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Old 06-10-2007, 11:46 AM
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GenuineRisk GenuineRisk is offline
Atlantic City Race Course
 
Join Date: May 2006
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You and I can be in the minority together about "Seabiscuit," Danzig. I loved the book and disliked the movie (and I really tried to like it). It's not the inaccuracies for me (I'm still watching the sucky "The Tudors," somehow) so much as the g*dd*mned narration. I hate narration in movies (with a few exceptions so don't y'all start sending me examples of excellent movies using narration because yes, I know there are some). In my opinion, film is a visual medium and if you can't tell the story purely through the pictures and the action then you're not telling it well.

As for "Ruffian"- I thought it was all right for what it was, but the story was weak. It's a story that doesn't have an inherent dramatic arc (whatever else one thinks about Ruffian, a story about a perfect filly who breaks down in her last race and is destroyed doesn't really have a dramatic arc from a storytelling point of view, while Seabiscuit's, for comparison, had more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, which is good for drama) All of the characters were essentially at the same place at the end of the film as they were in the beginning (the only way we knew it had permanently affected Nack's love affair with the track was through... yes, the g*dd*mn narration) and no one else was any different at the end. So, someone unfamiliar with Ruffian is left saying, "So what? Why bother to tell the story?"

I think I would tell my non-racing friends that the first two-thirds are pretty slow and the last third is incredibly sad.
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