Hacker Cinema
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023 · Film · 206 min
Directed by Martin Scorsese
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
7 positive5 negative8 neutralfrom 20 commenters
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20 comments on Hacker News
'Movies' at Blockbuster level pivoted to ersatz carnival rides post-'Pirates of the Caribbean', focusing on safe IPs and simple plots designed to aid comprehension of the major story beats in the SEA markets without the need to resort to subtitles or dubbing.
'True' Cinema has been going from strength to strength the last decade, with even Netflix putting out Fincher spectacles like 'Mank' on streaming, and A24 bringing introducing a new audience to phenomenal Korean Cinema like 'Parasite' and 'Minari'.
Even in the traditional studio system we have been spoilt in recent years by a succession of Palm D'Or and Oscar winners like Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness, Zone of Interest, The Brutalist, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon.
Agreed on TWoWS. Kind of loved every scene in the movie, but actually strongly dislike the movie in full. I also think that despite what seems like an attempt to critique the destructive lifestyle, it does the opposite and glorifies it. Mostly not a fan of his later career work, but I do really like Killers of the Flower Moon and Shutter Island.
I really enjoyed The Wager by David Grann about this story. Grann was also the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, which was made into the movie of the same name by Martin Scorsese, and Scorsese is now making The Wager into a film, although I don't think they've even settled on a release year yet.
Unfortunately many of the books I had time to read this year were a bust. But here's some of the ones I did appreciate very much:
* Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive - Philipp Dettmer.
* The Gene: An Intimate History - Mukherjee. Won't necessarily teach you much new if you've already read a few genetics books, but a fine read nonetheless.
* On Sophistical Refutations - Aristotle. Like anything by Aristotle, read it with a grain of salt and as historical document. Still, it's always a wonder how a text like this can be over 2000 years old.
* Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann. Skip the movie and read this instead.
* 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles Mann. It challenges common misunderstandings of pre-columbian society without being anti-Columbus.
* American History, Combined Edition: 1492-Present - Thomas Kidd. Goes beyond just the usual narratives we are all familiar with. Not recommended as a first American-history deep-dive, but a fine supplement.
* The Man Who Saved Cincinnati - Peter Bronson. Entertaining civil war history book. It's not only about Cincinnati.
* Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power - Carwardine.
* The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets - Thomas Cech. RNA is now kinda required reading since 2020. This is a good starting point.
* The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie - Dawkins. His latest is definitely worth a read, like (nearly) all his previous.
* Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI - Harari. How information traveled historically, with modern technology, and in the near future. Enlightening and a little scary.
* Beauty and Sadness: Mahler's 11 Symphonies - David Vernon. Even if you haven’t listened to all of Mahler’s symphonies, still very interesting read on “the first modern composer.” If you /are/ familiar with all his symphonies, the book is even better, and it will show you layers you didn’t realize were there... in case the music isn't dense enough to absorb by itself ;-)
Fiction:
* Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir.
* Dark Matter - Blake Crouch.
* Red Rising - Pierce Brown. A light read, maybe will seem derivative at this point but it was fun.
* Rifters Trilogy - Peter Watts. Super bleak, very creative.
* You Like It Darker - Stephen King. Another fine collection of short stories.
* The Forest of Lost Souls - Koontz
* House of Leaves - Danielewski. I waited way too long to read this. As good as everyone said it would be.
Really. You've watched Ed Wood sometime within the last 10 years? The Last Seduction? Wolf? Red Rock West? That's just from the top 10 in that list.
I don't know what the point of your second list is. It's never been the case that streamers or cable channels (their nearest antecedent) were big producers of movies. But streamers --- unlike cable channels --- did manage to produce CODA, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Irishman, Buster Scruggs, Roma, Dolemite, and Glass Onion.
Strange indeed - Killers of the Flower Moon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5537002/reference/
This includes movies, but browsing their "originals" list, so far I (or my wife) have enjoyed (in no particular order):
Slow Horses Lessons in Chemistry Severance Ted Lasso Shrinking Mythic Quest Roar CODA The Problem with John Stewart And we are looking forward to checking out, in no particular order:
Palm Royale For All Mankind Criminal Record Killers of the Flower Moon Foundation Strange Planet The Morning Show Greyhound They're not all knockout hits. Overall we just feel safer trying something new there. If we don't like it, it's usually just because it's not for us, and less because it feels like an algorithmic, soulless cash grab.
Many of the movies e.g. Killers of the Flower Moon have theatrical releases.
It needs to for Oscar contention though but I am sure some money can be made.
> Killers of the Flower Moon brought in $157 million at the box office
And how much did it cost to make that movie[0]?
"Budget $200–215 million
Box office $157 million "
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killers_of_the_Flower_Moon_(film)
"There's a reason Russia is the biggest country on Earth: its aggression. Those "republics" didn't just fall into Russian hands of their own accord, they were conquered"
That's comical that an American writes that. Is it ignorance or extreme hypocrisy?
You should learn how the US appeared on the continent that belong to Native Americans. How the US grew through wars with its neighbors who too stole a part of the continent from the Native Americans. Learn about reservations, about the trail of tears and about many other crimes of European invaders and their successors against the only people who own the right to be called Americans. Watch 'Killers of the Flower Moon' if you prefer movies.
"usually in the most brutal ways imaginable"
And learn the Russian history too. Rarely Russian Empire did anything that can be compared to the crimes of European colonizers.
"Our politicians simply do not learn from history."
The irony.
Leo DiCaprio said that, Martin Scorsese has watched every movie ever made until 1980. [1]
Made me understand how seriously he takes film.
[1]: An interview with letter box on Killers of the Flower Moon on YouTube
They won best picture at the Academy award two years ago, and seem to have been focusing on TV content. And, for what it's worth, Killers of the Flower Moon was a terrific feature film in its own right, was nominated for many categories, but certainly did not merit the best picture not. I'd argue this is a bit of a harsh criticism for a studio that, for all intents and purposes, seems to be doing quite well!
In the US, this is a general term for descendants of Native American peoples. Their degree of sovereignty unfortunately varies; some tribes are "federally recognized" and enjoy state-like recognition of their autonomy by the federal (central) government, while others have to bargain with the states surrounding their territories. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_(Native_American)
And a FAQ: https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions
The land they directly control can be anywhere from tiny to gigantic, depending on the particulars: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Indian_Lands_of_Federally_Recognized_Tribes_of_the_US%2C_June_2016.pdf
Many people also live in surrounding areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_reservations_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Indigenous_Americans_by_county.png
Much of the time the tribes have their own small governments, similar to municipal services, but also often with their own equivalents to "courts", "police", etc., who may utilize different corrective measures than the US ones. Often they will have an agreement with surrounding law enforcement (or the federal government) to partner up on certain categories of infractions, such as traffic violations or murders.
Some tribes have some money thanks to casinos and other business activities, but most are unfortunately quite poor, and many of their communities must work very hard to survive.
(This all is just my layman's understanding. I am not Native American, but I've lived near their communities. Please correct me if I'm wrong!)
---------
Edit: The 2023 movie Killers of the Flower Moon is really worth watching: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killers_of_the_Flower_Moon_(film)
I think I can apply your last two paragraphs to pretty much any movie unintentionally celebrating the United States security apparatus, politics, public policy, or exploitative crony capitalism that that people lust over for whatever reason.
"That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film Oppenheimer, given that it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about a nuclear weapon without in any way extensively showcasing the result of it's use on a civilian population i.e. the consequences of the development of that weapon is extremely American and morally dubious at best...downright propaganda at worst. Were the American public and military rank and file the real victims of WW2 ()? Is it ok to pronounce the moral ambiguity of the top brass without commenting on the Holocaust-level crimes committed?
These things were glaring in the theater. And I know I'm going to get the standard 'MAGA move to a Commie country' for having an honest appraisal of the conceptual idea. But it's bad in that way. ..."
War is a complex issue and making a film about Japan's war crimes (the first installment of the Ip Man series was good with this) is something which has to be met with approval from its government who have their hands in film finance as well. Japan is not exactly a capitalist economy-- it is culturally a command economy and everyone listens to the government (this is actually one of the critiques of Shin Godzilla and even if this Godzilla movie).
There are not that many governments that are going to be thrilled about you making a movie shitting on their armed forces or speaking on their war crimes. In the United States, our first amendment protects give us tremendous leeway to do this, but there is a lot of other pressures which can be extorted to kill a film prior to release.
Scorcese recently released Killers of the Flower Moon, which is not about a Holocaust, but about a limited genocide, and people are already bitching about the length, and it is as long as a "rah rah America" Avengers movie. This kind of movie was hard to make in the United States. It would be impossible to make in Japan. People there have to use metaphors to talk about getting nuked (aside from Grave of the Fireflies showing the Tokyo Firebombing, which was worse). How are you supposed to use a metaphor for an Asian Holocaust? If they did it would it come off as insensitive to a Western viewer?
This is a political Godzilla movie. It's a movie about Japan dealing with post war recovery. Maybe next time, there will be a Godzilla who comes and frees all the slave labor in the Imphal India campaign (maybe involve the Indian film industry to reduce cost). Maybe you should pitch it to be developed here with US political assistance and pressure so that Japanese war crimes are addressed. It's certainly a good idea.
But I would hesitate from: -- being a hypocrite. -- critiquing simplistically without seeing the larger work of this director.
My sense is that HN's benevolent dictators really prefer to avoid anything as heavy-handed as your suggestions. If enough users here just don't want certain topics in their HN experience, then posts on those topics will get flagged.
HN is not the whole internet. If you have strong feelings about the current NCAA football rankings, or stupid policies of NYC's Dept. of Homeless Services, or the horrible ethical issues raised by Scorsese's new movie Killers of the Flower Moon - there are a zillion other sites where you can raise and discuss those.
And if the managers or users on those other sites are quick to flag and ban posts about the relative merits of MySQL vs. PostgreSQL, or awesome CSS tricks - that's okay, too.
The new movie you're thinking of is based on Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
The DiCaprio movie is Killers Of The Flower Moon. It does center around Native Americans, but in the 1920s in Oklahoma.
Killers of the Flower Moon has a young Hoover in its cast of characters, and it does a pretty good job of describing his rise. It's also a fantastic book in its own right, which should be read before the incoming movie spoils it forever.
Their guerilla marketing techniques, such as paying botfarms to submit fake 5 star reviews to imdb or letterboxd is not really appreciated. This was going on for years. I have to catch those cheaters manually, and block them for my cannes ratings overview.
But just recently the Robert Rodriguez, Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese marketing campaigns just did the very same, taking over the dirty tricks from A24. Ingenious Media I assume. Also someone is paying several real people money to submit fake 5 start reviews. All blocked.
https://letterboxd.com/film/hypnotic-2023/members/rated/.5-5/ https://letterboxd.com/film/killers-of-the-flower-moon/members/rated/.5-5/ https://letterboxd.com/film/asteroid-city/members/rated/.5-5/
Hate it
Hated it. I was apparently not alone; it did poorly at the box office. I'm also generally not a fan of religious films.
Also hated (and could not finish) the utterly turgid THE IRISHMAN. WOLF OF WALL STREET had its moments, but I'm honestly not sure why the film existed -- I mean, it's the same sort of story as GOODFELLAS.
SHUTTER ISLAND was crap. THE DEPARTED was maybe ok. The last one I loved was THE AVIATOR.
Given how awful THE IRISHMAN was, and the trendline I see with his work, I have no plans to see the adaptation of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.