MOVIES ON A PLACE
I flew home from Germany on the 29th of May. I watched several movies, yawned a few times, then turned my attention to the movies that the other passengers watched. First of all, I was impressed at how violent their movie-choices were. When the plane landed, and we prepared to disembark, I had enough courage to ask two complete strangers the name of the movies that they had watched. They told me the names: Violent Night and Hell or High Water.
I wanted to ask other passengers about their movie-choices, but I could see that they felt ashamed or guilty about watching them and avoided me; so I backed down.
I researched Violent Night on-line, impressed by the moderately positive reviews that it received, by the low-brow plot, the tongue-in-cheek acting, and graphic violence. In the movie, Santa Claus and a sort of Mr. Scrooge/Uncle Scrooge miserly type fight over who should get the most toys for Christmas. Scrooge's hoodlums stab and shoot Santa, but he keeps coming back and eventually murders all of Scrooge's men. Santa uses magic to drag Scrooge's body up the chimney, mutilating him. It's senseless and a total waste of time. Even the guy watching it said that; but the producers have already announced a sequel.
The next movie I eavesdropped was Hell or High Water: Two brothers rob banks and shoot people in order to raise enough money to pay off the outstanding loans on the family farm. The bank has threatened to seize the farm, if the brothers do not redeem it. So the brothers rob a bank, shoot up a host of law-enforcement officers—killing several of them—and make off with the loot. It is another totally senseless film—racist bank-robers with assault weapons. Once again, the movie concludes with the actors hinting that a sequel is on the way.
When I looked up these two movies, Google provided numerous comparable movies. The one that made the biggest impression on me was Sisu, directed by another Scandinavian, Jalmari Helander. (Tommy Wikhola, the director of Violent Night, is Norwegian.) All three movies have in common that they draw their plots from accepted cultural icons—Santa Claus in Violent Night; racism and the NRA in Hell or High Water; and the Nazis in Sisu. The bad guys all meet gruesome deaths at the hands of the good guys. All three movies depict greed in a bad light. The greedy Nazi officer in Sisu gets a knife in the head.
I would like to challenge my readers to watch these movies and to monitor their bodily functions with personal-health trackers. Whether you react with lust or disgust, you will react! Your pulse-rate and blood pressure will increase. You may retch with disgust or get a hard-on; but you will react to the discharging of assault weapons, rows of bullet holes, the deaths of bad guys, and the scornful ballsiness of the good guys.
Afterwards, maybe the viewers will descend into a funk. After so much excitement, the release of so much dopamine—similar to the effect of meth—their ensuing boredom will torment them into self-medicating. Maybe a few of them will want to relive the thrill themselves, and shoot up the places where they live. At age 70, having known the variety of people that I have, I would not put it past some of them to relieve their boredom that way.
Instead of spending so much time accusing the pharmaceutical industry, or firearms manufacturers, maybe Americans should look for better movies to watch. You could just as easily blame the movie industry as the weapons and drug-makers. Instead of playing the blame-game, however, you should accept a little responsibility and plan to watch a better grade of movie. The movies I have reviewed are just porno for the dickless.