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+--- Thread: Confessions three (/showthread.php?tid=3944)
- LyricalGomez - 10-28-2002
Anyone else think all these "home remedies" Gonzo is recommending is him just fucking with people to see if they follow through on it?
- GonzoStyle - 10-28-2002
Here paraphrase this essay.
DEAD MAN WALKING earns the oft-applied adjective "powerful." Thought-provoking, could be another deserved phrase you see in movie blurbs. Except this time, it's all true. Tim Robbins has abandoned his actor's guise to assume the role of director, screenwriter and co-producer in making this most-excellent film into a one-man-band type production. His work is simply splendid-and somewhat surprising. I'll get to that later.
His star is live-in ladyfriend , who, as we all know, won the Academy Award for Best Actress with her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., a true-life nun who wrote a book by the same name relating her experiences working with poor and deprived black families in rural Louisiana towns and her dedication to serving as spiritual adviser to condemned men on death row in Angola State Prison.
Robbins fictionalized Sister Helen's account, and in doing so, created a stunning motion picture which serves up the dilemma of death sentences and executions, ever increasing in number and frequency in American prisons. In dramatizing this inflammatory subject, writer-director-producer Tim Robbins has taken a laudatory stance of objectivity, providing both sides to the problem in stark and riveting fashion.
The fulcrum of all the controversy is a lifelong hoodlum, racist thug named Matthew Poncelet, superbly played by multi-talented Sean Penn, another actor who's taken up the behind-the-camera challenge of directing. Poncelet has been convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of a couple of local teenagers and the rape of the girl. He continues to proclaim his innocence of the deeds. "I ain't never killed nobody," he snarls.
When we in the audience come upon the scene, Poncelet has been on death row in Angola for six years; his execution by lethal injection is just weeks away. His appeals have been exhausted, but he has a chance of having his penalty reduced to life "with no chance of parole" by a board to meet soon.
The condemned "monster," as he's described in the local press, has somehow heard of Sister Helen and is carrying on a correspondence relationship, asking that she come to visit him in Angola and hear his side of the story. Earlier we've been given a film montage of Sister Helen's early life, entry into the service of Christ and up to date with her mission in a rural slum area where she lives with needy blacks, devoting her energies to them. Although she's never done prisoner-consulting before-never set foot in a jailhouse-she agrees to visit the surly, career criminal.
Before meeting with Poncelet, she confers with the prison priest, played by Scott Wilson who usually portrays criminals (remember "In Cold Blood?"). The first meeting is puzzling; Sister Helen can't comprehend this enigmatic prisoner, who is tattooed with Nazi emblems, racist slogans and wears a pompadour, mustache and goatee, giving him a Satanic look. He still insists he's killed no one, although admits his presence at the murder scene with another man, a career felon who copped a plea and received a lesser sentence. Poncelet blames the entire affair on the other man, stating they both were gooned out on a week-long drug binge, with boozing and no sleep for days. Does that make him innocent? Well, Hell no, but he claims that since he didn't pull the trigger and didn't rape the girl, he should live, albeit behind bars.
Sister Helen prays over her decision to continue to see Poncelet and, indeed, become his spiritual adviser, and since she is staunchly anti-death penalty, agrees. Which begins a terrible time of inner conflict for the selfless nun, complicated by confrontations with the surviving parents of the two murdered kids. They meet first at the hearing of the board which declines to set aside the death penalty. Matthew will die.
Helen contacts Matthew's mother (Roberta Maxwell) who somehow loves her son but is convinced he's bad news since birth. His father was a share cropper who got Matthew drunk the first time at 12; they are dirt poor. ("No rich people on death row," Matthew proclaims.)
In the midst of this seeming sway toward the arguement against killing convicted murderers, we are then given the viewpoint of the parents, Earl Delacroix (Raymond J. Barry) and his estranged wife whose boy Walter was killed, and Clyde and Mary Beth Percy (R. Lee Ermey and Celia Weston), whose daughter Hope was a victim. Their continuing pain and torture and consuming hatred of Matthew is starkly projected, and you can't help but feel their anguish, rage and hopelessness when they confront the nun working to get their kids' killer a lesser sentence.
Sister Helen enlists the help of public defender Hilton Barber (Robert Prosky) to dig back into the case in hopes of finding some thread which might mitigate the death rap. What they uncover is a man, Matthew Poncelet, who hates blacks and the American government, espouses Hitler's cause against Jews and "niggers" who want time to be reincarnated so he can join a militia and blow up U.S. buildings.
Thus is set up the conflicts and the rush towards death in less than a week. Sister Helen comes in for brutal criticism for trying to help this killer in a right-wing countryside. With her are a group of anti-death sentence "bleeding hearts" and both sides demonstrate outside prison walls.
Will he die? Will he find Jesus first? Robbins sets up this taut conflict brilliantly, helped by fantastic editing (Lisa Zeno Churgin) and beautiful camera work (Roger A. Deakins).
Robbins and Sarandon's liberal views are well documented, but you'd never know which "side" Robbins favors by viewing this fine film. He lays out the pros and cons for the audience and lets the judgment fall where it may. This is a captivating yarn which needs seeing. How Sean Penn wasn't awarded an Oscar for his brilliance is a mystery. I sometimes deplore his acting ("Shanghai Surprise" notably), but he can be as good as any other actor in the business.
Tim Robbins in quickly becoming one of the most powerful voices in Hollywood. This film presents a problem that needs addressing. Me? If someone did something like this to anyone in my family, I'd pull the switch, trip the hangman's platform, plunge in the needle in a New York minute. So you know where I stand, if anyone cares. I'd like to hear Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon talk about it with some victim's family.
- fbd - 10-28-2002
i love getting other people to do some of my work...between that and my bullshit skills, paper'll be done in 20 minutes
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
tl;dr
- LyricalGomez - 10-28-2002
uhm...What?
- Danked - 10-28-2002
Quote:Anyone else think all these "home remedies" Gonzo is recommending is him just fucking with people to see if they follow through on it?Perhaps your doubt can be cleared up by a large dose of Unkie Gonzo's Old Fashioned Miracle Elixir?
Edited By Danked on 1035843222
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
too long, didnt read
- GonzoStyle - 10-28-2002
It wasn't meant to be a post, it was for fdb's paper.
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
oh ok. did you write it or copy and paste?
- GonzoStyle - 10-28-2002
Quote:Anyone else think all these "home remedies" Gonzo is recommending is him just fucking with people to see if they follow through on it?
Nah, I was actually being sincere.
Yes hybrid I save all my papers that I did on horrible movies. Anyone wanna read my comparrison of Barb Wire & Casablanca?
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
sorry, you're known to write 1,000 word essays in a matter of minutes. i've seen it.
- nerdo5 - 10-28-2002
Quote:Nah, I was actually being sincere.
careful with that stuff around here.
- GonzoStyle - 10-28-2002
Don't worry playa, I know the game.
I actually did write a paper on the similarities between, 'Barb Wire' & "Casablanca'. There are many to be honest, the plot to 'Barb Wire' is a carbon copy of the one in 'Casablanca. As are the characters.
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
does the chick in casablanca dance half naked while being sprayed with water in the opening credits?
- GonzoStyle - 10-28-2002
I get asked that every single time I mention my observation.
No.
- Hybrid - 10-28-2002
Damn.
- crx girl - 10-28-2002
i knew you stole some of alkey's papers when he wasn't looking
- fbd - 10-28-2002
done...so much bullshit
- Galt - 10-29-2002
You know fbdlingfrg. When you cheat, you are only cheating yourself.
- fbd - 10-29-2002
and your point is?