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JonArryn

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Continuing on the last thread:

-snip-

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

And you're right about Michael's italian wife being killed in a car bomb, she was. I thought you were referring to his wife in USA, Kay, which has a larger role and means a lot more to him I would say.

The thing is that The Godfather was made 1972 and Goodfellas was made 1990, there are some differences considering the times they were made in and I guarantee experts have issues with both movies portrayals of the mob, both do romanticise it in some ways. I just think The Godfather handles its story better and in the end is a much better movie.

And the mob has changed a bit. I saw an interview with an ex mobster who said that the old generation did have a code, but that the street has gotten much more brutal now, much colder. And I do believe he has a point there. Our whole world has gone that way if you look at it. Don Corleone does represent that old generation, while Michael is a newer, harder one, although that may also be because he is a colder individual. And I definitely think mobsters can have culture and be cultivated, it's to black and white to say most are just psycopathic brutes. If that was the case there would be no mob, because all would be too brutish just shooting everything all the time. They have to juggle things in society just as normal people do, only that they are mobsters at other times. Life is usually more gray than we want to see it as. I'm not denying they are brutal mobsters often, but that's not the only side to it.

I do see what the point is with WoWS, I just don't think it's a good one, even if I would watch it a second time (which I haven't) I don't think my point about it being hollow would change. I just don't think it's a great movie. It's too much I guess, it's too much excess with too little afterthought. It's like the involved in the movie said when they were pitching: "how can we cater to the young folks who wanna party all their lives?" "Let's do a movie about some corrupt guys at Wall Street who just parties all the time". And then they do that for 3 hours and you don't get that much out of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the movie failed to convey its complexity for me. The characters are just unlikeable assholes, and I never really cared for Belfort, and don't care for individuals like him in society either. Not to say I care for mobsters either, but if you compare it with Goodfellas where you really want Henry Hill to make it out alive, I didn't really care what happened to Belfort in the end.

But that's my opinion, and I know some agree with me, and that many others like the movie.

Anyway, all this Scorsese talk has me wanting to watch and rewatch some of his movies. I've never seen King of Comedy so that's next I guess.

:agree:

Of all the things to agree on, Veltigar and TheArryn'sKnight, you could have picked something else.

What say you on the t.v. show?

Haven't seen it yet, and don't really know if I want to either.

Edit: Title fixed

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Haven't seen it yet, and don't really know if I want to either.

EDIT: And I made a typo in the title. Fucking shit

I wasn't a big fan of Fargo the movie, but I freaking loved the show. So much so that I rewatched the movie mid-season and I did enjoy it a lot more the second time.

You can edit the title by selecting "Edit" at the bottom of your post, and when that pops up hit "Use Full Editor."

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Saw Interstellar today.



Posted spoiler-tastic thoughts in the thread. In general, it's a great movie that is basically a demonstration of why you release movies in theatres. It's huge and epic in a way only a big expensive film can be and in a way that few big expensive films have ever been.


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On another note, I'm halfway through Twin Peaks now. I'm not really completely sold to it, and it's not like I have a big urge to see the next episode. Some things in the show are brilliant, while there's a lot of things I have no interest in and half of the episodes seem like very cheesy filler. You can see it's a big influence on the tv landscape that followed I guess, but it's a far bit behind my favorite tv shows.

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Saw Million Dollar Baby last night. I was disappointed to be honest. I had seen this movie a long time ago (nine years give or take) and I somehow assumed it would be better than what I got. I found it difficult to really care about anything in this movie, which is strange, since I'm a sucker for both Clint Eastwood and boxing movies.

Even the third act, which was by far the best didn't really grip me. Perhaps the fact that I come from a country with a more enlightened view on

euthanasia

held me back a little. But even if I take that into account, there were a lot of little things that bothered me. This is certainly not Clint Eastwoods best imo. A movie like Gran Torino was much better.

Likewise. I do intend to finish it at some point however, it wasn't so much that I disliked what I saw, more that I didn't find it compelling enough to keep up with the episodes.

I wanted to get back to it eventually, but indeed, I just felt that it didn't really do a great job at keeping my attention.

And you're right about Michael's italian wife being killed in a car bomb, she was. I thought you were referring to his wife in USA, Kay, which has a larger role and means a lot more to him I would say.

Which is in no way relevant to the discussion we were having. I merely pointed out that Michael only went after abusive husbands, crooked cops and people who targeted his family, like the murderer of his wife.

The thing is that The Godfather was made 1972 and Goodfellas was made 1990, there are some differences considering the times they were made in and I guarantee experts have issues with both movies portrayals of the mob, both do romanticise it in some ways. I just think The Godfather handles its story better and in the end is a much better movie.

Like I said, Goodfellas is not the apex of a realistic portrayal of the mob. Even so, the point is that it is a much more realistic portrayal than the one presented by the Godfather.

And the mob has changed a bit. I saw an interview with an ex mobster who said that the old generation did have a code, but that the street has gotten much more brutal now, much colder.

There has never been anything like a code of honour in the maffia. The whole concept of an honour code is totally opposed to everything organized crime stands for. Compare it to the knights code in ASOIAF. There are a couple of fools who believe in that (a lot more than mobsters who believe in the Maffia code I'd say, since the knightly code is reveared by society as a whole), but most knights don't buy in the illusion. They are just soldiers and they do and take what they want.

And the streets haven't become colder. Or at least not in the sense that there are now more murders and violence than before. On the contrary, research has shown that violence has been declining for a long time. Not surprisingly, the further along the line we get, the harder it is to get away with things like mob hits. Forensic techniques have improved enormously, so it's harder to escape persecution. Crooked cops are now under much more scrutiny than before. And the poor immigrant communities (like the Italian one) have become a lot more vocal, so it's harder than ever before to push them in a corner.

And I definitely think mobsters can have culture and be cultivated,

Can they? Sure, they can. Are they interested? No, the vast majority of mobsters do not care for things like books, arthouse cinema and musea (to name a couple of things). It's not something their lifestyle puts a lot of emphasis on, so they don't bother. In many ways a cultured mobster is at a disadvantage. Research has shown that for instance reading novels improves one's ability to emphatize with others. Not a good quality for a mobster to have. Otherwise, they might think twice before whacking someone or extorting a hardworking small businessowner out of his money.

it's to black and white to say most are just psycopathic brutes. If that was the case there would be no mob, because all would be too brutish just shooting everything all the time. They have to juggle things in society just as normal people do, only that they are mobsters at other times. Life is usually more gray than we want to see it as. I'm not denying they are brutal mobsters often, but that's not the only side to it.

You seem to miscomprehend my words yet again. I did not say that the mob consisted of nothing but psychopaths. I wrote that one of the traits of mobsters, as Goodfellas shows so well, is that a lot of them are psychotic. That's not the same as being a psychopath.

But I'll run with your terminology for a while. A certain inability to care about others is a necessity for making it in the mob. And a propensity for bold actions and disinhibited behaviour doesn't hurt a mobster either. So, a psychopath would certainly have a lot of chances to make it in the mob. They'd probably trive in the milieu. Being a psychopath doesn't mean that one is dumb however. Most psychopats are functioning members of society, they know how to put up a front. They would have no problem navigating normal society.


I do see what the point is with WoWS, I just don't think it's a good one, even if I would watch it a second time (which I haven't) I don't think my point about it being hollow would change. I just don't think it's a great movie. It's too much I guess, it's too much excess with too little afterthought. It's like the involved in the movie said when they were pitching: "how can we cater to the young folks who wanna party all their lives?" "Let's do a movie about some corrupt guys at Wall Street who just parties all the time". And then they do that for 3 hours and you don't get that much out of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the movie failed to convey its complexity for me.

There's quite a lot of afterthought actually. Scorcese just doesn't spoonfeed it to us. There are no dreary eyed monologues where the character expresses his regrets over the life he has lived. Leo's character is pleased with the race he ran and quite smug about it. After all, he lived an extraordinary life for many years and he got away with a ridiculously low punishment. Like most of these white collar criminals do. The movie was based on a true story, don't forget that.

The things is, to a certain extent you need to ignore what Leo says and look at what is potrayed on screen. Leo's character buys into his own yarn (just like Ray Liotta buys into the Maffia mythos in Goodfellas), which makes him a terribly unreliable narrator. You need to use your own moral compass to navigate through this movie. And then you see the disgusting horror of these wall street crooks. They party with other peoples money, they make huge decisions, which can destroy loads of people, while high on quaaludes and coke, they skirt the law at any time, etc.

The characters are just unlikeable assholes, and I never really cared for Belfort, and don't care for individuals like him in society either. Not to say I care for mobsters either, but if you compare it with Goodfellas where you really want Henry Hill to make it out alive, I didn't really care what happened to Belfort in the end.

The point is that these people are out there, in real life. And you're not supposed to care about them. Just like you're not supposed to care about Henry Hill either. Both are repugnant criminals, who deserve to rot away in jail for the rest of their lives.

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There's quite a lot of afterthought actually. Scorcese just doesn't spoonfeed it to us. There are no dreary eyed monologues where the character expresses his regrets over the life he has lived. Leo's character is pleased with the race he ran and quite smug about it. After all, he lived an extraordinary life for many years and he got away with a ridiculously low punishment. Like most of these white collar criminals do. The movie was based on a true story, don't forget that.

The things is, to a certain extent you need to ignore what Leo says and look at what is potrayed on screen. Leo's character buys into his own yarn (just like Ray Liotta buys into the Maffia mythos in Goodfellas), which makes him a terribly unreliable narrator. You need to use your own moral compass to navigate through this movie. And then you see the disgusting horror of these wall street crooks. They party with other peoples money, they make huge decisions, which can destroy loads of people, while high on quaaludes and coke, they skirt the law at any time, etc.

The film bloody opens with a scene where they hilariously discuss throwing "midgets" and act like they aren't even humans at all. "Don't make eye contact with them!"

The biggest issue with TWOWS is that it's maybe too good at what it does. It's too alluring. It becomes difficult to pull yourself back from watching these guys having so much fucking fun and objectively look at what they are doing.

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The film bloody opens with a scene where they hilariously discuss throwing "midgets" and act like they aren't even humans at all. "Don't make eye contact with them!"

I know right. I don't see how people can think that glorifying the lifestyle of Belfort and his cronies is the point of this movie :(

The biggest issue with TWOWS is that it's maybe too good at what it does. It's too alluring. It becomes difficult to pull yourself back from watching these guys having so much fucking fun and objectively look at what they are doing.

Imo, that's what makes it such a great movie. Great art should challenge our perception and tWoWS does that superbly. My friends and I were laughing throughout and pretty much cheering Leo on. It was only after we came out of the movie and discussed it at our favourite pub that we saw the horror this movie actually showed us.

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Imo, that's what makes it such a great movie. Great art should challenge our perception and tWoWS does that superbly. My friends and I were laughing throughout and pretty much cheering Leo on. It was only after we came out of the movie and discussed it at our favourite pub that we saw the horror this movie actually showed us.

The thing is, I think alot of people didn't do that. I think TWOWS is a film that touches on a fairly old argument over whether one can truly subvert something if you make it look so damn fun.

Is it challenging your perceptions or does the subversion just come off as token.

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I absolutely loved TWoWS. I thought it was obviously an indictment of those people and that lifestyle. I enjoyed watching Belfort's story play out, it was extremely entertaining, but I wouldn't say I was rooting for him. Especially after the scene where he beats his wife and tried to drive away with his child in his car while on drugs.

The "Lemons" scenes at the country club and in the kitchen were the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

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The thing is, I think alot of people didn't do that. I think TWOWS is a film that touches on a fairly old argument over whether one can truly subvert something if you make it look so damn fun.

Is it challenging your perceptions or does the subversion just come off as token.

The thing is, that life must have been incredibly fun for Belfort. He had all the money in the world and the people who surrounded him worshipped him as a god. Not showing the fun would have been disingenuous. It's also important because it shows us with just how much these type of white collar gangsters are able to get away with.

And in the end he does crashes. He degenerates into a miserable wifebeating drugaddict. The fact that he doesn't crash completely (he still has fame and fortune) is not something that I would count against the movie. Sadly, that happens in real life to. Most of these white collar criminals manage to get off with minimal punishment (if they get caught at all) and they are certainly a lot better of than their victims.

I absolutely loved TWoWS. I thought it was obviously an indictment of those people and that lifestyle. I enjoyed watching Belfort's story play out, it was extremely entertaining, but I wouldn't say I was rooting for him. Especially after the scene where he beats his wife and tried to drive away with his child in his car while on drugs.

The "Lemons" scenes at the country club and in the kitchen were the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

:agree:

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The thing is, that life must have been incredibly fun for Belfort. He had all the money in the world and the people who surrounded him worshipped him as a god. Not showing the fun would have been disingenuous. It's also important because it shows us with just how much these type of white collar gangsters are able to get away with.

And in the end he does crashes. He degenerates into a miserable wifebeating drugaddict. The fact that he doesn't crash completely (he still has fame and fortune) is not something that I would count against the movie. Sadly, that happens in real life to. Most of these white collar criminals manage to get off with minimal punishment (if they get caught at all) and they are certainly a lot better of than their victims.

Right, that's issue I'm talking about. They have to show how incredibly fun it was to accurately show what was occurring but that in and of itself works against the premise of the movie.

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Which is in no way relevant to the discussion we were having. I merely pointed out that Michael only went after abusive husbands, crooked cops and people who targeted his family, like the murderer of his wife.

Like I said, Goodfellas is not the apex of a realistic portrayal of the mob. Even so, the point is that it is a much more realistic portrayal than the one presented by the Godfather.

Again, we are getting nowhere in this discussion, I'm not gonna sway your opinion, and you're not gonna sway mine. And I didn't know you decided what is and isn't relevant to this discussion. I have brought up things about Michael as a character, you have brought up things about Henry Hill as a character. And I definitely think Michael's wife is relevant to a discussion if you're gonna talk about the portrayal of the mob in The Godfather. She is basically the closest thing the audience has to a character like them I guess. She is seeing Michael kind of like the audience's eyes are seeing him.

There has never been anything like a code of honour in the maffia. The whole concept of an honour code is totally opposed to everything organized crime stands for. Compare it to the knights code in ASOIAF. There are a couple of fools who believe in that (a lot more than mobsters who believe in the Maffia code I'd say, since the knightly code is reveared by society as a whole), but most knights don't buy in the illusion. They are just soldiers and they do and take what they want.

And the streets haven't become colder. Or at least not in the sense that there are now more murders and violence than before. On the contrary, research has shown that violence has been declining for a long time. Not surprisingly, the further along the line we get, the harder it is to get away with things like mob hits. Forensic techniques have improved enormously, so it's harder to escape persecution. Crooked cops are now under much more scrutiny than before. And the poor immigrant communities (like the Italian one) have become a lot more vocal, so it's harder than ever before to push them in a corner.

Can they? Sure, they can. Are they interested? No, the vast majority of mobsters do not care for things like books, arthouse cinema and musea (to name a couple of things). It's not something their lifestyle puts a lot of emphasis on, so they don't bother. In many ways a cultured mobster is at a disadvantage. Research has shown that for instance reading novels improves one's ability to emphatize with others. Not a good quality for a mobster to have. Otherwise, they might think twice before whacking someone or extorting a hardworking small businessowner out of his money.

You seem to miscomprehend my words yet again. I did not say that the mob consisted of nothing but psychopaths. I wrote that one of the traits of mobsters, as Goodfellas shows so well, is that a lot of them are psychotic. That's not the same as being a psychopath.

But I'll run with your terminology for a while. A certain inability to care about others is a necessity for making it in the mob. And a propensity for bold actions and disinhibited behaviour doesn't hurt a mobster either. So, a psychopath would certainly have a lot of chances to make it in the mob. They'd probably trive in the milieu. Being a psychopath doesn't mean that one is dumb however. Most psychopats are functioning members of society, they know how to put up a front. They would have no problem navigating normal society.

Again, you speak in absolutes way too much. The world isn't black and white, it's gray and you just have to accept that. There are criminals with a code and there are many criminals without a code. That the code is hypocriticial I won't argue, but the mob did have some kind of honor codes, and more back in the 70's. Nowadays that code isn't as important anymore, but to say there's never been one is pretty ignorant.

And I think it's rather weird that say the vast majority of mobsters aren't interested in culture. You've never heard of how the mob all talked about The Sopranos and compared it to themselves and even gave feedback on it while it was airing? Again, I think you're just saying things that are your opinion and putting them forward like they're the absolute truths, which they aren't. Some things you've said here are just plain wrong, and this is an example. Many mobsters have familes and houses, yeah they're actually like normal people in some ways even though you seem to think otherwise, and I don't thinka anyone on an internet forum knows how much culture each of them ahve, or that it's not good for them. All people have cultures of some kind, and I don't think mobsters have less or more of it in general than other people. You know criminals gangs in the ghetto watch a lot of movies and television right? It's a pretty easy thing to get hold of nowadays, so I think your theory you have about this kind of thing is just plain wrong.

I'm not trying to romanticise the mob here with my post, I'm just trying to give a more nuanced view than you have done thus far. I agree that the mob is despicable in most ways, but you're making it too easy when you paint it all in black and white.

And when I say the street is getting colder I'm not talking about how many murders or how much violence is being committed every year statistically. That fluctuates from year to year in many big cities, the thing I'm talking about is that it's a colder look about human life than it was before. The world is a lot more cynical now than it was 50 years ago, and I don't even have to explain why. Just look at the news and you'll see for yourself.

And I think we are both misinterpreting things in each other posts, but the thing is we just have different opinoins regarding this matter I guess. I don't think Goodfellas is a more realistic portrayal but I've never been a mobster so I can't really know for sure I guess. I can only judge it by what I've read and seen about it.

There's quite a lot of afterthought actually. Scorcese just doesn't spoonfeed it to us. There are no dreary eyed monologues where the character expresses his regrets over the life he has lived. Leo's character is pleased with the race he ran and quite smug about it. After all, he lived an extraordinary life for many years and he got away with a ridiculously low punishment. Like most of these white collar criminals do. The movie was based on a true story, don't forget that.

The things is, to a certain extent you need to ignore what Leo says and look at what is potrayed on screen. Leo's character buys into his own yarn (just like Ray Liotta buys into the Maffia mythos in Goodfellas), which makes him a terribly unreliable narrator. You need to use your own moral compass to navigate through this movie. And then you see the disgusting horror of these wall street crooks. They party with other peoples money, they make huge decisions, which can destroy loads of people, while high on quaaludes and coke, they skirt the law at any time, etc.

The point is that these people are out there, in real life. And you're not supposed to care about them. Just like you're not supposed to care about Henry Hill either. Both are repugnant criminals, who deserve to rot away in jail for the rest of their lives.

I'm not saying WoWS is a bad movie, because it's not. It is a fun ride with some memorable scnes but at the end of it all I jsut don't think it's a great movie with any message that spoke to me, and that's my view on it.

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True. The current cycle is massively disappointing IMO. The new weekend update duo particularly standout as the weakest links.

I do happen to agree with you about SNL right now. The only new cast member that has impressed me is Pete Davidson, oddly enough the youngest member.

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Again, we are getting nowhere in this discussion, I'm not gonna sway your opinion, and you're not gonna sway mine. And I didn't know you decided what is and isn't relevant to this discussion. I have brought up things about Michael as a character, you have brought up things about Henry Hill as a character. And I definitely think Michael's wife is relevant to a discussion if you're gonna talk about the portrayal of the mob in The Godfather. She is basically the closest thing the audience has to a character like them I guess. She is seeing Michael kind of like the audience's eyes are seeing him.

See, this is one of the big problems I had with the Godfather, cause her actions make no sense. When Michael shows up back in America and grabs her off the street and says "Marry me!", she agrees and I was like "He's got crazy eyes! Run bitch, RUN!".

Again, you speak in absolutes way too much. The world isn't black and white, it's gray and you just have to accept that. There are criminals with a code and there are many criminals without a code. That the code is hypocriticial I won't argue, but the mob did have some kind of honor codes, and more back in the 70's. Nowadays that code isn't as important anymore, but to say there's never been one is pretty ignorant.

And I think it's rather weird that say the vast majority of mobsters aren't interested in culture. You've never heard of how the mob all talked about The Sopranos and compared it to themselves and even gave feedback on it while it was airing? Again, I think you're just saying things that are your opinion and putting them forward like they're the absolute truths, which they aren't. Some things you've said here are just plain wrong, and this is an example. Many mobsters have familes and houses, yeah they're actually like normal people in some ways even though you seem to think otherwise, and I don't thinka anyone on an internet forum knows how much culture each of them ahve, or that it's not good for them. All people have cultures of some kind, and I don't think mobsters have less or more of it in general than other people. You know criminals gangs in the ghetto watch a lot of movies and television right? It's a pretty easy thing to get hold of nowadays, so I think your theory you have about this kind of thing is just plain wrong.

I'm not trying to romanticise the mob here with my post, I'm just trying to give a more nuanced view than you have done thus far. I agree that the mob is despicable in most ways, but you're making it too easy when you paint it all in black and white.

They are pretty black and white. The mafia is the barest veneer over violent thuggery. And said veneer is in large part an invention by people talking about the mob. The Godfather didn't describe how mobsters acted and thought about themselves, it told them how to think about themselves. They saw it (or, say, The Sopranos more recently) and then tried to emulate that lifestyle because they are just as effected by culture as you or I.

And when I say the street is getting colder I'm not talking about how many murders or how much violence is being committed every year statistically. That fluctuates from year to year in many big cities, the thing I'm talking about is that it's a colder look about human life than it was before. The world is a lot more cynical now than it was 50 years ago, and I don't even have to explain why. Just look at the news and you'll see for yourself.

Right, but this is wrong. The news is skewing your viewpoint heavily. Crime and violence has been falling for decades.

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