| Author |
Message |
    
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Thursday, October 02, 2008 - 11:26 pm: | |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20081001/tuk-crowd-urged-suicidal-teen-to-jump- 45dbed5.html |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
| | Posted on Thursday, October 02, 2008 - 11:43 pm: | |
I've actually seen this happen, but the guy didn't jump. The small crowd almost lynched him for spoiling their fun. |
Adriana (Adriana)
Username: Adriana
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.230.239.233
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:21 am: | |
that's really disgusting. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 09:10 am: | |
It's what I expect of people when they gather en masse.
I'm so dead inside these days that I actually find that news article funny. |
Mark West (Mark_west)
Username: Mark_west
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.39.177.173
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 10:54 am: | |
I saw it online yesterday and thought it was disgusting - the police said they'd been aware of people making comments but they weren't committing a specific offence. Surely they could have thought of something - public disorder or something, to get them out of the way? |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.229.54
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 11:00 am: | |
Elementary mass psychology - the more, the merrier. Other instances have been recorded. A classic example is the drowning child with a mass of onlookers, mostly tourists, some them filming the death of the child. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.50.191.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 11:21 am: | |
People are sick. let's get rid of them! |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 12:14 pm: | |
I think I feel a bit like Zed on this...dead inside. Knowing English mentality this doesn't surprise me. To have gotten to that point and then for this to happen. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.50.191.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 12:44 pm: | |
We are all fiction to each other. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 12:50 pm: | |
And I can read you like a book. One written by a madman, of course. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.154
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 12:51 pm: | |
What is the English mentality?
Has it changed? |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.50.191.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 12:57 pm: | |
Gary Fry is available from PS Publishing. Limited one print copy with luxurious leather covering. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 01:05 pm: | |
And a dinged spine. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.50.191.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 01:09 pm: | |
Mmm, have a sniff of that book. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 01:16 pm: | |
Smells like mortality, Gloucester. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 02:06 pm: | |
Smells like teen spirit to me. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 160.6.1.47
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 04:10 pm: | |
Okay, now I get it. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.146
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 04:10 pm: | |
Okay, Evil Demon Craig  is going to make the following comment:
A kid who choses to do this, publicly, at a mall... he's screaming for attention, because we all know he could go home and just tie a plastic bag around his head in private... but he apparently wanted this attention... so boo-hoo, his audience of innocent bystanders and traumatizable children aren't so pity-filled after all... I mean, are we really supposed to moan and cry that not everyone around, inflicted-upon by this selfish moron, is so sympathetic?!...
... Evil Demon Craig statement over. Hello again good and loving, puppy-petting rainbow-kisses Craig. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:25 pm: | |
Warning: Liberal knee jerk response aimed at combating Craig's 'bare-faced honesty', i.e. argument brewing.
Craig - what's wrong with wanting people to listen? Why on earth would somebody want to do this to themselves publicly if they didn't want somebody to listen. Some of us are lucky enough we haven't reached such a low when this becomes a possibility. The old cliche that suicide is selfish is in itself a selfish lazy form of thinking. Wouldn't it be better for us if we did stop and listen, even if only to make ourselves feel human? I realise that is also selfish, perhaps dishonest, but better to put out a hand to help than the one which inadvertently pushes. Might seem like just another of Frank's ridiculous pathetic liberalism gone awry, but my mind boggles because this was a kid...A KID. Christ mate, no wonder suicide among teenagers the world over is so high. Shocking. There's no cleverness or daring deep insight into what you said. And NO it isn't what we're all really thinking. Not all of us. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:28 pm: | |
If I don't reply to your comment, it's got nothing to do with the well-thought out argument you're surely going to hit me with, it's because I won't have internet access for a couple days. Actually off to Japan to save a couple of hump back whales, after which I'll councilling some ex-street prostitutes in Rio. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:36 pm: | |
Craig - what I also should have said was that you are obviously a smart and funny guy, educated, worldly wise, etc, which is why I responded so strongly. If you think this, then christ help those of a less educated background. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.10.105
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:37 pm: | |
With all due respect, there's even less "daring deep insight" into reacting knee-jerk sympathetic. Of course it's terrible that a kid wants to jump off a roof in public: it's what puppy-petting rainbow-kissing people everywhere think, and I'm one of them. But just because you climb out onto a roof for a reaction - I don't care why he did it, that's done for a reaction - does not mean you're entitled to the response you want. If I shoot myself in the head at a kindergarten, and children are traumatized, and parents decry me for such a selfish act... I shouldn't be floating around as a ghost saying, "My god! Don't any of these people have any sympathy for me?! What is wrong with people nowadays?!?" |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.10.105
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:42 pm: | |
And sorry if I came at you so strongly, Frank... I've been stressed out lately single-handledly saving the rainforests, discovering a cure for cancer, and patting the heads of all the squirrels of the forests. 
Btw, I don't condone people standing around encouraging anyone to jump off a building, in case I need to say that... Christ help us, that I feel I need to say that.... |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 05:52 pm: | |
Fair enough, mate, I know we can't sit around navel gazing with despondency at how shit life has become, but we HAVE to show compassion. And let's be honest, the dehumanising of life has become blatant that anybody stupid enough to sit around waiting to see somebody jump, well, hey, they deserve to be traumatised. It's a different thing than taking a gun and blowing your brains out in front of a room full of children. You know better, he was only a kid. He probably felt nobody cared, which clearly they didn't, and might have thought FUCK EVERYONE...it might not condone it, but still, just a kid. |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.191.188
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 06:52 pm: | |
I agree with you, Francis. Good to see you around again, by the way! |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.84.194
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 06:53 pm: | |
No, we're on the same page, mostly, Frank. He was a kid, and maybe he was high on drugs too? That impairs mental ability. There are certainly possible mitigating factors here. I agree with taking the sympathetic approach... but even momentarily voicing something less idealistic, can be useful too....
The only thing I take issue with in your last post, is the word "become": if anything, we're far more "humanized" now than ever, though more likely just as "de-humanized." People used to go on picnics to hangings. They looked forward to going to war because of all the raping and looting and pillaging victors got to partake in. Suicide at one time was an act of honor as much as of despondency. Things haven't just changed for the worse....
Okay: back to rescuing kitties from tree-tops. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 160.6.1.47
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 06:56 pm: | |
"Craig - what I also should have said was that you are obviously a smart and funny guy, educated, worldly wise, etc"
I disagree. All I see is a nasty piece of work hiding behind smileys. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 07:23 pm: | |
Maybe he needed the attention. Maybe he never had any. Maybe he wanted the hugs of the policeman, the sympathy, and when he heard what he heard he decided he'd rather die. I think those people killed him.
Craig; folk are right, that's not funny. I mean we do sometimes need strange sides of arguments, but try and keep them to movies, yeah? |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.76.105
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 07:46 pm: | |
Maybe he needed the attention. Maybe he never had any. Maybe he wanted the hugs of the policeman, the sympathy, and when he heard what he heard he decided he'd rather die. I think those people killed him.
And - maybe not. People want to build myths on one side of the fence, tear down myths on the other... and claim the other side is cruel and heartless, their side sweetness and light. Even the voicing of something is enough for recrimination. Et tu, Tony?...
To quote Alan Greenspan again, if you think you understand me, perhaps I have mispoke: I do NOT think egging on people to jump off buildings is anything remotely good or moral. Why do I even have to say this?!... My "side of the argument" is merely that dumping tons of sympathy ON those who do atrocious deeds in public is NOT in itself a moral stance. As, taking the opposite view, is not immoral.
Proto, I'm sorry that's what you think. If I'm ever up on a ledge, go ahead and egg me to jump, I won't hold it against you. And unless anyone thinks I'm being unnecessarily heartless by making a joke like that, let me provide a usefully blanketing . |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 07:58 pm: | |
Fact is, this story is just sad, and to voice odd opinions and insites is meaningless. Sometimes all we want is to just feel sad about a thing, and say as much. To read things into them when we cannot ever know the workings is just like daydreaming, something like that, calling attention to ourselves in just the way some of us might say that kid was. We all want to be heard, and appreciated. |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.178.58
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 10:17 pm: | |
I don't think any of us can presume to know what that kid was thinking, or to what degree he was 'seeking attention', as Craig asserts. I think it's irrelevant whether or not he wanted attention: he was clearly suicidal, and some in that crowd goaded him on to end his life. That's wrong, whichever way you look at it. Ridiculing and insulting the guy after he's killed himself because he may have been seeking attention - and, as Tony said, so what if he was? - seems to me both meaningless and callous. Craig, I'm afraid I don't understand why your first response was not one of sympathy for the kid, but rather one of derision that he had the nerve to be looking for help or attention. It sounds like you're saying basically he got what he asked for. I'd venture that he was probably desperately unhappy for some reason, and that if he'd been treated with a little more humanity by some in that crowd, then maybe, just maybe, it would've made a difference. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.206.170
| | Posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 - 11:52 pm: | |
I don't hate you, Craig. I hate whatever is inside you that's preventing you from becoming an authentic, feeling member of the human race. And deep down, so do you.
However, it's prudent to avoid toxic personalities, so this is the last time I will address you. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 67.116.103.241
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 04:29 am: | |
Apparently my sardonic, bitter "humor" is somehow more "offensive" than Albie and Gary's and Zed's sardonic, witty back-and-forth above... not to mention ProtoFreud's dryly non-judgmental "Now I get it" comment... because apparently someone who voices an actual, heart-felt opinion, disguised in gallows humor - but of that myth-making on the other side of the fence I was talking about, the side the (so they think they are, in their own mythology) good moral high upstanding crowd on this side don't take kindly too... well, that's going too far - too far Craig! You stepped over the line! How dare you even consider that those who are performing suicidal displays in public aren't necessarily (i.e., just because they happen to be suicidal, or young, etc.) worthy of sympathy!
Please. Maybe I went overboard with the term "moron", I admit... but I stand by everything else... including my deliberate presentation, of the "demonic" side of the issue: this is a valid point, that there are those in society who think they can foist their own illnesses upon the public. It's VERY non-PC to say that... and it goes against our own (and mine!) more overpowering inner drives to sympathize and empathize... but it's a real thing that happens, and seems to happen a lot... my god, it's a cliche to say that suicide is an expression of anger and rage - which doesn't always translate into caring about how others feel - every two-bit psychologist knows this!
Whatever. You're all more wonderful and warm and fuzzy than I can ever hope to be, apparently. I guess I should take a cue from Albie and Zed and Gary, and only cast gallows jokes of a certain acceptable color... would that make everyone happy?... as happy as this little fellow here? ------> |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 09:42 am: | |
I say again - I don't care about that kids motives. He died, and it was sad. Do we have to second guess everything? |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 09:45 am: | |
Also it's this thing again about folk who want to be right; they don't - can't listen. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 09:48 am: | |
I'm not claiming to have any final word about this simply on account of the fact that I'm moderator, but I do think people should be able to express an opinion without being personally rebuked. Proto, your comment about Craig being a "nasty piece of work" seemed a little unecessary to me. He's been around here a while and that isn't true.
May I suggest we all try to focus our discussions on the messages rather than the people making the message?
And if anyone huffs and leaves after this or any other debate, then they need to stop being so silly. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.196.153
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 10:48 am: | |
Hi Gary, I see what you mean but I was responding to someone else's personal comment, and disagreeing with it. If the rule is that we can only make personal comments if they're positive (which seems reasonable to me) then you're probably right and I should have just walked away. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 11:27 am: | |
I think the rule should be that we don't get personal. Discussions can become heated because some issues engender that. But when it comes to mud-slinging, then it's probably best if we just simmer a while. I speak from experience.
Let's all move on! I know Craig and Proto well enough to realise that they'll forget this little contretemps. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 11:47 am: | |
Did you all see this on the news last night?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7650527.stm |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.83.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 11:57 am: | |
Gap are selling rocket socks. |
Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.83.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 12:05 pm: | |
Over-reaction?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2305256/Nike-Air-Stab-trainer-withdrawn-a fter-spate-of-knife-murders.html
This is depressing
http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/people/dating/o-j-simpson.htm
There is a God, he's just a bit slow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7652206.stm |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 01:11 pm: | |
Over-reaction over Nike, yes, much like the objection to the word niggardly on the grounds that it's racist. And good riddance to Simpson. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.230.188
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:07 pm: | |
Gary - don't sweat it, friend. Hell, I don't even consider this an argument. If people don't like me, that's fine; as Proto said, we should be allowed to express (nearly) anything without recrimination.
Tony, HUW, what do you want? Yes, I think it's sad - it's very, very sad when a teenager sordidly dies in public like this. The crowd around him was repulsive. We can all cry in our cups; but especially on a remote message-board, we should be allowed to express other meaning-seeking perspectives?
Such as, not that I was questioning his ultimate motives - read my posts again - I'm saying there was some kind of drive in this kid for public displays of mental illness. He was sad and desperate and needed help, by definition; but something made him choose to climb out onto a parking garage with many people milling around at a mall, threatening to jump and traumatize a wide swath of people, including children; which - removing the individual's pathetic (i.e., pathos-inducing) motivations, that already got a wave of representation here - is a disruption of acceptable codes of fellow-human interaction. One side breaks the pact, and it's horrible; it can be just as horrible as the other side breaking the pact.
Perhaps there were factors to this teen's choice... but the "demon" inside me, was frustrated at the other "perhaps" that we know does drive many equally suicidal people (is it now far beyond the range of taste to bring up suicide bombers, many of them terribly, pityingly young?...)
So, Tony, HUW - let me be absolutely clear: I'm saddened by this. Deeply saddened. That's a given. Next time, I'll know better to rote-express my deep sadness, and promptly shut up.
But you can respond in other ways without mitigating that sadness. One way is to express one's utter frustration at the coldness of this Universe, or at disturbing trends in society; perhaps brushing too close to the sun when using this particular case as an example, I admit....
Here's an expression of my frustration at the bitter coldness of this unkind Universe, but not brushing too close, in the gallows manner of my... well, I was going to say "peers," but they're funnier than I am:
What do you get when you cross-breed a cat thrown off a building, with the pavement below? A Splatapuss.
Now then, gaze into my . |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.184.179
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:17 pm: | |
Nobody's asking you to "rote-express' (whatever that means) anything, or at least I'm not. I was merely responding to what I thought were glibly callous comments ("well, boo-hoo," "the selfish moron," etc). You are, of course, perfectly free to your opinion, but I don't know why you should be surprised when other people say what's on their minds when you display such callousness. When your first post in a thread about a kid egged on to suicide consists of you sneering and ridiculing the guy, how do you expect folk to react? |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.195.37
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:33 pm: | |
And, for the love of god, please stop writing my name in capitals!! That's just my plain old first name, not my initials! AARGH! ;-) |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.254.174
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:42 pm: | |
Yeah, "well, boo-hoo" was probably excessive too... you can't always control the demon's responses... fuck, I'd a thought putting down "demon Craig" was enough to imply: this is the side of the person that is going to express those unsavory thoughts that we (okay, those of us who are not as enlightened as others) sometimes get, reading sad stories like this. But I guess not.
I'll stick next time to just responding with  to "Smells like teen spirit." That make you feel better? Huw? |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.21.233.111
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:43 pm: | |
"The crowd around him was repulsive."
Crowds are always repulsive. When crowd psychology takes over, individual psychology diminishes or altogether disappears, it's as simple as that. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 03:59 pm: | |
Ahem.
Anyway, the point about TK-Maxx was that they were selling jackets with an actual knife on a string attached to the inside, and not that the jacket was called a knife-jacket. |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.21.233.111
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 04:12 pm: | |
As if removing the aforementioned jackets from the shops is going to stop a nutter who's intent on stabbing someone.
What are they going to call their new line anyway, "no strings attached"?  |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.195.37
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 04:42 pm: | |
Craig, it's not a matter of making me feel better. How or what you post is up to you, and makes no difference to me. But be prepared for others, in turn, to be open in their responses, especially with this sort of topic. I thought what you posted was pretty callous, so I said so. Just my opinion. I'd have thought all this goes without saying. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.50
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 04:59 pm: | |
I understand, Huw. I get it. You're right, my comments did come off as callous - why I said "demon." Again, again, it's apparently just not enough... so next time....
And again, again, I'll stick to that particular brand of callous gallows humor that seems to pass unnoticed here. Funny how that is. I guess I just don't get what it means to be properly, acceptably sympathetic. I'm glad everyone else here has it so well worked-out with themselves.... |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.190.219
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 06:34 pm: | |
I really don't want to get into an argument, as I've nothing against you, Craig. Again, I'm just responding to what I read, and obviously I could've missed something. I don't recall anyone else ranting about the kid seeking attention. Maybe it just went over my head (entirely possible given my current dopey state). Where did anyone else post anything callous? I thought the quips about books and people being fiction and all that were just quips at each other's expense, the usual banter between Albie and GF, all that. I didn't detect any real nastiness there. Was I wrong?
Maybe we should just avoid topics like this altogether. Politics, too. It never fails to stir up bad feeling, it seems.  |
Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.243.175
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 08:35 pm: | |
Chris Morris (er, I mean the tall, male Chris Morris, not the less tale and female Chris Morris who is a Birmingham writer) often draws criticism with his satirical sketches. But the 'comedy' format does offer you a framework, a 'clearing' in Heidegger's term, within which the sardonic 'a plague on both your houses' attitude can be taken on board. On a message board, however, there is no such 'clearing', and an emoticon is not an adequate cultural framing device. This why it's better (a) not to personalise arguments and (b) not to say things you don't mean fully and literally.
Let's be honest and admit a message board is a poor substitute for company. We would be talking to each other directly if that were more realistic an option. When we have the choice, we do that. So let's not normalise this distorted and broken medium by imagining it allows full communication. It doesn't.
Speaking of Chris Morris, one of his finest sketches was a news report about a man who had committed suicide by repeatedly throwing himself from the first-floor window of his house – not from the second floor or the roof. It took him several jumps to die, by which time a small crowd had assembled to watch his final jump. One of the watchers commented: "I gues he wanted to see if he'd change his mind. But apparently he didn't."
Far from being callous, I find that sketch's observations on human despair and voyeurism quite moving. It reminds me of Polanski's THE TENANT. We all watch people committing suicide by the instalment plan, usually with alcohol, and sometimes intervention seems wrong and intrusive, sometimes it seems necessary. The only stance that can't be justified is watching for entertainment's sake. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 09:30 pm: | |
>>>And again, again, I'll stick to that particular brand of callous gallows humor that seems to pass unnoticed here. Funny how that is. I guess I just don't get what it means to be properly, acceptably sympathetic. I'm glad everyone else here has it so well worked-out with themselves....
I don't understand this at all, except for the fact that it seems to imply some kind of 'them and us' mentality on this board - which is absurd. Everyone is welcome, and generally speaking, folk can say what they please. And if there's ever any rancour, we're all mature enough to move on once it's sorted. So let's move on. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.7.9
| | Posted on Saturday, October 04, 2008 - 11:11 pm: | |
Sorry, Gary, I simply must respond to...
I didn't detect any real nastiness there.
... with - given the implication regarding my own comments - the following non-literal sardonically-bitter gallows humor comeback-quip:
"Good thing the kid wasn't a chav."
Now I'm done. Joel, as usual, expresses the situation best and more eloquently; and you Gary as usual, put out any fires.
Finally, here's my . |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.178.250
| | Posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 12:25 am: | |
Craig, I'm not following you. As I said, I didn't detect any real nastiness in the posts preceding your own, and I stand by that. Perhaps you could point it out to me? I don't understand the relevance of your chav comment. Why would it make any difference? A human being took his own life, while being goaded on by some of the onlookers - surely that's the main issue here? |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.10.144
| | Posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 03:04 am: | |
It's getting to the point where explaining things is nothing but shrill. I'm amazed - but hey, I'm always amazed. It's a good thing the kid wasn't a chav (let alone a Swedish twin), because, for example,
I keep doing this thing of watching chavs ride their bikes recklessly around traffic and being eager to see them hit.
... And what I expressed above was so egregious?! Maybe. Maybe I'm losing personal perspective. It's so hard to see how one comes off. I refer again back to Joel's statement a few posts up above, and once again - over and out and . |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 11:19 am: | |
Um, I was ashamed of that. I thought that had come across quite clearly. And they were endangering lives, not just their own. |
Lincoln_brown (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 58.165.11.223
| | Posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 - 01:30 pm: | |
It's a shame horror fiction doesn't get discussed much anymore, on this board. |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.102.88.62
| | Posted on Monday, October 06, 2008 - 12:58 pm: | |
And another form of censorship is of course peer pressure... |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 01:52 pm: | |
Craig - I don't want to start playing Devil's Advocate, espcially since it was my original swapping of 'comments' which helped this thread transpire the way it has, but sometime last year I also caused a slight, if middling furore with regards to something, if not similar, then in the same area of sensitivity. I think it might have been Protadroid who felt I had overstepped the mark when I made a comment about how everyone was 'shocked and appalled' by a campus shooting in which over a dozen people were left dead. I made the observation that it was a pity we didn't share such sentiments when watching the news with regards to the daily atrocities suffered by ordinary Iraqi's...everyday, in fact. My point at the time wasn't to reduce or ignore or become indifferent to the campus killing, but that it should serve as a reminder that all life should be considered valuable and worthy. Unfortunately my views (except by Donald and a few others...who did seem to understand) were translated differently. So, it seems I too am just as capable of saying one thing, and it being interpretated as another. So, sorry mate, I feel a tad hypocritical for having made the original post.
Personally, I stand by my comments, BUT I for one don't dislike you in the slightest. I think you do have gallows sense of humour, and I think Joel's post about Chris Morris bears thinking about, especially in the context of framing observations, no matter how dark, on a message board. I actually think you are quite funny and while I might not agree with your view on movies, I still find them refreshingly different takes on more established viewpoints.
BUT...The Mist and Donnie Darko are masterpieces and YOU KNOW SHITE about movies |
Albie (Albie)
Username: Albie
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.102.76.119
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 04:15 pm: | |
Friendship is of course the greatest form of censorship. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.234.27
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 04:52 pm: | |
No worries, Frank. I probably was insensitive to begin with in my initial comments... no wait, I know I was insensitive: that's why a "demon" spoke it for me. It was not the right time or context or word-order. God knows I've gotten in trouble before via words-on-screen.
Regarding your Iraq comment: selective outrage is an interesting thing. We are so blind to our own prejudices - most of the time it's innocuous enough, it's our inability as writers to see our work objectively. A writer's first wish might be to be able to do that; it might also be a writer's last wish, because to be totally objective all the time runs the risk of being super-critical; and we must love what we create to a certain degree to see it to full birth, and send it into the world - hence, the subjective stance.
F*ck, we're all hypocrites to some extent or another. Like I like to say: Double standards are twice as good. Or as the commercial goes: "Double your pleasure, double your fun, with double-minty standards."
BUT I for one don't dislike you in the slightest.
What a coincidence, Frank - I don't dislike me in the slightest either! (Gotta throw out some red meat to those who think I'm an arrogant prick.)
My friend, I'm only letting that remark about THE MIST and DONNIE DARKO go by, because I know you're joking. I'm almost starting to think of THE MIST as a "Body Snatchers"-ish measuring device: if you like THE MIST, then it's too late for you, the pod-person has already taken over.... |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.234.27
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 04:54 pm: | |
Friendship is of course the greatest form of censorship.
No, it's a bullet applied forcefully to the brain. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 05:00 pm: | |
Craig likes donnie darko so much he's got the nude scene from Brokeback Mountain in supergiant size posters round his house so he can see Donnie Darko with no clothes on. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.234.27
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 05:12 pm: | |
Believe it or not, I've been told I look a lot like Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm not sure if they meant from those BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN scenes or not....
Someday I will go back and see DONNIE DARKO, to see if somehow I missed something. I'll do it just as soon as I get through every other movie ever made on planet Earth.
Including the Olsen twins' oeuvre. Hell, I'd see either one of their oeuvres.... |
Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.0.1
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 05:50 pm: | |
Go on - watch it again Craig - you know you want to :>) |
Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.236.227
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 05:54 pm: | |
DONNIE DARKO somehow reminds me of THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.58
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 05:57 pm: | |
But see I liked THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. I thought it an excellent little sci-fi movie.
And um - no, I don't, Ally. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 09:13 am: | |
I liked THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, Craig. It was clever and entertaining. A piece of fluff, yes, but a very watchable one. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:10 pm: | |
Craig - The mind boggles, mate. The Butterfly Effect as Zed rightly points out 'was clever and entertaining. A piece of fluff...', but simply no more than that. It was clearly aimed at the older end of the teenage market, something a little darker than 'The Final Destination' films. So, how on earth can you not find Donnie Darko so distasteful.
And The Mist? Come on, I want to you to say what you found so nullifying about this great movie. Seriously mate, I'm interested to hear why you didn't like it.
Oh, and Craig...I wouldn't go to sleep tonight my friend. You might wake up in the morning and find you simply don't care anymore. Woops...it's too late...it already happened. (Just joking with ya!)
Oh, was that Donald Sutherland peeping in through your back door. It was, wasn't it? RUN CRAIG, RUN FOR YER LIFE... |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:11 pm: | |
See what you made me do...I wrote how can you NOT find DD so distasteful...I've become infected with a brooding melanchonic CRaig like virus... |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:19 pm: | |
I thought The Butterfly Effect anything but fluff - I actually described it in my review as (at the time) the best Stephen King film not based on anything of Steve's. I was surprised how relentlessly bleak it was, and thought of The Dead Zone, especially the novel. May I assume we're talking about the director's cut, though? The ending of the theatrical release cheats badly, whereas I don't think the other one does. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 12:26 pm: | |
I haven't seen the director's cut. I agree it is unremittingly bleak in parts, it being one of the reasons my girlfriend swore blind she'd never buy me another what she thought 'quaint sci-fi/horror movie'. BUT, I personally think the seriousness of the film is off-set at times by this ever so slight, niggling little vein of popcorn running through it's tightly wound body. I think the surprise is that this movie was so dark for a teenage audience. A decent surprise, but a surprise nonetheless.
Haven't seen the sequel, which I guess is no doubt an interesting piece of cashing in. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 01:43 pm: | |
I actually thought fluff was the wrong word when I wrote it, but there's no edit function here. For me, the film occasionally comes across as something shallow trying to be something deep. If that makes any sense. I did enjoy it a lot, though.
Ashton Kutchner is too fluffly for the film, but overall I was very impressed by its bleakness. I even posted a rave review on here at the time.
The final scene of the director's cut is a bit of a minor classic. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 01:46 pm: | |
I agree with Zed. Shallow trying to be deep. Not kssing your arse, miserable arse.
So, what's the ending of the director's cut.
Put up a spoiler alert. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 01:47 pm: | |
I only think it very occasionally comes across like that, mainly because of the lead actor; for the most part, it works rather well. I actually thought it was great at the time, and will have to watch it again. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 01:54 pm: | |
I don't think there's anything wrong with Kutchner. The poor chap's one of those actors that no matter how decent he is, some people will not like him no matter how good he is. It's the same with Hanks. Sure he's been in some detestable crap, but people just can't stand him and automatically dismiss good films because of him.
Like Guy Ritchie. Everybody raves on about how he's trying to be this and that, instead of just looking at his movies, and saying, 'that was a well-made, plot driven, character based romp, that was actually enjoyable' Instead you get, 'that fucking rich toff pretending he's something from down 'ere.'
Pointless and almost unconnected rant over.
It's the not smoking for a week that has me talking more shite than usual. Apologies. |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 38.113.181.169
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 02:00 pm: | |
People don't like Hanks? I thought that guy was loved as much as Jimmy Stewart! |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.244.40
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 04:59 pm: | |
Frank: I've gone on to points where people here want to do me harm for my opinions of THE MIST, and specifically why it is, imho, a bucket of piss. I would only bore others. I did admit, in the later of my past rants, that I may have been judging it unfairly, because I was placing the wrong "genre" template over the film; meaning, I do believe it was (like MULHOLLAND DRIVE) originally intended for television, but turned last-minute into a feature film; and so, conventions and expectations that were aroused in me for feature film, were constantly flummoxed. To be charitable, I should just leave it at that. But I've never been accused in the past of charity....
I also disagree with many, including our illustrious and not-to-be-excited-unduly host, that DONNIE DARKO is also, you will excuse the comparison, a bucket of piss. My mind thankfully fades about that film, but I've also gone over why I hated it as well, ad throw-up-eum. Here, too, I will admit, my dislike might be more a matter of taste; the writing itself, more than anything else, vexed me. It gave me great pleasure later, to know that Richard Kelly's follow-up film SOUTHLAND TALES was laughed out of - I think it was the Toronto Film Festival, might have been Cannes; anyway, it was pilloried and abused, died a miserable death on release, and languishes on dvd now; and though I haven't seen it yet, and am therefore being deliberately unfair to it, I am happy that he got his just comeuppance for making DD even if it had to come through another of his creations -- the sins of the father shall go down seven generations, I hereby decree, for that which is DONNIE DARKO.... |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 05:28 pm: | |
Craig
You know shit-all about films
IMHO |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 05:29 pm: | |
I mean that in the nicest possible way. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.77.203
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 - 06:03 pm: | |
And I mean this in the nicest possible way back:
Go f#@$ a light-socket.
Now, just dab a little and all's well. See? This is how all disagreements should proceed!
You knobhead. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 01:26 pm: | |
been there, done that. but the damn light socket never phoned, didn't show me any respect in the morning
You dickweed |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 01:30 pm: | |
Craig - Southland Tales is indeed a huge disappointment. But my feeling about this film is that it will go the way of Hudson Hawk. Don't know how you feel about that, buddy? |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 01:32 pm: | |
Weber - I got y'back, bro. Don't sweat it. Craig and light sockets go way back...get it? Ah, forget it. My brilliance shall remained undiminished. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 02:29 pm: | |
I've just watched a bit of Southland Tales and felt it quite ambitious, dreamlike and different. I always thought that was a good thing. It even made me wonder if this guy could have made Watchmen. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 02:38 pm: | |
Now there's an interesting thought. He'd be an inspired choice me thinks. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 02:45 pm: | |
Bollocks, I should have started that last post with ... Been there, done that, got the scarch marks.
Can we pretend that I did and I'm really witty? |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 02:49 pm: | |
Weber - In my eyes you'll always be witty. Me, I keep a notebook next to the computer with my little withering asides noted for whoever wishes to engage the powerful one. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 02:59 pm: | |
SCORCH MARKS
not scarch marks
God I'm having a shit day. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.250.221
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 04:33 pm: | |
SCORCH MARKS/not scarch marks
God I'm having a shit day.
Ah. You mean "skid marks." |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 05:08 pm: | |
In keeping with the subtlety of your alleged humour
You Fuckass |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.254.118
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 06:02 pm: | |
This level of repartee is beneath you, Weber. It would be like suddenly telling the joke: "What's the longest word in the English language?... Mydick," in respectable company, which this is. So please take your nasty terms outside: me and the Moderator, we don't appreciate people using the F-word (i.e., fuck) or the V-word (i.e., vagina-breath) here. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 06:21 pm: | |
Too flipping right, we don't. It frigging unnecessary. |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 12:26 pm: | |
Craig - there is no spoon. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 01:38 pm: | |
See
He didn't even realise that Fuckass is the insult that Donnie uses against his sister in the greatest movie ever made
Poor Craig. No idea about subtlety underpinning crudeness. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.0.58
| | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 03:59 pm: | |
You're right, Weber. I didn't get it. Your subtlety was wasted on me, utterly.
You see, my mind is scrubbing free every last flake of that wretched monstrosity. But that's not your fault.  |
Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.183.174
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 09:34 am: | |
I still dig Darko. So there. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 10:39 am: | |
I've finally worked out my problem with DONNIE DARKO: it tries too hard. Tries too hard to be hip and retro and quirky. It doesn't come across as effortless.
I still think it's an OK film, but vastly overrated. Give me WEIRD SCIENCE any day. :-) |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 10:55 am: | |
I first watched Darko when I was stoned and hated it. Then I watched when I was sober and liked it.
Make of that what you will. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 11:41 am: | |
But it's someone's first film. He probably was trying too hard. He still acheived some very good things. |
Simon Strantzas (Nomis)
Username: Nomis
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 99.225.111.224
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 11:51 am: | |
But his next, SOUTHLAND TALES, is twice as ambitious (and twice the commercial failure). |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 12:04 pm: | |
But I can see where he went wrong. It's that big boost of confidence that comes from early praise, one that makes you reach a little farther than you really can. I forgive him, and still think he has talent and brains, and I can't quite write off folk like that. I think he has a future worth watching. |
Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.158.168
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 02:37 pm: | |
Give me WEIRD SCIENCE any day. :-)
It's yours! |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.34
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 04:29 pm: | |
I think it pertinent to be reminded of DONNIE DARKO's history: it was made, and released - to universal dispraise, and it tanked big-time at the box-office. But some very vocal "fanatics" kept up the drum-beats, and a long time after its initial release - I'm thinking 6 months to a year, can't remember now - it was re-released, and has enjoyed a modest cult status ever since. By all accounts it should have died a merciful death, and DD actually is one of the rare creations in Hollywood (Fox's "Arrested Development" is another one that comes to mind) that after being killed, got a second life... it shouldn't have.... |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.98.9.4
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 04:44 pm: | |
And was voted 2nd best film of the year in the viewers vote for best film on the Jonathan Ross Film 200? show.
So I'm not the only one who thinks it's a damned fine movie.
Which incidentally follows most of the rules of structure you keep quoting. It set up a template and doesn't stray from it.
It's one of the few films where I prefer the studio cut to the directors version. the directors cut tries to remove a lot of the ambiguity which makes it such a good film. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.34
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 04:58 pm: | |
I'll just have to agree to see this again, then. I think when you actually boil down DD, for me, it's more a matter of taste: unlike THE MIST, which (if it's a feature, and not the semi-aborted TV show it now seems to be) is inherently flawed, DD was just too "angst-ridden" for my tastes. It felt too smug, too arrogant, too full of itself. Elitist. "Oh woe is me" phoney-tortured. Again, I love the fact SOUTHLAND TALES was laughed into obscurity... that's just shadenfreude, I know, and it's not really fair, but hey... shadenfreude is what this town really runs on.... |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.3.65.135
| | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 05:13 pm: | |
There's far too much discussion about horror fiction on this board these days. Can't we go back to discussing politics? |
Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 11:53 am: | |
Craig - You're not the bastard son of Mr Goldman by any chance?
Actually, I admire your articulate stance on DD, food for thought, and all that, but I will have to disagree with you. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 12:49 pm: | |
"I think it pertinent to be reminded of DONNIE DARKO's history: it was made, and released - to universal dispraise, and it tanked big-time at the box-office."
Universal? Really? Do tell. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 12:56 pm: | |
"I think it pertinent to be reminded of DONNIE DARKO's history: it was made, and released - to universal dispraise, and it tanked big-time at the box-office."
Could that be said of Peeping Tom, I wonder? Or Night of the Hunter? |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.153
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 04:40 pm: | |
... That is kind of creepy I'd actually say that, isn't it? It's like I've become one of the pod people, wielding the blanket tastes of the unwashed masses as a judgment-club against "art" (to mix strange metaphors).
Just the $ facts: according to imdb, its entire run in theaters, it basically broke even ($4.5 million). It was released 10/01, and lingered well into '02 like a modern-day cult classic; it disappeared in March '02, then reappeared over two years later, with another theatrical run, in 06/04, staying until 10/04. I thought it had made more money, and was more widely "popular," its second time around, but I guess I'm wrong. Still, a second-release like this, is fairly rare, and a triumph of sorts....
But no, that's not - hell, me! - to use the fickle marketplace as a measuring-rod. I guess my dislike got the better of me. I'm more like a spurned lover with DD - I so wanted to love it... but, sigh... it betrayed me.... |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 05:24 pm: | |
This Donnie Darko stuff is going mad. We don't have to like films, or even dislike them. Why are we so unhappy when folk hate stuff we like, or vice versa? That's the issue.
I'll repeat I thought The Orphanage bland, like some slightly scary Hallmark film with nice photography. I thought at least Darko strove for more, and accomplished much of it. And at least it acknowledged that a mood and a texture matters in film. |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.96
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 05:43 pm: | |
I'll give you this Tony: dredging up the fragments in my mind - less for DD, more for THE ORPHANAGE - there does seem to be a degree more of authenticity in DD, and a degree less in the latter; and a degree less of self-awareness in DD, and a degree more in THE ORPHANAGE (by "self-awareness," I mean: a film's hyper-awareness of itself as a film, in a tradition of film, and so its subsequent inability to perform "naturally"; the whole observed subject is altered by being observed theory, etc.; one of the unfortunate flaws, imho, of LOTR).
However, DD definitely has a degree more... I'll just call it "angst-riddenness" for lack of a better term - sentimentality over story - than did THE ORPHANAGE. Probably why I so rankled at it.... But there is a whole lot to be said for authentic "mood and texture" and perhaps I've forgotten this. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 05:55 pm: | |
We're meeting! Yay. I suppose it was the bits with Darko getting up and addressing Swayze and the like that bothered you, which sort of felt forced with me, too. But texture - and by this I mean emotional texture too - counts for a lot with me and I'll forgive a lot if a film has it. I think the two films we're hung up about could do with learning a bit from one another, eh? |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.96
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 06:01 pm: | |
btw: All artists, or most, are "self-aware" - are aware of the tradition whose wake they follow in. But some are overwhelmed by it, and parrot it to a sickening degree; some are too aware they are in the act of creation, and are stuck in a loop creating creating, rather than creations themselves. It's beyond the use of conventions or cliches - it's as if a film catches sight of itself in a mirror, and is narcissistically fascinated, entranced: a kind of reality exits, and a kind of illusion takes over, as the film spends its whole life preening its hair to look exactly right to its self. I'm troping here, but I hope you know what I mean. You see it in writing too. The best artists not only weave the illusion of being non-self-aware; but they take the traditions before them, and birth them new. Harold Bloom has a good way of putting it: the later artists create the illusion that they came before their predecessors. Something like that....
P.S. Once irony enters, or the more it enters, the more this model varies: irony is art's admission of self-awareness ("belatedness," again using Bloom-speak), and then you get a whole different beast. But a movie like THE ORPHANAGE, say, I would call non-ironic; and alas, it does seem to be a shade (no pun intended) too self-aware to pull its own perfection off - perfectly.... |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.2.96
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 06:03 pm: | |
Yes, Tony!!! That scene you mention was the scene I detested the most! That one, and the long montage to Tears for Fears... ugh, don't remind me of anything else. We'll get to fisticuffs soon enough, if you keep reminding me.... |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 06:18 pm: | |
Yes, I actually hated a couple of things in Darko (I felt let down by them, my 'trust' was gone, and it hurt) but then so much good stuff came along for the journey I sort of didn't mind. Shall we watch it together and get back here? I bet we swap views.
Self-awareness is a bug bear of mine. It ruins good books, movies, and yes, music. The artist must be an innocent. It's why my fiction takes so long; I need to eradicate me from it and that's harder than it sounds.
This is why I can't watch Coen movies, for instance; they ALL have that feeling. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 06:19 pm: | |
For me, Darko would have just sat in that audience frowning. |
Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.78.11.104
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 07:12 pm: | |
A present for Craig.
http://www.shirtpervert.com/index.cgi/movietshirts/shirtpervert/5498169 |
Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.16.79.176
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 07:45 pm: | |
I actually liked the rabbit in the film, Ally - or the image of it, the promise of it. When I saw the movie and what they did with the rabbit though?... Christ, was I disappointed. What a let-down. What a waste. |
Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.78.22.90
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 09:13 am: | |
I'm rather fond of the rabbit too. I wonder what they did with the Director's cut? I saw the new poster for it. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 09:15 am: | |
>>When I saw the movie and what they did with the rabbit though?... Christ, was I disappointed. What a let-down. What a waste.<<
I sort of thought this, too. DD was one of those films I liked a lot on first viewing, then when I watched it again I couldn't get through it. Maybe it's a mood thing - I should try it again.
I certainly don't think its a bad film, btw, just not as good as its cracked up to be. |
Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.114.136
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 10:50 am: | |
I think this is were we meet. I was prepared to forgive it it's faults, while other folk felt too disappointed by the faults to forgive it them. I bet on a graph we would be somewhere on the same dot in understanding it's quality. Funny that. |
Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 11:11 am: | |
Good point, Tony. |