A History of Violence

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TJ Bennett said:
I'm glad to see so many positive reactions from the GAF crowd. I plan on seeing it again on Sunday. Dammit Amazon, where is the graphic novel I ordered?
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I have no clue why the studio even bothered to give this movie a wide release. It's the kind of movie that critics and film lovers adore, and the general public hates. Cronenberg isn't meant for mass public consumption.

This film cost ~30 million dollars to make. Can it make that back?
 
I really wished they would have found a better actress for the daughter. Oh and I could have done without the 69 sex scene.
 
I loved how the sex and violence made the audience uncomfortable. You could really feel the tension and "WTF" level of other people in the theater heh. I loved it, great film. :)
 
Jason said:
William Hurt rocked.

"How do you fuck that up????"
:lol
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Yeah, that was such a great black comedy moment.

The only real negatives:

--It starts out a little slowly
--The actress who plays the girl is terrible
--and I may be the only one who complains about this, but the full-frontal shot seemed really gratuitous

I don't know whose idea it was to do the last scene
sans dialogue
, but that was fucking brilliant.
 
White Man said:
I have no clue why the studio even bothered to give this movie a wide release. It's the kind of movie that critics and film lovers adore, and the general public hates. Cronenberg isn't meant for mass public consumption.
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Well, I'm not going to complain... but looking at the IMDb and elsewhere, you seem to have a point. Fuck.

This film cost ~30 million dollars to make. Can it make that back?
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Box office estimates should be up in the next 6 hours or so... I'm a little more optimistic than you, at least.

By the way, how would you say it compares to the graphic novel?
 
Estimates for
Friday, September, 30, 2005
Title Daily Total
FLIGHTPLAN 4.5 36.1
SERENITY 3.9 3.9
CORPSE BRIDE, THE 2.8 26.2
HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, A 2.5 3.3
INTO THE BLUE 2.5 2.5

It was a crowded marketplace. I hope it at least beats Into the Blue. :lol
 
Well, if it doesn't sink like a stone next week... Sigh...

Into the Blue was in over twice as many theaters, yet made the same amount. Thank god Jessica Alba T&A isn't enough to make audiences see shit like that.

On the other hand, Flightplan still at #1? Audiences suck.
 
FoneBone said:
Well, if it doesn't sink like a stone next week... Sigh...

Into the Blue was in over twice as many theaters, yet made the same amount. Thank god Jessica Alba T&A isn't enough to make audiences see shit like that.

On the other hand, Flightplan still at #1? Audiences suck.
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What else is new?

On the bright side, Into The Blue is performing significantly under expectations.

Unfortunately, I think I'll have to wait until Monday night to see A History of Violence. I was busy yesterday, busy tonight, and I'll probably have the opportunity to see MirrorMask tomorrow, which I'll take.
 
the thing with the uncomfortable sex is that it fits with the whole tone of the movie. If they had done the sex scenes in a different way, that came off as all romantic and shit, it would have totally gone against the tone of the movie. The same with that ending scene... to end it ANY different way would have been demeaning to the entire movie and all it worked for.

Awesome flick.
 
Going to see it late tonight and judging by the previews I think I'll like it. My theatre is only playing it four times today though, what's up with that?

Oh and by the way, how's the graphic novel?
 
What is it that made people love it so much? I'm a fan of Cronenberg somewhat and I expected to like it, but it was fairly shallow and cardboard the whole time. I've tried thinking of it as a black comedy as some have stated, but as it hits it's notes so woodenly and obviously all the time it only seemed comfortable when it was showing you the "guts" as it were. Kind of sappy and predictable like a bad comic, which maybe points at the source material but I hesitate to make that call not being familiar with it.

Again, I know it's a big hit with the forum, I'm not trying to bag on anyone's "movie of the year" feelings about it, I'm just curious to hear more why beyond idle praise.

whytemyke said:
a lot of people were saying they didn't like it as they were leaving. I'm guessing its because those people have no taste in films (as in, one actually said "I KNEW we should have seen Lord of War!"), but if you have a decent taste in film, there's no way you can not love this movie.
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Really? What was the most visceral part? The face being shot through?
 
Musashi Wins! said:
Again, I know it's a big hit with the forum, I'm not trying to bag on anyone's "movie of the year" feelings about it, I'm just curious to hear more why beyond idle praise.
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I'll try to avoid specific spoilers, but it might be best to wait to read this if you haven't seen it...

It's really about the delusion of the American Dream, which the movie sees as an ideal from the past (hence the '50s style small town) founded on the denial of a hell of a lot of bloodshed in the name of "freedom" and "homeland security". That might be the best way to approach the movie's deeper meanings.

For me this message becomes especially potent when I consider the way that Cronenberg fucks with the audience in the sexual / violent scenes, egging us on only to make us realize what it is exactly that was exciting us. He doesn't just portray vigilante crime... he makes us also consider the implications of allowing a situation to become a violent one (i.e. what does it do to a community or a home?... can morality or safety exist once this line has been breached?). While watching it, I was excited by the action scenes, but then I realized that I was being a bit bloodthirsty myself, which was pretty sobering.

Consider also the theme of duality, which you can see in a lot of Cronenberg's work, like Dead Ringers, The Fly and Spider. There are many scenes that have a twisted mirror image (the cop scene, the sex scene, the hospital scenes, etc) and the way that Tom/Joey's double life and the lie necessary to perpetuates it infects his idyllic life becomes pretty devastating by that final scene where the characters are given a choice to willingly perpetuate that lie (and base their lives on a fundamental untruth).
 
Unison said:
It's really about the delusion of the American Dream, which the movie sees as an ideal from the past (hence the '50s style small town) founded on the denial of a hell of a lot of bloodshed in the name of "freedom" and "homeland security". That might be the best way to approach the movie's deeper meanings.
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Hmmm. I feel like you're doing a bit of work for him in saying this, but alright. The source material as presented doesn't really work that deep for me.

For me this message becomes especially potent when I consider the way that Cronenberg fucks with the audience in the sexual / violent scenes, egging us on only to make us realize what it is exactly that was exciting us. He doesn't just portray vigilante crime... he makes us also consider the implications of allowing a situation to become a violent one (i.e. what does it do to a community or a home?... can morality or safety exist once this line has been breached?). While watching it, I was excited by the action scenes, but then I realized that I was being a bit bloodthirsty myself, which was pretty sobering.
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This is good, this does give me a bit of an angle on where he was coming from and I even thought that myself as I was watching it. I don't think it really explores those implications except in the most basic of ways, though. You're right on about the use of violence in it, which I guess was the whole point as it were...I guess the demonstration just fell flat for me. Maybe I caught it on the wrong night for me.

Consider also the theme of duality, which you can see in a lot of Cronenberg's work, like Dead Ringers, The Fly and Spider. There are many scenes that have a twisted mirror image (the cop scene, the sex scene, the hospital scenes, etc) and the way that Tom/Joey's double life and the lie necessary to perpetuates it infects his idyllic life becomes pretty devastating by that final scene where the characters are given a choice to willingly perpetuate that lie (and base their lives on a fundamental untruth).
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Again, I think you make a good point here and I was seeing that some in the space of the mans work, I just thought it was a bit slapstick and heavy handed with it. Which again, I guess was part of the point and I just took to it emptily.

Either way, thanks for your take.
 
BorkBork said:
Viggo on Charlie Rose
Guess this is as good a place as any to post this. Well stated and informed opinion regardless of if you agree with him or not.

Back on topic, this movie actually looks pretty good. Corpse Bride, Serenity and this in the next little while! :D
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Whoa, Viggo likes Howard Zinn. +1 Viggo Mortenson.

That trailer looked really cool...I need to see this soon, though I don't think it's out around here yet...
 
Went and saw it, and it definitely wasn't what I expected it to be. It was good but Joey/Tom wasn't exactly a likeable character in the movie (I don't know about the graphic novel).
 
ToyMachine228 said:
Went and saw it, and it definitely wasn't what I expected it to be. It was good but Joey/Tom wasn't exactly a likeable character in the movie (I don't know about the graphic novel).
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That's what was so great about it. Not only did you see the dissolution of the so-called American dream earlier, but you saw the truth in character-- there IS no real anyone. We are mostly who we choose to be. Or, could it be that Cronenberg is saying that despite our hardest to be somebody we're not, we are still who we really are, regardless of what we do to change it? It brings out a special duality in Tom because you see him living as two different characters. He's got the things he loves from Tom, the things that make him who he is-- his family-- versus the things that also make him who he is-- his past.

Plus, you see the effect in such subtle ways throughout his family at different levels. You see his son trying to digest and cope with what his father is, a hero. You see his wife slowly start to believe herself that Ed Harris' character wasn't lying, and Tom wasn't what he'd been saying.
 
Saw it. Loved it. Period.

William Hurt needs some huge acclaim. I can't think of the last time someone made such a big impact onscreen with so little time.

Anyone else get stuck with people in their theater who couldn't, or dare I say afraid to, take the film seriously? Ugh.
Unison said:
It's really about the delusion of the American Dream, which the movie sees as an ideal from the past (hence the '50s style small town) founded on the denial of a hell of a lot of bloodshed in the name of "freedom" and "homeland security". That might be the best way to approach the movie's deeper meanings.
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Yeah, I think there's something to this. I think there's a comparison waiting to be made between Tom/Joey and his family with Middlebrook, Indiana as a whole, and about the violence that preceeded their creations and allowed them to take root, along with the violence that has to occur in order for those institutions to survive.
 
Looking at some of the reactions this is getting is really, really depressing. I mean, I know it sounds snobbish to say that people who disagree with your opinion don't "get it", but it just seems fucking true in this case.
 
Dan said:
William Hurt needs some huge acclaim. I can't think of the last time someone made such a big impact onscreen with so little time.
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I thought he was awesome in The Village.
 
Iceman said:
I thought he was awesome in The Village.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, William Hurt's been great in many, many films, but I thought he absolutely ignited the screen in A History of Violence, and with ten minutes at most.

Anyway, the movie's estimated weekend box office is at $8,200,000. Not bad at all.
 
yeah, william hurt definitely had a presence in the film.

im going to have to try and see this again in an empty theater.. the damn audience was so annoying, especially the guy in front of me. ugh .
 
I'm going to burn Regal theaters to the ground. Passing on this and picking up fucking ROLL BOUNCE?! I hate my life.
 
Is it some sort of gang movie? Or perhaps a crime drama along the lines of HEAT?
 
Oh, I loved this movie so much. Viggo Mortensen surprised me--I just thought of him as "the guy who makes a good Aragorn," but he's brilliant in this. Ed Harris and William Hurt were great as well--in his single scene Hurt came damn near to stealing the entire movie.

FoneBone said:
I don't know whose idea it was to do the last scene
sans dialogue
, but that was fucking brilliant.
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Especially since
everyone at the table has their mouths half open like they're going to actually say something. I kept thinking, "What the hell could any of these people say to follow that up?" And then the screen just went to black.
What a great ending.
 
isamu said:
Is it some sort of gang movie? Or perhaps a crime drama along the lines of HEAT?
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Honestly, you're really better off not knowing what you're getting into when you see the movie--it's a case where the advertising (at least what I've seen of it) tells you exactly enough, and no more.
 
KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell had Cronenberg on the last show to discuss the movie. You can get the podcast through iTunes or find a stream here.
 
Dan said:
Anyway, the movie's estimated weekend box office is at $8,200,000. Not bad at all.
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It's already domestically outgrossed Cronenberg's last three movies combined, and just a couple days away from outgrossing his last four. That's both amusing and sad.

And unfortunately, I'm thinking that it's going to drop a lot next weekend.
 
My theater was bad.
There was a group of douches that kept laughing...they EXPLODED in laughter at the full-frontal scene. Kinda funny actually.

Oh yea, pretty good movie.

Funny how pissed that jock was at the son for merely catching a pop-fly.
 
Prospero said:
Honestly, you're really better off not knowing what you're getting into when you see the movie--it's a case where the advertising (at least what I've seen of it) tells you exactly enough, and no more.
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Oh C'mon...do you have any idea how advertising works? The commercials already gave away too much, such as the cameo from
Master P
 
isamu said:
Oh C'mon...do you have any idea how advertising works? The commercials already gave away too much, such as the cameo from
Master P
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Yeah. Actually, don't see it. You probably won't appreciate it.
 
Saw it. Liked it.

But then I love movies with secret pasts and multiple identities and dirt catching up to them.

My favorite character was Fogerty. Just something so cool and malicious about him.
 
Just saw this today. Good movie with some really chilling scenes and great performances. The action was pretty well done and realistic and there is a great amount of tension in many of the dialouge sequences.

In the end though I have to say that there wasn't much to the film other than what is going on in the main story thread. It is an interesting story but lots of my questions about the character and his life weren't really answered beyond the surface level. Other relationships were lost and the family never really seemed to be a unit but individuals who never really seemed together.

Good movie, but not the homerun I was hoping for.

Edit: Oh yeah, I liked the red herring at the very beginning seeing as though I already knew what the story was going to be about.
 
Saw this earlier tonight. I'm actually flipping out since it was so good. I wasn't as won over by William Hurt's performance as others were, but Mortensen was just fantastic.

One of my favorite parts was at the end, when
they fuck up Joey's death, and Richie is bitching them out for it. Everyone in the theatre is laughing ("how could you fuck that up?") and then he just shoots the crony, and the theatre goes silent.
:lol

As others have said, the last scene was fantastic. One of the best endings in cinema.
 
Great, great movie.

A few comments. Blanket spoiler protection, just in case.

Ditto on the praise for the final scene. My wife and I disagreed about that, but agree, what could they have said about that? No tidy "they'll go back to normal" resolution here.

I went back and thumbed through my copy of the graphic novel. It wasn't as good as I remembered it being. I like the movie much more. The movie takes the best parts from the book and expands on them.

I think the core aspect of the movie is the virus-like nature of violence, and the sham of the idyllic America. Recognizing and living with the violence inherent in people instead of pretending it isn't there. My favorite line in the movie was Fogarty saying "Seeing you prentend to be this guy-- it's hard to watch."

My other favorite bit is when Edie tells Sam, without telling him, the Tom is Joey. You can feel how upset she is, and he leaves out of respect for her.

Ed Harris continues to be great in everythign he's in. Maria Bello was also great.
 
everyone except for that littel girl was great.

this movie really came out of nowhere for me.. i didnt even know it was being made until about last week.
 
whytemyke said:
That's what was so great about it. Not only did you see the dissolution of the so-called American dream earlier, but you saw the truth in character-- there IS no real anyone. We are mostly who we choose to be.
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I was actually thinking about this last night, and I think this is the whole idea that makes the movie hang together:

--it's why that first sex scene is important, for example, when Edie wears the cheerleading outfit. She's indulging Tom in this fantasy that is, in its way, an "American dream": he gets to pretend he's the guy who's lucky enough to score with a cheerleader. But what she doesn't know (and what we don't know the first time we see the movie) is that Tom's been doing the same thing for her all along--creating the fantasy of a perfect middle-America family life, without even telling her.
 
Prospero said:
I was actually thinking about this last night, and I think this is the whole idea that makes the movie hang together:

--it's why that first sex scene is important, for example, when Edie wears the cheerleading outfit. She's indulging Tom in this fantasy that is, in its way, an "American dream": he gets to pretend he's the guy who's lucky enough to score with a cheerleader. But what she doesn't know (and what we don't know the first time we see the movie) is that Tom's been doing the same thing for her all along--creating the fantasy of a perfect middle-America family life, without even telling her.
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very good point.
 
Prospero said:
I was actually thinking about this last night, and I think this is the whole idea that makes the movie hang together:

--it's why that first sex scene is important, for example, when Edie wears the cheerleading outfit. She's indulging Tom in this fantasy that is, in its way, an "American dream": he gets to pretend he's the guy who's lucky enough to score with a cheerleader. But what she doesn't know (and what we don't know the first time we see the movie) is that Tom's been doing the same thing for her all along--creating the fantasy of a perfect middle-America family life, without even telling her.
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It was perhaps the strangest sex scene I've ever sat through but you make a good point, it does serve it's purpose.
 
This movie has been sticking with me.

I realized there weren't any flashbacks. It got across how fucked up you know who was without us ever seeing him, just the consequences of his work.

I wanted to see
Crazy fuckin Joey
fully in his element.

One of the creepiest parts was
When the kid shot Fogerty to save his dad. The look in his eyes as he approached his son was sick. Awesome scene. He literally transformed into someone else and it was completely believable. Sort of like a realistic Two-Face.
 
Had to bump this topic up so more people see this movie. I saw it over the weekend and loved it. I didn't realize there were so many levels to the movie until I read a review shortly after I saw the movie.

I just need a few of my friends to go see it so I can discuss it!
 
I thought it was ok. The story was pretty straight forward, nothing thought provoking, pretty formulaic. It would have been nice if they showed more of his history of violence. It seemed like an unfinished film as if Cronenberg got bored midway through shooting and stopped. Then the studio pasted the film together with the footage they had. The sex scenes weren't that raw IMO either, sort of edgy softcore. Overall I was pretty disappointed.
 
The ending was too vague and tried too hard. Additionally, the if you were in the theatre with a friend that wasn't a boyfriend or girlfriend, it was incredibly awkward. They were almost hardcore. It was still better than Serenity.
 
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