MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

Wake in Fright

7/14/2015

39 Comments

 

C+
2.17

  • It's hard to even break this movie down because it wasn't very exciting – Shane
  • Drawing out the [kangaroo] slaughter scenes made me feel as dirty as everyone looked - Jon
    • There were these great subtle moments that gave the movie its psychological edge - Lane
Picture
Original Review by Bryan

Wake in Fright was resurrected by Drafthouse Films. I’m going to get this out of the way, Wake in Fright is the original “Hangover.” The starting scene of John Grant sitting in a bleak, Australian classroom gave me flashbacks to Bradley Cooper.

Grant is stuck teaching by the Australian government in the no-man’s town of Tiboonda, but he’s headed out of town to meet up with his girlfriend. It’s funny to see Grant turn down a beer on the train the second time through this movie. The revelry on the train foreshadows Grant’s time in Bundanyabba. We’re introduced to Jock Crawford’s enormous appetite to drink by the enormous light he gives John. Jock is dumb, but loves his town!

Two-Up. We have to play this at the Mediocrities, right? John’s tablemate, Doc Tydon, checking the law of large numbers at the restaurant drops some philosophy on us, “All the little devils are proud of hell” and “Discontent is the luxury of the well to do. If you gotta live here. You might as well like it.” More foreshadowing of what is to come in the Yabba. I love the exchange at the table.

The Two-Up scene with John involved has to be one of the best gambling scenes in any movie. There’s chaos, excitement, and anticipation. Fair go! And John is out of there. I had a night like this at a casino near Chicago, anyone who has, can easily to relate to the excitement. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, 400 AUD in 1971 is 4,089.64 AUD in 2014. Quite a haul.

John’s excitement quickly turns to anger and desperation to leave Tiboonda. John’s out 400, let the spiral of the camera and John begin! John’s personality as he sulks in the bar and hangs out with Tim Hynes is a bit annoying, but come to think of it, he has to feel like shit. Things are low for John as he yaks in the desert instead of getting it on with Tim’s daughter. The single frame shots and spinning from John’s perspective while drunk were quite creative. They gave the viewer a better sense of how John is feeling, assuming one can relate.

In the “cabin” I couldn’t help but be drawn to the honesty and disgustingness of the alcoholic doctor. He’s sloppy, unreliable, and an awesome supporting actor.

When John, Doc, Dick, and Joe go out hunting the movie takes a turn from funny drunk to frightening drunk - someone no one wants to see. But this is a movie and at this point I’m curious how dark this is going to get after they hit the kangaroo with a car. Well, that didn’t take long - we’ve got the mass murder of kangaroos via spotlight. I actually looked this scene up after watching the first time. It was actual killing and was semi-encouraged by the conservation groups in Australia to show how brutal kangaroo hunting is. From Wikipedia...

In addition to the film's atmosphere of sordid realism, the kangaroo hunting scene contains graphic footage of kangaroos actually being shot.[18] A disclaimer at the conclusion of the movie states:
Producers' Note.
The hunting scenes depicted in this film were taken during an actual kangaroo hunt by professional licensed hunters.
For this reason and because the survival of the Australian kangaroo is seriously threatened, these scenes were shown uncut after consultation with the leading animal welfare organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom.[19]
The hunt lasted several hours, and gradually wore down the filmmakers. According to cinematographer Brian West, "the hunters were getting really drunk and they started to miss, ... It was becoming this orgy of killing and we [the crew] were getting sick of it."
Kangaroos hopped about helplessly with gun wounds and trailing intestines. Producer George Willoughby reportedly fainted after seeing a kangaroo "splattered in a particularly spectacular fashion". The crew orchestrated a power failure in order to end the hunt.[20]
At the 2009 Cannes Classic screening of Wake in Fright, 12 people walked out during the kangaroo hunt.[21]
Director Ted Kotcheff, a professed vegetarian,[22] has defended his use of the hunting footage in the film.[23]


Watching the shooting and the kangaroo fight is tough - it’s real, it’s painful, and it’s dark. I can’t tell if John’s reaction is a drunken way to fit in or he was really ok with it. I’d like to assume the former, but we’ve all been in a place where bad choices are made so we can fit in socially. Obviously most of us don’t go to this extreme.

As Doc and John wake in the morning, we have the same feeling as John - “What the hell just happened?” Unsure if John is going to get it together or things will just get darker, he’s desperate for another morning beer and a few moments later he’s eating roasted wild rabbit roadside. He swears off drinking, catches a ride, and is back in the Yabba. I wasn’t sure if he was going to blow his own brains out right there in the road.

As John winds up back in Tiboonda, I’m still ambivalent about my feelings for him. But I could watch his journey (other than the kangaroos) over and over. A few parts in the middle drug on a bit. I’m stuck between A- and A+, excited for the discussion.

A few fleeting thoughts... The score provided a means to express the hot, expansive outback, never drawing away from the movie. This may be a more effective drinking deterrent than “Just Say No.” If this movie were made today, an excessive amount of nudity, cursing, and violence would absolutely be a part of this movie - and it would severely take away from the darkness we witness from John’s point of view.

39 Comments
Bryan
7/17/2015 04:19:10 am

Reply to self and this spot works well for review replies.

Here we are three days later and the drain of the Outback has zapped everyone's motivation. A meta analysis of Wake in Fright to its finest.

Reply
Shane
7/17/2015 06:21:09 am

I love Australians. If they weren't so racist, they might be my favorite foreigners out there. So I'm usually jazzed about shit about Australians. When I saw we'd be watching an Australian based movie about a guy who drinks too much and has to deal with the consequences (and he has a gun in the movie poster, I was stoked. I thought we'd have a gritty Australian action movie.

Instead, we got Wake in Fright. It's just about a guy who keeps getting drunk and ends up hanging out with an alcoholic doctor. I just kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.

It's hard to even break this movie down because it wasn't very exciting. It was just there. It didn't pass the cell phone test or even the nail clipper test. By the end, I had stopped pausing it if I went to the other room. I'm willing to give some credit to a movie from the 70's if it takes its time to get to the plot, but there needs to be a payoff.

Let's start with some positives.

I love the sound track. Weird Australia sounds and whatnot. Awesome.

Great job on extolling some new business virtues and saying we shouldn't judge women who sleep around as they please.

If they wanted people to be aware of the insane brutality of Kangaroo hunting, they got my attention.

I really liked most of the camera work. They did a fine job here.

Negatives

If I'm going to watch a movie about Australians, it'd be great if the lead actor could actually speak with an Australian accent. I never felt like I was watching an Australian. It felt like I was watching a classically trained, closeted British man the whole time. (Research says we were)

Nothing happened except people got drunk.

Don't pose next a dead kangaroo that is clearly in rigor mortis and tell me you just killed it.

Nothing really happened.

A nice attempt at social justice, but the women in the movie are purely there to serve the needs of men. So that kinda negates the goodwill from the new business speech.

Nothing happens.

C-

Reply
Bryan
7/17/2015 06:56:33 am

I don't see how one can categorize this as just drunkenness. And I don't think an arc for characters is necessary in every non-comedy. No arc necessary when the characters are interesting.

Reply
Shane
7/17/2015 08:13:53 am

He got drunk a bunch on his own volition. Due to drunkeness, he can't accomplish stuff like going to bang some girl in a red bikini. The stakes aren't very high or persuasive. He also blacks out and fight a kangaroo.

Shane
7/17/2015 08:47:21 am

And sure, there's an arc here, just not one I was interested in.

And I didn't find John interesting. He's a teacher who resents the money he had to pay to be a teacher, he likes women in red bikinis or otherwise and he has an addiction issue. OK. He could be interesting, but nothing really happens of any consequence. He just drinks and does drunk things. He fought a kangaroo.

Bobby
7/17/2015 10:50:59 am

That's part of the problem for me, the characters, other than Doc really, weren't interesting. John Grant is a very uninteresting character... him being drunk and doing things he likely wouldn't normally do with people that he (and we) has no attachment to isn't of much interest to me either, beyond fleeting moments of entertainment and rubbernecked curiosity.

Reply
Shane
7/17/2015 06:29:51 am

My favorite foreigner power rankings:

1. The Irish
2. Canadians
3. Australians
4. New Zealanders
5. The Chinese

Reply
Sean
7/17/2015 12:56:22 pm

I've liked all the Germans I've ever met
Don't know
Many Aussies
My heritage is Irish
The Scots are a lot of fun too

Reply
Shane
7/17/2015 01:23:53 pm

I'm definitely hurting in the Scottish department.

Richard Hung is a great combo of Chinese and Canadian, both in my top 5.

I'm tempted to move Aussies up, but they like to fight too much. Canadians are usually as care-free as Aussies, but they're pacifists.

Bryan
7/17/2015 02:20:06 pm

1. Cambodians were super nice
2. Vietnamese a close second
3. French were quite pleasant except one
4. Swiss and Italians were pretty meh.

Reply
Bobby
7/17/2015 10:47:56 am

Like Shane, I was pretty happy with Bryan's pick. The perfect RT score and praise from Scorsese had me looking forward to watching. But, also like Shane, I ended up being disappointed.

Wake In Fright mostly just feels like a documentation of a stressed and bummed out teacher going on a weekend binge, by mistake. One of the things that got me, is that I wasn't sure what type of movie this was supposed to be. I just assumed it was going to be a bit of a drama about John Grant's direction in life, but was hit with the thriller style sounds and score... turns out, this is labeled as a thriller. But putting in shrieky noises and some dark footage of killing kangaroos doesn't cut it. Psychological thrillers can even get quite a bit of leeway when it come to a lacking development and an well played out plot... if the subject's mind is really interesting and on display and the stakes are there for the audience to get invested. While John Grant definitely goes through some shit, it's mostly just too many beers and bad life choices.. which end up not really being so bad for his life as he ends up exactly where he expected to be, sans beach sex with his girlfriend... who has hopefully moved on and found somebody a little more reliable.

The most interesting character of the film isn't even our lead... Doc Tydon takes that prize by a landslide. The best thing John did throughout the movie was remind us of the "arrogance of stupid people, insisting you should be as stupid as they are." Well, look John... you went and got just as stupid as them. Hooray, beer.

That's not to say it was an entire loss. While not very interesting for the most part, the movie at least felt decently raw and real, which fits with what it was trying to do. Ted Kotcheff gets a lot of credit for the direction.. as many of the shots were fantastic. I enjoyed the look and feel of the Two-Up scenes. One thing that did bother me, though, was how the coins always landed right next to each other. While a tiny gripe, when you're going for psychological type thrills, the little things are vital. The detail of the coins rolling and landing could have enhanced things, I think.. and would have just been more realistic. The maniacal laughter felt a bit much, over the top, for me as well. If I felt tuned in to John's head for more of the movie, that probably would have worked.. and made the film better overall. I just felt like somebody watching from the outside.

The acting was fine for me. Shane pointed out the accent, but it wasn't a distraction for me at all. Nobody stood out as an amazing performance, but fortunately nobody negatively stood out to me, either.

As noted, the score worked for the most part. I wasn't a fan of the choice when John was walking through town with the gun after leaving Doc's, but if I was actually feeling the thrill of the movie it would fit.

I'm not even sure what to talk about... I get pretty Meh feeling from Wake In Fright. So I'll just throw my grade out and see if there's conversation to steer me toward something I've missed.

C

Reply
Bryan
7/17/2015 11:05:27 am

"Wake In Fright mostly just feels like a documentation of a stressed and bummed out teacher going on a weekend binge, by mistake." Nailed it. And I don't think there is anything wrong with an entire movie being devoted to a weekend.

The one thing I don't think should matter in a review (I'm not sure if it did, but it was at least mentioned) is the genre. To me this was more of a drama than a thriller. It could have been considered a comedy and I'd feel the same.

Reply
Bobby
7/17/2015 11:15:40 am

The problem isn't that it was only a weekend... (technically, it lasted much longer if you include his stay in the hospital), but that it wasn't a very engaging weekend. We've all some pretty solid drunk nights and weekends... but they make better bar and campfire stories than they would movies.

Genre matters if the movie was trying to be one thing, but wasn't very convincing of it. The Cobbler is pegged as a comedy-drama... the total lack of comedy is a big reason it grades so low.. along with it being a shitty plot with a lack of drama as well.

Sean
7/17/2015 12:58:46 pm

Also made note of arrogance of stupid people line. The moral of the movie was the arrogance of smart people isn't any better and that arrogance frequently leads to stupid decisions

Reply
Sean
7/17/2015 01:02:24 pm

That wasn't very good. I had high hopes as others did, RT scores, Aussies, booze.

Definitely not the original hangover- just because he kept getting black out drunk there wasn't an attempt at comedy. Echo the praise of Donald Pleasance as Doc. agree with Shane not much happened and Grant wasn't worth feeling sorry for because he was in his situation of his own doing.

It looked good and music was good so those elements and the grittiness probably led to that RT score but I'm only elevating it to C+ aka Meh

Reply
Jon
7/17/2015 09:02:10 pm

Suicides spiking around Christmas might be a myth, but here's a holiday movie that contributes to the misconception. As a movie about boredom mixing with desperation, Wake in Fright is reasonably interesting with some great, empty vistas and colorful characters, but mostly leaves me in a state of shrugging shoulders.

The debate thus far seems to center around how much John Grant is worth sympathizing with. I'll agree that he's whiny and insufferable, pissed about a contract he entered into willingly, but with the incredible opening shot of nothing but wasteland in all directions, it's easy to see how quickly Grant would've come to regret signing on the dotted line. When I saw Bryan had written in Teachers Are Awesome for the genre/director spaces on the spreadsheet, I assumed that this was going to be some kind of High Noon thing, where Grant has to protect his school from bandits or something. Nope, turns out Grant is running out the clock on Christmas break, and would rather be anywhere else, and just seems like a general misanthrope. His rejection of hospitality from anyone that would extend it to him was frustrating, but I understand it, so he mostly works as an anti-hero for me.

From there, the film descends into Lost Weekend territory. Several things stand out here. First, the danger of Chasing It, as clear a demonstration as has ever been. Never gamble with money you need, a lesson hard learned. The cut from the final coin toss to Grant face-down naked is perfect show-don't-tell. Second, Grant's initial disgust when offered the kangaroo breakfast from Doc Tydon struck me as false. Grant has surely eaten kangaroo before. Speaking of, I'm conflicted on the kangaroo scene. On the one hand, kangaroo meat is fantastic from a health and environmental standpoint (never tried it, but would have no problem with it), and their population is healthy. On the other, it felt gross. To quote Michael Scott, "Yeah, I went hunting once. Shot a deer in the leg. Had to kill it with a shovel. Took about an hour." Drawing out the slaughter scenes made me feel as dirty as everyone looked, which may have been the point, but still, as unnecessary as last week's marathon sex scenes.

The small-town aspect was intriguing but muddled. I felt it was unclear how the film feels about the townspeople. The back and forth between Grant and Tydon when they first meet has a lot of good stuff in it, particularly the line about stupid people pressuring you to be as stupid as they are, but Grant's the wrong person to be delivering that line. The film includes those alpha assholes in Dick and Joe to support Grant's point, but Tydon knows exactly what he's doing and chooses to do it anyways as a counter-balance. It's fine that there are the idiots that Grant refers to, and the nose-to-the-grindstone types that Tydon refers to, but if your film's main point is don't judge, then I'm bored.

I've seen this referred to as a horror film, and while I don't really buy that, I could get into the psychological drama of it. It's as if Grant has signed a contract with the universe, and the universe is going to make sure he teaches these children, or at least stares at them blankly waiting for the bell to ring. He's 'allowed' to win almost enough money to escape his contract, but that proximity entices him to go back for the losing toss. His stomach betrays him when he's about to get laid. The ride he hitches brings him back to the Yabba, and he can't even kill himself. The inability to remove yourself from your environment is certainly a kind of horror, and when the environment is as blank and unforgiving as that opening shot implies, there's a piling of dread on top, too. I think it ultimately lacks the intensity to qualify as a horror movie, with the exception of all the quick-cut nightmare imagery, which I did not like.

I'm puzzled on Wake in Fright. I respect it for its cinematography and direction, the actors are mostly fine, with Donald Pleasance running away with the movie, and I can get on board with the story. It just didn't impact me in a big way. I understand Grant's motivations and his anger, but I think the placing of him as a teacher was a mistake. Should I be rooting for these kids to not have someone to teach them the difference between chazwazzers and gilderchucks? Teachers might be awesome, but this one kind of sucks. C+

Reply
Phil
7/20/2015 03:17:18 pm

I'm going fairly quick hits, b/c I'm not burning much more time on this thing.

+ The camerawork, cinematograpy, etc was extremely well done. These aren't necessarily important things to me, but there were a lot of nice shots.
+ The gambling scene was well-done. I've watched people have similar meltdowns gambling enough times in my life to get a bit of a kick out of it. True story: My dad, aunt, and uncle once lost so much money at the track, their dinner was a hot dog split three ways. Never bet your eating money kids.

Now, the negatives....

- I don't know why you all are tripping over yourselves to praise Donald Plesence as Doc Tydon. Every character was an insufferable asshole in this movie. I hated all these people so much. Maybe that was the point. The plot/messaging didn't do enough to justify spending 105 minutes with horrible people.
- Like Shane said, nothing happens. He has a beer on a train. Great. I don't see what point this serves.
- The kangaroo scene didn't just feel gross Kissel, it was gross. And unnecessary. It was exploitative of the highest order and disturbing for the sake of disturbance. You wanna make a movie about how bad it is to kill kangaroos? Go make a fucking documentary. That was disgusting & horrific. Fuck your justification.

That's it. There's enough ok stuff here for a D, but screw this movie. Bury it for another 40 years please.

Reply
Shane
7/20/2015 08:13:31 pm

I feel like this movie was made to make tel points: arbitrary kangaroo hunting is awful and the teaching situation in Australia was broken. They wanted those things in there and succeeded. But then they forgot a plot.

Reply
Phil
7/21/2015 01:32:51 am

Exactly - they forgot the plot. If this was supposed to be a PSA, it's haphazard at best.

I tend to agree with Kissel's point about the contract being entered into willfully. Whatever this program is, it doesn't seem to be that much different than Teach For America.

Bryan
7/21/2015 01:53:01 am

You're thinking too hard. It was a decent into darkness with social pressure theme to me.

From what I gathered he didn't choose Tiboonda. He chose teaching and got placed in Tiboonda.

This makes me think he's a city slicker where accents have been mostly washed away.

Phil
7/21/2015 02:11:09 am

Bryan - you're probably right; that's a fair summation of the plot. So why did they have to slaughter a dozen kangaroos to get that point across? That was exploitative and they tried to defend it under the guise of a PSA of some sort. I understand the kangaroo scene from a development standpoint, but that was disgusting. That scene knocked the movie down for me by more than a letter grade.

I'm not going to try to guess how the teaching system works in Australia, so I'll just trust whatever there.

Bryan
7/21/2015 02:55:14 am

I was with you after watching Wake in Fright the first time. After the next couple times, it fits based on how low can John Grant go? Butchering kangaroos is pretty damn low. I would be curious what the cultural context was for that time and place. Is there an American scene similar?

Phil
7/21/2015 03:32:27 am

The only recent stuff I can come up with in American context for heinous "those were the times" sort of things was maybe 12 Years a Slave, but those were actors. It's a fine scene for character development, but I'm knocking the movie for actually killing kangaroos under the guise of raising awareness.

I'm not a PETA member or anything, but that was brutal and gross. Trying to justify it with a greater good motive is even worse. The only other movie I can recall outright killing animals for the sake of cinema was Cannibal Holocaust, which was an Italian film. So for American film, I can't find a good corollary b/c there probably isn't one, except for maybe some documentaries.

Shane
7/21/2015 06:58:03 am

I understood the footage to be of other people doing the killing. I'm pretty certain that the wonton killing of kangaroos was popular for awhile there. I thought they it footage from elsewhere. This is why they're posing next to a dead kangaroo in the state of rigor mortis rather than a freshly killed one.

Bryan
7/21/2015 01:49:38 am

To put this in similar grading territory as The Big Empty is baffling to me.

Reply
Phil
7/21/2015 02:15:00 am

I gave both the same grade.

The Big Empty was just that - an empty nothing. If you were scoring each component, it was a bunch of 0's.

Wake In Fright was well-made but disgusting at times. Again, from a component standpoint, it had a positives but a bunch of negatives.

Lane
7/20/2015 04:51:05 pm

Welcome to the Mediocre Movie Club! Grab a beer, and the best $1 steak you’ve ever had. Then we’ll go slaughter some kangaroos with our bare hands.

What better first film for my own foray into this friendly invitational review club than “Wake in Fright” – a movie of a man’s invitation into the drunken social madness of a small town on the edge of nowhere-in-particular outback Australia. “You don’t like the Yabba!?” Tim asks. I was drawn in by that question and I wasn’t sure why until about halfway through. I think it’s because it epitomizes the relationship of insider/outsider – you don’t love us? You won’t drink with us? You won’t drink a whole lot with us? Really? I mean, a whole whole lot? This is what any club, group, church, school, etc. etc. really wants to know – will you be like us? And, of course, what are we taught early on - just be yourself. But do we listen? And thus our descent begins.

There are some problems I had with this film – many of the same ones that are being mentioned in the other reviews – but I’ll start with what I liked. First, there were the cast of characters. John Grant might have been the protagonist and Doc Tydon might have been the most memorable character, but it’s the bizarre, grotesque, comic/gothic totality of all of The Yabba’s residents – from the cop that gets Grant drunk to the one toothed hick that gives him a ride and then gets furious when Grant refuses to drink with him– that makes the movie memorable for me. I’m a fan, in general, of most things gothic (sans black eyeliner, lipstick, and Suicide Girls) and I thought the film nailed those characters.

On the other hand, there were also these great subtle moments that gave the movie its psychological edge. I was squirming with discomfort when Dick and Joe show up at Tim's house and Grant tries to excuse himself from the party. That scene bothered me more than the flies constantly wandering over his face. What do you do in those situations when you know you don’t belong and want nothing more than to leave? Drink and take out some guns. Why not? Unlike Doc, who knows he can’t say no and so c’est la vie, John can’t say no because society has taught him to be polite. Dang books. He’s doomed by his own well breeding.

At first I thought I might not enjoy this because I wouldn’t get the context – what do I know of Australian film besides “Crocodile Dundee” (original and 2) and “Quigley Down Under”? But I realized half way through that this could have been shot in Oklahoma or Alabama or pretty much anywhere where “all the little devils are proud of hell.” Guns, booze, hook-ups, back-room gambling – all it really needed was some sort of overbearing religious figure and we would have had all the vices and psychological crutches of the 47% pretty well summed up.

Where the movie lost me was the suicide attempt. I realized this was where we were heading as soon as he showed back up in The Yabba and was given his gun back, but then it was like no one creating the movie had the guts just to have him punch his final ticket and actually leave town for good. I’m no proponent of suicide, by any means, but it seems like there would have been some kind of nihilistic poetic justice if he would have just done the deed and then we close the film with Yabba’s residents going back to doing what Yabba’s residents do. Instead, we end with some sort of murky moral, which I don’t think I really understand, because I don’t think there really was any moral to this story. The moral to “Wake in Fright”: small towns are terrifying places. And don’t shoot kangaroos.

Unlike some others here, I wasn’t a fan of the soundtrack, or the whole audio experience of the film as a whole. Canned rifle shots and streetscape sounds that are just way too loud make me appreciate how far we’ve come in movie audio. Agree that the cinematography was great. And I’m a sucker for slow pans.

This movie made me think, though, so I’m giving it a B. Thanks for inviting me to the party.

Reply
Shane
7/20/2015 08:11:49 pm

I've been saying for years that small town people are way scarier than anyone I've ever met in the city.

The sound effects sound goofy, but I'm willing to give older movies a pass. I just can't shine dinging The Hood, The Bad, The Ugly for the sound effects. others disagree of course.

Reply
Phil
7/21/2015 01:39:34 am

Really good debut review from Lane. Shane, good job befriending the one eloquent person from The South. I kid of course - there are at least eight.

Agreed regarding the universial application of this movie. Besides the whole "Lest We Forget" section, everything felt very "familiar" to me, if that makes sense. Assholes are assholes, no matter the country.

Reply
Bryan
7/21/2015 01:47:49 am

I know everyone seems to think it was a suicide attempt, but why did he wait until Doc came back to try it. I thought he was going to shoot Doc and changed his mind at the last minute, thus the failed attempt.

Reply
Phil
7/21/2015 02:15:41 am

I think it's pointless to try to rationalize something irrational.

Sean
7/21/2015 02:17:07 am

I forgot about the Lest We Forget stuff, I thought they were going to spend more time on that than they did.

On his suicide attempt, I thought he was there to kill Doc but when he wasn't there decided to kill himself, he didn't wait for Doc to fire as much as have the finger on the trigger and get startled as Doc burst in.

Phil
7/21/2015 02:21:30 am

One note about that suicide attempt - it looked like Blue Ruin basically lifted this scene from Wake In Fright for when Dwight was waiting on the family to return.

Bryan
7/21/2015 02:56:54 am

"I think it's pointless to try to rationalize something irrational. "

Please elaborate. I'm confused.

Phil
7/21/2015 03:36:41 am

Suicide is, by nature, an irrational act. All living things operating rationally have one goal: survival. There's a reason your brain will simply not let you hold your breath until your dead - survival instinct.

Now, is murder an irrational act as well? In my opinion, it is, but that can be debated. At this point in the movie, John has snapped and is off the deep end. I just don't see the point in trying to figure out his motives or what he's doing when he's not in a rational state to begin with.

Sean
7/21/2015 04:02:57 am

I'll rationalize, John was a huge fan of the show MASH and took it's theme music "Suicide is Painless" to heart.

Sean
7/21/2015 04:04:46 am

maybe the movie MASH, song released in 1970 show wasn't until after Wake in Fright

Sean
7/21/2015 03:28:26 am

To answer Bryan's shocking American scene facebook question...

How about the squeal like a pig scene from Deliverance? Does that count or is hillbilly rape universal?

2nd option for me would be the scene in Over the Top where the kid takes 2 of 3 arm wrestling the street tough bully on a pinball machine.

Reply
Bryan
7/21/2015 03:35:23 am

"is hillbilly rape universal?"

What is the likelihood these words would appear in this order in the entirety of time?

I haven't seen Over the Top.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    JUST SOME IDIOTS GIVING SURPRISINGLY AVERAGE MOVIE REVIEWS.

    Categories

    All
    2017 Catch Up Trio
    80s
    Action
    Adventure
    AI Trio
    Author - Blair
    Author - Bobby
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Chris
    Author - Cook
    Author - Drew
    Author - Joe
    Author - Jon
    Author - JR
    Author - Lane
    Author - Phil
    Author - Pierce
    Author - Sean
    Author - Shane
    Author - Tom
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Comedy
    Culture Clash Trio
    Denzel Trio
    Documentary
    Drama
    Foreign
    Historical
    Horror
    Internet Docs Trio
    Mediocrities
    Movie Trios
    Musical
    Podcast
    Romance
    Round 3.1
    Round 3.2
    Round 3.3
    Round 4.1
    Round 4.2
    Round 4.3
    Sci Fi
    Season 10
    Season 2
    Season 3
    Season 4
    Season 5
    Season 6
    Season 7
    Season 8
    Season 9
    Shorts
    Sports
    Thriller
    Western
    Women In Men's Worlds

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

    Click to set custom HTML