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Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 8, 2019 9:11:36 GMT
like i wrote in my thread for SERGIO SOLLIMA's VIOLENT CITY (1970) - the stuff you could put in an action movie or thriller back in the 60s and 70s was unbelievable. the film begins by going back and forth in time, detailing a menage a trois and heist gone wrong along with an escape from a high security prison. the fragmented scenes often segue into each other through dialogs being repeated giving it all a dream like quality. i was thinking this style might have inspired the beginning of SERGIO LEONE's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA more than a decade later (i did some reading on POINT BLANK and some critics and fans believe that the whole film is a revenge fantasy or dream of the main character just like some people believe all of OUATIA is a dream of the main character). what follows after the confusing beginning is a brutal tale of revenge set against the backdrop of colorful urban jungles, gaudily designed interiors, psychedelic concerts and a beautiful river. LEE MARVIN towers over everyone and walks around like a bull in a china shop injuring people and crashing cars. ANGIE DICKINSON looks sensational in a yellow dress. this is definitely a film that deserves a rewatch.
(8/10)
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Post by OldAussie on Jan 8, 2019 9:19:23 GMT
love it
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Jan 8, 2019 9:58:17 GMT
like i wrote in my thread for SERGIO SOLLIMA's VIOLENT CITY (1970) - the stuff you could put in an action movie or thriller back in the 60s and 70s was unbelievable. the film begins by going back and forth in time, detailing a menage a trois and heist gone wrong along with an escape from a high security prison. the fragmented scenes often segue into each other through dialogs being repeated giving it all a dream like quality. i was thinking this style might have inspired the beginning of SERGIO LEONE's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA more than a decade later (i did some reading on POINT BLANK and some critics and fans believe that the whole film is a revenge fantasy or dream of the main character just like some people believe all of OUATIA is a dream of the main character). what follows after the confusing beginning is a brutal tale of revenge set against the backdrop of colorful urban jungles, gaudily designed interiors, psychedelic concerts and a beautiful river. LEE MARVIN towers over everyone and walks around like a bull in a china shop injuring people and crashing cars. ANGIE DICKINSON looks sensational in a yellow dress. this is definitely a film that deserves a rewatch.
(8/10)
Yes, Point Blank is stylistically daring and virtuosic, and Lee Marvin's unyielding performance is unforgettable. Marvin in Point Blank and Paul Newman in Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1966) have to constitute two of the "hardest" and most underrated male performances of that seminal era and throughout history. That is what real "toughness" in acting looks like—not a bunch of Jason Bourne-style stunts. Here is what I wrote about Point Blank in the summer of 2006 on IMDb (the link was not working, so I will copy the whole post): Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967) is a tense, eerie crime thriller that serves as a groundbreaking and definitive late 1960s study in existentialism and alienation. It’s so coldly intense as to be nearly unnerving, and yet so experimentally bold and visually beautiful as to be alluringly attractive. The film plays like the surreal fragments of a nihilistic nightmare, to the point where we don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream, what’s literally physical and what represents the psychological mind. Indeed, this movie even carries a strong implication of the ambiguously metaphysical. Young British director John Boorman (b. 1933), clearly influenced by the innovations of the French New Wave, daringly renders time elliptical and circular through a series of elegantly jagged and compulsive flash-backs and flash-forwards. Point Blank thus becomes a swirling mindscape, its rhythms the manifestation of a human brain that will race through the past, present, and future in interwoven patterns, irrespective of the external world’s harsh temporal linearity. Just as impressive is Boorman’s rich sense of color, which he tailors to monotonous modern landscapes, the kind that hint at a robotic, mechanical universe. The dominant color tones of Boorman’s mise-en-scene change markedly from sequence to sequence, forming a shifty kaleidoscope that becomes a metaphor for capricious and elusive morality. The old black-and-white, wrong-or-right standards of a past society have become lost, awash in an ever-changing sea of mercurial color. Even the clothes of the characters change in accordance with the scenery, indicating that everyone is a chameleon and that no one is above suspicion. Boorman’s daunting long shots, along with his emphasis upon sound and form in editing, also help to make for a cinematic tour-de-force.
Sometime in his violent past, Lee Marvin’s towering, coolly intimidating Walker has been double-crossed out of $93,000. Now he’s determined to retrieve his money and run over anyone and anything that’s in his way until he uncovers the problem’s root and recovers the lost loot. His quest is mercenary and narcissistic, concerned with nothing but his own self-interest, and yet paradoxically, it’s also a source of ethics and honor. Walker is a nihilistic anti-hero, and his manner of behavior is brutish, relentless, and implacable. He’s a man who doesn’t compromise and reflects no conscience, less of a character and more of a ghostly specter haunting the narrative, an elemental force of vengeance. That driving force of vengeance is pure, however, and it thus makes Walker’s nihilism pure. He may be outrageous, virtually psychotic, and remote to the point of saturnine coldness, but he’s somehow human rather than robotic. He’s a displaced soul, a man searching for the soul that has left his body, vulnerable and yet detached from that vulnerability, a dead man walking. While not a character that audiences can warm to, the anti-hero Walker nonetheless emerges as an ironically sympathetic persona. To quote film scholar Andrew Tudor on page 56 of The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1998), "The movie creates a paradox in which this unlovely figure comes to represent a more human spirit than that embodied in the syndicate’s bureaucratic order." Indeed, what Walker discovers as he violently moves from duplicitous person to duplicitous person is that he’s an individual in a world that has been lost to mechanical bureaucracy. Walker keeps expecting to peel off layer after layer until he reaches a core, a person who’s responsible and accountable for the money and has the moral authority to pay him off. Or, to put it another way, Walker expects to move up a vertical chain of command until he finds the real boss, the real adversary that he needs to confront. Instead, all Walker finds is a horizontal line of suites, middlemen, empty executives, and criminal calculators that don’t lead up anywhere. None of them reflect any responsibility or accountability, and none of them possess any moral authority. They’re interchangeable, worthless, and individually irrelevant, the petty pawns of an inhuman force. In effect, Walker’s reckless violence and vengeance appear immaculate, righteous, and noble in the face of nihilistic corporatism, the sordid and corrupt monstrosity of a numbingly modernistic age. Hence the film’s colors change almost wantonly, indicating an alienating world with no moral center or gravity, individualism and constancy having been obliterated by fickle bureaucracy. Elusively maneuvering and reappearing like a spook through a wilderness of mirrors, Walker becomes an existential figure, merely having to exist in order to prove his point. Ultimately, though, his point may indeed be blank, for while he may score a narrow victory at the end, it’s undoubtedly hollow, an inconsequential battle in a lost war. After all, what good is the potential recovery of the money in the face of a corporate society that has abolished responsibility and absolved accountability, the values that Walker silently holds dear? To again quote Tudor, "Sharing his perspective as we do, we are left with a pervasive sense of impotence in the face of larger impersonal forces."
Lee Marvin rose through the movie ranks by playing small, colorful characters in violent film genres, especially Westerns. In those Westerns, Marvin, even as a villain, could always fight man-to-man, with such personal combat invariably constituting the crux of the matter. In Point Blank, Marvin’s Walker finds that man-to-man combat is desultory and meaningless, because the men themselves are irrelevant. The real enemy, as the film and Tudor suggest, is impersonal, something that will not fight and cannot be fought. As in Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) a few years later, all that’s left for the embittered anti-hero is resignation, an empty physical victory and then a retreat into the shadows of a decaying America, a system run amuck. While its colorful, surreal, and nearly psychedelic milieu represents its sixties moment, Point Blank also proves to be one of the epochal films that points the way towards the grim and gray 1970s.
Boorman directs this terse movie at a crisp pace, and the fascinating editing and cinematography hold the viewer’s attention, as does Marvin’s iconic, laconic performance, at once overpowering and mysteriously withheld. Angie Dickinson aids him as Walker’s sister-in-law, her cutely gorgeous face belying the feline ferocity of her spirit. Her cat-and-mouse game with Walker, and the violent sexual angst that they display towards one another, sears the consciousness. In fact, the whole film pulses under a cloud of sex-and-violence, as when Dickinson’s character sensually beds another man to allow Walker an opportunity for brutality. Violence looms constantly in Point Blank, occasionally exploding with rupturing force, usually from Walker himself. Colorful supporting work is turned in from John Vernon, Carroll O’Connor, and Keenan Wynn, among others, as smarmy players in this seedy, shadowy, and ultimately depressing whirlpool. Also of note is Johnny Mandel’s aurally haunting score, the perfect counterpoint to an experimental, ambiguous, and utterly unmitigated film. Indeed, Point Blank reminds us of a time when Hollywood would sometimes refuse to pull its punches."point of no return"
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Post by wmcclain on Jan 8, 2019 12:23:19 GMT
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 8, 2019 12:30:19 GMT
like i wrote in my thread for SERGIO SOLLIMA's VIOLENT CITY (1970) - the stuff you could put in an action movie or thriller back in the 60s and 70s was unbelievable. the film begins by going back and forth in time, detailing a menage a trois and heist gone wrong along with an escape from a high security prison. the fragmented scenes often segue into each other through dialogs being repeated giving it all a dream like quality. i was thinking this style might have inspired the beginning of SERGIO LEONE's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA more than a decade later (i did some reading on POINT BLANK and some critics and fans believe that the whole film is a revenge fantasy or dream of the main character just like some people believe all of OUATIA is a dream of the main character). what follows after the confusing beginning is a brutal tale of revenge set against the backdrop of colorful urban jungles, gaudily designed interiors, psychedelic concerts and a beautiful river. LEE MARVIN towers over everyone and walks around like a bull in a china shop injuring people and crashing cars. ANGIE DICKINSON looks sensational in a yellow dress. this is definitely a film that deserves a rewatch.
(8/10) To quote film scholar Andrew Tudor on page 56 of The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1998), "The movie creates a paradox in which this unlovely figure comes to represent a more human spirit than that embodied in the syndicate’s bureaucratic order." Indeed, what Walker discovers as he violently moves from duplicitous person to duplicitous person is that he’s an individual in a world that has been lost to mechanical bureaucracy. Walker keeps expecting to peel off layer after layer until he reaches a core, a person who’s responsible and accountable for the money and has the moral authority to pay him off. Or, to put it another way, Walker expects to move up a vertical chain of command until he finds the real boss, the real adversary that he needs to confront. Instead, all Walker finds is a horizontal line of suites, middlemen, empty executives, and criminal calculators that don’t lead up anywhere. None of them reflect any responsibility or accountability, and none of them possess any moral authority. They’re interchangeable, worthless, and individually irrelevant, the petty pawns of an inhuman force. In effect, Walker’s reckless violence and vengeance appear immaculate, righteous, and noble in the face of nihilistic corporatism, the sordid and corrupt monstrosity of a numbingly modernistic age. Hence the film’s colors change almost wantonly, indicating an alienating world with no moral center or gravity, individualism and constancy having been obliterated by fickle bureaucracy. very well written, joekidd.
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Post by london777 on Jan 8, 2019 15:30:32 GMT
This guys got like over 7 million a month. ALot of time goes into this stuff. Very perceptive post.
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Post by london777 on Jan 8, 2019 15:32:05 GMT
I have always assumed the movie was a commentary on capitalism. Even more apt now we have global capitalism.
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Post by london777 on Jan 8, 2019 16:03:06 GMT
Point Blank was based on the novel "The Hunter" written in 1962 by Donald E. Westlake (under the pseudonym Richard Stark). Also based on the same novel was Payback (1999) screenplay and direction by Brian Helgeland (screenwriter of "L. A. Confidential" and "Mystic River"). Not as good as Point Blank, but well worth seeing. Interestingly "Payback" was released in two different cuts. Its star, Mel Gibson, made extensive changes to Helgeland's version before the movie hit theaters in 1999, to make it more commercial. A later "Director's Cut" (2006) (and released on video) reverts more closely to Helgeland's original conception (which had never been released). If you watch only one version this is the one to see. But if you have the time and cash, watching both versions of Payback is a very interesting exercise in film studies, as I cannot think of another movie where the changes are so extensive and yield different implications for the story. Throw in "Point Blank" as well, and there is your weekend gone! Maria Bello is very good in "Payback". She is a strange case. In good films like this, "Thank You for Smoking", and "A History of Violence" she is as good as any actress around, but she has made mountains of straight-to-video dross where she scarcely makes an effort.
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Post by wmcclain on Jan 8, 2019 16:06:01 GMT
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Post by politicidal on Jan 8, 2019 19:32:27 GMT
I have always assumed the movie was a commentary on capitalism. Even more apt now we have global capitalism. Time for a remake then? Starring Josh Brolin and Amy Adams.
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jan 8, 2019 19:43:12 GMT
This was such a pleasant discovery when I watched it for the first time about a year ago. Lee Marvin is a badass mofo!
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Post by delon on Jan 8, 2019 20:31:45 GMT
Point Blank was broadcasted on television last Saturday. I loved the stylistic touches of European art cinema and Lee Marvin's commanding performance. Great film !
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 8, 2019 21:59:32 GMT
You're a very bad man, Walker, a very destructive man!
Point Blank is directed by John Boorman and collectively adapted to screenplay by Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse and Rafe Newhouse from the novel The Hunter written by Richard Stark. It stars Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, Lloyd Bochner and Michael Strong. Music is by Johnny Mandel and the Panavision cinematography (in Metrocolor) is by Philip H. Lathrop.
Betrayed by wife and friend during a robbery, Walker (Marvin) is left dying on a stone cold cell floor at closed down Alcatraz...
Pure neo-noir, a film that could be argued was ahead of its time, given that it wouldn't find a fan base until many years later. Yet it deserves to be bracketed as a benchmark for the second phase of noir, a shining light of the neo world, experimenting with techniques whilst beating a true film noir heart.
The story is deliciously biting, pumped full of betrayals and double crosses, fatales and revenge, death and destruction. It even has a trick in the tale, ambiguity. It all plays out in a boldly coloured Los Angeles, the photography sparkles as Mandel lays an elegiacal and haunting musical score over the various stages of the drama. The talented Boorman has a field day with the elements of time, shunting various strands of the story around with sequences that at first glance seem out of place, but actually are perfect in context to what is narratively happening, the director gleefully toying with audience expectations. While suffice to say angles are tilted and close ups broadened to further style the pic.
Then there is Walker, a single minded phantom type character, played with grace and menace by Marvin - who better to trawl the Los Angeles underworld with than Marv? This guy only wants what he is owed from the robbery, nothing more, nothing less, but if the meagre reward is not forthcoming, people are going to pay with something more precious than cash. His mission is both heroic and tragic, with Boorman asking the viewers to improvise their thought process about what it all inevitably means. Funding the fuel around Marvin are good players providing slink, sleaze and suspicion.
Deliberate pacing isn't for everyone, neither is stylised violence and stylish directorial trickery, but for those who dine at said tables, Point Blank, and Walker the man, is for you. 9/10
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 8, 2019 22:06:59 GMT
Point Blank was based on the novel "The Hunter" written in 1962 by Donald E. Westlake (under the pseudonym Richard Stark). Also based on the same novel was Payback (1999) screenplay and direction by Brian Helgeland (screenwriter of "L. A. Confidential" and "Mystic River"). Not as good as Point Blank, but well worth seeing. Interestingly "Payback" was released in two different cuts. Gibson made extensive changes to Helgeland's version before the movie hit theaters in 1999, to make it more commercial. A later "Director's Cut" (2006) (and released on video) reverts more closely to Helgeland's original conception (which had never been released). If you watch only one version this is the one to see. But if you have the time and cash, watching both versions of Payback is a very interesting exercise in film studies, as I cannot think of another movie where the changes are so extensive and yield different implications for the story. Throw in "Point Blank" as well, and there is your weekend gone! Maria Bello is very good in "Payback". She is a strange case. In good films like this, "Thank You for Smoking", and "A History of Violence" she is as good as any actress around, but she has made mountains of straight-to-video dross where she scarcely makes an effort. I disagree, from a film noir lovers perspective I think the 100 minute cut is the way to go. I like having both versions though, as you say, fascinating.
Indestructible Gibson in grim and gritty telling of The Hunter.
This is not an out and out remake of John Boorman's 1967 offering Point Blank, the structure is different from the 67 film, and where Point Blank is a dark psychological thriller that is rightly regarded as being towards the top of the neo-noir tree, this Brian Helgeland directed film really should be seen as a different interpretation of Donald E. Westlake's novel The Hunter.
Mel Gibson plays tough as nails thief Porter, who is double crossed, shot, and then left for dead by his wife Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger) and his partner in crime Val Resnick (Gregg Henry). We are then taken on a dark journey as Porter sets out to reclaim the $70.000 that he was shot and almost killed for. He wants no more, no less than what he is owed, and he literally will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Including taking on the Chicago mob organisation known as The Outfit.
Payback is a mean and violent movie, it is unrelenting in its willingness to keep nastiness at the top of the story. The film is full of flawed and vile people, even Porter himself, the closest we have to a (anti) hero has badness coursing through his veins, he is a dislikable killer, the film is about exactly what the tag-line suggests, Get Ready To Root For The Bad Guy! As Porter trawls through this part of Chicago, he will come across bent coppers, drug pushers/addicts/runners, Asian gangsters, prostitutes, violence fetishists and the slimy chain of command of the Chicago mob. Nobody here is about to cheer you up.
The style of the film owes its being to classic film noir and the 1970s hard crime movies led by Dirty Harry and Death Wish. The makers had originally wanted to film it in black and white, but instead went for a de-saturation technique, a bleach by-pass process that really puts a grim grey and blue sheen on the visuals. The thumping score is tonally correct, while a good sound track also helps (always nice to see hear Voodoo Chile), and the use of voice over narration by Porter evokes the classic noir period and works a treat because it's not over done.
The film strongly relies on Mel Gibson to bring menace and a measure of sympathy to the vengeful Porter, and it is with much credit that he manages to achieve both these things skilfully. He is backed by a strong support cast, Maria Bello admirable in her big shift from TV to film - Lucy Liu hilarious and stunningly sexy as a dominatrix and Gregg Henry is just wild. The Outfit chain of command features William Devane, James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson, all slick and welcome additions, even if they are all under used; though this is more by narrative necessity than film making decisions. Bill Duke, David Paymer and Jack Conley fill out the impressive roll call of scum-bags.
Violent, laconic and darkly comic as well, Payback is one of the best remakes around, a neo-noir essential in fact. 8.5/10
Footnote: Director Helgeland released his own Directors Cut in 2006. Unhappy with the original version, he changed some of the structure and visual style and made it shorter by ten minutes. It's inferior to the 100 minute original cut in my opinion, losing much of the noir stylisations, but the last quarter is different and will (does) certainly appeal to others.
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Post by kleinreturns on Jan 8, 2019 22:17:58 GMT
Point Blank was broadcasted on television last Saturday. I loved the stylistic touches of European art cinema and Lee Marvin's commanding performance. Great film ! I know this is a great action movie, but this Nightclub scene and that singer was hilariously comedic.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 8, 2019 23:30:37 GMT
Marvin in Point Blank and Paul Newman in Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1966) have to constitute two of the "hardest" and most underrated male performances of that seminal era and throughout history. That is what real "toughness" in acting looks like—not a bunch of Jason Bourne-style stunts.
Bravo!! Having rewatched Hombre only last week it just reaffirmed the belief to me that in a career sprinkled with great performances, Hombre is right up there as one of his best.
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Post by OldAussie on Jan 9, 2019 0:12:48 GMT
Marvin in Point Blank and Paul Newman in Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1966) have to constitute two of the "hardest" and most underrated male performances of that seminal era and throughout history. That is what real "toughness" in acting looks like—not a bunch of Jason Bourne-style stunts.
Bravo!! Having rewatched Hombre only last week it just reaffirmed the belief to me that in a career sprinkled with great performances, Hombre is right up there as one of his best.
I am the biggest Hombre fan of all time.
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 9, 2019 2:42:27 GMT
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Post by london777 on Jan 17, 2019 2:35:12 GMT
Interestingly "Payback" was released in two different cuts. The studio made extensive changes to Helgeland's version before the movie hit theaters in 1999, to make it more commercial. A later "Director's Cut" (2006) (and released on video) reverts more closely to Helgeland's original conception (which had never been released). If you watch only one version this is the one to see. But if you have the time and cash, watching both versions of Payback is a very interesting exercise in film studies, as I cannot think of another movie where the changes are so extensive and yield different implications for the story. Throw in "Point Blank" as well, and there is your weekend gone!
I disagree, from a film noir lovers perspective I think the 100 minute cut is the way to go. I like having both versions though, as you say, fascinating.
This is not an out and out remake of John Boorman's 1967 offering Point Blank, the structure is different from the 67 film, and where Point Blank is a dark psychological thriller that is rightly regarded as being towards the top of the neo-noir tree, this Brian Helgeland directed film really should be seen as a different interpretation of Donald E. Westlake's novel The Hunter.
The style of the film owes its being to classic film noir and the 1970s hard crime movies led by Dirty Harry and Death Wish. The makers had originally wanted to film it in black and white, but instead went for a de-saturation technique, a bleach by-pass process that really puts a grim grey and blue sheen on the visuals. The thumping score is tonally correct, while a good sound track also helps (always nice to see hear Voodoo Chile), and the use of voice over narration by Porter evokes the classic noir period and works a treat because it's not over done.
Violent, laconic and darkly comic as well, Payback is one of the best remakes around, a neo-noir essential in fact. 8.5/10
Footnote: Director Helgeland released his own Directors Cut in 2006. Unhappy with the original version, he changed some of the structure and visual style and made it shorter by ten minutes. It's inferior to the 100 minute original cut in my opinion, losing much of the noir stylisations, but the last quarter is different and will (does) certainly appeal to others.
Just watched the Helgeland cut again. It is an even better film than I had remembered, though still with some weaknesses. (Though I prefer the ending in the theatrical cut where the Kris Kristofferson's son is kidnapped. KK does not appear in this version at all). In my post above I wrote of Gibson instigating the changes. I have now changed this to read "the studio" because it appears Gibson was not the main culprit. On the same DVD is an interview with Helgeland and others explaining how his "own" version came to be made and released. Unless you have a heart of stone this could not fail to convert you to preferring his version to the theatrical release. I particular enjoyed the dog getting shot but I could not remember if that also occurred in the theatrical release. (Just sorry it was not Asta). Not that I have anything against dogs but it worries me that whereas humans get mown down in their thousands in the movies, dogs lead unrealistically charmed lives. There is a very funny passage in the interview about this scene.
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Post by politicidal on Jan 17, 2019 3:42:50 GMT
Didn't really care for it either that much. Lucy Liu was smoking hot in that though.
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