I'm here because the history of the slaughter of the Osage people has now been filmed by Martin Scorsese as Killers of the Flower Moon, which will bring tragically overdue attention to their history and undoubtedly result in people wishing to view this episode of Ling's documentary series. I came hoping to find where I can watch it a second time, as I saw It when it aired and have only now learned from another reviewer that circumstances stopped it from debuting as scheduled. I don't remember the date, but when it was finally shown my father and I watched it with keen interest. We were each both appalled by the horrible story and amazed by the fact that this chapter of American history has remained virtually unknown to the general public for decades. Ling's fresh investigation throws new light into very dark corners. I urge everyone with an interest in history or in our one human family to seek this out. I'm looking forward to Killers of the Flower Moon, which I trust remains as true to the history on which it's based as a major motion picture possibly can, which is less than 100%. We shouldn't expect a documentary from Hollywood, but we do from Lisa Ling. She delivers here.
Reviews
5 Reviews
The last scene is television's highest moment.
21 June 2022
For 18 years now I've held that this is the finest scene in the entire history of dramatic narrative television. And of course that's ridiculous; we should all know better than to speak in terms of absolutes. Have I watched every scene in the history of dramatic TV? So a second of clear thought tells me to holster my tongue. Then I watch this heartbreaking, life affirming art again, its magic floods over me again and I say again that this is the finest scene in all the history of television drama. Everyone whose work went into the creation of these 7 minutes should take pride in contributing to something so profound, so beautiful and so powerful.
The Sunset Limited
(2011 TV Movie)
Conversation can be hair-raising
21 February 2020
I just watched The Sunset Limited. I'm eager to see it again, and will tomorrow.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson are the only actors in the 91 minute film, which consists of a single unbroken dialogue set in the living room of a tenement building overrun by junkies and squatters. Jackson's railroad worker may be the building's only occupied resident. The names of his character and Jones's, a suicidal university professor, are never used.
The movie opens on the pair sitting at the lineman's dining table, discussing why each did what he did minutes earlier. The professor tried to kill himself by jumping in front of the oncoming Sunset Limited. The lineman caught him and brought him to his squalid room, unwilling to let the stranger out of his sight.
The lineman is uneducated, spent years in federal prison for a murder he acknowledges committing, and believes in God. The professor, a brilliant academic, is an atheist whose pursuit of knowledge leaves him craving death and resenting the lineman's interference. His rescuer has locked the several bolts on his door both out of habit and determination not to let the troubled man hurt himself, but when the professor insists on going home, his host is willing to allow it only provided they go together.
Resigned, the professor sits and the men resume their debate, one making the case for life, the other unable to accept reasoning that begins with faith, insisting on unassailable logic and employing a subtle vocabulary to prove the absurdity of continuing. The simpler and therefore happier of the two uses plain language to demonstrate what to him is self evident, countering the scholar's unnerving calm with passion and his logic with acquiescence to life's mystery.
I watched the film with my father and brother, and we agree that it sped by like an action thriller to a climactic soliloquy that made each of us feel his hair stand on end.
The Sunset Limited was directed by Tommy Lee Jones and written by Cormac McCarthy, based on his play.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson are the only actors in the 91 minute film, which consists of a single unbroken dialogue set in the living room of a tenement building overrun by junkies and squatters. Jackson's railroad worker may be the building's only occupied resident. The names of his character and Jones's, a suicidal university professor, are never used.
The movie opens on the pair sitting at the lineman's dining table, discussing why each did what he did minutes earlier. The professor tried to kill himself by jumping in front of the oncoming Sunset Limited. The lineman caught him and brought him to his squalid room, unwilling to let the stranger out of his sight.
The lineman is uneducated, spent years in federal prison for a murder he acknowledges committing, and believes in God. The professor, a brilliant academic, is an atheist whose pursuit of knowledge leaves him craving death and resenting the lineman's interference. His rescuer has locked the several bolts on his door both out of habit and determination not to let the troubled man hurt himself, but when the professor insists on going home, his host is willing to allow it only provided they go together.
Resigned, the professor sits and the men resume their debate, one making the case for life, the other unable to accept reasoning that begins with faith, insisting on unassailable logic and employing a subtle vocabulary to prove the absurdity of continuing. The simpler and therefore happier of the two uses plain language to demonstrate what to him is self evident, countering the scholar's unnerving calm with passion and his logic with acquiescence to life's mystery.
I watched the film with my father and brother, and we agree that it sped by like an action thriller to a climactic soliloquy that made each of us feel his hair stand on end.
The Sunset Limited was directed by Tommy Lee Jones and written by Cormac McCarthy, based on his play.
The Sunset Limited
(2011 TV Movie)
A conversation more exciting than an action thriller.
25 January 2019
Tonight I watched a remarkable movie made by HBO in 2011, The Sunset Limited. I'm eager to see it again, and will tomorrow.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson are the only actors in the 91 minute film, which consists of a single unbroken dialogue set in the living room of a tenement building overrun by junkies, prostitutes and squatters. Jackson's railroad worker may be the building's only occupied resident. The names of his character and Jones's, a suicidal university professor, are never used.
The movie opens on the pair sitting at the lineman's dining table, discussing why each did what he did minutes earlier. The professor tried to kill himself by jumping in front of the oncoming Sunset Limited. The lineman caught him and brought him to his squalid room, unwilling to let the stranger out of his sight.
The lineman is uneducated, spent years in federal prison for a murder he acknowledges committing, and believes in God. The professor, a brilliant academic, is an atheist whose pursuit of knowledge leaves him craving death and resenting the lineman's interference. His rescuer has locked the several bolts on his door both out of habit and determination not to let the troubled man hurt himself, but when the professor insists on going home, his host is willing to allow it only if they go together.
Resigned, the professor sits and the men resume their debate, one making the case for life, the other unable to accept reasoning that begins with faith, insisting on unassailable logic and employing a subtle vocabulary to prove the absurdity of continuing, the other using plain language to demonstrate what to him is self evident, countering the scholar's unnerving calm with passion and his logic with stories from his life and an appeal to mystery.
I watched The Sunset Limited with my brother and father, who agree that it sped by like an action thriller to a climactic soliloquy that made our hair stand on end.
The Sunset Limited was directed by Tommy Lee Jones and written by Cormac McCarthy, based on his play.
Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson are the only actors in the 91 minute film, which consists of a single unbroken dialogue set in the living room of a tenement building overrun by junkies, prostitutes and squatters. Jackson's railroad worker may be the building's only occupied resident. The names of his character and Jones's, a suicidal university professor, are never used.
The movie opens on the pair sitting at the lineman's dining table, discussing why each did what he did minutes earlier. The professor tried to kill himself by jumping in front of the oncoming Sunset Limited. The lineman caught him and brought him to his squalid room, unwilling to let the stranger out of his sight.
The lineman is uneducated, spent years in federal prison for a murder he acknowledges committing, and believes in God. The professor, a brilliant academic, is an atheist whose pursuit of knowledge leaves him craving death and resenting the lineman's interference. His rescuer has locked the several bolts on his door both out of habit and determination not to let the troubled man hurt himself, but when the professor insists on going home, his host is willing to allow it only if they go together.
Resigned, the professor sits and the men resume their debate, one making the case for life, the other unable to accept reasoning that begins with faith, insisting on unassailable logic and employing a subtle vocabulary to prove the absurdity of continuing, the other using plain language to demonstrate what to him is self evident, countering the scholar's unnerving calm with passion and his logic with stories from his life and an appeal to mystery.
I watched The Sunset Limited with my brother and father, who agree that it sped by like an action thriller to a climactic soliloquy that made our hair stand on end.
The Sunset Limited was directed by Tommy Lee Jones and written by Cormac McCarthy, based on his play.
The Lost Continent
(1968)
Was Hammer's 1968 film THE LOST CONTINENT meant to be a satire?
11 July 2001
It's small wonder that little is written or said about this one; it's a real stinker. The odd thing about it is that it seems to have been intended as a satire, but it's presented in a completely straightforward manner by the director (Michael Carreras) and cast (about whom more in a moment). Dennis Wheatley had two novels turned into films by Hammer in '68; one was adapted by a master and the other by someone who has not another single film credit to his name. Richard Matheson crafted an excellent script from Wheatley's book The Devil Rides Out for the film of the same name, but someone named Michael Nash failed miserably with this movie, taken from Wheatley's novel Uncharted Seas (which I've not read).
The incidents and plot of The Lost Continent are so hackneyed they just can't be meant to be taken seriously; this has to be a batched rendering of a send-up. The captain of an old freighter takes on a number of passengers for a journey into uncharted waters; each passenger, like the captain, has some Deep Dark Secret. The captain is smuggling a cargo of rare explosive that explodes furiously on contact with water, which leads the crew to mutiny. The cardboard cutout passengers include the blackmailer and his victim, the father and his daughter who have a big skeleton in the closet, and the mysterious beautiful blonde anxious to escape her past. Even with this cargo that can't on any account be allowed to get wet, the captain >deliberately< steers his vessel into the path of a hurricane! And the survivors wind up meeting intelligent seaweed, man-eating plants, a giant crab and a giant scorpion, and Spanish conquistadors. Heard enough? I'll add that the giant crab in this 1968 Hammer film is >much< less convincing that the one in Attack of the Crab Monsters, and mention that the score (by one Gérard Schurmann) is nothing less than atrocious. I have to believe that this was originally intended to be a take off on "lost world" movies that somehow went terribly wrong; can anyone here tell me if I'm right? There's nothing in the film to indicate that Carreras and everyone else connected with it didn't think it was absolutely serious. This seems to be something a little like the case of Ben Hecht's (now lost) treatment written as a spoof of space opera, which wound up as the film Queen of Outer Space (made with little evidence of the director's awareness that the subject matter isn't serious, which is odd considering the fact that Edward Bernds was primarily a director of comedies).
Oh, about the cast. Why did Hammer make a film without a single star name in the cast? I only recognize a few of the actor's names; most of these folk spent most of their careers in European cinema and I'm surprised that Hammer didn't include at least one name that would be a draw for Americans (I'm not sure, but I don't even think any of these people were big news in England). This really is an odd case.
Stu
The incidents and plot of The Lost Continent are so hackneyed they just can't be meant to be taken seriously; this has to be a batched rendering of a send-up. The captain of an old freighter takes on a number of passengers for a journey into uncharted waters; each passenger, like the captain, has some Deep Dark Secret. The captain is smuggling a cargo of rare explosive that explodes furiously on contact with water, which leads the crew to mutiny. The cardboard cutout passengers include the blackmailer and his victim, the father and his daughter who have a big skeleton in the closet, and the mysterious beautiful blonde anxious to escape her past. Even with this cargo that can't on any account be allowed to get wet, the captain >deliberately< steers his vessel into the path of a hurricane! And the survivors wind up meeting intelligent seaweed, man-eating plants, a giant crab and a giant scorpion, and Spanish conquistadors. Heard enough? I'll add that the giant crab in this 1968 Hammer film is >much< less convincing that the one in Attack of the Crab Monsters, and mention that the score (by one Gérard Schurmann) is nothing less than atrocious. I have to believe that this was originally intended to be a take off on "lost world" movies that somehow went terribly wrong; can anyone here tell me if I'm right? There's nothing in the film to indicate that Carreras and everyone else connected with it didn't think it was absolutely serious. This seems to be something a little like the case of Ben Hecht's (now lost) treatment written as a spoof of space opera, which wound up as the film Queen of Outer Space (made with little evidence of the director's awareness that the subject matter isn't serious, which is odd considering the fact that Edward Bernds was primarily a director of comedies).
Oh, about the cast. Why did Hammer make a film without a single star name in the cast? I only recognize a few of the actor's names; most of these folk spent most of their careers in European cinema and I'm surprised that Hammer didn't include at least one name that would be a draw for Americans (I'm not sure, but I don't even think any of these people were big news in England). This really is an odd case.
Stu
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