wow does it suck, bad points...

seems to put a lot of blame l on video games, history channel, gun websites, blah blah blah

mail order ar15 w/o nics or ffl?!!? where can i get one of those?

ghey guys are the shooters?

and above all, BORING!

eta: shooting 223 in the garage, can you say "HUH??? WHAT DID U SAY???"

Lies to convince the government educated that more gun control is necessary to prevent another Columbine.

BTW...Why did they call it Elephant? Perhaps to associate the GOP and gun owning conservatives with brutal acts of violence that threaten the safety of the children.

The title is a tribute to the Alan Clarke, 1989 film for BBC, also called Elephant, which reflected on sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Van Sant similarly portrays school violence as something unfathomable, not unlike many other disturbing things in the lives of teenagers, which invite convenient explanations but ultimately frustrate analysis. Van Sant has explained the "elephant" idea in several ways, besides the direct reference to Clarke's earlier work. It is an allusion to the proverbial "elephant in the living room", a large problem that no one talks about but everyone must find their way around as they go about their daily lives. It also invokes the Indian parable about the blind wise men who, unable to grasp the whole, interpret the elephant only in terms of the part they can comprehend: "An elephant is a tree", said the blind man who grasped the leg; "An elephant is a snake", said the one who touched the trunk; etc. Finally, during the press conference at Cannes, Van Sant mentioned that the creative staff had also experimented with allusions to certain policies and attitudes represented by the Republican Party, whose party symbol is an elephant. [edit] Filming location

from wiki.

yeah, that movie was pretty stupid.  very slow.

Per Gus Van Sant in a interview he did about the movie. Elephant is about the Elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. Which he beleives is a overmacho, uberviolent society that promots violence. GUNS, VIDEO GAMES,SPORTS etc. And that schools look the other way when kids are harassed by other kids and there for force kids to act out.

Pretentious and bloated. And like others have said elsewhere on the board since when is is legal to ship firearms directly to ones house? And what a great choice they made with the Carbon-15 the godamn thing doesnt have any sights! Terrible movie that was clearly made just to make all the art fags that attend the Sundance film festival claim that Van Sant is a genius.

Quoted: seems to put a lot of blame l on video games, history channel, gun websites, blah blah blah

Haha, dude what the hell. It showed the blonde kid playing some generic FPS for like 15 seconds, gave maybe two minutes total of screen time to the kids watching a Hitler documentary and showed one of them looking at a gun website for maybe five seconds. Those are all singular facets of the story. You're just pulling reasons to hate it out of your ass.

I think the reason this film was panned was because the source material isn't typical audience friendly Hollywood stuff. To Van Sant's credit, I personally think he did the best he could given that the plot of the movie is about a bunch of children murdering other children. Yes the depiction of a gun being delivered directly to the kid's home and him signing for it was absurd, but the rest of it seems pretty spot on. Some teenagers are bitchy little assholes, some are popular jerkoffs, some of them are terribly socially inept, others are depraved homosexual loners that like killing people. To be honest, other than the gun coming straight to the kid's house I didn't think the rest of the film was "anti-gun". Sure there were technical errors like the kids not aiming or the Carbon 15 not having sights, but those are trivial gripes and not indicative of any anti-gun bias. (Note: having said all that, I'm sure Van Sant is a rabid anti after having read a few interviews of him, but I don't think his stance on guns is evident in this film)

Elephant is a film based on historic incidents featuring fictionalized characters, probably to avoid possible lawsuits from the families of the Columbine victims. I realize that the film was slow paced and frankly I'm surprised so many posters here actually had the attention span to sit through it. The long steady-cam shots can be rather monotonous, but that's how GVS chose to tell the story. In Elephant, the steady cam and dolly shots were a poorly implemented means of building suspense. Note to GVS, you're not Kubrick!

None of the actors' performances were particularly striking, but it seemed realistic and true to what most high school aged kids are like. Actually I take that back, the nerdy library assistant Michelle was portrayed very well IMO. Though she spoke but a handful of words, the scene in the locker room when she was sitting in front of the gossipy little bitches is spot-on accurate to what high school is like these days. And the character of Michelle did exactly what I imagined she would do, she sat there and took it without saying a word to the others.

Overall I give Elephant a 6.5/10. It's a depressing film about a depressing subject.

Quoted: Quoted: seems to put a lot of blame l on video games, history channel, gun websites, blah blah blah Haha, dude what the hell. It showed the blonde kid playing some generic FPS for like 15 seconds, gave maybe two minutes total of screen time to the kids watching a Hitler documentary and showed one of them looking at a gun website for maybe five seconds. Those are all singular facets of the story. You're just pulling reasons to hate it out of your ass. I think the reason this film was panned was because the source material isn't typical audience friendly Hollywood stuff. To Van Sant's credit, I personally think he did the best he could given that the plot of the movie is about a bunch of children murdering other children. Yes the depiction of a gun being delivered directly to the kid's home and him signing for it was absurd, but the rest of it seems pretty spot on. Some teenagers are bitchy little assholes, some are popular jerkoffs, some of them are terribly socially inept, others are depraved homosexual loners that like killing people. To be honest, other than the gun coming straight to the kid's house I didn't think the rest of the film was "anti-gun". Sure there were technical errors like the kids not aiming or the Carbon 15 not having sights, but those are trivial gripes and not indicative of any anti-gun bias. (Note: having said all that, I'm sure Van Sant is a rabid anti after having read a few interviews of him, but I don't think his stance on guns is evident in this film) Elephant is a film based on historic incidents featuring fictionalized characters, probably to avoid possible lawsuits from the families of the Columbine victims. I realize that the film was slow paced and frankly I'm surprised so many posters here actually had the attention span to sit through it. The long steady-cam shots can be rather monotonous, but that's how GVS chose to tell the story. In Elephant, the steady cam and dolly shots were a poorly implemented means of building suspense. Note to GVS, you're not Kubrick! None of the actors' performances were particularly striking, but it seemed realistic and true to what most high school aged kids are like. Actually I take that back, the nerdy library assistant Michelle was portrayed very well IMO. Though she spoke but a handful of words, the scene in the locker room when she was sitting in front of the gossipy little bitches is spot-on accurate to what high school is like these days. And the character of Michelle did exactly what I imagined she would do, she sat there and took it without saying a word to the others. Overall I give Elephant a 6.5/10. It's a depressing film about a depressing subject.

if those were "just" scenes with no meaning as to the anti gun aspect of the film why not show them playing some game like madden or tiger woods golf, a shit load of teenages do that? hmmm why dont they have mtv on the telly? many many more do that then whatch a history channel like program? Gun website? any given day more teenagers would be looking at porn or on some site like myspace. why did they choose these? because they all revolve around guns and then implied notion that they lead to violence, if you cant see that youre blind.

thanks for movie summary, im pretty sure we all knew what it was about. There are many movies that deal with sad or depressing subjects that are very well put together, this movie isnt one of them.

Im only 25, so highschool is still fresh in my memory, i know what its like.

but since you make smartass comments like "I'm surprised so many posters here actually had the attention span to sit through it." its obvious youre little more than a....

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: seems to put a lot of blame l on video games, history channel, gun websites, blah blah blah Haha, dude what the hell. It showed the blonde kid playing some generic FPS for like 15 seconds, gave maybe two minutes total of screen time to the kids watching a Hitler documentary and showed one of them looking at a gun website for maybe five seconds. Those are all singular facets of the story. You're just pulling reasons to hate it out of your ass. I think the reason this film was panned was because the source material isn't typical audience friendly Hollywood stuff. To Van Sant's credit, I personally think he did the best he could given that the plot of the movie is about a bunch of children murdering other children. Yes the depiction of a gun being delivered directly to the kid's home and him signing for it was absurd, but the rest of it seems pretty spot on. Some teenagers are bitchy little assholes, some are popular jerkoffs, some of them are terribly socially inept, others are depraved homosexual loners that like killing people. To be honest, other than the gun coming straight to the kid's house I didn't think the rest of the film was "anti-gun". Sure there were technical errors like the kids not aiming or the Carbon 15 not having sights, but those are trivial gripes and not indicative of any anti-gun bias. (Note: having said all that, I'm sure Van Sant is a rabid anti after having read a few interviews of him, but I don't think his stance on guns is evident in this film) Elephant is a film based on historic incidents featuring fictionalized characters, probably to avoid possible lawsuits from the families of the Columbine victims. I realize that the film was slow paced and frankly I'm surprised so many posters here actually had the attention span to sit through it. The long steady-cam shots can be rather monotonous, but that's how GVS chose to tell the story. In Elephant, the steady cam and dolly shots were a poorly implemented means of building suspense. Note to GVS, you're not Kubrick! None of the actors' performances were particularly striking, but it seemed realistic and true to what most high school aged kids are like. Actually I take that back, the nerdy library assistant Michelle was portrayed very well IMO. Though she spoke but a handful of words, the scene in the locker room when she was sitting in front of the gossipy little bitches is spot-on accurate to what high school is like these days. And the character of Michelle did exactly what I imagined she would do, she sat there and took it without saying a word to the others. Overall I give Elephant a 6.5/10. It's a depressing film about a depressing subject. if those were "just" scenes with no meaning as to the anti gun aspect of the film why not show them playing some game like madden or tiger woods golf, a shit load of teenages do that? hmmm why dont they have mtv on the telly? many many more do that then whatch a history channel like program? Gun website? any given day more teenagers would be looking at porn or on some site like myspace. why did they choose these? because they all revolve around guns and then implied notion that they lead to violence, if you cant see that youre blind. thanks for movie summary, im pretty sure we all knew what it was about. There are many movies that deal with sad or depressing subjects that are very well put together, this movie isnt one of them. Im only 25, so highschool is still fresh in my memory, i know what its like. but since you make smartass comments like "I'm surprised so many posters here actually had the attention span to sit through it." its obvious youre little more than a....

if those were "just" scenes with no meaning as to the anti gun aspect of the film why not show them playing some game like madden or tiger woods golf, a shit load of teenages do that?

Those scenes were included in the film because it's a documented fact that the Columbine shooters were fascinated with Hitler, Doom and guns! The two shooters are based on Klebold and Harris, that's why the scenes were included! There's no blatant anti-gun agenda in this film. It's no "Runaway Jury" or "All The Rage". The most anti-gun moment of the film may very well be a technical error (when the guns are delivered to the home) due to ignorance on behalf of the filmmakers, not bias.

Oh and I got your "troll" right here, ya fag hussy.

Quoted: Per Gus Van Sant in a interview he did about the movie. Elephant is about the Elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. Which he beleives is a overmacho, uberviolent society that promots violence. GUNS, VIDEO GAMES,SPORTS etc. And that schools look the other way when kids are harassed by other kids and there for force kids to act out.

Worth repeating.  If the schools didn't tolerate/ignore/encourage the asshole jocks & preppy types bullying anybody who didn't fit their little clique then there probably wouldn't be any school shootings,  period.  

If girls directed their rage outward instead of inward we'd see some of those snotty rich-bitch cheeleader cvnts getting their just desserts also.  They're worse than the over-macho (repressed homosexual) prick jocks when it comes to constant, nonstop harrassment of outsiders.    

shit, very late to this, but watched this the other night on HBO I think (thought it was Showtime, but another thread was saying HBO was airing it).

nothing new I have to add other than wtf.

The Carbon 15 was the best.  And no, someone mentioned sights, rewound a few times and he clearly doesn't have any sights on top.  First off I thought to myself of all the ARs they could of had, they find the most non-AR looking type.   Why not get the basic evil triangular handguard version that everyone who hates guns would know is an M16?  So I'm guessing the tards who made this borrowed this particular bushy from someone, which made them look stupid in my opinion, and I curse the dumbass who owned it and let them use it in the movie, not to mention it's taking an obvious stab at Bushmaster

not to mention neither kid seems to know how to use the sights on either the Tec-9 or the AR, so they just shoot from the side.  How stupid.

The ending ruined the movie in my opinion, didn't show at all an entry by SWAT or the like, didn't show the kids commiting suicide, all in all, a ghey artsy film about how evil firearms are.