Re: No Country For Old Men - Page 2

>
>> "Kris Krieger"> wrote
>>> And meanwhile, it seems to me that an additional question exists: if
>>> the killers at the end of "Easy Rider" were motivated by hatred and
>>> fueled by cowardice (I started to type "cowardace" but that'd just be
>>> a nervous fish... :o ),
>> HA, you sed dace.
>
> An amazing one at that...
>
>> I never heard of that til me cousin told me about it.
>> He was on the USS Dace when he was in the navy, its a nookular sub.
>> After he got out he hooked up with 3 mile island as a nuclear engineer
>> and has been there ever since.
>
> Submarines, now that's an idea that gives me the willies. Fasciating
> systems, but actually spend six months in a can hundreds of feet under the
> ocean? Noooo thank you. I had on section chief who'd been an officer on-
> board a sub, and he was unflappable - I guess, to survive it, you *have* to
> be not just cool, but glacial...
>
> Caves fall into the same category for me.
>
> No, thanks...
>
>>> what motivates teh character in NCFOM? OR maybe the
>>> frightening part is that there is no motivation?
>> They don't disclose that in the movie, they don't disclose much at
>> all. You end up with more questions than answers.
>
> Which, if a story is really good, is as it should be ;)
>
>>> Well, maybe I'll go ahead and see the movie after all ;)
>> Go ahead try it on, I've seen worse.
>
> For bad movies that are so bad, they're good (well, at least they're good
> if your mind has been properly warped and mutated!), check this place:
> http://store.sinistercinema.com/prostores/servlet/Categories?category=DVD
>
> heh heh heh
>

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0LDOW57-w

>
>>> "Kris Krieger"> wrote
>>>> And meanwhile, it seems to me that an additional question exists:
>>>> if the killers at the end of "Easy Rider" were motivated by hatred
>>>> and fueled by cowardice (I started to type "cowardace" but that'd
>>>> just be a nervous fish... :o ),
>>> HA, you sed dace.
>> An amazing one at that...
>>> I never heard of that til me cousin told me about it.
>>> He was on the USS Dace when he was in the navy, its a nookular sub.
>>> After he got out he hooked up with 3 mile island as a nuclear
>>> engineer and has been there ever since.
>> Submarines, now that's an idea that gives me the willies.
>
> You know it, the idea doesn't turn me on at all.
> Now, if it had big windows along the sides and billion watt flood
> lamps on the outside, that might be enjoyable for awhile.
> But yeah, 6 months would get old.

>> Fasciating
>> systems, but actually spend six months in a can hundreds of feet
>> under the ocean? Noooo thank you. I had on section chief who'd been
>> an officer on- board a sub, and he was unflappable - I guess, to
>> survive it, you *have* to
>> be not just cool, but glacial...
>> Caves fall into the same category for me.
>
> Land caves? No problem.
> Underwater caves? No thankyou.
> In land caves you HAVE to leave flashing markers all along the way,
> its mandatory.

> Once, a friend and I went in a place in south dakota and we got on an
> elevator that took us down under the ground.
> When we got to the bottom the guide told us we were 600' under the
> ground. I said, 'Get me out of this MF right now'.
> Once I relaxed and started checking it out it was pretty cool, but
> spooky. They had some sort of glowing lights that made everything look
> haunted, and there were stalagmites (tites?) all over the place and
> jewel-like formations in purple and yellow.

>> For bad movies that are so bad, they're good (well, at least they're
>> good if your mind has been properly warped and mutated!), check this
>> place:
>> http://store.sinistercinema.com/prostores/servlet/Categories?category=
>> DVD
>> heh heh heh
>
> I'll check it.
>

Aros", and other such "classics" <LOL!>

>>>> For bad movies that are so bad, they're good (well, at least they're
>>>> good if your mind has been properly warped and mutated!), check this
>>>> place:
>>>> http://store.sinistercinema.com/prostores/servlet/Categories?category=
>>>> DVD
>>>> heh heh heh
>>> I'll check it.
>> Oh, do! If your brain isn't already totally warped, it will be so after
>> you've seen stuff like "Mesa of Lost Women", "The Brain from Planet
>
> I looked at that, is that stuff for real?

> I never heard of any of those flix and I thought I had been a round the
> block a couple times when it comes to old (sci-fi) flix.

>> [edited/snipped]
>>>>>> That was exactly my point. Anyone living during that period is well
>>>>>> aware of the passive nature of the hippies, and thats exactly why
>>>>>> those rednecks targeted those 2.
>>>>>> Peace man. :-)
>>>>> The whole point of the movie wasn't that they were "passive hippies"
>>>>> it was that they were free. Passifism had nothing to do with it.
>>>> Do you mean "pacifism" or "passivity"? A better word would have
>>>> been "pacifist"; OTOH, Hippies were pretty passive, at least when
>>>> they were toking - pot is very different from alcohol in that it
>>>> renders one pretty much incapable of violence (if one is only using
>>>> pot - not sure what happens when mixed with meth or PCP or
>>>> whatever...)
>>> Yeah, pacifism was the word I wanted. Yes I know what hippies were, I
>>> know how pot works, but we're discussing a movie and it's
>>> implications, and it's interpretations. I submit that the directors
>>> didn't intend to say "hippies are pacifist, therefore they got shot by
>>> violent people". Instead they said, "These guys were free and thus
>>> they scared people who didn't know true freedom, and therefore were
>>> shot by those people because of their fear, and the fact that they
>>> were really lying to themselves about their own freedom". Do you agree
>>> or disagree? I'm not talking about real life here.
>> OK, it's just that I see the non-violence aspect as part of what the
>> "good guys" (so to speak) were pertty much about, although that's is
>> admittedly going from memory. IOW, they might have gotten rowdy ehre an
>> dthere, but they weren't about harming poeple. ALl in all, they were
>> just "doing their thing". SO, yes, it's freedom, but that (IMO at least)
>> includes other things.
>> It's hard to separate it completely from real life, because the
>> characters and situations were drawn from real life - and any work of art
>> is not only itself, but also, at least art which is also commentary is a
>> part of, an extension of?, the context/culture/times (not sure which word
>> is best) that existed during its creation.
>> SO, I'm not jsut trying to split hairs for the sake of being annoying,
>> jus putting my ownsnippets "out there" so to speak.
>>>>> They shot them because they were too free for middle America. They
>>>>> would have shot anyone with the same attitude, and in fact the same
>>>>> ilk killed a lawyer. Just some dude in a suit who had no connection
>>>>> to hippies or this "pacifism" but did have a connection to the
>>>>> freedom.
>>>> Or just going along minding one's own business...?
>>>> ALso, why do you say "middle America"? Most of "midle Americans" are
>>>> not prone to such wanton violence. WHy not speficy "narrow-minded"
>>>> people, or "reactionaries", or "prejudiced people", or heck,
>>>> "nitwits"?
>>>> Sauing "middle America" is sort-of like saying "everyoen who isn't
>>>> either rich, or poor"... That's a heck of a lot of people, many of
>>>> whom are non-violent.
>>> We're talking about somebody's interpretation of the 60s in Middle
>>> America, But you do not want me to say Middle America.
>> It's not at all a matter of "me not wanting you to say" this or that.
>> I'm exploring some of this as I write, and seking some, what, refeinement
>> of the ideas?, definition? - perhaps better to say "accuraciy" or
>> "rational exploration"...?
>> Whatever. I just am trying to say that, even at that time, "Middle
>> America" meant "the establishment"/"the herd mentality" *but* not
>> necessarily violence - not that it didn't have its violent sectors of
>> course, and also not to say that the imposition of certain cultural
>> standards couldn't be expereinced (by those imposed-upon) as a form of
>> violence. But the pressure was more like being slowly smothered by
>> ultra-refined bleached white flour - crushed underfoot by boredom, so to
>> speak.
>> At the same time, one of the lessons, IMO, is that the complacent
>> unthinking herd/establishment type of mindset can too easily descend into
>> mindless, and even casual, violence.
>> SO no, it's not me "wanting your to say" this or that. I'm trying to
>> establish a more three-dimensional picture, primarily for myself but also
>> for the sake of clarification. Because rebellion, too, has its dangerous
>> extremes.
>>> Ok, then let
>>> me say violent idiots. But then again you have the whole lynching
>>> mentality of the past, and remember we are talking about the past
>>> here.
>> Well (going off on a bit of a tangent here) and that past is,
>> pathetically (and dangerously, and disgustingly enough) not so much
>> "past" as most people like to think, because the only thing stopping
>> people from starting back in with that sort of horror is their fear of
>> getting caught by "the liberal gummint"...IOW< it's closer to the surface
>> than is often thought...
>> Maybe more accurate to say "Complacent America"...?
>>> Even in the movie Middle America isn't pigeon holed though.
>>> There is an old farmer who takes a liking to their "machines" and in
>>> the end I think "Captain America" really believes this is the only
>>> truly free person left on Earth, doing things the right way, working
>>> hard, on their own little plot of land, and doing their own thing.
>>> Sorry Don but it doesn't mention if the farmer had any guns or not, so
>>> I can't comment on that.
>> You were going along OK until you interjected that last bit.
>> First off, one of the dangers of farming - and this is from relatives who
>> actually owned and operated real honest-to-goodness farms (rice and
>> soybeans, in Arkansas) - is poisonous snakes. So, sorry, Edgar, but it's
>> rather common for a farmer to have some sort of firearm with him, if only
>> because of the danger of snakes.
>> Maybe (but I'm just guessing) a farmer in the West might also be in
>> danger from Cougers or Coyotes, or even Wolves. WHen I lived in SOuth
>> Carolina in the early 80's, I worked with one fellow who had a small farm
>> as a second income, and he had to occasionally shoot feral dogs
>> (abandoned pets - they were just trying to survive, but he couldnt afford
>> to just let them kill his cows). HE was down-to-eartg, non-violent, even
>> tempered - but hey, he had to protect his cows as amatter of economic
>> survival.
>> That is just plain reality. So, sorry to pop your balloon, but it might
>> very well be that the ol' farmer had a rifle nearby. Also, depending
>> upon just how close to the land he was, and based upon what I've seen
>> here and there, he probably wasn't above popping a squirrel, racoon, or
>> other critter to put into the stew pot. This info comes in part form
>> someone who spent a couple summers as a kid helping pick the cotton - I'm
>> not making that up. My own grandfather never resorted to store-bought
>> meat, and as a kid, I had venison, woodchuck, and who knows what else,
>> when we visited his place. It's an urban, 8not* rural, idea that guns
>> are *always* evil or are *only ever* used for criminal reasons. In many
>> areas, they remain part of one's survival toolkit.
> Last winter when I was working on my garage I saw a guy coming down the
> road with camoflage on and an orange hat and a rifle slung over his
> shoulder so I walked out to the end of the drive to chat with him. He was
> my neighbor to the north whom I hadn't met and he was going to an old
> treestand in the woods across from our house to shoot a deer. His rifle
> was an old muzzleloader, 58 caliber, and he spoke of these things matter
> of factly. I had to stifle a chuckle cause such a thing is unheard of
> where I'm from. The only time you see guns around here is when they are
> about to be used, for a purpose, and use them they do. Can you imagine,
> where you are right now, dressing up in camoflage and walking down the
> street in broad daylight with a loaded gun? I've seen people walking along
> the road with bows, crossbows, rifles, pistols, who knows what all and
> nobody pays it any nevermind. The sheriff himself stood right there on my
> front porch and told me I can shoot guns on my own land. I haven't done it
> though cause it will terrify our cats. But I'd like to, just because.
>> And yeah, that also can be part of freedom - living off the land, rather
>> than depending upon food to be trucked in to you.
> Just today my wife and I were talking about how many people would
> instantly become vegetarians if they had to catch/kill/clean and prepare
> animals for their food.
> I could catch and eat a fish I guess but I think I'd have to get pretty
> hungry before I killed a warm blooded animal. I'm funny that way.