Conference bookie::movies

    Tim Roth is British?
    
    I knew Gary Oldman (the other half of GnR, not the rockgroup...) was,
    but --  oh well.
    
    kim

    
    
     I you can try and get a hold of the BBC Drama "The firm".Gary Oldman
    is superb in this.
    
     SCott

    Well, Part I aired last night, and it's certainly... gritty. Definitely
    going for that "banality of evil" touch in a big way. (It's also very
    heavily slanted towards the "Fugate was an innocent hostage" view, even
    though the jury that convicted her thought otherwise.) But despite my
    interest in the actual case, I found the movie uninvolving, even
    boring. The main characters, well-enough played by Roth and Balk as
    bored and aimless teenagers (though Roth does look too old for the part
    and seems to be slumming), didn't hold my empathy, my interest, or even
    a horrified fascination; most of the victims weren't given enough
    context to gain more than token sympathy; and the supporting cast of
    police and FBI agents has, so far, been very much in the background. [I
    gather things pick up for the supporting cast when the trials begin in
    part II.]
    
    There's a certain ironic weirdness in having all this grim, stark,
    '50s-era business interrupted every fifteen minutes for a series of
    bright and splashy commercials (including some for the latest shoot-em-
    up Hollywood spectaculars). And I couldn't help wondering whether the
    movie seems mundane because of some lack in the production, or because
    after decades of having equivalent crimes or worse splattered all over
    the news and the movies and TV, it now _is_ mundane...
    
    But what the heck, I'll be checking in for Part II anyway, to see where
    it goes from here.
    
    -b

    In the grand context of TV movies, this is pretty good (I'm sorry, a 2
    part movie doesn't really qualify as a miniseries in MY book, no matter
    what ABC would have us believe).  
    
    In the grand context of how this might have been done as a feature
    film, it *is* a bit rambling and as -beth said, uninvolving.  (Hey, I
    console myself, it's just commerical TV....)  
    
    I think that it suffers from being on commericial TV, and because this
    is commerical TV, all those bright and happy commericals wouldn't
    really want to sponsor this show if it was as bleak and gripping as the
    subject matter seems to call for.
    
    But, I like Tim Roth, I think he does psychotic well and I'll probably
    watch part II tonite.  
    
    kim

    I lasted for about 3 minutes, then went back to finish reading a book
    about Antonioni.
    
    Ray

    [See also topic 87, for discussion of "Badlands," an earlier film
    based on the same story.]
    
    -b

    Well, Part II didn't do a whole lot better than Part I, although I must
    admit that I derived considerable amusement from the way the movie
    suggested that Fugate was convicted primarily for being a snotty
    teenager. When she pulled the eye-rolling, heavy-sighing, I-can't-
    believe-you're-asking-me-this attitude on the witness stand, I knew she
    was doomed, despite all the truly pitiful sobbing and crying she'd been
    doing the rest of the time (not to mention a few incidental violations
    of her right to a fair trial). 
    
    The much-ballyhooed electrocution sequence was, as I'd suspected,
    pretty dull, though the suggestion that the first shock stuns but
    doesn't kill <some chest movement, etc., between shocks 1 and 2> may
    have disturbed the folks who thought it was really, truly
    instantaneous.
    
    I doubt very much that showing the execution will discourage any
    potential criminals out there, but I do hold out hopes that some young
    people will have learned that it is not in their best interests to
    slouch, snarl, or talk back when being cross-examined by the
    prosecution. ;-)
    
    Oh, and big, big points to whoever scheduled the commercial slots. Just
    after a very hysterical Fugate (having apparently forgotten, if indeed
    she ever knew, that Starkweather had killed her parents) was shrieking
    madly "I want to see my mother!", a commercial came on for - yep,
    Mother's Day bouquets.
    
    -b

    On New Yaaawk news (from where I was forced to watch this show) did a
    little on Fugate after the movie.  They had some real principles of
    the case on the news and made a quick, compelling argument that Fugate
    probably got what she deserved...

    18 years for a 14 year old murderess.

    Anyway, they made a decent argument for gun lovers, as I would have
    hoped to have had a 9mm handy if Charlie came around my neighborhood.

    Chip

    Fugate wasn't a murderess; even in the broadest sense of justice, she
    may have been an accomplice after the fact or even an accomplice in the
    case of the teenage couple, but there was absolutely no evidence other
    than Starkweather's testimony that she was in on it.
    
    The strangest part of the movie was the fact that in her book, she
    tells how she came home and found her family slaughtered, but in the
    movie she's supposedly kept in the dark until the very end that they're
    dead.
    
    We all have opinions, but to hand 18 years to a 14-year-old who didn't
    know her butt from her elbow and would never have been in the trouble
    she got into had it not been for a deranged boyfriend, is really
    unbelievable considering how proven murderers and rapists serve less
    time than that, even those with long criminal records.
    
    Fugate was not that bright and wasn't a very sympathetic character, but
    I'm wondering how things would have gone if her demeanor had been
    better.  But that would have taken some thought and acting out,
    wouldn't it?  A none-too-bright 14-year-old wouldn't have been savvy
    enough to play the legal game.
    
    Leslie