Rate The Last Movie You Saw.

[Still Servant]

An Open Secret - Ever wonder why so many child stars turn into train wrecks later on in life? This documentary offers one potential answer. Being the entertainment-lover that I am, this documentary about child sex abuse in the film, TV and music industries made my soul hurt. Every movie-goer should see it. I really don't know how to rate it because it is not exactly fun to watch but it is educational. It discusses people in all three industries that were caught (some), did light sentences and in most cases went right back to working in their respective industry. There are also several interviews and stories from victims of these predators. Bryan Singer is featured in it and not in a good way. I just saw an article the other day about Elijah Wood, who saw this documentary and said that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Not gonna lie, I'm upset right now and I don't know what to do about it.

That sounds very interesting. I will have to catch that.

[Tommy]

An Open Secret - Ever wonder why so many child stars turn into train wrecks later on in life? This documentary offers one potential answer. Being the entertainment-lover that I am, this documentary about child sex abuse in the film, TV and music industries made my soul hurt. Every movie-goer should see it. I really don't know how to rate it because it is not exactly fun to watch but it is educational. It discusses people in all three industries that were caught (some), did light sentences and in most cases went right back to working in their respective industry. There are also several interviews and stories from victims of these predators. Bryan Singer is featured in it and not in a good way. I just saw an article the other day about Elijah Wood, who saw this documentary and said that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Not gonna lie, I'm upset right now and I don't know what to do about it.

That sounds very interesting. I will have to catch that.

It's an eye-opener and a jaw-dropper. Singer is directly linked to more than one convicted sex offender. An actor friend of his named Brian Peck (who is in the first two X-men films and provides commentary along with Singer for the first one) was convicted for abusing an unnamed Nickelodeon star (he was at the time working on a show called Holes). He gets out after a light sentence and goes back to working with kids in the industry again. Singer was an investor in an internet company called DEN. An entire film could be done about that organization alone. The CEO of DEN was a man named Mark Collins Rector and he is also a convicted child molester. His whereabouts, after his short prison sentence are currently unknown. Brock Pierce, from Mighty Ducks 1 and 2, was arrested along with Rector based on evidence obtained by some of their victims. He was never charged and let go. He is the founder of IGE and has a big role in the development of Bitcoin, a millionaire several times over.

Michael Harrah, who was once the head of the children's wing of SAG admits on camera (through a phone call a victim placed to him, Harrah did not know he was being recorded) that he abused a child. he is semi-retired but is still involved with the children's wing of SAG. He would actually have young boys come and live with him for convenience sake I suppose. More about that here...LINK

Anyone remember the episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Dudley gets molested by the old Maytag repair Man? Todd Bridges is also in the doc and talks about how hard it was for him to film those episodes (a two parter) because he himself had been abused by his manager.

The film was a flop initially because I can imagine she (director Amy Berg) had a hard time getting distribution and who wants to dwell on the subject really? But that is exactly how these people get away with it for so long. No one wants to talk about it.

What really stinks is I feel like I have been supporting an industry that knowingly allows this behavior to flourish for the purposes of making money.

EDIT

It is now available on Dailmotion in 2 parts

An Open Secret Part 1

An Open Secret Part 2

[Tommy]

Available on Dailymotion now, See above post.

[Still Servant]

What really stinks is I feel like I have been supporting an industry that knowingly allows this behavior to flourish for the purposes of making money.

I'm Catholic. Join the Club.

Speaking of that, Amy Berg directed Deliver us From Evil, the fantastic documentary about the Catholic church and the sexual abuse scandal.

Thanks for links.

[allasorte]

An Open Secret - Ever wonder why so many child stars turn into train wrecks later on in life? This documentary offers one potential answer. Being the entertainment-lover that I am, this documentary about child sex abuse in the film, TV and music industries made my soul hurt. Every movie-goer should see it. I really don't know how to rate it because it is not exactly fun to watch but it is educational. It discusses people in all three industries that were caught (some), did light sentences and in most cases went right back to working in their respective industry. There are also several interviews and stories from victims of these predators. Bryan Singer is featured in it and not in a good way. I just saw an article the other day about Elijah Wood, who saw this documentary and said that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Not gonna lie, I'm upset right now and I don't know what to do about it.

Just watched it. Pretty sad to see, but I've heard of this before. Years before even, even with stunt men too. I can't believe Bryan Singer is involved as well. And the fact that some of these guys are still in the industry. Wow! Thanks Tommy!!!

[Tommy]

And the attitude seems to be well this happens to everyone when they get to Hollywood so it's fine. I mean I know Hollywood has always had scandals and drawn neurotic, sometimes literally insane people all the way back to it's inception but it is still infuriating. Not to get into conspiracy theories but I question some of the suicides and overdoses that have happened with some child stars at this point. If these people are willing to use children for their own selfish purposes, I totally believe they are capable of making kids disappear that won't cooperate or who will cause trouble for them and expose the system.

[Tommy]

What really stinks is I feel like I have been supporting an industry that knowingly allows this behavior to flourish for the purposes of making money.

I'm Catholic. Join the Club.

Speaking of that, Amy Berg directed Deliver us From Evil, the fantastic documentary about the Catholic church and the sexual abuse scandal.

Thanks for links.

You're welcome, I hope forum members will take the time to watch it because it is important. Hollywood bent over backwards giving itself props for doing Spotlight (which is an important film and I was glad it got movie of the year) but I wonder when the film version of the Hollywood equivalent of this story will be made? I'm guessing never. It was easy for them to go after the church but maybe they need to take a look at themselves first. I haven't seen Deliver... yet but I will seek it out now. By the way, I don't think An Open Secret is 100% honest about some of the techniques that were used to get the results that they did. I do believe Berg manipulated some elements of her overall story to get the point across. I don't think she flat out lied about anything but manipulated, possibly. It's the sort of thing that maybe had to happen in order for the stories to be told I suppose. Perhaps along the lines of what Michael Moore did in some of his docs. That being said, it still needs to be seen.

[Still Servant]

I'm just testing this out. Can everybody see it?

[allasorte]

I see it. You testing pics posting? That I feel I have down, posting youtube videos I do not.

[zelig]

I'm a Luc Besson fan. Haven't heard of that one.

[zelig]

2005. How did I miss that one. Is it good?

[killjoy72]

I'm a Luc Besson fan. Haven't heard of that one.

2005. How did I miss that one. Is it good?

Lol, these were my exact thoughts.

[Still Servant]

I see it. You testing pics posting? That I feel I have down, posting youtube videos I do not.

Thank you. Yeah, I want to utilize Dropbox as a photo hosting site. The problem is that a direct link doesn't show up for you guys, so I messed with the code and added ?raw=1 to the end of the link in order to make it appear.

As for videos, use the "Insert Video" icon and make sure you remove the "S" in the https.

I'm a Luc Besson fan. Haven't heard of that one.

2005. How did I miss that one. Is it good?

Lol, these were my exact thoughts.

It's... different. I certainly enjoyed it, but it's very foreign. It's far less accessible than let's say The Fifth Element and Leon. It feels a lot like It's a Wonderful Life in many ways.

[Shannon]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows

Rating: 3.5/5

Man oh man, I was really excited for this one. I am one of the few people that actually LOVED the first one. Five out of five, all the way. I loved the characters, the special effects, the impossible odds, the family, the bad guy, the hot girl, loved it. Popcorn movie at its finest. So, THAT, mixed with my three year old daughter's current obsession with anything Ninja Turtles, made me extremely excited for this one. Unfortunately, I was guttingly disappointed.

Spoiler:

I'm one of the types of people that doesn't like to watch trailers/coming attractions because I've seen so MUCH television and so MANY movies that I know the formula that most of them follow and if any clues or scenes find their way into my stream of consciousness, it doesn't take much to figure out the whole damn movie. BUT, I did catch a trailer or two for this one. Bebop! Rocksteady! Kraang! Casey Jones! Baxter Stockman! Holy shit, this is going to be fucking awesome!

Let me start off by saying what I DIDN'T like about it.

- Shredder. In the first movie, he was a fucking badass. Impossible to beat, crazy intimidating in his armor, faster than any of the turtles, and a better fighter than all of them put together. His face was all scarred up, and was only barely visible in the unmasked scenes. In the sequel? He's got slicked back black hair, and a motherfucking goatee. He does absolutely NOTHING for the entire movie, and he shares a total amount of ZERO scenes with the turtles. He gets broken out of prison, he meets up with Kraang, recruits Rocksteady and Bebop to become his henchmen, and then ... he betrays Baxter Stockman, and gets quickly betrayed by Kraang, frozen and added to some sort of Kraang people collection. That's it. He puts his helmet on ONCE.

- Casey Jones. I always liked the character, and I like Stephen Amell enough in Arrow to be excited about his appearance in this movie. Unfortunately, he seemed to be added in at the last minute, without much to do. And although he's a security guard/cop, he owns a brand new Dodge Challenger Hellcat? And PLEASE, if every other line out of his mouth didn't have some sort of out-of-nowhere arrogance. "Excuse me, I'm going to be a detective someday!" Shut up. Any scene with him fighting someone should have been switched to the turtles.

- All the "big scenes" are in the trailer. Jumping from airplanes scene, water rapids tank scene, Kraang on the rooftop, Technodrome coming together, the Shredder breakout/manhole-cover-shooting garbage truck scene. Yep, that's all of em.

- The final fight with Kraang was a big step down from the final fight with Shredder in the first one.

- Although the special effects and CGI were very good, it definitely felt like the producers put the B-Team from the first movie on it. Not even close, especially in the fast combat scenes, they looked just a little ... off.

- Splinter didn't have anything to do. Same for Karai, who only gets mentioned once by name. Baxter was either a good guy who got taken advantage of in some scenes or a mad scientist who wants to destroy the world in other scenes.

- None of the turtles were as likeable as in the first one. They were actually pretty selfish this go-round. Example, Leo saying something along the lines of "Look, there's only one person whose vote counts around here, and it's me." My Leo would never say that, lol.

What I DID like:

- Rocksteady and Bebop could have had better things to DO, but it was still very fun seeing them in a live-action movie.

- Megan Fox is hot.

- If I hadn't seen the trailers the "big scenes" would have been better and more of a surprise, of course.

- My "B-Team" comment above hopefully didn't get misconstrued. The CGI and motion capture of the turtles in the first movie was absolutely fantastic. I would put it up there with Kong, Gollum, and Caesar. And this one, while not on THAT level, was still very good. I just felt like they put a second-tier group of animators on the job, and gave them an accelerated timetable. There was less of a feeling that the turtles were ACTUALLY there than in the first one.

And ummmm, that's about it. Incredibly disappointed.

[Ricky]

I was thinking about taking my 7-year-old cousin to see the new one. Do I need to see the first one to understand the new one?

[webstar1000]

Watching the Cell tonight... CANNOT wait. Will report back with my thoughts!

[Shannon]

Ricky, no, but the first one is so much better.

[allasorte]

Watching the Cell tonight... CANNOT wait. Will report back with my thoughts!

Don't be too excited. I never read the book, own it, and so far it is pretty bad. The idea/plot especially.

[Mattrick]

Bridges of Madison County :'(

Excellent film. Ain't no sadder love than the love we must by accept can never be.

[zelig]

Bridges of Madison County :'(

Excellent film. Ain't no sadder love than the love we must by accept can never be.

I absolutely loved the book. Haven't seen the movie though.

[fernandito]

I don't think I could watch that, it would depress the hell out of me.

[Mattrick]

But it's so good! Well, the central story at least. I found the story of Francesca's children to be distracting and perfunctory to a fault.

[Tommy]

I liked Finding Dory better than Finding Nemo, there I said it.

[Mattrick]

Finding Nemo wasn't very good. An easy last in my Pixar list.

[mae]

Over the weekend I watched Rear Window again after not having seen it in maybe 10 years. It was playing in HD on some channel. What an amazing film. You could say that nothing much happens but you're glued to the screen for two hours, watching a man watch other people. Hitchcock is the man!