Sometimes all we can do is follow things through until we end up gutshot, y'know.
Fred: It's the pictures in my mind that are getting me. It's like being stuck in a really bad movie with those Clockwork Orange clampy things on my eyeballs. Wesley: Why imagine? Reality's disturbing enough.
'Shells'
Buffista Movies 4: Straight to Video
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Hayden - Jul 15, 2005 10:22:46 am PDT #5675 of 10002
aka "The artist formerly known as Corwood Industries."
Strega - Jul 15, 2005 10:30:59 am PDT #5676 of 10002
Calli -- I saw the second half of Tape a while back while channel-surfing, and that's about when it starts getting fucked-up. It's just about impossible to talk about without giving things away, though. Stuff does happen.
Just to confuse P-C further...
Corwood--
the final massacre at Agua Verde, where Pike finally does the right thing for the right reason and dies for his convictions.See, this I totally disagree with. It does seem to be a popular interpretation, but I don't get it. I mean, ra-ra loyalty and all that, but they don't decide to slaughter the entire town out of loyalty to Angel. It's just what they do, because they're a bunch of bastards. I don't see it so much as Pike being noble and doing The Right Thing. It is important for him, personally, because he's always abandoning people, but it's just as much ennui. They've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. Time's up. If they hadn't killed Angel, I don't think it would have changed a thing.
(Oh, and P-C, I haven't seen any of the Godfather movies, either. I have some affection for Coppola, and I believe they're good, but I think I'd be bored by them. Not my kind of story. It happens.)
erikaj - Jul 15, 2005 10:31:58 am PDT #5677 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!
True enough...my aim's terrible, I think you're safe, Corwood. (Cancels Strega's Wire-conversion pitch.) Because if the Godfather looks boring, the Wire would be like paint drying for you.
Sean K - Jul 15, 2005 10:32:23 am PDT #5678 of 10002
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty
LiT is a movie that hit me so hard I can hardly bear to hear people say anything bad about it.
This is me. My stepmom hates LiT with the burning fiery passion of a thousand white-hot suns, but every time she starts to say bad stuff about it, it feels like she's saying how much she virulently loathes me as a person.
Calli - Jul 15, 2005 10:33:42 am PDT #5679 of 10002
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
I saw the second half of Tape a while back while channel-surfing, and that's about when it starts getting fucked-up. It's just about impossible to talk about without giving things away, though. Stuff does happen.
Righty-o. I've got the DVD through Monday, so maybe I'll give it another shot. Thanks!
JohnSweden - Jul 15, 2005 10:41:56 am PDT #5680 of 10002
I can't even.
LiT is a movie that hit me so hard I can hardly bear to hear people say anything bad about it.
Me four, totally. It is perfect. I liked Before Sunrise/Sunset quite a bit too, although I did find myself finding the second a bit too talky by the end (crazy, I know). I think I need to re-watch.
Garden State, I enjoyed quite a bit, and could see it again anytime. Eternal Sunshine was an excellent movie, but personally quite disturbing (issues), and I won't be in a hurry to see it again soon.
Polter-Cow - Jul 15, 2005 10:44:37 am PDT #5681 of 10002
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
they don't decide to slaughter the entire town out of loyalty to Angel. It's just what they do, because they're a bunch of bastards.
I like this interpretation better. Heh.
Atropa - Jul 15, 2005 10:49:49 am PDT #5682 of 10002
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
LiT is a movie that hit me so hard I can hardly bear to hear people say anything bad about it.
Substitute Big Fish for LiT, and this is me.
I liked LiT a lot, but don't have it enshrined in my heart.
erikaj - Jul 15, 2005 10:51:36 am PDT #5683 of 10002
Always Anti-fascist!
Sort of missed the great big LIT love. But I'm a freak and there were no bodies...it was me, I accept it. I enjoyed it, though. "rah-rah loyalty" is one of my favorite themes ever...sometimes makes me cry...I was a fucking mess during the John Kerry movie, for fuck's sake...all those Sobotka-esque machinists and stuff standing up for "The Captain"...Damn. Sniveling wreck, especially when that one vet started talking about when you face death, everything else you live through is extra... tough guys talking about their feelings kill me.
Hayden - Jul 15, 2005 10:53:27 am PDT #5684 of 10002
aka "The artist formerly known as Corwood Industries."
I won't talk about LiT here again, so as not to worry anyone. See, I like it quite a bit.
See, this I totally disagree with. It does seem to be a popular interpretation, but I don't get it. I mean, ra-ra loyalty and all that, but they don't decide to slaughter the entire town out of loyalty to Angel. It's just what they do, because they're a bunch of bastards. I don't see it so much as Pike being noble and doing The Right Thing. It is important for him, personally, because he's always abandoning people, but it's just as much ennui. They've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. Time's up. If they hadn't killed Angel, I don't think it would have changed a thing.
I think our disagreement may be a little more subtle. When I said he's doing the right thing, I meant for him personally. I don't think it's so much about loyalty to Angel (although that's definitely why Mapache dies) and nobility and all that garbage as it is about Pike accepting that yes, he has nowhere to go (as Dutch says earlier in the film to his notion that they'll do this last job and back off, "Back off to where?") and time has passed him by, but by god, if he's going to kill a bunch of people, rather than doing it in another botched robbery plan or rather than killing his best friend, who he wronged, he's going to do it right there in Agua Verde because a) he's paid a lot of lip service to the notion of the Bunch staying together (which is, as you point out, quite important to him to actually do what he says for once) and b) he's driven by his disgust at the forces of progress, which, in that place, are represented by the Germans and the uniforms. I think that's why Peckinpah goes out of his way to show that it's a child who shoots him, because, as illustrated by the earlier scene in which Mapache stands the bombing by Pancho Villa in order to use the telegraph, the children hero-worship Mapache. Pike has to die because he's a relic, and he knows it, and for him, the exact right thing to do in that situation is to struggle in vain against the future, ostensibly to uphold the values that he's been paying lip-service to when it suits his purpose. He has to prove to himself that being a bastard to the world is alright as long as you're not one to your compadres. I mean, he's wrong, but that's how I read that fucking incredible look on his face in those couple of seconds between shooting Mapache and shooting the German.
Also, I should point out that Pike originally thinks of Mapache as just another outlaw like the Bunch, but Dutch points out that they don't hang people. Mapache is a completely different sort of bastard, and I think that Pike figures that out when Mapache won't sell Angel back to them.
Edit - On re-read, I'm sorry for the convoluted sentences. If I could make heads or tails of them, I'd rewrite this for clarity.