25th Hour -- Discussion Time!

[bad_juice]

i was originally supposed to post this last wednesday, but i decided to wait a week after two of the people i spoke to had not watched it yet. while i haven't asked them, i am hoping the extra 6 days were enough time for them to do so

Comments

[danschank]

huh. this makes me want to revisit this one. i remember writing about it around here in the glory days, and i think sadboyq made a comment about the end being homophobic that i didn't want to think was right at the moment, but seems accurate in retrospect (the way that ed norton is in such a panic to make himself ugly before heading off to prison).

the interesting thing is that what i responded to the most about it (the strange, douglas-sirk-y "happy ending" sequence that concludes it) isn't evewn mentioned in your analysis, but fits perfectly with what you've described.

someday, i hope someone writes the nuanced, warts-and-all analysis of spike lee that he deserves. something other than golf-clapping for do the right thing followed by what an asshole he is for tweeting george zimmerman's inaccurate address, etc.

[bad_juice]

i think that's a fair assessment regarding the homophobia, but i would be at least slightly hesitant to call it the movie being homophobic. i think it definitely points to an innate homophobia on ed norton's character's part, and perhaps society in general's idea that what happens in prison is dudes raping each other. but you're a little bit right in that it's a moment that just sits there and isn't addressed in the same way that norton's big long rant in the mirror where he says "fuck ____" and a lot of what he says is racist or xenophobic somehow is addressed. like to me the first time i saw the movie i thought that was a weird moment that i didn't quite get, but once i understood the 9/11 parts better i felt like i got it. that the movie was trying to make a larger statement that at during seemingly desperate and inescapable times we look for anybody we can to blame for our problems, rather than taking ownership of our own responsibility.

[bob_le_flambeur]

i like how every single hug in this movie is always repeated from a different angle. fits in with your idea of how it treats time and (not) letting people go in a not-so-subtle but pretty nice way. either that or spike lee just really likes hugs!

also liked how that junkie who begs norton in the beginning is shown to have just been some regular dude in a suit in that flashback at the playground. i didn't really mind the fact that you never see monty dealing, since i didn't want the movie to be all NEVER FORGET HE'S A BAD PERSON but that was a rather nifty way to handle the unseen business end of his story.

[bad_juice]

ha, i totally missed that re: the dude being in the flashback.

[discotarantula]

we're talking about this is gchat, but i'll bring it here for others as well.

this is an open wound of a movie. like it's more than vulnerable; it's kind of dirty, unpleasant too.

It serves as a nice companion piece with Raising Arizona, another film that ends with an "american dream" style picture of domesticity, but whereas that one is comforting despite the wink that accompanies it, this one ends up laying bare the sacrifices of others that it took to build it. sort of like a non western unforgiven. it's a wild, violent world out there.

time's a good point; there's a surprising lack of urgency for a man's last day. i mean he has time to remember all 1000 syllables in the word shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit in his flashback. that's some slow shit. powerful shit too.

i bet prison's a lot more fun than they pretend.