IMDB message boards (with movie spoilers)

One of the things I like to read on the internet is the message boards on IMDB. Sometimes there are very thoughtful and informative posts by serious film afficionados (who probably call themselves afficionados) which add something to my understanding of a film or TV series. Sometimes (wait, no, actually always) there are long diatribes about why the main female character is a selfish harridan who has horribly oppressed her poor male partner (ugh). And sometimes there are good questions and entertaining conversations between people with opposing views.

Here are some things I've watched recently and my favourite comments from the IMDB message boards.

This post has SPOILERS for all the movies included here, so read on forewarned!

Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me To Hell is a great horror-comedy about a loan officer whose hard-hearted business decision at work leads an old gypsy woman to curse her with three days of torment followed by being dragged to hell. Many of the message board discussions are around whether or not Christine deserved to be dragged to hell, for what she did, or the kind of person she is. Dragged to hell. For an eternity of pain and torment. I love the fact people think they can debate whether or not a person (any person?!) would deserve this.

Fair use rationale of movie posters: ditto

[The old woman who curses Christine] is an evil b!tch, and the fact that she happens to be old, sick, and poor doesn't change that. 

Christine is a vegetarian, which in my book earns her some points as a compassionate person. She kills her cat to try to appease the demon, hoping that she will be able to avoid spending eternity in Hell. I think that's totally understandable.

Why exactly did that old woman need a third extension on her mortgage? Isn't the whole point of being a gypsy means you're constantly on the move with no permanent roots?

In reply to an argument in a thread:
You are assuming that all demons behave the same way under all circumstances. 

Also opens up a side discussion on the merits of banks and capitalism generally, and the fairness or not of loan extensions.

The Walking Dead

I'm not a huge fan of The Walking Dead. I found the first episode absolutely compelling, but it kind of seems to be the same thing over and over again, and it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere. I watched Seasons 1 and 2 and felt I had probably got the idea.  But it's an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse and it's done the visuals and tropes a bit differently, so I still watch it occasionally.

One user review opines that this show is good because of character development (hmm, arguable), which is "not usually a very big trait in the Zombie genre."  Um, yes, that is true.

There is a question about why we don't see characters using bicycles more, which opened up a whole discussion about whether bikes or cars are better transport during a zombie apocalypse, including their merits with regard to fuel use, speed, dexterity, ability to use weapons while riding, conservation of fighting energy, etc.

There is a discussion about how strong zombies are, whether newly minted ones are stronger and then decay, or whether the virus has made them strong.

Here's a very good point too:

 ...inconsistency that allows a rag tag group with no training to survive yet had the military and police be wiped out in a week.

and this one:

Where are all the fat walkers? America is full of overweight folks. Stands to reason about 50% of the walkers we see should be heavy. 

Not to mention the show takes place in the south so 70% of the walkers should be crisco filled fatties.


and:

Why aren't we seeing any child walkers?

LOL cos child actors suck at that!

127 Hours

127 Hours is the true story of Aron Ralston, who got trapped by a fallen boulder while hiking in the Utah desert, and after suffering for days without food and water, finally amputated his arm with a pocket blade, before rapelling down a cliff face and walking to find help. While it might not sound that entertaining, it's actually a pretty good movie. James Franco stars and is unbelievably good.

As you'd expect, most of the message board comments focus on the real-life story:

Be honest, could you have done what he did?
NO I would have literally $hit myself within the first 10 minutes, I would have used all the water in few hours and slit my throat by second day lol.

Why didn't he wait for like a month and get super skinny? And just pull his arm out? 
It would have rained eventually and he wouldnt have needed to cut the arm off.


In response to a serious post "don't actually drink your own urine, it's full of salt, etc":
Wow. Thanks for that great tip. I shall make sure I never drink my own p!ss. Good job I read this post. 

Who knew? 
OP - would it be OK to drink your own p!ss if you filter it first through, oh, I don't know, a sponge or a sock full of sand? You know, only if you were really really thirsty and miles from home?

How could he drink that puddle water at the end?

He had already drank his own pee at that point, I think some muddy water won't do him much harm.

am i the only one...
i guess not being familiar with mr. ralston's back story, i found the unexpected display of foolhardy stupidy.. er, bravado, totally devoid of anything i could have empathized with or relate to on a human level.. 
worse yet, after the movie was over, all i kept thinking about is that he deserved it.. 
in fact, halfway through it, i had completely lost interest and kept openly rooting for him to cut his arm off and put himself and the audience out of our collective misery.. 

Internet comment forums are well known for compassion.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Another pretty good movie. Kudos for taking a different tack to start off the franchise anew, and like all good science fiction, starting with something that is controversial now (vaccines, animal testing). Here's something in it I hadn't noticed:

I just saw this movie yesterday and there was one detail I started to notice after about an hour. None of the apes seemed to have genitals. You can clearly see that during some frontal shots. I looked it up on the internet and it seems I'm not the only one to complain about this. 

Some good responses:

Guess CGI penis is a bit too risque for a major studio like Fox.

Movies like this don't want nudity, they want to sell the tickets to the entire family if they can... it's not an art-house picture.

And an ethical discussion:

If a cure for cancer could only be found by animal testing....would you approve of it? I certainly would. I'm 110% against animal testing for cosmetics but for curing horrible illnesses and pandemics (such as AIDS), I think it's a necessary evil. 

Cancer, yes. 
HIV/AIDS, no. 

???! Let's hope this guy isn't tasked with making actual ethical decisions ever.

Romancing the Stone

My absolute favourite movie from the 80s, recently re-watched. There is some funny discussion on 1980's aesthetics, including synth pop music soundtracks, shoulder pads, curly hair and non-whitened Hollywood teeth.

But also:

A friend recommended this movie to me. Just want to check, is this movie ok for men to enjoy? Or is it more of a girls movie? (I ask because of the title)

(better not take the risk, dude!)

And a justifiable complaint here, as movies from this era had a cringingly awful habit of fetishising foreign places:

It would be nice if Hollywood people did some research about Colombia. I live in the capital city Bogota. Remember they had to take a funny bus to go to Bogota? well guess what, Bogota has an airport!   We don't have monkeys on trees even if you travel from one city to another. Bogota is not some hot tropical city as they depict, it's average 13 celsius. 

- followed by an argument between commenters over whether Colombia is tropical or not, whether it's dangerous or not, and finally one exhorting a commenter to get a Colombian girlfriend to do some research because American girls are all fat and awful.

This movie contains a visual trope I have since seen in many, many movies set in far-off places, which I've mentioned before: bus passengers carrying live chickens.   It seems to be a Hollywood shorthand for 'poor country'.

Big Eyes

Big Eyes is Tim Burton's latest film, the true story of artist Margaret Keane whose husband falsely took credit for her work and gained it international fame/notoriety (not everyone was a fan) in the 1950s-60s. I'm not a big Tim Burton fan but thankfully this film was Bonham-Carter/Depp free and I loved it.  However the message boards asked two questions I had wondered myself:

How did Margaret get the money to fly to Hawaii and buy a house?
(not really explained... commenters assume they had cash stashed in the house but still doesn't really explain it... But apparently the real Margaret Keane left Walter for another man, which is not as cinematically dramatic as running for her life out of a burning studio, but would explain the cash question a bit better). But, you know, in movies women can't leave husbands for other men as it makes them unsympathetic.


Why does Margaret's daughter sit in the back seat of the car?
I mean this was the 1950s! Safety-conscious parents just made sure their kids weren't riding on the hood or the roof of the car, right? But following a long string between commenters back and forth about whether 1950s parents made kids sit in the back seat or not, and whether throwing your arm in front of your kid's chest will stop them flying through the windscreen in the event of a crash (it will not), the consensus is reached that it was done mainly for visual effect, which is fine by me.

The final post in the thread is by "tomisinthehouse" who says simply:
What a dumb question.

Well no it isn't, tomisinthehouse, because I had the same question and I am not dumb! So there.

What's your favourite internet comment forum?