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Post by stephen on Mar 16, 2019 22:48:53 GMT
Hopefully it'll be a better weekend watch than Triple Frontier. NOOOOOO! I've been avoiding all TF news! You horseshoe crab, you! Remember, though: I really didn't like A Most Violent Year, so who cares what I think? Although it should be said, Chandor makes a pretty good case here to make an Uncharted movie.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 16, 2019 22:53:06 GMT
Any words on DVD/Bluray release? It's getting a VOD release next Friday, so it'll be online then. To quote Seth Rogen from Freaks and Geeks, if the kegs in the corner then I am in the corner. See ya next Friday, Mel.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2019 18:28:10 GMT
Ticket to cinema secured. Too bad I´ll have to wait to end of March.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2019 15:09:41 GMT
Does it coming fucking finally on VOD tommorow or not?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2019 16:22:06 GMT
Gibsons best performance in years. Vaughn is very good. Even with english subtitles not my native language. Few scenes are so BRUTAL as sensitive people will be very pissed! Hahahaha. Good old S. Craig Zahler.
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Post by Viced on Mar 22, 2019 19:18:05 GMT
Not quite as kickass as Brawl in Cell Block 99, but still pretty great.
One of my favorite Mad Mel performances... Vaughn was quite good too but his shoe polish-dyed black hair was a little distracting. Rest of the cast is strong, though I wanted more Don Johnson and Udo Kier. Tons of great lines and bruuuuutally shocking moments, as you'd expect from Zahler. Some scenes definitely linger, but it never felt long to me.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 22, 2019 19:22:06 GMT
Gonna rent it tomorrow.
Amazes me Amazon has this, but still not A Star is Born...
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Post by stephen on Mar 22, 2019 19:40:21 GMT
If Bone Tomahawk was S. Craig Zahler’s pulpy homage to the works of Sam Peckinpah and Brawl on Cell Block 99 was his tribute to ‘70s exploitation fare, then the ominously-titled Dragged Across Concrete is Zahler channeling the early works of James Ellroy—in particular, the escapades of Lloyd Hopkins, a cop who has long ago lost the needle on his moral compass. And true to form for Zahler, Concrete is a dense slab that feels like a novel more than a screenplay.
Indeed, the two cops at the center of Concrete are morally and righteously skewed, to say the least. And who better to portray them than two actors whose personal lives and views have been rather . . . contentious, to say the least? Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn play Ridgeman and Lurasetti, partners whose strong-arm tactics have caused quite a media furor, resulting in their suspension from the force. It’s a tough break for Ridgeman especially, as his wife is languishing from a debilitating illness while their daughter is being harassed by neighborhood kids, and the financial burden his dismissal adds to their situation makes him plan for desperate measures—namely, a heist on a mysterious crime figure. For his part, Lurasetti has to decide whether his loyalty to his grizzled partner outweighs the risk.
If this was the only story Zahler had to tell, this would be enough to be a lean, mean noir machine . . . but Zahler specializes in sprawling tales bordering on bloat, and here his excesses are in full, unfettered effect. Ridgeman and Lurasetti—morally dubious sorts—are merely a couple of our focal characters in this cynical world. There’s Henry (Tory Kettles, providing the heart and soul a film this bleak desperately needs) as an ex-con eager to reform, but whose desperate financial circumstances put him in the mix of a truly monstrous situation. And then there’s the mysterious masked gunman cutting a swath of stomach-churning violence throughout the city. All of these storylines intersect in a fevered, harrowing sequence that leads to the sort of demented, delirious finale that only a mad noir pro could concoct.
Of course, such a film opens itself up to a lot of criticism and controversy—Zahler’s treatment of women as punching-bags (if not bullet-magnets), the casual racism, the inclusion of Mad Mel as a problematic cop who has our de facto hero . . . and I do think all of this is most definitely worth discussing. But this film is not worth dismissing, as I think it speaks to Zahler’s strengths as a storyteller that he does not try to mince the unsavory aspects of his characters and yet knows how to make them compelling, if not exactly rootable. This is no country for heroes.
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Post by stephen on Mar 22, 2019 20:11:19 GMT
I also want to add that I think that this film does earn its runtime whereas I felt that Brawl on Cell Block 99 was excruciatingly paced and needed a good forty-five minutes trimmed from it . . . basically his entire stay at the first prison. But Dragged Across Concrete earns it, and what's more, it's easily Zahler's most well-edited film.
I'd still slot it in below Bone Tomahawk, but only slightly, and it's definitely a notch or two above Brawl.
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Post by jakesully on Mar 22, 2019 22:11:32 GMT
Saw this in theaters today and overall I really really dug it. Zahler is now 3 for 3 with me and I like how he doesn't pull any punches with his films. The guy truly doesn't give a fuck and isn't making these films for the masses like a lot of other directors do these days . Respect!
Mel & Vince work really well together and did a good job playing off each other . Also Kittles was quite good in this too. Need to check out more of his projects. Only casting complaint would be....not enough Don fuckin Johnson! but no biggie really.
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Post by cheesecake on Mar 24, 2019 1:26:12 GMT
To quote Jason Mantzoukas, I did not care for this. I'm a massive fan of Bone Tomahawk but Zahler continues to be 1/3 for me. The brutal and unflinching violence sprinkled throughout really tries to liven things up, but there are threads that take so long to weave together. The pacing is a bitch, there isn't enough meat to the story, and the misogynistic bent is very off-putting. Gibson and Vaughn were fine, but the Grey Gloved Robber dude was amazing. Wish the whole movie was about him. Sounds like I really hated it but I'm more disappointed and bummed that this is what Zahler is interested in doing.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 24, 2019 6:12:38 GMT
Okay, I can't help but compare this one to Widows... both films deal with a group of people who aren't in the criminal underworld and devise a plot to make a MASSIVE heist. Where Widows failed was mainly in the completely unrealistic events surrounding it, ie its script (and the godawful dialogue), and that's where this one soars. However, this one desperately needed trimming. The realism worked so incredibly well to a fault... I LOVED everything after the first hour. Like Cell Block, I definitely think its first half drags the overall film down. I think if this film had its script, but McQueen's direction and an editing that was somewhere between the two, it'd be compared to Heat. Sadly, as much as I truly loved the things I loved (the tailing, the dialogue, the sheer realistic brutality... despite the stupid head explosion... again) I can't help but think this needed trimming. ***1/2.
Bone Tomahawk is still his masterpiece.
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Post by stephen on Mar 24, 2019 23:41:14 GMT
Okay, I can't help but compare this one to Widows... both films deal with a group of people who aren't in the criminal underworld and devise a plot to make a MASSIVE heist. Where Widows failed was mainly in the completely unrealistic events surrounding it, ie its script (and the godawful dialogue), and that's where this one soars. However, this one desperately needed trimming. The realism worked so incredibly well to a fault... I LOVED everything after the first hour. Like Cell Block, I definitely think its first half drags the overall film down. I think if this film had its script, but McQueen's direction and an editing that was somewhere between the two, it'd be compared to Heat. Sadly, as much as I truly loved the things I loved (the tailing, the dialogue, the sheer realistic brutality... despite the stupid head explosion... again) I can't help but think this needed trimming. ***1/2. Bone Tomahawk is still his masterpiece. Interesting that you bring up Widows, as I was thinking about it as well after I saw this, and in conjunction with the criticisms Zahler has gotten for his treatment for women in his films. I actually would've loved to have seen all of the major roles in this -- Gibson, Vaughn and Kittles -- played by some of the women in Widows, but otherwise leave the script unchanged. Imagine Viola Davis in Mad Mel's role, but as a woman of color in uniform and dealing with all of the ramifications of that, especially if she gets swept up in a question of police brutality. That would've been very provocative, thematically. Have Michelle Rodriguez as her partner, Cynthia Erivo in the Kittles role, and all of a sudden you've got a film with an awful lot of intriguing layers.
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Post by finniussnrub on Mar 25, 2019 0:01:29 GMT
I liked some parts of the film. But...eh...once again Zahler treats the editing process like a true indulgent novelist. Scenes that could've been cut: Gloved Robber's earliest exploits (Yes though moments were effectively chilling, however setting up their brutality could've been established in the robbery itself.) All of Vaughn's character's personal scenes ( Just salt for a wound in the end Also felt like Zahler going "Hey look see, one's got a black girlfriend") Jennifer Carpenter's personal scene ( More Salt in a wound that felt excessive Needless, with some truly bizarre dialogue and could've been spared her atrocious performance in the scene.) Could've been easily trimmed: The final showdown (Each moment had so many false starts that diminished rather than raised tensions for me.) The soda assault on Gibson's daughter (The heck was that?) Don Johnson's scene (You know when he, Gibson and Vaughn became a news commentary round table with dialogue as heavy handed as Paul Schrader's "kids these days" scene in First Reformed)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2019 13:20:44 GMT
What for Mel put burning cigarette on the edge of fire escape stairs?
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Post by JangoB on Mar 26, 2019 23:45:37 GMT
Another goodie from S. Craig Zahler. The film surprisingly didn't feel particularly indulgent in terms of its pacing or running time for me as I've grown to rather like the way Zahler lets his movies breathe even if on paper they sound like they should be about 90 minutes long. The space he gives his stories does make them feel a little different from the usual genre stuff. I actually wish there were more scenes with Gibson and Vaughn outside their 'duty' - of course their relationship and chemistry was really well realized inside those snooping sequences but I wanted even more of them together.
The build-up to the final showdown is quite well executed and I found the climax to be really rather exciting. It's like a 45-minute long setpiece which just grabbed me and didn't let go until the end and I really appreciated the thoroughness of it, the gradual development of it instead of the way it would've been done in a typical flick like this - all sped up and cut up. I do however still feel that Zahler's filmmaking, while good, seems a bit amateurish at times. Perhaps he intentionally avoids making it all seem too professional or polished but I can't help but feel that if he upgrades his grip on the cinematic side of his movies, he'll be really great. My other minor quibbles include some writerly tricks that got a little annoying (I mainly mean the 'Anchovies' thing here) and the whole Jennifer Carpenter business - her individual scene was pretty badly acted and was just weird and then the eventual development of her character's fate rang kinda unnecessarily cruel, even for Zahler's clearly no-bullshit cinematic worldview. It just felt like a mean-spirited joke.
But these are all definitely non-major quibbles. The overall film is pretty damn good, the writing is mostly awesome and the slow-burn suspense of it was very exciting. Vaughn is very good but Gibson really did a great job here, as did Tory Kittles. And of course the un-PC nature of the script is something that I dug. None of this sucking up to current trendy phoniness, wonderful. It's weird to realize that a movie like this feels fresh these days just because it isn't afraid to be a bit un-PC. What a world.
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Post by AKenjiB on Apr 7, 2019 18:57:08 GMT
I really enjoyed this a lot overall. It’s not perfect but it’s wonderfully ambitious. I was constantly disturbed by what the characters do and what they say but I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It's 158 minutes with Zahler allowing many scenes to play out for a long time, but I never really felt bored and while there's a lot going on, I was never confused by the narrative.
Dragged Across Concrete has had no shortage of controversy due to its premise and casting of Mel Gibson. Many debates have been had over whether or not the film is endorsing the behavior of its characters or simply acknowledging they exist. This isn't exactly a new type of controversy. People have been arguing that Martin Scorsese's films glorify crime for years, people debated whether or not Zero Dark Thirty glorified torture or simply acknowledged it exists. You see my point.
Admittedly, Zahler certainly doesn't make his intentions abundantly obvious. When we hear a character say something bigoted or troubling, there's no audience surrogate there to criticize them. These comments are also more subtle, not something meant to be the character's entire personality. But what's most important to me is that these characters felt like real people. I didn't exactly like the Ridgeman and Lurasetti characters but they didn't feel like cartoonish villains. They had sympathetic elements, but many unsympathetic elements too. The way Ridgeman justifies his behavior (which is not challenged by anyone else in the film) is completely believable to his character. He sees himself as a good guy who has to go a bit rough on scumbag criminals and nobody has the right to question him. At the end of the day, I find a corrupt cop who thinks he's a good guy more interesting than a corrupt cop who's a mustache twirling villain. Does that mean endorsement or is this a film simply presenting a flawed human being as he is and trusting the viewer to not need another character to explain that he is flawed? You can decide that for yourself.
But if anything sticks with me, it’s a scene early on where Ridgeman and Lurasetti have been called in by their boss because they’ve been suspended for brutalizing a suspect. Their boss sympathizes with them and says he’s only doing it to appease the media, then goes on a boomer rant about how “being accused of racism is like being accused of being a communist in the 50s" and Lurasetti heavily echoes these sentiments.
But then Don Johnson asks Lurasetti to leave the room so he can talk to Ridgeman privately. It’s revealed they were formerly partners way back when. The boss tells Ridgeman he never saw him use that much excessive force when they worked together and basically suggests that Ridgeman is losing perspective and compassion. It's an interesting moment that I thought painted what came prior in a different light. How much of Don Johnson's rant was genuine? Was he just saying it for Lurasetti?
If there's any spot where the film is lacking, it's with some of the dialogue. Vince Vaughn’s character says "anchovies" instead of cursing for some reason and regardless of whether the script agrees or disagrees with the statement, Vaughn's line about how "There's certainly nothing hypocritical about the media handling every perceived intolerance with complete and utter intolerance," feels incredibly forced and unnatural. Likewise, this isn't really a complaint because the film is already 158 minutes long, but more an admiration of how the world-building made me wanna see more of some characters like Don Johnson and Udo Kier. Not to mention black girlfriend who at one point jokingly asks him if he beat up any minorities while at work. It’s an interesting scene but unfortunately little light is actually spent on their relationship and how she feels about his career. While I never felt bored, there are some scenes that in hindsight could’ve been cut, so it seemed like more could’ve been done to explore their relationship, since the film treats it as a really important plot point.
One thing that did actually bother me is the film's treatment of women, which doesn't seem to be its most controversial aspect to many people. Zahler's previous two films had predominantly male casts with the kidnapping of the female lead being a main plot point, but he goes kinda excessive here, with two different scenes involving half naked women being humiliated. The first time can arguably be justified as a character defining moment for the two men who are humiliating her, but the second time? Well they could've done everything exactly the same without the woman needing to be half-naked.
But the film really succeeds with Tory Kittles, an actor probably best known for his work on the tv shows True Detective, Sons of Anarchy, and Colony. This will hopefully serve as a breakout performance because he carries it and I was honestly more engaged in the storyline with him and Michael Jai White than I was with the Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn characters. He's a black ex-con reluctantly forced back into crime with his childhood friend to provide for his mother and wheelchair-bound younger brother. These kinds of storylines aren't new but Kittles has a very likable presence and his chemistry with Michael Jai White makes it easy to believe that these guys have been friends forever.
It's best to not go too much into this but the villains are also pretty great here with two characters credited only as "Grey Gloves" and "Black Gloves" providing some truly chilling work.
It’s a hard film to recommend but Zahler is 3/3 for me now and I’d say he’s quite good at the slow burn. I can’t speak for his intentions here, just my perceptions but I can’t deny that I found the film really fascinating.
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Post by stephen on Apr 30, 2019 15:05:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 17:16:51 GMT
To stephen: I have a reaction on this. Listen:
“You get results, but you’re losing perspective and compassion. A couple more years out there and you’re going to be a human steamroller covered with spikes and fueled by bile.”
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Aug 19, 2019 20:24:07 GMT
This was a rather wonderful film. It was not at all what I was expecting, in that it wasn't only slow burn, it was extreme slow burn. The pacing worked perfectly for me though, as Vaughn and especially Gibson were so fantastic that they moved the whole thing along perfectly on charisma alone. Gibson has rarely been better, and I don't recall Vaughn ever being better. The subplots all contributed to proceedings nicely, so that when things did come to a head you actually have a vested interest in all the potential outcomes. This was a long film, which did not feel at all long, but the length was fully justified and well earned. A top, top tale and with a hit rate of three out of three, S. Craig Zahler is on the shortlist of my favourite working writer / directors.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Sept 3, 2019 19:07:08 GMT
“Dragged” is right...at least for the first hour. I appreciated the long setup and attention to detail in some instances, but there also seemed to be quite a bit of unnecessary scenes. The film did pick up after the bank robbery though and I still enjoyed it overall, I just would have enjoyed it more with 20-30min cut.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 21, 2019 5:13:01 GMT
That was uncomfortable. I mostly liked it I guess, except for the vicious misogyny and EVERYTHING about Jennifer Carpenter. This is the only 2019 movie I've seen, and she's already in the running for worst performance of the year (doesn't help that Zahler's bizarre handling of her scenes is tonally dissonant as hell).
As an ugly exploitation flick it's fine. Not my style though.
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