Badlands (1973) *****

[Scott]

Has anyone ever seen the film BADLANDS starring Martin Sheen. I always catch parts of it on tv and I find myself watching this film ever time it comes on. I must have seen it 10 times over the years. Its a great film. It just works so well. Sheen goes on a murder spree in S. Dakota and Montana. Early Natural Born Killers I suppose. Flix just show it tonight. Badlands is tamer than Natural Born Killers, but more effective I believe. If you see it you'll know what I mean.

[Will]

Wow, what's that doing on this board?  I love "Badlands."  The director, Terrence Mallick, is a philosophy professor who also directed "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line."  Wonderful cinematography and brilliant editing.  Still, I don't know if this is the forum for "highbrow" movies like that.  As much as I love it, it's no "Frankenhooker....."

[Mofo Rising]

Let's pull this topic further away from bad movie discussion.  Does anybody know where the phrase "How that be?" actually originates.  I hear it in a lot of movies, and associate it with the deep south, but I don't know where it actually comes from.

Also, did anyone else notice the same music that runs through this movie runs through TRUE ROMANCE too?

[peter johnson]

Oh, Will, of course it is the proper forum!  I mean, we discuss many good things here as well as bad.  I've brought up Seventh Seal more than once -- perhaps one of the best films ever made.
As far as Badlands go -- This was a thinly veiled retelling of the Charles Starkweather story.  Sissy Spacek is properly etherial as the mindlessly romantic girlfriend.  My wife's grand-uncle Earl was the police officer who finally caught Starkweather in Douglas, Wyoming.  He was stopped for a traffic offense & put up no fight.  They found out who he was back at the  city jail -- a real Andy of Mayberry moment.

[Will]

Yeah, I guess I'm still sensitive over an argument I got into about 2 years ago on this board about "Eyes Wide Shut"....I do tend to separate 'high cinematic art' from fun, DIY independent (and therefore noble) filmmaking.............though since I consider work like Soavi's "Cemetery Man" high art, my self-imposed separation is somewhat hypocritical.

You were right to call me on it.

[Scott]

DAYS OF HEAVEN is also a great film. If its the one starring Richard Gere. I didn't know those films were from the same director, though I can see the resemblence of the type films.

[Scott]

DAYS OF HEAVEN is also a great film. If its the one starring Richard Gere. I didn't know those films were from the same director, though I can see the resemblence of the type films.