OT (Somewhat):Oliver Stone

[Chopper]

on New Years i had a semi Oliver Stone film festival, including his very powerful film Salvador (with commentary by the man himself that was very insightful and fascinating), also the very powerful Talk Radio. I also watched Savior, wich Stone was an executive producer on and played a huge part in the film's US promotion. I know a lot of people hate Stone, but i could care less, he's one of my favorite filmmakers. Anyone else out there dig him?

[Ash]

I like most of his work....

Though for those of you that hate him, you can always rewind and watch the scene over & over again in "Platoon" when the Vietnamese soldier with a bomb strapped to his body runs screaming into the CP commanded by none other than Stone and detonates himself, killing everybody there!

[Susan]

I like alot of his films which I've found actually mean something. A lesser known of his is "Heaven and Earth", but one of my favorites

[Chopper]

>"which I've found actually mean something."
in reference to that, i still haven't seen ANy Given Sunday, but people keep telling me it's his worst, so maybe someday i'll check it out. I saw Heaven & Earth a very long time ago, and i don't think at the time i was too educated about the situation of the Vietnam war, but i do remember liking the film a lot.

[Susan]

>>in reference to that, i still haven't seen ANy Given Sunday, but people keep telling me it's his worst, so maybe someday i'll check it out.<<

Given I don't like football nor cameron diaz, can't say I cared for it much ;-)

[Chopper]

Haha, i'm not much of a football fan either, that about knocks it down to the bottom of my list! :)

[FearlessFreep]

Would you watch JFK because you're a fan of assasinations?

[Scott]

Here are the films that Oliver Stone was involved with that I have seen:

Conan the Barbarian (one of my all time favorite)
U-Turn (Great film)
Scarface(Great film directed by Depalma)
Salvador (good movie)
Platoon (great film, politically slanted though)
Wall Street (good film)
The Doors (started out good)
Heaven and Earth (good movie)
Joy Luck Club (not bad)
Natural Born Killers (haven't finished it)

Looking forward to ALEXANDER this year.

[yaddo42]

IMO, it depends on who's being assassinated as to whether your a fan of them or not.

Stone is a very uneven director to me. For every good film (Talk Radio) or great film (Platoon) there are lots of noble intentioned grand failures (Natural Born Killers) and self-indulgent attempts to rewrite history as he sees it or believes it happened (JFK, Nixon). "Any Given Sunday" was too many stories in one film, plus every time he began to gain traction with one of his stories or build interest in the characters, he start that bulls**t overkill use of quick edits, using stock fooage to express emotions, or "sampling" from "Ben Hur" like a bad rapper making a film. Not to mention cheap "shock for shock's sake" tactics like the copious male nudity in the locker room scenes.

Let's not even get into the waste of film stock, time, effort, money, and the acting talents of a decent cast in the messy train wreck of a movie called "U-Turn". Bad plot, bad acting, bad direction, just wrongheaded on all accounts. Only one decent funny moment, the Sean Penn/ Claire Danes exchange about Patsy Cline.

[Scott]

I really enjoyed U-TURN.  : )

Also always enjoy hearing your point of view yaddo42.

[FearlessFreep]

IMO, it depends on who's being assassinated as to whether your a fan of them or not.

Well, I guess my point was that 'sports movies' are rarely just about the sport and more about the people and events with the sport as a backdrop.  I mean, good grief, how many people who saw Rocky were actually boxing fans?   You don't have to be a fan of a sport to see a movie abuot that particular sport

[Eirik]

I think Stone in general and Platoon specifically are over-rated.  I've got 4 Vietnam vets in my family and not one of them liked it or thought it was realistic.  However one movie he made that I enjoyed immensely was JFK.  Some of you may remember me taking Mel Gibson to task for his wildly historically inaccurate Braveheart and may ask how I enjoyed the equally dishonest JFK.  Well, it's because Stone himself came out and said that the movie was a myth and not intended to present a coherent conspiracy theory.  He didn't buy the Warren Report (and the Warren Report is IMO a very slipshod piece of investigation) and wanted to offer an alternate myth.  I respect that and was able to watch JFK as a very gripping, exciting myth.  (Gibson on the other hand tried to push his movie as a history lesson).

[KINGDINOSAUR]

Oliver Stone is one of those directors I try to avoid.  His method is too heavy-handed for me.  He allows the visuals to get in the way of the story.

I did think the constant moving camera and angles worked for TALK RADIO because it was primarily a one-room setting.  However, when I watched BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY I felt completely removed from the emotions of the story.  Every other scene screamed "Look at me!  I'm the director!  Look at what I can do!".  Stone's storytelling ability has as much finesse as creating origami while wearing mittens.

Scott
MOTAZart.com

[Chopper]

"Would you watch JFK because you're a fan of assasinations?"
hmmm, well to answer your question i'm not quite a fan of watching people be murdered and i'm not a hardcore conspiracy theorist if that's what you mean. but i do like JFK a lot.

  "don't drink the water and put tin foil around your head so they can't read your thoughts!"

[The Burgomaster]

I find most of Stone's movies entertaining.  I think SALVADOR is very underrated.  It should have been more successful than it was.