Life Lessons From Film?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I've been following the 'Film Club' thread and I was wondering:  Is there a film or scene from a film that gave you good advice, not necessarily in an overt way?

Here's my example.  Robert Duvall accounts for three of my top ten favourite actors.  Unknown to far too many people, he did a film in 2003 called 'Secondhand Lions'.  Here's my favourite scene:





Here's what I learned:  Never tease an old dog.  He might have one more bite left.

Boru

[brewer]

A Beautiful Mind.

Quote: "Like a diet of the mind, I just choose not to indulge certain appetites..."

Those would be my addictive tendencies/behaviors.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Good one - good film, good advice.

Boru

[Minimalist]

"Always look on the bright side of life."

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

"Always look on the bright side of life."

heh.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

I could list many examples, but here's one (albeit abstract) example. Around the same time I discovered A Clockwork Orange (my all-time favourite film, by the way), my mother discovered the twin "news shows" of Jane Velez-Mitchell and Nancy Grace, two demagogues whose demeanors were so similar I wound up calling them "Two Hours' Hate," and I noticed that their attitudes seemed almost identical to Alexander, the writer whose wife was raped by Alex (an event he ties to her death), and after a chance encounter reunites the two (after the Ludovico treatment has rendered him harmless), he decides to get his vengeance by cold-blooded torture.

Really, the only difference between this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf6YLPcU9iI

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyLXniF5kqU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249MaK8UaIE

is Nancy Grace at least has the courtesy to stay within the law, and, given how flawed the law can be, that's precious little comfort.

And, if not for the "three videos per post" limit on this website, I'd have included a video of Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear, who's probably the cinematic epitome of how one evil man can take the limitations of the law and use it to his advantage in such a way that, if Gregory Peck does anything about it, he'd still end up on top. But, of course, I can't do that, partly because of the aforementioned rule, and partly because I couldn't find a definitive video demonstrating this on Youtube.

[abaris]

Funny that you mention a Clockwork Orange. That may be the only film, I really took something away with me. That bad doesn't always mean bad.

I've watched it first when I was far too young to watch it. But it taught me the shades of grey in life and that not everything is black and white.

[Rev. Rye]

Funny that you mention a Clockwork Orange. That may be the only film, I really took something away with me. That bad doesn't always mean bad.

I've watched it first when I was far too young to watch it. But it taught me the shades of grey in life and that not everything is black and white.

Or, hell, that sometimes both sides in a conflict can both be irredeemable. But, of course, with Alex's reaction to the treatment, it's very questionable how well ACO fits with that statement.

The Battle of Algiers may fit better with this. It's the story of the Algerian war of Independence, with an unflinching portrayal of both sides: the FLN (at least at this stage) are terrorists who may very well be the missing link between the third-world revolutionaries of the Cold War era and Al-Qaeda (between their bombing campaigns and their rigid enforcement of Sharia), but the French forces are cold-blooded torturers with little to no regard for civilian casualties. Sound familiar?

Hell, there's two more lessons from that alone:
* For all the shit the French do in Algeria, when the FLN start to seem like the lesser evil to the people of Algeria, it becomes clear that the French forces do not have a prayer of stopping them. This is the way it has always been in guerrilla warfare, and, unless the occupying forces are willing to pull a Lidice, that's the way it will always go.
* The stereotype about the "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" is absolute horseshit. For real-world context, in The Great Big Book of Horrible Things, (aka Atrocities or Atrocitology) Matthew White chronicled the 100 deadliest conflicts in human history. France was a belligerent in 18 of them, more than any other nation in history, even inching out China, likely the longest-running civilization on Earth by a single atrocity.

[ignoramus]

Luke, I am your father!

This made me feel great relief to know my dad wasn't the only father out there being a general cunt to his kids.

[vorlon13]

Ennis Del Mar having his meltdown after the shepherding gig with Jack Twist ended hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I assumed the character in the movie I would identify with would be Ennis, at that moment, I realized I was 'Jack Twist' for a man in Wisconsin. It was quite a jolt, did not see it coming, I had not an inkling 'John' was in love with me.

Hell if I know whether or not 'John' ever put all the clues together, I'm pretty sure his wife did . . . . . .

$64 question, would, she ever talk to him about it, especially if they never heard from me again ?