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Here’s my review of the film 8MM.
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Short filmTranscript
00:12hello guys it's review time here on the film scene investigation channel thank you so much for
00:18checking out this video in today's review i'm going to be taking a look
00:24at the 1999 nicholas cage movie eight millimeter i'm a big fan of nicholas cage i've seen um you know
00:35a large majority of his movies over the years but this one had escaped me so uh yeah looking forward
00:42to taking a deep dive and talking about this today just before we actually get into it guys
00:47if you haven't already please do consider subscribing to the channel all the support
00:52is greatly appreciated so eight millimeter from february 1999 was written by the screenwriter
01:03andrew kevin walker and was directed by the late joel schumacher now the film featured a stellar
01:10cast not just including the likes of nicholas cage but also from the late james gandolfini and a very
01:18young walking phoenix and i must say it was the strong cast that prompted me to finally sit down
01:26and check it out you know i've known about this movie for a long time and when i think back
01:31all
01:32of the promotional material that i saw over the years you know it always featured nicholas cage
01:37and i can understand that because obviously you know he was in the lead role but i had absolutely
01:43no idea that walking phoenix was even in this movie it's also worth mentioning that you know
01:49with phoenix and his career obviously he's now skyrocketed into the mainstream winning an oscar
01:55for playing the joker but um you know whenever he's in the topic of conversation i never hear this movie
02:03eight millimeter ever mentioned so in regards to the narrative the movie followed the private
02:10investigator tom wells who was a family man lived in pennsylvania and he specialized in murder cases
02:19he was hired to authenticate an eight millimeter reel of film that had been found in a businessman's safe
02:28the businessman was this industrial tycoon who had recently passed and his elderly wife mrs christian
02:37had gone into the safe and saw the film and eventually watched it she was horrified to see
02:44what looked like a murder taking place of a young woman she didn't know if it was genuine or not
02:50but
02:51she certainly wanted to find out i mean given the level of violence that was shown on this film
02:58mrs christian couldn't just you know brush past it and forget about it she needed to address it and so
03:05she called in private investigator tom wells before he got to work tom had to actually sit down and view
03:14the footage to gain a full understanding of what he was dealing with so he did and what he saw
03:21was indeed
03:22a young woman being brutally murdered by a man in a mask it was this grainy old footage that had
03:31clearly been
03:31filmed many years earlier and yeah tom was absolutely shocked and disgusted at what he saw and given the
03:39level of violence he thought that it actually could be a genuine murder from there tom was able to track
03:48down mary ann's mother and secured her personal diary in the process the diary itself was the breakthrough
03:56that tom needed as it gave him a number of clues as to where mary ann had gone to tom's
04:03investigation
04:03led him to the grimy underbelly of los angeles where mary ann had relocated to pursue a movie career
04:13once he arrived tom was able to make friends with a shop clerk called max california who was played by
04:20actor
04:21walking phoenix max was a likable down-to-earth guy that had many contacts in the porn industry which
04:30was the opening that tom needed to help his investigation together they infiltrated the
04:37scummy porn underworld in the hope of finding out more information about snuff films and the people
04:44that purchased them now there was a scene that i want to bring up here where we saw tom and
04:50max visit
04:51a private seller's market where some of the most hardcore and extreme pornography was on sale you had
05:00vhs tapes of bestiality being sold also we saw a collection of photographs of children being abused
05:09that were on sale i mean this was just um this was just content that i think only psychopaths would
05:17be
05:17into while this was a very bleak and disturbing visual it did make me question whether these types of
05:25markets you know actually once existed or even still do so the guys navigated their way through this
05:33labyrinth of degeneracy and were able to uncover a network of film distributors that basically profited
05:42of creating illegal content as tom went deeper and deeper with his investigation the mental fatigue
05:51really kicked in and this so-called investigation soon turned into an obsession i mean the countless
06:01obscene imagery that tom came across i mean yeah it would mess up anyone psychologically and it definitely
06:09had an impact on his family life back home while tom hit many road bumps and came to many dead
06:17ends
06:17during his investigation he eventually found out that mrs christian's dead husband indeed was involved
06:25with the snuff film that she saw the businessman wanted to purchase a snuff film for his own
06:32sick enjoyment but since there were no snuff films actually available the businessman got his attorney to
06:39seek out a distributor who would actually make one for him this was a sick revelation to you know
06:55she had no idea all this was going on and she had no idea that she was married to a
07:02perverted monster
07:04so let's delve deeper into this whole snuff storyline as i found it very intriguing to
07:11say the least i mean the snuff film wasn't just a plot device in actuality it was a representation of
07:21the
07:21sick and twisted behavior that people get up to behind closed doors with the revelations over the
07:29jeffrey epstein scandal and its close ties to hollywood coming to light you know in some ways
07:37this movie eight millimeter was kind of pioneering for a hollywood blockbuster to explore such a depraved
07:46theme at the time when this movie was being made back in the 90s you know the general public were
07:53completely unaware of the film industry's depraved sick nature but now we know different this movie
08:02holds a lot more relevance i mean the links to los angeles and its film industry were very telling i
08:11mean
08:11it was kind of indirectly implied that hollywood indeed is a dark place where you can purchase
08:18child pornography if you want to that wasn't just a coincidence you know uh joel schumacher i feel was
08:27you know attempting to peel back the curtain just a little bit and expose some harsh truths you know of
08:35course i'm talking about a movie here you know i'm doing a movie review but the narrative of eight
08:41millimeter really does blend into our dark reality with the epstein stuff coming to light i mean
08:48fundamentally epstein was trafficking children to his private island and basically the whole thing was a
08:58honeypot trap to compromise influential people not just businessmen actors politicians but also
09:06scientists as well and you have to understand that these sick acts were going on back in the 90s when
09:14this movie was being made and the general public had completely no idea the level of sinister depravity
09:22that was going on you know you have to realize that the whole jeffrey epstein stuff you know yes it's
09:30now in the public eye but for many years it was covered up by intelligence agencies and governments i mean
09:38this
09:39whole thing was this spider web of depravity films like eight millimeter and stanley kubrick's eyes wide shut
09:48you know they tapped into the actual reality that we live in they exposed what the elites and
09:57what the top one percent get up to behind closed doors you know if i released this movie review you
10:04know
10:04seven or eight years ago i'd be deemed a conspiracy theorist but the facts remain that this actually happened
10:12and you've now got donald trump the president of the united states trying to cover it up i mean
10:18you just can't comprehend how deep this goes and how many individuals influential people celebrities
10:25and all sorts are involved in this and while the perpetrators of the snuff film in the movie were
10:32these low-level scumbags you know not these larger than life villains you have to remember that the snuff
10:41film was specifically created for a very wealthy businessman i mean if you watch this movie back
10:50in the 90s or early 2000s you know you might find the narrative a little bit hard to believe like
10:57why would a businessman who's rich and all that but you know why would he want to purchase a snuff
11:01film
11:02but given the depravity that we actually know goes on behind closed doors in our reality actually
11:10it's not that hard to believe and you also should remember that mrs christian and her husband were
11:17extremely wealthy and those characters represented the privileged elites and of course the movie could
11:25have gone a lot deeper in exposing the horrors of snuff and the whole child porn all that you know
11:31crazy stuff that goes on but obviously joel schumacher was limited by what he could show i mean after all
11:40this movie was subversion by the movie studio hinting at their own barbaric acts but not going far
11:48enough to reveal themselves as the culprits and talking of joel schumacher it is worth noting that eight
11:57millimeter was the first film that he had directed following his critically panned batman and robin movie
12:05from 1997 that movie was a very kid-friendly film that uh basically tanked the batman franchise for eight
12:17years with the criticism that he received it's clear that schumacher was determined to prove that
12:25he could produce a much darker more mature film and tonally it was the complete contrast to batman and
12:33robin in my eyes schumacher was a good director i've really enjoyed some of his previous work such as
12:40falling down and st elmo's fire so yes he took the wrong approach with batman but um he certainly
12:49redeemed himself with eight millimeter when it comes to the performances in the film i thought
12:55nicholas cage gave a very commanding performance as the private investigator tom wells you know him
13:03coming across this sadistic cover-up clearly had a serious mental impact on the character like i
13:11mentioned earlier tom's investigation turned into an obsession and i did appreciate seeing the character
13:20slowly kind of fall apart because ultimately if you and i came across some of the you know just
13:28horrific material that he did i think you know we would be psychologically damaged too initially we
13:36would feel disgusted but also eventually we would feel anger and that's exactly what happened with tom
13:43as he avenged mary ann's death i thought cage's best scene in the entire film was when his character
13:51returned home and basically capitulated in front of his wife i mean this was a broken man
13:58and it was brilliantly conveyed by nicholas cage joaquin phoenix i thought did a solid job playing the
14:06shop worker max california he brought some light-heartedness to an otherwise miserable and depressing
14:16story phoenix and cage had some very good chemistry and i'm surprised that they haven't starred in more
14:24films together over the years as for the late james gandolfini he too also delivered a brilliant
14:31performance as the porn distributor eddie paul now this movie was filmed before the first season of the
14:40sopranos and you can kind of see elements of the tony soprano character within gandolfini's betrayal in
14:47eight millimeter and having now seen the film i am kind of surprised that this movie wasn't really
14:53mentioned when gandolfini tragically passed away back in 2013 i remember reading many articles at the
15:00time about gandolfini's career yet this movie eight millimeter was i don't think ever mentioned and
15:08that's the reason why i had no idea he was even in the film until i watched it just recently
15:12i mean this
15:14was a strong performance from gandolfini and uh i would say it's a career highlight so i don't know
15:20why it wasn't mentioned but either way if you're a fan of james gandolfini and you haven't seen this movie
15:24yet definitely make sure you do and so dislikes for eight millimeter from 1999 my biggest dislike for the
15:35film would have to be the score that was composed by michael danner now this is a minor dislike um
15:42it didn't
15:43really you know ruin my viewing experience but um when i think about it i thought the score was
15:50very paint by numbers there just didn't seem to be any originality going on you know no distinctive
15:58themes that you know i could pick out or anything like that it was the over dramatic orchestral music
16:06that uh you know once you've heard it once you've heard it a thousand times and hey you know i'm
16:13not
16:13saying that the composer michael danner isn't a talented musician he certainly is and it was fine the
16:20score was fine but i really feel that he should have injected more personality into the score eight
16:28millimeter was you know very story driven so maybe the filmmakers considered the music and afterthought or
16:36certainly less important than the performances and the story itself i mean it wasn't the worst thing in
16:43the world but uh i just found it very uninspiring and uh that was a disappointment and so ratings for
16:52eight millimeter from 1999 i'm going to be rating this movie a strong six out of ten eight millimeter
17:01was a great psychological thriller that tapped into some very very dark themes that would make most
17:10people feel uncomfortable ultimately this was a story about a man who had good intentions you know just
17:17trying to do the right thing and track down this missing girl only to come across this sickening
17:23depravity which psychologically scarred him forever you know you gotta give credit to joel schumacher
17:31as this movie certainly was ambitious and you know it went a lot further than most hollywood films would
17:39exposing the dark activities of the los angeles film industry would a movie like this be made now
17:47probably not i mean given you know the ongoing jeffrey epstein scandal that doesn't seem to want to go
17:54away and all the revelations and you know debauchery that we've come across you know all the secrets
18:00coming out of hollywood fundamentally we can like the hollywood um movies of course but um basically the
18:07industry is run and has been run by monsters you know pedophiles and what have you and uh just looking
18:15at something like the sound of freedom uh come out i think in 2023 i mean no movie studio i
18:21wanted to
18:21back that movie you know that had to be independently funded so you know the writing's on the wall and
18:27um
18:27you'll see see it for what it is if you guys have seen this movie eight millimeter please let me
18:34know
18:34your thoughts and memories in the comments section below for those who haven't it's a recommendation from
18:40me if you're a fan of either james gandolfini joaquin phoenix or nicholas cage then i really feel that you
18:46will enjoy this movie and well that's all from me today guys i do hope you've enjoyed this review
18:52of eight millimeter from 1999 i'll be back next week of course with another cult movie review
19:00don't forget to like and subscribe and of course take care
19:30my videos haveONDekin holland
19:30i'll be back next week of course i'll be right now
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