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Movies: spoiler alert!
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A matter of life
Yeah, thanks Harrison. I recorded the movie about Tyler Durden a few weeks ago and haven’t watched it yet. Thanks for nothing!
I saw the remake of the one about the villagers sacrificing the policeman a few weeks ago (HBO had a “free weekend”; I recorded a bunch of movies I hadn’t seen before, including the one I mentioned above). I wish I hadn’t, although I understand the originally was pretty good.
One more note: a few years ago, I was watching a baseball game in which Tim McCarver (possibly my least favorite color commentator of all time) made a comment that qualified as this same kind of mega-spoiler. Between innings the camera panned to the camera, and there were two actors (including the one who plays Verbal/Keyser in the movie mentioned — not trying to be a spoiler myself!) in attendance. McCarver makes the comment like, “Oh, look, it’s so-and-so with Keyser Soze.”
At least HSK gave us a spoiler warning.
Does anyone remember the mini series V? (that’s the letter not the Roman numeral) I missed the last episode and managed to avoid discovering the ending until about a week before the re air.
I never saw that series, Kbells. Believe it or not, there was a time in which (growing up) we lived so far away from the nearest big city that we could not even get NBC for a while. My, how times have changed.
However, there is a series (ironically, on NBC during one of those years when we could get it) called Cliffhangers. It was basically a trilogy of tales that would show each week, each one ending (of course) in a thrilling cliffhanger so you would watch next week. One of the tales was a Dracula story, one was a chase thriller called something like “Stop Susan Williams”, and I forget the third (I think it was an aliens taking over the earth scenario, not unlike “V”!). The funny thing is, they showed the final installment of the Dracula story, and the final episode was supposed to air the following week with the resolution to the other two story lines. It never showed! It seems they pre-empted it for another series (it might have even been the “Jesus of Nazareth” miniseries), and I never saw anything for a re-airing.
Does anyone remember this series (late 70’s/early 80’s)? Did anyone see the ending?
I once casually mentioned the ending of a long-running TV series in an online forum and got jumped on by another person for “spoiling” it … the ending had been shown more than a year before and the series was already out on DVD!
I figured if you didn’t know the ending by that point, you wouldn’t care. What a strange experience.
SteveG, there was an episode of the TV show “Cheers” where one of the characters (I forget who) spoiled the end of some movie or TV show. It was one of those things that everybody should have know (like Ol’ Yeller getting shot at the end), but everybody at the bar starts complaining. Frasier gets fed up and starts rattling off a series of “spoilers” from famous movies. The only one I remember was “Murder on the Orient Express,” in which he says “everybody did it.”
That movie came out in the early 70’s, this was more than a decade later, I love murder mysteries, but I had not seen it! I did watch it later, already knowing the ending, and still enjoyed it.
Oh, I do think “rosebud” was one of the spoilers revealed by Dr. Crane.
I saw one there that said “Dil is actually a man”. I don’t know what that means, but while I was in the Air Force, I was reading a Mickey Spillane novel. (I the Jury, I think it was.) Part way through, I inadverdently saw the back page. It said, “?????? was a man!” That changed everything when Mike Hammer was having a tough time handling that woman.
I don’t know what movies/books some of these refer to, like Dil was a man, the villagers sacrafice the policeman, and Kristin shot J.R., but others are not really spoilers at all.
Neo is the one! You know that 20 mins into the movie. The Matrix is a computer programmed prison would have been a better spoilers. In referrence to how the movie was marketed in 1999. “No one can be told what the Matrix is.”
While it’s true that Donnie dies at in Donnie Darko, the themes of teh movie don’t make is suspensful. When Donnie does die you aren’t shocked.
“299 Die” is also not a spoiler.
Other movies reference (like The Others) seem to be in company the don’t deserve to be keeping, in terms of quality of movie and in public reaction to the “twist” that the graphic spoils.
Like poetry, I don’t do movies. I have seen some of these shows on TV though but I don’t watch much TV outside of the educational channels on cable.
One would be better served reading the National Geographic one week, Scientific American another, Popular Mechanics or the Skeptic and countless other mags that would be just as entertaining while being way less costly, more educational, more profitable plus your brain won’t turn to mush either
There are better ways to entertain oneself than movies and TV. But it is a free country and people do all kinds of stupid things. Some people make sports out of them. That is what makes this country great.
Not a movie, but a spolier nonetheless. First time I ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel was in a cheap paperback edition. I casually read the back cover–which identified the Scarlet Pimpernel! I suppose they figured it was a classic, and anybody reading the book already knew the plot, but I didn’t. I’ve reread the book since then, and it’s fine to already know “who dun it” the second time thtough, but not the first time.
True confession: I always flip to the end of the Paul Harvey “Rest of the Stories”
You reminded me. There was a movie in 1945 called “Mildred Pierce”. (I had to google this.) The advertisemnets (radio, of course) asked, “What did Mildred Pierce do?” and like a famous play which I’ve forgotton, the audience was sworn to secrecy. I came to tell the ending, but decided not to because you can view a clip if you Google it, and someone may want to rent it. It’s a good movie. There is a scene where Joan Crawford reveals herself in a sexy bathing suit, 1945 standards. Women go to the mall wearing less today.
Luke at #9: I don’t know what movies/books some of these refer to, like Dil was a man,
The Crying Game
the villagers sacrafice the policeman
I don’t know that one either.
and Kristin shot J.R.
Dallas
“Verbal is Keyser Soze”!
Great movie.
the villagers sacrifice the policeman
That would be “Wicker Man”, which I watched about 4 weeks ago, and which is just awful. However, the 1970’s version is supposed to be pretty good.
An interesting discussion about that movie, somewhat appropriate for this blog, is the original film made the conflict about Christianity v. Paganism. This worked well (according to the critics, at least), but the remake threw out that conflict and simply made it something akin to secularism v. feminism, if I remember correctly (that is, I don’t remember any real mention of Christianity, although the feminism in the film was tied to paganism).
A question, though: how come M. Night Shamylan merits two mentions on the spoiler list? One of the films was pretty good and (as Luke mentioned above) has a great twist. The other film just plain stunk.
TJ - I happen to be a fan of Shamylan’s. All of his movies run on their own, almost unique Shamylan pace, and he is an incredible filmaker.
Probably only the Sixth Sense was sufficiently “mainstream” to be a big hit, but all of his work has similar merit. He is an artist you either appeciate or don’t (and I suspect most people won’t - though I happen to, because I have odd tastes in art).
KBells– I remember V. I think it was out when I was in elementary or junior high, maybe. I don’t remember much about it other than I thought it was weird!
KRM - I’m interested in renting Lady in the Water. Was that a particularly good one?
I liked The Sixth Sense, The Village, & Signs. Are there any others from him?
Karen O: Unbreakable is also Shamylan. Add that and I think you’ve listed them all.
I did not really like The Lady in the Water, but I’ve liked everything else he’s done.
A while back World reviewed the Kite Runner favorably, saying it had a Christian theme or something to that effect. So I made a mental note to watch it when it came out on video. I just did.
This was a horrible movie about people hurting people interspersed with the rape of children. While this sounds a little like the Catholic priesthood, it has nothing to do with Christianity.
There I have spoiled it! Don’t watch it!
The only similarity to Christianity I could find was in the character of a servant boy who showed only kindness, always sacrificing his own will for that of his master. I assume that is what World was referring to and I agree. But at what price!
Oh yeah, Unbreakable - I saw that one, too.
24. Momooffour. “I remember V. I think it was out when I was in elementary or junior high, maybe. I don’t remember much about it other than I thought it was weird!”
That’s why I liked it. However I rented it a few years ago and now it looks really cheesy.
Xion,
I’m sorry you watched it without knowing that. I’m fairly sure World gave some sort of strong warning (some reviews that I saw did so), but I know from having been burned by watching an R-rated movie years ago, based on a recommendation from World with no warning attached, the need to be careful. (It had never even occurred to me it might be rated R; nothing in the review suggested that it had sexual scenes, and I trusted World and simply never thought to check it out furthere.)
I read the book (Kite Runner), which was enough to tell me I didn’t want to see the movie. For some background (speculative) to World’s review, it seems the author is still Muslim, but not necessarily happy about everything that happens in the Islamic world. So he definitely doesn’t, himself, have a Christian worldview. However, the book (can’t speak for the movie) does explore some themes that can be called Christian: guilt, repentance, substitution, even restitution–but again, not truly from a Christian perspective. (After I read it, I prayed that the author would go all the way someday, beyond seeing things in Islam he doesn’t like, to seeing Christianity as what he’s looking for. It’s possible even that he’s a secret or new believer, but I think he’s a secularized Muslim.)
Thanks Cheryl. I watched it for two reasons. World’s recommendation (yes, they warned me) and because my son as a Marine will probably be living in Afghanistan in the future.
But how realistic is it that the ultra religious Taliban make little boys dance like girls and have anal sex? How realistic is it that little boys get raped by other little boys in the street of Kabul? The scene of the bleeding anus made us all leave the room.
My point is that this movie chose to take what could have been an interesting and realistic story and artificially pepper it with homosexual pedophilia. It could have been meaningful and hard hitting without raping little boys … (big caveat) UNLESS IT IS TRUE.
If everything shown there were true, then I will take back everything I said. I am all for movies exposing reality no matter how harsh.
But my impression was that the author was just a pervert who wanted to write about man-boy love in the dark quarters of the ultra-religious contrasting this with the wonderful lives of secularists, before religion showed up. The religion that showed up does far worse than he let on, but he chose sex with boys as his focus.
Xion - This is certainly not “proof”, but I heard a sermon, on tape, from a man who has studied Islam & it’s culture for several years. He maintains that there is an awful lot of hidden homosexual behavior among Muslim males. May have something to do with the women being covered head-to-toe in burqas or such.
Cheryl - Was that movie “Magnolia” by any chance? World had given it a good review because the reviewer liked the themes of the movie.
But my non-Christian parents, who were not overly-prudish, walked out on the movie. I can’t remember exactly what they said about it, but I think it was because of the language & too much sexual content. I think my mom called it “disgusting”, or some such word.
Xion, I’ve heard the same thing about Islam. And remember, a religion that tempts the “faithful” with 72 virgins doesn’t have a Christian view of sexuality! (Plus I’ve heard–possibly inaccurately since I can’t remember the source–that one has a choice regarding the gender of those virgins.) In the book, I don’t think the rape seen showed a preoccupation with it at all–it was a horror and nothing more.
Karen O.,
No, it was “Rob Roy.” Everyone else in American saw “Braveheart,” it seems, as I truly have never met another person who saw “Rob Roy,” but most seem to have seen “Braveheart”! (They came out about the same time, same subject matter, but World reviewed “Rob Roy” and gave it a very positive review.)
I went to see it with a guy friend who was really too crude, and who thought nothing of seeing R movies–in other words, a very embarrassing person with whom to see such a movie. (I will only watch an R-rated one if I have heard a review from someone I respect, who can tell me WHY it has an R rating and why it’s worth seeing in spite of the rating.) “Rob Roy” has no actual nudity, as I recall, but some violence and at least two strong sex scenes (one is marital sex, one a rape). The scenes aren’t necessarily “gratuitous”–she ends up pregnant and there’s a question of who the father is. But they were too much. My friend who didn’t avoid such material said that it was the most “sexual” film he’d ever seen–but World gave no warning. (I went back and read the review afterward thinking that maybe somehow I’d missed it.)
I saw both Braveheart & Rob Roy when they were on television, edited for content.
Speaking of the word “edited” - Remember I asked you about when to double the consonants or not when adding a suffix?
I looked it up in an old Webster’s dictionary, which said the consonants are double when the accent is on the syllable directly preceding the consonant.
Like you, I usually just remember how to spell words, spelling came easily to me. But this little matter had me second-guessing my spelling at times.
Xion, Cheryl,
I don’t even know what movie you are talking about, but I have difficulty believing homosexual rape is prevalant in radical Islam. Especially since a man can rape a woman and it’s her fault. She has to have male witnesses to testify of the rape. And we are assurred that there are no homosexuals in Iran. There probably aren’t any open. There are lots of bad things about Islam, but I don’t think this is one of them.
I have read Infidel and Now they Call Me Infidel”, as well as A Thousand and One Nights, which contains sex events. None of these hint of any such actions.
I would doubt that the incidents you describe are actual.
1. TJ, I used to watch Cliffhanger! on Mexican TV back in about 1980 or 81. Wasn’t one of the on-going stories about a guy from our future who gets trapped in the old West? He’d shoot people with a laser pistol. Am I imagining that?
2. Rob Roy is indeed highly sexualized. In addition to at least one or two (clothed!) sex scenes between Liam Neeson and Jessican Lange, there’s also the Tim Roth and Brian Cox characters, who can’t seem to talk to each other about much else. Brian Cox wakes up Tim Roth in a particularly rude manner, once. (And no, they’re not gay lovers.)
Still a great movie, though… just not for the kids, or the easily-offended.
3. For what it’s worth, I heard on Boortz’s show once that most of the Google searches for really horrible sexual images on the Internet originate from predominantly Muslim countries.
I agree Chas. The movie Cheryl and I were discussing was Kite Runner. I don’t recommend it.