Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Member since:15.09.2000
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Oliver Stone is a very intelligent director, you have to give him that much. To say that he is untalented would be a crime, but then to say that he is actually 'watchable' these days is another matter. Any Given Sunday is a perfect example of a director who has been allowed to let his own sense of self-importance go to his head and how left unrestrained this leads to lengthy works of ego-massaging cinematic masturbation. At almost 3 hours long, Any Given Sunday soils the sheets on a number of levels and it is only due to the superb cast that it manages to hold our interest for any of its length. Stone has been obviously been allowed to let his 'creative juices' run wild here and the result ranges from the truly sublime to a noisy chaotic mess of hip-hop metal fusion and overly flash editing. At the end of the day its just a football movie, but Stone obviously had some ideas of a grander plan...and then lost his way and reproduced 'Wildcats' in the final reel...ho hum...
The trailer for this movie is probably the loudest, most gruelling sensory assault effect committed to a 2 minutes segment. Any Given Sunday is the same - but longer. Much, much longer. It opens as it means to go on, clenching its message up in a mailed fist and ramming it hard and deep down the audience's throats. a techno rock and hip-hop fusion sound track assaults you
as you are presented with the grid-iron in mid game. Football is a battlefield, there is your message and Stone presents the opening scenes like the storming of the beaches at Normandy. It is no less intense than those scenes in Saving Private Ryan and the parallels are too marked to be accidental - the agenda is set for the rest of the movie. Football IS war, the gridiron IS a battlefield and the audience is in for one hell of a gruelling experience. Al Pacino is Tony D'Amato, the head coach of the Miami Sharks, a US football team competing in a ficticious parallel competition to the Superbowl. When his star quarterback gets injured he is posed with an immediate problem and has to rely upon the skills of a talented but untried rookie to fill the breach he has left. So, out steps the injured Jack Rooney(Dennis Quaid) to be replaced by Willie Beaman(Jamie Foxx)....who turns out to be an unqualified success. He also turns out to be an over-confident, bigheaded young fool who has lets his success fly to his head after a couple of spectacular performances and great wins for the Sharks. He angers pretty much everyone around him including multi-million dollar running back Julian Washington(LL Cool J.) and his coach of course, but D'Amato is refused permission to drop him by the club's owner Christiana Pagniacci(Cameron Diaz). He stays and plays and tensions flair both on and off the pitch in the locker rooms and the boardroom alike.
Despite coming in at a hefty 3 hours long, Any Given Sunday is a pretty simplistic tale pointing out the obvious once more - how money has ruined professional football. Or at least thats what the first 2 hours seems to be about before it turns into a rehash of just about every other football movie which has preceded it. Big speeches, testosterone and a grand-slam ending mark the inexplicable final hour which pretty much undermines that which as come before - and makes the interesting point of how big bucks has ruined movie making perhaps and Stone tries to line his pockets by giving the cinema audience what they want rather than sticking to the art...
Its hardly a criticism but its like watching two movies here, the first a verfy hard hitting cynical look at pro football and the second Wildcats done by a director who knows what he is doing. Its not that it doesn't work, but rather that the two do not sit particularly comfortable together. The first half of the movie is however excellent, with the typically hard-bitten craggy performance from Pacino which we ahve all come to expect. This guy eats this kind of role for breakfast and whilst it may not be upto the best of his career, it is certainly a fine performance. So too is that of Cameron Diaz, who play his ball-breaking super-bitch boss here. We get to see a new dimension to her acting abilities here and the best scenes in the movie are when these two go toe-to-toe in a slanging match. Pacino is though the scene stealer here as always, turning up the gas on every scene he is in. Everyone else is good, including comedian Foxx who manages to hold his own admirably here faced with some of Hollywood's big guns, as does rapper LL Cool J.
No one could ever dismiss this as just another football movie but at the same time you have to wonder why it took 3 hours to tell such a simple tale. In fact, the first two hours are pretty much all said and done in one scene, Pacino shaking his head at what football has become...nuff said. The rest of the movie feels like an ego trip by a director who is obviously out of control but then at the same time you would have to argue that this is certainly his most accessible and universally enjoyable movie for a long time, if not ever. Don't be put off by the fact that its American Football, and therefore not something you can relate to or understand, because that really doesn't matter too much, it is the confrontations between the stars and the adrenaline packed 'battlefield' scenes which make this movie rather than the sport behind it. The message here is true for our own football so there is no huge mental leap to be made either. Its difficult to recommend though...I liked it and at the same time I had this nagging urge for it to finish and to stop battering me with constant over-indulgent photography and loud music. I have to admit too that I lost interest in the actual plot by around halfway as well and hence I would have to rate it as a wavering 3/5...although subsequent viewings may change that, one way or another.
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Oliver Stone'sAny Given Sundayis a massive 150-minute American football drama which, for ... more
all its ferocity and cynicism, is as soft-centred and clichéd as anyRocky-style underdogs-make-good crowd-pleaser. The Miami Sharks have lost three games in a row ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Oliver Stone'sAny Given Sundayis a massive 150-minute American football drama which, for ... more
all its ferocity and cynicism, is as soft-centred and clichéd as anyRocky-style underdogs-make-good crowd-pleaser. The Miami Sharks have lost three games in a row ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Life is a contact sport and football is life when three-time Academy Award-winning ... more
filmmaker Oliver Stone and a dynamic acting ensemble explore the fortunes of the Miami Sharks in 'Any Given Sunday'. At the 50-yard line of this gridiron cosmos is Al P...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Director's Cut, containing previously unseen footage. Life is a contact sport and football ... more
is life when three-time Academy Award winning filmmaker Oliver Stone and a dynamic acting ensemble explore the fortunes of the Miami Sharks in 'Any Given Sunday'...
Advantages: Storming cinematography, strong pace, great acting Disadvantages: might not like it as its about American Football, script a littel lacking compared to the other parts of the film
Advantages: Storming cinematography, strong pace, great acting Disadvantages: might not like it as its about American Football, script a littel lacking compared to the other parts of the film
![Any Given Sunday [DVD] [2000]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78535561.jpg "Any Given Sunday [DVD] [2000]")
Oct 19th, 2001
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