re: The Cabin in the Woods. TulaneLSU's 2011-12 movie review thread

The Descendants As most of you know, Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with this statement: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Later in the story, Anna's adulterous lover, Vronsky, says this to himself in a revealing soliloquy: “They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.” I couldn't help but be reminded of Anna Karenina as I uncomfortably sat through The Descendants. Always, it seems, those caught up in the power of adultery's lure learn to distort what happiness is, forsaking or confusing it with sensual pleasure. They create a non-sense world for themselves where the corrupt becomes the pure and the pure becomes trivial. Only when this world faces the reality of our true world does the self-constructed, delusional world fall apart. It falls apart because no others exist in the world of delusion. The others, those in the world of reality, have by their very existence the ability to shred the delusion to nothingness.

To see similarities with a classic work of literature is not to say that The Descendants is a good film. It's not by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems the writer relies heavily on Tolstoy's family drama. Accept the sex reversal: Vronsky is played by the deceitful wife of George Clooney, the affable, devoted cuckold with a heart of gold. Anna is not a suitable comparison for George. The twist comes in that the antagonist of the film is a vegetable, unable to defend any sin, unable to apologize, unable to do anything. And maybe this is where we learn the the film's most important lesson, a lesson that our judicial branch codified in the 1960s: you have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can be used against you in court. For the guilty, silence is the best response because guilt cannot be rationalized. Attempts to make guilt less guilty end in belittling the crime or in continuing to injure the wounded.

It takes the film a needlessly long time to get there. The audience, for our part, is forced to trudge through about 90 minutes of the most pointless adventure ever written. The quest in this movie is only there to extend the length. Honestly this movie feels like a wannabe intellectual's sitcom. It did not need to go more than thirty minutes, but it did, and insults everyone thanks to it. There are way too many twists and turns, too many ridiculously unbelievable situations, dripping in hyperbolic irony. Clooney, as usual, is his smug, self-important self. I really cannot see why he's considered a good actor. He's a money maker, sure, but a bad actor. He lacks the intelligence and gravitas to pull off this role. In the mirror, I'm sure he sees a top one percenter, but I doubt his IQ is above 110. He just rubs me as a someone who thinks he's much smarter than he really is. Trust me, I know a lot about that.

Amongst the most uncomfortable elements of this movie was the relationship Clooney has with his daughter. She's a recovering drug addict and still in high school, but is used the entire time as a sex symbol. It's a little worrisome when a director is making a movie about death, adultery, and attempts at reconciliation to use a character who is supposed to be in high school as a sex symbol. It's hard, for me at least, to come away wanting to accept what he has to say about the important things in life when he gets the little things so wrong. Anyway, the daughter has an Electra complex, and it appears, Clooney is more than happy to encourage and foster it.

The end is fairly predictable. But there is some intrigue left as the movie rolls into the credits. Is this a family now happy because it is focused on something else, the same thing on which other happy families focus. Or is this a family uniquely unhappy? I believe it's the latter. 3/10

I actually do like Justin Bieber.

A little reassuring statistic: of 78 movies reviewed in the TulaneLSU 2011 movie review thread, the average rating is 5.08. I haven't set up a bell curve, feel free if you'd like, but the average is where I hoped it would be. No movie grade inflation here!

I've discussed why I think it's poor. Why do you think it's good?

quote:

---

The Tree of Life is such a movie (many thanks to Leauxgan for his recommendation).

---

As a handmaiden of God Himself, I demand that you watch Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. You must stop avoiding me and follow your destiny, the ultimate rendering faith and doubt portrayed by film

I'm 98% sure he will get a massive religion boner (or at least his particular interpretation will slant that way)

Also it's one of the best movies ever made in general. Would probably fall somewhere in my top 5

quote:

---

Yea, I'm sure everyone on this site is incredibly knowledgeable about Russian literature

---

I am not ignoring it, but I do not yet feel worthy of something that comes with such promise. I feel as Simone Weil did, when, for twenty years, she stood on the porch of the Church, unready to enter, waiting for the command. It is not that I am ignoring your entreaties or do not want to watch the film. I do not yet feel called to see it. I would very much like to see the film, but I am waiting on the call. Perhaps you have been sent by God to guide me to this movie, for reasons neither of us yet knows. I very much expect that I will be called to see it, but not yet. Not until the divine word comes.


Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

(George Hebert)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Mormonism is the greatest threat to Western Civilization that has ever existed. The faith and reason of the last 3000 years is at stake as Mormon Satanists attack with their propaganda, housing it now in the form of pop-gnostic teenage romance books and films. How better to convert people to your belief than through entertainment, which at surface level appears benign and without intent, but below carries a pungent punch? The NFL has been doing the same for twenty years now.

Behind Twilight's childish romance where an average looking girl is swooned by a fabulously wealthy, powerful, and good looking knight in shining armor, is a sick, sinister plot to poison the minds and hearts of teenage girls throughout the world. The Mormon Satanists know that the way to world dominion is through the female because it is through the female that much of religious belief is passed. Young girls believe they are seeing their dreams come true on a silver screen, but what is being administered is arsenic of the soul. Twilight is nothing more than a capsule lined with a bad story that will appeal to teenage and lonely female masses. But its middle is boric acid. It is deadly and I would suggest you do not let your children see it.

The story is as ridiculous as any I've seen. Unnecessary drama compounds unnecessary drama. A girl wants to marry a pale white vampire, but is torn by her love for a dark dog. She marries the vamp and has a kid with him even though the kid will kill her, they believe. But magic blood and venom from the vamp hubby can bring her back to life. Meanwhile there are dogs fighting dogs and steroided vampires who run around hunting. Beneath the cover of this movie, the theme is hating humanity. Humanity is evil because we are fleshly. The dogs are evil because they are of this world. Humans are evil because they are of this world. The goal of life is to move beyond the physical world and gain a pseudo-eternal life with vampires. Gnosticism has never received a more wide spread audience, nor, in recent times, has the white supremacist doctrine of Mormonism.

I hate this movie more than anything I have ever seen before. I only watched it for the readers of The Arts Board. Accept my sacrifice by not watching this filth. I now must cleanse my body and soul from the ideas of this movie. 0/10

You are being brainwashed and you don't realize or care, it seems. You will never find your Edward because Edward is a Mormon woman's fantasy. The entire relationship Edward and the girl share is a disgusting, hormone-laden, teen-pornographic mockery of chastity and love. You are poisoning not just your soul by watching these films, but you are also poisoning any relationships you have or may have with males in the same way that many males poison their relationships and future relationships with females by watching pornography. I would recommend you fill whatever loneliness or need you feel not with this perverted female oriented pornography, but with communication and true love.

Dude, you are a nutter butter.