MovieChat Forums > BullSchmidt > Replies
BullSchmidt's Replies
> The book is so much better, and way more entertaining than the movie
Agreed, and KvlhokVjequs, if you haven't read the book, please put it on your to-do list. Ken Kesey made a brilliant storytelling decision. He realized that he could not make McMurphy the POV character because he simply didn't have the education or life experience to effectively articulate his reasons for his dislike of Nurse Ratched; no matter how McMurphy explained it, it would inevitably come across as down-home, backwoods homily. Something like, "I ain't seen everything in the world, but what she does just ain't right." Who wants to read 200 pages of that?
So what did Kesey do? He invented Chief Broom -- who, along with all his glorious psychoses, hallucinations, et cetera -- is the book's POV character. The book is narrated by a guy who has weird fixations, sometimes sees things that aren't there, and along the way comes up with piercing insights from his warped perspective. The book just goes to a whole level beyond what the movie could achieve.
The novel's final chapter had Alex meeting one of his former delinquent buddies (Pete, IIRC), who's now married, employed, and either has a child or one on the way. The guy's clearly outgrown all the teenage hell-raising he and Alex used to get into together. The encounter gets Alex reflecting that those things really don't appeal to him anymore, and while the book doesn't go further, it's clear that Little Alex is headed out of adolescence into a responsible maturity.
The book was originally published two ways. In the UK, intact with all 21 chapters. In the US, the publisher would only print it with the final chapter removed. Kubrick's movie is basically faithful to the US version.
There are a lot of people who prefer the novel's ending, but don't count me among them. Kubrick's movie presents you with a choice -- (a) Alex, law abiding but robbed of his free will; or (b) Alex, with his free will intact but violent and evil. Which is better; a good creature who can hardly be called human, or an evil but fully human man? Is the cure worse than the disease? Or is the treatment Alex got, if not an ideal cure, perhaps still a fitting punishment for his sins?
Some serious questions to ponder. But in the book ... oh, it turns out it was just a phase Alex was going through. He just grew out of it. Boys will be boys. And Burgess acknowledged in his foreward to the "restored" version of his book (US version with all 21 chapters) that (a) Alex's transition into maturity had absolutely nothing to do with any of his prior experiences; and (b) he wrote the book with 21 chapters, as much as any other reason, so that it would have 3 parts of 7 chapters each. Numerology trumps good storytelling for some, I guess. But frankly, I think the US publisher made the right call. Burgess was too in love with his story to see that the final chapter damaged it, and it's part of an editor's job to give impartial and objective feedback.
I'll throw in an oldie -- "Edith's 50th Birthday" from All In The Family. Edith was almost raped. She tried reasoning with her attacker, talking her way out of it, pleading for mercy, et cetera, all to no avail. At the very last moment, when the rape looked all but inevitable, she saved herself by a clever and completely unexpected trick which was also excruciatingly painful for the would-be rapist. It's kind of silly to worry about spoilers when talking about something that was broadcast forty years ago, but I won't say what the trick was (you can Google it easily enough); but there were loud cheers in living rooms all across America when it happened.
Not to mention that when IMDB added their forums (they didn't always have them), they were still pretty much the only game in town. For that reason, I really doubt MC or any other movie site will have the level of traffic IMDB had.
Might not be such a bad thing. If MC is a smaller target, it might not attract as many of the asshats that plagued IMDB in the past few years.
> I've been pretty vocal about my distaste for professional sports
And so you picked "PeteRose" as a username? :)
> What are your favorite sports movies?
61* and Hoosiers have already been mentioned, but I'll second both those choices. Hell, I'm from KY (which also happens to be Cincy Reds country), and Hoosiers had me doing what I thought was impossible -- rooting for an Indiana basketball team.
Not too bad ... yeah, that describes my reaction. I'm repeating things I've said elsewhere, but my main two disappointments with it were the casting and the direction. The casting wasn't out-and-out awful, just that most of the main actors seemed not quite right for the parts they were playing. And I've never been a fan of Mick Garris's work, suffice it to say.
If they do a remake (I've heard nothing about if one is planned), I'd like to see a better exploration of the Harold Lauder character. His troubled childhood and bitter disappointments go a long way toward explaining and perhaps even mitigating some of his nastiness, but a viewer of the 1994 miniseries who had never read the book would have no way of knowing that; the Harold Lauder presented there was just a pure, simple asshole.
> I'm really hoping they don't suddenly decide to have Laurie Holden be revealed as another Soviet spy who's been planted with Stan; I really think this would be a cheap trick and too manipulative on the audience to suddenly pull out of a hat at this late stage.
I'm hoping the same thing, but for an additional reason. I've seen too many fans of this show who seem to think that every event that happens to the main characters has to have significant meaning (and often double or triple meanings); every random person who comes through their lives must be CIA, FBI, or KGB; etc. In truth, most of the people they'd encounter would be ordinary schmucks, nothing more.
> But there's also a bit of apprehension, too, that the show "sticks its landing" with its finish and doesn't disappoint with it's big finale'.
There are just way too many loose ends they'll have to leave hanging, and that's OK. From the previews of coming attractions, it looks like Pastor Tim will come back into the picture somehow. And Elizabeth's actions in yesterday's episode have made me rethink every scenario I've been mulling over about the ending. Oh, well. As long as the writers make it interesting I'll be happy.
I saw an interesting statement on IMDB's user reviews of Twilight Zone episodes, which tied together two things in a way I had never considered before but found myself agreeing with. One of those things was that Serling -- a fine dramatist when at his best -- was also, when at his worst, a preachy moralist taking potshots at straw men. Gotta agree with that.
The other thing was that television was heavily constrained in those days, and writers wanting to present ideas outside the safe, conventional mainstream had to do so by indirect allegory. I doubt if very many people would dispute that either.
What the IMDB commentator suggested was that this constraint might have been the best thing that ever happened to Serling as a writer. When forced to address his ideas indirectly he could come up with wonderful stories. But when allowed to hit his targets directly, because those targets were of the sort no one would jump to defend, he lapsed into Pastor Rod mode.
I don't know if I entirely agree with that ... but I do note that among the episodes I can't stand are "He's Alive," "Deaths-Head Revisited," and "The Obsolete Man"; all of which were written by Serling and, to my estimation, feature cardboard characters playing out childishly simple moral lessons.
> Autopsy: The Last Hours of James Dean airs tonight on the Reelz network in US
Most of the time, their analysis seems impartial, careful, and reasonable -- at least to the extent that I can tell these things (I'm not a physician). But that particular episode struck me as a pro-James Dean PR piece. Some of the doc's statements, paraphrased:
"I believe Dean was a careful driver, because he did a PSA cautioning drivers to be careful." Sure, doc. Actors always fully believe in the products and ideas they endorse. They never just take a quick buck to be a paid spokesperson, do they? Could Dean have done that spot for the money, or the public image (makes him look good), or both? Naaah.
"I believe that even though Dean was blind as a bat without his glasses, this wasn't a factor, as he was wearing his glasses when the crash happened." And what's your point? I'm blind as a bat without my specs, too. And I can tell you that anyone having that kind of eyesight who would drive without glasses could only be a prime idiot. I don't do it because I'm not an idiot.
OK, so Dean wasn't an idiot either. He may or may not have been reckless or immature, but he wasn't a damned fool. But we already knew that. So what?
"There's evidence to imply that Dean may have been sleep deprived when he crashed, and/or may have been drinking the night before. But I'll rule these out as contributing factors because Dean was such a careful driver." Oh, ok. You start by assuming as a proven fact that he was a superbly careful driver. You invoke that assumption to reject any evidence that he might not have been so careful. And, left only with evidence that concurs with your careful driver idea, you proclaim the idea to be proven ...
"The accident wasn't Dean's fault; the other car turned in front of him in an unsafe manner."
Maybe. But I'm still left wondering -- if James Dean was such a careful driver as the doc would have us believe ... WHAT THE HELL WAS HE DOING DRIVING AT ALL WITHOUT HIS SEAT BELT ON?
> From what I have been told [...] money is the biggest incentive
I've heard that the big four are money, ideology, coersion, and ego; which conveniently can be summed up with the acronym "MICE." John Walker and Christopher Boyce being prime examples of the first two.
Coersion apparently isn't that difficult. Befriend the target then ask for a tiny, "harmless" extra-legal favor -- and it's suprising how many will fall for it and believe it really is harmless. Then get a slightly bigger "favor" from him, then a bigger one, and soon the target is in way over his head and you own him.
Ego? I lived in DC for about a decade, and I gotta say it's got more than its share of people who are emotionally stuck in high school; maybe more than Hollywood. People who get off on having ridden in the same elevator with some Senator. And if the person's morbidly insecure, needing to self-aggrandize? I knew one such type who worked for NSA and never leaked any classified data, never broke the law. But being NSA was an ego thing with him, so he'd drop little innocent tidbits about things to make himself look big ... and from his blather my friends and I figured out about the hanky-panky with phone calls long before anyone had heard of Snowden. I'd think that type could be turned, just give him the admiration he thinks is his rightful due.
> it is kind of funny. Imagine that Phil could get this woman to marry him and she never knew he wore a wig, or if he wore on she never mentioned it.
The Martha story arc was funny for me, because it was so lacking in credibility. She's not only slept with P a hundred times, but is in love with him -- hey, forget the wig and glasses! I remember my first real love. You could have wrapped her in a burqa and I would have immediately known it was her by the way she walked, moved her hands, etc. Sooner or later Martha would be coincidentally in some Wendy's at the same time as P&E and pick up on who he was; DC isn't all that big, ya know ...
> What do people who have watched this long-term think about it?
It's had its ups and downs, and its inconsistencies, but it's far better than 99% of what's on the tube.
> my impression from what I have is that it is not so violent, and there is two sides of every story, and every country does it against every other country.
The violence might have been there, but I think it's way overplayed. In real life both sides would wanna keep this stuff as low key as possible.
The sexual parts are very unrealistic. I'm not saying sexpionage doesn't happen, but the idea that otherwise sane adults are slaves to their gonads, and P & E can bed anyone they like just by donning the right fake hair, is crazy. On top of that, the human sexual response is just too idiosyncratic. People are drawn to different types, and if the target Liz pursues happens to be into zaftig women, what's she gonna do then? Sure, occasionally you'll have a Richard Patterson ("Covert War" episode) who'll jump on anything in a skirt, but then that's a tactic of opportunity. No sane agent would use sex as a default strategy; too many weird, unexpected, and uncontrollable things can happen.
Of course there's a reason for the sex and violence; as Ethel Merman said, "that's entertainment!"
Every country does it to every other? Sure. But every country has its frictions with every other country. Imposing economic sanctions is a huge move, and going to war is a titanic move. One of the purposes this kind of skullduggery serves is to provide nations a spectrum of actions they can take against each other short of actual warfare. Otherwise, the world's nations would be like individuals living in a society where, when two people had a dispute, their only two options were to do absolutely nothing or fire pistols at each other.
> a good guy like Stan Beeman
I suppose. But if he ever arrests you then offers you a cheeseburger, might be a good idea to turn it down ...
We'll just have to disagree about Garris. I'll have to restrict my criticisms of his Shining because of space limits, but there's one that's interestingly relevant to The Stand. There's a wonderful line describing Larry's self-doubts after the bombing of the committee; he reflects that part of the reason he turned Nadine away and stayed with Lucy was that "he sensed it would take only one or two more fades to destroy him as a man for good." That to me is also a great description of Jack Torrance at the beginning of The Shining; someone who has failed morally so much that he's dangerously close to losing any chance of being the man he could have been, but -- like Larry -- still has a shot at it and has a good amount of fight left in him. I don't think either of film/TV versions got that right. Jack Nicholson performance was that of someone clearly headed toward a breakdown from the opening scene, whereas Steven Weber's was of a sniveling, trembling man who could have been broken by a feather duster -- the Overlook Hotel's demons weren't even necessary.
> Ants and scorpions.
Hotlix.com -- a great source for those wanting such delicacies.
I didn't try the ants, but did get a box of their scorpion lollipops to give away to some friends one Halloween. Of course I tried one myself. I figured if I was going to give away edible scorpions I'd better try one first for legal reasons and make sure I didn't get sick. Very very mild stomach discomfort, no nausea or anything like that, just the feeling of having eaten something my guts were having to work a little harder than normal to digest. But I must say the candy part of the lollipop was a disappointment; the flavor was weak, as if the candy syrup had been watered down. All in all, more a novelty item than an actual confection.
> Have you just had enough of the world and humanity?
I'm pretty fed up with a lot of stuff, but then again I'm in my mid-fifties; I've had plenty of time to see what a joke Homo sapiens is. Well, to hell with it. I'm a gray haired geezer, I've had my fun already.
I seriously think the world is headed for a disaster. I don't think it will be of the "world war" kind, as we normally think of WW1 and WW2 (nations against nations). Rather, I think it's gonna be the sort of thing that will tear nations apart, and the bulk of the deaths won't be from bombs or other military weapons; instead there will be a lot of bodies hanging from lamp posts, tree branches, etc.
A few years ago I'd have thought this impending disaster was inevitable but wouldn't occur for several decades, after I'm dead. Now I'm not so sure. I think that by the time it happens I'll be too old to do anything directly about it, but I might still be around. But if I were twenty years younger, I'd be burying caches of rifles and ammo out in the woods. Yes, I think it will get that bad.
I also think the USA won't exist after the disaster, at least not in any form remotely resembling the present. There are many here who would find that idea shocking; they think that somehow we have a divine right to exist and prosper. Fools. Nations rise and fall all the time in history, and the USA had never had a guarantee of anything.
What's to be done? The cataclysm is inevitable, so trying to avert it is futile. So -- decide which side you support. Decide whether it's to your side's advantage to hasten or postpone the cataclysm. And act accordingly.
I've made my choices.
> I think the hints point to Elizabeth having a fatal illness like the woman in the wheelchair.
I don't think so, even if for no other reason than that this would be a bad outcome for them that isn't a consequence of the main situation, character traits, goals, actions, et cetera.
OK, smoking causes cancer, so in that way it would be a consequence of her actions, but still ... Dramatically, it would be about as powerful as this scenario -- Elizabeth is constantly overworked, going with insufficient sleep; as a result, while driving one day she falls asleep at the wheel and has a fatal crash. No. If she's gonna die, it needs to be somehow a consequence of her KGB work.
I'd also add that the smoking causes cancer idea is a bit too cliched and obvious for my tastes, and I imagine it would also be for many other viewers. Sorta like a situation in a different TV series a few years ago where a pregnant woman had a miscarriage, and of course it was because she fell, and I said (on the old IMDB boards) that it was an example of TV cliche 34B; whenever a pregnant woman miscarries it's always because of a fall, and whenever a pregnant woman falls it always causes a miscarriage. If Liz gets the big C my reaction would be, "couldn't the writers think of anything better than that?"
To me, the signs point to Paige and/or Henry dying. Henry because, let's face it, since Keidrich Sellati hit puberty the writers haven't had the slightest idea what to do with Henry; and also he'd be the ideal innocent victim. But if anyone's gonna die, I think Paige is far more likely because of her own overeagerness and bad judgment. She's already demonstrated those things multiple times this season: (a) her inability to handle the horny guard who took her ID; (b) leaving her position and rushing in when Liz shot the general; (c) pursuing the intern for intel even after Liz told her she wasn't ready for that; (d) kicking the frat boys' asses in the bar fight.
I'm gonna toss out an idea I brought up on the old IMDB boards, a short while before those forums were deleted. It might still be here in these boards, but if so I can't find it. It's definitely not in this thread. Anyway ...
One cross Harold has to bear is that for him, there really is no such thing as a completely fresh start, at least while Fran is around. Quite apart from anything romantic or sexual, or even Fran being female at all -- he's gotta be worried that one way Fran's gonna worm herself in to Boulder society is by telling tales of his pre-plague days. And such worries would be justified -- Fran did that on at least two occasions in the book, telling people "you mustn't trust Harold because he was the high school nerd" when it was completely unnecessary for her to do so. Not saying that anyone else would even care about that sort of thing, but Harold might fear they would -- after all, a person who hasn't lived through anything beyond high school could well think teenage matters are still important to thirty year olds.
To see the point, look at Larry as a contrasting case. Pre-plague, he was a guy who went on drug binges, ran up bad debts, walked away from whatever problems he had created and left others to clean up his messes, etc. Yet he's able to leave all that behind. He still has his own inner demons to deal with, but the bad track record is gone. Suppose Wayne Stukey had been in Boulder, whispering to the other committee members, "hey, before you trust Larry with anything important, lemme tell you a few stories about this guy."
> All I ask is no Molly Ringworm.
One of my complaints about the '94 miniseries is the casting. I don't think anyone was terribly wrong for their part, but to me, almost every character was played by someone who wasn't quite right for the role. The cumulative effect of that felt like watching a play where the main cast had all gone on strike and all the parts were being performed by understudies. Just MHO.
Well, if it is redone -- and I haven't heard any rumors -- I suspect we'll see early 21st century political correctness in full force. Expect Boulder to be an idyllic model of Diversity (genuflect when you say that!); and Vegas to be populated by hillbillies and rednecks bearing swastika tattoos and waving Confederate flags ... and they'll probably be driving cars with Trump/Pence bumper stickers. Real subtle, Hollywood is.
But more importantly ... please, no Mick Garris. I gather he and King are buddies or something, but I've been disappointed in every Garris work I've ever seen. He has a real talent for sucking the energy and emotion out of every dramatic moment in a story.