| − | |As in ''[[1984]]'', over-arching government is unambiguously shown here to be both an evil and a danger to all humanity, exactly as [[Weber]] foresaw. Made half a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this first film in ex-Python [[Terry Gilliam]]'s "dystopia triptych" - followed by Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Zero Theorum (2013) - splendidly dresses its timely, [[Orwell]]ian premise in a [[Kafka]]-esque bureaucratic nightmare of spirit-crushingly dismal yet relentlessly authoritarian mediocrity; not since [[King Lear]] have the 'grey men' of history been so acutely exposed. The later films are difficult to assess by today's standards of conservatism, although Twelve Monkeys is admittedly an outstanding cinematic achievement even if [[Blade Runner]] screen-writer David People's co-written screenplay is politically harder to place; Zero Theorum's hero, Qohen Leth, is named after Qoheleth/Koheleth, anonymous author of the book of [[Ecclesiastes]], but the only quality Leth seems to share with his wise, jaded, cynically pragmatic namesake is other-worldliness. | + | |As in ''[[1984]]'', over-arching government is unambiguously shown here to be both an evil and a danger to all humanity, exactly as [[Weber]] foresaw. Made half a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this first film in ex-Python [[Terry Gilliam]]'s "dystopia triptych" - followed by Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Zero Theorem (2013) - splendidly dresses its timely, [[Orwell]]ian premise in a [[Kafka]]-esque bureaucratic nightmare of spirit-crushingly dismal yet relentlessly authoritarian mediocrity; not since [[King Lear]] have the 'grey men' of history been so acutely exposed. The later films are difficult to assess by today's standards of conservatism, although Twelve Monkeys is admittedly an outstanding cinematic achievement even if [[Blade Runner]] screen-writer David People's co-written screenplay is politically harder to place; Zero Theorem's hero, Qohen Leth, is named after Qoheleth/Koheleth, anonymous author of the book of [[Ecclesiastes]], but the only quality Leth seems to share with his wise, jaded, cynically pragmatic namesake is other-worldliness. |
| | |Released at the dawn of what historians call the Conservative backlash (a direct response to 1960s radicalism), Clint Eastwood plays a tough, manly San Francisco police officer who doesn't let bureaucratic regulations stop him from doing what he knows is morally right. The film criticizes not only the then-recent Supreme Court decisions which granted new rights to criminals but also the traditional moral decay America experienced during the 1960s and 1970s. Four sequels followed suit: ''Magnum Force'' (1973), ''The Enforcer'' (1976), ''Sudden Impact'' (1983), and ''The Dead Pool'' (1988). | | |Released at the dawn of what historians call the Conservative backlash (a direct response to 1960s radicalism), Clint Eastwood plays a tough, manly San Francisco police officer who doesn't let bureaucratic regulations stop him from doing what he knows is morally right. The film criticizes not only the then-recent Supreme Court decisions which granted new rights to criminals but also the traditional moral decay America experienced during the 1960s and 1970s. Four sequels followed suit: ''Magnum Force'' (1973), ''The Enforcer'' (1976), ''Sudden Impact'' (1983), and ''The Dead Pool'' (1988). |
| − | <br>This movie had box office revenues 9 times its costs, and is one of the [[Essay:Worst Liberal Snubs|worst liberal snubs]] with zero [[Academy Award]] nominations. | + | <br>This movie had box office revenues 9 times its costs, and is one of the [[Essay:Worst Liberal Snubs|worst liberal snubs]] with zero [[Academy Award]] nominations. In its free trailer there is a hilarious [[conservative]] scene of the hero rebuking the unproductive mayor to his face. |