The unrealistic scene that had me laughing was when she took a wet towel to help wash him, and came back without a speck of dirt or water on her fnacy clothes.
[QUOTE=Calamber;5139666]
Hollywood generally has a political purpose which would be even more intense … [/QUOTE]
As someone who spent most of my life living in the LA area, I can assure you that Hollywood is purely interested in money. Gobs and gobs of money.
The movie was made because they thought it would make money.
[QUOTE=Tiger Horse;5141521]
Thank you! Although I did enjoy the movie as a whole, I was very upset about that aspect of it - so totally untrue![/QUOTE]
Oh, thank God, I felt like the Lone Ranger. Biggest pet peeve was the whole “OMG he’s this HUGE BLACK MONSTER HORSE”…uh, my old guy had a lot of Fair Play inbreeding (though War Admiral himself and via My Play) and on his best days was almost War Admiral’s twin–15.2ish, and dark brown/black, nice head and neck but in no way a giant anything! And the idea that War Admiral was so royally bred while Seabiscuit was this nobody. Yeah, only if one argues that War Admiral’s dam, unlike Seabiscuit’s, probably produced more than one foal worth keeping.
Good movie, pretty movie, that part annoyed me. Especially since the book didn’t screw that up.
[QUOTE=danceronice;5141566]
Oh, thank God, I felt like the Lone Ranger. Biggest pet peeve was the whole “OMG he’s this HUGE BLACK MONSTER HORSE”…uh, my old guy had a lot of Fair Play inbreeding (though War Admiral himself and via My Play) and on his best days was almost War Admiral’s twin–15.2ish, and dark brown/black, nice head and neck but in no way a giant anything! And the idea that War Admiral was so royally bred while Seabiscuit was this nobody. Yeah, only if one argues that War Admiral’s dam, unlike Seabiscuit’s, probably produced more than one foal worth keeping.
Good movie, pretty movie, that part annoyed me. Especially since the book didn’t screw that up.[/QUOTE]
Me too. Wasn’t huge, and wasn’t all that differently bred. The difference was more in the owners, west v. east, new money v. old.
You were not alone!
[QUOTE=danceronice;5140218]
Did anyone complain about the stupidity of the portrayal of War Admiral and his connections in Seabiscuit? (Besides me, I mean.)[/QUOTE]
My good friend and riding buddy owns a great great great granddaughter of War Admiral (Mumpitz is a much beloved 29 year old mare who looks quite like him and is still going strong). She also collects War Admiral items. And she complained long and loud about that ridiculously innacurate WA portrayal. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear her, from wherever you live!
And now, that’s one of the reasons she won’t even consider seeing the Secretariat movie.
I am sorry to hear they leave out most of the race call from the Belmont. To me nothing sums up the excitement that was Secretariat more than that call. I hope they at least left in the Tremendous Machine part. And the “Secretariat is all alone!” part. And the “He’s going to be the Triple Crown winner!” part. I recall being so relieved when the announcer said he was going to win because I was just sure he had made his move too soon and was going to suddenly succumb to some horse coming out of nowhere. Even with the big lead, I guess I just couldn’t believe my eyes.
[QUOTE=Jumpin_Horses;5139057]
it made Sham AND his owner out to be villains (NOT TRUE) Sham was a WONDERFUL horse
QUOTE]
YES, HE WAS. A total sweetheart. I used to visit him in KY and you couldn’t find a gentler horse. This movie is already annoying me.
Well if it makes you feel any better, they didn’t make this movie for “us.” Meaning people who already know the story. They made it for horse crazy kids and their moms who wouldn’t know a horse if it stepped on them.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;5142933]
Well if it makes you feel any better, they didn’t make this movie for “us.” Meaning people who already know the story. They made it for horse crazy kids and their moms who wouldn’t know a horse if it stepped on them.[/QUOTE]
:lol:
It’ll be kind of hard to buy Secretariat as the underdog who saves the farm.
And even harder to believe John Malkovich is supposed to be Lucien Laurin.:lol:
But I’m glad just about anytime there’s a big budget horse movie. You never know - might get one or two more horse crazy kids into lessons. And buying feed, tack, etc. Helps all of us.
[QUOTE=TBCollector;5142603]
[QUOTE=Jumpin_Horses;5139057]it made Sham AND his owner out to be villains (NOT TRUE) Sham was a WONDERFUL horse
QUOTE]
YES, HE WAS. A total sweetheart. I used to visit him in KY and you couldn’t find a gentler horse.[/QUOTE]
When I went on a tour of Claiborne Farm, the groom who did the tour used to take care of Sham. He talked about how completely kind and gentle Sham was. The groom said he led Sham around with a rope shank (no chain needed).
I won’t be seeing the movie. The Disney part is pretty much a dealbreaker for me. But if that didn’t kill the deal, seeing the trailer did. :yes:
Pancho Martin used to comment on how easy and kind Sham was to handle.
I saw the movie last night–got tickets through a girlfriend who subscribes to a “mommy” blog, and I agree that moms and kids are the target audience here.
I went with expectations of it being pretty dang bad, and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s still a Disney movie, but I consider it a plus if I can’t tell the multiple equine actors apart, and they did a good job there. The photography is quite good, and the actors actually interact pretty well with the horse.
Diane Lane spends far too much time weeping in distress over her parents’ deaths and the financial insecurity of the farm, and the script has her make multiple declarative statements (“Secretariat loves to win,” “My horse isn’t afraid,” etc) that would have any true racetracker rolling their eyes at her naivete. But the story itself is more or less true to life, even if Penny miraculously gets from Doswell, Va, to Bull Hancock’s private club in KY in about 5 minutes, and the track kitchen appears to be adjacent to the Meadow.
What really bothered me, though, was that John Malkovich cursing in French sounded like he was sounding it out from a (profane) textbook. I expected better cursing from Lucien Laurin. 
Aaaaaaah, Sing Mia Song, don’t you know ABC/Disney has a teleporter? Instant travel happens in many of their in house productions - you will see a character talking about going to some across country location or overseas, the next instant they are in the airport and the next settling into a hotel at the location. Makes for crappy continuity - they should at least show boarding and the end airport…but nope, they teleport them.
It might be worth going to hear the bad French…I cuss fluently in French thanks to a now gone friend. Laurin’s cussing was legendary, and should have been left out if the actor couldnt manage it properly
ALL movie studios have a teleporter!
And I can’t imagine John Malkovich playing anyone without seeming about two seconds from axe crazy at any moment.
We saw it at the premiere here in Lexington on Sunday. I’m still not sure how I feel about it (except ‘my’ scenes, now they were terrific!)
Probably the coolest thing for us was being in the theater, watching it with some of the actual characters in the movie, and their friends/family, that is kind of bizarre!
I think Randall Wallace did a really good job with the racing scenes. It bothered me that Secretariat’s ears were often pricked when he was running, but the poor horse had to be checking out the equipment all over the track, so who could blame him!
I thought the end was pretty anti-climactic.
[QUOTE=poltroon;5141565]
As someone who spent most of my life living in the LA area, I can assure you that Hollywood is purely interested in money. Gobs and gobs of money.
The movie was made because they thought it would make money.[/QUOTE]
Nonsense, no more than it was “just greed” that made certain financial institutions push past the dead brains in Congress to allow derivaties and hedge funds to predominate over the investments in advancing industries and agriculture. Psychological warfare does pay if you are the right “owner”. Check out who owns the media and their cultural/political beliefs and connections. Money per se does not rule the world, ideas do. The owning of the people’s minds and motives gives a much better “payback” and encourages all manners of outrages.
[QUOTE=2tempe;5139790]
Have not seen the movie, and probably won’t but just finished the book. I found the book interesting, not great. It seemed to jump around a bit timewise, I maybe learned more about old bloodlines than I needed to, and it seemed that there was just endless quoting of times for each and every furlong that he ever ran.
BIG Question, which was not answered in the book…How/why did he get laminitis? I knew that was why he was put down, but my aging memory has forgotten the initial cause or maybe I never knew to begin with…
[/QUOTE]
He was always an easy keeper, if you look at him you will see he was too fat, plus he probably had more than one OD on the sugars in his grass, his paddock was lush. As far as I know, he was not being ridden or exercised on a regular basis. I think that is a mistake with any of the stallions.
Of course they do, but they also try for some continuity - you see people getting into cars, out of cars a second later and that doesn’t bother me as much as ABC/Disney’s method of having someone talk about going and in a nanosecond they are there talking to someone else and to make it worse, it is still the same day, they don’t even TRY to make it appear that time passed by darkening the set to make it ‘night’…nothing like that to say sloppy editing and poor continuity. The worst offenders from Frons and crew?? Daytime and short run summer series.
Way back in the old days, the screen would darken to give the passing of time illusion, but that is no more
Blame the writers and the directors on that. Fast cuts are ‘in’, meandering is ‘out.’ (Not a bad thing as some older movies, scenes just…kind of wander on, and then…end. The assumption is either the audience understands time/distance occured, or it’s unimportant to the plot so just get on with it.
Yabut, I am old and resistant to change.
I do agree to a point, but it is the obvious glaring things that bother me - character is talking about, oh let’s say lunch, then appears in Europe and promptly goes to said lunch and then, bang is back where he started and eating lunch again…all the same day.
Odd as it sounds considering where I live, they had Corbin Bernsen on radio yesterday talking about continuity problems caused by shooting on location in the prairies - the instant sun, followed by instant cloud, snow, no snow all in the space of a few hours. He said that inconsistancy and lack of continuity is perceived by the audience and that reduces marketability of the product. He also said that the odd weather isn’t going to stop him from filming here again. He then invited the whole province to the release party and was serious about it.
Enough rambling -
Back to our regularly scheduled programming 
