Amph 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: Now Disc. "Heat" (1995)

"Muriel's Wedding" (1994)

France/Australia 106 min.

Director: P. J. Hogan

Producer: Linda House et al.

Screenplay: P. J. Hogan

Photography: Martin McGrath

Music: Peter Best

Cast: Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths

RomCom with bitterness, according to the book.

 

Here's the the first movie on the list on youtube:A Trip To The Moon

 

"The Kingdom" (1994)

France/Denmark/Germany/Sweden 280 min.

Director: Morton Arnfred, Lars von Trier

Producer: Philippe Bober et al.

Screenplay: Lars von Trior et al.

Photography: Eric Kress

Music: Joachim Holbek

Cast: Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, Kirsten Rolffes

A medical horror epic, originally a four-part TV miniseries.

 

"Babe" (1995)

Australia/USA 89 min.

Director: Chris Noonan

Producer: Bill & George Miller

Screenplay: George Miller & Chris Noonan

Photography: Andrew Lesnie

Music: Nigel Westlake

Cast: James Cromwell, Christine Cavanaugh

The "Citizen Kane" of talking pig movies...

 

"Deseret" (1995)

USA 92 min.

Director: James Benning

Producer: James Benning

Screenplay: James Benning

Photography: James Benning

Music: N/A

Cast: Fred Gardner (narrator)

 

"Braveheart" (1995)

USA 177 min.

Director: Mel Gibson

Producer: Bruce Davey, Mel Gibson, Alan Ladd, Jr.

Screenplay: Randall Wallace

Photography: John Toll

Music: James Horner

Cast: Mel Gibson and a cast of thousands.

Typical actor-directed epic. Leader. Lingering beauty shots (not of women). Gets theatrically beaten/disemboweled. Homo-erotic in too many ways to count. Historically ludricious. The battle scenes were directed by the second unit. Cheddarific.

 

Nevertheless, James Horner's music for Braveheart is one of the greatest scores of the nineties.

 

Did it have bagpipes in it?

 

It's got everythng in it but the kitchen sink. Including inappropriate instruments.
Here's a great article on the score.

Braveheart score review

James Horner did four scores in 1995. Braveheart, Balto, Casper and Apollo 13. The profits on the Braveheart soundtrack are greater than Casper, Apollo 13 and Balto combined. It's a very popular score.

 

Casper's better though. Score, not movie.

I enjoy Braveheart. It's not accurate, it's occasionally silly. But undeniably moving.

 

Death Wish in Scotland, attempting to be taken seriously. No thanks. Tried to watch some of it recently and decided I had more worthwhile things to do.

 

Ditto. I love watching it, and still listen to the soundtrack to this day. Good stuff!

 

It is moving at times, but the inaccuracies just ruin parts of the story for me.

 

It's dumber than dumb.

(And yeah, I thought so before ole Mel muddied his copybook)

 

I guess I've said this before plenty and to people who are bothered by historical inaccuracies, I guess it's not an effective argument. But . . . there are no historical inaccuracies in Braveheart. None. Zero. Because as the opening narration attests, the movie is openly trying to create a "myth" about William Wallace, not tell a true story about him. "History will call me a liar," the narrator says. The movie tells you flat out, "This is not a historical drama. This is a story of the kind that would have been told around the campfire about William Wallace." It's actually narrated by one of the characters, isn't it? Who explicitly says that he's not telling the truth? So, how can you ding a movie for historical inaccuracy in that case? It's the old dodge of blaming a movie for not being a completely different movie, instead of actually looking at the movie as it is. It's not like they set out to make an incredibly accurate film and failed; they set out to make a movie that was not at all accurate, but was inspiring and rousing. And they succeeded. My opinion.

I suppose we've had this argument a hundred times in the Amp though.

 

Fair enough for a movie like Bravehart. I had forgotten about the opening narration of the movie.


That said, I don't watch movies to learn history, I watch them to be entertained. But when my brain simply can't overlook glaring historical inaccuracies, it takes away from my enjoyment of the movie. I love history. I read non-"generalist" history fairly often for fun. It's probably a personal problem that I can't shut my brain off.

 

Rogue, I have the greatest respect for you. But this is absolute ********. If this is a campfire story, change the damn names.

 

What purpose would changing the names serve?. The story is ABOUT William Wallace. A similar technique was used in 300, with David Wenham's character narrating much of the story, and then at the end of the movie we see that the story is told as an inspiration to Sparta's troops as they prepare to battle the Persians and avenge Leonidas' death.

By your logic, 300 shouldn't have been about Leonidas either. The movie should have opened with "Hey, remember our king Leonidas who died recently? Well, this is a story about a similar king, only his name is King Joe instead."

 

What, mythology can never revolve around someone who existed?

How bloody dreary.

 

A first. Someone who believes in Zeus.

 

Who said that? That real people can be the subject/basis of mythology does not imply that all myths are based on real people.

 

Ignoring the Zeus comment which has nothing to do with what I said, if you're going to throw out narrative work featuring historical characters and situations due to a lack of fealty to cold, hard, facts, you can throw 99% of it out, and the 1% you'll be left with pretty much dry, dramatically inert crap, with some notable exceptions I'm sure.

I really don't like Braveheart at all, but its problems as a motion picture have bugger all to do with how close it hews to the real life of William Wallace. Truth > fact, drama > trivia.

 

This trivia is one of the keystones of the Scottish nationalist movement. Obviously they didn't listen to the introduction.

I object the blackening of the name of England's greatest medieval king, as well.

Your argument is that the truth doesn't matter. If it doesn't, why did they insist on using real people?

 

No, my argument is that the truth is essential, but also that it is divorced from fact when dramatising history - the real names are the anchor to reality that can embed something that seems quite ludicrous in something real. I think that one of Braveheart's great flaws is that the English are hilariously diabolical and lack dimension, and that's why I think Spartacus is a far, far greater riff on the same theme, but again history is played with fast and loose so that a dramatically coherent point can be made that satisfies the viewer for their three hours of investment.

The point of the film is not that the precise events occured, it is that an individual can choose to withstand the way things are and inspire change in the face of daunting and impossible odds, and to that end they will be lionized beyond their actual accomplishments.

It is not the burden of dramatists to report historical fact, but why should they be banned from repurposing long-dead historical figures and by extension historical events to their own end? The living being spared I can understand, but artists are surely allowed to provide their own perspective and use real people in a dramatic format. Shakespeare turned Joan of Arc into a rampaging villainess, after all.