This is a movie that defies description. I just saw it today by myself (probably a big mistake. Someone to hold onto would've been nice at several points), and my attempts to describe it to my family fell flat. This has never really happened before.

Like I said when I brought this up in Oscar '99 section of The Grapevine, I don't say this often, but I honestly believe this is the best movie I have ever seen.

Betcha Phil thinks it's child pornography.

I agree that to some degree it defies describition. I also believe it was one the best films of the year, and I wouldn't call it child pornography. To be nude in mainstream films, you have to be over 18, so I'm pretty sure all the the young starlets were street legal.

Actually, no. Thora Birch at least was 17 when the film was made. It's a myth that you need to be over 18 to be nude in a movie; actually, you can be any age. You just can't be nude in a sex scene. The line has been pushed a lot further than this - Louis Malle's Pretty Baby is the classic example.

Really. I wasn't aware of that. I thought she was 18.

Either way, I still would call this pornography, too artisy to be called that.

Anonymous: If Phil saw it he wouldn't think so. We may have had our disagreements, the biggest being over Boogie Nights, but I think Phil is smart enough to know a good movie when he sees it.

Cool! Finally a message board for this great movie. I loved this movie...I loved the father and how he told his boss off, how he blackmailed them (that credit card with a hooker in a hotel thing), how he started smoking weed. I also loved that blonde girl's character...it was done quite well...she talked about how much sex she has said and all that but it turns out she's still a virgin.
Also I loved the scene where that guy's father (the army dude) starts to think his son is gay because he sees the tape his son made of the other father and then how the army dude sees his son rolling a joint and well...through a window looks like he's giving the guy head...
And I loved the twist where he beats his son up because he thinks he's gay and then it turns out he's gay himself...

So has Phil finally seen Boogie Nights then?

No, he hasn't. He judged the book by it's cover. Yeah, the lead characters are porno stars and producers, but that's not represenitive of the whole movie package. Judging Boogie Nights by the character's jobs is like judging Abbey Road by Octopus's Garden.

So how do you know he won't do the same here?

Anonymous: Call it a hunch.

Hey, I kinda like Octopus's Garden

Surely you jest! The poor man's Yellow Submarine?

I just read my original comments and realized I made an error in my message (really wish this board had an edit feature).

I meant I would NOT call the movie's nudity pornography. To say other wise, would be out of character for me.

I found the film unsettling, especially when I at first was afraid of, and later realized I identify a whole lot with one of the characters in the film, and I had not seen it put forth, before.....

"And I loved the twist where he beats his son up because he thinks he's gay and it turns out he's gay himself."

The guy's a homophobe, homophobes generally turn out to be closet homosexuals themselves, that's what drives them to be homophobic.

Generally? That seems like a pretty big leap to me. Maybe occasionally.

I remember reading a newspaper artical about a study that was done at some university where they had subjects fill out answers to questions about what they thought about verious subjects related to gays. Than they showed these people homo-erotic images and measured their arrousal level. When they computed the data it did show that the ones that were more strongly anti-gay did tend to have higher levels of arousal to the pics. Which is not to say that they were gay, just had gay leanings, or to say that all homophobics are like that.

Yep, psychologically, it's been found that the people who often react worst to homosexuality tend to do so because they have uncomfortable emotions and tendencies within themselves that they are trying to repress. Classic reaction-formation.

Isn't it a stereotype that gay-bashers are ll in the closet? Also, why assume that because somebody doesn't like gays, that he is a secret one. Nobody assumes that people in the KKK all want to be black. Isn't it just as wrong to stereotype people with certain hatreds as it is to stereotype people with certain preferences? To steer things back to the movie, I think the people who made it wanted the audience to react as several of you did to the Colonel, that it's supposed to be ironic that he hated gays and is in the closet. Add to that that he is a strict military man, and it looks like a slight swipe at military types.
On a totally diferent topic, wasn't it odd that Jane, who is presented as a bitter, constantly angry sorta-goth girl, is on the cheerleading squad? She seems not to enjoy it much, so what gives? Did her mom make her join for extra-curriculars when she applies to college?
I have to say my two favorite moments in the movie were 1) when the efficiency expert (not his boss) reads Lester's cynical description of his job (which involves phoniness and self-gratification) and then Lester calmly blackmails him (which was like a similar scene in Fight Club), and 2) when Carolyn is at a motel cheating on Lester with the man she loudly calls "Your Majesty!"

Chris Diehl: Nobody assumes that people in the KKK all want to be black.

Well, don't they?

On the matter of whether the movie is child porn, I don't think it has anything to do with how "artsy" it is, but whether it's intended by the creator to arouse the viewer. The scene with Angela topless may have had that effect on someone, but that doens't in itself make it porn of any kind, let alone child porn, since Mena Suvari was 20 at the time of the movie's production.
---Murray is correct in that you don't have to be 18 to be nude in a movie, though I know that Michelle Johnson, who was 17 when she made Blame it On Rio, had to get some type of special dispensation from a judge to do the movie. I don't recall if it was emancipation from her parents, or whether it was some regional thing or some law no longer enforced, though.

I also agree that it is a fallacy that homophobes are "generally" homosexuals themselves. Moreover, what defines a homophobe? Is it the violent reaction Fitts had with his Ricky? The epithets he used while in the car with Ricky in the beginning of the movie? Or does merely having a calm aversion to them or some of the activities of gay activists qualify one as a homophobe? I think Anony's statement is an overly broad characterization.

I think Fitts' homophobia should be viewed against the larger pattern of the movie's theme, not simply in the context of a current fad regarding liberal views of homophobes. When you look at the characters, the theme I see is that of masks and charades. Remember the movie's tag line? Look Closer. The movie is about the way the characters hide behind the superficial disguises they wear, and how some of them experience a chrysalis from that shell.

1. Carolyn is overly obsessed with the appearance of her furniture. Her entire job is fixing up houses to make them appear or sound nicer than they really are to prospective buyers, labeling a pool "lagoon-like," for example. Similarly, Ricky's mother apologizes to Angela for the appearance of her house, when it appears to be quite immaculate.

2. Lester is in a thankless job, and emerges from his milquetoast cocoon to take charge when he is threatened with a layoff. He starts working out to appear more manly and young to Angela. He later tells Fitts that his marriage is like a TV commercial. It's a facade.

3. Ricky is thought to be a weirdo. But he's actually a beautiful soul.

4. Angela is supposedly the promiscuous beauty, and Jane the wallflower. In fact, Angela is a virgin, and as Ricky tells her, she's ugly and boring, and Jane is really very beautiful.

5. Colonel Fitts is a rigid military homophobe who turns out to be a closet homosexual.

When you look at it in that context, that character trait of Fitts is more a perpetuation of the movie's theme, rather than of a liberal stereotype of homophobes.

On the matter of whether the movie is child porn, I don't think it has anything to do with how "artsy" it is, but whether it's intended by the creator to arouse the viewer. The scene with Angela topless may have had that effect on someone, but that doens't in itself make it porn of any kind, let alone child porn, since Mena Suvari was 20 at the time of the movie's production.

But Thora Birch was 17 at the time of filming and she did show her breasts. Of course that doesn't make it child porn. Nudity (and certanly not topfreedom AKA toplessness) does not and never will be the same thing as sex.

Though no one ever said that porn is defined as sex. It's material intended to arouse a viewer sexually.

I've finally watched this disc the other day, and noticed this nit: It's in the scene where Jane, through her window, does her striptease for Ricky, who videotapes her at his house. Behind Ricky you can see the taped images of Jane on Ricky's TV. After Jane has taken off her bra, if you look closely, the image on TV shows Jane still wearing her bra.

>>Moreover, what defines a homophobe? Is it the violent reaction Fitts had with his Ricky? The epithets he used while in the car with Ricky in the beginning of the movie? Or does merely having a calm aversion to them or some of the activities of gay activists qualify one as a homophobe? I think Anony's statement is an overly broad characterization.

Well, here's the definition of "phobia." Extrapolate as you like:

an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

Lester says to his (unfaithful) wife that he's missing the "James Bond" marathon on TNT. TNT never ran a "Bond" marathon (at the time, only TBS ran the "Bond" flicks.) Since it signed on in 1988, TNT has run only one "Bond" flick, Tomorrow Never Dies, only once. And, that was in 2003 or so, long after this pic was made.