Liam Neeson

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  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 27,671
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Pinno wrote:
    morstar wrote:
    So having now seen all the reporting and hearing the interview; my question isn't whether he's a racist or not. More that having acknowledged in himself how extreme and irrational those feeling were, why has he made a career out of glamourising the theme of revenge?

    That's a good point.

    Or... redemption?
    Because those are the only type of films he's good for?

    Like the one he won his Oscar for?
  • robert88
    robert88 Posts: 2,696
    bianchimoon wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Robert88 wrote:
    rjsterry wrote:
    Ben6899 wrote:
    morstar wrote:
    ... why has he made a career out of glamourising the theme of revenge?

    $$$

    People love it when the bad guy gets a good hiding.

    Yes, they do, but that predates cinema by millenia - look at the Illiad. I think stories fulfil a useful function in living out our more destructive urges in a relatively safe way.


    It's irritating and stupid. I have been to watch Neeson films, some better than others, none outstanding, and not given them a lot of thought.

    Now of course he has set himself up as being some sort of rallying point for all sorts of cr4p. His problem is that he's a one-trick pony getting too old for the circus he stars in.

    :lol: Nonsense! Taken 3 compares very favourably with the Homer's epics.
    Taken 1...shame on you, Taken 2...shame on me, Taken 3... u avin a larf, (GW Bush 2011)


    Homer Simpson wrote epics?
  • mrb123
    mrb123 Posts: 4,787
    They had a bloke on BBC breakfast this morning to give the "Neeson is a racist" point of view.

    The guy was absolutely brimming with righteous indignation. He was eager to use the word "lynching" as much as possible, despite the presenters pulling him up for it more than once. In his view, Neeson's subsequent comments about the matter have only made things worse, proving Neeson's ignorance and racism.

    There seems to be such eagerness these days to "call out" faults in others, a rush to vilify and denounce. Careers ended in the court of public opinion because of mistakes made many years ago, and in a lot of cases probably deeply regretted.

    As has been eloquently stated in this thread, we are all human, we all make mistakes. What matters is that we learn from them, feel remorse, try not to repeat them.

    Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...
  • crispybug2
    crispybug2 Posts: 2,915
    MrB123 wrote:
    They had a bloke on BBC breakfast this morning to give the "Neeson is a racist" point of view.

    The guy was absolutely brimming with righteous indignation. He was eager to use the word "lynching" as much as possible, despite the presenters pulling him up for it more than once. In his view, Neeson's subsequent comments about the matter have only made things worse, proving Neeson's ignorance and racism.

    There seems to be such eagerness these days to "call out" faults in others, a rush to vilify and denounce. Careers ended in the court of public opinion because of mistakes made many years ago, and in a lot of cases probably deeply regretted.

    As has been eloquently stated in this thread, we are all human, we all make mistakes. What matters is that we learn from them, feel remorse, try not to repeat them.

    Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

    ^this^

    I’m of an age where I’ve seen some almighty changes in my lifetime, social, personal and political

    The “he who is without sin cast the first stone” seems particularly appropriate in this case, we have seen people quick to denounce on Twitter then subsequently being vilified for some (apparently) incorrect word they uttered years ago

    I think of the guy who was going to host the Oscars ceremony but was then forced to stand down over a tweet from ten years ago, I mean really is there some sort of statute of limitations that can be applied?

    Liam Neeson is case in point where context needs to be applied, we are talking about a guy whose adolescent years would have been spent living with the worst of the Northern Ireland troubles, where retribution and revenge would have been common thoughts and actions and yet he still managed to process his anger and desire for revenge and see the error of his thoughts, this is, in the context of the times and the prevailing thought processes, no mean achievement

    A lot of people on Twitter in particular, need to understand context of the times, it doesn’t make things that happened at times right but you cannot compare then with now, an example I can give relates to one of my children’s friends, a keen Twitter user natch, trying to berate me and also my late dad over an event that happened in 1973 when I was taken to a West Ham match, and a Hammers player called Clyde Best was mercilessly referred to throughout the match, by West Ham fans as well, as a f*****g n****r!, even as an eight year old I knew this was wrong but both me and my dad, being surrounded by thirty thousand people all chanting this, did and said nothing, but in this guys eyes this made us complicit and as bad as the people chanting, I struggle to decipher the thought processes of people who cannot, or will not, try to understand the times in which events take place
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,063
    Just on the comment in the OP about Neeson's career being potentially over you only have to look at Mel Gibson who has been caught making homophobic, anti-semitic and racist comments over the years (I would argue his case is worse) to see that once the indignation has time to fade redemption is possible and in his case he went on to get nominated for Oscars.
  • awavey
    awavey Posts: 2,368
    I doubt his career is over, people might look at him very differently from now on, or maybe just for a while, but Im sure he'll still make movies, sadly lost in all this conflab is the very real fact a woman was raped & no-one seems to be caring much what ever happened to her.

    but Hollywood is very good at looking the other way when it wants to, there are far more serious allegations of crimes involving those in the movie industry, and the studios still hire them even when they know the full details & still happily hand them or nominate them for awards
  • cycleclinic
    cycleclinic Posts: 6,865
    Leasom was not wrong to air those thoughts. If people cannot be honest about them selves then we will all go round with an idealised version of what people are like and then get shocked when we find out that was an illusion. Oh dear that the society we live in now.
    http://www.thecycleclinic.co.uk -wheel building and other stuff.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,063
    awavey wrote:
    I doubt his career is over, people might look at him very differently from now on, or maybe just for a while, but Im sure he'll still make movies, sadly lost in all this conflab is the very real fact a woman was raped & no-one seems to be caring much what ever happened to her.

    but Hollywood is very good at looking the other way when it wants to, there are far more serious allegations of crimes involving those in the movie industry, and the studios still hire them even when they know the full details & still happily hand them or nominate them for awards

    Yep, they'll ditch them whilst they think they're a liability in terms of making money but will have them back again once that is reversed and the pitch forks have been put away. Outraged indignation seems to have a short shelf life.

    I believe he has said the woman involved is no longer alive but no more than that. Unfortunately it is a horrendous crime that often doesn't get reported and when it does often fails to bring about a successful prosecution.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Pinno wrote:
    morstar wrote:
    So having now seen all the reporting and hearing the interview; my question isn't whether he's a racist or not. More that having acknowledged in himself how extreme and irrational those feeling were, why has he made a career out of glamourising the theme of revenge?

    That's a good point.

    Or... redemption?
    Because those are the only type of films he's good for?

    Like the one he won his Oscar for?
    I believe he was nominated but never won an Oscar for his role in Schindlers list. Lost out to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. I must have missed the Oscar that he won, please remind me. Of course he's had a few good roles but he's had more films of the likes of Taken. Although he did a lot of animation films too. Anyone remember the nut job? It had a cartoon of the Gang am Style Korean singer and the animation characters dancing Gangnam Style in the credits. Although if you hadn't walked out of the cinema long before that point then you really haven't got a life have you! A young son and library dvd is my excuse.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 27,671
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    I believe he was nominated but never won an Oscar for his role in Schindlers list. Lost out to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. I must have missed the Oscar that he won, please remind me. Of course he's had a few good roles but he's had more films of the likes of Taken. Although he did a lot of animation films too. Anyone remember the nut job? It had a cartoon of the Gang am Style Korean singer and the animation characters dancing Gangnam Style in the credits. Although if you hadn't walked out of the cinema long before that point then you really haven't got a life have you! A young son and library dvd is my excuse.

    My mistake, you're right he was nominated but didn't win.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    I believe he was nominated but never won an Oscar for his role in Schindlers list. Lost out to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. I must have missed the Oscar that he won, please remind me. Of course he's had a few good roles but he's had more films of the likes of Taken. Although he did a lot of animation films too. Anyone remember the nut job? It had a cartoon of the Gang am Style Korean singer and the animation characters dancing Gangnam Style in the credits. Although if you hadn't walked out of the cinema long before that point then you really haven't got a life have you! A young son and library dvd is my excuse.
    My mistake, you're right he was nominated but didn't win.
    Still a good film and performance. I take back my comments earlier, he is capable of good performances. I think the type of film he's most famous for, the taken franchise, doesn't test or show off his acting abilities perhaps. Mind you he's a good voice actor for animations and voice overs. Narrators are one of his specialities too.
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 52,042
    Narrations/Narration.

    [Pedant mode: Off. I'll ignore the grammar, just to keep the peace. :D ]
    seanoconn - gruagach craic!
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 28,969
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Pinno wrote:
    morstar wrote:
    So having now seen all the reporting and hearing the interview; my question isn't whether he's a racist or not. More that having acknowledged in himself how extreme and irrational those feeling were, why has he made a career out of glamourising the theme of revenge?

    That's a good point.

    Or... redemption?
    Because those are the only type of films he's good for?

    Like the one he won his Oscar for?
    I believe he was nominated but never won an Oscar for his role in Schindlers list. Lost out to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. I must have missed the Oscar that he won, please remind me. Of course he's had a few good roles but he's had more films of the likes of Taken. Although he did a lot of animation films too. Anyone remember the nut job? It had a cartoon of the Gang am Style Korean singer and the animation characters dancing Gangnam Style in the credits. Although if you hadn't walked out of the cinema long before that point then you really haven't got a life have you! A young son and library dvd is my excuse.
    No mention of the Clash of the Titans remake?


    ;)
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • mrfpb
    mrfpb Posts: 4,569
    thecycleclinic wrote:
    Leasom was not wrong to air those thoughts. If people cannot be honest about them selves then we will all go round with an idealised version of what people are like and then get shocked when we find out that was an illusion. Oh dear that the society we live in now.

    According to Newsnight, John Barnes made exactly this argument in one of the papers today. If men are willing to own up to and denounce their previous violent bigotry, then its a discussion worth having. It shouldn't be shut down by the
    reactionary twitterati.

    ETA:https://news.sky.com/story/john-barnes-liam-neeson-deserves-a-medal-for-race-admission-11628709
  • verylonglegs
    verylonglegs Posts: 4,023
    Yes, I heard John Barnes on FiveLIve too. Also, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ias-racism

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