The Flick Filosopher's Mail

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posted 02.08.99
gordonl@doitnow.com writes:
As a senior citizen I paid $3.75 to see The Thin Red Line. That was about $50 too much!! What a boring pile of neverending crap!!

The Flick Filosopher responds:
I'm with you! I paid $5 at a bargain matinee and still didn't get my money's worth.

posted 02.08.99
BRAELYNE@aol.com writes:
Great Web site!!! A friend of mine works for a computing magazine and sends me her Web site of the day -- and yours was the offering for today... and it's FABulous! I believe I'll be visiting on a daily basis from hereon in.
Keep it up!!!
J. Graham, NYC

posted 02.08.99
rhedien@mediaone.net writes:
I must have seen a different version of A Simple Plan. The one my wife and I saw this past weekend along with 14 walk-outs thought this picture was lower than the pits. A knockoff of Fargo, which was a really good flick. The acting was good but the movie was so boring I had to triple my medication for my RLS (restless leg syndrome).

The Flick Filosopher responds:
Well, that's what makes horse races, as they say. A Simple Plan is one of the best movies I've seen in years.
How can A Simple Plan be a knockoff of Fargo? The book on which Plan is based predates Fargo by several years. How do you know the Coen Bros. didn't read Scott Smith's novel before creating their film? (I'm not trying to knock Fargo -- I loved it, but it was very different from Plan.)
What bored you about Plan? The bloody murders? The emotional blackmailing? The suggestion that the capacity for evil deeds is within all of us? The ironic tragedies sprinkled throughout? The relentless suspense of knowing that any unsuspecting soul in Hank's little world could be his next unlucky victim?
Ah, well. I hope you found something else to enjoy at my site. Thanks for stopping by.

posted 02.08.99
Clintonio7@email.msn.com writes:
Commendations on your site. It's very well designed, and is a pleasure to see one like it when so many sites on the Net are so poorly thought out. However, have to warn you that this letter is about a review that you gave that I disagree with, so don't bother reading on if you get too much of this type of mail and have no need for it. Just voicing my thoughts to the void, maybe...

In my opinion, one of the dangers of reviewing movies and giving them critics, is that one can only really judge movies on one's experiences, and knowledge base, which is, no matter the person, limited. Now that doesn't make the critic useless, especially for those with similar perceptions of the world. However, to condemn a movie, can be unfair, since maybe you just didn't get the movie, like watching a movie ten years later, and realizing the movie is about a completely different theme then you thought back then. Just saying this to let you know that I got alot out of The Thin Red Line, and despite its unpopularity, I would say personally was one of the top movies last year. I say this because at its heart I believe was a message which you would agree with. That despite the surface level, at the core we are all the same, essentially one. That violence against another is the same as violence against oneself. As Witt portrays in his actions, which is so uncommon in this world. In order to make this message powerful, like any good myth or story, you need to go to the extreme, as in this case, to show extreme violence. It's usually the unsaid that makes a movie good, just like writing. I think, that unlike most movies today, The Thin Red Line's theme was unsaid, and not at first obvious, which means that most people are not going to get it, because that would require some work, instead of having it spoon fed. It's like news nowadays, useless because it doesn't say anything we haven't already heard before. If you look at the director's previous works, I think you could say that his track record is awesome. Days of Heaven being undoubtedly one of the best films to come out in its time, and it is still stands out today as a beautiful movie.

The Thin Red Line is more of a poem them a story, it's about the irony of life, that at the heart of everyone there lies the same desire, but somehow we manage to conjure up meanings that justify our violence against one another, all of it made up, none more valid then another, and certainly not worth killing over. Killing a man in war can be thought of as heroic, killing a man during peace, murder, same act, different meanings wrapped around it. Basically man kills out of fear, or some neurosis from his childhood that makes him see the murder as heroic or justified. But no matter the case, we can all find ourselves in a situation where the present thinking of society doesn't mesh with our own. Witt is just a young man trying to find out about life, and doesn't want to fight the battle he has been ordered to, at the same time he doesn't wish to be court marshalled [sic] and killed, can you blame him. Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line may be boring if you are not into what he is saying, but just because nowadays you have to wow the audience every few minutes in order to have a successful movie, this does not mean that the movie isn't a gem in its own right. That the only sad thing is that so many of us are busy making everything mean something, that we don't recognize that truth doesn't have to mean anything, that it just is. That we ruin it once we make it mean something, and make that meaning worth hurting or killing over. If more people liked/got The Thin Red Line, maybe there would be less violence in the world.... something I will, unendingly, keep hoping for.
Truely, [sic]
Clint Hanson

The Flick Filosopher responds:
Thank you for the comments on my site. However, there was no need to warn me away from your opinions. I have no trouble defending what I write.
If you believe that a movie can only be appreciated by an audience with experience common to the characters in it, then are you saying that only veterans of war have the right to criticize The Thin Red Line? I have to disagree with that. Movies are primarily entertainment, and secondarily, sometimes, art. At the very least they are vehicles for communicating ideas -- the writer's and director's -- about our society, the world, what it means to be human and alive. If they don't speak to a wider audience, then they've failed. As a moviegoer, movie lover, and human being, I have every right to "condemn" (your word) a movie that failed to speak to me, failed to entertain me.
You seem to feel that I completely missed a message in Line that you "believe was a message which [I] would agree with." Firstly, I don't know how you could know what I believe -- even if you've read every word I've written at my site, you could hardly say that you know me. And if you had read everything I've written, then you'd probably guess that I disagree with the message you got out of Line.
I do not believe -- and I don't see how you got this out of Line -- that "at the core we are all the same, essentially one." Obviously, this was so "unsaid" that it flew by me totally -- and you'll find in my reviews that generally the more subtle a movie, the more I enjoy it. I certainly don't need "messages" spoon fed to me.
You said that Line's theme is that "at the heart of everyone there lies the same desire," but you failed to mention what that desire is, and I saw nothing in Line to suggest such a commonality. To commit violence? To avoid violence? And then you said that Line suggests that we "conjure up meanings that justify our violence against one another, all of it made up." Did Line argue that WWII was unjustified? Warfare might be awful, but it is justified at times, and WWII was probably the most righteous war that the United States and its Allies have ever fought.
I'm still trying to figure out what this means: "That the only sad thing is that so many of us are busy making everything mean something, that we don't recognize that truth doesn't have to mean anything, that it just is. That we ruin it once we make it mean something, and make that meaning worth hurting or killing over." Are you saying that because I looked for meaning in Line, and found a "truth" I disagreed with, that I've wasted my time? How can the "truth" not mean anything? It should mean everything. The real problem is that that there is no "truth" that "just is." If things were truly so obvious and "true" then we would have no disagreements on religion, politics, morality, etc.
You said, "If more people liked/got The Thin Red Line, maybe there would be less violence in the world." Not the way I see it. Already too many people buy into the concept that humans are inherently good and just need to find our way back to that mythical state of grace. That misleading idea confounds any hope we have of finding a way to dampen down our inherent capacity for violence and conflict.
And sorry: A director may have an "awesome" track record (not that I necessarily agree that Malick has), but that can't save his latest film if it's a bunch of pretentious crap.
Hope I haven't scared you away from my site.

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