I'm sorry but what I saw in this film was a pandering to a sickly patriotic ideal. The storyline was diabolical, I found it horribly acted and generally a horrificly sugar coated idea of politics. "Wag the Dog" presents a much more insightful funny and disturbing look at what politics is really like, be it America or on my side of the pond, Britain.
shareI dont find anything sickly about being patriotic or the ideal that good would triumph over corruption.
It's an older movie, so the acting is not as "realistic" as it is today.
Still a great movie.
And America is still the greatest country on the planet.
Here's a few more great movies bound to throw anti-Americans and habitual pessimists into a tizzy:
12 Angry Men, It's a Wonderful Life, Judgement in Nuremberg, and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Enjoy :)
All these movies you listed are far better than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Maybe you're not as pro-American as anti-intellectual?
shareThis promises to be a very long response, so I expect a little credit for warning ahead of time those to whom it is directed:
All these movies you listed are far better than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Maybe you're not as pro-American as anti-intellectual?
So, by extension, you're implying that you are "pro-intellectual" and, therefore, (by further extension) an "intellectual" yourself? Suffer arm fractures much from patting yourself on the back while hurling veiled insults at anyone who's not a part of your elitist little "intellectual" clique?
It's posts like yours, the OP's, and two or three others in this thread by your "intellectual" cronies that I find to be the REAL "rubbish" here.
Several other posts, admittedly less "back in your face" than mine, have already pointed out that this movie WAS, after all, made in 1939, when not only acting style was different and the Hayes Code was at the peak of its control over the entire Hollywood film industry, but such films as MSGTW were pretty much aligned with the mood and sentiments of the filmgoing public in that day, anyhow.
How do I know this? Well, for starters, I used to have grandparents and both of my parents are still among the living. I learned quite a bit from my parents and THEIRS that the Depresssion and WWII eras were a time of people pulling together in a common cause to not only survive, but beat all the odds; and they succeeded, or else you, I, and the rest of us would not even be here today to be arguinging the subject. But still the cynical persistence by you self-congratulatory "intellectuals!"
While I don't argue that there isn't a lot of corniness in this movie, it's the benign kind of corniness I truly wish flourished throughout 21st Century America and the entire world. They didn't call Frank Capra's pictures "Capra-corn" for nothing! (I'd insert a "lol" or laugh icon here, but it doesn't seem appropriate, given the rather severe tone of this post.)
The trouble with Frank Capra was, he was an immigrant! And one who came to appreciate the values and ideals he found in his new country, from a day and time (but even today, albeit to a lesser extent) in which America really did have something to offer those seeking a better way of life on these shores. Capra's films exemplify these values, these Rockwellesque ideals that Frank came to love and cherish. For my part, I am "all about" tolerance and "live and let live" toward those who can't see what Frank could see, but far less forgiving of mentalities (especially those of the OP and his ilk!) that seek to tear down, trample, and take a dump on what other people find comforting and meaningful.
We still have some Jefferson Smiths in this world (I'm trying really hard to find one in today's real-world Washington DC, but I don't think there's been one in many a year) who are DOERS and who accomplish great and wonderful things, both big and small. Wonder what the OP and his ilk, with THEIR attitude, have ever done for ANYBODY besides gag at the very thought of such concepts as doing good deeds for one's family, community and the less fortunate in his or her environment?
Just so I don't get accused of blowing smoke from my nether regions and talking in generalities, let me give you one concrete example of a "LADY Jefferson Smith" in my own community, who, like Frank Capra, is also an immigrant:
http://www.womensconference.org/betty-chinn/
On the obverse side of the coin, however, I don't know and have NEVER known so much as a single constructive, good, kind or unselfish thing that a sour-pussed, selfish, nihilistic, defeatist, eye-rolling, sneering cynic has ever done for anyone.
And YOU, white_magic, and the OP and your other like-minded "intellectuals" can just put THAT in your collective pipes and smoke it!
So, by extension, you're implying that you are "pro-intellectual" and, therefore, (by further extension) an "intellectual" yourself? Suffer arm fractures much from patting yourself on the back while hurling veiled insults at anyone who's not a part of your elitist little "intellectual" clique?
Thanks for the link, but it will probably be at least 5 days before I can check it out at length--vigorous work week among my three jobs, and all that.
Oho! Nice little rejoinder, reproduced in full, below, with my own responses inserted:
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So, by extension, you're implying that you are "pro-intellectual" and, therefore, (by further extension) an "intellectual" yourself? Suffer arm fractures much from patting yourself on the back while hurling veiled insults at anyone who's not a part of your elitist little "intellectual" clique?
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Yes, I have suffered from many arm fractures from continually patting myself on the back. Also, I touch myself at night. Thanks for asking.
A little more info than I I'd asked for, actually, but what the hey, YOU said it, not ME!
Your attempt at defending this movie just fails on so many levels. It seems like you had a post length in mind and just starting mashing your keyboard to meet it.
Actually, you should be able to deduce from the two times indicated for my post's compostion that I had re-edited many times to throw in more thoughts as I went along, besides correcting numerous typos and general polishing and re-polishing. I even added the "this promises to be long" at the beginning after it eventually ran into multi-paragraphs, as a friendly little warning to anyone who wouldn't want to delve in too deeply into the finished product.
When the majority of us called this movie the movie sentimental garbage that it is, Mr. NetShark took great offense to this and implied that we are 'Anti-American' for saying so - a kindergarten type of 'counter-argument' if I've ever seen one. "What's that, you disapprove of what I like? Well, you must be one of them AMERICA HATERS then!"
Hey, I have an uncle I love dearly, but he can't stand Jimmy Stewart and never could. I have no issue with anyone who doesn't find Stewart to be their cup of tea. Nor do my sentiments match in full the poster to whom you referred, though I'll speak in defense of my country when I believe it criticized unjustly but be among the first to speak scathingly of American policies gone awry, both foreign and domestic, and likewise toward any incompetent-to-corrupt politician, judicial figure, or anyone who abuses their authority and position.
But you seem to keep missing the boat that I and other posters have been attempting to point out, viz., that MSGTW is a Depression/WWII era flick meant to bring comfort and encouragement (along with the all-important entertainment factor, natch!) to the filmgoers living under the austere circumstances of that day; and your all-important "majority" in 1939 and their response to Stewart's "everyman" work in this picture (and probably his splendid performance in "Destry Rides Again," too, released that same year) is, in no small measure, what made him a household name and screen legend from that point onward--and why is that, you wonder? Because people back then could identify with Stewart and the type of character he brought to the screen and they especially liked the way his character, Jefferson Smith, "fought for lost causes." You do know that Stewart's Best Actor Oscar for "The Philadelphia Story" was mainly a consolation prize for losing to Robert Donat the previous year (for "Mr Smith..."), right?
Again, this film is the vision of a naturalized American citizen, one who had a capacity to appreciate what was good about his adopted nation and countrymen. It's been said that immigrants like Capra had proven to be among our best citizens and among those who loved America the most. At any rate, most folks love David-and-Goliath motifs except, I suppose, the type supposedly described by me in the next paragraph:
And then you chime in with.. "yes, this movie may be corny, outdated, perhaps childish, but you so-called-intellectuals could never appreciate a story of THE GOOD GUY beating THE BAD GUYS IN WASHINGTON, because you're so busy adjusting your monocles in your ivory towers..."
Your paraphrasing of some of my remarks? Not bad, not bad at all! Except the "childish" part. Thanks for the "adjusting the monocles in ivory towers" part, though; I might use that in future posts, wherever appropriate, and I'll always remember you for it!
And then the comment about the pipe?? What was that??? Were you in full cognitive capacity when you wrote that? Was that a lame attempt at an insult? Maybe we're talking to a little kid here.. if so, I'm sorry if we appeared harsh. Come back in a few years.
Plainly, YOU appear to be the one who's the "little kid," since by your very breath uttered above you've proven your incapability of comprehending an old, if quaint chestnut expression that simply means "think that one over!" (I'm 50, btw, if you really wanna know, which indicates I'm at least old enough to remember the connotation of "put that in your pipe and smoke it" whenever I heard folks of my parents' and grandparents' generation using the expression.)
P.S., Vinidici, you remind me of someone from another thread: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1399103/board/nest/184842479?p=1. Different type of movie, same deluded mentality ("you dislike my movie 'X', therefore you must be an intellectual snob").
See beginning of this response. Adding that I don't particularly care if someone else dislikes "my" movies or not, as long as they don't raise an odor in the way they go about stating their dislike. The kind of displeasure you've expressed having derived from this movie makes you look like you don't care about benign universal ideals (like championing for right vs wrong, good vs evil, having courage and perserverence against all odds, etc.) and that goes beyond the pale with me. As for America, itself, if you like it, fine, and if not, fine, too, and I seriously doubt you belong to the "down with America" club. In the end, however, I only care as much what you think as the time I invested in reading and responding to your statements and retorts; the rest of the time, I won't be thinking that much at all about any of it--"three jobs," remember?
vinidici, your long post on page 3 was spot on. It really is a shame that it has become uncool to love the America of our forefathers. I guess that's what happens when you learn your history from Howard Zinn.
share[deleted]
You do know that when this film was released it was considered communist propaganda right? It was regarded as a slander on the Senate.
shareOh? By whom? . . .
shareBy elements of the Press and American elected officials themselves.
shareI see. Can you name them? Musta been a lot of them, huh?
shareEnough to make noise. Hedda Hopper for one. Alben Barkley for another. Joseph Kennedy as well.
shareThanks, I didn't know that. Though I've got to admit, three out of, maybe, 100 million + is hardly a quorum.
shareThose are just the three I named. The point is that it was a fairly contreversial film upon release and even going into the Cold War era. There was no film before it that so explicitly cast an unfavorable light on the workings of the U.S. Legislature.
shareTony358: Sure, the Senate and other politicians must have been in an uproar over the film's depictions of graft and corruption in Congress, but political corruption was hardly new even in 1939, Just ask FDR, who, backed by Tammany Hall early in his political career, eventually turned on them; ask the administration of Warren G. Harding, with most of Harding's hand-picked Cabinet and others of his cronies embroiled in the Tea Pot Dome scandal; go back even further, to Boss Tweed; back, back, back all the way to the beginning of time, when tribal chiefs, princes and merchants began abusing their authority over their subjects and feathering their own nests off the backs and sweat of the people they governed.
So, small wonder, then, that "Mr. Smith..." wasn't exactly embraced with open arms in some quarters--why get the people to start THINKING and raising questions about they way in which they are being governed? "We can't have that, now, can we? Best we lower the boom on anyone or anything not casting us in the most pristine, purest light so we can continue doing as we please with the trust and tax money of the public behind closed doors!" the political hacks might have conferred among themselves after such an affront to their self-touted infallibility!
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sig--ACKKK!!! TOO LATE!!!
Don't like American patriotism? Fine. Stay on your side of the pond, and your pinko opinions to yourself.
shareEhh, let fools or the wise say as they wish, slinter: if they really are fools, then their words don't mean diddly-squat; and if they are wise, they will ponder opposing rebuttals. I hear ya, though, man...
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sig--ACKKK!!! TOO LATE!!!
"Pinko"? What f-cking year are you living in?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I think you Americans ought to be a little more sentimental. You're all gung-ho when it comes to nationalism but when it comes to the principals on which your nation was founded you're a little forgetful. I suggest the latter is far more important than the former.
Now as for this movie it's something of which you should be proud; it strikes at the truth with simple courage, and that's nothing to ever call rubbish.
I think you've gotten things a little wrong. We're not "all" nationalistic. Those of us who are tend to be the ones who do remember the "principals" on which the nation was founded -- those of us who aren't tend to be the ones who've forgotten them.
shareI get what he's saying, though, cwente, because we DO have the ostentatious flag-waver element who know next to nothing about the principles that forged our nation. Out of this type come:
(1)"the Ugly Americans" who make the rest of us look bad when they behave like prima donnas in other countries or make arrogant posts at message boards with international users to the tune of "Nyah, nyah, nyah, my country is better than your country!" or
(2)The "rah rah rah-ers" who root for their country, the USA, like it's a big football team or something.
Blame our educational system and the politically correct era for no longer bringing up younger generations with a working knowledge and understanding of early American history and for not instilling in newcomers the kind of values as are exemplified in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."
On the other hand, I completely agree with your post.
Whatever you do, DO NOT read this sig--ACKKK!!! TOO LATE!!!
To the OP: I'm reading what you have to say, and I'm hearing it in the voice of Lionel Barrymore. I swear to God.
You want sausage? I've got sausage, too.
We kicked the rubbish out of North America in the 18th Century! You sir are of that ilk!
A proud Irish-American and retired US Serviceman! Up the Queen!!!
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