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Movie Theater The Road (I know this is a bit older, just saw it)

TheGerman

TheGerman

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Minuteman
    • Jan 25, 2010
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    I never review anything, but holy shit I saw this last night and it just aggravated me.

    If any of you haven't seen this, its a movie about after the world pretty much ends and there are very few people left and the world is barren and devastated. It follows a father and his son while they travel to the coast looking for a better place to be.

    The setup sounds pretty intriguing; this could have gone in 50 different directions. This could have led them through pockets of civilization trying to get back on its feet like in the Postman, or struggles versus good and evil like in the Book of Eli and Mad Max, or a multitude of other things. Instead, its 2 hours of the most depressing shit I have ever watched put up against a grey background with no real purpose/point/story or plot.

    First I thought something would come out of why the wife just decided one night to leave and die. What?! What the fuck sense does THAT make. She can't handle living in their house with the world gone to shit so she.....wanders outside at night to die. Fail. It doesn't even make sense, and it doesn't even play into the movie at all even though they brought her into it with flashbacks the first 1/3 of it.

    You never actually get a story or anything as to WHY the world ended. War? Global warming? Alien invasion? Lady GaGa finally acknowledged she is a tranny? Nothing. Just the world is shit, there's random earthquakes, not a lot of people left. Could have given us some story here fuckers.

    So the father/son wander around. They have apparently been wandering around for at least a year or 2 (given the kids age) with the same 2 rounds of ammo. They don't even know WHY they are going to the coast and instead are just wandering there just because. This makes no sense and just makes me feel I totally missed some game changing point when in fact, it really is that single-minded. Plus, who the fuck keeps walking on main roads the whole time? Haven't you people played Day Z??

    Oh, and every 5 minutes he was either about to shoot himself or the kid. Seriously, get the fuck with the program. Stop trying to kill yourself every 5 minutes.

    Along the way, they try to scavenge for food and whatnot, this is expected. And at one point they run into the motherload of some AR15.com'rs underground pantry where they gorge themselves in food and sleep for 1-2 days. At one point they hear something above that sounds like a dog and promptly abandon the years worth of food the next morning. Because you think you HEARD a dog? Obviously noone knew the food storage was there as it was untouched; so you abandon it at the first sign of anything?? What?!? If you had to move just displace it in a nearby house or something. Holy shit.

    So we then make it to the coast which is predictably just as horrible as the rest of the world was. They pretty much HAD to kill someone off at this point as there was clearly no 'end' to this movie or nothing that changed the ever missing plot or at least gave you/them some sort of hope or closure. Nope. Instead, the dad randomly gets shot in the leg by an arrow from 2 people who decided to just randomly shoot at him. Makes perfect sense, right? Again, no plot, no story, nothing makes fucking sense. I know this is the apocalypse and shit isn't playing by the usual set of rules, but this story made less than zero sense.

    And the ending? The dad dies and the kid is left alone when some random dude walks on the beach and wants to take the kid in with his family. Initially I thought this was a total fucking scam, but apparently the guy did have a family and a dog. Still, even with the family standing there, I didn't get the feeling the kid was any safer than 10 minutes ago. The mother gave me the impression that she had a few screws loose and the kids were like, great, another fucking kid. Fuck, the dog didn't even look excited. And then the movie ends.

    No hope of going to some place safe the family knew of. No hope of anything. Just credits. End. Fuck. I just watched 2 hours of the most depressing shit ever and I can't describe more content than this because NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS the entire movie - well, except the kid FALLS FUCKING OVER every time he had to run. But that's about it.
     
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    Same author as "No Country For Old Men" and several others. Books are always better.
     
    I thought the movie was done really well and I've never read the book. Depressing as hell, yes. But with most of the other 'end of the world' movies that hollywood churns out there is some totally unrealistic, plots that mostly involve a little bit of cheesy dialogue between good looking people that mostly just serves to break up impossible chase scenes involving mostly special effects. The 'good guys' are always easy to separate from the 'bad guys' and the entire implausible story-line is neatly wrapped up at the end when there is hugely extravagant showdown fight and good vanquish's evil.

    In contrast, the Protagonists in The Road are simply a man and his surviving son with very little special effects and and overwhelmingly bleak situation. The antagonists are many, and if you look around us in society, its probably a pretty fair portrayal of what would happen when the food sources go away.....roving bands of cannibalistic animals. I made the mistake of watching the movie with my wife and she was as pissed off as the OP, for the same reasons. But I think the director did a really good job of portraying the post-apocalyptic nightmare in an unflinching way. No kung-fights with zombies, no super-hero endings....just an unflinching and realistic view of how fragile our society is.

    John
     
    And now I want to read the book, mostly cause its usually better than movies can portray especially if its the same author as 'No Country for Old Men'; which is one of my favorite movies that the Coen brothers have made.
     
    Cascade_Sherpa said:
    I thought the movie was done really well and I've never read the book. Depressing as hell, yes. But with most of the other 'end of the world' movies that hollywood churns out there is some totally unrealistic, plots that mostly involve a little bit of cheesy dialogue between good looking people that mostly just serves to break up impossible chase scenes involving mostly special effects. The 'good guys' are always easy to separate from the 'bad guys' and the entire implausible story-line is neatly wrapped up at the end when there is hugely extravagant showdown fight and good vanquish's evil.

    In contrast, the Protagonists in The Road are simply a man and his surviving son with very little special effects and and overwhelmingly bleak situation. The antagonists are many, and if you look around us in society, its probably a pretty fair portrayal of what would happen when the food sources go away.....roving bands of cannibalistic animals. I made the mistake of watching the movie with my wife and she was as pissed off as the OP, for the same reasons. But I think the director did a really good job of portraying the post-apocalyptic nightmare in an unflinching way. No kung-fights with zombies, no super-hero endings....just an unflinching and realistic view of how fragile our society is.

    John
    Click to expand...

    Bingo, realistic bleak downward spiral of a harsh landscape - not every movie needs a Disney ending.
     
    Cascade_Sherpa said:
    In contrast, the Protagonists in The Road are simply a man and his surviving son with very little special effects and and overwhelmingly bleak situation.
    Click to expand...





    You just didn't notice them - there are quite a bit actually.
     
    Well played Dogtown.....I honestly didn't recall that part of the movie, good reminder though. From anyone who has read the book or picked it up from the movie, what was the event that started all of the unraveling of society? Solar Flares? Nuclear war?
     
    It isn't explained and doesn't matter to be honest. In the book the characters are The Man and The Boy, no "Jack" or "Robert" - you're given all you really need to know. The look and feel of the movie very much feel how I imagined it as I read the book. Almost like a nuclear winter without radiation, where the animals and plants have died off. Major asteroid or comet impact? Whatever it was it was fairly sudden, not something that gradually happened.
     
    This (what Dogtown said above) . . . and don't expect much more exposition from the book. McCarthy is pretty spare in his explanations, and in all truth, the movie probably makes some things a bit easier to grasp than a read through does. Not his best novel either; try any of the Tennessee books, especially Outer Dark and Suttree.

    By the by, The Counselor looks interesting, and closer in theme to No Country for Old Men.
     
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    The book gave me nightmares, as father, I really identified with the book. The scene in the book where the boys are tied to a and pulling the vehicle, and are referred to as catamites. provides alliteration to the possible fate of his little boy. The book would fire up my acid reflux. I put it down for a few weeks when they found the bunker with food because they were okay as long as i didn't read further. I thought the movie was great. No offense but i think you missed the point of the story.
     
    I'm with you. Got bored with the movie but maybe book will be better.

    Robert Duvall had an amazing performance in his brief appearance however.
     
    I read the book first as well. It was excellent, very dark, depressing, moody. It won a Pulitzer Prize for best novel. McCarthy's writing is incredible, very, very descriptive, dark and poetic.....he uses no punctuation for dialog, i.e. "quotation" or he said, the boy said etc. Here's an excerpt I really liked:

    "<i>The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening. Often he had to get up. No sound but the wind in the bare and blackened trees. He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings. An old chronicle. To seek out the upright. No fall but preceded by a declination. He took great marching steps into the nothingness, counting them against his return. Eyes closed, arms oaring. Upright to what? Something nameless in the night, lode or matrix. To which he and the stars were common satellite. Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must.</i>"

    How bad-ass is that?! As others have mentioned, there are no names in the book...only father and boy. No explanation of the event that led to the end times, but that was not the point of the story. The story revolved around the relationship of a father and his young son in a horrible place and time. I read it, and re-read it quite often, finding new tidbits of "wow" each time. I have a son too and this book made me think a lot.
     
    Just finished it and it was wonderful. Viggo is super underrated always has been honestly. Damn good performance on all accounts also including Robert Duvall.
     
    I enjoyed the movie, it is a thinking film and goes against the grain. There are no winners, only hardship. I often refer back to that movie when I think about SHTF / prepping. I really need to get a copy of the book.
     
    Buying the book as well. Probably going to rewatch it this weekend. I'm kind of baffled Viggo didn't get an Oscar nomination for this.
     
    I found the book hard to read also as I have an 8 year old son. It was written so well it is easy to put yourself in the position of being scared and starving while trying to not only keep your son alive but not let him lose his faith.
     
    When i watched this movie my stomach churned and dark dark feeling just surrounded me like I assumed the Intent was. All I could set there and think the whole time is I don't have nearly enough fucking ammunition, food, water etc. really depressed me for a while.
     
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    COfox said:
    I read the book first as well. It was excellent, very dark, depressing, moody. It won a Pulitzer Prize for best novel. McCarthy's writing is incredible, very, very descriptive, dark and poetic.....he uses no punctuation for dialog, i.e. "quotation" or he said, the boy said etc. Here's an excerpt I really liked:

    "<i>The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. A blackness to hurt your ears with listening. Often he had to get up. No sound but the wind in the bare and blackened trees. He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings. An old chronicle. To seek out the upright. No fall but preceded by a declination. He took great marching steps into the nothingness, counting them against his return. Eyes closed, arms oaring. Upright to what? Something nameless in the night, lode or matrix. To which he and the stars were common satellite. Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must.</i>"

    How bad-ass is that?! As others have mentioned, there are no names in the book...only father and boy. No explanation of the event that led to the end times, but that was not the point of the story. The story revolved around the relationship of a father and his young son in a horrible place and time. I read it, and re-read it quite often, finding new tidbits of "wow" each time. I have a son too and this book made me think a lot.
    Click to expand...

    Thank you for taking the time to write a quote from the book, after reading it I decided the book was worth going to buy and check out. I am only 40 pages in and WOW it is very well written and has me hooked, can't wait to continue reading.
     
    E3C3H3O3 said:
    Thank you for taking the time to write a quote from the book, after reading it I decided the book was worth going to buy and check out. I am only 40 pages in and WOW it is very well written and has me hooked, can't wait to continue reading.
    Click to expand...

    You may not be thinking that way when you get to the end.
    Absolutely devastating ending to an great book.
    Yeah, I shed a tear. Hard not to when you have children.
     
    You should have seen Los Angeles after 3 days of riots. Smoke everywhere, the whole damn place stunk of burning tires and garbage. deserted streets and random gunfire after the looting slowed. You could not see more than a few hundred yards and as night fell and it cooled the smoke hung on the ground even more. People are worse than animals. Totally believable book to me.
     
    Think I'm gonna give the flick another chance.....minus the whiskey this time.
     
    I lived through the riots in Newark, NJ; and I think I can sketch in some of how the scenario gets a start. As for the ecological desolation, simply imagine all the pollinators being wiped out, by pathogen, man's impulsive greed, or perhaps even global warming (shudder...).

    If you want to see earthquakes, imagine all the mass of the polar ices being redistributed to the water cycle, and the effect of all that mass being transferred from the polar zones to the tropic/temperate zones. Higher sea heights mean more water pressure and more water infiltrating subduction zones. Study the mechanics of volcanos and other tectonic features, and the parts water and superheated steam play in driving earthquakes and eruptions. Yellowstone is just waiting for a substantial change in the water cycle to produce something pretty much like the scenes you witness in the flick.

    Buying and watching the DVD, stewing some, then watching it again gave me considerable insight into the downstream part of prepping that maybe few folks ever seriously envisage. All things change, and in the process, a lot of them simply end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it, and the most truly 'successful' preppers may get to endure quite a bit of what the movie portrays.

    Economic crises don't scare me, I worked on Wall Street. Economics is a component of civilization. One goes, the other goes too, and the sequence isn't all that important. Democracies are a product of city building and population growth, and both cities and democracy will evaporate as a logical consequence of population decline.

    Every stage of society is just a logical offshoot of prevailing population density and communications efficiency. It is how humans combine resources so they can live together, and no societal stage has ever gone all peaceful hunky dory. Humans are fallible, and conflict is their answer to incongruity. Anyone who thinks they can societally engineer peaceful humans obviously doesn't understand humans or deep history.

    Democracy is simply an archeological marker for counteproductive overpopulation. Progressives hail it as the all-powerful solution to society's woes, while they labor toward a pinnacle where actual democracy is merely chants, toadyism, and mouth breathing as the new aristocrats actually do the management work. Conservatives rail against the dark, but still haven't figured out how to rekindle the candle.

    Both of them labor toward their goals while chained in a tug of war, exerting all of the effort in the journey, and none of it in reaching a destination, any destination. This is the real logical outcome of democracy. Only a few recognize it as a failed experiment. Where we are now is a form of stagnation, and stagnation has always spelled the doom of every society humanity has crafted.

    Altruism becomes more important, but its scope shrinks drastically to exclude those with whom we are not personally acquainted.

    If you want to imagine where the lack of societal underpinnings might strand us, read up on the Pre-(Roman)Contact Gauls'/Celts' lifestyle (they are really the same people, in different stages of exodus from the spreading Roman sphere), then start from there and (re)upgrade the technological fundamentals (without the theological complexities) to emulate the Romans.

    Some Paleoarcheaeogists wonder where the Celts originated, but that's moot. They were the people of Europe, East through West, before the rise of the Romans to (their) world domination. They are ones who refused to assimilate, and eventually moved West, ending up in Spain (Basques) and the Western British Isles (Early Brits, Later Scots, Current Irish). In case you wonder who'd be playing such roles in modern time, imagine the Progressives as the Romans, and the Conservatives as the (eventual) Celts and Basques. The ideology won't be the same, but the Progressives bring change, and the Conservatives resist it.

    Being one of those elders who are able to survive only with the support of a large and complex health care capacity, I have no illusions about my role in an apocalypse. My best role is to die quickly and leave more provisions for those who have genuine potential to survive and rebuild. I have no need to hasten that, it will happen soon enough on its own as my medical props disappear. I may prep, but it's not for myself. It is for those I live among and leave behind. I have no idea what lies beyond the flatllne; but I'm betting on a long shot or two, and I'll probably know that answer (or not) before most of those who are reading this.

    Depressing? Sure, and rightly so. This is why I no longer put my faith in kings and courts; congresses, and cabbages. What we have isn't working; time to move on, the sooner, the better.

    If you wanted to redo The Road, maybe that's a story line that might suffice with more pertinence and relevance in today's world. Call it Congresses and Cabbages...

    Greg
     
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    LanceS4803 said:
    You may not be thinking that way when you get to the end.
    Absolutely devastating ending to an great book.
    Yeah, I shed a tear. Hard not to when you have children.
    Click to expand...

    Unfortunately after reading this thread the ending has been spoiled for me, so it won't be a surprise but I am sure I will still be devastated.
     
    I'll dogpile on this too....the book is ridiculously great, movie was pretty good too. My wife teaches this book in HS and the kids LOVE it, she relays some incredible discussion points her students bring up from the book. It gives me some hope that the future is not all lost.

    I am not sure the "ending" will be spoiled for you.....

    I like to do the double header and watch/read "No Country for Old Men" back to back. Cormac is under-appreciated imho.
     
    E3C3H3O3 said:
    Unfortunately after reading this thread the ending has been spoiled for me, so it won't be a surprise but I am sure I will still be devastated.
    Click to expand...

    I saw the movie long before reading the book. Like everyone else, we all know the ending.
    Read the book. It will be well worth your time.
     
    LanceS4803 said:
    I saw the movie long before reading the book. Like everyone else, we all know the ending.
    Read the book. It will be well worth your time.
    Click to expand...

    I am currently reading it, about 100 pages in, should be a quick finish however it is tough to find the time to read.
     
    oinco said:
    I'll dogpile on this too....the book is ridiculously great, movie was pretty good too. My wife teaches this book in HS and the kids LOVE it, she relays some incredible discussion points her students bring up from the book. It gives me some hope that the future is not all lost.

    I am not sure the "ending" will be spoiled for you.....

    I like to do the double header and watch/read "No Country for Old Men" back to back. Cormac is under-appreciated imho.
    Click to expand...

    Just watched the movie last night, pretty good Viggo has become a favorite actor of mine once again. Now I just have to work on finishing the book if I can find the time in between stages of constructing my wifes' skating rink.
     
    ArcticLight said:
    Nothing here has spoiled the book, it's worth the read, although I could not read it a second time.
    Click to expand...

    ^^^^This. My boy is about the same age as the boy in the book. I am not big on going back and re-reading books, but this one is 100% not a repeat.
     
    German, like has been mentioned I think you missed the point. It's not a movie about how or why there is an apocalypse. It's a movie about human nature and what's do come when theres not enough to go around.

    The story line about the wife is pretty strightforward. She saw reality through the perspective that individually there is no way out of the situation. She was weaker in mind than her husband. He also knew that from a individual perspective there is no solution, but that in keeping his child alive he kept the hope of humanity and society alive. Which explains why they left the shelter. Let say for a moment Bill Gates made a underground bunker and stocked it to facilitate human life for 100 years. Sooner or later the inhabitants are going to need to reproduce to rebuild the population. If he and his boy stayed in the bunker, they may as well be dead already.

    It's a shitty movie because I does a fantastic job of putting the viewer in a shitty situation. It's the truth, a truth that I hope now of us ever have to deal with but the truth none the less.

    On that note, Greg Langelius. I would be truely honored to sit down with you over a bottle of good bourbon. You have the kind of wisdom that most can only hope for.
     
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    I agree with the OP . Fucking horrible. I cant believe I wasted 2 hrs of my life that I will never get back. I'd rather watch finding nemo.
     
    I haven't read the book, but I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I'll go through spells where all I want to watch is some really, really depressing movies, and in one of those I was recommended The Road. Fantastic movie, very depressing, but very well written and acted. The nuances of the relationship between the father and son in this story is what it is all about.
     
    I just saw the movie a few months ago and read the book years ago. From what I remember, the movie was almost identical to the book.




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