Posted on 02/12/2005 7:30:45 PM PST by wagglebee
I'm glad to hear someone else say this. Every review I read or saw of The Alamo panned it and I didn't go at the theaters because of it. I rented it when it came out on DVD and liked it a lot. In fact, I think it was probably the best of the movies to come out last summer. Good to hear I'm not alone.
Ugh. Suit yourself.
Precisely. We really need to pick our fights. I'm not sure fighting over this movie, especially calling it "neo-Nazi," is necessary.
I have never seen midget boxing.. (wrestling, yes..)
But I have watched Layla Ali beat the holy "stuffins" out of some of the best female boxers available..
( And quite frankly, I enjoyed it.. just as much as watching male boxers.. )
Male, female, midget, it's the competition, not the participants that count..
What is a boxing cutman? Is it like a ring doc?
No, he's a member of the corner team, not the ring doc per se; all he does is dress cuts. He's usually the guy right next to the trainer when the boxer goes into the corner.
The saying that "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue" was brought to mind by the scamming going on about this flick. It's not a good thing that the flick was made. It's not a good thing that people are lying about what it's about. It *is* a good thing that there are still enough people, like Medvd and various FReepers, around to call what it's about by it's right name: euthanasia propaganda.
Godwin's Law material, even before the first post.
I haven't seen any FReepers who have stated they've actually seen the movie say it's euthanasia propaganda.
No doubt, Clint Eastwood would have a wry smile if he read this article, and this thread.
My question for Clint: Why the fascination with violence and women in many of your movies? Reminds me of the medievel artist that painted a completely different picture within his portraits of royalty. His message can be viewed only through an skewed mirror.
It's simply as stated in the article, which has that much right. The plot of Eastwood's film has the anti-heroine, the devil-in-a-dress, not only pleading for death, but attempting suicide as a quadrapalegic, by chewing out her tongue whenever she could. Bed sores apparently caused the loss of her leg. And she had 'seen it all', as it were, and couldn't bear the thought of living crippled in such a horrible fashion. So Clint kills her - the ultimate destiny of the man with no name, perhaps, and then in such utter shame apparently slinks away into the shadows without so much as a goodbye to his closest friends.
There is a clear message in the film. And that is that there is no hope following crippling injury or disease. Abandon all hope. There is no God. There is no soul. Just end it all. Give a bit of lip service to getting better, sure. But, basically, when the small talk ends - end it all.
And people object to that in a movie, and that being promoted in a movie. Certainly, if you can't understand people's objection to propaganda, to Goebbels, to this, then nothing makes sense to you. But to most people, and those like myself, the objection is only human decency, at the very least.
I also saw the film, with a similarly stunned audience. I thought it was a boxing film. It was instead a propaganda film for mercy killing.
One cannot prefer death to life. One cannot presume to be God and take life at a whim, particularly your own. The 'devil-in-a-dress', Swank's character, literally attempts suicide before the misguided compassion of Eastwood's character leads him to a shameful act of murder that forces him immediately to flee into hiding without so much as a goodbye to his friends. And the movie ends.
There is a clear message in the film. And so many people object to that message, that propaganda. Otherwise, technically, I think they are fine performances, and a good film. But isn't that why Joseph Goebbels won awards for his films - because they were good films, well made, with good acting?
The disabled attempts suicide, in the worst way. And reduced further by that finally succeeds in evoking a misguided pity from Eastwood's character to murder her with a 'hot' shot of adrenalin. After that, he mysteriously runs away, he disappears. This was an act of cowardice, of shame, and the film-makers have nothing to say of it, except to roll credits.
I, too, was moved by certain scenes. I think it's a well-made film. But wasn't the reason Goebbels won awards for his films was because they were convincing, moving, well-made and well-acted? There's a message in Eastwood's movie. It's uncomfortably like the messages apparently in Goebbels' old films, which I've never seen.
But would it offend you if the academy created a new award just for this occasion - the Joseph Goebbels Award for Excellence in Film-making? Eastwood would be a shoe-in. And would such a victory offend him, or you, I wonder? And if so, more importantly, why? assuming you agree with the premises Goebbels put forward basically about lives not worth living.
Many have pointed this out, in various threads. Euthanasia, remember, is almost a euphemism for cowardly and shameful murder. This is what Eastwood's character does, in a way to move the audience, as apparently German audiences were moved by the plight of this poor German woman decades ago in Goebbels' film. He gives her a 'pity shot', a 'hot' shot of adrenalin which really does the job and kills her. But she has done everything up to that point to commit suicide - herself - literally by chewing out her own tongue. The audience is supposedly to sympathize with someone who comes along with a sword - run her though! put her out of her misery! one shot to the head, just as with a damaged horse. Kill her. And kill her he does, as she smiles at the victory. And . . scene. And he slinks away into the darkness, not to be seen again, without so much as a forward-my-mail to his best friend.
The ought is left to the audience. He shouldn't have had to slink away. It should be a routine operation - guillotines in every hospital ward for the desperately terminal - for the tongue-chewers. But maybe if someone had suggested something other than a life of PC community college, she would not have been so eager to die, and corrupt all around her. This movie took a side, and promoted a message. That's all. Many people disagree, and particularly would not wish history to repeat itself. Much of the pro-life movement finds parallels to those who promote a culture of death in similar and historic Nazi propganda, and hopes to remind people of that danger, that it not reoccur.
As I said in another message, the academy could institute a Joseph Goebbels Excellence in Film-making award, just to give the first place nod to Million Dollar Baby. Who knows how that would help subsequent theatrical sales, or the eventual DVD at Wal-Mart (which apparently rang up big sales for the Passion, sort of the 'other corner' to Eastwood's film)? But if they did, might his reaction surprize some? I wonder if Eastwood would wryly smile and say, thank you, for the consideration? It would be most politically incorrect, for someone so PC as Clint, however, to look to the heavens, hold up the statue and with a tear in his eye say - we did it, Joe.
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