The more you drive the less intelligent you are

4 dead aliens and a press conference. Did anyone else feel that the Leila thought nothing about bringing aliens to a press conference. And since when do dead aliens have the ability to vaporize people? I love that the one repo man told Otto to buckle up, safety first and then they are put in situations where they are being shot at. It seemed that all of the people working with Otto were philosophizing, but they all had vastly different ideas: UFOs as Time Machines vs the Repo Code vs Mind Over Matter. 

 At one point Miller says "You get stuck up on specifics you miss out on the whole thing." I think that is part of the point of pastiche, mash up all the genres and make the whole movie about visuals. With the mash up of genres you need to really pay attention to understand the movie, but by paying attention to the overall storyline you miss out on some of the more subtle parts of the movie and their meanings/impact.

ie: What's with the one brother wearing a hair net? is it a subtle reminder of the menial drudgery of a short order cook vs the crazy life of a repo man? And what about the security guard knitting...can't even start to figure that one out. Or all of the Smiley Face buttons?

This movie reminded me of several other movies such as 

Mother, Jugs and Speed

Super Troopers

Ghostbusters

and a tiny bit of Back to the Future

and the Steven King book From a Buick 8 (horrible book by the way)

I really enjoyed this movie and its sometimes blatant mocking of the genres

Wanna Buy a Duck?

Have you ever played the game Wanna Buy A Duck? If you have you know that is is a mindless game that provides entertainment to easily amused people. (I count myself as one of the easily amused) Petey Wheatstraw reminded me of that game at first... seriously a full grown boy and a watermelon? But as I watched I saw that the Blaxploitation was proving useful. For example when Petey Wheatstraw kicked the butts of those car thieves, yeah its overly theatrical, but when he gets back to his car he makes a point to speaking to the community about how it is their job to make sure that these guys don't strike again, they need to have pride in themselves before others will respect them. The over the top acting and theatrics make it entertaining while the message of self improvement  gets worked in. When the younger brother speaks about skipping school, the older brother sets him on the right path, getting to school will make the future brighter, I felt it was a little corny because I have heard school friendly phrases all my life, but the truth is that when this film was made the idea of constant education and then further education after grammar school probably wasn't one held by most families.

I can't wait to see the rest of the film and how Petey reacts to the Devil's bargain.

Nobody is Innocent

During the preface for High Plains Drifter McRae said that the hero was an anti hero and that the towns people were innocent. I am hoping that I heard wrong because from what I saw not a single person in the entire film was innocent. I guess that is the point of the film tho, nobody is perfect but you take what you have and make the best out of what you have. In this case our stranger took advantage of the fear the townspeople had and used it for vengeance. I don't think the Stranger was a bad person, he was just driven by a terrible event.

The entire film reminded me of the movie Boondock Saints, at the very beginning when Conner and Murphy are at church and the priest's sermon speaks of Kitty Genovese and the indifference of good men.

If the Stranger was a bad man I think I would have felt some remorse about what he did to the towns people, but I didn't. I felt it was an ingenious form of pay back.

The only part that was hard to swallow was when he took the woman into the barn and had his way with her, yet even that was softened by the way she started clinging to him before it was over. She was more upset that he didn't buy her dinner first than anything. When she bumped into and and tried to make him feel the fool, she was just trying to get him to notice her so that they could spend a little time in the sack together and perhaps she could get a few pretty baubles along with a good time. 

Play some solitaire to pass the time

What was with the women in this film (except for Angela Lansbury) love is a split second of seeing someone and of course that other someone must love them back. Eugenie Rose broke off her engagement the day she met Ben...come on!!!!!

Aside from those women I loved this movie. My favorite part was when Senator Iselin wanted just one number of how many communists were KNOWN to be in the defense department and Lansbury picks 57 off the Ketchup  bottle.

I bet Dr. Freud would have a field day with this movie...Mommy as the puppet master. Raymond hates his mother and stepfather. I feel like there is a little bit of Hamlet in this movie. 

Does hypnotism really work like that? Can Ben really break the hold the over Raymond by showing him 52 red queens? I want to know why Raymond focuses the gun on the Presidential Candidate instead of his mother if he was going to kill mom and dad, is it to show the uncertainty of loyalties and the fear that no matter how hard you try you cannot break a governments control over the minds of its victims?

The fear of communism is played off like a joke...how many known communists Senator Iselin? The real fear of communism isn't there, the fact that being accused of communism would ruin your life and that of everyone you know isn't there. 

Touch of Racism

I'm not really sure how to feel about this movie.

 The bad guys are not completely bad guys, Uncle Grandi for instance, we feel bad for him when he is murdered. We start off being made to dislike him but throughout the film we see him show concern for the people under his care. When Susan Vargas is drugged at the hotel he makes sure his females have not done any drugs...he's all paternal. 

The tension builds throughout the whole movie...is someone going to be unfairly convicted? Is someone going to be raped? The tension builds so slowly I'm surprised the movie wasn't longer. The idea of the movie was good but the over all effect kind of left me wanting something more. I'm not sure if that is because I've seen movies like Crash where the problem of prejudice is so very open.

The border town reminded me of the town in Stagecoach with hookers and lawlessness. 

She's asking for it

I know that Ms Hammond is free to dress how she will, and considering what girls today wear, she was dressing conservatively, but when I see her throwing herself on a man she KNOWS is married, I say she is a tramp. Then when she stops in the stairwell to fix her garters, I thought she is asking for it...then you see the student watching her and you know she is about to get attacked. I know no woman is asking to be raped, but the thought still flashed through my mind "she's asking for it" (plus she was asking for it, just not from the student...a little consensual nookie with Mr. Dadier would have been great). Makes you think, should Ms Hammond have been dressing more conservatively (say in nun's robes?) she knew how she looked, and was even warned by another teacher, yet she still wore provocative clothing. This issue is still around today, with the strictures of Muslim women's clothing. The question remain, how far do women have to go to curtail the male attention? I know that I make harsh remarks about the girls walking around in skirts that don't even completely cover their asses, calling them sluts...that's probably  just be me being jealous since I could never pull off that look. But even Dadier's wife makes a comment about Ms Hammond provoking the boy who attacked her. Do you  think that the conservative clothes idea came about from jealous women who felt they were not attractive enough to keep their husbands at home? Victorian era dresses were so low cut sometimes that you could see the top of the aureoles, yet it was socially acceptable at the time, even when showing an ankle was not.  It is strange how sensibilities change throughout the ages.

I hated the fact that there was not one strong role model for women in Blackboard Jungle, the women were sluts, timid wives, nosy old neighbors or meek and dowdy teachers. I felt that this movie was meant for the guys to watch, because the women were supposed to be at home taking care of the wash. Was the social scare mainly centered around the male youth? 

I noticed several posters throughout the movie depicting the Marines. I thought it was interesting that when Dadier is talking to West about reform school and the military they are standing in front of one of the Marine posters.

I enjoyed this movie the first time I saw it and I am glad I got the chance to watch it a second time because I wasn't solely focused on the plot, I was able to take in smaller details which enriched the film for me (mostly made me laugh...) like when the guys are at the bar, Edwards keeps orders two more rounds of drinks after Dadier said he needed to get home, or the fact that Anne Dadier is so vapid at points, she has no initiative to ask her husband about the so called woman, instead she does the laundry and cooks dinner. 

Don't let them choose you

Jim's dad had some great 'first day at a new school' advice. He tells Jim "Don't let them choose you." I think his advice was for all the youth who were supposedly being corrupted. His advice was to stay away from the bad influences, choose the right kinds of people, be active and helpful members of society. What seems to be impossible for parents to grasp are the pressures placed on their kids by others. Honor was and is still a big thing, and so to call somebody a chicken is almost a threat their honor. Kids can't back down from a fight, Jim proves that on the field trip when he tries to step back from the situation, but he fails and is dragged into an all too familiar dance. Wound or be wounded. Thankfully Jim found a way to salvage his honor and Buzz's without doing either of them serious injury. 

Random Topic Jump: Since when do cops act like the school's guidance counselor? Officer Ray is the all compassionate police man with a heart of gold, can't stand to see a good kid mixed up with the wrong people. Blah, blah, blah. Too bad he wasn't there when Jim needed him the most. But isn't that what always happens in the movies? That one character who can make it all better is MIA at the most vital time. Now its up to the rest of the characters to take matters into their own hands. We see how well that ended up, Plato dead. Worst part is that Jim didn't mess up the situation, the cops did. 

Another Question: How many kids can you fit into Buzz's car? It was like a freaking clown car, they just kept piling in, one sharp corner and they would have all been flung from the car. Do you think that people actually drove that way or was this just another way for the film to show out of control teens?

Who has the power in Jim's family? Its obviously not Dad, he's a henpecked husband. So is it Mom or Grandma? Ooo and Mom pulled the guilt card on Jim saying how he doesn't appreciate that she almost died giving birth to him...I wanted to punch her, its the oldest guilt trip in the world.  And what is with the Daddy complex's these kids have? Is it because many fathers were at war when the kids were young?

The chicken car scene reminded me of the movie Footloose when the guy goes to jump but he is stuck, and of the movie A Walk to remember when the teenage prank goes horribly wrong and the kid is hospitalized.  Teen Stupidity runs rampant in movies from all generations. I guess adults never think too highly of the next generation.

The film strongly reminded me of the short film we saw last year, Don't tell me, ask me where the adults want to fix the gang problem and the good teenagers come forward saying don't tell me what to do, ask me how to help fix the situation. Both movies remind us that although many teens are causing problems, there are many others who want to fix the situation. Not all teenagers are bloodthirsty criminals.