Vic Sage

In honor of the upcoming THOR, i offer this selected filmography of the often overlooked Viking movie subgenre. PRINCE VALIANT (1954) - First big Hollywood hit Viking movie, this comicstrip adaptation features young Robert Wagner as the viking prince with the bad haircut in the court of King Arthur. Played straight, despite its ludicrous script. SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN and the SEA SERPENT (1957) - typical low-budget Roger Corman exploitation flick. THE VIKINGS (1958) - Richard Fleisher directed this rousing epic adventure, with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas as viking brothers and Ernest Borgnine their dad, a viking chief. Dated sure, but tons of fun. And that haunting theme music, with the french horns in the distance sounding like viking horns, has stayed with me since i saw it as a kid on the 4:30 movie. Around this time, the Italian film industry picked up the Viking movie and ran with it (as it also was doing with westerns and sword-and-sandal epics, and later horror films) often with Cameron Mitchell in the lead, including LAST OF THE VIKINGS (61), THE INVADERS (61) (a visual feast directed by Italian horror auteur Mario Bava), THE TARTARS (61) (with Orson Welles!), ATTACK OF THE NORMANS (62), and VIKING MASSACRE (65) (a lesser Bava entry). LONG SHIPS (1964) - This lush UK co-production featured viking Richard Widmark and Moorish prince Sidney Poitier (as the villain!), in a light-hearted adventure romp, akin to THE CRIMSON PIRATE'S tongue-in-cheek take on pirate movies. ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD - Lame Disney fantasy; Victorian-era Brit explorers find a lost colony of Vikings "at the top of the world'. THE NORSEMAN (1978) - Just as sword-and-sorcery B movies would soon start spewing out of Hollywood's underbelly, first did this viking "epic" with Lee Majors, about Vikings in America. A disaster. ERIK THE VIKING (1989) - Monty Python's Terry Jones directed this Pythonesque spoof with Tim Robbins as a reluctant viking who didn't care too much for raping and pillaging. Not as funny as it should have been. 13th WARRIOR (1999) - Antonio Banderas as a Spanish courtier stuck inside the Beowulf saga; an overlooked gem. PATHFINDER (2007) - this Viking / Native American story should have been good, but it was a disaster. The slap-dash editing suggests last-minute surgery that tried to save it, or may have ruined it, but i don't think there's been a "director's cut" so we'll never know. BEOWULF (2007) - Robert Zemeckis used his "motion capture" technique for this animated version of Neil Gaiman's excellent adaptation of the Scandinavian myth. Gaiman makes the story work better (and more coherently) than it ever has before, but as usual the motion capture animation is life-deadening and annoying. Still, pretty good overall. OUTLANDER (2008) - Jim Caveizal as an alien soldier who crashlands amongst 8th century vikings; they team up to battle an alien monster. The best B movie you never saw. VALHALLA RISING (2009) - gritty low-budget Danish indie; reviews indicate it has some merit. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) - charming animated feature about a young viking who befriends a dragon. Sweet fun.

i saw it ages ago on tv, and remember really liking it, but i'd need to see it again to rate it.

prefer STATION AGENT'S sense of melancholy, but this is a darn good little movie.

Is it my imagination, or does this suddenly look like shit? yes, it's your imagination. I just watched that trailer and got goosey bumps all over my body!

damned IS people at work have blocked fantasy baseball damn them to hell!

we had a thread at one time about movies shot in or about NYC... if you're hard up enough for such views to sit thru BRAVERMAN, there are probably some better alternatives to consider. as for ANDERSON TAPES, RealityUpChuck's endorsement of it leaves me second-guessing myself. I haven't seen it in over 20 years (at least) so it may not be as good as i remember, but it probably is. Let me know if you think it's any good. I always have enjoyed a good caper film.

metirish wrote: I look at my team and yeah it has some holes that need filling but damn if there is anybody out there to pick up.Do I spend an hour a night pouring over charts?, no I don't but I make sure my pitching is set and my players....some of these guys available have like five at bats. What would you do with my team? its the problem with a 13-team/NL-only/4-OFer league. if you have an injury, or get unlucky, or make a mistake in the draft, you are stuck playing part-time guys... or guys who hardly play at all! I agree. i don't like that either. If a team has an injury, they bring in somebody to fill the slot... they don't just abandon the position! While i understand wanting to tighten things up a little (how competitive can a league be if there are all-stars on the waiver wire?), this league goes too far. Perhaps a trade?

Any interest in something like that? totally. with a LIVE in-person rotisserie-style auction.

whattsamatta, Irish? why no fun?

I tend to agree with Andrew Sarris's assessment of him: Strained Seriousness. His films just tried too hard and nearly always left a bad taste in my mouth. He was Stanley Kramer's more talented twin: I have a MESSAGE and here is the MESSAGE. Other than The Anderson Tapes and Dog Day Afternoon, his films were never anything I looked back at with delight. And some -- like Network and The Verdict -- are badly overrated. A good director, certainly, but he never achieved greatness. Yeah, except that Sarris' assessment of Lumet as "Strained Seriousness" was by way of including him in that category in his brilliant book AMERICAN CINEMA... written in 1968! His view might have been premature, don't you think? And as much as i love Sarris' work, and that book in particular, he missed the boat on a bunch of guys, including Billy Wilder. So don't just throw him around to vindicate your lack of respect for Lumet. If you don't like Sidney, you don't like him. But lets leave Mr. Sarris out of the discussion. and once you described NETWORK and THE VERDICT as badly overrated, you lost me anyway. Heavy handed? Dated? Yeah, maybe. But the first was absolutely prescient about our culture, and the 2nd packs an emotional wallop that has not gone away. And while it's certainly possible for a merely good director to make a great movie... how about 2 great movies? 4? 6? maybe 10? At some point, one must acknowledge that the one and only criteria for a director to be great is for him/her to have made a number of great movies. Lumet has made at least a few, and so is in the discussion, at least. He is often dismissed because his filmmaking wasn't particularly "cinematic" (i.e., not much razzle, and short on dazzle), and long on performance and theme (often pooh-poohed as stagey), and perhaps his strengths would've been better served in the theater than in film, but he was a pretty darn good storyteller, and that's the name of that tune.

"it"? you mean the movie? or Melanie Griffith? i don't think a movie can be anyone's "beshert", and i think Melanie might by Don Johnson's beshert, or Antonio Banderas', but i guess that's for them to decide. As for me, i've liked Melanie only rarely: * BODY DOUBLE is typical DePalma pseudo-Hitchcock, but she's a hot young thing; * SOMETHING WILD is quirky fun; * WORKING GIRL is standard Hollywood rom-com, but its got high production values; * NOBODY'S FOOL gives her a small solid supporting role; otherwise, she's an albatross around a movie's neck.

i guess the reviews scared off the rest of ya wussies...

the last 25 years of his career are littered with such head-scratching decisions.

Sidney Lumet � a selected filmography Sidney Lumet was not the visual stylist that Marty Scorsese was, nor was he funny and romantic about NY like Woody Allen, but he was an actor�s director, and a keen-eyed chronicler of the evolving New York landscape, who ended up having directed as many great movies as any filmmaker of his generation. 1950s-60s: He was born to actors, and started as a stage actor himself, before becoming one of the top directors of the new television medium in the 1950s. Many of his early films were either based on plays or looked like filmed plays, underlining his commitment to film as �literature + actors�, and not as �cinema� per se. But they were powerful works none the less, especially his auspicious debut film, 12 ANGRY MEN � 12 Angry Men (1957) � A jury, in a hot sweaty room, stumble toward justice. It still holds up as a powerful courtroom drama, with incomparable Henry Fonda. Lumet starts off his film career with a bang and an Oscar nomination. He�d have to wait nearly 20 years for another one. � Stage Struck (1958) � A pale remake of the Hepburn movie, but we get to see Lumet deal with NYC as a character for the first time. � That Kind of Woman (1959) � Another mediocre remake, with Sophia Loren. � The Fugitive Kind (1960) � Interesting, but unsuccessful, adaptation of Tenessee Williams� disturbing ORPHEUS DESCENDING, with Marlon Brando. � Vu du pont (1962) � Arthur Miller�s A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, in an obscure French-Italian co-production � Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) � Lumet finally gets this play-adaptation thing right (for maybe the only time in his career), with this award-winning version of the O�Neill play, with Katherine Hepburn. � Fail-Safe (1964) � Henry Fonda as the president, in a tense nuclear-armageddon thriller that is effective on its own terms, but was rendered immediately obsolete by DR. STRANGELOVE, which was released just before FAIL-SAFE and made all the same points, but with Kubrick�s biting satiric wit and visual panache. � The Pawnbroker (1964) � Rod Steiger�s oscar-nominated performance dominates an otherwise heavy-handed tale of a holocaust survivor in NYC. � The Hill (1965) � Lumet leaves NY to shoot a WWII prison film in North Africa with Sean Connery. This is a powerful, brutal, underrated little movie that allowed Lumet a chance to spread out a bit, both narratively and visually. And Connery is terrific. By the mid-late 60s, however, Lumet did not adapt well to the a-changin` times and struggled for an arty hipness that utterly alluded him. � The Group (1966) � upper class woman in the 1930s; melodrama with socio-political overtones. Feh. � The Deadly Affair (1966) � This adaptation of LeCarre�s 1st �Smiley� spy novel with James Mason used some cinematic techniques to amp the atmospheric qualities, and Quincy Jones jazz score, but it�s talky and lifeless. � Bye Bye Braverman (1968) � NYC black comedy about a funeral. It�s hard enough for Woody Allen to make a good �Woody Allen film�� for Lumet, it�s impossible. Sydney was to comedy as dancing is to architecture. � The Sea Gull (1968) � James Mason and Vanessa Redgrave in this obscure, flat adaptation of the Chekov play. � The Appointment (1969) � Omar Sharif and Anouk Amee in another of Lumet�s European �art� films; melodramatic, tedious. � Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970) � a minor Tenessee Williams 1-act is crapped on by Gore Vidal, and the resultant turd is given a polish by Mr. Lumet. 1970s: After the TV/theater-based films of the late `50s/early `60s, and his arty sojourns in the late `60s, Lumet was about to hit his peak in the 1970s. � The Anderson Tapes (1971) � Surprisingly effective caper film shot on the streets of NY, with Connery at the height of his powers, and young Chris Walken just starting out. � Child's Play (1972) � Another flat, talky play adaptation; a single-set acting exercise for James Mason and Robert Preston. Pass. � The Offence (1972) �A taut, psychological thriller shot in the UK, with Sean Connery as a brutal cop interrogating a suspect Connery did his best work for Lumet (but so did a lot of actors). Overlooked, underrated. Sure, it�s stagey, but it works here (like it did for 12 ANGRY MEN). � Serpico (1973) � one of the all time best cop movies, with Pacino in a ground-breaking performance. Lumet�s mastery of the grim and gritty streets of NYC in the `70s makes this film unimaginable in other hands. It was a huge commercial and critical hit, and while Pacino had already become a star in THE GODFATHER, this one made Lumet bankable in a way he had never been before. * Lovin' Molly (1974) � if there was a director less suited to adapting a Larry McMurtry �good ole boy� novel, I can�t imagine who it might be. � Murder on the Orient Express (1974) � Lumet goes totally Hollywood in this all-star Agatha Christie �who-dunnit�. The �closed space� location is a totem of Lumet�s style, and he had developed the chops for thrillers, so I guess this one made sense. It�s not one of my faves, but it was a huge hit for all concerned. � Dog Day Afternoon (1975) � Lumet and Pacino top themselves in their 2nd NYC-based true-crime story. For my money, neither of them was ever this good again. Lumet got his 2nd Oscar nom, but lost out to CUKOO�S NEST/Milos forman. � Network (1976) � Lumet�s satire was heavy-handed, but damn if he and Paddy Chayevksy weren�t right on the nose with this one. Oscars for everybody� except Lumet, who lost in his 3rd nomination to Avildson for ROCKY. I wouldn�t blame him if he were mad as hell and wasn�t going to take it anymore�. The run Lumet was on was too good to last and he finished the decade with 3 turkeys of varying degrees of flopitude. � Equus (1977) � Like so many of his other theatrical adaptations, this one didn�t work. Lumet�s naturalism seemed to work against the inherently theatrical nature of the play, and made literal what should have remained metaphorical. � The Wiz (1978) � Turning the Broadway musical into a love-letter to NYC might have seemed like a good idea on paper, but on celluloid this is a total freakin� disaster. � Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) � Let me say try this as an SAT question -- Lumet: Comedy / Hippopotamus: Ballet. 1980s Having established himself as NY�s poet laureate of urban naturalism, and now an elder statesman, Lumet showed now signs of slowing, kicking off the `80s with one of the best films of his career. � Prince of the City (1981) � harkening back to the corrupt cops of his SERPICO days, this is another true crime adaptation with all kinds of complex notions of guilt and responsibility that had become a hallmark theme of his work by this time, with the complicated morality tale played out in naturalistic terms against Lumet�s beloved NYC backdrop. His 1st Oscar nom for writing, but no nom for directing? Boo! � Deathtrap (1982) � Lumet consistently heard the siren�s song of the stage, but was consistently unable to do anything cinematic with his stage adaptations. � The Verdict (1982) � Paul Newman + Mamet script + Lumet at the height of his powers = all-time classic courtroom drama. Lumet did not always offer his characters redemption, but when he did, it was profoundly moving. But after THE VERDICT, his 5th and last Oscar nominated work, Lumet�s career slide began. Although still productive, he had few notable upticks along the way to the finish line. � Daniel (1983) � a slow, talky adaptation of Doctorow�s historical novel; feh. � Garbo Talks (1984) � a cute, slight, romantic comedy. It�s watchable, but nothing special. � Power (1986) � while most of Lumet�s films have socio-political dimensions or themes, few have been purely political thrillers. This one reminds us that probably was a good thing for audiences everywhere. � The Morning After (1986) � 30 years after her dad got an Oscar nom working with Lumet, Jane Fonda got one for de-glamming as an alchie in this decent, but unexceptional, thriller. She retired (for a while) after this one. Sydney did not. � Running on Empty (1988) � the third of Lumet�s `80s trilogy about kids with pinko-commie parents is by far the best, with another great oscar-nominated performance, this time the young River Phoenix. � Family Business (1989) � The Lumet/Connery team finally came up empty with this �gangster family� heist/comedy/something-or-other. � Q & A (1990) � the 3rd of Lumet�s �NYC cop corruption� stories, it was pretty damn good and pretty damn tough; an underrated movie. But perfs of Nolte and Hutton not up to Lumet�s usual standards. 1990s-00s After Q & A, Lumet had very little left in the tank, but he stayed in there, swinging. � A Stranger Among Us (1992) � this Hasidic take on WITNESS was a disaster. � Guilty as Sin (1993) � pointless courtroom drama � Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) � the 4th, last and least of Lumet�s cop corruption movies. Andy Garcia is no Al Pacino. He�s not even Nick Nolte. � Critical Care (1997) � Lumet takes on the health insurance industry in this toothless satire. � Gloria (1999) � why on Earth would he remake that terrific Cassavettes film? And with Sharon Stone, yet? Oh, Sidney, Sidney� The Academy finally gave Lumet a lifetime achievement award in 2005. But he wasn�t quite done yet. � Find Me Guilty (2006) � leave it to Lumet to elicit a decent performance from Vin Diesel in a non-action movie; but it�s an otherwise bland courtroom drama. � Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) � Sidney goes out with a bang, with his best film in nearly 20 years (since Q&A), with a taut, tough �heist-gone-wrong� thriller / family melodrama. It�s not hard to get a great performance out of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but Ethan Hawke? That takes some doing. Lumet was 83 at the time, and probably figured �I don�t need this shit anymore�. And so this was it. Sidney Lumet was no film-school virtuoso; he was an old-school storyteller with a big liberal heart and a tough-as-nails aesthetic, who didn�t pay much attention to what lens to use. While his talents didn�t range wide, they drilled down deep and he hit nerves near the bone that nobody else even knew were there. S�long, Sid, and thanks for all the fish. LUMET�S TOP 12: 12 Angry Men (1957) Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) The Hill (1965) The Anderson Tapes (1971) The Offence (1972) Serpico (1973) Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Prince of the City (1981) The Verdict (1982) Q & A (1990) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

ah, yes, i remember those 2 days well... sigh.

i didn't want to get into it until some others voiced an opinion. But as long as i'm here... I didn't think it was all that bad. If you like Snyder's festishized violence (and i do, i really do), its got that in spades. At first, the videogame aesthetic seems to mean their are no consequences to the battles, so they are less dramatic, but as the film goes on, we see that what happens in the dream-within-the-dream is really a reflection of what's happening in the world. I would've preferred more character development to care about the girls, especially Abby Cornish's "Sweatpea", about whom we are supposed to ultimately care a great deal, but about whom we don't at all. But overall, the story (such as it is) establishes mythic archtypes, puts them through their paces, with a final payoff of redemption. And i liked the retro-score with re-orchestrated classic rock songs presented in contemporary form, as background for the mayhem. To critique performances, or even plot, in this sort of narrative sort of misses the point. And those with a socio-political agenda to find victimization will certainly find a way to make an argument here, as they did in "300", seeing SUCKER PUNCH only in terms of geekboy fantasies of female exploitation, even in the face of the film's equally viable girl-empowerment theme, presented in a Joss Whedon style. But in its own clumsy way, Snyder's vision (to refer to it as his story is to be overly generous) almost makes an argument for the moral necessity of fantasy, and i liked that. Plus, of course, there are the scantily dressed hot chicks kicking the shit out of monsters. and that's pretty fun, too. All in all, if you didn't care much for 300 and/or WATCHMEN, i don't think you'll care much for this. And you might not anyway, even if you did. But its a Zack Snyder film, for better or worse, and i got a kick (no pun intended) out of it.

from the creator of DAWN OF THE DEAD, 300 and WATCHMEN, all of which i enjoyed (to a greater or lesser degree). so i saw this anyway, despite catastrophic reviews.

[u:33efntze]top 10:[/u:33efntze] The Set Up (1949) Champion (1949) The Harder They Fall (1956) Somebody Up there Likes Me (1956) Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) Fat City (1972) Rocky (1976) Raging bull (1980) Million Dollar Baby (2004) Cinderella Man (2005)

Starting pitching is unreliable and overly influenced by injury, and you generally can find it at the bottom of the draft (even a 13-team NL league like ours). But guys who play and hit every day? gold, baby. gold. And punting a category? that's not for me.

[u:2k2tf2ya]preliminary list:[/u:2k2tf2ya] The Champ (1931) Kid Galahad (1937) City for Conquest (1940) Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) Gentleman Jim (1942) Body & Soul (1947) The Set Up (1949) Champion (1949) The Quiet Man (1952) On the Waterfront (1954) The Harder They Fall (1956) Somebody Up there Likes Me (1956) Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) The Great White Hope (1970) Fat City (1972) Hard Times (1975) Rocky (1976) Raging bull (1980) Diggstown (1992) The Boxer (1997) When We Were Kings (1997) - doc Play It To the Bone (1999) Girlfight (2000) Hurricane (2000) Ali (2001) Million Dollar Baby (2004) Cinderella Man (2005) Rocky Balboa (2006) The Fighter (2011)

Vic, have you ever considered a thread on Wahlberg's career? um, no. How is it they keep making boxing movies, and we keep falling for them again and again? - it is inherently dramatic... 1 guy (or gal!) standing toe-to-toe with another, duking it out; - it is inherently metaphoric -- for race, gender, class, etc, or simply as "david v goliath" slugfests; - it translates -- You don't need to understand the niceties of the "sport" (like you would in a football/baseball/basketball etc movie), to understand boxing. It is also cross-cultural and cross-generational; now I've got to make a list of great boxing movies. thanks a lot. like i had nothing better to do...

i think Tulo + Street are at least = Pujols + Uribe, given the difficulty of obtaining saves in a 13-team NL only league and the likelihood of a slight regression by Uribe in LA. Wiggy > qualls, but neither is going to play enough to have an impact. Without Uribe in it, no way does GYC even consider it. And he had 2 closers, so he could afford to part with 1. It's a solid deal for you, bucket. And, if PUjols has one of his peak years, GYC will do well, too.

i like David Wright. That's why i picked him. You approached me about a trade, i didn't go to you. Under those circumstances, I wasn't going to make a deal unless it improved me in a weak area. But you were offering me guys like Nyjler Morgan (who has no roster spot) and Correia (who sucks), while asking for Bourne, or Venable, along with Jensen and Wright. I guess we have different sense of the difference in fantasy value between Pujols and Wright in 2011 season. Pujols has leveled off, and Wright still has even further he can go. Sure, Pujols is still likely have better numbers over all, unless injured (which is more likely every year), but so much better that i should significantly weaken myself otherwise? No, i don't think so. So, you made a deal with GYC; a better one, certainly, than any i was offering. Good on you! I'm still going to kick your ass.

metirish wrote: Oh , so , you were in the room when I insulted you for being a slow old fucker? yeah, you twat.

i ended up NOT auto-drafting (i walked out on PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT at intermission, so i was able to get home in time), but yet wish i DID! How do i draft a team and end up punting all the pitching categories? I think i was suffering from a post-PRISCILLA brain fart.