Falling Down: The great American lie.

[Worlds fastest turtle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgNWg-a2EgE

[Talby]

Gotta rewatch that one, a true classic. And that reviewer is spot-on about its relevance today +1

[Worlds fastest turtle]

Origineel geplaatst door Talby:

Gotta rewatch that one, a true classic. And that reviewer is spot-on about its relevance today +1

One of my personal fave.

[permanent name]

Mondays got you down? *garfield commuter window plush*

Also worth noting that he rants about America a lot, but fails to have any uniquely American experiences the whole movie. Mostly he tours consumerism interacting with Conteinental histories.

It could have been set in Sweden and nothing would need to be changed.

I heard it was originally set in Manchester, for instance.

[Talby]

Origineel geplaatst door permanent name:

Mondays got you down? *garfield commuter window plush*

Also worth noting that he rants about America a lot, but fails to have any uniquely American experiences the whole movie. Mostly he tours consumerism interacting with Conteinental histories.

It could have been set in Sweden and nothing would need to be changed.

I heard it was originally set in Manchester, for instance.

That's the thing - when you think about how the EU elections are changing / getting rid of their equally corrupt gov't, this movie would also relate with those voters quite well , yes?

[Morkonan]

Well, consumerism and a loss of certain values is a platform for the movie. But...

The story is about a man who has, or is going through, a psychotic break. He can't face his failures as a husband, father, and career-centered professional. He has, at some point, had a breakdown and has retreated into the world he once thought he was part of. He has attempted to prop up that fantasy, but it seems like his grip on that last "routine" he's trying to emulate has finally slipped... The problem is that he was the problem.. At least, that's implied. His obsession with all the fluff of daily life with not a lot of attention to substance and deeper personal meaning points to someone that just didn't give his family or himself what he really should have. IMO, of course.

And, yes, I like the movie for all the same reasons others do - It says and does what we won't, but often really want to. :)

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

I don`t like that movie. it`s too realistic. There are plenty of people in the world who eventually snap like that, granted usually with less dramatic effects.

[permanent name]

Origineel geplaatst door Talby:

Origineel geplaatst door permanent name:

Mondays got you down? *garfield commuter window plush*

Also worth noting that he rants about America a lot, but fails to have any uniquely American experiences the whole movie. Mostly he tours consumerism interacting with Conteinental histories.

It could have been set in Sweden and nothing would need to be changed.

I heard it was originally set in Manchester, for instance.

That's the thing - when you think about how the EU elections are changing / getting rid of their equally corrupt gov't, this movie would also relate with those voters quite well , yes?

no that doesn't make any sense and makes it sound like you haven't seen it before.

Origineel geplaatst door Morkonan:

Well, consumerism and a loss of certain values is a platform for the movie. But...

The story is about a man who has, or is going through, a psychotic break. He can't face his failures as a husband, father, and career-centered professional. He has, at some point, had a breakdown and has retreated into the world he once thought he was part of. He has attempted to prop up that fantasy, but it seems like his grip on that last "routine" he's trying to emulate has finally slipped... The problem is that he was the problem.. At least, that's implied. His obsession with all the fluff of daily life with not a lot of attention to substance and deeper personal meaning points to someone that just didn't give his family or himself what he really should have. IMO, of course.

And, yes, I like the movie for all the same reasons others do - It says and does what we won't, but often really want to. :)

there's nothing psychotic about his experiences though. he's just been living a lie so long he snaps, does whatever he wants, and then when an authority figure tells him he's the bad guy he offs himself.

unless you're meaning to say that any kind of political belief is psychotic, and simply not understanding your place in the world makes you the participant in a psychotic episode?

like, is Brazil about a psychotic episode to you?

[Dutchgamer1982]

other movies you may like :

idiotcracracy
intime

and books you want to read :
annimal farm
1984
big brother

thats for kids.. that is.
in your teens you read every completed work by every big philosopher.

and as adult you collect books about every form of goverment sociology psychology and theology there is.

all to both conclude.. you are snowball and people are idiots.

[Sir Dookface McFerretballs]

"Fight Club" and "V For Vendetta" are other good ones.

Pointing out that the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in life is controlled by an elite few that want us to believe everything is fine while they ruin society and push more and more people to the edge of sanity with their control.

Falling Down made a lot of good points about how some people just want a decent life, do everything they were told by parents, teachers, and government growing up, and are willing to put up with a lot of crap until it is revealed to be mostly lies pushed on people to make them good obedient cogs in the machine for the elites.

It is scary how much we see this now with younger Xers and millenials and gen z likely never able to afford a home or car, stuck renting, stuck with inescapable student loans (thank Joe Biden for that in 2005), not able to save for retirement, not having kids, and being told by the boomers to just pull up their bootstraps because the boomers had it good and refuse to see or listen to what is going on.

At some point, a lot of people will either snap or just give up.

[Mang]

My favorite scene of the movie. Everytime I see street construction irl, I always think of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OhIdDNtSv0

[C4Warr10r]

There is no American lie in that movie, because the movie itself is a lie. As PermanentName mentions, that movie could have been set anywhere, but it would be MORE appropriately set elsewhere. In the US, we have fifty state governments and thousands of local ones, along with a very free market, despite the best efforts of one political wing. If life in the city is that bad, which it often is thanks to the efforts of the same political wing, just move. There's no reason to get to the point where you're shooting places up or holding people hostage, because you aren't trapped.

True to form, these incidents, where white guys with white-collar jobs start going berserk, almost never happen. The last one I can recall off the top of my head was Killdozer, and that wasn't even in a city. The guy thought the local government was persecuting him unfairly, which it very well may have been.

That's important, because "Falling Down" incidents happen all the time in communities where people think the system is rigged against them. Gee, who keeps saying that everything is systemically oppressive? The same people who actually do rig systems as a matter of course. You've got to organize if you want social change, right? And once you're organized, everyone has to stay in step, so the social change can happen. See how quickly that turns into a vicious cycle? Certainly, it does bring social change, but it's never good, or what anybody wanted.

Indeed, you can still see people doing this today, because they think it's a good idea for everyone to live in the pods, eat the bugs, and be reliant on government benefits. Pie-in-the-sky projects like "The Line" in Saudi Arabia actually get quite a bit of "progressive" support, because people think the environment is so terminally at risk.

Everyone would die in that stupid attempt at an arcology, or at least suffer serious mental problems, because humans aren't supposed to be confined. At the genetic level, all the way up, we're supposed to expand outwards. We have teenagers and their attitudes for the sole purpose of making sure this happens. Where there really isn't enough room, there had better be economic opportunity, or scientific opportunity, or some other frontier to advance.

That fact is precisely what makes freedom work so well. People are biologically impelled to venture outwards, in some form or fashion, because if they didn't do that, like all life, they'd just be competing with their own genes and creating a breeding ground for parasites that adapt more rapidly. When stuck in that sort of environment, people will choose a fight or flight response first, and if they can't fight or flee, they just start self-destructing. It's not really a choice, it's a biological program.

None of this is to say that we can't have cities, or mega-cities, or arcologies, but there had better be a good deal of freedom in them; Freedom to be economically mobile, socially mobile, and physically mobile. That way, when anything starts going wrong, for any reason, not just the biological, people can just leave. Whatever system they were supporting collapses, and everyone gets to learn, for the hundredth time, what doesn't actually work.

California, where the movie is set, has plenty of people who aren't shooting anything up or acting violently. They're just leaving the state. Michael Douglas didn't do that, because the movie had to be twisted into a critique of capitalism and white people, as per the paradigm of the same Left that imposes control. A lot of people are identifying with the movie because they feel that pressure, but that's not America doing that. It's just the same Left that does this crap everywhere else.

If you don't like this stuff happening to you, stop giving power and agency to the government, especially a national government, because then you have NO choice. Any government could promise all the freedom it wishes to, but it doesn't have the means to GRANT any. How would it get that power, if not by infringing on the freedom of others? What incentive would it have to continue to grant freedom? It wouldn't, which is why the US Constitution is so intentionally restrictive of government power.

The only Falling Down being done today is the same fall the Left always suffers. It just assumes that it corporations will bring it about, and that workers will rebel. Where that doesn't happen, they try to encourage the attitude, and it still doesn't happen. But half of the West was recently on fire because a bunch of Leftists had their own "Falling Down" lives. This movie is propagandist nonsense, and unintentionally ironic, at best.

[atomicgirl]

You guys really think that the movie, written by privileged middle class screenwriters, is a fount of wisdom. All righty then.

[Chaosolous]

Gravity is just a conspiracy meant to hold us down!

[atomicgirl]

Origineel geplaatst door C4Warr10r:

True to form, these incidents, where white guys with white-collar jobs start going berserk, almost never happen.

This movie wasn't about a white guy with a white collar job going berserk. It was about the large number of ex-military white guys who were committing mass shooting sprees, going all the back to the Charles Whitman in 1966--which they were at the time. By the time this movie came out, we'd had a large number of them, to the point where it was called "going postal."

Origineel geplaatst door C4Warr10r:

They're just leaving the state. Michael Douglas didn't do that, because the movie had to be twisted into a critique of capitalism and white people, as per the paradigm of the same Left that imposes control. A lot of people are identifying with the movie because they feel that pressure, but that's not America doing that. It's just the same Left that does this crap everywhere else.

Your take is so bizarre, I wonder if you even saw the film. This movie was about humanizing the large number of white men who went postal in the 1980s as victims of society, particularly of women. There's an implication that D-FENS goes crazy because he got a bum rap as a domestic abuser, and starting with Cuckoo's Nest, Michael Douglas either produced or starred almost exclusively in movies in which violent men are shown as sympathetic because they were driven to violence by women.

[Triple G]

Origineel geplaatst door C4Warr10r:

This movie is propagandist nonsense, and unintentionally ironic, at best.

You mean like writing an essay about how bad the left is, and how nice the right is - if it´s about some movie, only because it contains "an American lie" and plays in the U.S.? Reminder: it´s not a documentary, and we all know that the U.S. are the most peaceful country, with no violence, and the least prisoner worldwide. Everybody´s happy, and nobody could ever have a break down. Because the constitution says so. No government interference whatsoever, except it´s about abortion to safe lifes for the good cause, but that´s okay, because women are harmless...