I saw the Tom Hanks movie last week. I kinda liked it, though I’m not really sure why. There person I went with thought it was so completely stupid.
Did this movie contain deep hidden meaning, allusion, and theme? Or was it just random sillyness that made for a kinda stupid movie?
Spoilers Follow…
For instance, what was the signifigance of the cat dropping the finger at the end of the movie. Or the fact that they kept dumping the bodies over that bridge. Did the dump itself represent something?
Could any of you who saw the movie elaborate on the movie’s genius, or maybe you thought it was silly and meaningless?
I thought it was silly but totally worth full-price admission. It was entertainment: no great moral message or hidden meaning (unless it was really well hidden), just darkly comic fun. And as Chris Rock once observed of cornbread, “nuttin wrong with that!”
The original Lady Killers had some of the greatest actors in British history: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, etc.- and was also just a funny dark comedy that holds up 50 years later. The same is true of the Coen Bros. other movies Raising Arizona, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and Hudsucker Proxy.
Of course I have to admit- I’m what many on this board would consider low-brow in my choice of movies. Sometimes I watch movies for no other purpose than to laugh or for escapism and I actually get annoyed when otherwise enjoyable light fare tries to tack on depth. For depth I prefer reading and conversation (not to say that there haven’t been some “deep” movies I like, but it takes a helluva lotta talent to pack that much meaning into a two hour audio-video package).
So my opinion: silly but not meaningless. And Marlon Wayans was absolutely hysterical. And I want an outfit just like Tom Hanks’s.
They’ve also made Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Intolerable Cruelty. All of which are really, really good. Even the bad ones.
I didn’t see any deeper meaning to it, but I don’t think that makes it a stupid movie. I just loved Tom Hanks in general in this movie. I think it was Elvis Mitchell who observed he played his character like something straight out of Mark Twain. Great fun. I liked the costume AND the mannerisms.
The more I thought about it after I saw it, the more I thought that it was all a beautiful homage to Poe. There were certainly enough allusions to bring Poe to mind, and Tom Hanks’ character is pretty similiar to the stereotypical Poe protagonist/antagonist, there is the element of the Perfect Crime, which Poe explores in his non-horror fiction, there are several allusions to walling/entombing people alive, there is self-destructive behaivor…and of course, Hanks is literally hit over the head with a Raven–pretty anvilicious.
I didn’t enjoy the movie very much while I was watching, but by the time I reached my house, I elevated it to “Must See Again” status. It appeals to the geeky English major in me.
The main thing I wondered was why they made the old lady so enamored of Bob Jones University, one of the least sympathetic and closed-minded institutions in America (no pants for women, no interracial dating, creationism rather than evolution, etc.). They’re some of the last people in America that you’d
want to see receive a $1 million+ gift
which made me wonder why it was written that way. (In the original British movie
the old lady just keeps the money; you know she’s going to buy a new umbrella but that’s about it.
BTW, I love the whole scene in the Waffle House (which wasn’t called Waffle House, but was obviously based on same), and every scene between J.K. Simmons (damn he’s good- who’d think seeing him play the world’s biggest neo-Nazi bastard on OZ that he’s a great comic actor which he is in this and in Spiderman) and Marlon Wayans, and the General’s reaction to the gangbangers in his donut store. This was just one of those movies where I didn’t go five minutes without laughing out loud and that’s something I can say of very few comedies.
I didn’t see this as an homage to BJU. I saw it as a way of painting the woman as simple and pure of motive. She’s a good Christian woman and Bob Jones is, as far as she knows, a good Christian University. She’s doing what she sees as right; giving the money to BJU may be the Coen Brothers’ way of getting a little dig at Christianity while allowing that there are good Christian folk with pure, unselfish motives.
I joked that the ending actually made it a horror movie. Good old BJU is a pretty easy target and I thought they were just getting some laughs from it while confirming Marva’s character.
I thought the old woman’s support of Bob Jones University was a pretty good fit for the character. I hesitate to claim an informed opinion, but everything I’ve seen about BJU (Even when the source is from someone who’s desperately looking to pick a fight with them, such as in Al Franken’s latest book.) paints them not so much as vicious racist but as hopelessly naive and outmoded. Which sounds a lot like the old woman in The Ladykillers. I could almost see her supporting BJU’s policy against inter-racial dating, not because she’s racist herself, but simply because people didn’t do that sort of thing when she was growing up, and she’s incapable of adjusting with the times.
Well, let’s see… they were all criminals corrupt by greed. The loss of the finger served as a warning. The cat was simply trying to lead them away from a life of crime - it was doing them a favor!! They should have learned from this, and stopped. But did they? Nnnoooooooo… They all ended up dead as doornails. The dropping of the bodies off of the bridge onto the bardge was showing them for what they really were - trash. Everybody gets their just reward. A place for everything and everything in its place. That’s where they belonged. With the trash
The little old lady represented the goodness and purity in the world. She was charitable, honset, and hospitable. Her role served to show that once again good triumphs over evil. She trusted the criminals, who were obviously lieing to her the whole time. However, she was never trusted by the authorities (luckily for BJU), and all she ever did was tell the truth. This goes to show that you can’t always trust who you thought you could, but sometimes you can trust who you thought you couldn’t (crazy little old ladies included).
I can’t believe you didn’t pick all of this stuff out!!!
I saw the cat dropping the finger off as complete irony.
The master plan was to get the money and leave without a trace like they were never there.
It was ironic because in the end they never got the money but they all still disappeared without a trace like they wanted to. The cat was just helping them along by making sure there was not a single trace of them left.
