"ALI" - Classic or dud?

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Anyone else seen it yet? I was fearing massive suckitude, but it was actually really excellent.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i saw the end of it while waiting for royal tenenbaums to start and i was really disappointed that it was just fifteen minutes of the holyfield fight in slow motion, especially when the credits ran and i saw that i missed elijah mohammed and huey newton and malcolm x (and x's daughters played by van peebleses if i recall!). i might try to see the whole thing if i can.

― ethan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

it's sad if it's good becuz rap has been crap since the fresh prince hung up his mic

― mark s, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Holyfield fight?!?

― Kris, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

grr i'm too tired, you know i meant foreman.

― ethan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I'd pay money to see Smith as Ali fight Holyfield and then take a bite out of his ear.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i want to put out a bootleg version of ali that's just the 'i think i can beat mike tyson' video.

― ethan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i fear it will suck too. its hollywoddy

― mike hanle y, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

every time i see this thread title i think it says ALF.

― ethan, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The fact that it ends with the Foreman fight does not make me want to see it. It's impossible for me to imagine how actors like Will Smith and John Voight playing people like Ali and Cosell could seem like anything but cheap impersonations. What is excellent about it? I already know everything about Ali. The whole thing seems pointless. If Oliver Stone or Spike Lee made it I think I'd feel differently, but Michael Mann is just a hack.

― Kris, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

two years pass...

why did no one talk about this? there are some absolutely fantastic things in this film, many of them in the first 20 minutes.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:40 (twenty years ago) link

ali boomiyay!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:41 (twenty years ago) link

er wasn't it "boombayay"?

the emmett till thing--would anyone except mann have thought of that? or made it so vivid?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:43 (twenty years ago) link

i liked it, some totally amazing and beautiful sequences (one particular shot in a bedroom, with the street visible below from the window, has always stuck in my mind), but once we got to the stuff covered in "when we were kings," which i had just seen again, i did feel less engaged.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:44 (twenty years ago) link

anyway that was an xp, i spent a couple minutes figuring out how to spell that & i'm a little drunk so je m'excuse.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:44 (twenty years ago) link

the first 20 or so minutes of this film though, wow. the rest is hit or miss, the film basically fails to make a really strong case for its existence.

i thought will smith was about as good as anyone could be in this role, considering that muhammad ali himself was something of a great actor. certainly he was more beautiful than will smith.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:46 (twenty years ago) link

yeah the thing is you can't really beat the real thing (ie when we were kings), but you're right, the extended opening is tops and there's a lot of other great stuff scattered in.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:49 (twenty years ago) link

I have not seen this film, but I want to. I guess what's stopping me is the fear that it's Mann's Malcolm X (ie. good in parts but with an ending so crappy it invalidates the rest).

― QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN YAYO SMOKER (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:50 (twenty years ago) link

I couldn't take it seriously. Ali is too near to me and too big a media personality to be portrayed by an actor.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:51 (twenty years ago) link

the ending is more...matter-of-fact than crappy.

(x-post)

i think the film was made with enough seriousness and talent to be taken seriously--to a point. i think we share the same basic concern.

i think mann takes his usual careful cinematic objectivity a little too far here, perhaps out of concern for "taste".

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:52 (twenty years ago) link

i checked the box office info and this film was a HUGE flop, no wonder no one wants to discuss it.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 04:56 (twenty years ago) link

well Momus and I have had no problem with discussing films we haven't seen, so...

― QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAYOMUS (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 05:06 (twenty years ago) link

haha!

god how i remember his big spiel about "kill bill"...

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 05:08 (twenty years ago) link

I'm still trying to forget it.

― QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAYOMUS (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 05:10 (twenty years ago) link

four weeks pass...

It is rather tricky to find this particular thread, thanks in large part to our own Huck formerly known as Mann.

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Friday, 18 June 2004 00:27 (twenty years ago) link

Dud. Stick with "When We Were Kings".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 June 2004 00:55 (twenty years ago) link

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