Not equating the two at all. Just saying I'm surprised at how utterly prickish you've been, as we've always gotten along swimmingly. I'll delete it just so it doesn't perplex you any further.

Fuck it. If you can't be bothered to acknowledge what I've written in response to your tantrum, you shouldn't have thrown the tantrum. I have no idea why you made the decision to get huffy and pissy and serious about this, and then belittle my seriousness.

Again, this is all quite pathetic, I expected better of you, and you should be embarrassed.

You were not equipped to be part of this disicssion.

you fellerz gonna wrastle or aintz ya

this is perplexing to me because i think you're the one in tantrum mode and behaving embarrassingly. but we're different people so perspectives vary.

i'm not saying this to offend you, but i'm sorry i can't take your words seriously as discussion. only as a serious emotional reaction, but not for content. i get that you're enraged, but i don't follow the arguments of the rant.

i'm sorry i had a role in triggering this outburst, but fuck, i really think you're off your rocker at the moment, and this makes any "discussion" pointless.

let's just stop talking for the day.

somehow i missed it. seriously.

this for fucks sake. this thread makes me sad. i'd hope SY folk wouldn't act like kindergartners. how do you get through life dismissing other people's opinions? You both have opinions. leave it at that. We're talking about movies! we have to insult another's intelligence because they don't think the same way about a particular movie? that's ridiculous.

stop being so damned reasonable, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Meanwhile, I'm upset no one is complaining about the fact that I have never seen Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. I figured i'd be ostracized by now.

I agree completely. I myself have no problems with anyone's opinion, and I wouldn't think to try to drag someone through the dirt because they said this or that thing that totally doesn't matter "sucks." Even if I really loved that thing.

I wish I hadn't sunk to the level of throwing insults around. It wasn't my best moment. Not proud of it. Should have just written off the nasty comments and moved on. I was disappointed though, and it brought out a bunch of nasty energy.

I tried to talk to you privately. You didn't respond, and decided to keep being unjustifiably rude publically. I don't frankly buy what you're saying. You know I'm not "enraged." You know I' disappointed and confused by why you'd opt to talk to me, or anyone, like such a prick. Implying that I'm somehow hysterical just feeds my belief that you're being intentionally nasty, for the stupidest possible reason.

Somehow it's my fault though, for expecting you to do something — anything — other than say dismissive and insulting things. And for getting roughly as "enraged" at your incessant insults as you did when I said Amadeus sucked. So I don't believe you think I'm off my rocker, because you'd have to believe the same thing about yourself. Surely, if it's insane to get defensive about direct insults, it must be downright psychotic to react that way to someone insulting an inanimate object.

reservoir dogs i don't particularly like but duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude you have to watch Pulp Fiction. have. to.watch.it

See Django.

Much better. I didn't even get ostracized. I'll take it.

hey hey there--- your private message said "fuck you"

i said one thing about you-- "you're sorely unequipped to talk about the great milos forman." you said like 500 things about me i couldn't bother responding to. i mean-- which one was it?

you said something stupid about a movie you know nothing about and i responded gruffly. yes, i got impatient with it. i'm rude when i get impatient.

the other day i criticized superhero movies you called me dumb and i said nothing because i figured it was par for the course though. i didn't cry or make a stink.

today you don't like that you think i said you were stupid and you turn into a major drama queen, demand that i feel shame, and go off like a lunatic, write whole treatises about how i should feel ashamed.

so out of hand you got that you even brought some of your private business into it. when you told me about it i heard you out and thought i treated you respectfully and compassionately and with the discretion you requested.

but suddenly you feel butthurt and turn yourself into a spectacle

i didn't make you overreact or behave ridiculously-- that was your choice.

if you don't think you did that, then we have incompatible views. different ethos.

for the record, if there's a little space to address the actual discussion that unleashed 10,000 tears, i didn't think that you were stupid-- just fucking ignorant.

me, i'm fucking ignorant about hiphop. i can't talk with any authority about it. there's a bunch of shit i don't know shit about. like--baseball. fuck if i understand a thing about it. i can't go and talk shit about something i don't understand. i'm ignorant about superman too-- the fuck if i know what kind of soil they had in krypton. you probably do.

so yeah, people can be ignorant. and you're ignorant too about a lot of things. i hope that realization doesn't cause you to despair. that's just life.

i did think you got stupid afterwards though-- when you felt offended and ran wiht i? uau. that was... something.

like, "will someone give this man a tranquilizer before he strangles on his tongue?"

and with that-- what chance was there to address the original dispute? train went off the rails.

sorry but i can't offer the time to continue feeding your histrionics. really, no. it would go on forever. who the fuck has the time?

seeya.

ostracizing you isn't likely to convince you to watch Pulp Fiction now is it ;)

pulp fiction is probably my favorite movie ever!

You said more than one thing, man. I think you have missed the entire point of everything, perhaps even your own post.

I don't know "nothing" about your precious film. Seen it more times than I can count. Curious as to what it is that I'm ignorant of.

And yes, I technically said you were dumb. Like this:

"... In other words, comic books rule, I'm not dumb YOU'RE dumb ;)
Clearly not a real dig. It was playful and openly so. If you had taken offense though, I would have apologized.

I know you don't think I'm stupid. I don't think I'm stupid. But you acted like an asshole, and that's all there is to it.

Yeah, see ya.

We all have movies, books, album holes, no need to judge people for that. You'll get to it when the time is right for you, or you won't.

You're definitely not seeing straight on this one. You may not like Severian's dismissal of Amadeus, but to suggest that he's somehow 'unequipped' to criticise it is patronising in the extreme, whether you meant it like that or not. It also elevates the film and the maker way above their actual level. For me Amadeus represents the very worst kind of middlebrow cinema, which of course is exactly the kind that the Academy and the broadsheet critics love. I'm only surprised you could feel so inspired to lash out over it the way you have.


In which case, guilty as charged

i wasn't trying to be patronizing, just rude. was meant more as a "shut the fuck up", but... personalized

a rhetorical fluorish in the service of picking a fight. maybe.


it wasn't amadeus that inspired me!

sometimes people get on my nerves

(but of course the movie had a role in this)

as for the discussion of the film proper, would be great to separate it from the criticism of my actions to avoid muddling things--like if amadeus is objectively good i'm justified and if it's objectively bad i'm not justified. the movie and my actions are not the same thing and there is no transitive property here.

but only if you want to actually talk about the film though. otherwise it's an empty exercise.

Well starting from the principle that no film is objectively good or bad, I never liked it, mainly because I couldn't stand Hulce's bratty performance. I think I heard somewhere that Polanski was meant to direct it, with him playing Mozart (as he did in the original stage version). That may have worked far better. It's weird though because if there's one thing I'd say about all the Forman films I've seen besides Amadeus: whatever I've thought about them generally, the acting's usually been great. But Hulce was a directorial decision that backfired massively for me.

You're right, whether the film's objectively good or bad has nothing to do with how you acted. There's no "justification" for trying to start a fight with "personalized" antagonism.

I said plenty about the film after you acted like a discussion was what you wanted, but a discussion was never what you wanted. As you said, I got on your nerves, and you tried to start a fight, which would have been much less insulting if you'd just said that's what you were doing.

Everything about the way you've acted has been tacky and disappointing. Your entire position has been riddled with holes and red herrings.

But still, I don't feel good about sinking to the level of returning fire, even if you feel just fine about sending the first shots.

hulce worked for me even if i never heard of, or saw him, or noticed him after that. so maybe he's not a great actor. but the brattiness worked for this role because the whole point was to show how easily things came to him, and by contrast how hard they were for salieri. it's supposed to be grating. it's salieri's point of view.

i mean, in spite of the title, the movie is really about salieri--his envy, jealousy, frustration and growing hate. the movie opens and closes with him, and he's the one who tells the story-- we see through his eyes. mozart is almost a plot element rather than a character proper, salieri is the real human being that we follow here into his torment--so the best actor is put in this role. salieri absolutely loves mozart's music but hates him as a person. so... it's absolutely not wrong to hate hulce here. i think we're meant to.

eta:
i think this wasn't there when i first answered, but yeah--

also, i just looked up hulce's career and he became famous for his role in... animal house! that cant have been missed in his casting

I agree completely. Hulce was the killing stroke for me on the film version. Eliminate him from the equation, and I wouldn't have much to complain about. Honestly, I don't dislike it enough to fight about it, or to deny that it has some excellent qualities. But it does seem to aim for that middling "Academy gold" mark, which so often leans far too heavily on eye-catching production values and far too little on captivating performances. It's cartoonish.

F. Murray Abraham really is great in the film, but Hucle is just embarrassing.

I was genuinely starting to wonder if you knew something about this movie that I didn't. But nope.


This is almost exactly how I put it. Different words, mostly... I said jealousy, greed, a childish refusal to let go of ego-driven grudges. But these are unnervingly similar considering the your insistence that I don't know anything about the film. I am simply mystified.

Of course the film is about Salieri's envy. God, there really was no point at any of this.

Hey you.
Thanks. :)

Hulce didn't work for me, not because he was dislikable (he was meant to be, I know) it was that he didn't feel credible, either as a general representation of Mozart, or as a version of him created in Salieri's mind. It was a cartoonish performance, which if anything actually undermined the true brilliance of Abrahams' performance by making it so easy for us to empathise with Salieri from the beginning.

ah, that. well, like any middlebrow product for mass consumption (millions get spent and millions must be made), a movie like this is not going to be too high on the ambiguity business. take alan alda in crimes and misdemeanors-- he's a fucking douche through and through and we easily identify with the woodly allen character in his hatred of him. is he a cartoon of douchery? he's certainly a stereotype.

as for the cartoonish aspect (i was going to use that word in my original reply to you actually, but avoided it so as not to inject other conversations into this one) i read somewhere that schaffer based his play on some of mozart's letters to his cousin, which were apparently like the babblings of a child; and he was impressed with the contrast between the goofy content of the letters and the music mozart wrote. i really don't mind the mozart-as-a-giant-baby characterization. for me, it works. he was no beethoven.

also regarding mozart's characterization i don't expect historical accuracy from a fiction film. salieri was mozart's friend and pushkin is the one who came up with the idea of making them rivals for dramatic purposes. the thing about killing him with music was an old rumor apparently started by his wife. the thing about the masons in the magic flute and mozart's state of paranoia approaching death are apparently true. bits of truth mixed with ample bullshit make for a good yarn though.

besides-- say that hulce isn't believeable for you (it was actually the casting of the wife that didn't work for me)--the mise en scene is fucking INSANE. it's a massive display of craft and the result is beautiful. the spectacle of sound and sight is not nothing.

i have a friend who used to make avant garde films and got burned on "cultured" movies and now only watches things for the spectacle. and the spectacle, in amadeus, is fucking great. like eating a big greasy giant hollywood hamburger of music and light and sensory msg.

after i first saw this movie i had this chorus going confutatis maledictis in my head for weeks. actually it just returned!

but yeah, f. murray abraham was fucking great in it too, and that's another reason to like this movie.

abraham beat hulce for the best performance oscar btw-- not that i give much credence to the oscars, but it's funny to me that the rivarly continued after the movie was over and the assassin won.

the story is great too of course-- yes, total bullshit and not historically accurate, but that was never the point of schaffer or pushkin anyway.

another pretty spectacular period piece is Barry Lyndon

thank you, a voice of reason. cartoonish is EXACTLY what was wrong with Amadeus

Right, because you made fun of me for liking "cartoons."
I see what you did there.


I said that last bit too.

We actually agree about most of the things you seem to find important about this movie. I know you're carefully ignoring me and all, but I wish I knew why you spazzed out in the first place. And why you're acting as though I have been the cause of the unpleasantness.
Did I do something to you? Offend you somehow? I don't expect an answer at this point, but I'd rather not have "enemy vibes" in the air here. I'm not looking for a fight, just hoping you might drop the silent treatment and communicate.

[quote=!@#$%!]


My issue with Hulce's performance is that it jars with the film, not history. I just think it goes too far in the direction of pantomime. A TV comedy sketch show version of a pampered prodigy.Maybe that's what Forman wanted but for me it was a mistake.

it's not silent treatment

i just need to cool it

i get it that your response to everything is to always talk more, and while i'm always in favor of communication some times the answer is to shut the fuck up for a while

i appreciate you making this overture for sure, but let's take it slow

plus, long weekend-- go have fun with it while it lasts

i see what you're saying now, and i'm sorry it ruined the film for you, but for me he was hilarious. the most memorable part when they ask him to play salieri at the party. it's been a while though-- this whole thing has made me want to rewatch it and i'm curious to see how i'll read it this time around.

that's one of the most beautiful movies i've ever seen

i mean, visually, it's the greatest-- well not 100% sure but definitely one of the top ones

i get that ryan o'neal wasn't the most scorsesean actor and i've had this discussion with demonrail before but sometimes a weak actor fits the part like a glove

since barry lyndon is about how a naive boy can bite more than he can chew (same as tom cruise in traumnovelle... eyes wide shut) it fits well

and besides, kubrick was always GREAT with the music

barry lyndon was the first time i heard the schubert piano trio that punctuates the whole film (is it the whole film? i forget)


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=91EJwsIVOqU

it's rated pretty low on the Kubrick scale, but I think it bears watching more than once, I didn't like it at first

space exploration meets the XVIII century

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rti_nDcnTPw

Thanks.

Saw this movie this weekend and its still lingering in my head. A brutal film.

okay, so, i'll send you a PM later today to spare everyone the sight and get back to the business of movies in this thread