in Texas, it's a wonder you haven't heard that accent in all of her performances. To pile on, I will say that Two Week's Notice is my absolute least favorite movie in the last 15 years or so. And I saw Mr Magoo.
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All I know is Sandra Bullock hasn't let me down yet.
Oh, I thought this was gonna be about Trash Humpers.
Both of these quotes made me laugh out loud, thank you!
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They showed this trailer before The Informant! yesterday. It made me way more uncomfortable than the movie I'd paid to see.
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She went to ECU - she's definitely spent some time around southern accents. One might even go further, if one were willing to speak ill of Greenville in front of a bunch of northeasterners. Which one is not.
I had no idea she went to ECU. Both my parents got their Master's in Music from ECU. I suppose perhaps she just knows the type all too well. I haven't spent much time in South Carolina personally, my area of expertise mostly lies in the triangle of Chattanooga, Atlanta and Birmingham. Which isn't far from where the movie's events took place.
ECU is in North Carolina, wwwesley.
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I found "The Visitor" to be even more offensive than what this trailer is showing me.
Imagine Big Mike shows his appreciation to Sandra Bullock at the end of the movie by teaching her how to break dance. That's pretty much "The Visitor."
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ECU is in North Carolina, wwwesley.
I knew that, but I've never been there and didn't know it was in Greenville NC, so my mind immediately jumped to Greenville SC (as I've been to that one plenty of times). Your way makes more sense.
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I found "The Visitor" to be even more offensive than what this trailer is showing me.
Imagine Big Mike shows his appreciation to Sandra Bullock at the end of the movie by teaching her how to break dance. That's pretty much "The Visitor."
The Visitor offensive? Really?
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I found "The Visitor" to be even more offensive than what this trailer is showing me.
Imagine Big Mike shows his appreciation to Sandra Bullock at the end of the movie by teaching her how to break dance. That's pretty much "The Visitor."
The Visitor offensive? Really?
I've heard this argument before; I don't buy it. The white guy was no kind of savior in The Visitor; that he adopted a hobby that helped vent some pent-up emotion really rang true with me, having found the Best Show after hardly ever laughing for the first 48 years of my life.
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This sounds a little like The Mystery of Kasper Hauser transplanted to the American south.
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"I've never had one of these before"
"What, a room to yourself?"
"A Bed".....
:o
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this movie looks horrible. the book was awesome: "the blind side" by michael lewis. (same dude who wrote moneyball). i highly recommend reading it if you even have the fleeting interest in sport. looks like the book has a better balance of straight up football economy/stats/stories vs. retelling of the socio-economic upgrade of the young michael oher. lewis' books i think have a hard time being translated into films (see: moneyball) unless they were to be filmed like pulp fiction or go because they have so many tiny vignettes that intertwine.
agreed the visitor was a heap of garbage. guilt-filled, heavy handed, neutered, corny.
also, i thought this thread was gonna be about Valentine's Day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BPuK606bdQ
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Valentine's Day is based on an incredibly untrue story.
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I thought The Visitor was awesome. I can see not liking it, but I don't get the offensive thing. If you're offended because you think the movie's about a white savior stepping up to help minorities, I would point out that, like Dave said, the only person he ends up saving is himself. The foreigners get screwed.
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I thought The Visitor was awesome. I can see not liking it, but I don't get the offensive thing. If you're offended because you think the movie's about a white savior stepping up to help minorities, I would point out that, like Dave said, the only person he ends up saving is himself. The foreigners get screwed.
I loved it too! I like movies about grown-ups. I just thought it was about friendship - which like MOS says, saved only Richard Jenkins' character. There wasn't really a "magical black man" vibe to the thing. The characterization was pretty well-rounded.
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I thought The Visitor was awesome. I can see not liking it, but I don't get the offensive thing. If you're offended because you think the movie's about a white savior stepping up to help minorities, I would point out that, like Dave said, the only person he ends up saving is himself. The foreigners get screwed.
I loved it too! I like movies about grown-ups. I just thought it was about friendship - which like MOS says, saved only Richard Jenkins' character. There wasn't really a "magical black man" vibe to the thing. The characterization was pretty well-rounded.
It wasn't a "magical black man vibe" I was chafing against, Bryan. You're right there was none of that in 'The Visitor' (Side note: If you're looking for magical black men, I highly recommend Stephen King's 'The Green Mile.'). But even if Walter (I IMDB'd the names) fails to save Tarek and Zainab, he does overturn his whole life to make these individuals his personal mission. To me, the connotation was that "minorities cannot take care of themselves without white kindness" and that made me nauseous. Perhaps I am wrong about that and I read it incorrectly. But all I know is: If you played a drinking game during 'The Visitor' in which you had to down a shot each time a character says "Thank you" to Walter, you'd be dead by the halfway mark.
And the fact that Tarek repays Walter by giving him RHYTHM! Argh that makes me mad.
MoS, DfK, and Bryan: You all rock. If all of you liked it, then perhaps I need to give the movie a second viewing. Also, Thomas McCarthy wrote 'The Station Agent' which I loved, and he played the d-bag journalist on "The Wire" who I loved to hate. So I really need to re-evaluate my stance.
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I saw the trailer for the Sandra Bullock movie before The Informant too, and while it does look like a terrible movie, I remember noting that it seemed like she was finally learning how to act, and the accent probably had something to do with it. But I'm a New Yorker so I'm not one to judge southern accents.
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Two words: Bagger Vance.
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Yeesh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_negro
Stephen King scores a hat trick.
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this movie looks horrible. the book was awesome: "the blind side" by michael lewis. (same dude who wrote moneyball). i highly recommend reading it if you even have the fleeting interest in sport. looks like the book has a better balance of straight up football economy/stats/stories vs. retelling of the socio-economic upgrade of the young michael oher. lewis' books i think have a hard time being translated into films (see: moneyball) unless they were to be filmed like pulp fiction or go because they have so many tiny vignettes that intertwine.
I read it too. It's really bizarre story -- one of those the truth is stranger than fiction deals. It'd make a great film but you'd need to be really emotionally honest to pull it off: no wacky comedy music, no winking, no schlock.
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Yeesh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_negro
Stephen King scores a hat trick.
It's not Uncle Stevie's fault that he grew up in Maine (which is 98% white). I wouldn't be surprised if Scatman Crothers was the first black guy he ever met.
I saw the trailer for this before The Informant! and still can't decide which is worse: this or the Tucker Max movie trailer.
On a side note: I live in the Boston area and remember reading that Glen "Big Baby" Davis of the Boston Celtics screen tested for the main role in this movie.
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On a side note: I live in the Boston area and remember reading that Glen "Big Baby" Davis of the Boston Celtics screen tested for the main role in this movie.
I read that last sentence as Glen Davis trying out for the lead in the Tucker Max movie.
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also, i thought this thread was gonna be about Valentine's Day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BPuK606bdQ
I did, too. Why do we need an American version of Love Actually? Who cares.
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I miss Scatman Crothers. He was great in both Hong Kong Phooey and Zapped!.