V for Vendetta

[sgt.null]

Moore has mostly broken off with DC Comics as well.

[dlbpharmd]

Saw this movie last night, and really enjoyed it - what a great story!

[matrixman]

Glad you liked it, dlb!

Hopefully, you liked it enough to hunt down the graphic novel!

[aTOMiC]

Watched V over the weekend. Very good film. Hugo Weaving is great. Such eloquence. Portman delivered a very good performance. Perhaps she just makes a lousy Padme.

[dlbpharmd]

Glad you liked it, dlb!

Hopefully, you liked it enough to hunt down the graphic novel!

You're right, I definitely have to read that!

[A Gunslinger]

I bought the book when they first came out in the late 80's. They were freakin excellent! As Bush and Co. have grown more and more ...well, you know.I have grown more impatient to see the flick; which I will tonight (I got the DVD).

[danlo]

I enjoyed this movie no end--especially being on a long time Count of Monte Christo/anti-government bend. Clowns and masks freak me out-so I generally try to avoid The Phantom of the Opera, It and other things. V's mask was so cool-especially envisioning him as a comic/graphic hero...not a mask, a symbol!

[dANdeLION]

I saw V last weekend; what a fantastic film. Natalie Portman was great, hugo was great.....and now, once again seeing a comic movie that was what it was supposed to be, Hulk sinks that much further into the gutter of crap comic films.

[matrixman]

Glad you liked the movie, dAN! We don't often hear such praise from you for a movie.

I watched V For Vendetta a couple of weeks ago, the first time since seeing it in theatres. I appreciate the film more now, as something that stands well on its own, separate from the graphic novel.

[wayfriend]

V for Vendetta finally popped out of my Netflix queue.

I really liked the movie, and I liked the lines that they wrote for Weaving, and I like the way he delivered them. And Hurt was masterful here.

I cannot believe no one has discussed this: I don't know about the novel, but this movie was made to be a biting criticism and cautionary tale about the US conservatives and Christian Right and the post 9/11 world. What America would become if left to go the course that Karl Rove seems to plan for us. To wit: Fear of terrorism leading to erosion of rights and the rise of dictatorship. You have the Rush Limbaugh TV character, complete with a shelf full of drugs. Government conspiracies to kill civilians and blame it on Islamic terrorists. Government wire-tapping of civilian phone calls. Hidden detention centers. Vehement gay persecution. Proclaiming ills that befall your enemy as the God's judgement. It's almost a pure vision of the political future US liberals wants you to fear could really happen.

Within that framework, which is how I saw it, it's a compelling movie. Sure, the message about freedom is thin, but the real message is that this is happening RIGHT NOW. I'm guessing that the departures from the source material are to have the movie deliver this message.

In that light, the lack of "grime" makes sense. On the surface, the movie shows a nice world, it's only when you look closely do you see the evil underbelly. Now look at your own world, and don't assume the goodness is more than cosmetic ... If the movie were grimey, we'd be less compelled to see it parallel our own.

I'm going to read up more on Guy Fawkes. Yes, he's a terrorist. He'd be called a patriot if he'd won, though. There's people who revere him for some reason. It's in the controversy that you can find the principals.

Would it be a better movie if the hero had been an everyman? Maybe. I think that using a superhero underscores the theme of waking people up and taking their freedom back. A superhero is a metaphor for inspiration to be heroic ourselves, to break out of our molds. Yes, in the real world, it's up to each of us. But I'm not disappointed that this is not how it fell out in the movie.

[Tjol]

V for Vendetta finally popped out of my Netflix queue.

I really liked the movie, and I liked the lines that they wrote for Weaving, and I like the way he delivered them. And Hurt was masterful here.

I cannot believe no one has discussed this: I don't know about the novel, but this movie was made to be a biting criticism and cautionary tale about the US conservatives and Christian Right and the post 9/11 world. What America would become if left to go the course that Karl Rove seems to plan for us.

That's why I didn't bother with it. I would've enjoyed a movie that was about the constant pull between individual morality and social morality, I think it's a consideration worth revisiting over and over and over again. Society cannot be left unaccountable, but neither can the individual.

But, to pretend that conservatism is the main source from which to fear social morality squashing individual morality, is narrow minded in my opinion. Narrow minded enough to miss the majority of the bigger picture. The left and communism have enacted dystopias in which group think was given priority over the individual. To ignore it as among the sources from which a group is greater than the individual matra could rise is not credible in my opinion.

I think that's why I love Farenheit 451 so much. It isn't conservatism, nor is it revolutionaries that are accused of leading us away from individual expression, but rather the worst of both. We have the burning of books because they make us unhappy, because they make us unequal, because they make us revolt. 1984 likewise does the same, both the sexual repression of traditionalism and the sexual repression of revolution, are the same thing in the end. It doesn't matter if it's militant feminism that's doing it, or if it's Victorian morality. The end result is sexual repression, and it's the ends, not the means that I think are most to be worried about.

If we come to a dystopia, it won't be because we could not prevent the other team from exerting their will over us. It will be because we could not repress our own team from exerting it's will over others.

[Avatar]

Good post Tjol. But it'll be because people insist on exerting their will on others. Doesn't matter which team does it.

--A

[Waddley]

If this is just a flicks discussion instead of a debate, I'd like to say...

I have V's entire "v" monoue memorized. I could type it here from memory.

Want me to?? Ok, here it goes!!

Voila! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity is a vestige to the vox populi now vacant, vanish. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish the venal and viriliant vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this viccoice* of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

*I don't know how to spell it. It's french, and a soup, and phonetically it's vish-ee-swa... I think. I could look it up, but I'm doing this from memory and I don't want to cheat!

I like saying it... cause I'm weird. I recite it everytime someone brings the movie up, just to make sure I remember it.

[wayfriend]

Voila! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity is a vestige to the vox populi now vacant, vanish. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish the venal and viriliant vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this viccoice* of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I believe vichyssoise is the french spelling you are looking for. [/pedantry]

dw

P.S., Dude, I got nothin' to add to the movie-discu other than to say thumbs down to Natalie's chemo look.

[dANdeLION]

Voila! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity is a vestige to the vox populi now vacant, vanish. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish the venal and viriliant vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this viccoice* of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

Damn. Just when I thought you'd topped out on the hotness chart, you do this.

[Waddley]

Damn. Just when I thought you'd topped out on the hotness chart, you do this.

Heh, I've got hotness that you can't even begin to imagine.



Yeah, I don't know where I'm going with that, either.

[dANdeLION]

I don't know....I can imagine a lot.

[Avatar]

Despite Waddley's apparent hotness (or because of it)...we'll make a political forum of this yet.

--A