As they didn't have parents who read them the standard cautionary fables they probably have not seen many of these either. 10 cinematic fables they should’ve seen before picking up a red hat. 1. Canadian Bacon When in doubt, start a fake war with Canada. Nationalism as punchline and warning. 2. Thank You for Smoking A masterclass in spin, moral contortion, and selling poison with a smile. 3. 12 Angry Men Bias, bravado, and one man insisting on reason. Justice starts with doubt. 4. The Wave A German classroom experiment shows how easy fascism is to catch, and how hard to shake. 5. V for Vendetta Masked resistance in a surveillance state. “People should not be afraid of their governments…” 6. Idiocracy The future is dumb. Like, Mountain-Dew-in-the-irrigation-system dumb. 7. Elmer Gantry Fire, brimstone, and snake oil. Evangelical populism, old-school style. 8. Don’t Look Up When facts die and memes rule, the planet burns while the audience scrolls. 9. Wag the Dog A scandal? Stage a war. Hollywood knows how to distract better than Congress. 10. All the King’s Men Power corrupts. And populism? It accelerates the process.
A top 20 list might be: 1. 12 Angry Men A lesson in reasonable doubt and how a lone voice can dismantle a rush to judgment. 2. Thank You for Smoking A sharp satire on spin doctors and the ethics of selling anything to anyone. 3. Wag the Dog When scandal looms, distract the public with a fake war. Timely every time. 4. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Two smooth-talking con men show how grifters operate by charming you first. 5. Dr. Strangelove A darkly hilarious warning about military madness and mutually assured destruction. 6. The Truman Show What if your whole reality is manufactured and no one told you? 7. Brazil Bureaucracy, surveillance, and the crushing weight of an uncaring system dressed up in absurdism. 8. Network Media, madness and monetizing outrage. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore." 9. Inherit the Wind Science, reason, and the courtroom clash with religious dogma. 10. All the President’s Men Real-life journalism takedown of corruption at the highest level. Nixon’s fall laid bare. 11. The Lives of Others A haunting look at state surveillance and how conscience can survive tyranny. 12. The Great Dictator Chaplin’s mockery of fascism with a timeless final speech about humanity. 13. The Death of Stalin Dark comedy about backstabbing power games in a regime of fear. 14. Bulworth A burned-out politician starts telling the truth and becomes a danger to the system. 15. Canadian Bacon Poking fun at how politicians manufacture enemies to stay in power. 16. The Big Short How blind trust in institutions and greed led to economic disaster. 17. Inside Job A documentary companion to The Big Short that names names and exposes the rot. 18. They Live Aliens as a metaphor for capitalist elites. Put on the sunglasses and see the truth. 19. Catch Me If You Can True story of a young con artist who shows how easy it is to fool the system and people. 20. Being There A simple gardener is mistaken for a genius. Sometimes people see what they want to see.
Indeed, Lonesome Rhodes, the drifter-turned-media-darling played by Andy Griffith, embodies several Trumpian traits perfectly. The Parallax View doesn't give simple informative answers as it's pure political paranoia, it's an interesting film though. I also considered The Groundstar Conspiracy from 1972 from which I took the nic Tuxan (George Peppard's character) but it's a bit too melodramatic and scifi.
Yeah, my wife got us a reverse ósmosis water filter that removes fluoride and everything else two years ago. Now I have a broken leg, my first major broken bone. From now it's only water with fluoride, like God intended.
I saw this in my feed this morning and thought, haven't I seen Bourdaine in a movie? He had a cameo in The Big Short where he used seafood stew to explain complex financial products. Not a movie but Parts Unknown was certainly a show you should watch before putting on a red hat.
Not just to tolerate them, but to sit at their tables. To eat their food, listen to their stories, drink their weird liquors, and realize that the world isn’t full of threats, it’s full of hosts. He death was a collective punch in the gut alright.