death sentence ( 2007 film )
garfield has said that the film death sentence was never going to be able to be a strict sequel to winner’s death wish because the film rights for the death sentence franchise are still owned by somebody else. see nikki tranter, “historian: interview with brian garfield”, pop matters 4 march 2008: urltoken .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing death sentence near you .
death sentence is a laughably bad exercise in the pornography of sadism and the american appetite which voraciously consumes it .
bacon' s performance in saw creator james wan' s laughably extreme revenge thriller death sentence is six degrees of ham .
“death sentence” is rated r (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for graphic violence, language and drug use .
death sentence; death wish; fleshburn; hopscotch; the last hard men; necessity; relentless; the stepfather; wild times etc - - nineteen so far, and counting... .
death sentence has a weird history. technically, this is the sequel to death wish but in a literary sense. obviously, there were many death wish movies. however, if for some reason you wanted both stories in one day i suppose you could skip the death wish sequels and just watch death wish and this. i don’t know why you would do that but you could .
′colonia′: film broaches atrocities of german - run sect in chile | film | dw | 14. 09. 2015
watching this film reminds me of i saw the devil and vice versa. it gets more and more uncomfortable as the film progresses .
bronson went on to make
death wish 3
( 1985) ,
death wish 4
( 1987) and
death wish v
( 1994), by which date he was 73 and didn' t need the bag of groceries as bait. they were set variously in los angeles and new york, largely filmed in toronto, and never did get back to chicago, reportedly because garfield hated the first movie and its sequels so much he would never sell the rights to death sentence. but now here at last, in 2007, is
death sentence ,
and it is filmed in, that' s right, south carolina. it doesn' t follow the book, either .
this week' s round of new movie release information contains release dates for talk to me, death sentence, the christmas cottage and more. more ...
now film director florian gallenberger has created a movie based on this dark chapter of history. the german film
colonia
premieres at the 40th toronto international film festival (held from september 10 - 20) .
blunt, bloody and far too busy with its sledgehammer plot and mighty gunplay to waste time on the main character' s inner life, death sentence is a baseline entertainment .
this form of authorship has a classificatory function. several films are related to a particular film – saw – and also related implicitly to the name wan. a relationship is established between these texts as a result of the specific links that they have; moreover, this relationship calls forth into being a particular kind of film - group formation. put another way, each film being advertised is associated with other texts – each film is associated with saw but, in the case of death sentence, also the novel / film death wish and, in the case of insidious, also paranormal activity. what being associated in this way means is that each film is characterised by its relationship to other texts .
a scintillating, talented writer .
- - newsday (reviewing death wish )
[ … ] anatoly liberman’s look at the death of the adverb. [ … ]
what did you think the direction taken by the death wish sequels? death sentence, the book, took such pains to delve into these issues of vengeance and modes of violence and crime eradication, yet the sequel to death wish really seemed to retread old territory. the book reveals so much about paul, and is such a fascinating continuation of his story, an evolution of his motives. i found myself reading death sentence and kind of feeling annoyed that your theories weren' t explored more fully in the films. was that on purpose ?
death sentence wasn’t screened in advance for critics when it came out on august bank holiday weekend in 2007, so when they finally saw it they were all too happy to savage the film. whilst the plot may be simple, the execution of death sentence is anything but. the effect that this film has on you is similar to a lot of the popular south korean revenge films of the last few years. you walk out shell - shocked and depressed, revenge is an ugly business and not something to be glorified and wan shows you this. with every murder that happens in the film there is a real sense of loss and finally when the climax comes, wan changes kevin bacon’s physical appearance to such a degree that the ugliness reflects how his soul has rotted through this mission of vengeance .
on the review aggregate website rotten tomatoes, 19% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 106 reviews, as of february 27, 2009. on metacritic, the film had an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 24 reviews. rodger ebert of the the chicago sun - times gave the film 2½ stars out of 4. he compared death sentence to the death wish films starring charles bronson, saying :
in the bronson movies, the hero just looked more and more determined until you felt if you tapped his face, it would explode. in death sentence, bacon acts out a lot more .
ebert called death sentence
very efficient
, praising
a courtroom scene of true surprise and suspense, and some other effective moments
, but concluded that
basically this is a movie about a lot of people shooting at each other
.
of the same name is based on. it is the sixth film in the
i think that, except for its ludicrous violence toward the end, the death sentence movie does depict its character' s decline and the stupidity of vengeful vigilantism .
death wish creator brian garfield talks to popmatters about remakes, sequels, writing, and the meaning of vengeance .
death sentence gave me hope for fast & furious 7 and i was interested in seeing what james wan would do with it. turns out nothing, you can' t even tell he directed it .
a father (kevin bacon) goes out for revenge after his family is attacked in a senseless and heinous gang - initiation crime. the father enacts a death sentence on each perpetrator involved with the crime .
see john ellis, visible fictions: cinema, television, video, routledge, london, 1982. the “narrative image” of a film relates to how the film functions as a component in public discourse; put another way, it has to do with how cultural knowledge builds up around a film. this relates to not only knowledge about what kind of film it is (say it’s generic structure and tone – e. g. a nasty or fun horror film) but also other concepts that help to define the film and differentiate it from other texts in the marketplace. therefore, the narrative image of a film has to do with the intertextual contexts within which a film can be placed .
the film has little in common with the novel, a sequel to death wish. the novel follows paul benjamin moving to chicago, illinois after his daughter dies in a mental institution, as he continues his vigilantism. he then falls for a woman. the novel also deals with benjamin' s attempts to stop a new, antagonistic vigilante from copying his methods for publicity, as he later is confronted with an idealist as to why his vigilantism must stop. the film, while borrowing elements from the death wish and death sentence novels, follows a new character, nick hume, as his family suffers a gang - related attack similar to that experienced by benjamin' s in death wish .
plot triggering death: brendan' s murder at the hands of joe causes nick to go vigilante .
a man must survive a prison where hardened criminals battle to the death for the wardens' entertainment .
i was horrified at the new death sentence film! i realize the film is not based on your book, but it was hard to judge the film on its own after reading the books, and following paul' s story as closely as i have over the years. the new film was really just a retelling of the first story, heavily altered, removing much of paul' s character, and the issues and debates between paul and irene the lawyer that make the second book so great. that bothered me. or am i looking at the project in the wrong way ?
death sentence is not for the squeamish or the weak of heart. but, in many ways it should be viewed by those who would otherwise turn their nose at such extreme violence. james wan never treats the death on screen as a joke or something to laugh at but he also doesn' t wallow in the guts. yes, there is death and a lot of gore here, but it is the buckets of blood that represents the stakes that a single death can represent for those involved. it also makes it clear that the death of one will always lead to the death of many more. wan definitely drives home brian garfield' s intended message that vigilantism is stupid and carries with it so much more. i do not think many people will leave watching this movie unchanged. i know that on repeated viewings, death sentence is still not an enjoyable film but not all movies should be fun. some movies should punch you in the gut and make you think about what you just saw. this movie does just that .
much like the conjuring films, death sentence has multiple layers to it. on a first viewing, you can focus purely on the action elements of the film and enjoy it as a roller coaster of guns and explosions. but, a deeper analysis opens up death sentence as so much more. this is a film that can be taken as an example of why the preponderance of gun violence in the united states must be dealt with. the actions of our
hero
may seem noble in an antiquated sense of the word, but what do his actions bring down on the innocent bystanders around him? in a less political light, death sentence can be seen as a psychological look at what trauma can do to someone who doesn' t exert any deviant behavior. can a man be forced to descend into the evil he is trying to stop? aside from all of that, you can watch death sentence as an evolution in the skills of james wan. the courtroom scene alone is proof enough that wan should be given much more to work with than summer blockbusters and genre movies .
barry keith grant, “introduction”, auteurs and authorship: a film reader, p. 3 .
founded in 1999, senses of cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional, high quality film - related content on the internet .
since last week making it only the tenth film to do so. over the weekend the film added $ 7. 08 million on 4486 screens in 53 markets for a total of $ 626. 30 million internationally, which places the film sixth place on that chart just $ 16 million behind
funny thing. when bronson made
death wish ii
( 1982), it was set in los angeles, even though brian garfield, the author of the novel death wish, had written a 1975 sequel, death sentence, set in chicago. ah, yes, here' s my copy right here, dedicated to
jay robert nash, john mchugh, roger ebert and bill granger, chicago front - pagers all, with thanks .
this graphically violent film suffers from cursorily developed characters whose primary function is to advance the creaky plot .
movie about a killer who is waiting on death row, and finds an unlikely friend in a prison guard .
the category “classic auteurism” is used by barry keith grant in his film reader on auteurs and authorship. see auteurs and authorship: a film reader, ed. barry keith grant, blackwell, oxford, 2008 .
welcome to new orleans: a. n. s. w. e. r. coalition film series
that said, it’s a decent diversion next to the ludicrous death sentence, in which kevin bacon’s mild insurance man confronts the murder of his teenage son by killing the son’s attacker, which brings the rest of the hooligan’s gang after him — which forces him to go on a rampage, becoming as big and bad a skinhead mutha as any of them. the morality of revenge is barely at issue in a movie that pushes the plausibility of revenge right over a cliff. halloween: b - death sentence: d
is it a horror film, do you think? so much of the marketing makes it look like an exploitation film, but it doesn' t feel that way when you watch it, or at least it didn' t for me. what did you think of the approach taken to the film' s marketing ?
this earlier poster for the film was replaced by 20th century fox with the darker poster at top of column .
an interview with writer / director boots riley about his incendiary new film ,
sorry to bother you .
a terrifying horror within the walls of the infamous alcatraz prison. the last film ever shot on the rock !
florian gallenberger' s film
colonia ,
premiering at the toronto film festival, revisits the dark history of the colonia dignidad, a secretive german - founded colony in chile. the enclave' s legacy remains controversial .
on welcome to new orleans: a. n. s. w. e. r. coalition film series
billy the puppet from the saw series makes a brief cameo as a grafitti - styled painting on a wall. leigh whannell, who plays spink in the film, is one of the creators of the saw series in addition to director james wan. charlie clouser, who provided the music for death sentence also composed the music for the saw series and the tv show las vegas .
in prison four long - sentence inmates planning an elaborate escape cautiously induct a new inmate to join in their scheme which leads to distrust and uncertainty .
a nun, while comforting a convicted killer on death row, empathizes with both the killer and his victim' s families .
with only six months left of his sentence, inmate frank leone is transferred from a minimum security prison to a maximum security prison by a vindictive warden .
haven' t seen the brave one yet. it' s on order from netflix. i' m told it' s similar to death wish in theme, but can' t judge it until i' ve seen it. evidently it is a vigilante movie, which the movie death sentence is not - - the latter is a revenge fantasy and i suspect those are as old as the human race .
death sentence shows there' s even more to [ revenge ] than your own downfall. the cycle you get into spirals out of control. perhaps it' s more emblematic of gandhi' s statement' an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.'
three juvenile delinquents are sentenced to a correctional facility where they encounter gang violence, death, and harassment from staff and other inmates .
polite, unshakingly honest, and wonderfully introspective, brian garfield calmly addressed my death sentence ranting, before rightfully steering our conversation towards other topics, including fiction and non - fiction writing, hollywood, research, and finally to his latest work, the meinertzhagen mystery, just out in paperback .
a man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
this is exactly what a
death wish
movie by a horror filmmaker should have been. eat your heart out, eli roth .
set in a prison, a death row inmate has a secret and the warden will go to any lengths to get it. things dont go as planned as you would expect. a good action film with alot of good fight... see full summary »
boris trbic, “the low - budget australian horror film”, metro no. 144, 2005, pp. 143 - 44 .
john wick meets green room. i admire this film even more than either of those, and found myself so on the edge of my seat that i was practically on the floor. though tonally inconsistent at times (aided by somewhat of a sappy soundtrack), the film still knows how to tap into our emotions. call it exploitation, but sometimes a film like this just feels necessary .
the finale is brutal and somehow beautiful with a final confrontation not ending as expected. death sentence was probably the reason that wan got the fast and furious 7 directing gig for summer 2014 and he really proves his action credentials in one long foot chase starting at an office building, going through kitchens and winding up on the top of a parking structure. this is filmed in a series of very long takes by dead silence collaborator john leonetti and really gets the adrenaline pumping. due to the subject matter and its unrelenting bleakness, death sentence is fairly unknown and seems to be a film people don’t return to because it is such a tough watch. however it is far better than most gave it credit for and could be a good indication of what we will be in for next summer .
edward buscombe, “ideas of authorship”, auteurs and authorship: a film reader, p. 80 (essay originally published in 1973) .
nazek: a documentary by ramez kazmouzisrael, 2007, 52min, usa premierenazek is the first arab senior officer in israel; she is 48 years old and a mother to four children. being an arab woman and a police officer might have been challenging enough for nazek but serving in the israeli police presents major contradictions and sets… read more »
by the end of my death sentence scripts the hero has learned a great deal, partly in the way paul learns it from irene in the novel, and he withdraws from his vigilantism, having killed no one. that was okay for the original producers (karen and howard baldwin, who' d produced several movies including the biography ray about ray charles) but it didn' t survive the committees of 20th century fox executives. that was the companies' decision, and it' s all right with me; writers don' t make movies unless they also direct and / or produce them, and death sentence is not
mine
in any but a distant sense .
yet saw has continued to be pivotal to the marketing of wan’s films and to his identity as an author. moreover, being known as the “ saw guy” has helped wan work as a director in hollywood. this article will argue that one way an author - name is attributed to wan is through the promotional material for his films, particularly the title saw. in order to make and support this argument the official trailers for dead silence, death sentence, insidious and the conjuring will be discussed. the official movie poster for insidious will also be referred to, as will a poster for death sentence made exclusively for comic - con international: san diego; although this poster is now widely available on a host of entertainment related websites and databases promoting the film (as are all the other posters and trailers for wan’s films) .
a german man who fled chile after being sentenced to five years in prison for child sex abuse must serve his sentence in germany. hartmut hopp was part of the notorious colonia dignidad enclave .
author brian garfeild, who wrote the novel the film is loosely based on, said of the film :
while i could have done with a bit less blood - and - thunder, i think it' s a stunningly good movie. in the details of its story it' s quite different from the novel, but it' s a movie, not a novel. in its cinematic way it connects with its audience and it makes the same point the book makes, and those are the things that count .
he also liked that, like his novels, but unlike the death wish film series, it does not advocate vigilantism. garfield further explained in an interview :
i think that, except for its ludicrous violence toward the end, the death sentence movie does depict its character' s decline and the stupidity of vengeful vigilantism ,
adding ,
as a story it made the point i wanted it to make .
death sentence tells a new story... um well... it has new characters in very familiar territories. kevin bacon is the father of an extremely happy family. he is a vp at his place of employment and he makes a once in a life time decision that will change everything he knows. seriously, this guy has it pretty…
big list in terms of numbers, not so much in terms of quality. in fact, the best film in terms of updates this week was
andrew sarris, “notes on the auteur theory in 1962”, film culture no. 27, winter 1962 - 63, pp. 1 - 8 .
kurt schnellenkamp, co - founder of colonia, was imprisoned in 2013. the 88 - year - old was sentenced by the chilean state for unlawful detention of minors and sexual abuse. his son klaus, who escaped from the settlement, reported on his childhood in the totalitarian sect in his book
born in the shadow of fear ,
published in 2007 .
i expected more. i thought it was quite slow, and the
brutal
scenes weren' t brutal enough for this film. it needs more brutality for the effect. for some reason the music choice was absolute shite. the best thing about the film is john goodman and kevin bacon .
what follows is hume' s decline from everyman to cold - blooded killer. physically, bacon has always been somewhat gaunt, but when he shaves his head, his appearance takes on a skeletal and gruesome look that matches hedlund' s billy darley. seeing kevin bacon devolve in this way, and the focus that james wan puts on this characterization, gives death sentence a strong core that sets it apart from similar movies. it was easy to dismiss this film in theaters as just another generic thriller or another flick from the makers of saw, but when you revisit death sentence you can easily see that there is more going on in this movie than blood and guts. wan stepped away from jump scares and cheap horror tactics and instead invested his focus on what could happen to any of us if pushed over the edge. granted, this is still a movie and the odds of someone enduring events like this in real life are slim, but the suspension of disbelief needed here is very minor. this film is disturbingly plausible .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
sequel to the 2002 film. this time, heavyweight champ george
iceman
chambers is sent to a russian jail on trumped - up drug charges .
based on brian garfield’s novel — a sequel to the book that spawned the 1974 film “death wish” — mr. wan’s film is a middle - class white man’s payback fantasy, leavened with phony references to class difference. nick goes from pencil pusher to vigilante superhero in record time, racking up killings and personal tragedies en route to a climactic shootout that imitates elements of the “taxi driver” finale, right down to the shaved head, blown - off fingers and gushing neck wound .
the lives of guards on death row are affected by one of their charges: a black man accused of child murder and rape, yet who has a mysterious gift .
[ … ] lastly, the death of the adverb. while i would love to give my two cents on whether or not the adverb’s increasing rarity is [ … ]
like many of the best comedies and tragedies, this weimar - era silent film understands how each mode is often a hair' s breadth from the other .
i usually think of horror films as movies in which there' s a supernatural element. under that definition death sentence is not a horror movie. i' d like to use the term
thriller
although that seems to have been redefined since the heydays of graham greene and john lecarre - - in publishing it still means a story of suspense, but in the movies a
thriller
is more likely a slasher or chainsaw film. i have no patience with those either. i know they attract certain (apparently large) audiences .
the program: resistir para existir: la lucha cucapa (2007) (resist to exist: the cucapa struggle) + excerpts from “the battle of mexcio city” (2001) rage against the machine’s concert dvd with xtras including interviews with zach de la rocha, noam chomsky and subcommandante marcos. + current clips from the indigenous struggles in oaxaca, atenco, etc. + alicia… read more »
death sentence is a wonderfully tight little thriller, the kind of statement cinema an up and coming filmmaker needs to establish his overall eagerness to achieve. it’s clear that, after only three films, saw savant james wan is becoming a compelling cinematic presence. while the gimmicks of his now seminal first film still stand out, the controlled visual splendor he showed in the horribly underrated dead silence shows up here as well. if saw was a film soaked in slimy greens, and silence shades of gray, then sentence is steeped in gritty urban blues. even the bloodshed – and there is plenty – is toned down, tweaked to maintain an aura of desperation and dread. wan wants to establish his own aesthetic goals, reasons why his movies matter more than other game genre selections. while there are those who dismiss practically everything he does, this is one novice filmmaker who has made finding his way a compelling cinematic exercise .
this movie also carries with it a code of ethics, as twisted as they may be. the catalyst for the film' s events is the murder of brendan hume, carried out by joe darley (matt o' leary) as an initiation into his older brother' s gang. then, the death of joe leads billy to exact his own revenge on nick hume and his family. in the end, the actions of both sides comes down to the approval of gun dealer bones, played by an always excellent john goodman. bones, who also happens to be the father of billy and joe, determines that his son' s actions warrant the eye for an eye quest of nick hume. a father allowing the death of his son is a haunting proposition but also one that fits into this twisted world. we have heard crazier things in the news recently that doesn' t make this seem so outlandish, but the shakespearan tragedy that unfolds in death sentence makes it as dramatic as it is thrilling. it also examines the meaning of morality in a world consumed by death .
explores the origins of the first
frankenstein
car driver, carl
luke
lucas, who died in a race at the beginning of the first film .
death sentence is a realistic film compared to films like falling down and death wish. in this day and age of terrorist threats and mass shootings, it may not be as enjoyable to watch a man gun down countless people, but there is still a place for films like this. the vast majority of people would never act on the impulses on display in movies like this but we all live voyeuristically through these bloodbaths. but, where those vigilante movies show our protagonist gunning everyone down in a single - minded focus, right or wrong, death sentence offers something much more disturbing. kevin bacon is adept at playing an everyman character and in nick hume he gives us a father mourning the loss of a son and dealing with the futility of the justice system. when his son' s murderer goes free, hume kills him but never looks content to have done so. in most films, that vengeance would be sweet, but here it is bitter as the dead criminal' s brother, played by tron legacy' s garrett hedlund, exacts his own revenge and takes hume' s wife and puts his other son in a coma .
frank perry is an institutionalized convict fourteen years into a life sentence without parole. when his estranged daughter falls ill, he is determined to make peace with her before it' s... see full summary »
bacchanale is a “lost” adult arthouse film from 1970, released towards the end of the grindhouse era and at the dawn of xxx. the (surprisingly enlightened) sex in this film is overwhelmed by a script chock full of low - budget surrealistic pretensions. this creative tact was originally designed to provide enough of a veneer of artistic… read more »
funny, that' s exactly what i thought when i viewed director james wan' s update of the vengeance - vigilante story, death sentence, so loosely based on garfield' s novel of the same name, a direct sequel to his death wish story, that it' s about a vigilante, but certainly not paul benjamin from the books. wan' s update is grittier, with concerns far different than the original novel. while the novel queried socialized forms of violence and the system' s treatment of violent criminals, wan' s film was a simple slash and burn revenge tale that tried (and, in my opinion, failed) to parallel family survival stories - - the father with his suburban family fights to survive against the violent
street
family and vice versa .
years after being shot by his eldest son darius and taking the fall for his crimes, former gangster james
animal
allen serves a life sentence at folsom prison. when a riot breaks out... see full summary »
the weekend after labor day is often the worst weekend of the year. let' s hope that' s true this year as the overall box office was down to just $ 80 million, which was a drop - off of 32% from last weekend. on the other hand, it was up $ 10 million from the same weekend last year, which is a great sign for 2007' s chances at breaking more records .
[ … ] i posted a “glossary” word and used it in a sentence. i got that out of the way “real quick. ” i posted a link about that phrase above. it’s interesting. i bastardize the english [ … ]
paul schaefer, the ex - nazi corporal who tyranically ruled a chilean cult community, died saturday while serving a prison sentence for abusing children and taking part in the torture and murder of political prisioners. (24. 04. 2010 )
james wan takes it to the damn streets. after watching all five death wishes over the last five days, this was a pretty jarring change in tone. here is a movie that takes itself seriously while still telling an absolutely ridiculous suburban revenge tale. if the direct comparison to make here is to death wish 2, then this is definitely a better take on the classic white male vigilante fantasy .
i' m curious to see what stallone will do with it. i have no idea whether it' ll be successful at the box - office, but i have a feeling it' ll be a better film than the original was. the original death wish movie had enormous impact on people, but if you look at it as cinema, it' s woeful .
you’re a hip director of horror films. you rule the facial - skin - mask - and - severed - limb ghetto, but you crave…respectability. and so, if you’re rob zombie, the former demon metal rock god? turned? cult wizard of gore, you follow your two mini - hits, house of 1000 corpses and the devil’s rejects, with a reverently ”ambitious” remake of john carpenter’s halloween. if you’re james wan, who made the original saw, you direct death sentence, a lavishly mounted gloss on the classic death wish. it says much about today’s movie culture that both of these new films could pass for prestige bids .
the closely contemporaneous release of two vigilante movies with more or less the same starting point—a close family member senselessly murdered by inner - city thugs—allows for a fascinating contrast in style. death sentence, from saw director james wan, and the upcoming the brave one, from the more high - toned neil jordan (the crying game, the end of the affair), both reach the conclusion that revenge, no matter how righteous its intent, coarsens the avenger' s soul. and yet the differences between the two are like chardonnay and rotgut: jordan' s is a somber, elegantly wrought mood - piece, while wan' s aims straight for the stomach lining. it' s tempting to call death sentence the more
honest
of the two, since it' s less ashamed to paddle around in the muck, but wan often lets his guileless enthusiasm get the better of him .
[ … ] time ago i read a vitriolic comment on my post titled “death of the adverb” (the writer from australia was quite “incensed” by it). while discussing the phrase do it [ … ]
perhaps a more interesting question is what does death wish creator, brian garfield, think of the rocky and rambo star taking on his much beloved work? he recently told popmatters, he' s into it .
wan only directed the first saw and merely shares a story credit with whannell on saw and saw iii (2006) (although wan did also serve as an executive producer on saw ii [ 2005 ], saw iii and saw iv [ 2007 ]). despite his relatively small input into the subsequent saw franchise, wan is credited, along with whannell, with launching a popular culture phenomenon. “the saw franchise of films”, as james aston and john wallis explain ,
bacon, as usual, is very good even when he' s slumming, and as a trashy b - movie redo of death wish the movie works well enough for a saturday afternoon with a case of brewskies .
evil voodoo - practicing serial killer shadow gets executed for murdering pregnant women. twenty years later the prison shadow was put to death at has been turned into an experimental women' s... see full summary »
i don' t know if there' s a right or wrong way to look at it. the novel was written 30 years ago in a different sort of world. the first thing i did, when offered the screenwriting task a couple of years ago, was to point out that it needed to be updated. the second thing i pointed out was that contractually we could not create the film as a sequel to death wish. somebody, somewhere, still controls those film rights, and neither the producers nor i was interested in testing those waters. (four sequels to death wish were filmed in the 1980s and 1990s; all of them starred charles bronson, but they were made by four different companies, none of which exists today. tracking their assets and obligations would be an exercise in frustration at best. )
machete mayhem: brendan is cut down by a gang member armed with a machete early on in the film. nick considers using a machete in response but instead opts for a much more concealable knife .
he was publicizing
death wish
( 1974), his film about a man whose wife is killed and daughter raped. he gets a gun and starts posing as bait for muggers, a middle - aged guy with a bag of groceries. then he shoots them dead. i think he kills about 11 victims (17 in the book) and is nicknamed
the new york vigilante ,
but the homicide rate drops 50 percent in new york, and so a cop cuts him a deal: get out of town. as the film ends, he' s drawing a bead on a guy in chicago .
in a violent and corrupt prison, decorated cop louis burke must infiltrate the jail to find answers to a number of inside murders. what he finds is a struggle of life and death tied in to his own past .
leigh whannell was born in 1977 in melbourne, australia. he met wan while the two of them were studying film in the media arts program at rmit university in the mid - to - late 1990s .
awards in 1974, the film was nominated for an oscar for best music, original dramatic score (jerry goldsmith) and a golden globe award for best motion picture actor, drama (steve mcqueen) .
an extraordinary film / slideshow / discussion celebrating bioregional beauty of one the most biodiverse regions in the world. enjoy stunning photographs, and a breath - taking film of very unusual natural features, creating a complex mosaic of fascinating plant and animal habitats. stay and chat about the shasta bio - region, as well as the klamath - siskiyou bio - region. bio - regional education is the new… read more »
scott tobias of the a. v. club contends the film is
certainly never boring
he felt that director james wan was
too busy jamming the accelerator to realize that his movie' s spinning out of control .
matt zoller seitz of the new york times said ,
aside from a stunning three - minute tracking shot as the gang pursues nick through a parking garage, and mr. bacon' s hauntingly pale, dark - eyed visage, mr. wan' s film is a tedious, pandering time - waster .
owen gleiberman of entertainment weekly felt that
the morality of revenge is barely at issue in a movie that pushes the plausibility of revenge right over a cliff .
conversely, justin chang of variety called the film
well - made, often intensely gripping
. similarly, bill gibron of pop matters felt the film was
a significant movie
and
a wonderfully tight little thriller
. darren amner of eye for film also gave the film a positive review, praising bacon' s performance in particular :
[ h ] is portrayal is emotional, sympathetic and highly aggressive. as a father he is touching and as a stone - cold killing machine he is even more convincing .
everything that follows will be a spoiler of one sort or another, unless you have already guessed that john, i mean nick, has lost a close family member, obtains a gun that would stop a charging locomotive and goes out for revenge. in the older movies, the killing mostly amounted to the hero shooting people, but
death sentence
is directed by the australian james wan (
saw ,
dead silence
), who has a much more sensational line in violence .
in the bronson movies, the hero just looked more and more determined until you felt if you tapped his face, it would explode. in
death sentence ,
bacon acts out a lot more, scaring his wife (kelly preston) and drawing the attention of a police detective (aisha tyler), who you would think, at a crucial point, would think to ask nick why he has a blood - soaked bandage wrapped around his hand. probably just smashed a mirror in grief .
during wwii, the death camp at treblinka had an escape, causing the commandant at a similar camp in sobibor to vow that his camp would never experience the same thing. but those who were... see full summary »
nautical jazz suite (34 min. , 2006) film collage by hugo ball room from illuminated corridor show with ted brinkley suite for faces (approx. 1 hour, 2006 -) by hugo ball room processed film images for improvising musicians histoire (s) du cinema (1a, b) by j - l godard (100 min. 1988) images from these films were viewed by onlookers from the street free… read more »
ilsa is an evil nazi warden at a death camp that conducts
medical experiments
. ilsa' s goal is to prove that women can withstand more pain and suffering than men and therefore should be allowed to fight on the front lines .
despite the seismic changes in critical fashion during the past half century, auteurism – at its most basic, the idea that there is an author to a film – has been central to the historical development of both popular film and serious film criticism and theory… aspects of auteurism have overlapped with virtually every subsequent critical theory and paradigm. considered radical when it was first introduced, the claim that some directors may express an individual vision, a worldview, over a series of films with stylistic and thematic consistently is now simply common wisdom in everyone’s understanding not only of cinema, but also of other art forms of popular culture, from music to sports to comic books. (28 )
full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, tv and ancillary revenue are available through our research services. for more information, please contact us at research @ urltoken .
shredding his way through both meinertzhagen' s four - million - word diary and the layers of sensational anecdote that grew up around him, mr. garfield exposes countless self - flattering inflations, from meinertzhagen' s claim to own darwin' s pipe to his boasts of having casually killed any number of men with his bare hands... mr. garfield manages both to prosecute meinertzhagen convincingly and, by means of his lively prose, to keep us engaged .
- - the wall street journal, saturday / sunday, february 10 - 11, 2007
[ … ] that she hates hearing drive safe instead of drive safely. some time in the past i wrote on “the death of the adverb, ” and the essay provoked numerous comments, which i need not reproduce here. i only want to [ … ]
precisely because paratexts help us decide which texts to consume, we often know many texts only at the paratextual level. everyone consumes many more paratexts than films or programs. when we move onward to the film or program, those paratexts help frame our understanding and consumption; but when we do not move on to the film itself, all we are left with is the paratext. hence, for instance, when at a multiplex we choose to watch one of the ten films on offer, we not only create an interpretive construction of the film that we saw; but often also speculatively consume many of the other nine. paratexts, then, become the very stuff upon which much popular interpretation is based. (34 )
still, this is a significant movie, a clear indication that wan will remain a fixture in film for the time being. granted, he’s yet to be great, though saw ’s continuing influence and success suggests otherwise, and it would be nice to see him work within a genre that doesn’t demand stunts, splatter, or suspense. but in a realm where made for cable drek stands as the mainstream movie standard, death sentence gives good gonzo. it consists of some less than airtight plotting, and tends to understate the obvious, but perhaps that’s better than some regressive rambo of the suburbs stance. it definitely resides in the realm of flights of fancy and fiction, though it really wants to represent some measure of truth. unfortunately, the lure of vigilantism is too strong – and too socially acceptable – to avoid…or dismiss .
this movie tells the story of a man who goes undercover in a hi - tech prison to find out information to help prosecute those who killed his wife. while there he stumbles onto a plot involving a death - row inmate and his $ 200 million stash of gold .
see nigel w. smith, “ insidious director james wan: tired of torture porn, ‘i want to make my romanic comedy’”, indiewire 31 march 2011: urltoken. however, wan and whannell also both acknowledge the obvious influence of poltergeist (tobe hooper, 1982) on insidious and, indeed, the film itself pays direct homage to the hooper / spielberg collaboration. there are also clear attempts to be david lynch - like at times in the film, such as when the character lorraine lambert (barbara hershey) recalls a dream she had about a house late at night. in addition, the way supernatural aspects of the narrative are tied to the film’s audiovisual design is reminiscent of proto - blockbuster horror movies such as the exorcist (william friedkin, 1973) .
i know many people on here have posted that this film isn' t based in reality and i for one am glad! !! we see reality too often day in and day out on the news, and the sad truth of it is, the bad guys usually get away with murder and don' t suffer any repercussions for it. so it' s great to see a film that delivers to us what it would be like if justice was served! director, james wan of the original
saw
movie shows us he is not a one trick pony and can deliver his talents past just the horror genre. kevin bacon and the rest of the cast did a wonderful job delivering a very believable grief stricken family, i would definitely recommend this film!
death sentence is a 2007 american action drama film loosely based on the 1975 novel of the same name by brian garfield . directed by james wan , the film stars kevin bacon as nick hume , a man who takes the law into his own hands after his son is murdered by a gang as an initiation ritual . hume must protect his family from the gang 's resulting vengeance . the film premiered on august 31 , 2007 , and was released on dvd on january 8 , 2008 . 
death sentence is a 2007 american action drama film loosely based on the 1975 novel of the same name by brian garfield. directed by james wan, the film stars kevin bacon as nick hume, a man who takes the law into his own hands after his son is murdered by a gang as an initiation ritual. hume must protect his family from the gang's resulting vengeance. the film premiered on august 31, 2007, and was released on dvd on january 8, 2008.
death sentence is a 2007 american action drama film loosely based on the 1975 novel of the same name by brian garfield. directed by james wan, the film stars kevin bacon as nick hume, a man who takes the law into his own hands after his son is murdered by a gang as an initiation ritual. hume must protect his family from the gang's resulting vengeance. the film premiered on august 31, 2007, and was released on dvd on january 8, 2008.