Midnight Express?

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I just bring this up as we're talking about 70's movies. Some friends got me to see it, I kind of yawned at the suggestion of a foreign prison movie as it seems like a boring plot these days but - it came to remind me how something can be a whole different ballgame just by who shot it, how they shot it, and where they psychologically took the movie.

Main reasons I liked it? Its something like a two hour flu dream, has that kind of Metropolis psychosis/dysphoria in it. You also have a really bizarre mixture of themes and layers as far as the characters and their surroundings. The visual style as well also drew another corollary, thinking back to a lot of Tool videos and the kind of environments Adam Jones like to dredge up I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he saw this one in an altered state a couple times.

So, lovers? Haters? Speak up.

Love-hate! It's one of those push-pull experiences. Like the flu-effect you mention. The fever which is exciting/moving/spacey/dreamlike but the disorientation/panic/painful feelings/out of control stuff too!

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I liked it.

I hated it. The main character is a druggie that does something stupid. (trying to smuggle weed out of a forgien country). We are supost to have sympathey for this moron? Just becuase he thought the laws in another country were the samee in the USA. he screwed up and paid big time.

This is one of my favourite movies and, subsequently, one of my obsessions. I took my video with me to Istanbul when I went in February and saw the hotel which used to be the prison. I have seen it 9 times to date. The book is good, too.

It brings up points to ponder. Mainly I just like the visual and atmospheric experience, the story line and action were good, and plus I think I likely have a different take on marijuana so the druggie part didn't wreck it (the bricks of hash did make him a little stupid but after that the residue of that in the story didn't bother me all that much). I think some good points were brought up in the trial scene as well - mainly that the hippy generation and the 60's had made it feel so acceptible that it likely felt like everything was on the verge of changing, people got a little too elevated off of the idea that the restrictions were all going to vanish, and the question of our evolving standards of decency I think is just a reminder that law is something we base on our own societal 'shoulds', it needs to be enforced by all means but it shows how people can easily end up on the other side of it cerebrally as well.

That and no, I'm typically not an Oliver Stone fan - this movie thankfully was masterfully shot (as well as Hype Williams shot Belly IMO) and it at least keeps the political Koolaid from our soil on the back burner.

I think I had the reaction your describing toward Alex in Clockwork Orange though, mainly because he was a sack, didn't have any good in him, there was no revelation in the end - he just felt sorry for himself when the world was getting him back, and it goes even farther by having the governor or President spoon-feeding him. Its like a rolling message saying - be a bully strike first, because if you f'up the world around you and the world tries to get you back - you'll get the elevated benefit of victim status. I doubt my friends like the movie for those reasons, there are lots of other angles in there I'd imagine, but still - definitely not my own choice in protagonists. The guy at least in Midnight Express was a good person, f'd up pretty good but still seemed to be a good person who was cracking under stress in rather audience-relatable ways.