Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

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stuart.uk
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Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by stuart.uk »

Spoiler

If I hadn't been on holiday I''d have missed the film The Long Kiss Goodbye. In fact I missed the important first half an hour, due to the England-Italy football match in the European Championship quarter finals which Italy won on penalties. So I was playing catch up. I was interested in it at first because I was impressed by Davis in the swashbuckling pirate movie Cut Throat Island. In fact I wouldn't be surrpised if Maureen O'Hara in her pomp would have loved a role like that.

However, back to the film TLKG, Davis appeared a gentle female, suffering from a long term lost of memory, who finds herself involved with spies, when I first started watching the film. However, as I watched it, I discovered Davis was a ruthless assassin for an American Intelligence service, who was believed to have been killed by her own people. However, she survived but with her memory gone. In those wilderness years she has a daughter, however, her assassins have discovered she's alive and come after her again.

She's captured and tortured. Tied to some sort of propeller, she's dipped into freezing cold water. However, after the first dip her memory returns, then after the second dip, she's got one hand free and kills her torturer. Helped by side kick Samuel S Jackson, she goes after the men trying to kill her.

2 things I felt about the film. One-is no matter how dangerous the dangerous situations they found themselves in, I felt neither Davis or Jackson would die the film. The other thing was that when Davis found herself in impossible situations and facing death, she always had the self confidence she'd escape.

I like the fact about the film, where Davis the ruthless assassin has to come to terms with her alter ego. who's a loving mother. She may to have been married, but as I said I missed the first half an hour. I also like the fact that Davis' one time boss, who's trying to kill her was played by British character Patrick Malahide. In the UK Patrick is still best known for the early role of Sargeant Chisolm in the Dennis Waterman/George Cole comedy drama series Minder. He was also in Helen Mirren's Emmy winning Elizabeth 1st

It's a pity there was no sequels of The Long Kiss Goodbye
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JackFavell
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by JackFavell »

I really love this movie, for no very good reasons except that Geena kicks butt! I think she and Samuel L. Jackson have a great comraderie, and that makes the movie worth watching.
stuart.uk
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by stuart.uk »

Wendy

Though it's violent, TLKG is very much tounge in cheek.

I forgot to metion my fellow Dundonion Brian Cox was in the film. He appeared to be the 3rd member of the Davis/Jackson alliance, but he was killed off and dumped in the water where our heroine was being totured
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JackFavell
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

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I think this is why I like the movie so much, it's all tongue in cheek. I really need to go back and watch again.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by Rita Hayworth »

JackFavell wrote:I really love this movie, for no very good reasons except that Geena kicks butt! I think she and Samuel L. Jackson have a great comraderie, and that makes the movie worth watching.
It was okay in my book ... I love the action nevertheless and the pace of the movie isn't that bad either. I haven't seen that movie in ages ...
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CineMaven
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

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I would LOVE to see Geena reprise that role. Our government wants her and elicits her aid in bringing down some bad guy. She leaves her husband and daughter to do the job. You could bring back Samuel L. Jackson, but not as a jokesy sidekick. "THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT" was a fantastic movie, shown from a woman's point of view. When she kills the bad guys and licks the knife, I was a goner!! Her coming out of the water screaming b'cuz she now remembers... great. Her and Sam running down the hallway with fire on their asses and jumping out the window with Geena machine gunning the ice below to make room for their fall...killer! And her telling her baby's daddy bad guy to look into her eyes and that he'll die screaming...<< (( sigh!! )) >> ...loved it.

Loved how the movie ended with Geena, her husband and her daughter. Good action flick, and from a woman's perspective.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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JackFavell
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by JackFavell »

Oh you are bringing it all back to me! Yes yes YES! :D

I'm interested in how you felt about Kill Bill (the whole thing, both parts, cause you really have to watch till the very last drop of blood is spilled)?
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CineMaven
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Uma Thurman Makes Geena Davis Look Like A Wimp

Post by CineMaven »

Image

Wow! I really wouldn't have pictured you a "KILL BILL" fan. Yay, that's great! (Wait...am I reading that right? You liked the movie? :shock: ) I'd really have to see the movie again b'cuz I've forgotten a lot of it. I remember loving it. I can tell you this, and this is truly just my own warped twisted opinion...a director who's made "Reservoir Dogs"---> "Pulp Fiction"---> "Jackie Brown"---> "Deathproof" (segment of "GrindHouse"--->"Inglourious Basterds" and the upcoming "Django Unchained"...who subverts history and create stories that he'd like to see, who makes plots twist and turn, and makes audiences twist and turn...( I will NEVER EVER EVER hear the word "MEDIEVAL" the same way for the rest of my baby boomer'd life )...to change the laws of cinema as to what is good or bad or who pays for what...or moral decisions being upended, who plays with time and the linear-ness of time in the movie, wins my vote as one of the most exciting directors to make films in the past twenty years. If he'd ask me to bring him his lens finder, or coffee, I'd be right there. Quentin Tarantino makes movies for the Saturday afternoon- popcorn with fake butter-hot dogs with ketchup, sauerkraut and relish-double/triple feature/all-day long B-films dressed up with large budgets-kid in all of us who like those double/triple features where you're watch grade B movies all day long 'cuz your folks want you out of the house.

Yes, please give me Hitchcock and Wyler and ( my newly-discovered, "limpidly romantic" as described elsewhere, unsettling) Borzage. I'll do a month of Walshes and Fellinis. I want to find out the sweet mysteries of life that directors want to explore. But please give me the low-down, dirty, gutsy, ballsy, gut-wrenching thrills of Quentin Tarantino. If Quentin goes full-blown giallo...I'm a goner!! He knows movies, he knows genres and is able to subvert and pay homage to 'em. Look, a gentleman is fine: William Powell, Ronald Colman, Herbert Marshall...fine. Culture...champagne...a nite at the Met. Yippeee! But sometimes you need to be LaRue'd. I can be fancy pants if I have to be. But I hope I never lose the ability to keep it real.

Let me sit here by the side of the road and wait for Fate, ( or the Classic Films police ) to yank my "Maven" card from my hot little mitts.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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JackFavell
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

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Well let's see. I HATED the first movie of Kill Bill. Hated it right up until I saw the second movie, and watched how it all ended.

Then I LOVED it! :D

On the surface it looks like a really messed up exploitation flick, a movie about hating and hurting women. But when you watch the whole thing, you realize that it's the opposite. It ends up being about how strong and resliient women can be.
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CineMaven
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by CineMaven »

Whew! I'm glad Tarantino pulled it out so that you wouldn't go away hating it. According to IMDB, he is preparing to do "KILL BILL III." Ooooh boy, that might be the egg that kills the golden goose. But I'll be there. Do you like to be LaRue'd
by movies, ( crazzzzy crappy stuff ) or does it always have to make aesthetic sense to you.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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JackFavell
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Re: Geena Davis almost makes Bond look like a wimp

Post by JackFavell »

Oh heck I'd much rather be LaRue'd! I love that, but it's nice to have a choice - you know, LaRued one time, then the next, feed my brain. I like to use my brain too but nowadays, the movies are all going for the LaRue, never for the brainiac vote. Even when they do go brain instead of brawn, it's not really enough for me, note Up in the Air, which was good, but pretty lite as far as brainfood is concerned.

Frankly, the last few years, the best for me have been a combination of the two - V for Vendetta really impressed me as such.
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