Boys Behaving Badly
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Well Bob, I will agree with the inordinate amount of people out there who seem to worship Scarface but don't get the message behind it... But then there're people who think Walter White is a hero too so, shows you how messed up people's thought processes can be. I will definitely be seeing this one, though I may wait as I don't go to the theater for mild movies anymore. I feel theater watching is an experience, where I can see things like Avengers come to life. At home I will enjoy my comedies and dramas (depending on scale) because there's a more intimate setting and I'll be damned if I miss a part of a movie cuz I'm laughing too damn hard. REWIND FTW.
I think the reason people miss that "Fight Club" is about a condemnation of Tyler Durden is because most of the parts of the movie that carry any resonance are the things that Tyler Durden says and does. The movie sets out to make Tyler's philosophy seem attractive to help the audience understand why he was able to gather a following, but the movie doesn't afford the same appeal to pointing out the ugly side of it. The biggest point in the movie that's supposed to drive home the danger of Tyler Durden's philosophy is the death of Robert Paulsen, but all anyone remembers from that scene is "His name is Robert Paulsen", which may subtly point out the absurdity that Project Mayhem had become, but when people quote it, it's humorous because it's a (perhaps unintentionally) funny scene and Robert Paulsen is made out to be a humorous character.
Aside from that, the worst Project Mayhem does is blow up a bunch of buildings that Tyler assures the audience had no people in them. So a substantial portion of the audience walks away feeling like Project Mayhem had some good ideas (read "quotable one-liners") but took them too far. My generation found a lot of the basic ideas (commercialism is bad, social conventions are stupid, messing with society is fun) appealing and thus could easily ignore or overlook the parts where everything goes to shit. It certainly didn't help that the entire third act is dedicated to the twist of the movie rather than solely focusing on the resolution of the Project Mayhem franchise.
So yeah, people who walk away positively quoting Tyler Durden are definitely missing the intended purpose of the movie, but it's only because the movie didn't do a very good job making its intentions as emotionally resonant as the stuff we were supposed to come away dismissing as manipulative bullshit.
Aside from that, the worst Project Mayhem does is blow up a bunch of buildings that Tyler assures the audience had no people in them. So a substantial portion of the audience walks away feeling like Project Mayhem had some good ideas (read "quotable one-liners") but took them too far. My generation found a lot of the basic ideas (commercialism is bad, social conventions are stupid, messing with society is fun) appealing and thus could easily ignore or overlook the parts where everything goes to shit. It certainly didn't help that the entire third act is dedicated to the twist of the movie rather than solely focusing on the resolution of the Project Mayhem franchise.
So yeah, people who walk away positively quoting Tyler Durden are definitely missing the intended purpose of the movie, but it's only because the movie didn't do a very good job making its intentions as emotionally resonant as the stuff we were supposed to come away dismissing as manipulative bullshit.
I've heard Bob mention Scarface negatively before and really didn't understand where he's coming from but now I totally understand.
I've watched Scarface with a group of friends, one of whom (a "friend" rather than actual friend) watched to the end and proclaimed "that main guy is my fucking hero!", apparently not paying enough attention to remember his name... Sigh.
I've watched Scarface with a group of friends, one of whom (a "friend" rather than actual friend) watched to the end and proclaimed "that main guy is my fucking hero!", apparently not paying enough attention to remember his name... Sigh.
Really? The original Wall Street didn't make it up there with Fight Club and Scarface? Gordon Gekko is an actual role model [http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/05/entertainment/ca-wallstreet5] for modern traders.
Is "Wolf of Wall Street" even out yet for wide release? And it's getting all these accolades like "Best Film of the Year" now? I even heard the same things about "American Hustle". I'd like to hear what Bob would say about that, given it's from the same guy that made "Silver Lining Playbook", which Bob hated.
Aww...amaranth_dru said:
Well, I never thought that he was a hero, just that he was never the "greatest evil" that a lot of people made him out to be, to me, Tuco was just plain satanic because he enjoyed the pain and misery he was causing, whereas White only ever did such things out of necessity, or deperately tried to rationalise his decisions.
Not a person I'd want to be with (S5) for any extended period of time, but certainly not a person that I would tremble in fear out of.
OT: I really want to go see this movie, even if it wasn't "all that", Scorcese still makes it worth seeing alone.
"They're would-be Warriors of Capitalism who probably identify more with Scrooge McDuck than Ayn Rand (mostly because it's more likely that they've heard of Scrooge McDuck.)"
So HELP me Bob, if I see this and the Ducktales theme starts running through my head, I'm going to be so pissed...I mean for the interruption, not for hating the song or anything.
So HELP me Bob, if I see this and the Ducktales theme starts running through my head, I'm going to be so pissed...I mean for the interruption, not for hating the song or anything.
Not to mention that much of Durden's philosophy isn't bad in and of itself - it's the unblinking plunge into excess that makes the whole thing go south.Pat Hulse said:
It wouldn't have mattered either whether the movie dedicated its entire third act to condemning the results of unchecked masochistic nihilism - just look over to Scarface for a confirmation. Doing so would merely ruin the tone, and rob us of one of the more hilarious movie endings. (The last 5 seconds or so before credits roll)
For Fight Club, fans rally to it because they feel it gives them something easy to blame for whatever issues they have with modern living. Hate your job? Must be because you're a conformist sheep brainwashed to believe your life can't be complete without consumer goods. Yeah, that's it. Tyler uses the traditional myth of the macho manly man as a kind of spiritual ideal even as he (un)knowingly(?) transforms that ideal into the same soul-crushing conformity it became in the 1950's where gender-roles were slowly changing and rather than adapt the old guard enacted a campaign of rigid uniformity, ultimately dooming the very ideals they hoped to preserve to a slow extinction in the hands of the Rich White Right and their Poor Misinformed constituents.
I dunno - I find Goodfellas to be completely hilarious. It's in my top five favourite movie list, and I consider it a comedy more than anything else. The only other film that's funny in my top five is A Clockwork Orange - but I don't think of that as a comedy as I do with Goodfellas.MovieBob said:
Don't get me wrong, I love Breaking Bad. But if you watch Walt closely, his actions are all selfish as hell. While Tuco was a psychopath, thats a different form of evil. To me the worst form of evil is the one that attempts to justify its actions rationally.Akichi Daikashima said:
When he killed off Fring, his reasoning was that Fring was going to kill him and Jesse. But in reality he just didn't want to be under Fring's thumb. He resented it much as he resented his college "friends" "stealing" his company and giving him nothing in the way of credit or cash. In truth, long before he started cooking Meth, Walt was an egotistical jerk with massive issues. Everything he did was for his own glory disguised as "for my family". Thats why I feel he was the biggest evil. Also he did poison Brock, and didn't seem to feel bad about it except that he might get caught.
I don't know, I usually file his actions under:amaranth_dru said:
He has been ridiculed for a large portion of his life, and has been betrayed by two of his best friends(the Schwarzes) so the fact that this sort of discontent carries over into his motivations like say, killing Gus, isn't that strange to me, as this is a deep resentment that he has been hiding away behind niceties
I wouldn't classify him as anti-hero, I do agree that he has fallen a bit too much, but by the end, he redeems himself in a way:
He understands who he is and why he truly does the things he does, at the point at which he realizes this, he begins to repent for his crimes and resolve all of his problems, if he was a true monster, I don't think that he would've fucked around with the Schwarzes the way that he did, it would've been closer to the way he talked to Skyler when she wanted to keep the kids away from him ("What exactly ARE you going to do?")(in terms of what he would've done)
Jesse though, was never an anti-hero, he was always the underdog, and the moral compass of the series, in a way, he is the reason that Walter doesn't go full psycho.
I don't know really, it could be that it's just me who thinks that Walter isn't that evil, and in comparison to the other bad guys of the series, he is nowhere close to the likes of:
Tuco, The Twins, The Cartel Boss or The Nazis(I can't be the only one who thought it was ridiculous that the writers introduced Nazis to make Walter seem vaguely heroic?) yes, they are a different class of evil, but they still are evil, and I feel that it is right to compare them with Walt, as they represent what he might become and he fears he will become: psychotic, vengeful, remorseless. Gus though, again doesn't count for me because I believe him to be just a businessman. It could just be that I might have less disdain towards Lawful/Neutral Evil than most people
These comments are oddly philosophical, or maybe not considering the internet is a medium for discussion.
I think something that never really comes up in these movies is that numbers kill and empathy is why you don't do bad things. There should be at least one of these movies that brings up and goes in depth about the people who die and have horrible lives directly as a consequence of selfish powerful people. That's the real evil that isn't explored in movies about gangsters and such.
I think something that never really comes up in these movies is that numbers kill and empathy is why you don't do bad things. There should be at least one of these movies that brings up and goes in depth about the people who die and have horrible lives directly as a consequence of selfish powerful people. That's the real evil that isn't explored in movies about gangsters and such.
You know, after saying something like that it's a good idea to actually explain your opinion, otherwise you risk sounding like a pretentious douchebag.Alandoril said:
For me, Tyler's point of existence in AND out of the movie is summed up by one sentence "I'm all you ever wanted to be but couldn't."
