Seven
I hear a lot of people liked this movie? Why? It was a sick, disgusting movie. A guy kills a bunch of people in really really nasty ways. And the climax is when Brad Pitt finds his wife's head in a box? What kind of sick and twisted crap is that? This movie made me Ill. What kind of jacked up people would make a movie like that? It has absolutely nothing good to give anyone. This is one of those scumy movies that I don't need to see.

Natural born Killers
A bad movie with Juliet Lewis in it? Shlongor, you must be joking! I think what they were trying to do was make all the killing funny. They were trying to make a big joke out of society and how they make heros out of murderers and such. But I didn't find this funny. I didn't find their mindless killing of people funny. I mean Look at Total Recal, Arnold killed people through that whole movie and it was funny. The fools that made Natuarl born killers just didn't know how to properly pull that off.

Contact
I know everyone is going to say, what the heck Expect Nothing! , contact was awesome. Yes it was awesome. It was an excellently done crappy move. It had good acting, good special effects, if you had the thing on mute the movie rocked. But, it's the over all message of the movie and the ending that made it suck. The idea was to show that we are not alone. Hmm, I walked out of there thinking, gee we aren't alone, there is someone else out there. But Aliens? Come on. X-Files is my favorite show, but I don't at all believe in Aliens. Come on. If there was any real proof that Aliens existed, the whole idea of Christianity would be ended. It isn't God and his aliens, humans and all. It's God and his humans created in HIS image. God alien? I don't think so. I'm sure all the athieists loved this move. I would to. This movie is for all the non christians out there. I'm sure some of the Christians out there liked this movie. You were fooled! :) I think it could have been done, it was a great plan for the movie. It's not the idea of aliens that gets me. I love alien movies. The movie didn't really deal with anything of relevance whatsoever. It was sorta a it all comes up to the alien meeting and then it floops movie. The kinda movie that made me and my buddy damian walk out and go WTF???

First, I agree with you that part of Carl Sagan's goal in writing the book that became the movie was, to back up his atheist worldview. I mean he was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist all through his life and most of what he did as a professor was more to advance his theory and outlook on the universe rather than advance truly scientific knowledge (IMO). So the creators of the movie remained very close to his vision of what the story should be.

Now one of the problems of atheism in general is, it leaves you with very little to look forward to in the long run. I mean here you are on earth and everywhere you look there's suffering, diease, war, poverty, etc. And now you come along and say there's no God to listen to your cries for mercy and justice, and no heaven after death. So either you make the best of your life or give up, and even the happiest and most successful people are going to die and that's the end. But for the majority of humanity who have to live in nations like India, China, Somalia, Bangladesh, etc., life just is not that great. In fact it's horrible. So for most people, life is not good now and it never will be good and when it's over, too bad. Not a very optimistic philosophy to me.

So here comes Sagan with his vision of hope: one day we will make contact with the other advanced, blissful, wonderful civilizations that "made it" and graduated to the "next level." For them there's no more problems, technology has eliminated them and they've realized that they don't have to fight anymore (who knows how this happened). And once we contact them, we'll have something to look forward to and a way to escape our bleak little existence. And there's a vague promise of immortality somewhere in there, although Contact doesn't go into that very much.

Also part of this philosophy is that it's the religious people who are really dangerous. Matthew McConaghey's character is portrayed positively, but the other two major "religious" characters are Tom Skerritt who lies and manipulates everyone for his own benefit, and the weirdo albino preacher guy who blows up the first transporter. Both of them are the opponents of Our Hero, the atheist scientist, who is nice and good and kind. Whatever.

Anyway, now to my point. The one thing that really intrigued me about the movie is, despite Sagan's obvious biases against Christianity, he makes it so that the main character has no real evidence that she actually made contact. To her it's very real, she talks to the alien who uses her memory of her father to communicate to her. But when she returns, no one can believe that she went anywhere. In the end she has to exercise faith that it wasn't just a delusion she went through, that the experience was real. Which is the exact argument so many atheists have used as their excuse for not believing in God, that there's no "hard evidence." Now after the hearings and everything, when she's talking to the kids, she says, "Whatever you want to believe is true. If you believe it, then it's true. Blah blah blah," which is all a huge crock. But the idea that no matter which side you're on, the theist and the atheist BOTH need faith to believe what they do, I thought that was amazing that! Sagan would make that the climax of the story. I respect him for that, even though I think right now he is really regretting his rejection of God.

When you read all the stories in the Bible, it's very similar to what happened to Jodie Foster. These guys had real encounters with God that they couldn't explain and that no one would believe if they heard it. "Well there was this burning bush and this mighty rushing wind and God spoke to me." After it was over they had to decide if the believed God or not. They had to have faith that it was real and not a hallucination. And with that faith they did incredible things. They couldn't PROVE that God spoke to them, but by their actions they demonstrated their faith.

The whole thing makes me wonder, if Sagan had lived a little longer, if he would have changed his mind about God. Maybe he just never met someone who demonstrated their faith the right way.

Later,

--David Stewart.

Fargo(1996)
Ok, now maybe not everyone likes it, but lots of people do. And why? What a dumb ass movie.. If you think otherwise, I dare you to watch "Blood Simple" by the guys who made Fargo.

Apocalypse Now.(1979)
Everyone quotes this as being one of the best war movies. Now I dug it up till the end when it starts getting all weird. And just look who directed that crap: Francis Coppola, mister Dracula. Yet another shitty movie by him. Now maybe you gotta be high to understand, appreciate the ending, but that's not for me. War movies are supposed be real.

I also didn't like it much. Here's what's up with the ending. The movie is based on the book Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The book takes place in the Congo in the 1800's. It's one of those deals they made us analyze to death in English, which I hate. The ending makes sense in the book. With the movie, they tried to keep the same storyline but put it in a modern setting -- the Vietnam War. It's not really supposed to be a war story. That's why it sucked and the ending was all weird.

Demon (Mike Mannis)