re: What is the most pretentious movie you've ever seen?

Wag the dog

My Dinner with Andre

that one where Peter Sellers was the gardener and folks thought he was a genius

Surely Downton Abbey qualifies.

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I like the Big Chill

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I hated it, but it isn't pretentious

:Idon'tthinkthatmeanswhatyouthinkitmeans:

Spotlight, Field of Dreams and Being There ??!!! I’m just a cop but maybe I’m pretentious. My Dinner with Andre for me.

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Sideways

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Was shite. It was Swingers with less likeable characters.

Whoever's said Closer with Julia Roberts,Jude Law, Natalie portman and Clive Owen was spot on. Movie was hot trash.

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What history are proposing is being "rewritten" in Harriet? Certainly you think she is an historical figure worthy of a feature.

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Yes, absolutely. Obviously I can't say one way or the other until I've seen it and how it presents the facts and interprets them.

The question asked by the poster was, in effect, would there ever be an end to black oppression films? I took them to mean films that were disingenuous, short on truth, and long on propaganda.

I mentioned the Harriet Tubman film in passing as a new film dealing with black oppression. In context it was interesting because of its release in an election year and the possibility of its being untruthful and distorted into a propaganda piece to sow racial division.

It's not like the unvarnished truth of slavery isn't horrible enough to stand on its own two feet without Hollywood's progressive spin embellishing it. Who knows?

We'll see.

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The Black Klansman

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I thought it was awesome!

Shakespeare in Love. How the hell this movie won an Oscar is unbelievable.
Titanic
Avatar
The Deer Hunter

'annie hall"

'bananas""everything you ever wanted to know about sex"
'"sleeper"
"bullets over broadway"

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I don't think he's ever made one movie that's worth a shite.

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get serious, man


'annie hall"



'bananas"


"everything you ever wanted to know about sex"
'
"sleeper"

"bullets over broadway"

I'm confident there's one of those that's at leasr worth a shite.

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What are some examples of films that have done the above in relation to racial issues, and how did they do that?

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You asked...

I included Glory on a list of films that dealt with race with some finesse. Glory is not perfect and can provide some examples of good and bad approaches.
Not so good. Literally all the black characters are without faults. Even Denzel's character's sole faults, his bitterness and anger, are justified. The regiment's white officers are all equally good and noble. Not reality but allowable for time and dramatic license and impact,

Not so good. The rest of the white officers in blue are universally racist and/or corrupt. The quartermaster. The general and his brigade commander that took Col. Gould' troops into the South Carolina town. All rotten to the core. It went without saying the white Southerners and Confederates were evil by virtue of slavery alone. In reality few people, black or white, are that evil. Maybe that evil is not so far fetched.

The most truly unbiased and impartial character blind to color and immune to racial distinctions was Sgt. Maj. Mulchay. His scenes displayed some of the film's most positive messages regarding how one person should view and treat another person.

IMO that's the "out of left field" kind of messaging that's makes sense and is productive. The Sgt. Major transcends black and white. You know he would call white and black recruits "bloody fricking hindoos" and beat them all into soldiers without hesitation or prejudice.

Both Full Metal Jacket and Remember The Titans employed a similar approach. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman says "I am hard, but I am fair! There is no racial bigotry here! I do not look down on ****s, ****s, wops, or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless!"

Coach Boone says he's a mean cuss but he's mean to all of them.

All three are similar sideways messages about equality and reinforcing that all of us when it's all said and done are equal. And maybe making the case that integrated athletics and the military are crucial in helping racial prejudice die a natural death.

Not so good. A second interesting and debatable message revolved around the differences in behavior and bearing of Col. Gould' troops and his Brigade Commander's troops in the town. I thought the point clearly being made was that people thought of as men and treated as men bore themselves as men. The contrast between the two units in the field were striking. The Brigade CO thought his troops little more than baby children, animals even, and they carried themselves accordingly.

Whether this notion is true or not or is an oversimplification or simply wrong is a discussion for the psychiatrists and psychologists. However it places a lot of responsibility for how an individual behaves on how people perceive them taking a good bit of personal responsibility off the individual's shoulders.

I view a tatted up thug looking black guy one way and my neighbor views him another way. Does he shoot my neighbor? Or do he and I go to Bible study together? Is how we perceived him determinative? Or does he make choices? The film comes down on my perceptions being greatly responsible for his actions and sells that notion to the audience. I'm uncomfortable with that.

Not good and an irritation. Gould's men guarding the door to the Quartermaster's office when Gould got their boots. Everyone put on the gangster thug pose almost signing. Unnecessary. Indulgent. Putting that contemporary meme at that point made a statement. A buddy I saw the movie with pointed it out to me saying to me, "you see that cracker, black man tired and gonna git his boots one way or the other, hook or crook, fighting and war. Best be glad you wit me tonight so's I can protect you from my angry brothers!" I can still hear him and quote him. I told him if he didn't take care of me I was going to stab him with my hypo of sickle cell juice.

Maybe this has been more about how to handle the subject than how not to. In answer to your question, after all that, Crash comes to mind. See below. Got to start dinner and feed my dogs.

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With that said, I don't think there's a single human being in Crash. Instead you have arguments and propaganda violently bumping into each other, impressed with their own quirkiness. ("Hey look, I'm a black carjacker who resents being stereotyped.") But more than a bad film, Crash, which won an Oscar (!), is the apotheosis of a kind of unthinking, incurious, nihilistic, multiculturalism. To be blunt, nothing tempers my extremism more than watching a fellow liberal exhort the virtues of Crash. If you're angry about race, but not particularly interested in understanding why, you probably like Crash. If you're black and believe in the curative qualities of yet another "dialogue around race," you probably liked Crash. If you're white and voted for Barack Obama strictly because he was black, you probably liked Crash. If you've ever used the term "post-racial" or "post-black" in a serious conversation, without a hint of irony, you probably liked Crash.

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Your question reminded me of an Atlantic Review article (quoted above) I have on file for Crash.