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Post by TheLuckyOne on Sept 1, 2006 8:18:26 GMT -5
Really, really powerful review, Sue. You did a great job of getting across the (agreed, very disquieting) mindset that a person might feel after getting into the head of someone like Kevin Bacon's character. I lived about a half-mile from Megan Kanka's house and remember vividly her disappearance and the subsequent arrest and trial, so this is a subject matter that's very (and sadly) close-to-home for people in this area. From that perspective, very nice job of so intelligently reviewing a movie about such a horrible and sensitive subject.
-D
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Post by Spiderdancer on Sept 1, 2006 14:39:39 GMT -5
See, that's sort of the problem now. I don't have children, but I know I'd wonder how to explain this if I did. It's not "the friendly stranger in the black sedan" that's dangerous. It's cheery, helpful people who look just like your parents' friends and your relatives. I never heard the phrase "funny uncle" until I was 20, but I knew what it meant, because my own mother explained it to me. Early.
Mom works at a school. The teachers' lounge has a whole "wall of shame" covered with pictures of sex offenders. Most of them are Class III, meaning they're at a high risk to reoffend.
Most of them, unlike the protagonist of this movie, didn't go to jail for a decade. They were in for a few months to a year.
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Post by Magill on Sept 1, 2006 21:19:47 GMT -5
This is one of those films that you feel a bit awkward in praising, as you don't want to come off as someone who admires a pedophile.
I found it interesting to note that Walter seems to be incapable of understanding how most "normal" people think. Walter just can't grasp that when his brother-in-law makes a casual comment about his daughter, it doesn't mean that he's sexually attracted to her.
One of the hardest things I find in watching movies is when you watch a protagonist who you're supposed to identify with (even if just a little bit) making stupid decisions. Of course, that device has been around since the Greek tragedians, which I guess shows how effective it is.
Not to get all film-school-student, but did anyone else have the suspicion that Candy wasn't real? I know Mos Def acknowledges the character's presence near the end of the movie, but there were times where I wondered if that character was just supposed to represent Walter's psyche.
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