My southern correspondent out of The Woodlands, Texas and his wife attend movies as often, if not more, than my ex-wife(see blog 12-15-13) and I. I can tell he's a connoisseur of the arts because in describing movies he'll use a word like 'nuance' to describe a scene. Smart people do that. My ex-wife always finds a hidden message that I haven't thought about. We have friends who go to the theater with us and when we leave one of them will say, "Well, what did you think"? I'll pipe in with, "That was some of the best popcorn I've ever had". Then the other three will start talking about themes and hidden messages and what the writers tried to say to the audience. That sort of stuff makes my brain tired. That's why I go to brainless movies. I want to let my mind wander. The ex-wife broke down and went to a movie with me she knew that would, in her mind, be called drivel. It was titled "Last Vegas". It told the story about four lifelong friends who decided to have one last fling while they could. There was a message to the film but it was a silly one. Basically, these four septuagenarians took off for Vegas to have some fun. The ex-wife hated it. I thought it was good, not great, but good. It was mindless humor and it was a guy flick. Married guys when going as a couple don't often get to see guy movies.
There's a film playing now that's getting big time press coverage. It's a Martin Scorsese film called "The Wolf of Wall Street". Since I haven't seen it I'm not qualified to make a comment but I will. I did read a synopsis of the movie and from what I could get out of it there is a plethora of lustful sex, snorting of cocaine, more sex, ruthless Wall Street corruption and unbridled sex.
There have only been a couple of movies I've walked out on before I saw "The End". The first one was "Romancing The Stone" with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. It was a good film but that was back in the day, might have been 1980 or thereabouts, when I wasn't considering poor language. I took my eight year old son with me but after thirty minutes and a few profanities I told the boy we were leaving. To this day he remembers the episode. I walked out on Dumb and Dumber after fifteen minutes. Even at that point it made me feel like Einstein but I still bolted.
This past summer I was by myself at the Minnesota lake cabin and with nothing to do, went to the local theater and paid my money for "Meet the Millers" with Jennifer Anniston. I wasn't there an hour before I hauled my kiester out of there. Jennifer Anniston and the F word said fifty times destroyed my sense of innocence about her. I don't like it when attractive women demean themselves with trash talk.
So, back to "The Wolf of Wall Street". It set a record before it hit the public. The movie lasts 180 minutes. The F word is said 506 times. According to my math(not good)that means it's(F word) said 3.2 times a minute. That's too much for this guy. I can handle the F word. Sometimes, it's my very favorite word. But it's not my very favorite word once every 3.2 minutes. In addition, when my ex-wife has the mouth of Mother Theresa there's no way we'd go see it. The only way I would attend by myself would be to wear a trench coat with a bag over my head.
I don't know why Hollywood thinks it needs to pepper their scripts with massive amounts of obscenities. Think about this. Have you ever heard any kind of foul word in a Walt Disney movie? How about Jerry Seinfeld or Jay Leno. The truly great comedians never relied on garbage humor to get laughs. Their schtick was talent. But this is another story.
What would have it been like if Charles Schulz, when he wrote "A Charlie Brown Christmas" had decided to use all kinds and varieties of foul language. It's still on television; has been since 1965. Did you know when it was first shown half of the televisions, 60 million in the United States, tuned in to watch? You also might like to know that television executives at CBS didn't want it shown for fear of alienating certain members of the audience because it openly referenced Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It has been documented that the main characters of this cartoon never said the F word.
You also might like to know that the F word is not an acronym commonly referred to as: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. That is an urban myth.
It is not a myth that Hollywood cannot make good, wholesome films if the public demands it.
So, if you want an argument on this subject mine is: 506 into 180 equals 3.2
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