Post by Neverending on Aug 8, 2023 2:38:24 GMT -5
R.I.P. to the shit-talking legend.
I took time out of my day to honor the man. The last movie of his that I watched whilst he roamed the Earth was that tremendous piece of garbage, The Guardian, from 1990, about an evil nanny and a supernatural tree. Man had gigantic testicles to talk smack about other people’s works considering his own filmography. But early on in his career his actions were debatably justifiable. He gave us the French Connection and the Exorcist. Some claim he was the one true rival to Francis Ford Coppola, and like Coppola, he went into the jungle and never came back the same.
Sorcerer (1977)
For the price $2.89, I got to watch William Friedkin’s magnum opus on Amazon. I only splurge for the masters. It is about four truck drivers that have to transport two shipments of unstable dynamite through the jungles of Colombia. The movie is as exciting as it sounds once you get past about an hour of meaningless exposition. All four men have a criminal background and are hiding in this remote village, penniless and miserable. This job will provide the necessary funds to get them out of their predicament. Unfortunately, Friedkin has no interest in getting us to invest in these characters. When you get to the ending you can see why. To put it mildly, the message of the story is, there’s no escaping death. The meat and potatoes of the movie is getting those trucks and that dynamite across the jungle. That stuff is great. And Friedkin is almost innovative in his approach. There’s a scene in which footage of the trucks are intercut with footage of an oil rig explosion. For a moment I thought I was watching Oppenheimer. And it made me feel if Friedkin had taken an editing approach similar to Christopher Nolan, Sorcerer might have resonated better with general audiences. The second half of the movie is truly a masterclass in filmmaking, but that first half needed some serious retooling. But I’d highly recommend it nonetheless. It’s not quite French Connection and Exorcist, or even Live & Die in L.A. and Killer Joe, but it’s the next best thing.
I took time out of my day to honor the man. The last movie of his that I watched whilst he roamed the Earth was that tremendous piece of garbage, The Guardian, from 1990, about an evil nanny and a supernatural tree. Man had gigantic testicles to talk smack about other people’s works considering his own filmography. But early on in his career his actions were debatably justifiable. He gave us the French Connection and the Exorcist. Some claim he was the one true rival to Francis Ford Coppola, and like Coppola, he went into the jungle and never came back the same.
Sorcerer (1977)
For the price $2.89, I got to watch William Friedkin’s magnum opus on Amazon. I only splurge for the masters. It is about four truck drivers that have to transport two shipments of unstable dynamite through the jungles of Colombia. The movie is as exciting as it sounds once you get past about an hour of meaningless exposition. All four men have a criminal background and are hiding in this remote village, penniless and miserable. This job will provide the necessary funds to get them out of their predicament. Unfortunately, Friedkin has no interest in getting us to invest in these characters. When you get to the ending you can see why. To put it mildly, the message of the story is, there’s no escaping death. The meat and potatoes of the movie is getting those trucks and that dynamite across the jungle. That stuff is great. And Friedkin is almost innovative in his approach. There’s a scene in which footage of the trucks are intercut with footage of an oil rig explosion. For a moment I thought I was watching Oppenheimer. And it made me feel if Friedkin had taken an editing approach similar to Christopher Nolan, Sorcerer might have resonated better with general audiences. The second half of the movie is truly a masterclass in filmmaking, but that first half needed some serious retooling. But I’d highly recommend it nonetheless. It’s not quite French Connection and Exorcist, or even Live & Die in L.A. and Killer Joe, but it’s the next best thing.
