[.ca] 8MM

From Amazon.com:
This thoroughly unpleasant thriller from the hands of Joel Schumacher (Batman and Robin) offers very little in its lurid tour of snuff films and the seedy pornographic underworld. A wooden Nicolas Cage stars as a private detective hired by a tycoon's widow, who discovers in her dead husband's safe some 8mm footage of a young girl being sexually abused and slaughtered. Cage's job is to determine the veracity of the film and to find out the girl's identity, whether she be alive or dead. What could have been a taut, nerve-jangling thriller is instead a lumbering, overwrought but underwritten tale of vigilante justice. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker also penned the imaginative and compelling Seven, but you wouldn't know it from this tired and monotonous script. Schumacher tries for echoes of both The Silence of the Lambs and Paul Schrader's Hardcore (which stars George C. Scott as a father trying to find his daughter in the seedy porn industry), but despite some slick camerawork, the film fails to draw the audience into either the mystery of the missing girl or Cage's supposed internal conflicts. It's not so much the unsavory subject matter as it is the sloppy and unimaginative filmmaking that makes the movie unbearable. Of the entire cast only Joaquin Phoenix, as a charismatic goth boy who works at an adult book store, comes away with a memorable performance. --Mark Englehart

disturbing:
I thought this movie was disturbing because of the film that Cage watches and the places he goes to find out the horrible truth. it has great suspense though and Cage really puts the villians to rest. it deals greatly about underground porn and other sick things

Smut film expose:
Joel Schumacher was panned horribly for the goofy "Batman and Robin", so he went to make "8mm", a decidedly more adult and bleaker movie. Nicolas Cage is Tom Wells, a private investigator hired to check out a snuff film, where a young girl seems to be savagly raped and the killed even more horribly. Many people didn't like the movie, and I can't blame them to be honest, but I liked the edgy and gritty subject matter, the seedy side of an already notorious pornography industry. I thought Cage did a good job as a smart man who falls deeper and deeper into the slimy underworld of vice. The end is a little too fronteer justice style for my taste, I would have liked to seen the culprets get arrested. Machine was an interesting charactor.

SNUFF SAID:
Granted this is certainly not a feel good kind of movie. Nor is its subject matter, which sad to say, does exist in our pristine world, but for some reason, audiences tend to find it repulsive and tend not to look at the film as an artistic endeavor. I think Joel Schumacher's direction is excellent; the one scene where Cage has broken into Machine's house and the record is stuck at the end is as frightening as anything I've seen in recent movies. He also draws excellent performances, not only in his leading cast, but in the supporting roles. Nicolas Cage, not one of my favorite actors, does an outstanding job in a role that is complex and multi-dimensional. His persistence to find who killed Maryanne Mathews is relentless and at times heart-shattering. James Gandolfini is superb and despicable in the role of the smut producer who helmed the snuff film. Peter Stomare as the heartless director Dino Velvet is likewise disgustingly realistic. Joaquin Phoenix provides a complex comic portrait who wants to join up with Cage in his quest. Anthony Heald as the Christian's lawyer is typical bar bull, and Catherine Keener, though stuffy and reserved, makes a good wife to the volatile Cage. However, to me, the most impact comes from the carefully controlled and subtly nuanced performance of Amy Morton as Maryanne's mother. Her desire to hold on to her daughter's reappearance; her loneliness in eating alone ("I'd like to eat once without the TV) and the lustful longing in her scenes with Cage are awesome. Her performance gives the movie its heart, and enables us to see why Cage acts like Charles Bronson at the end. This could be called a "sick" movie, but we are a "sick" society. Old Mr. Christian did the snuff film because "he could", and Machine killed because he enjoyed it. Ultimately, a disturbing but unusually good movie. Should have done better at the box office, but don't let its subject matter keep you from watching Amy Morton in an unheralded bit of brilliance.

SNUFF 2 - The Ressurection.:
Let me say right off the bat that I sympathize with those of you who gave this one or two stars (though I personally could not give it that low a rating). The movie is severely flawed in a number of areas, this is true. The acting, though very good in some scenes, tends to be a bit staged if not exaggerated in some scenes, but this I would have to attribute to the epicly poor direction of Mr. Schumacher. You can all but hear him pleading with Mr. Cage to "emote!" after the 10th take of Mr. Cages CU of him seeing the snuff for the first time. The film, which had some very good lighting, did not (in spite of what some claim) did not have exceptional, or remarkable cinematography. The direction seemed disjointed, and one got the impression that Mr. Schumacher had refferred constantly to his WWDFD bracelet (what would David Fincher do?). This worked for him in some scenes, (i.e. Cage walking through a house with a skipping record player in the background) but did not in others, (i.e. excessive dialogue based exposition to MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHY WHY WHY THESE PEOPLE ARE BAD BAD BAD!!) Now here comes the important issue, and the main reason why I cant give this a 1 or 2 star rating. The screenplay - the screenplay was written by the no-less-than-brilliant Andrew Kevin Walker, and I highly advise any pending fans of this movie, to go out and read the script to this, to see what could have been. Hence I urge any of you out there who have screamed at the "bad writing" of this movie not inherrently blame "the writer" who had a well publicized falling out with Mr. Schumacher. Certainly the writing is bad in SOME scenes, but anyone who has read the script, or knows Mr. Walker's style will recognize the certain elements tacked in there by ghost writers - (i.e. "If you dance with the devil, you don't change the devil, he changes you." Hahaha!) In anycase, long story short, this was a potentially fantastic movie, which was through the hollywood system (which Se7en for the most part, managed to luckily survive/escape) dumbed down, over-dramatized, and watered down. It is evident however, that there were some very talented people at work here, trying to make this great. Mr. Cage showed a very ernest enthusiasm for his part, as did many other actors who were a credit to their characters. But alas that is not enough to save a raped script.

Cage Was Astounding...:
This dark tale of the underworld of pornography,and the weirdos it entales, follows a private detective Tom Welles (Nick Cage) who was hired by the widow of a millionaire, to track down a girl who is in a supposed snuff film. Det. Welles is quickly taken into the depths of thie hellish lifestyle as things begin to unfold, Cage does his most remarkable performance since 1996 in "Face/Off." Cage had long ago shown the entertainment fans that he was a powerful actor but incase they forgot this film quickly reminds. WATCH THIS FILM