Defend the Indefensible: Oliver Stone's "The Doors"

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I mean, really. It's such a stack of fuckin' crap, it makes Sid & Nancy (a wretched bag of revisionist, cartoony bile that deserves its one hate-thread) look like fuckin Citizen Kane. Kyle MacLachlan should be forced to wear a hair shirt for the rest of his days for his utterly embarassing portrayal of Ray Manzarek (and so should Manzarek, for that matter). And Val Kilmer as ol' dead Jimbo? Well, they look alike...and they're both insufferably pretentious dicks, so maybe that was inspired casting after all.

But really....it's a bad, stupid, silly movie.

Agree?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 04:48 (twenty years ago)

I enjoyed bits of it despite myself - mainly the stage/live scenes.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 2 October 2004 04:52 (twenty years ago)

being drunk out of my mind when i saw it made it the greatest comedy of all time.

― jack cole (jackcole), Saturday, 2 October 2004 04:57 (twenty years ago)

I've just read 'Wonderland Avenue', which gives a very different impression of Jim to the one presented in the movie.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:00 (twenty years ago)

man this movie is hilarious.

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:03 (twenty years ago)

BILLY IDOL!

― oops (Oops), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:03 (twenty years ago)

I have to say though that the resemblance between Val Kilmer and Jim Morrison (at least in pictures, the only way I could actually see the real Jim) was crazy similar.

As a complete side note, as it refers to the Alex's New York movies thread, I just saw After Hours and it was brilliant. fuckin wacky and utterly awesome.

― lemin (lemin), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:04 (twenty years ago)

http://fusionanomaly.net/doorskylemclachlanasraymanzarek.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:13 (twenty years ago)

my friend (now my boss!) is in this movie, with long hair, tripping his mind out, falling into a bonfire.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 2 October 2004 05:48 (twenty years ago)

I think one of my biggest problems with the film -- one of many -- is Stone's depiction of literally EVERYONE in attendance at Doors concerts as being cartoon variety hippies with fringe jackets and peace signs. Alex Cox made the same mistake in Side & Nancy when he portrayed everyone in the Punk scene as having day-glo mohawks (when in reality, if you look at, say, Don Lett's punk rock movie, your average show-goer didn't "dress the part" at all -- as it hadn't really caught on....and a further pedantic point could be made that the mohawks didn't reall start appearing until the second or third wave, but I digress).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 06:20 (twenty years ago)

SID& Nancy.....

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 06:20 (twenty years ago)

I loved it when it came out. I saw it twice. But then, I've always loved the Doors.

Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding. Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.

― Roy Williams Highlight (diamond), Saturday, 2 October 2004 06:28 (twenty years ago)

i turned up at work in leather pants, no shirt, sipping cognac from a cut glass decanter the next day. i'm a librarian.

― gaz (gaz), Saturday, 2 October 2004 06:45 (twenty years ago)

I tried watching this film once, but it was such a load of piss that I didn't actually get all the way through it.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 2 October 2004 07:51 (twenty years ago)

my favorite scene is when Frank Whaley announces he's really high and Kilmer goes BWA-HA-H-AH-AHHA--HAAAAAA!!!!!!

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 2 October 2004 07:54 (twenty years ago)

thing is...anyone ever seen a doors doco? they were worse in real life.

― gaz (gaz), Saturday, 2 October 2004 07:58 (twenty years ago)

Meg Ryan's tit. Pretty exciting when I was sixteen.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 2 October 2004 14:56 (twenty years ago)

haha the scene where kyle maclachlan comes up with the keyboard part for Light My Fire is terrific – i know it's hard to stage moments of inspiration in movies, but this one makes it seem like Stone has never had an idea in his life.

also this picture has the third-best movie warhol ever

― jones (actual), Saturday, 2 October 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago)

and actually i think for all its bad hamminess, this is the role that opened up the terrain for kilmer castingwise and lead to his developing the GOOD hamminess he'd later deploy in his really great parts like doc holliday in Tombstone

― jones (actual), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:06 (twenty years ago)

But really....it's a bad, stupid, silly movie.

Or maybe it's a good movie about bad, stupid, silly people. It made me hate Jim Morrison and think he's one of the most insufferable asshats ever to slither across the earth, and that's a good, healthy way to feel about Jim Morrison, n'est pas?

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:11 (twenty years ago)

we started to watch this film in luxembourg in a group of ten. after the desert lsd trip scene we all left. what a load of dumb prejudiced cartoonish bullshit. oliver stone really is about as subtle as film director as george w. bush is as president of the us. his look on the doors is the look of a ten year old kid who has just left the sandbox. absolutely no fucking clue what was going on.

for a good doors film watch the doors concert at the hollywood bowl. the way jim morrison danced was totally insane.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:12 (twenty years ago)

I do enjoy the fact that this movie pretty much nipped The Doors' underground hep status in the bud. Before Stone got to work, Jim Morrison was this cool cult figure whose candle was snuffed too soon and had this mysterious air about him. Then this movie came out and shined a light on all the bullshit. Before 1990, going to that Paris cemetary and smoking a doob on his grave seemed like a good idea. Now, you may as well go eat a Twinkie at Graceland; it's the same goddam thing.

If The Lost Boys had been made before The Doors, you really think that they would've included a huge portrait of Mojo Risin in the vampire hangout?

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 2 October 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago)

i kind of enjoy this movie! mclachlan is really great in it i think. i also like how it (probably unintentionally) depicts morrison as a total idiot who everyone projects onto, kinda like chauncey in being there.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 2 October 2004 18:13 (twenty years ago)

The Doors movie is profoundly rediculous but its a lot of fun to watch. Unless you happen to love the Doors or something.

I love Oliver Stone. He is utterly incapable of being subtle about anything but he is such a passionate, virtuoso, over-the-top filmmaker that even his disasters are entertaining. Plus I have soft spot for crazy people.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago)

One time for the radio show we had, a friend and I just read bits of dialogue as earnestly as we could while circus music played.

Some of the stuff Jim Morrison says is so over the top pretentious it's hilarious.

― David Allen (David Allen), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:08 (twenty years ago)

He is utterly incapable of being subtle

OTM!!!!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:13 (twenty years ago)

shockah!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:28 (twenty years ago)

The person who really desesrves the blame is the professional "longtime Doors associate": Mr. Fawn Hall, aka Danny Sugerman, whose stupid bio "No One Here Gets Out Alive" did more than Rimbaud to perpetuate the adolescent idea that being a wasted shithead is somehow a deeply artistic and transgressive act.

― shookout (shookout), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:48 (twenty years ago)

I do love the Doors, and still enjoyed this movie - they all come across as pricks, of course, and the movie is rediculous, but I think it's fun. I'm quite capable of seperating my enjoyment of the Doors from their rediculous pretentious mythologising. I haven't seen the film in years though, so maybe I couldn't sit through it now.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:52 (twenty years ago)

people from my friends school used to watch it at their parties. they're still weird. it was dire.

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 2 October 2004 20:55 (twenty years ago)

This is my favorite Stone film I think. The Doors have some descent pop songs but the best thing about the band is the fact that Oliver decided to make a crazy ass, grand spectacle about them. The opening sequence, with Morrison as a child being posessed by the dying Indian on the road, thrillingly takes Morrison's own fake superhero-like origin story at face value. The film's defining characteristic is perhaps "largeness" itself, from the open spaces of the LSD freak out in the desert, to the hypnotic tracking shots during the stadium conert scenes.

It's fun to watch the director mix 60's zeitgeist like Godard, Mcluhan, and Manson references with Blockbuster scale. I also appreciate the fact that he doesn't exactly glorify Morrison with all the occult ritualism, abusive excess, and assholery appropriate to the romantic poet wannabe rock star pin up. Overall, as a view of the hippie dream becoming a nightmare it's better than Gimmie Shelter, which is safer to praise and prefer. It 's also fun to think about the fact that people packed mall multiplexes in 1990 to subject themselves to this deliberately horrific feast of hippie-ism.

― herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Saturday, 2 October 2004 21:34 (twenty years ago)

desert mysticism in movies is usually pretty lame but Stone's pathologically hokey version of it is just totally beyond the pale

― jones (actual), Saturday, 2 October 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Jim Morrison and Oliver Stone are bad for the same reasons. They both love unsubtle portentousness and moron mysticism. I think they like to imagine themselves as blowing minds.

― Symplistic (shmuel), Sunday, 3 October 2004 02:36 (twenty years ago)

Overall, as a view of the hippie dream becoming a nightmare it's better than Gimmie Shelter, which is safer to praise and prefer.

Most ridiculous post on ILE in months.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 3 October 2004 03:12 (twenty years ago)

Oliver Stone in the early nineties -- this, JFK, Wild Palms. Frightening.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 3 October 2004 04:20 (twenty years ago)

Most ridiculous post on ILE in months.

I've seen ridiculouser, but I agree its ridiculous.

And Oliver Stone in any decade is frightening. Oliver is frightening.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 3 October 2004 04:54 (twenty years ago)

I agree its ridiculous.

except for the fact that most hippies wound up fat and screaming for tacos rather than zombified acid cases, which is what Gimme Shelter implies.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 3 October 2004 04:56 (twenty years ago)

for every Manson there were 900 David Crosbys.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 3 October 2004 05:03 (twenty years ago)

Gimme Shelter has nothing to do with Manson, Miccio.

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 3 October 2004 06:25 (twenty years ago)

alright, every Manson Family member (I mean the Doors have nothing to do with David Crosby, either - I'm talking allegorically).

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:37 (twenty years ago)

Oliver Stone in the early nineties -- this, JFK, Wild Palms. Frightening.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), October 3rd, 2004.

Fuck dat, JFK is great! Completely heavy handed, paranoid, insane, and historically wrong, but GREAT.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:46 (twenty years ago)

otm

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:09 (twenty years ago)

do you guys find Triumph Of The Will a little subtle and even-handed for your tastes?

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:11 (twenty years ago)

this from a de palma fan. FOR SHAME

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:13 (twenty years ago)

depalma has soul

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:15 (twenty years ago)

also a sense of humor

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:15 (twenty years ago)

also a clue

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:16 (twenty years ago)

SOUL?!?!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:16 (twenty years ago)

so you look for soulfulness, subtlety, and clued-in-ness in your motion picture watching experiences?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:17 (twenty years ago)

i mean not that that's bad shit (though i have no idea how to quantify "soul") but there's something to be said for hysteria too!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 90 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

i like the andy warhol parts.

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 4 October 2004 16:27 (twenty years ago)

Easy to defend, if only as a justification for parts of Ben Stiller's "Oliver Stone Land" skit.

"I am an Indian, but I also represent death."

"Burn, bitch, burn."

ha ha.

I love "Femme Fatale," because it's the only DePalma movie that seems to be ripping off not just Hitchcock, but also other DePalma movies that rip off Hitchcock. Oh, and Kieslowski.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 4 October 2004 17:46 (twenty years ago)

shh you mean "paying exquisite homage to"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 17:48 (twenty years ago)

referencing, you dinks

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 4 October 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago)

Anthony has just reminded me of the word 'fink'. I think I'm going to start calling people 'finks' a lot. And there is 'gink', which I remember from some Don Maclean song - Amazon? Anyway, 'fink' is better.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Monday, 4 October 2004 17:55 (twenty years ago)

i've already lost track of why you're all talking about femme fatale, but allow me to say that it sucks the big one

― jones (actual), Monday, 4 October 2004 17:58 (twenty years ago)

There isn't a picture on the web that can't be captioned with the phrase "WHERE THE TITTIES AT???" (picture thread)

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 4 October 2004 18:01 (twenty years ago)

but claiming depalma shouldn't be anyone's favorite director = bonkers

― jones (actual), Monday, 4 October 2004 18:05 (twenty years ago)

(oliver stone shouldn't be anyone's favorite director)

― jones (actual), Monday, 4 October 2004 18:11 (twenty years ago)

Neither should!

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 18:57 (twenty years ago)

Boy did this thread stray off topic.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 19:55 (twenty years ago)

i can rate the other movie-warhols for you if you like

― jones (actual), Monday, 4 October 2004 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Killing Joke sucks.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Aaron...the hour of your untimely demise is close at hand.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:06 (twenty years ago)

They totally ripped off Rammstein.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:08 (twenty years ago)

Yeah Jaz Coleman, didn't he sign The Doors or something?

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:08 (twenty years ago)

Yeah Jaz Coleman, didn't he sign The Doors or something?

Well, quite unfortunatley, he did conduct for and record an album of symphonic renditions of Doors tunes....which, obviously, is not his finest hour.

Aaron....a coffin waits for you.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:10 (twenty years ago)

http://www.teringer.com/olda/news/images/coleman4.jpg

"Jaz called, Aaron..."

Anyway, The Doors...

BRILLIANT movie! OK, not brilliant but a fun movie. It made fun of the 60s. And it wasn't a Doors biography. which for a movie called The Doors is.. actually BRILLIANT! I take it back!

I mean, CRISPIN GLOVER as ANDY WARHOL!

"Do you... want... to... talk.. to... God?"

― REFICUL!, Monday, 4 October 2004 20:10 (twenty years ago)

better movie warhols:

1. jared harris in i shot andy warhol
2. warhol himself in that still photo in tootsie

the only warhol worse than glover in this piece of shit is bowie in schnabel's have-you-no-shame basquiat circlejerk

― jones (actual), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:15 (twenty years ago)

AaronHzILX: don't diss Killing Joke or Alex in NYC will hunt you down and flame you
synthnuts: but they really are a joke
AaronHzILX: haha
AaronHzILX: man he's obsessed
synthnuts: du hast meeksh or something
AaronHzILX: thats Rammstein dude
synthnuts: (i know its rammstein)
synthnuts: similar dorkiness
AaronHzILX: he does kinda look like that guy
AaronHzILX: the singer
synthnuts: I think killing joke is better than rammstein but still like so eleven years ago
AaronHzILX: haw
synthnuts: fer sher
AaronHzILX: i dont own any killing joke
synthnuts: me niether. this girl put them on a tape for me in 9th grade
AaronHzILX: this is an older guy who loves them.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:17 (twenty years ago)

Alex in NYC.. exhibit A Rockism: AaronHz.

― REFICUL!, Monday, 4 October 2004 20:18 (twenty years ago)

http://tilsner.net/artman/uploads/worholtouchup.jpg

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago)

How is that Rockist?

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Yeah Jaz Coleman, didn't he sign The Doors or something?
Well, quite unfortunatley, he did conduct for and record an album of symphonic renditions of Doors tunes....which, obviously, is not his finest hour.
Whoah, he also did symphonic renditions of Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones.
I was just making a Jac Holzman joke.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Jaz Coleman, hey he doesn't play Jazz! what a poseur!

― le no brain boy (latebloomer), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:28 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I like "80s" bands.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 20:29 (twenty years ago)

die.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:20 (twenty years ago)

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:33 (twenty years ago)

yes. now. do it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:36 (twenty years ago)

you first

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:38 (twenty years ago)

No, no. You. I insist.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:42 (twenty years ago)

http://www.healthvisiting.org/images/children%20fighting.gif

― REFICUL!, Monday, 4 October 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago)

Alex in NYC is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago)

Aaaaah, Noise Dude... it all makes sense now.

― REFICUL!, Monday, 4 October 2004 22:52 (twenty years ago)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Alex in NYC.
Alex in NYC whose hungry mouth is prest
Against Jaz Coleman's sweet flowing breast;
Alex in NYC that looks at Jaz all day
And lifts his beefy arms to pray;
Alex in NYC that may in Summer wear
A Killing Joke T-shirt and dyed black hair;
Upon whose bosom Jaz has lain;
Who intimately lives with 80s music playin.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only Jaz can make Alex in NYC.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Monday, 4 October 2004 23:18 (twenty years ago)

They totally ripped off Rammstein.

-- AaronHz (aaronh...) (webmail), October 4th, 2004 4:08 PM. (AaronHz) (later) (link)

ha!

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 00:32 (twenty years ago)

Strange.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 00:33 (twenty years ago)

fuck my easily-excitable imagination!

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:25 (twenty years ago)

What?

― AajaHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:36 (twenty years ago)

no! no! no!

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:43 (twenty years ago)

huh?

― AaronHz, totally confused........by you (AaronHz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:46 (twenty years ago)

confluence of you and aja... but sorted out on AIM.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:50 (twenty years ago)

I swear I'm not Aja.
I'm probably not Nowell either.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 01:53 (twenty years ago)

"probably"???

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 04:50 (twenty years ago)

My posts and Aja

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 04:52 (twenty years ago)

"Or maybe it's a good movie about bad, stupid, silly people. It made me hate Jim Morrison and think he's one of the most insufferable asshats ever to slither across the earth, and that's a good, healthy way to feel about Jim Morrison, n'est pas?"

My first thought was "OTM". But then it occurred to me that Stone films are a lot like 3 hour Jim Morrison songs.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 04:57 (twenty years ago)

I'm mad because in trying to discipline amovie and a director for its pretensions, the crituqes have appeared far more pretentious, ill considered and occasionally downright demented. I'm all for wallowing in th emuck to cleanse the soul but what many haven't considered is OS's the door's provided access for people to go off and discover huxley, kerouac, burroughs, the velvet underground, nico, reich, the psychology of the masses, orff, not to mention dancing naked around the living room with one's best friends. We forget there was a time before google, before the hyperlink, where people lived in butt awful cities without decent libraries or magazines and where a cool subculture meant rodeo riding and cow tipping. The Doors, for all of it's insipd cock thrusting, offered more, a look into a vision that said change of the self was possible. Now we have American Pie and Glitter.

― Queen G to the E to the won't you tell the world to get Off my back, Tuesday, 5 October 2004 05:48 (twenty years ago)

the doors /= the doors

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 05:55 (twenty years ago)

NO THREAD RERAILING ALOUD

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 06:16 (twenty years ago)

(just think quietly to yourself about that stupid Doors movie)

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 06:17 (twenty years ago)

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