Last movie you watched......

Yes. I figured the teacher was giving me her interpretation of a book. I've always been one to think for myself.
@TigerVols its all good but keep telling yourself, it's only a movie. It's only a movie. It's only a movie.

 

"Think(ing) for myself" here seems to mean, in your mind, not thinking at all. TigerVols has thoughts on a film obviously meant to be provocative by a director who has a long history of being provocative. It's a serious movie. And you rip him for delving into it, rolling out the tired, middle school "It's just a movie" b.s.

 

The biggest problem with current blockbusters isn't too much CGI or action or anything like that. It's overstuffed, overly complicated screenplays. "Prometheus" is a bright, shining example. "Inception" is another great example. "The Dark Knight Rises" is another. The writers and directors just jam and cram characters and plot and twists and turns into the films to such a degree that even if you can follow what's supposed to be going on at that point, which these days is like trying to read stereo instructions, as the old saw went, you have nothing to invest in enough to give a shit at that point what happens to anybody.

 

Saw Zero Dark Thirty on Saturday. Thought it was good. The book was better, but I enjoyed the character played by Chastain. The trailers were misleading as people have found out. It's far less about the action and raid than about the chase.

Apparently, it did $24M this weekend. I expected way more, especially considering that the theatre was packed at 10 a.m. when we saw it. I would have guessed like $40M or so. But, the experts are saying $24M was a good debut number. Seemed low to me.

 

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. After digesting it a bit, McConaughey was obviously outstanding. Hirsch, I thought, turned in one of his worst performances. The girl was very good.

I didn't really find it an entertaining movie, but it did leave me feeling like "WTF did I just watch?" It's one of a very few movies I've had trouble describing what I thought of it. Overall, I'd say it was a miss, I just can't exactly define why.

 

Felt the exact same way. Excellent movie, but tough to watch...

 

I think that some of the criticisms to "Shame" are not really valid criticisms of it as a film. They are disagreements with the premise. Or, more accurately, that critic or commentator's take on the premise.

Essentially, some out there - and I thought this way, too, and went looking for such responses - think that "Shame" offers a puritanical view of sex. In other words, it tsk-tsks Brandon for engaging in relatively normal sexual behavior for a successful, good-looking, single 30-something male in Manhattan. He watches porn. He has the occasional one-night stand. He jerks off. It's tough to know where the line is between healthy and self-destructive behavior. Some people get desensitized by porn, and it affects their actual sex lives. That seems to have happened here, as Brandon couldn't perform with the woman he really liked from work. The director seems to have cast his lot with "self-destructive," but to those who criticize the film as puritanical, I'd say that the director was only applying that result to Brandon, not to humanity at large. I'm sure others could share Brandon's habits and come out perfectly fine. The key is his emotional response to what he's doing. He's frustrated by his compulsions. He can't get close to people. I think that by showing that Cissy has the opposite problem - getting too close to people too quickly - the director shows that he isn't judging sexual promiscuity, necessarily, but rather exploring people's different reactions to an emotionally difficult past.

Some other thoughts:

* I'm somewhat troubled by the fact that a visit to a gay sex club was depicted as rock bottom. "Oh, my god, he even goes gay sometimes. Now, that's depraved!"

* There seems to be some speculation out there about an incestuous past or at least sexual tension between Brandon and Cissy. I don't see that at all. I think people are looking for something that's not there. Some point to her being naked in the bathroom in front of him. However, on first viewing, I thought that he couldn't see her, but we could, because of the camera's placement. And, regardless, the shot selection seemed more metaphorical than anything: Cissy is emotionall vulnerable, i.e. "naked." Brandon is clothed, i.e. closed off from people and aloof.

* The first-date scene was tremendous. People talk a lot about realism and grit in films and television. This was about as gritty and as real as I've seen. Down to the waiter's interruptions, this might as well have been a reality television scene, not a scripted movie. It felt completely honest.

* I was somewhat baffled about the framing device - the red-head on the train. I didn't think the first scene fit Brandon's character. He wasn't depicted, the rest of the way, as any kind of threat or sexual predator. Yet his aggressive movements and her fleeing seemed to suggest that. And, at the end, I'm not sure what caused her - a married woman - to seemingly change her mind about him. Why did the tables turn? (I'm presuming he fought his compulsion this time.)

* The movie seems to be less about sex addiction and, on top of being about people's different emotional responses to the same traumatic event, more about compulsive behavior in general. It could have just as easily have been about SportsJournalists.com addiction as sex addiction, but that would be boring and not as conducive to a film narrative as this one. Sex was just the vehicle the director chose.

 

I did not rip him. Sometimes, its best to put the note pad down and enjoy a movie instead of analyzing every freaking detail, ya know?

 

Maybe that's how he enjoys it.

Your posts to him are dripping with the kind of anti-intellectualism that is a scourge in this country.

 

Oh, it's about sex addiction. C'mon now.

At least some of what happens in the movie is Brandon's imagination. How much of it?

As for the final sequence being rock bottom...in whose opinion? The movie's? Doesn't appear to be. The movie's clever is that it seems to impose a penalty on Brandon's escapades with Cissy's voiceover and attempted suicide. But if we've watched the whole movie, we know that Cissy's moving toward suicide from the minute we meet her -- the best thing about Mulligan's performance is how she shows Cissy fighting not to do that, especially in the conversation on the couch -- and Brandon's night prowling around bears only circumstantial connection to her attempt.

Is it rock bottom in Brandon's opinion? Consider that, after the encounter in the gay club, he hires two prostitutes and has sex with them. Take that however you please. Either he wants more of whatever he just had at the club, or the club did nothing for him, or the club was an experience he had to, uh, dispatch of in his mind.

 

I have not read a single review or criticism of 'Shame.' I'm baffled that anyone would view as a puritcanical indictment of sex.
It's about sexual compulsion. The movie makes it clear time and time again.
The character has to masturbate regularly in the men's room at work. He has to have his work computer confiscated because ti's riddled with viruses and porn.

The sister serves to further illustrate the same thing. The two definitely have boundary issues with each other, and there is a definite subtext of some kind of shared trauma that continues to manifest in their differing yet shared emotional and sexual problems.

It's not an indictment of sex, pornography or masturbation. It's about sexual compulsion.

And it's clear from Fassbender's face in the closing shot, he experiences no joy from sexual activity. The look on his face is not even rutting or animalistic. It's anguished.

As for the woman on the train, I immediately thought of 'Choke,' the good Chuck Palahniuk novel not the bad movie they made from it. In 'Choke,' the narrator indicates that sexual compulsives recognize each other and have a set of singals to each other. That's what I thought was happening on the train.
He's not predatory. He thinks the woman and he are signaling each other. He's frustrated the first time when, for some reason, she changes or her mind. Their later encounter indicates that his instincts were right the first time.

It could have been about other compulsions, but sex compulsion as a topic is much more powerful because it involves an activity that most people associate with joy and positive emotions.

 

Great explanation. That really opens it up for me quite a bit. Interesting that the two sex addicts can't get on the same page. First, she backs out. Next, he (presumably) does.

Without a doubt, this is yet another reason why sex addiction worked so well as a compulsion disorder for the screen.