I finally watched the Bond movie Spectre. Decent Bond movie except the usual requirements for a suspension of belief. The producers/writers just can't let go of some of the old tropes and plot holes. Nonetheless, the big action set pieces were good and the overall plot made some sense (mostly because of a few Easter eggs seeded in its predecessor Skyfall). A really good cast in this one.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Originally Posted by spellbound
Hutchins’s death is made more complicated by the fact that the person wielding the prop gun was Alec Baldwin, a millionaire actor and a producer of the film in question. The extent of Baldwin’s role in the accident has yet to be disclosed to the public, but as a producer of the film, he must be held fully accountable for the set that he helped run and the procedures he was responsible for ensuring were followed.
The studio (possibly), producers, & director are all partly responsible for what happened, certainly. However...
...IATSE Local 44 reported that the prop master responsible for loading the gun was not part of the union.
The fact that he was not part of the union is 100% immaterial. The fact that he loaded live rounds is.
The three on the left are blanks; the three on the right are not:
How the fuck does someone make a mistake like that? AFAIC, it's a case of negligent homicide.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
^ Same here. And I would think that cast and set workers who were not injured would still have recourse in a court of law, due to the hazardous working conditions. (As it turned out.)
Here is the latest on the Baldwin incident: https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/new...?ocid=msedgntp
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/al...?ocid=msedgntp
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Unlike some people who call themselves journalists, I am not interested in laying the blame for this on Alec Baldwin. I'm certain he did not know there was a live round in the gun, and he must feel absolutely terrible. I am curious to know how, in the shooting of a western movie, a gun was pointed at a director and a cinematographer. Does not seem like a good idea, nor a necessary one. There are filming tricks for making it look like a gun is being fired directly at the camera/viewer. Anyone who knows anything about gun safety knows you always treat a gun as though it is loaded, even if you know it isn't. That includes never pointing a gun at anyone you don't intend to shoot. But we have not seen the movie film being shot that day, so we have no knowledge of either the intent of the filming or the resulting film/video footage.Hutchins’s death is made more complicated by the fact that the person wielding the prop gun was Alec Baldwin, a millionaire actor and a producer of the film in question. The extent of Baldwin’s role in the accident has yet to be disclosed to the public, but as a producer of the film, he must be held fully accountable for the set that he helped run and the procedures he was responsible for ensuring were followed.
The studio (possibly), producers, & director are all partly responsible for what happened, certainly. However...
...IATSE Local 44 reported that the prop master responsible for loading the gun was not part of the union.
The fact that he was not part of the union is 100% immaterial. The fact that he loaded live rounds is.
The three on the left are blanks; the three on the right are not:
How the fuck does someone make a mistake like that? AFAIC, it's a case of negligent homicide.
All we know now is that whoever (irrelevant if union employee or not, as you say) placed live rounds in the prop gun must be found and charged with a crime.
Re: Baldwin: I was watching on some news channel where one of the effects guys showed how he checked guns, and he was pretty thorough. He spun the chambers to see they were all empty and then fired it six times, etc. to ensure it was properly working and ready for use.
Someone asked about rating the Bond actors. It's pretty hard to do. I've seen most of the movies, though some are pretty hard to get thru. I think there are twenty seven films and fifty years. Some of the films I could probably stand to watch again, and some got awfully cliched with the one liners, bad guys shooting their automatic weapons and missing, etc., but anyway, I'd say:
1. Sean Connery--he'd always be the Bond guy for me if for no other reason as he's the one I grew up with, but also he's a good actor and most of his films are pretty good with most noting Goldfinger as one of the better Bond films. I always liked Thunderball too among others.
2. George Lazenby--he only made one Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but I did enjoy. It's too bad he didn't get to make more.
3. Probably Daniel Craig. From the above picks you can see I prefer a more series type Bond, though there is humor and one liners in them all.
4. Probably Roger Moore--it would be easy to discount Moore's portrayal to the bottom of the list, because the franchise started to get a bit frayed and cliched, but he was in quite a few good Bond films. I always like Moonraker, Live & Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, and some others.
5. Timothy Dalton--I'm least familiar with and saw one of his Bond films the other day. He made a pretty good Bond.
6. Pierce Brosnan--he's pretty good. I could have switched around 5 and 6 pretty easily.
7. David Niven--Bond parody of Casino Royale.
Yesterday it never stopped raining. We managed to watch several movies:
Suspiria (remake) - watched it again before returning it to the library soon. I loved Argento's original Suspiria, which I watched the other day. But this remake is a pretty good movie. Favorite line, by the character playing a doctor in '60s Berlin: "You can give someone your delusion. That's religion. That was the Reich."
Wind River - something the other day reminded me of this recent purchase, that I hadn't seen since I bought it, but had seen when it was newer. Great crime/pursuit movie.
Embrace of the Vampire - pretty lame bloodsucker movie. Even the vampire is a wuss. Best reason to watch: boobs.
Serial (1980) - a comedy about the end of the hippie days in late '70s San Francisco and Marin. Self-help classes, psychiatry, a cult, an orgy. A fun cast featuring Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld, Sally Kellerman, Christopher Lee, and Peter Bonerz (Bob Newhart Show). Not a lot of belly laughs, but subtly funny and on target throughout.
There is no footage. The incident happened during a rehearsal when cameras were not rolling.
More info on the shooting incident: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...edgdhp&pc=U531
That's part of the problem. Most of the crew had walked off the set because of safety concerns. When that happened, they should have halted production until problems could be investigated and addressed. Gun check regulations obviously weren't followed, and now someone is dead.
Thanks. Obviously, I didn't read every word of every article on the incident, and I missed that. Also, I watched some television coverage of the incident, which is the opposite of informative. TV news can actually suck brain cells from your head.
Ha, yes so true!
From what I have read the walk off took place a week or so ago, but the full crew was there when the incident actually happened. New information continues to come out.
Ooop.......looks like I am incorrect. New information seems to indicate that the crew walkout took place prior to the actual incident.
The director "stated that live ammunition should not have been anywhere near the scene."
Live ammo shouldn't have even been on the set!
When I had to do firearms training in the Coast Guard, we'd walk into the range and find the guns left in a safe condition. For a semiautomatic, that means the slide was pulled back and locked, like in this picture.
Actually, the gun would be lying on its left side so that you could look into the chamber to see if there was a round in it without ever touching it. Obviously, a revolver is different but I can't understand why it wouldn't be left with the cylinder pulled out, like this, so that anyone just glancing at it can see it isn't loaded:
BTW, if it's true that crew members were previously using the gun for target practice, they should all be fired and never work on a movie set again.
I thought of something else. As I mentioned in a previous post the other day, when a gun isn't cocked, it takes quite a bit of force to fire it. So an accidental discharge is extremely unlikely. Which makes me wonder if it wasn't already cocked when it was handed to Alec Baldwin. Or did Baldwin cock it? It doesn't really matter because I keep coming back to my previous statement:
Live ammo shouldn't have even been on the set.
Another thing I thought of is why wasn't Baldwin properly trained in the use of firearms? How do I know he wasn't? Because he took the gun from someone else who told him it was safe to use and he didn't fucking check it! You never take a gun from another person and take their word for it if they tell you it's unloaded. Never. Also, you never give a gun to another person without first checking if it's loaded or not. This is all Gun Safety 101. Jesus, when I unload my gun, I check it three times to make sure it's not loaded! Some might think that's overkill but at least I know I'll never have an accidental discharge.
All this reminds me of two things:
The first is the final scene in Get Shorty when Danny Devito presses the magazine release (instead of shooting Harvey Keitel) and the clip falls out.
The second is Terry Kath blowing his brains out.
Is it any wonder why the crew walked off the set due to safety concerns?
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Dune: Part 1. Excellent movie. I want to see it again and I just watched it two days ago.
However, I read after seeing it that the studio hadn't even green lit part 2. They wanted to wait to see how well part 1 did before moving forward.
That said, I just read an article posted today that Warners & Legendary Entertainment told director Denis Villeneuve he can move forward with the second part. Release date is set to be October 2023 - in theaters only.
I couldn't believe how good this movie is. I shouldn't have been surprised, tho. Villeneuve also directed Enemy, Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, all of which were excellent too.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Ran across this t-shirt in a store the other day and had to buy it:
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
The sequel just got greenlit yesterday, so it is a go. Have not seen the film yet, but hoping to catch it in IMAX soon.Dune: Part 1. Excellent movie. I want to see it again and I just watched it two days ago.
However, I read after seeing it that the studio hadn't even green lit part 2. They wanted to wait to see how well part 1 did before moving forward.
That said, I just read an article posted today that Warners & Legendary Entertainment told director Denis Villeneuve he can move forward with the second part. Release date is set to be October 2023 - in theaters only.
I couldn't believe how good this movie is. I shouldn't have been surprised, tho. Villeneuve also directed Enemy, Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, all of which were excellent too.
IMO, Dune is just too damn dense to shove into 2 films. The material would/could been better served as a series. I thought the movie was fun, but was somewhat disappointed at the pace and the shit they thought was not important to the story arc. Some of the dialog had us rolling! Jason Momoa? That guy needs to stick to grunting lines ala Khal Drogo. To be fair, I watched it twice in as many days and it actually fared better on the second viewing.
Funny thing is, after the second viewing, I watched the old Lynch Dune (also on HBO-Max) for the first time since the 80s and was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it!
Dune 2021: 7.5 out of 10 Muad'dibs.
Dune 1984: 7.5 out of 10 Shai-Huluds.
"That gum you like is going to come back in style."
There is another version of Dune that claims to be a TV mini-series from 2000. I don't recall seeing it on TV or even hearing about it at the time. If it was on cable TV I wouldn't have heard about it. It was directed by John Harrison, who I know nothing about (don't follow directors, generally, but I've heard of the big-name ones). It consists of 3 episodes, 1:40 each. I think it's on 3 dvds, and when I find it I'll watch it again. Stars William Hurt. It at least allows the story to play out over more time than any 2-hour movie version has done. Enjoyed watching it when I bought it (used).
I will watch the new Dune movie when it is available to me. When I was in my 20s, I read all 6 of the Dune books Frank Herbert wrote. I know his son continued the story, but those originals were enough for me. Creating a universe with space travel, politics, religion, conflict and drugs was quite a sci-fi feat. I own the Lynch and Harrison film versions and look forward to another. In time.
The latest on the Baldwin case: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...?ocid=msedgntp
We watched L.A. Confidential tonight. Russell Crowe and Guy Pierce. A 1950s crime drama. Man, I saw this before, first time for my wife. It was spectacular. 9/10.
What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
Kim Basinger was nominated for Breast Supporting Actress.
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