fldelk-1
Joined Oct 2004
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fldelk-1's rating
This movie - and the situation it chronicles - forces us to consider
to what extent we can expect an even playing field - literally - when we watch sports. The athletes say, "Every one else was doing it."
When fans watch NASCAR races, I hope they understand that it's a team sport. The people who built the car, the people who maintain it, the guys who change the tires, the spotters and others contribute as much or more to the win as does the driver. However, when we see an individual athlete - biker, runner, skier, etc. - compete, do we see that the "best man" wins or the performer with the best doctor, the best chemist and research department and the cleverest lawyer to get around the system, as one of the interviewees in this movie suggests.
Should we accept that performance enhancements are now a part of sports, athletes and their supporters will continue to find ways to counter efforts to limit them and accept that? The destructive qualities of steroids - including their potential for violent behavior and the process Armstrong admitted using raise doubt. The drug Amstrong took and the use of blood transfusions to short-cut the body's process for communicating and responding to muscle fatigue surely must be physically destructive. However, I have long had questions about the long-term effects of professional football tackles, questions now being answered, at least in terms of head injuries. Players and fans continue to accept this.
This movie may be more interesting to people who are not cycling fans but is a good exploration of a range of observers and participants.
to what extent we can expect an even playing field - literally - when we watch sports. The athletes say, "Every one else was doing it."
When fans watch NASCAR races, I hope they understand that it's a team sport. The people who built the car, the people who maintain it, the guys who change the tires, the spotters and others contribute as much or more to the win as does the driver. However, when we see an individual athlete - biker, runner, skier, etc. - compete, do we see that the "best man" wins or the performer with the best doctor, the best chemist and research department and the cleverest lawyer to get around the system, as one of the interviewees in this movie suggests.
Should we accept that performance enhancements are now a part of sports, athletes and their supporters will continue to find ways to counter efforts to limit them and accept that? The destructive qualities of steroids - including their potential for violent behavior and the process Armstrong admitted using raise doubt. The drug Amstrong took and the use of blood transfusions to short-cut the body's process for communicating and responding to muscle fatigue surely must be physically destructive. However, I have long had questions about the long-term effects of professional football tackles, questions now being answered, at least in terms of head injuries. Players and fans continue to accept this.
This movie may be more interesting to people who are not cycling fans but is a good exploration of a range of observers and participants.
This would have been an OK if lightweight movie, if it had not claimed to be telling the Biblical story. The writers took a story that could have personal lessons and added a anachronistic civics lesson. Rather than being a story of a individual struggling with the life thrust upon her who is then faced with a leap of faith, we have an aspiring freedom fighter. Instead of a not too bright, debauched older king we have a "hottie" looking for love. Instead of a petty villain looking for self looking for power, we have a mad avenger. Oddly enough, the movie begins facing front on one of the more difficult commands of the Bible, the command that the Jews kill all residents of the Promised Land, including noncombatants down to the infants and unborn. It makes the threat of the same fate for the Jews living in Persia seem ironic at best.
Forcing the story into the romance novel genre, creates problems. If not a rule, a guideline often followed in romances is that the heroine never has sex with anyone she doesn't love, but, if she does, she doesn't enjoy it. Hence the transformation of a king who probably killed his wife because she didn't desire to be ogled by a bunch of drunks to a romance novel hero.
The political story (except for the line that the Greeks believed all men were created equal) might have worked if it had not been so alien to the original story.
Perhaps someday someone with make a movie worthy of this story.
Forcing the story into the romance novel genre, creates problems. If not a rule, a guideline often followed in romances is that the heroine never has sex with anyone she doesn't love, but, if she does, she doesn't enjoy it. Hence the transformation of a king who probably killed his wife because she didn't desire to be ogled by a bunch of drunks to a romance novel hero.
The political story (except for the line that the Greeks believed all men were created equal) might have worked if it had not been so alien to the original story.
Perhaps someday someone with make a movie worthy of this story.
Like to book on which it was based, this movie does'nt follow the usual plot lines. Adventure movie fans would say it's about nothing, but it really sucks you in. Clooney is, as many other reviewers have said, excellent. It's amazing how much he can convey in even small facial gestures.
I read the book before I saw the movie. The movie does simplify and telegraph the plot somewhat compared to the book and alters the focus away from the family to the larger land sale arc. However, it did seem to be a good dramatization. The movie - including the sets that were very nice but cluttered - kept the book's picture of real people - married people who shout at each other, children who screw up.
One disappointment was the band at Cousin Hugh's bar. In the book, the ukulele club - old men - meet at the bar to play. In the movie, it just looks like an ordinary house band in a small club.
I read the book before I saw the movie. The movie does simplify and telegraph the plot somewhat compared to the book and alters the focus away from the family to the larger land sale arc. However, it did seem to be a good dramatization. The movie - including the sets that were very nice but cluttered - kept the book's picture of real people - married people who shout at each other, children who screw up.
One disappointment was the band at Cousin Hugh's bar. In the book, the ukulele club - old men - meet at the bar to play. In the movie, it just looks like an ordinary house band in a small club.
- Spoiler Alert- In the movie, Matt's wife has actively campaigned with his cousins for the bid that would enrich her lover. This wasn't in the movie. Actually, she's not that nice a lady in the book, before that. I sort of like the way the book ended, with Scotty saying her mother was under her fingernails, referring to her ashes, and her father drawing a lesson from that. I guess it was too outre even for this movie.