"How did America get this way? Land of promise, land of opportunity? "Nobody cares, I just work here, thats the attitude!" Just to name a few of his gripes that are even more appropriate now than they were in 1986! I wonder how many people a year move away feeling like he did.
The truth is more people have moved to Canada this year than all previous years and the number keeps growing, our government is full of self serving opportunists who could care less about it's citizens
It's a real shame!!
I agree that our leaders aren't looking out for us, but unless they're moving to the Yukon, Canada's not too much different than the US, eh? Why not try moving to French Guiana or the Congo?
shareAMEN!!!!!
I recently rented this film after not having seen it since it was in the theatre when I was little, way too young to understand the plot.
Watching it now, I am quite surprised at how true all of that is. Allie's entire outlook, both in that scene and the rants and lectures he gives while building in the jungle, are all spot on for the modern times.
Thus, it's become one of my new favorite films.
~Robert
PS - In fairness, from what I gather I don't think this is limited to the United States. The present day world all over is pretty f'd up.
I have to agree with robat1711 about "the present day world all over is pretty f'd up". I think the reason the world is "pretty f'd up" is because too many people are too willing to be lead and they want someone to take care of them. I am not implying that people should resent or defy authority, but should take control and responsiblity for their own lives; be their own leader. Too many leaders see their position of leadership as their opportuntity to improve their lives at the cost of the people they are suppose to lead. If their people are helped, thats good too, but it is usually just enough to placate them, or it is an accident.
PS - In fairness to the United States, yes, the U.S. is F'd up, but you see more people trying to get in than trying to get out.
Yeah, it's a real trip to see the number of people who whine and moan about it all but do nothing about it. They want opportunity and success legislated. They've forgotten hard work. I see it of more a of a problem with the citizen than the government. People need to do their part first.
Clean up your own backyard first before you tell me how to keep mine.
Word, estcst-3, word...
Don't be counter-destructive. The MGS boards need to perish in a ball of flames.
People have become too dependent on other people and machines. I work in customer service and am constantly amazed by the questions that I get, especially ones that are completely unrelated to what I do. General laziness, mixed with slight amounts of stupidity.
Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.
"Yeah, it's a real trip to see the number of people who whine and moan about it all but do nothing about it. They want opportunity and success legislated. They've forgotten hard work."
How do you know? What counts as "changing" the world? Fame... money? How do you know there aren't tons of people who work their butts off day in and day out and do their best with what they have, and they look out at the world and have some real problems with what's out there.
This is one of the greatest idiocies to come out of the 1960s and infiltrate Internet culture - that change is easy, quick, and not much harder than deciding to take a vacation. Every great social revolution in human history has many who died in vain to get the stars to align so true "change" can begin.
"Yeah, it's a real trip to see the number of people who whine and moan about it all but do nothing about it. They want opportunity and success legislated. They've forgotten hard work."
The best things in life are not thingsshare
How do you figure that those who do the least difficult jobs are paid the most? They do not involve manual labor obviously but they are jobs that few people know how to do.
share"How do you figure that those who do the least difficult jobs are paid the most? They do not involve manual labor obviously but they are jobs that few people know how to do."
What a clueless statement. Do you think people like Donald Trump and Bill Gates just sit around and make money?
You don't think they worked from sunrise to sunset and beyond to get where they are?
Only a socialist would make a comment like you made.
Power to the people man.
Those 2 are a prime example (although bill Gates Slightly less so).
However, Donald Trump and Bill Gates both got a great head start from their rich and influential fathers.
Bill Gates is smart but smart in a business sense not in any other sense. He was ruthless as was Microsoft.
Donald Trump himself is not only arrogant but a self-serving pompous *beep* You should inform yourself better on these two before you put them out as examples as they are far from good ones and run counter to your argument.
Ford was just the messanger. Paul Theroux is the author behind the story/concepts.
And, yes, the world is F'd up. All the more reason to make sure the individual isn't.
Ford's Allie Fox is representative of America today. All arrogance, no humility. As other reviewers have noted, he created a microcosm of America, then destroyed it by over extending his reach. Without coming to terms with it's limitations and accepting responsibility for mistakes America, like Allie Fox, is doomed.
shareAbsolutely! Even more so in 2010, and not just America. I think the lesson of this movie is that we have to try to respond to the insanity without going crazy ourselves in the process. After seeing this movie I felt very sad that Allie Fox fell into this trap, although the voice-over at the end suggests that there is some hope for his son.
sharehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza
shareThe Affluenza link was great, thank you. Sums up this entire movie!
shareWithout coming to terms with it's limitations and accepting responsibility for mistakes America, like Allie Fox, is doomed.
"How did America get this way? Land of promise, land of opportunity? "Nobody cares, I just work here, thats the attitude!" Just to name a few of his gripes that are even more appropriate now than they were in 1986! I wonder how many people a year move away feeling like he did.
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The more I think about it, the more Allie Fox's attitude toward America and human civilization is not appropriate for almost any day and age. Ultimately he became a rigid survivalist who refused to tolerate those who disagreed with him. He felt that his efforts to build a utopia made him infallible. In America today, where we're a badly divided country and trying to recover from a drastic recession, Allie Fox's intransigent, almost tyrannical worldview would be neither helpful or productive.
shareThe affluenza link is great. It's interesting that Allie criticized modern America for wanting more...more money, more things, but he made that exact same mistake.
Once he successfully built his utopia, he wasn't satisfied and wanted more. More recognition, more thrills from amazing the natives, more inventions.
And just as so many people in the past few years got themselves into trouble from wanting more house, Allie got himself into trouble from wanting more. So, in the end, he got less.
I just saw this film again recently and I was thinking of the same damn thing, especially when he and his son were in the hardware store and Allie says, "No one ever thinks about leaving this country. I do, every day". It made me think about an article I read about six months ago that last year, there was a record number of Americans who renounced their US citizenship and how that trend will likely continue. We have been taught that America is a nation of immigrants, not a nation of emigrants, but that trend may be changing.
shareSorry, but that's bullsh*t. I've spent eight of the last twelve years living outside the US in Turkey, Mexico, Guatemala, and China. None of them is better than the US and you're an idiot to renounce your US citizenship unless you're some rich jerk who just doesn't want to pay taxes.
I think people are totally missing the point of this movie. This character is an intolerant superior malcontent who blames everyone else for his own unhappiness. People like that inevitably bring misery with them WHEREVER they go.
America, especially WHITE America today, is full of bitchy, uneducated, unskilled, lazy people and if they can't make it there, they're not going to make it ANYWHERE. There's nothing wrong with leaving the country for awhile like I did to get some perspective on your life, but these guys that are always railing against immigrants and minorities and the black man in the White House are really their own worst enemies and if they ever actually had the guts (or the job skills) to leave America for awhile, they might realize that.
"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"
"America, especially WHITE America today, is full of bitchy, uneducated, unskilled, lazy people and if they can't make it there, they're not going to make it ANYWHERE."
I'm very sorry but that statement sounds like something Allie Fox himself would have said. You put down Ford's character as being "intolerant" and then you go and make a statement like that. I don't mean to turn religious but it reminds me of that part in the Bible that says, "Why point out the speck in your brother's eye but ignore the log in your own eye?". That statement was priceless.
I, too, have lived abroad and the one thing it taught me is that people are basically the same everywhere. Sure, America is better in many things like the level of freedoms its citizens enjoy and being the leader in technological innovations. But sorry my friend. America is no longer the greatest country in the world. Just look at the UN Human Development Index and you will see that in many areas, the US is ranked near the bottom in the developed world. We used to be first in everything. The nations you mentioned are not considered developed so it wouldn't be fair to compare them with the US. Can you really compare Mexico with its drug wars to the relative safety of the US?
Having said that, I would never renounce my US citizenship because, as I said, there's good and bad everywhere. But everyone must follow their own conscience.