Breaking out of the (Bird)cage

My first thought when I was watching The Birdcage was “Why are there transvestites singing and dancing on the stage?” I was really confused by the opening, but my thoughts were relatively correct, except the entertainers were not transvestites but rather just men dressing in drag.

I found the funniest parts to be when a character acts in an opposite way, there like when Katherine says she’s not motherly whilst putting a champagne bottle between her legs and popping the cork. Or when Albert tries to walk like John Wayne, or just act straight.  I was weird to see Robin Williams portraying a homosexual club owner.

I think this movie shows the beginning of the change of mindset toward homosexuality. A conservative senator’s daughter and a gay couples son married? To me this seems a bit extreme for the 1990’s especially when there was/is still a homophobic feel in the US. Yet this movie was made and did pretty well, illustrating the changing mood toward homosexuality. So in a sense Albert and Armand are breaking out of the homophobic cage.

Were nightclubs as popular in the 1990’s as they are shown to be in movies like The Birdcage, the Mask, and Night at the Roxbury?

To me the most important theme in this movie is the emphasis on being who you are, not someone you aren’t.  Albert is invited to the dinner as Uncle Albert, but was not comfortable, so he came back in a guise that suited him better, as Val’s Mother.

I think that this is a great movie, especially because Robin Williams is in it. I like its progressiveness and its message of be yourself, not anyone else.

Harold and Maude

Harold and Maude is a terrific movie, probably one of the best of the semester so far.  I didn’t really find it too funny, besides the cop scene, but rather serious and tragic. I did provide me with much to think about though.

One thing I saw in this movie was a kind of forbidden love. In Western, and especially American culture, it is frowned upon to be in love with or marry someone who is very old, which we saw by the reactions of the priest, psychiatrist, uncle and mother. I connected this taboo with the rather outdated view on homosexuality, which has been all over the news lately. My thought was “love is love” as along as you love someone who cares if they are old, young, male, or female?

Next I saw a similarity to the Romeo and Juliet story, which was alluded to in the movie. One of the couple, Maude in this case, kills themself and their lover also decides to die. Harold did not physically die, but left his old self/personality in that wrecked car on the beach. We then see him playing the banjo as he strolls away, reborn.

I liked the idea that Maude presented; the sorrow in the world comes from unique individuals who allow them to be treated like just another person in the crowd. I would have to agree. Western culture has a kind of guideline for how one is to act. Most people follow this “guideline” and don’t really express themselves, if this is observed in life it causes sorrow. And once the people who strictly follow this “guideline” begin to die, they realize that they haven’t truly lived, causing even more sorrow.

I couldn’t help but think about the Boy who Cried Wolf during the suicide scenes. If his rough estimate was 15 suicides and his mother was used to these marvelous bits of acting, what would happen if he actually died, killed himself, or was murdered? His mother would just blow it off because she’d probably think it was just another one of his acts.

Another thought, was it just me or did Harold become less pale as the movie went on?

I think the cop scene was funny because it is something I think that we’d all like to do, but we don’t because we’re afraid of the consequences. Also the reaction of the cop is pretty good, just dumbfounded at Maude’s actions, and how she can be so nonchalant about what she has done.

I feel that Maude truly follows the philosophies of Carpe Diem and/or YOLO (as much as I hate that acronym). One needs to seize the day because you only live once, Maude does that and she dies happy rather than regretful.

I am really glad that this movie was on the list of this semester it is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies, the more and more I think about it. This comedy definitely leaves us with much to think about and much to talk about on Monday.   

Never Been Thawed

Never Been Thawed is a very strange movie. I neither truly liked it nor disliked it and I don’t think that it was as black and white as everyone seemed to make it. I felt that it was the most accurate portrayal of life that we have seen, in movies, so far this semester.

This was not how I thought the movie would be. I was expecting something funnier I guess. Not to say that Never Been Thawed wasn’t funny, it just didn’t have enough of the kind of humor I like. I took it as a more serious film with some humorous parts.

The movie seemed a lot more real to me. I think that the way the movie was filmed, in kind of a less professional way, and the relationships between the characters made it a whole lot more relatable.  You must have felt sorry for Al when you saw that he missed his chance with Sally and when he missed out on The Christers fame.

I noticed in certain scenes the characters were reading magazines. I also noticed that the magazines were summaries of their life. There was “Trophy Wife Magazine”, “Christian Profiteer” (Milo), and “Apathy” (Al) to name just a few. What would yours be?

Frozen entre collecting. I’ve heard of some strange collections, but this is by far the strangest. I don’t understand the allure; I mean some of the originals must be worth something, but the rest? No. I do think that this does represent some of the strange things people collect or make a hobby out of.

People do some strange things. This was exemplified in the movie with the pee bags taped to that guy’s leg (I forgot the name), the professionalizing of childhood games, and recreating the Viet Cong experience.

I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again. I wasn’t terrible but it’s definitely not my kind of movie. It had some funny parts but I enjoyed it for its more relatable feel.

Idiocracy

I loved Idiocracy since the first time I watched it. I thought it was hilarious because of all the lowbrow crude humor. Over time I began to notice similarities between the film and actuality and have come to the conclusion that the sequence from the beginning of the film might actually become reality.

The way that things are going not only will humans will become as stupid as the movie suggests, but the planet will also be as overheated and filled with trash. This may not be fact but I believe that a large population of people, especially in the United States, have become a lot dumber and more ignorant.  Is the gun toting, obese, motorized scooter riding, American shown below too different from the Americans shown in the movie? I think not. If more people do not begin to lower the amount of trash thrown away, then the Earth might be pretty close to the Earth depicted in the movie. The combination of these two things, the stupidity and wastefulness of humans makes me draw a similarity between Idiocracy and Wall-e. In both movies, humans were a lot dumber than they are now and the earth is covered in trash and waste.

I noticed that Idiocracy had something to say about gender roles as well. In the movie women were probably as dumb as the men, as evidenced by the Attorney General, and were also used for sex constantly.  Every major corporation became some kind of sexual enterprise. Rita, as a prostitute, could be fine in a world like this.

I know people like money now, but that feeling seemed to be exaggerated in the movie. Frito would constantly be distracted by any kind of money talk.  Even thought the dollar had depreciated greatly, Frito still wanted some and would get tricked in to doing something for imaginary money quite often.

I don’t like or want to say this, but I think the rap genre of music and current television could start a trend similar to the one shown in Idiocracy. Neither uses particularly correct English, and all that is shown or heard is either violent or about sex, money, or women.

The humor in this movie is really childish and crude. The show Ow My Balls is slapstick humor that teenage boys would like, it crude but can be funny. Same goes with the rehabilitation one can even see similarities between that and NASCAR or WWF. This childish humor is an example of schadenfreude, pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Some laugh at Ow My Balls because we know it hurts to get hit in the balls and its funny because it’s not happening to us.

This movie is really funny (at least to me). But it does make me fear for the future. I can actually see Idiocracy happening in real life. It may sound terrible but its true. I hope that we can escape this grisly fate and we can if we promote literacy, recycling, and shy away from things that dumb us down.

MASH

M.A.S.H was a very good movie filled with some crude and slapstick humor that was not always said but rather implied. It tackles themes such as invasion, homosexuality, and sex.

One thing I noticed throughout the movie was that the characters constantly talked over each other. This may have been added to the movie for comedic value, but I think that it kind of parallels U.S. actions during that time. M.A.S.H was filmed in 1970 at the height of the cold war and the film takes place near the front line in the Korean War. Korea was the first place that the U.S. “Talked over”, so to speak, during the Cold War, it was not the last. I view the talking over of the soldiers as a parallel to the United States imposing its will on rather helpless countries during the cold war.

Another social problem of the time addressed in the movie was homosexuality. Captain Walter “Painless Pole” Waldoski confesses to Hawkeye that because he couldn’t fully seduce a nurse at the camp that he was, in his words, a “Fairy”. He then decides to commit suicide by “black pill”, actually a sleeping pill. Hawkeye then convinces a nurse to spend the night with him, “curing” him of his supposed problem. I think this treatment is reminiscent of the attitude toward homosexuals in the 1950’s and 1960’s, an attitude that homosexuality could be cured like it was some kind of disease.

Sex also played a major role in M.A.S.H. All of the doctors were getting into bed with the nurses and there even was a remark made by Hawkeye that was along the lines of “Good thing that you are nice to look at because you are a terrible nurse.” The nurses in the camp were kind of idolized because of their sex appeal and were exposed, in every sense of the word, especially Hot lips.

The comedy in this movie is rather crude and awkward because it is so sexually based for the most part. Another aspect of the humor comes from the obvious over exaggeration of life in a military camp. The native bartender Hawkeye enlists and the sheer amount of alcohol is obviously exaggerated. No military encampment, especially a medical encampment would be allowed to have that much alcohol for personal consumption. Also the amount of free time shown is an exaggeration. I don’t think any military doctor only a few miles from the front line would be able to play golf, due to just the sheer amount of casualties.

I found it interesting that football was such a reoccurring theme in the movie. I didn’t think that football had that much influence in the early 1950’s. I thought that football truly didn’t become popular until the advent of the Super Bowl in the 1960’s.

I thought the way the movie ended was kind of lame. It seemed so sudden. I guess it may have been an accurate portrayal of how military life can change so quickly.

M.A.S.H is well worth the watch. It’s a good comedy although kind of raunchy.