Johnny California

You are correct he is good director . He can still fuck off as far as I'm concerned . I'm pretty open minded when it comes to someones personal life for the most part . Child molesters shouldn't get honored for shit . 

 

Thats just my opinion .

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Thats a shame you feel that way but you are neglecting yourself from some very fine films indeed in Repulsion, Cul-De-Sac, The Tenant, Knife In The Water, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby and Frantic to name but a few.

 

Hell, i even thought Bitter Moon wasn't too bad although The Ninth Gate sent me to sleep.

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And he's only legally a child molester, though not even that because he hasn't been tried or convicted. Innocent until PROVEN guilty. I mean, in some cultures, sex with a consenting and attractive teenage girl is not looked down on at all, but, then again, it hasn't been proven that he even had sex with her.

I mean, the guys wife was murdered and the fetus cut out of her womb. Give the guy a break.

Sophia, in Judaism, is the feminine aspect of God and in the Torah seems to act independently in some circumstances as if she is a separate being.

 

This is true in Jewish mysticism not Judaism. In Judaism, Sophia (wisdom) is indeed a feminine term to describe an aspect God but not a seperate entity as gnosticism and mysticism seem to imply.

 

In Christianity, I suppose the Holy Spirit (or the Virgin Mary) would be the closest representation.

 

This very true of Christian mysticism and gnosticism but is certainly not true of orthodox christianity (not Eastern Rogan). Just wanted to help keep things clear.

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However, the mystical component of any religion is still a part of that religion. You can't discount it because it is not orthodox or dogmatic.

BTW, Ishtar was a goddess of Babylon and shares mystical symbolism with Sophia.

I don't know: when a film wins "Best Picture," the producers are usually the ones who accept the award.

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Can you name the producers of movies as readily as you can name directors? Right off the top of your head, who produced the five nominees for Best Picture in 2004?

BTW, the Yezidi is a middle eastern sect that may have broken away from the Zoroastrian. Their Angel of Evil is called Melech-Taus, I believe. He was cast out of heaven by the Angel of Good, but apparently the Yezidi see this as an indication of a mistake or arrogance on the part of the Angel of Good. The implication is that they both serve a higher power but, for some reason, Good (God?) became blind to that supereme being and believe that he himself was the true lord of heaven.

In this sense, it is possible that the angel of Evil contends against good with the intention of waking his brother up from his madness or perhaps as an act imploring the higher power to intervene. Thos are just suppositions. As far as Satan I believe that Elaine Pagels explores his origin and the influence of the dualistic Persian religions on the idea of the Devil in her book, THE ORIGIN OF SATAN.

In Job, Jung proposes that the relationship between Yahweh and Satan and Sophia is mirrored in the relationship between Adam and Cain and Abel. Sophia, in Judaism, is the feminine aspect of God and in the Torah seems to act independently in some circumstances as if she is a separate being. In Christianity, I suppose the Holy Spirit (or the Virgin Mary) would be the closest representation, but the Judaic conception is mcuh more mysterious. Jung believes that Yahweh, in Job, is contending against his own doubt in the faithfulness of man. Yahweh and Mankind are "married" in a sense, and Satan brings up the doubt that the only reason man is loyal to God is that God is powerful. Man doesn't truly love God. Then God does horrible things to the most faithful man on the planet, Job, to prove that man loves Him regardless. Job knows that God is behind his suffering, but rather than seek aid from another god, he pleads to find advocacy in God (a truly monotheist perspective) and, even covered with boils and lying in ashes, Job receives a haranguing from God that makes it appear God is actually projecting Satan or doubt onto the man.

For Jung, this becomes a superhuman matrimonial quarrel with God as protagonist more than Job. God is working out the doubt he has (despite his omniscience) in this wager with Satan.

in my opinion, He is not entirely successful and it may be that "this war in nature" that is what we call evil is actually an expression of divine doubt and that is Satan's (God's other son) role. The primary problem in the scriptures is that it is very difficult, if you believe in God and His Omniscient Omnipotence, to direct express divine doubt or any other aspect that to a human would seem unjust or immoral or fallable.

I may have to check it out. Heroically bad movies (like THE POSTMAN) are even more rare than truly great films.

The producer(s) seem(s) to be the one most responsible when a movie stinks.

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And producers are also the most unrecognized when a movie is great. Lawrence Bender had as much to do with the success of Tarantino's movies and Robert Evans despite his egomania certainly deserves as much credit for the Godfather and Chinatown as Coppola and Polanski.

It's not really an industry, it's show business. There is no certain system that will make it work. The major problem with large budgets (especially with the major studios) is that that amount of money makes the production subject to (and very viulnerable to) corporate controls and influence. In this sense, an executive simply looks for a reason to make the movie that he can justify so we get idiotic creative decisions that are based upon some unrelated corporate justifications.

Its not a competition for fuck's sake nor am i trying to dissuade the guy from posting or even arguing with me on these boards and funnily enough, i also understood his very first post about his Guys And Dolls storyline and i am an apparently permanently inebriated(and probably heroin-infested) Scotsman, my only argument was(which i repeated fuck knows how many times) that i doubt if your Hollywood mateys would bother to consult the comic books because they spent so much time ignoring almost everything about the original character and the comics in the first place and then i made a cynical joke(my synopsis) about what i thought would happen in the sequel.....its funny how people misinterpret your posts isn't it? its also equally as funny as someone completely misquoting you as well. 

 

By the way, you want to tell me whats behind your latest swipe at me Tears?, you obviously still seem to still bear a grudge from your past forays on these boards before so you might as well let me know of what deplorable crime i have been accused of committing this time.

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However, Kris, you do realize that my crack about Scots drinking everything that comes out of a tap except water was a response to your crack that you shouldn't drink the tap water in California and your swipes at Hollywood.

I've only read, maybe, two issues of the old BOM series but a mate told me that Tim and Molly went their own way and that their close relationship  in Life During Wartime reeks of wish fulfilment.

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Interesting point, but it is important to remember that both Constantine and Zatanna certainly don't resemble any previous incarnations. Could they all be Tim's creations? That seems a bit too close to "it's all a dream."

Also, they may still be "real" even if Tim created them. I think the final solution will be more unexpected than what seems to be true at the moment.

Where is the "real" world after all because the Krakow of Constantine is certainly as unreal as the anti-magic bubble universe in which Tim was hiding.

From the critics and reviewers, the movie BOONDOCK SAINTS sounds like it deserves to win worst movie of the decade. There is even a documentary about how terrible the writer-director was. Nevertheless, everyone I know who's personally seen it says that it is great.

Is it worth the time or a waste of it?

Thanks

What makes you so sure? They have an independent existence from him and sure can affect others, even those in the magic world.

Can someone present the part of the Bible where Satan actually rebelled against God? Supposedly Lucifer fell, but I don't think he is the same as Satan because Satan shows up later as part of God's entourage in the Book of Job and there doesn't seem to be too much animosity between them.

I think the duality of God-Satan was a result of Persian Manichean or Zoroastrian influence on Middle Eastern religions. It seems that in the pre-Mani church Christians considered God to contain both good and evil potential. Clement of Rome said that God ruled the universe with Christ in his right hand and Satan in his left.

Personally, I think Carey's Michael is actually supposed to represent Christ, but DC (even Vertigo) likes to stay away from any direct portrayal of Jesus. In Lucifer, he pretty much sums it up when he says he thought he was a collaborator and then began to feel like a character in the fiction God was creating. In Jeremy Levin's comic novel SATAN, he is simply the spirit of reason whereas God is the spirit of love. Satan basically points out all the flaws in God's logic, but they are so many, he gets demoted or God won't be able to get anything done.

Essentially, a truly monotheistic viewpoint would require that God be the source for all good and evil and I think God even says this in Ezekiel. If there was a spirit of evil separate from God, that would be a dualistic viewpoint like Zoroastrianism.

Also, it is really impossible to believe that an angel could willfully rebel against God since angels do not possess free will. In this sense, Satan would have rebelled because it was God's will. Satan acts as the spirit of God's doubt in both the old and new Testament and seems to be doing God's will in testing Creation, or at least expressing God's own doubts about himself and his covenent with mankind. As Jung points out in Answer to Job it is important to realize Yahweh is not a human being and mankind must appeal to God to find advocacy against God's own injustice. In this sense, a man can be morally superior to his creator.

Then there are gnostic viewpoints that suggest Yahweh is in fact a demented being who fashioned a corrupt and flawed creation from the perfect divine light by trapping it in base and temporary matter. The Spirit of Evil (Yezidi) could then be the counterbalance to the imbalence the mad demiurge Yahweh brought about with the damage his creation did to the real world. In this sense, by tormenting mankind, shards of divine light in corrupt vessels, the Spirit of Evil attempts to free us from God's egocentric trap by making it clear that we do not belong in this world.

Of course, I like Tom Waits explanation -

"The Devil is just God when he's drunk."

At the end when john trades his soul for Angela's exactly how did that work? She still committed a sin against God, so why would she go to heaven even if Satan let her go?

Also, when John goes to hell to look for her she's been dead a day or so already. Isn't that like two million years in Hell?

The man is on fire.

Now why couldn't John Shirley have just written the screenplay.

Lucifer #58 - really good stuff - first the Eight Sin, now the Yahweh Dance - Mike should write single issue stories more often!

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Yeah, his single issues are pretty great. Also like the one about the little demons going through hell to find a cure for Elaine's death.

"Holy Mother of FUCK!"

Recently, I read MY FAITH IN FRANKIE. I prefer the full sized color of the single issues, but the b&w digest collection doesn't lose too much. Carey made a great choice by creating an entirely fictional pantheon rather than rely on actual mythology.

As far as the chair, John could see into the past. Was that made clear when he went to use it the first time and was refused access by Midnight? That and Gabriel's cloaking device seemed thrown in at the last minute without any set-up (like the tattooes on John's arms).

I guess that was the main problem I had in the movie. The scenes needed stronger set-up.

OK, my faith in this series has been restored, and I'll keep reading it. I *still* think they took WAY too long getting to the point, but now that we're here, hopefully it'll stay interesting.

 

Yes, Tim is behaving like a world-class prick, but then again so is everyone else. Has there been anyone in this story with an ounce of niceness? Well yes, actually: Brewster and Tim's friends. But since Tim's friends aren't actually real people, that just leaves Brewster.

 

A theory: What if Tim essentially has "stored" different parts of himself in his "friends"? That could explain why Brewster claims they're "the most important thing in the world"...

 

And I think John's gonna be the one who really wakes Tim up in the end.

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However, has it been successfully determined that Tim's friends aren't real? They seem as real as anyone else. Also, though Tim may have made the world without magic, the people in it may have come from elsewhere.

Not exactly sure that the world without magic and a world without science actually works, but it is interesting. I like the assumption that "scienticians" performing in the magic world would have to use magic to accomplish their tricks.

I'd pay to see that.

There were a few logical inconsistencies to the movie that I wonder if anyone else could explain -

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

When the demon made out of bugs attacks John, can everyone see it or, to a person without the sight, would it look like he was having a fit?

How can Gabriel be invisible to someone with the sight (like JC)?

Why does the Devil have to cure John's cancer when he could simply repair his cut wrists. That's what he was dying from at that point, after all?

On that same note, why was the devil dragging John bodily to hell when all he was after was his soul?

When John visits Hell is it his soul or his physical body that does the traveling?

How does the chair go back in time?

Considering that his initials are J.C. he should die and come back to life.

But it was so much fun!

Agreed, let's play some Beatles.

Well, to reiterate, i would like to see them do that. If they took your Guys And Dolls idea or maybe take the story from Original Sins that i mentioned involving Nergal, the Damnation Army and the Resurrection Crusade then i would love to see such a film be made but from what i saw in the first film, i don't think they will bother paying as much attention to the comics as you think they will, i am not saying they won't look in a graphic novel or two for ideas but i just don't think they will lift an entire plot for a film from one of the comics or from one of the graphic novels.

I can't disagree with that. I don't think they will follow the plotlines of the comic at all. From that position, there is no way they could really adapt an entire story considering the departures in the first film. In that sense, they have strayed "too far."

However, they could still take elements as inspiration to create a film noir horror movie. I don't think that the basic problem of the movie is that they strayed too far from the original material but that they strayed too far from the film noir genre.

And, really, all I'm talking about is the direction I'd like to see based on the first film. Guys and Dolls is just one storyline in the comic that could set up a film noir style plot and that is really what the first film needed (a plot).

In Britain, you usually have to smoke crack and heroin to fuck a model i.e Pete Doherty, at least your method is cheaper.

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The trick is getting her to supply the dope.

Sure, I expect a response, but when I then point out that I agree it strayed far but not TOO FAR that the comic is meaningless, you kept pushing how far it strayed. Sure, it strayed incredibly far, but not as far as it could have, so that is RELATIVE. John Constantine could have been a human infected with demon blood forced to work for Gabriel and use his demonic powers to "deport" half-breeds violating the treaty or find himself deported, but I bet you a night of drinking (if you're ever in LA or I'm in Aberdeen) that the sequel still takes elements and plotlines from the comic.

However, I won't eat haggis.

Now, excuse me, but I have to snort cocaine while screwing a model.

Now who's getting "shirty"? I didn't say that the film didn't stray far from the material, I just made the point that it didn't stray so far that they wouldn't go to the comic for future storylines. I was satisfied with your opinion, but then all you wanted to talk about was how far it strayed.

I could care less if that's your opinion, but why should you care if I disagree. You're getting pretty snotty, insluting and worked up about and accusing me of telling you what to think and do when I never did so. I just wanted to discuss the possibilities for the sequel, but you just want to keep harping on the first film over and over.

I know that Scots have a reputation for drinking anything that comes out of a tap EXCEPT water, but you might want to moderate it some.

But, even a faithful adaptation could have been equally confusing since watching a film you don't have the opportunity to go back a couple of pages when you're confused or miss something. Also, the comic has a pretty wide mythology and cast list that a film doesn't have time to explore in the same way.

My point is that it would have been nice if it had tried a faithful adaptation, but there's still a good chance the movie could (and probably would considering the filmmakers) still have been very poor even if it remained true to the comic.

There is no magic way to take what works in one medium and make it work in another. Especially, when there are such great differences between the audiences.