In my eyes it means I've just watched the movie.
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In my eyes it means I've just watched the movie.
Implying, I assume, that if we knew it WAS real then we wouldn't enjoy watching it. So does that mean that people don't have a morbid curiosity about the pain of death then?Quote:
Originally Posted by B.Basher
I think whether we know its real or not doesn't play a factor in answering the question. If it looks real, we're watching a perfect image of a horrible death. Why should we get off on that and not a real snuff movie? Whether you have an inner bloodlust thanks to a bad upbringing or not, people love to see violence and gore.
Very true. Which is partly why I think these film maker have a responsibility these days. Oh, I suppose there have always been violence and sadism in films though, and society. Psycho, video nasties of the eighties, Marathon Man. I just get kind of affected a lot by scenes of women getting tortured. This is why I hate Tarantino and Roth as they obviously have a thing about it.
Roth maybe but Tarantino actually frequently uses very strong female characters. I'd say he has a thing for female empowerment as well as blood, feet and smoking. Think of Jackie Brown, The Bride and Zoe Belle in Death Proof. They are all strong, sassy women that run into chauvanistic types in their movies, and then waste the shit out of them.
Back to the original subject: I think violence aside, people arn't particularly fazed by these groundbreakingly gory movies. Hostel's target audience seems mainly made up of goremongers (the kind that tell you about a really gory scene in a movie with a mixture of outward disgust and excitement) and the cult fans that will see the movie because of the hype and then aknowledge it's nothing special, just a lot of gory silliness.
However much violence in movies and games influences society is a figure impossible to calculate. I would say an equally relevant and more positive way of looking at it is, where it's clear we as humans have our bloodlust, violent games and movies will satisfy it as opposed to exacerbate it. That's what I like to think anyway.
Roth also portrays females as the torturess, as well as the torture victim. Something which also makes my blood curdle. Just because they got tits doesn't neccessarily exempt them from the same destructive ego-centric character typically associated with patriarchal dominance.
I don't know about satisfying latent brutal instincts, I think it can also serve to exacerbate them. I know from my own experience at watching porn anyway, it makes me exacerbate like buggery!
"Roth also portrays females as the torturess, as well as the torture victim. Something which also makes my blood curdle. Just because they got tits doesn't neccessarily exempt them from the same destructive ego-centric character typically associated with patriarchal dominance."
Lol, I think your being sensationalist. How do you win in this argument? Women can't be tortured and they can't torture. Can they do anything? Should they be seen and not heard? I think women are 20 times more capable of destructive acts than men if provoked, they crazy man.
"I think women are 20 times more capable of destructive acts than men if provoked, they crazy man."
Oh Yeah sure LOL :dance: that figures, seeing as it is women who start all the wars and mostly take in part in them these days. Oh and all those female tyrants throughout history responsbile for genocide and the rape of the environment.
I can see where you pulled that one from.:rolleyes:
Their are many sick movies out their that make you think what kind of disturbed person thought of this... but its entertaining.. and if your stupid enough to get your killing spree ideas from the movies then obviously your not an original. .. plus hostel was an awesome movie, i don't know why everyone says its so disturbing theirs worse out their.. i can't wait to see the second movie :thumbsup::stoned:
Slightly off topic, but I came across a review for the film Natural Born Killers which seems pertinent to this debate.
Quote:
After viewing this film many, many times since I first saw it I came to the conclusion that this film basically put on screen my feelings as to why I disliked and still continue to dislike the 90's/Post-Millenium American Pseudo-Culture. At first I did not understand it (the metaphors and such) but having viewed it countless times over the past few years I have developed an understanding of this truly remarkable film.
Critics over the years have panned this film as a 'glorification of meaningless violence', when in fact the film itself is basically the 90's equivalent to Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove', where it turns the paranoia of a nation into satire and then deconstruct it in the best way possible. Everybody who is reading this review right now has probably seen the film anyway so I won't reiterate the plot, but what I will do is try and help explain the concept of the film since it's quite obvious that there are a few people out there who don't understand this film.
The 90's - A decade after the Reagan years and a time for the next generation to settle down and basque in the trails of excess that the previous decade left behind. What are we left with in Western Civilization? Media sensationalism and the counter-culture of people who watch car crashes.
Oliver Stone very much plays on the idea of 'serial-killer-turns-media-story-turns-pop-icon' which has been quite evident in the cases of people such as Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez. What Oliver Stone manages to do is portray the negative in the 90's, particularly American pseudo-culture in the 90's. You have Rodney King, O.J Simpson, Tonya Harding, Waco, The Menendez Brothers... and all these things are linked by a single medium, 90's television. The sensationalism of the media saturates most of Western Civilization today, and we live in a world where it's more important to see celebrities on the front of magazines or right-wing televangelists telling us that we need to give them money than it is to focus on the real issues that exist in this world. 'Natural Born Killers' relates to this. What 'Natural Born Killers' plays on is the question - 'why did we, the people, turn on to CNN and watch a white bronco cruising through the streets of Los Angeles one day in 1994?'. In turn, 'Natural Born Killers' plays on the culture-question - 'why do people stop to see car crashes?'. It also asks the question - 'Is that guy on television crazy because he's killed 90+ people or am I crazy for watching a white bronco cruise through the streets of Los Angeles?'. So there are 3 questions that 'Natural Born Killers' raises without a lot of people really understanding them. What the film does - instead of answering these questions - is let the viewer decide for himself or herself whether the serial killer on television is crazy for killing people or we are crazy for actually watching a serial killer talk on television.
So why do the critics despise this film? The critics despise this film because what they see on the film is themselves in Wayne Gale. Robert Downey Jnr accurately portrays the absolute false hysteria and false machismo of tabloid figures such as Geraldo Riviera and Oprah Windfrey et al, in his characterisation of Wayne Gale. He plays the archetypal media figurehead that lives in newsrooms, talking into mobile phones, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, watching television and living deceitful private lives. Another reason why the critics hate this film is because of the subversive message that it portrays in the script. The writers grew up in the 50's and 60's when the paranoia of Cold War was still in their faces everywhere they went. After the Cold War was over these same people started asking themselves, "well, who is the enemy now?". Some of them started realising that the enemy wasn't 10,000 miles away hiding in a mountain, the problem was not attached to a very large metal object that goes 'boom!', but rather the fact that the real enemy is in the corporations and media, the real power of a nation doesn't rely in the leader but the television. 'Natural Born Killers' subversively explains this, that THEY are the problem, and many members of the mainstream media didn't like because they were what the film was about.
Why do the general public despise this film? Because the same people who hate this film are the same people who the film-makers were laughing at when they made it. When the character of Mickey is on the television giving his interview, and the film cuts to a simple black and white image from a stock house of a typical American family sitting around the television, the same people who hate this film are the typical American family sitting around watching the interview, glued to the television like mindless zombies.