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The song meanings website has many comments about the metaphors. From John Fogerty's book Fortunate Son:
"pg. 195: That's really a protest song...I was going at it sideways. With "I went down Virginia," I'm talking about Washington, DC. "I watched the tower grow" is their Tower of Babel. I'm talking about the BS, really. Political spin. I think the song was done enough like a fable that you don't necessarily have to know what it all means or even worry about it.
pg. 320: "I went into "Who'll Stop the Rain," a song very much inspired by those times we lived through together (Vietnam)."
Not the only theme he also said it was about the crowds at Woodstock in the last verse, " heard the singers playing, trying to keep warm etc"
5 yr plans is about the 5 yr plans of the North Vietnamese for the country, New deals may be a reference to FDR's new deal.
Exactly. The remake of Eleanor was derived from the Jawbreakers Fern character. Mean Girls too w all the leaking of secrets and conniving friends.
Agree.This was supposed to be to be one of the best movies of 2023. It was a boring snooze fest It didn't' even really highlight his career. This guy did the score for West Side story.
Yes. He took some of the murders from Poe's stories and did a more modern update on them. Murders in the Rue Morgue involved and orangutang killing 2 people. Rue Morgue was a French Street , here Rue was the laboratory.
The Pit and the pendulum story had a pendulum too operated by a mad scientist as part of his torture dungeon. I saw this 60s movie back in the 70s on fright nite Tv movies, starring original terror master Vincent Price.
The 'Pit part' is a girl he tortured by gagging her and locking her in an 'iron maiden' - a cabinet w a small window. After they kill the Vincent Price character they brick up the pit so no one can ever use the torture deivices again. Unknowingly they entomb the girl still alive in the iron maiden.
The update was Griswold being bricked up. The original was much more terrifying.
Interesting as his character from Wikipedia is loosely based on John Thain at then Merrill Lynch (bought by Bank of America after they collapsed in 2008) and Dick Fuld ex CEO of Lehman Brothers ( note the name combo) . Both lost everything stock wise as Lehman went into bankruptcy and Merrill was sold for pennies on the dollar.
Maybe the firm in the movie was based on Goldman who were relatively unscathed in the crisis
The title is kind of misleading. The short was figurative not literal. What they bought was actually a form of insurance against a bond defaulting called a default swap ) CDS.
So you insure a bond w a value of $100 say and pay 2%/yr as an insurance premium. If the bond defaults, you get paid $100. Like if you insure a house and there is a fire , you get replacement value.
These bonds default if ~ 8% of the mortgages in them defaulted ( the bond pays say 8% interest, but if it loses 8% of teh mortgages it pays no interest and is worthless or in default) . So they saw that many of these mortgages would default and made this bet.
I think the movie sets out a few characters to represent generations. The main characters are boomers. Their lives didn't seem to follow a predetermined path as even they can't understand how such 'revolutionaries' could go on to make so much money ( Sam and Harold) or Nick who dislikes authority, takes drugs and still hasn't really grown up from the sixties.
As others have pointed out, Chloe is a Gen Xer who doesn't seem to have their sentimentality and deep friendship bonds.
Richard IMO is the from the Silent Generation or a baby boomer that followed a corporate path removed from the radical sixties lifestyle. As a grounded executive who works for a living, he knows life requires dedicated, hard work and it not 'being easy'. He also is part of the corporate patriarchy where there are ' aholes' at work to bow down too but you try and minimize that.
Alex giving up , he finds incomprehensible because when you have a family and a mortgage it simply isnt an option and he later concedes he cant speak for him.
Well it is just like any movie. What makes a movie is seeing the issues the key characters face and how they are resolved or not through the course of the film.
They arent necessarily always resolved to their benefit.
Blue Jay was the name of the Drive-in theater and you see it as they walk past in the film. They also mention it.
Blue Jay was the name of the drive in theater.
I thought it was ok. It definitely is disturbing and a thinking movie that leaves much for the viewer to conjure, interpret and arrive at their own interpretations of event meanings. Not bad for a young filmmaker who has only made 3 films.
David trashed his vintage Mustang so it was a measured response
He may have been a new lover of the pollical candidate. He was breaking up w the other guy Alana had to drive home. Then the other guy was in the restaurant.
He was 'waiting' for him maybe earlier too across from the campaign office.
I think Apocalypse is the most literary movie about Vietnam actually following a book 'Heart of Darkness' about a trader who has been lost to savages in the Congo. The overriding theme of the movie is the question of insanity, is living w supposed savages more insane than life in the real world or not?
In the movie, everyone's behavior can be measured along those lines. Everyone in the war appears to be insane at some level at some pt. Kilgore surfing under fire, the crew on the boat water skiing and taking drugs, a playboy show, no one in control at the bridge, Colby , Kurtz, even Willard breaks down 2 times in the movie.
Would add another movie to the list that was really the 1st of the Vietnam movies, The Deer Hunter. A great movie showing how the impacts of the war on the lives of 3 men and their small Pennsylvania community.
It is a grey area but Kurtz was strong in intelligence ( ex he knew of the double agents in the SVA) so he could have had informants in the US army.
The General says that Kurtz's methods are ' unsound' to Willard.
In the scene w Kurtz, actually the dialogue is : Kurtz " Do you think my methods are 'unsound' ( quoting the General again coincidentally).
Willard " I don't seen any method at all"
Kurtz then pondered what Willard should do now that his mission was no longer classified ( ie maybe Kurtz knew something about it)
But I see your pt that It could be he knew all this from Colby (same dialogue w the General perhaps) if he had the same mission so I could be wrong. Interesting debate either way.
The original was decently paced. It isn't supposed to be an actioner. It helps to know the theme of the book it was based upon which is the supposed question of whether the civilized world is actually any different than the life of supposed ' savages' .
Basically, a man going is up the Congo river to find a renegade trader colonist, also named Kurtz, who has gone 'native' or mad all the while the protagonist is going insane himself the further up the river he travels. Kurtz has actually found the uncivilized native world more palatable than the civilized world he abandoned so there is a question of if he is really insane or not.
The river represents the unravelling of sanity the further one travels up it. Basically a giant metaphor.
Kurtz knew of the mission. Willard said his mission was classified. Then Kurtz asked if he still planned to 'terminate his command' and if his method's were 'unsound' quoting the General's outlining of Willard's mission at the movie start verbatim hence the mission was no longer 'classified' in fact.
They disposed of the body so he wouldn't get charged w her murder too or if it was in self defense, manslaughter at the least. Obstructing justice too by destroying the evidence.
Even if he were not charged, the video would have ruined his career and life. He was worried about that as well when he was sobbing to Joe on the bed.
I think in the end she let Ryan off the hook but she knew he would be at the wedding and had conflicting values so she made him sweat a little.
I think she was planning to write Nina's name into him w the scalpel. After is interesting though. She would have leverage on Al w the video but not all the others there. You would think they would want some retribution.
Even Al though would have her w assault maybe attempted murder so she was going to jail perhaps too. Sort of the best outcome happened as though she dies, she sees AL and Joe likely go to jail for both crimes.
Not to reasoned critics. You can stamp your feet though lol