From the original article on June 27, 2009. Author: Chateau Heartiste.
Maybe the greatest TV half hour ever. This episode is perfection from beginning to end. The Ring.
There is very little in TV and film that promulgates my worldview. My themes are beyond the pale, which really means the truth is beyond the pale. South Park comes close. The Wire, too. Swingers and Roger Dodger contain elements. In The Company Of Men was brutally clear. I’ve noticed that women who have seen Neil LaBute’s masterpiece universally hated it, when in reality they would be all over the type of men portrayed by Aaron Eckhart’s smooth talking, manipulative alpha character.
A lot of Hollywood’s critically-acclaimed “dark” films aren’t truthful, they’re just subversive, which is not necessarily the same thing. I don’t think unflinchingly candid films stripping to the bone the monstrously human motivations of all the characters, including the sympathetic protagonists, do very well because people don’t want to be reminded of their true, ugly natures. Is there a more powerful cognitive bias than self-delusion?
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