It sounds to me like you saw the theatrical cut. I have never seen the recut version which removed some of the violence and its not easy to navigate to find it on the Blu-Ray I have or even on the old DVD release.

Under ordinary circumstances I would agree about the violence but to me there was a deeper purpose in it for this film, and frankly I've always found it strange to single out this film for the problems of violence in cinema after decades of other directors using violence and more graphicness to depict it in a purposefully subversive kind of fashion that the critics seemed to love (starting with Sam Peckinpah).

I'll put it this way, I think if this film had been done with all the actors speaking English in the usual custom, the violence would have come off as more exploitative perhaps because in the context of being more "realistic" you still have the convention of unrealism in the language they spoke. But in this case, the entire intent was to aim for realism in the truest sense of the term, to achieve the difficulty of your casts speaking two dead languages (Aramaic and Latin) and bringing home the magnitude of how those at that time would have seen the suffering, and showing us the uneducated sadism of Roman soldiers who historians I think will agree were mostly like that with how they treated prisoners. To me, it works in the overall purpose of what the film is there for to give the truest sense of "this is how it happened" that we can ever see and that's what I think struck a chord with so many to make the film so popular among those who would be the last kind of people to see a film that had that level of violence.

The conceit of Mary Magdalene as the adulteress from that scene has been used by other filmmakers in the past, including "King Of Kings" and GSET. Scripture of course does indicate it was not Mary Magdalene.

Like I said, I have no problem with violence in film, and not sure if having the film in a dead language or any other language besides English cancels out any feeling of exploitation, which was not my bone of contention and is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. My feeling is why show every second of the scouraging when a few examples of each would have been plenty-showing people either repulsed, horrified, maybe even gleeful while watching would have been enough and allowed the audience to project themselves onto those spectators to make the connection. Perhaps we have seen too much over the years with the result being so little is left to the imagination, whether it be in movies, TV or video games that the ante has to be upped in order to reach the masses. But what harm would there be in having that one film or show or game that leaves more to the imagination than showing it graphically?

One of my favorite classic films is Fritz Lang's M-in which the main character is a child molester (and no-Eric, I am in no way comparing Christ to M). Yes, considering the times in which it was made you could not show the character doing what he did because conventions of the time would not allow it and besides, who (besides other criminals) would find anything entertaining in that? Has the film dated? Of course-there are many aspects that reveal the film's age-the technology available, the acting style and perhaps the presentation of the material and the themes, but does this mean the film has lost any of its power or that it no longer is any good? Nope. Would the film be any better if it was more graphic? Who knows what Lang would have tried to do were he alive today to make the film, but I cannot imagine it being any better with those things added, and as my mother once told me (when I asked her why she could read the book THE EXORCIST but refuse to see the movie), "sometimes what I imagine is much worse than what they put on the screen and I really have no need to see that, either."

To say that showing extremely graphic violence with one film or other form of media is OK because others have done so or worse is, to me, like saying its OK for me to do it because someone else did. Not always, and why copy what someone else has done? I know PASSION was a huge hit, and I admire the film a great deal (not really sure I can say I enjoyed it), but considering that two people I know who are extremely spiritual and religious and pride themselves on their devotion to Christ could not bring themselves to watch the film because of what they heard from others about the violence-and these are two people who never miss CSI-why repel a part of your audience that would seem to be hungry for a film on the subject?

I think though there is a difference when you're dealing with something that for so many millions the world over, speaks to a profound question regarding what they believe. Is the ordinary Christian really cognizant in his or her own mind of the true meaning of what it was for Christ to take on the sins of the world and undergo the most heinous form of punishment imaginable at the time to achieve that end in fulfillment of a Divinely ordered plan? How we react to that question as believers can often let us examine within ourselves the seriousness of our own faith and our level of understanding what it all means, and I think that's why the depiction in this film struck the chord it did. I think its a safe assumption for instance that the average person who saw this film is more likely than not to be the same kind of person who would refuse to see "The Wild Bunch" or a Tarantino film or anything else loaded with what they would see as objectionable content. But in this presentation, in the language spoken by Christ in an attempt to strive for authenticity, suddenly they can think of the most profound aspect of what gives their life meaning. It may not be a satisfactory explanation for some that the subject matter allows one to view the violence in a different context, but I think that has to be factored into the discussion over it, because that generally is how I have come to see the issue from the first time I saw it in 2004 and why I don't hesitate to go back to the original cut every Good Friday. I've really in a sense felt that to watch an edited version would be to deny myself the insight that made this film what it was to me and many others.

For me, TPOTC was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had in the theater. I am familiar from an intellectual standpoint of what went on that day as well as some of the medical facts of what happens when someone was treated that way. It is all academic in a way. What the film did for me was make me sit there as an observer and committed follower of Jesus and watch the brutality actually happen. The way the Romans treated Him was ultra-violent and for me and what I believe, it made me, in essence, see the cost. It was very disturbing because it was so violent, but I think that was the point. I think cutting some of it out or making it less violent and focusing on the crowd reactions would have not made the viewer uncomfortable - instead, by focusing on the events of that day and making the viewer look at Him, you are pretty much making the viewer uncomfortable and horrified but that was the point.

I am not for torture movies like SAW or anything like that - I was not expecting to see what I saw when I saw TPOTC. But I can guarantee it made me look at the gospel narratives, Good Friday, Easter, and my life completely differently. For that I give Gibson and the makers of the film a huge thumb's up. I don't believe a Christian NEEDS to see this film in order to be deeply relational with Jesus or to understand His sacrifice and what Good Friday and Easter means, but it certainly paints a more accurate picture of the history of the times and is worth seeing and reflecting upon.

Lincoln

Eh...

Not a bad movie by any means. Some fine performances, from Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field in particular, but also Joseph Gorden Levitt, Hal Holbrook, David Strathearn and Tommy Lee Jones.

But, it's not an especially good movie either. For me it just had an emotional flatline. It's a sincere effort, but it just doesn't have any passion. Spielberg better examined slavery and racial inequality in Amistad (the best of his "serious" films IMO), while Michael Apted's underrated Amazing Grace told a similar story (England's eradication of slavery) with far-more dramatic resonance. One thing I did like was the scene near the end when Tommy Lee Jones arrives home and we learn that he and his black housekeeper are lovers. It's a touching scene, and a hint of what the rest of the film could have been.

Some of the casting of the smaller roles also made me chuckle a bit, like Jackie Earl-Haley, and Lukas Haas' brief appearance as a union soldier .

I didn't care for the look of the film either. The art direction was excellent, but again Januz Kaminski compromises everyone else's efforts with his genuinely bizarre photographic style. I actually started laughing during the scene near the end where Lincoln and Grant are conversing, and that bright light shines against the house and all those conspicuous "dramatic shadows" are cast on them from the people passing by.

Pretty much my reaction. It's not an inspiring movie at all -- very dense, very wordy, very into itself -- albeit well acted. But, that was it. I was bored. And I also felt the material (as I wrote before) with his son felt out of place because the movie was so into the ins and outs of the political maneuvering that it felt tacked-on.

And Williams' score -- thankless too. Nothing really to say about it, other than he didn't have much of a chance to do something with it.

Smashed (2012): 6.5/10

Pretty much in agreement with Andy on this one...a wonderful showcase for the considerable talents of Mary Elizabeth Winstead (finally given a really juicy dramatic role, and she excels), but the film itself is somewhat undercooked and commits one of my all-time biggest irks when it comes to alcoholism/junkie movies...the Third-Act Time Jump, where our protagonist Hits Rock Bottom in spectacular fashion, and the film conveniently leaps forward for a period of months or a year and rejoins our now-sober/clean protagonist, without all of that messy rehabilitation to get in the way of the obligitory back-patting moralistic ending. Crazy Heart, Flight...all of these addiction dramas fall into the same trap, and it's frustrating and trivializes the struggles these characters must have gone through to achieve a new beginning. Still, Winstead is marvellous, selling both the "cute", tipsy drunk girl routine and the ravenous desperation beneath (watch her eyes welling up with puzzled humiliation during her first AA meeting as she tells her story and realizes just how out of control she's become without realizing it...superb acting). Had the film gotten a wider release and more publicity instead of blipping through the art house circuit, she might have even garnered some awards attention. Still, the film, flaws and all, remains a excellent calling card for MEW to finally graduate from cute, twentysomething girlfriend roles and into more substantive dramatic roles as she moves into her thirties and beyond.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version)

A generally unremarkable mystery whose only really unique attribute is its (questionable) willingness to explicitly depict a violent rape. The film does get points from me for showing the indelible damage sexual abuse does to women; I've been close to several women who are abuse survivors and the character of Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) very accurately exhibits their symptoms -- deep-seated anger, forays into lesbianism, and a "hot and cold" attitude towards the men they eventually allow themselves to love. (Tellingly, the Swedish title of the novel on which this film was based is "Men Who Hate Women".)

On the other hand, the scenes depicting the abuse are so candidly, I dare say even "lovingly" directed, that this is the kind of film that could easily inspire someone who is already a bit "off" to try and emulate what they see on screen. (More filmmakers ought to take a cue from David Lean's Oliver Twist, where the dog barking at the locked door told you all you needed to know about what was happing off-camera.)

The film is also slow-moving and really quite boring at the outset. I even considered turning it off. The only thing that kept me interested was a desire to see the mystery solved, and it does admittedly pick-up as things progress. But The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo is generally less interesting than even a below-average episode of Wallender (both visually and in terms of story) and is mostly noteworthy for its disturbing imagery (and Lisbeth's character), rather than its strengths as a mystery.

Totally agree, didn't do anything for me either. If you want to get even more grimy, Fincher's U.S. version -- much more interestingly crafted from a technical standpoint -- has as much of a brutal rape sequence...but the mystery is a kind of who-cares situation IMO.

One of those deals where it is impossible for me to classify that subject matter as 'entertainment.' I don't see what all the fuss was about with it.

Further on comparisons to Wallander, Stieg Larsson's "Men Who Hate Women" was published in in 2005, and bares a number of similarities to Henning Manke's Walldander mystery "Sidetracked" -- which was published in 2003.

AndyDursin wrote:Totally agree, didn't do anything for me either. If you want to get even more grimy, Fincher's U.S. version -- much more interestingly crafted from a technical standpoint -- has as much of a brutal rape sequence...but the mystery is a kind of who-cares situation IMO.

One of those deals where it is impossible for me to classify that subject matter as 'entertainment.' I don't see what all the fuss was about with it.

As much as I love David Fincher's work, I absolutely have no desire to see someone get raped. To me that is not entertainment, and so I will never watch this film or the Swedish original. I read what IMDB had to say about it under the Parental section, and there is NO WAY I will ever watch that film...lol...

EVIL DEAD
8/10

A stirring remake of Sam Raimi's 1983 original horror outing -- which, by itself, actually isn't all that good (I watched it again yesterday), particularly in comparison to Evil Dead II (a brilliant comic-riffed remake of its predecessor) and of course Army of Darkness (which is as much a playful homage to the fantasies of Ray Harryhausen as it is a horror movie).

Fede Alvarez's 2013 "Evil Dead" is neither campy nor a "self aware" rehash of what came before, but is still decidedly old fashioned, particularly in how it relies not on CGI but on physical make-up effects that are gory and gooey. They're also so "unrealistic" that they take the edge off the severed limbs and buckets of blood that come flying at you -- and as you might expect, there are plenty of both to go around in this inspired effort produced by the original movie's creative team (Raimi, Robert Tapert and "Ash" himself, Bruce Campbell).

The new script by Alvarez and Diablo Cody reworks Raimi's original, with a group of young folks gathering at an isolated forest cabin not for a vacation but to support their friend Mia (Jane Levy), who's trying to kick a drug habit. Unbeknownst to them, the Book of the Dead lies dormant in the cellar of the old place, and once it's cracked open, all hell breaks out, with demonic possession, dismemberment, puking, stabbings, self-mutilation and foul language all sprinkled into the mix as the group fights to stay alive.

While most of the characters in "Evil Dead" aren't especially developed, Alvarez does a strong job establishing the picture around Mia's plight, which adds a dramatic layer to the film that was completely absent from Raimi's original. Once Mia is flagged as the vessel for the Deadites to come to life, it's easy to feel sympathy for her as she's put through the ringer -- as is the rest of the cast, with Alvarez staging a series of horrifying, gory encounters between the survivors and the possessed. Luckily, while the film is plenty bloody, it's violent in a more "classical" splatter style instead of the more sadistic horror we see in torture porn outings of the 21st century. It's also not as mean-spirited as, say, recent supernatural thrillers like "Sinister" and "Insidious" -- not as outwardly "playful" as Raimi's films, of course, but with some notable ingredients brought back from its predecessors.

Alvarez's direction is confident, anchoring scenes with a visual flourish and a heavy reliance on sound design and Roque Baños' surprisingly good orchestral underscore. And, right when the film seems to be setting up for an entirely predictable conclusion, the new "Evil Dead" throws a couple of curveballs at the audience that pay off in a big way -- with an especially satisfying ending that, fortunately, isn't telegraphed from the very beginning for a change.

While naysayers will lament the fact that once again Hollywood has turned out another remake, the 2013 "Evil Dead" is a good one -- and a really fine horror film at that. Be sure to stay through the credits for a very brief but quite welcome surprise that ought to please fans of Raimi's originals -- and whet their appetites for what might be coming down the road.

I liked the film even more than you did, Andy...it's easilly the best horror remake since Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead (not that you'd agree with me on that one ). Excellent atmosphere, striking gore effects (mostly practical, for a change...if there was CGI, it was virtually unnoticable) and a terrific score by Roque Banos, probably the best horror score since Christopher Young's Drag Me To Hell. I had an absolutle blast with this, and I wish more remakes were as well-imagined and enthusiastically directed as this.

1/10 for me...

I saw the film with my fiancee last night-she introduced me to the original years ago and we both had a blast with it back then.

I liked the backstory with it-using the cabin for an intervention and the young woman who is the subject of that was incredibly good. I also liked the practical effects (make-up, physical materials used) and the extremely minimal use of any CGI. The use of the chainsaw for the finale was extremely satisfying as was the rain, as well.

Otherwise, I thought the film was horrible and here is why: I have been watching movies for years and I guess I have had it up to here with characters who should know better and appear to be intelligent...DOING STUPID THINGS! Two of the people in this film are a teacher and a registered nurse. The former finds an object in the cellar while the group is investigating a horrible smell (the opening sequence tells us but if I would have been in that group I would have seen pretty quickly that animals were used in an abnormal way) and finds an object that looks ominous-it is wrapped in a thick kind of cloth and then with barbed wire. An intelligent character in any film would normally react this way-you find something that looks like that and you stay away from it because there is obviously something there that should not be touched. But no-he retrieves it and brings it upstairs. Now mind you-this character is a teacher yet has shown no characteristics of being interested in mysterious objects or being a thrill seeker, nor is there a look in his eyes or on his face that tells us that he has found something that has drawn him to it. We then see him at a desk cutting through the barbed wire, looking through the book and seeing things like "DO NOT READ ALOUD" and "DO NOT WRITE THIS OUT." Guess what? He says the words out loud and also writes them out! This has to be the most stupid, moronic teacher in the history of the profession-an obvious warning (3 of them, actually) and what does he do? He does it anyway.

By now I was shaking my head in absolute amazement-in the original the characters did not speak the words, they were on tape so you couldn't blame them for saying them, and as I recall there was no sign saying "DO NOT PLAY THIS TAPE!" If there was, I stand corrected. Then, after the subject of the intervention starts having symptoms of what does not look like withdrawal but something much worse, including speaking in a voice that no human could really do without some form of electronic synthesizing, shooting someone then vomiting up about 10 gallons of...something, the nurse character voices the opinion that these are symptoms of withdrawal and goes to get her another sedative. I don't know about you, but signs of withdrawal to me do not include speaking in a way different voice and puking up the equivalent of two 5-gallon drums all over me. Something else is going on and it isn't until a character disfigures themselves in an extreme way that someone realizes hey-there is something more than someone detoxing going on here. Duh!

None of the characters in this film when we introduced to them struck me as being a bit of an airhead or impulsive aside from the druggie, and if she would have done what the teacher did then I would have been able to accept it-she is not in her right mind, she is going through withdrawal and who knows what is going through her mind. But it was not her-it was someone who should know better but suddenly does something so stupid and out of what we expect for the character that at first I thought what he was doing were hallucinations in her head, but no, he just became a total idiot and set the plot in motion.

By the time the film was over, I felt like I did towards the end of Scorsese's remake of CAPE FEAR-I could not wait for the characters to die which would mean the movie was over and I could go home. If I had been by myself watching this, I would have walked out.

Monterey Jack wrote:I liked the film even more than you did, Andy...it's easilly the best horror remake since Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead (not that you'd agree with me on that one ). Excellent atmosphere, striking gore effects (mostly practical, for a change...if there was CGI, it was virtually unnoticable) and a terrific score by Roque Banos, probably the best horror score since Christopher Young's Drag Me To Hell. I had an absolutle blast with this, and I wish more remakes were as well-imagined and enthusiastically directed as this.

You know, what worked so effectively was that the TONE was dead on target. Serious but not solemn, gory but not sadistic (deadite mutiliations aren't like the murders in the SAW films) -- this didn't go the way of the deadly serious NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake, thankfully, and it delivered the goods in a major way. I agree also that Banos' score was really solid. And I liked this movie's ending big time...it didn't feel the need to throw a cheap twist in there like the lousy end of DRAG ME TO HELL which ruined an otherwise solid genre exercise.

It will be interesting to see what they do for an encore. The problem with doing another EVIL DEAD is there are only so many things you can do with a group of kids in a cabin. It's why Raimi opened up the door for humor in EVIL DEAD II and then went into a whole different genre in ARMY OF DARKNESS -- I think he was tired of just doing the same o'l splatter in a claustrophobic setting.

Now that they've remade EVIL DEAD, that's good -- but they're going to need to open it up some in a sequel. Ironically, THIS movie's success may also help Raimi and Campbell get the green light for an Ash return, which that post-credits gag hinted at. Certainly in EW Campbell talked about how they still want to do it -- this movie's success might give them that opportunity if Raimi gets enough time to make it happen (or they could do something crazy and bring Ash into the EVIL DEAD 2.0 sequel...which wouldn't feel weird necessarily since this movie could easily be seen as a sequel to those films with different characters years after the fact).

I loved the return of Ash's car and some other visual touches too. But it did remind you some that nobody in this film had the magnetism/charisma that Campbell did. Most of the cast was dull, though I liked Jane Levy and felt she did a really good job. Still, she's off screen for a while and the other characters were so bland that I kept thinking, "this boring loser is supposed to be the Ash part?" So I was happy when Mia "came back" -- it really was a nice twist and since I didn't read everything about the film ahead of time, that portion was a surprise for me.

Overall, Raimi got it right and let Alvarez do his thing -- good work across the board, especially when you consider how WRONG most of these remakes/sequels/whatever have been.