"Civil War" (movie)

avatar for ilbbaicnl
ilbbaicnl
Keep it in my pants when I do OTC. If I were a stripper it would stand for I like big bucks and I can not lie.
It's now streaming on Max. I thought it was generally very good, if a little too artsy fartsy at times. Would anybody really still prefer a black and white film camera over a color electronic one?

Any political advocacy in the film is subtle and not clearly connected to current times. A Gen X President is serving a third term. But Reagan talked about wanting a third term at least as much as Trump. And, of course, it was FDR who broke Washington's two term tradition, leading to the constitutional amendment. Texas and California unite to resist it when the Constitution is in fact violated. Hopefully that faith, that left and right will put aside differences to keep the republic, is well placed.

You could say it's a drama-to-action crossover. Action seems to be the go to genre for aging male actors. Maybe this is the start of it being the same for aging actresses.

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avatar for JamesSD
JamesSD
3 months ago
Overall I thought it was good. The central message clearly was supposed to be that Civil War is never a good thing. It did a pretty good job not beating you over the head with the fact that the "good guys" were committing war crimes in the process. Although by the end it's pretty clear the sitting President is in the wrong, the rebels aren't exactly painted as White Knights. And of course there was some interesting commentary on war zone reporting, with Jessie casually stepping over her hero's dead body to get her shot in the end.
avatar for mogul1985
mogul1985
3 months ago
I don't have Max so I'll need to wait to see if it gets to Amazon Prime. This is one I do want to see.

B&W: It can be used quite effectively. Movies like "Zelig", "Manhattan", "Young Frankenstein", "Fail Safe", "Dr. Strangelove", "Schindler's List", "The Last Picture Show", "Raging Bull", are excellent examples of B&W that worked very well.

"Young Frankenstein" cinemaphotographer went to great lengths to try and reproduce the original B&W quality like the original - tough to do as that kind of filmstock is no longer made. Another thing: the actors had such a great time when filming ended, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote 2 or 3 extra scenes. I bet that was a lot of fun.
avatar for ilbbaicnl
ilbbaicnl
3 months ago
I meant do news photographers still use B&W film cameras for stills.

I think Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove might be old enough that they were B&W for budget reasons. Except for Manhattan, I think the rest of those are period pieces.
avatar for Harderlap
Harderlap
3 months ago
There is a scene with color in it in “Schlinders List”, so it is, strictly speaking, not entirely a black and white film.
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