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Shannon's Replies
There is something terribly wrong with you.
The little boy left alone on the dock was heartbreaking.
What you said echoes my sentiments. I love Frances Mcdormand and rented the movie because of her. I have always assumed I could watch a great actor reading a dictionary. This movie proved me so wrong. The idea was good; but it needed more compelling characters and a kind of quirky energy to make it worthwhile. It came off as a very tired, sadly cliched documentary.
(The area to respond is getting very narrow)
I guess the idea that both men and women looking for casual one night stands, in which she places herself, sailed oner your head. She does leave willingly. She was coherent enough to know she was leaving, enough to say "yes" when invited to a guy's apartment for a drink. Then when she said "stop" or words to that effect occurred, they stopped. No rape happened.
So, beneath the veneer of the otherwise incredibly busy with their studies in pursuit of a noble profession lies a rapist, because they can get away with it? Well, there we have it. Hard working people are really immoral, self-entitled opportunists, who sneer and snicker, because they can. Okay, well, this movie clearly found its audience.
Yes, I wish they would not have picked a med school. Largely because of the dean commenting that such accusations are made weekly, the students are routinely drunk and the implication that such things cannot be taken seriously.
Additionally, it is strongly suggested that wealthy otherwise impeccable and respectable medical students and professionals engage in these practices, find it amusing and always get away with it without a drop of conscience. That population is being targeted for the audience. They are the remorseless rapists. Yet they are not the ones she goes after. It's all muddled and mixed together and men in general are the scum bags. There are lots of women who deliberately seek casual sex and one night stands just as men do. Clubs, bars resorts, beaches are full of people doing just that, drunk or sober. She goes to these places and willingly walks out the door with every man she encounters. Just as they are willingly walking out the door with any woman they encounter. So, she pretends to be what most woman who hang out in such places already are looking for in the first place. And she never resists. She simply reveals herself as sober and further advances stop. She never encountered rapists. Just willing participants. Which is the ultimate conclusion of the meatmarket culture of casual one night stands.
Rape is a serious subject. The movie disrespected men, women, medical students and real rape victims.
McGill University and Georgetown University Medical Schools. A party culture in medical school is an oxymoron. Anyone who partied, drank and blacked out wouldn't last the first semester. I also find the message sent by the filmmakers that there also exists a rape culture, that is apparently rampant and waived away as unimportant or amusing by all parties concerned. It is this proghanized and absurd depiction in the movie that undermines the core subject of consent, if you want to be taken seriously.
The whole movie erred in the wrong diirection. The avenger is repeatedly shown, not on a medical school campus, but at bars acting like a drunken slut, or a drunken prostitute, vulgarly telling and laughing at penis and vagina jokes, herpes jokes and spit in a customer's coffee. When the settings, characters and dialogue undermine the point, there quickly becomes no point
I'm referring to the ridiculous comment from the dean that she deals with such complaints on a weekly basis, as if this is common place.
Having found the premise and execution contrived and silly, it's hard for me distinguish between bad writing and bad acting. Maybe Ryan sensed he was interested in a hard person devoid of personality and struggled with that implausible interest. Their conversations were immature, jokes were childishly sexual. What adults tell dick and vagina jokes, ever, let alone on a 1st date? I can't believe he would pursue her after she coldly spit in his coffee, and am even more puzzled that he would continue after witnessing her drunk hooker impersonation. In any case, he never seemed like a competent doctor with the intelligence to graduate medical school, let alone practice. And that idiotic dinner conversation. Mom doesn't understand pediatrics and Ryan respond meaningfully about his profession. And that's just Ryan. Ever single character was immensely unlikable and unbelievable. Good God, that was an awful movie.
How is right. This is an awful, completely unrealistic and poorly acted and written movie. Medical students partying and raping on a weekly basis? Not any medical school I've every heard of, as students need to study around the clock. The dialogue is atrocious, scripted more for edgy adolescents than adults. This woman should have been contained by security at the university and arrested on the spot. Horribly unlikable protagonist, for whom I felt not a shred of sympathy. Yikes.
Other people, apparently, really need to respond rudely.
My favorite episode in season 1 is "Into Thin Air."
Bang, You're Dead. I vaguely remember that one. And the one with the kid who grew mushrooms. Yikes! There were some, where the kids were the main focus. I guess, I am thinking of episodes that if they had husband or wife doing something criminal, they were childless.
I know this post is 5 years old, and you are likely gone from it. I rewatched Shutter Island recently and came to an opposite conclusion from the more pat one; ie accepting the role play. This time, there were two aspects that bothered me. One was the role play. Why when deliberately presented with things that that would support his "delusions" would he ever snap out of it? As you say, and I agree, the role play is contraindicated. The other is Dr Solandro. She provided information that I should think Teddy would not be knowledgeable.
In any case, I find your arguments compelling and consistent with the doubts I had upon rewatch. I also think that Teddy simply did not want to be the monster that they were trying to create.
I can't think of a single episode with children. Even The Babysitter clearly had a child, but we never saw him.
Could just be the nature of the stories and Hitchcock wanting to appeal to that very adult aspect of the audience enjoying a good murder. Putting a child in the story, would remind the audience that people who have children should never do the things they do.
I wondered about that, too. Further ensurance that Carl would still have leverage or get away and release her later? Except, it was not a real kidnapping. So, that makes no sense. Plus, why would he expect Jerry to give him the money without his wife returned. The whole plan seemed so spur of the moment, not well thought out by anyone. Carl was always half cocked and full of himself.
Hi, New to this site. I recently watched A Serious Man.
I like your thoughts on the themes. "I didn't do anything," seems to be the most important theme of the story. Inaction and the failure to accept responsibility and act on it. It reminds me of the idea that to do nothing in the face of evil, is to allow it. What makes us human is a moral responsibility to do something, even if it is only focused on our lives and those closest to us.
He knew the student was committing bribery. Just because he did nothing(not accepting the bribe) he didn't take it a step further and report the student, who could have likely cheated his way through college...unfair to others and ultimately to his own future well-being.
Of course there are several other situations where he did nothing.
I got the impression that Larry and Arthur were related to the family of the ghost and suffered the curse. At first it struck me as odd to bring a curse, that they are not responsible for, into a story that requires responsibilty. But then I realized that none of us it brought into the world free of baggage. We are all products of something. That it is not our fault in origin doesn't excuse the choices or lack of choices we make.
I have never thoroughly understood Schroeder's Cat. It seems to have a dual purpose. One is the uncertainty until one actually looks, examines. The other is the paradoxical cycle. The cat eats the poison that is released into its food. What releases the poison is the decay molecules resulting from the dead cat. The problem with these kinds of paradoxes is that they are impossible. So, I back away from the nonsense of the puzzle. That may be the point of the Cohen brothers bringing it into the story. Ultimately, I suppose we are supposed to examine our lives and determine what we can understand and affect and what we cannot.
From what I understand about Judaism, they don't believe in Heaven or Hell? You get your punishments and rewards here and now. Larry chose badly.