If you’re talking about the book Into the Wild and not the movie, I don’t know that it was really intended to have a “message” in the sense of a moral. I think it was more about solving the mystery of why Christopher McCandless of Fairfax, VA, who hadn’t been seen or heard from by his family in two years, was found dead in Alaska’s Denali National Park.
This is getting away from the actual topic, but what really annoyed me was that the betrayal seemed so out of character. Movieverse Magneto might not be a nice guy, but making him so racist that he’d cold-heartedly abandon Mystique because she was turned into a human against her will while saving him? That struck me as blatant character assassination.
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And I’ll add *Snow White *to the mix: Girls, it’s OK if you do nothing proactively to take charge of your own life and get yourself out of trouble. Just wait for a man to come along and make it all better!
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Funny, a few weeks ago I was listening to the podcast of an ultra conservative radio program giving their list of the most conservative/pro-American films of all time. Snow made the cut because it showed a woman’s true place in society and the proper role of men.
Icerigger, can you remember where you found this, or what some of the other titles were? I’m curious what they meant by “pro-American.”
Sorry, but I refuse to believe that intelligent people are any less entitled to, or capable of having fun.
Irrelevant to the point at hand since the main character was exceedingly capable of enjoying herself while maintaining grades good enough to get into a top tier school. But top tier isn’t good enough. They had to drive home that her desire to do well in school while embracing all she found enjoyable in life (silly little things like art, jazz, opera, foreign cultures/language) could only end in disaster. She poked her head out once, almost got killed, and scurried back into her hole to be a good little cog.
This is not to say I didn’t like the movie. I thought it was one of the years best. It just makes the main character so much more tragic.
So the movie made explicitly clear. He was a bank account number to them.
Works does not have to be what you do to live; it can be what you live to do.
Money means a lot to me, not so I can buy more stuff, but to minimize the chance I will end up tied to my wheel chair facing the wall in a nasty nursing home stinking of piss and lysol.
Thank you.
Shudder. Terrible movie.
Agreed with everything you said, except I liked the movie. I liked the evolution of his character. I just hated Maggie Gyllenhall and found her a self serving idiot. That’s besides the fact that anyone who is 30 could truly fall in love with anyone who is 60. That itself was too unbelievable.
Lost in Translation
You have a free week in Tokyo!! You have complete freedom while your husband is working. You can see what you want and take as much time doing it, nobody saying “this is boring” or “are we there yet?”
Stop brooding, get out of your room, and explore this fascinating place!
As for the OP, this is a great thread but your takeaway on Full Metal Jacket may not be as contrarian as you thought.
I started a thread a few months ago that discussed this, and the consensus seemed to be that Hartman was not a bad guy nor did Kubrick deliberately set out to make him into a bad guy.
Actually, that was the message you were supposed to take away.
And, yes, of course Sinclair was a socialist, he self-ID’d and once ran for governor of California, as a Dem but on an avowedly socialist platform.
That is a better message than the clearly intended one, which is that virtue is more important than intelligence – not in any scale of abstract values but in bringing material success. Sorry. Real-life Forrest Gumps can do a lot more than get by, but they do not get rich, not by their own labors.
And the message – the intended message, and it’s hard to find any other – in Annie Get Your Gun is that a woman can’t get her man unless she sacrifices her own colossal ego to his and lets him win.
Regarding another Tom Hanks movie – I’m not sure if it’s a matter of taking away the wrong thing or simply a matter of an alternate interpretation, but for Philadelphia I was never clear on how exactly the law firm was supposed to be at fault in firing Andy. Yes, the partners were revealed to be homophobic – to a spittle-flecked, mustache-twirling extent – but at the end of the day wasn’t it still clear that Andy was fired because he screwed up in filing his paperwork on an important case? Still, if Andy opens his shirt and the whole courtroom gasps at the sight of his Karposi’s sarcomas, suddenly it’s clear that he’s a victim and the evil lawyers must pay. Huh?
Knowing Orwell’s work and life as I do, I can definitely tell you, that was not Orwell’s intention. (Even when he did treat midlife crisis he kinda politicized the treatment – see Coming Up for Air.) But, this thread is about the unintended impressions.
In the real world, marriages are for couples; weddings are for brides. Ever see a magazine called Modern Groom?
I tell ya, the message I take away is that “law is even worse than crime.” I don’t care who the suspect is or how unsympathetic a character or how horrible the crime or how obvious the guilt; when Jack McCoy is at the other table I always want him/her to walk.
The film doesn’t say it outright, the villain does. She’s the antagonist for a reason. And the love interest? He’s in danger of leaving Ariel for a woman who, unlike her, can talk.
casablanca is recognised as one of the most romantic films of all time. i only really like it when i’m in justoutofarelationship full on mysoginistic mode - all women are bitches. rik in cynical woman-hating mood is great to watch. the worst bit of the film is the flashback to paris where they’re all happy. and she was a bitch anyway. i see no romance in it. i’m glad when he sends her off at the end, but that’s cos he’s too good for her.
withnail and i - you’re definitely supposed to root for the I character. i root for withnail all the way through. and i don’t even like him.
Yes, the program is called The Political Cesspool. The only other films I remember were The Patriot and Shane.