Do you have a favorite "message" movie?

**Claressa** · 10-08-2009, 09:15 PM

I have two more:
The Guru http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280720/
Sex is a wonderful thing to be enjoyed, explored, and shared with the one(s) you love.

Holy Man http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120701/
Money can't buy happiness, stop and smell the roses, fully appreciate what you've got, if you love it let it go. This one has all the trite, "feel good" cliches but IMHO it works.

And I agree, Tyler Durden is my hero!

**justin** · 10-09-2009, 12:02 AM

kung-fu panda.
the secret ingredient in my secret ingredient soup is....

**sqkcrk** · 10-09-2009, 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by cow pollinater

Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood.
I kind of thought the whole thing was stupid and predictable but my wife spent the whole time looking at me like "so there's still hope for him" and so overall it wasn't half bad as now she thinks more highly of me.

I don't know if Gran Torino was a message movie for me, but it sure was a completed circle of film life for Clint Eastwood.

Watch "For a Few Dollars More" and then "Gran Torino" and you'll see what I mean. I hope.

I think it was Mr. Goldwyn ( Metro/Goldwyn/Mayer, MGM) who said, on the subject of message movies that, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union."

"Birth of a Nation"?
"On the Waterfront"?
"Do the Right Thing"?

**walking bird** · 10-10-2009, 09:50 PM

I have a really hard time lumping "Gran Torino" in with some of the really timeless movies many of listed here. Gran Torino was an entertaining film, but it was also formulaic, unsurprising, and occasionally forced and uncomfortably strong suspension of disbelief.

If y'all insist on an Eastwood film, I submit "Unforgiven." An amazing study of the emptiness of vengeance, the ugliness of killing, and the creative interpretations of events that have formed our history.

**summer1052** · 10-11-2009, 10:15 AM

It's hard to beat Monty Python for messages and perennial quotability. The Princess Bride falls in this catagory, too.

But this is the first thing that came to mind when I read, message movie.

It's a wonderful little movie that made art house cinema rounds some 10 years ago, and is well worth looking up.

[B][I]The Picture Bride[I][B] is a "true" story about Japanese mail-order brides in turn-of-the-century Hawaiian cane fields. I put "true" in quotes because it was not so much one couple's story, as a conglomeration of many stories, all of them true.

It is a sweet (poignantly so, not sticky) story about love and romance, and expectations and what we think we want in life.

If you are the sort that thinks "love" is hearts and flowers and hormones and melodrama, this is not for you.

If you think that "love" is a condition of the will, and not an emotion; that actions and deeds define more than intent, you will appreciate the elegant story and moving acting.

But then, I'm an odd ball anachronism that thinks "Happily Ever After" is a decision, not a roll of the dice.

Summer

**cow pollinater** · 10-11-2009, 05:55 PM

[QUOTE=walking bird;469967]I have a really hard time lumping "Gran Torino" in with some of the really timeless movies many of listed here. Gran Torino was an entertaining film, but it was also formulaic, unsurprising, and occasionally forced and uncomfortably strong suspension of disbelief.[QUOTE]

And if you actually read what I posted you would see that I agreed with you(although I really didn't even find it all that entertaining)... It did, however, speak to my wife as I'm just about as grumpy as the character in the movie and she chose to accept that if there was hope for him then there may be hope for me...
I guess false hope is better than no hope at all.

**Hambone** · 04-14-2010, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by dragonfly

Gran Torino is a great movie!

Finally watched it the other night. It is a good movie. It really put me in the mood to drink some PBR. Looked at a couple places but they didn't have it.

**Bodo** · 04-14-2010, 11:18 PM

isn't Lone Star about the same thing?

**sqkcrk** · 04-15-2010, 07:42 AM

I loved the ending of Gran Torino. It bookended Eastwoods career from those spaghetti westerns and Dirty Harry full circle to Gran Torino. From "Make my day." to "Got a light? I got a light."

Message Movie? How about "Silence of the Lambs"?

**markmaster** · 04-15-2010, 08:29 AM

I had to delete my response to this topic -- I thought she said "massage movie"......

**Hambone** · 04-15-2010, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by Bodo

isn't Lone Star about the same thing?

Lone Star, PBR, Shafer, Pearl, Mister Brau are all the same I think. I do know if you drink more than 6 of any of those. The next day you will be taking a lot of bathroom breaks.