Craig's MovieBlog

My Final Funny Games Post

I've ranted enough about Funny Games, and I feel wrong giving it any more attention, but I saw an interview with Michael Pitt over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog, and this section jumped out at me, probably because it's precisely how I feel when reading about the film or seeing the trailers:

When we saw [Funny Games], we have to admit that we felt like we were going to throw up the entire time.
Yeah. It’s a really hard film to watch. I find that parents in particular have a really difficult time to watch it, which is understandable. For Tim [Roth], especially, making the film was really difficult. He’s got a little boy about that age.

Also, over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeff Wells is very conflicted.  He says:

Michael Haneke's Funny Games is simultaneously the ugliest and most repulsive violent melodrama I've ever seen (including the thoroughly disgusting I Spit On Your Grave) and the smartest and nerviest critique of sexy-violent movies in the bang-flash vein of Quentin Tarantino, Tony Scott, Oliver Stone, Eli Roth and other purveyors and marketers of homicidal style.

A fair percentage of those brave enough to see this Warner Independent release this weekend are going to walk out on it -- trust me. It's a hateful and infuriating film, no question, and yet it has a worthwhile point. And you can't not respect Haneke for this.

It's certainly one of the ballsiest movies ever released by Warner Bros. (technically Warner Independent) in its 90 year history. I mean this in a sense that average people might come out of showings feeling enormous hate for Warner Bros. for having done so. Seriously. If the final effect wasn't so stunning and dispiriting I could imagine people beating up ushers on the way out.

I actually commented on his site (something I almost never do... what is this film doing to me?!?!) with, "I have no desire to watch a young boy tortured for two hours, and I have no desire to see that boy watch his parents get tortured either.  Maybe it's because I have two young sons, but if that makes me a film wuss, so be it."

No Country For Old Men... and Rambling About Funny Games Again

Tonight I ran out to see No Country For Old Men, which had me hooked for two-thirds of the movie, and then the Coens decided to just throw any convention to the wind and go all philosophical on us.  I know I'm supposed to just go with their flow and not expect an ending all tied up nicely in a bow, but perhaps any package at all would have been nice.  It's beautifully lit, incredibly suspenseful at times, and Tommy Lee Jones' character has a wonderful way with words.  But for me, it fell apart as soon as they got to Vegas.

Completely digressing, however, the theater I attended showed the trailer for Funny Games, and I just get angrier than ever watching that thing.  Last week their PR agency sent me an email pointing to a clip from the film, which I reluctantly watched.  I'm going to be a jerk, not link to it, and spoil it for you, because it involved the killers murdering the family's dog.  Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want to have the part about the family's dead dog ruined for you.  Consider that my spoiler alert.

One of the killers is playing the "Warmer, Colder" game that we used to play as children.  Naomi Watts wanders around her yard based on the young man's warmer or colder commands, until she gets to the back of her car.  She opens it up, and her dead dog sickeningly spills out onto the ground.  Oh, and in other parts of the film, everyone in this innocent family is tortured and murdered, including their young boy... maybe 7 years old?  And the killers get away. The End.

Nice.  Spoilers are all finished.

I love the first amendment, and Michael Haneke can make (and remake) this film if he wants, but I reserve the right to have the opinion that the content is despicable.  Maybe the ends don't justify the means this time.  I don't say this lightly; I'm never the one saying Tarantino is evil, or rap music and internet porn will ruin our children, and I can't believe I'm saying these things without even having seen the film.  (I’ve read enough reviews of the original film to know what happens, I know the big twist, and I do know what Haneke is trying to comment upon.)

Look, I'm as liberal, jaded, and cynical as you get, and maybe Haneke is trying to snap me out of it.  Something about just the basic construct of this movie has crossed a line with me though, and this probably has more to do with me than the film… but it still turns my stomach.

Funny Games Trailer

I wasn't going to post anything about this, but the concept has been literally haunting me every since I watched this trailer for Funny Games.  Apparently, writer/director Michael Haneke is remaking his own 1997 French film in English, starring Tim Roth, Naomi Watts and Michael Pitt. 

I can't really speak rationally about this without getting upset.  I am all for freedom of speech, and I will fight to my death for Mr. Haneke to have the right to make this film.  I have seen Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers, and Pulp Fiction dozens of times, and violence in film doesn't generally bother me.

However, (and this is just a theory) I think something happens to you once you have children.  I don't mean to be preachy or pedantic, and I deeply apologize if this comes out that way.  Something happened to me ever since the birth of my first son, and I now can't even remotely stomach the concept of bad things happening to children in movies (and when something tragic happens to a child in real life, I get almost physically ill).  It just feels as if there are some lines you can, but shouldn't, cross.  For example, Atlanta Football quarterbacks shouldn’t drown, hang, or electrocute dogs that don't perform, and horrible, torturous things shouldn’t happen to children in movies.