Does anyone have a link to Roger Ebert's review of "Thursday"? I can't find it on his web site.
From what I've heard, he despised the movie on the grounds that it was racist. This seems strange, since he didn't seem to have a problem with the scene in "True Romance" where Dennis Hopper uses the word *beep* gratuitously for comedic effect.
Anyway, I'm interested to see what he had to say, so if anyone can provide me with a link I'd appreciate it.
BLAH. He's a totally overrated reviewer, and not even regarded as a good one either. Would rather hear Roeper anyway.
shareI don't mind Ebert, but I don't see where he's coming from on THURSDAY. There are some racist remarks : True. There are also racist remarks in PULP FICTION --- Four stars. HAPPINESS held a strangely sympathetic look at pedophiles --- Four stars. Hey, even THE DEVIL'S REJECTS got three stars. WTF ? This movie is offbeat, not quite four star material --- but it dosen't deserve the S H I T brand name or anything.
shareThe amount of stereotypes in this movie makes me see his point of view.
shareThere are plenty of stereotypes in his god awful Russ Meyer scripts he wrote. Roger Ebert wrote many of them under assumed names.
shareThere were a lot of stereotypes in this film, but I didn't find any of them offensive. There was a stereotype of the Indian, the Rastafarian, the Oriental and the Redneck. It's an equal opportunity offender in other words, although the characters are infused with so much humour that I can't see why anyone would find them offensive. Roger Ebert really despised this movie, and not on the grounds that it was stereotypical but that it was flat-out racist. I did feel that a lot of the racist language was unncessary, but at the end of the day this is how people in the street talk. Drug dealers and other LA criminals don't give a damn about political correctness. I don't think Skip Woods intended to make a racist film; Nick and Casey are friends with Jimmy, who is black, and most racial slurs aren't racist per se in the context they're used in. Whatever racist accusations you throw at Thursday, I still can't see how it is more offensive than True Romance, which Ebert gave a favourable review to. I watched it with a black friend, and could tell he found the scene with Dennis Hopper and Christoper Walken uncomfortable to watch.
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I don't know but the tone of the movie speaks very low when it comes to the blacks. They call them *beep* Okay,I'll let that go. But the inclusion of the stereotypes as well as less character developement just comes off wrong.
Blacks often call each other nig gas. The use of the word is not racist, unless it's used in a demeaning or insulting way. True Romance was more racist. Dennis Hopper was calling Christopher Walken a nig ger just to get him mad.
share"Whatever racist accusations you throw at Thursday, I still can't see how it is more offensive than True Romance, which Ebert gave a favourable review to. I watched it with a black friend, and could tell he found the scene with Dennis Hopper and Christoper Walken uncomfortable to watch."
I agree. The characters in Thursday are not overtly racist. They just use words that are racially charged. Blacks often call each other nig gas, but they don't like being called nig gers. I don't understand this distinction, but apparently it's important. If you listen carefully, black actors rarely pronounce the word nig ger. They almost always say nig ga. White actors almost always say nig ger. So, Tarantino is racist and Spike Lee isn't, because of one letter.
Whatev.
Spike Lee IS a racist.
shareWell, Tarantino got away with it in the case of Django Unchained because the black guy wins in the end.
shareTrue Romance is not racist. Christopher Walken's character in the film is a racist however. Dennis Hopper realises he's screwed, he can't lie because the guys a walking lie detector, so he states a fact which he hopes will offend the latent racist in Walken. He gets himself killed but in doing so, Hopper avoids betraying his son. It's poetry.
Best scene in any film ever.
Yesterday I couldn't spell engineer. Now I are one.
He gave The Devil's Rejects 4 stars?? Really? He gave 1,5 to a masterpiece like The Usual Suspects, and yet he went for 4 stars with such a huge pile of *beep* Wow, I'm out of words... I'll go read his *beep*
shareSigh... I did several different searches but to no avail. I remember his piece on it - it was the year I first used the internet, and Ebert's site was one of the first sites I returned to regularly. The piece on Thursday was not a regular review, it was (I think) part of a series looking at the films that were on at a particular festival - which is why I assume it isn't on his site. Many of his essays are, but not this one by the looks of it.
I printed it out, actually, at the time, but god only knows where the print out is! Ebert was reacting against a trend in indie films of the time to go for th gross-out and the transgressive e.g. Very Bad Things (read his review of THAT and you'll get an idea). I remember he wrote about the Q&A after the film and criticising the movie to Skip Woods.
The piece also by the way explained carefully why he distinguished between a film like Happiness and ones like Thursday. In simplistic terms, it's not "what a film's about" but "how the film is about it" i.e. it's not just that racial terms are used, but HOW they are used - is there some justifiable purpose or is it just there to be 'edgy'?
(remember, Ebert once wrote the deathless line of dialogue "You will taste the black sperm of my vengeance!")
To be honest, you have to be an over-sensitive person to be offended by the racist scenes in Thursday...
shareThe Cinema Snob once ran a sound bite where Ebert criticized the slasher genre while still praising the first Halloween flick in the same breath. He also apparently liked the first "Last House of the Left", which was on the Video Nasty list for ages.
The man is a fool.