Yeah. He talks about the first time he heard Hitler speak and how inspired he found his message. He also reminds us that he took a bullet for the party in 1933. We also learn about what may be the root of his antisemitism concerning the Jewish man he was actually named after.
I’ve heard enough about scenes in that movie to know I could never watch it! I don’t understand how people can see stuff like that on film and it doesn’t haunt you the rest of your life. I think as a result I miss out on some genuinely good films. And some I have wanted to see so badly that I just read the script. I read the script for Seven, for example, and no way in hell am I watching that. Another one I want to see but don’t want to see is High Life with Robert Pattinson. Instead of watching the film I will just read about it. I’ve never seen Reservoir Dogs despite being a Tarantino fan. It’s not violence per se but torture and human cruelty that I have a hard time with. John Wick? Absolutely. Schindler’s List? I cannot.
I marvel at people who can sit through that stuff. And I’m a little jealous.
Likewise. I managed to get through Everything Everywhere All at Once, because I’ve been a huge Michelle Yeoh fan since her early movies with Jackie Chan. But, wow, EEAaO blasts the viewer with so much violence, it numbs me to any entertainment value or editorial focus.
It sounds like you’re even more sensitive than me. My first reaction to that was, “Wait, was there violence in that movie?”
Yes, lots of action stuff as I recall. I really like action, especially martial arts/gun-fu type stuff. That film gave me zero problems. I’m not even particularly sensitive to gore. It’s more like intentional infliction of prolonged suffering, and that can be true even if it’s not violent at all. Like the end of Ex-Machina messed me up. I didn’t “get it” at first, I really think it’s a brilliant ending in retrospect. But the callousness of the android really got to me. I had an anxiety attack. For real.
The problem is I can’t not vividly imagine myself in that person’s position. I don’t like to imagine those things.
I forgot which article I read about it, but, whether he “has issues” or just be that good an actor, there is a reason he was originally cast as Mad Max and Martin Riggs and other characters who have “issues”.
The novel on which this is based, The Hunter by Richard Stark (a pen name of Donald Westlake), is a violent crime novel about Parker, a lone-wolf sociopathic career criminal after revenge and his share of a violent heist he got double crossed out of. He basically kills his way through the Mob hierarchy, each time when someone refuses to pay him his money (a relatively trivial sum for the Mob). Westlake wrote 24 novels about Parker (this was the first one), so the formula seems to have been successful.
I will say that the Gibson version is inferior to John Boorman’s 1967 version starring Lee Marvin, Point Blank.
WAR MACHINE on Netflix. The one with Alan Ritchson (Reacher), not the same title with Brad Pitt.
Ritchson is deeply disturbed by not getting to the finish line (saving his brother). He goes from Combat Engineer to becoming a Ranger. The first portion is him (#81) going through the rigor of the training - realistic. Doing the final test with the rest of his surviving classmates - things get weird. Think PREDATOR blended with TRANSFORMERS. They could have cut the final hokey rah-rah scene. 1-1/2 stars.
It’s okay for a rainy/snowy shut in afternoon viewing. Some really physical aspects - scenery. Richson, who is huge, admitted he was beaten to a pulp from the action shots.
I remember that I went to see Casino when it came out, and I remember that it was pretty dark and violent, but I honestly don’t remember anything specific that happened in it. I think a lot of us may be just more lumpishly apathetic about suffering than you are!
My Aunt told me about Casino like fifteen years ago and I didn’t even see it and I remember it. She’s like me, only she watches the stuff and suffers accordingly. And then tells me about it.
It’s interesting because people knowing this about me have warned me off some things that turned out to be a nothing burger. My uncle was shocked when I demanded he see The Raid: Redemption, which is an incredibly brutal film. There are parts that push my limits but it’s mostly just full of awesome. (He agreed.)
Whereas something like the original Oldboy god, I watched that in college and I’m still traumatized. I was so mad at the close friend who recommended it. He really should have known better.
The thing is that there are some truly exceptional films I’m missing out on, and I know this, and it sucks.
Strangely tame and dull. I expected something more out there or possibly intense. Or maybe even a horror-comedy?
Nah, it’s just a pretty standard movie. Very average or below average. I found myself checking the time a lot. I can assure you, it goes nowhere really. It could have been 30 minutes long.
The Nightingale was a perfect example of a movie where the violence was so personal and shocking, I felt it even though it was obviously not real. Early in the film, the bad guy takes a baby and hands it to his colleague/thug. Baby won’t stop crying, so he has the thug bang it against the wall until it is dead.
I can’t think of any moment in any* film that equals that moment.
*Note: I just realized Schindler’s List probably equals it, but I only saw that one time a long time ago.
Also saw this recently and think that’s underselling it a bit. I’d call it a slightly above average popcorn action movie that manages to be a bit unpredictable in its predictability. Strong Predator vibes, for sure, but better than many of the Predator sequels.
You might want to put the rest of that quote behind a spoiler so people don’t have to read about such a disturbing thing if they don’t want to. Especially after Spice_Weasel specifically said how just reading stuff like that will haunt her.