Bigtuna does He Was A Quiet Man

[bigtuna]

Ok, so, the other day, i was hanging out with my buddy Travis, and we were trying to find something to watch. We were going through the On Demand things and saw a movie neither of us had heard of called "He Was A Quiet Man". We looked at the info, saw the names Christian Slater and Elisha Cuthbert and decided to watch it.

BEST IDEA EVER!!!

It rocked my life. Totally awesome. The movie hadn't even been playing for 5 minutes, and already we'd uttered the phrase "THAT'S F***ING AWESOME" like, 12 times each.

Basically, it's about this guy, Bob, played by Christian Slater, who works at an office. He's unattractive, balding, where's silly glasses, gets picked on by his higher-ups, has a boring job and is accused of being a sexual deviant. Also, he lives alone and talks to an imaginary goldfish who tells him to kill the people at his office.

One day, Bob brings a gun to work and while he's loading the rounds into it, he drops a bullet and goes under his desk to pick it up, when he hears a bang. then another, and another. He watches as bodies hit the floor. when he stands up, he discovers that another guy beat him to it and shot up the office. It turns out that one of the people who got shot was the girl he had a crush on, so he shoots the guy and becomes a hero.

The girl, Elisha Cuthbert, survives being shot, but is paralyzed from the neck down. Initially angry at Bob for saving her, she later has a change of heart, and he takes care of her, and they begin to date.

If i describe the movie any more, i'll ruin it, so i'm gonna stop there.

Everything about this movie made my heart smile. It was simultaneously funny, and cute, and sweet and romantic and tense, and tragic and depressing and beautiful. I genuinely felt for these characters.

I've always liked Christian Slater, but never really thought he was much of an actor, until i saw this. He completely disappeared into the role. it was mind blowing.

Elisha Cuthbert is super hot, and is convincing as a quadroplegic.

William H. Macy was in it, and awesome is his default setting. 'nuff said.

Watching Christian Slater as Bob feed Elisha Cuthbert as Vanessa and put lotion on her nose and push her in her wheel chair is really sweet. It melted my heart and me go awwwww.

Featured in this film is also the single sweetest love scene i've ever witnessed.

Don't even get me started about the cinematography. Every shot in the film was more gorgeous than the last. I didn't realize how beautiful it could be to watch someone enter and exit an elevator, or how stimulating a tv dinner could be, or how whacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men could be so wonderous to behold, but god damn, they pull it off. man. so good.

I'm not going to ruin the ending, but with all the gorgeous shots and sweet moments and everything, it doesn't leave you with a good feeling. long story short, it's almost as depressing as the ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I wish it ended differently, but I think it was inevitable.

All in all, it was so awesome, I dare say it improved the quality of my life. I wake up every morning with the feeling that the world is truly a wonderful place to be, simply because I saw this movie. I watched it twice, even.

Y'know what, actually? gtfo the internet and find this movie and buy it. buy two copies. buy a copy for everyone you know. you'd better buy them all a spare just in case their original copy melts in the dvd player from being watched every second of every day, or if they decide to share.

Nothing I can say will prepare you for how thoroughly amazing this film so please, as a personal favour to me, watch it.

now.





go.








seriously.









stop reading.









I'm not kidding.










leave.

[dex]

Jan 3, 2009 13:33:17 GMT -5 bigtuna said:

Elisha Cuthbert is super hot, and is convincing as a quadroplegic.

Look, I'm not sure why, but this is a very. great. sentence.

Anyway, a highly entertaining review!

[bigtuna]

glad you enjoyed it.

[wdm0744]

Hey Tuna,

I enjoyed reading your review. I had actually seen this film at my local video store and thought about renting it. After your glowing recommendation, I went and checked it out, and, well....

I can mostly see where you're coming from. Christian Slater did do a fantastic job and Elisha Cuthbert, who I always knew was hot but never really considered a fine actress, was excellent in her role. It's too bad not many people saw this film, because I think it could have opened some doors in her career.

The cinematography was quite good, but I felt like the cheesy CGI took away from the experience. Actually, that's kind of how I felt about the film as a whole. The movie had some good ideas, and it was geniunely touching at times, but I think the ending completely exploded any good will the film had built up to that point.

***BIG-TIME SPOILERS***

I don't think this movie could have had a happy ending. I get that. Bob was just too messed up to begin with and his romance with Vanessa was never going to be enough to set him straight, even if she had told him that she loved him.

The film's ending is ambigous as to what exactly happens, but it is clear that Bob shoots himself. I watched a bit of the commentary and the director said that he chose that ending because it makes Bob the hero.

So, if you combine that with the voice over at the end, talking about culling the herd of the weak and sick, the film's ultimate message seems to be that if you are having emotional problems, step up and shut yourself and save everyone else the trouble of your existence.

This idea was confirmed on the commentary by the director. He said that he premiered the movie a day after the VA Tech shootings and that several people came up to him to tell him that they think the shooter should have killed himself like Bob did before he caused such trouble.

I can see where they're coming from - I mean, one suicide is a tragedy, but it certainly would have been preferable to mass murder. But rather than wishing he'd shot himself, shouldn't we wish that he'd gotten help and been able to eventually integrate into society?

I fear that if people with problems watched "He Was a Quiet Man", they'd come away thinking that the only noble thing to do is shoot themselves. Wouldn't it have been better if Bob had instead taken Vanessa's advice and gotten help?

When we start saying that sick people need to off themselves and save society the trouble, then we start sounding like the Nazis. Sorry, I know it's kind of extreme to bring the Nazis into it, but it applies here.

Anyway, I know you said that you didn't like the ending either, and most of the other reviews I read agreed. I just felt like the ending had such a bad message that it totally ruined the film.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about it, Tuna.

[bigtuna]

It's certainly true that the ending of the film could send out a bad message, but I don't think that's what's what the director intended.

Remember that the voice over at the end of the movie was Bob talking. It was the suicide note he had on the fridge. The whole idea of culling the herd wasn't the director's viewpoint, it was coming from Bob, a man who was already sick and had a skewed view of the world.

I felt that the voice over at the end, coupled with the obvious suicide helped us understand how far gone Bob really was.

And you're right, people who have problems could walk away from this movie thinking that the only thing left is suicide, but it wasn't intended, and that could really be said about any movie. or recording artist, or video game.

People could very well have burnt down their work after watching Office Space, or played hockey on the roof of their work after watching Clerks, or held a radio station hostage after seeing Airheads. The point is, lots of movies can send the wrong message to certain people, but those movies shouldn't suffer because of that.

I really didn't like the ending. It made me sad. But I enjoyed the movie enough up to that point that the ending didn't ruin it for me.

[wdm0744]

Tuna,

Thanks a bunch for taking the time to respond.

I really appreciate what you've said here, and in general, I would agree with your point that movies can unintentionally send dangerous and/or harmful messages to disturbed individuals and shouldn't necessarily be held accountable for that individual's misunderstanding, but I don't agree that that is the case here.

Did you watch the director's commentary? Granted, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I did watch the end and

***SPOILERS***

he made it clear that he chose this ending (from many candidates) because he felt it made Bob the hero of the story. He was the hero because he took himself out before he could do any damage. I got the sense from the director that this message WAS intentional.

Maybe I misunderstood, but that's the sense I got. Next time you watch the movie, check out the commentary and tell me what you think.

Anyway, all that said, I really enjoyed your review. I hope that I have not offended you in any way by bringing up this point. I'm not suggesting you are a bad person or that this is a bad movie (morally or otherwise).

In fact, I enjoyed the movie, at least up to the end. Any movie that is a friend of Kim Bauer is a friend of mine.

[bigtuna]

I didn't watch the commentary, because i watched it on digital cable.
I can see where you're coming from, but i enjoyed the movie enough that i don't want to believe that's what the message was.

also, i was worried that my response would make it seem like i was offended, but don't worry, i wasn't.