Watched The Box over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised. It’s not great, but it’s not bad, either, not nearly as bad as some critics said a few months back. You might remember it from its simple set-up. A couple receives a box with a red button on top and a proposition from a strange, dapper man: press the button and get a million dollars cash, but someone they don’t know will die. To say that what follows is unpredictable is an understatement. It’s genuinely weird, confusing, slightly eerie, with plenty of unfulfilled promise.
I liked it; wife hated it. Go figure.
Some additional thoughts … and possible spoilers.
…
How many people would push the button? I wondered. Immediately the figure “45 percent” popped into mind, and try as I might I could not justify raising or lowering that number. The wife commented that it would depend on the area of the country you were talking about. Bible-belt states would probably have a lower percentage, big-lib cities on the coasts would have more. I know that’s painting with a very broad brush, but I think superficially I would agree.
…
The SF movie I saw before this one was the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and it reinforces a nagging question. Why do these morally superior alien races feel the need to exterminate us when we don’t score high enough on their morality scale? Since when do the spiritually evolved – and I mean, the truly spiritually evolved – kill off those who can’t – or won’t – grasp eternal Truths? It’s almost like having Jesus call down legions of fiery angels to annihilate the Pharisees en masse. I’m surprised but not really that most reviewers and commentators don’t catch this.
…
Donnie Darko is now the next movie on my list to see. Heard a lot of good buzz about it but don’t know a single thing about it, except that the guy who brought me The Box also did that one. It’s at my local library, I saw on Saturday but didn’t get it. Also saw two other off-the-beaten-track flicks I want to check out, two Werner Herzog foreign films – Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre. Mucho movie posts galore in the near future!
…
The source material for this movie is a short story called “Button, Button,” written by Richard Matheson in 1970. Matheson has done so much that eventually transited to the big screen that I’m ashamed I am quite unfamiliar with his written work. He wrote the original novels for The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend way back in the fifties and sixties. So I have one of his short story collections on order.
…
Towards the end of the flick, the husband blurts out, “This is Purgatory!” I liked that, but I think it is a dead end, and I don’t know why the filmmakers kept it in. Perhaps to keep the audience guessing, or maybe I just missed something. I did only watch the movie once, and there was talk about catching a glimpse of Heaven, though I don’t think they referred to it as “heaven.” Perhaps as the “afterlife,” I don’t remember. Maybe, though, the “aliens” are from the “afterlife.” After all, they’re not explicitly described or exposited upon by the characters, so we don’t know exactly who or what they are. See what I mean? The movie is such a great big smorgasbord of ideas and genres and, yes, clichés, that it almost demands a second watching so you can figure out what the heck you just watched.
…
Wife was upset that in each of all three couple we see faced with the proposition (one at the beginning, one at the end, and one through partial flashback), the wife was the one who pushed the button. Oh the stream of vulgarities out of her mouth, aimed at the screenwriters! I just said that it’s because in a typical marriage, it’s the women who are the decisive ones, the stronger ones.
…
All three leads in the movie were great. And Frank Langella’s disfiguring burn scars – a touch of unsettling genius, a perfect blend of creepiness and gore, without being too much of either. I loved the retro-70s look and feel, though I thought I caught a couple of anachronisms. And even though the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre-for-dummies played a bit role in the movie, I always love flicks that toss around the philosophical bean bag.
….
Grade: solid B
Some additional thoughts … and possible spoilers.
…
How many people would push the button? I wondered. Immediately the figure “45 percent” popped into mind, and try as I might I could not justify raising or lowering that number. The wife commented that it would depend on the area of the country you were talking about. Bible-belt states would probably have a lower percentage, big-lib cities on the coasts would have more. I know that’s painting with a very broad brush, but I think superficially I would agree.
…
The SF movie I saw before this one was the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and it reinforces a nagging question. Why do these morally superior alien races feel the need to exterminate us when we don’t score high enough on their morality scale? Since when do the spiritually evolved – and I mean, the truly spiritually evolved – kill off those who can’t – or won’t – grasp eternal Truths? It’s almost like having Jesus call down legions of fiery angels to annihilate the Pharisees en masse. I’m surprised but not really that most reviewers and commentators don’t catch this.
…
Donnie Darko is now the next movie on my list to see. Heard a lot of good buzz about it but don’t know a single thing about it, except that the guy who brought me The Box also did that one. It’s at my local library, I saw on Saturday but didn’t get it. Also saw two other off-the-beaten-track flicks I want to check out, two Werner Herzog foreign films – Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre. Mucho movie posts galore in the near future!
…
The source material for this movie is a short story called “Button, Button,” written by Richard Matheson in 1970. Matheson has done so much that eventually transited to the big screen that I’m ashamed I am quite unfamiliar with his written work. He wrote the original novels for The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend way back in the fifties and sixties. So I have one of his short story collections on order.
…
Towards the end of the flick, the husband blurts out, “This is Purgatory!” I liked that, but I think it is a dead end, and I don’t know why the filmmakers kept it in. Perhaps to keep the audience guessing, or maybe I just missed something. I did only watch the movie once, and there was talk about catching a glimpse of Heaven, though I don’t think they referred to it as “heaven.” Perhaps as the “afterlife,” I don’t remember. Maybe, though, the “aliens” are from the “afterlife.” After all, they’re not explicitly described or exposited upon by the characters, so we don’t know exactly who or what they are. See what I mean? The movie is such a great big smorgasbord of ideas and genres and, yes, clichés, that it almost demands a second watching so you can figure out what the heck you just watched.
…
Wife was upset that in each of all three couple we see faced with the proposition (one at the beginning, one at the end, and one through partial flashback), the wife was the one who pushed the button. Oh the stream of vulgarities out of her mouth, aimed at the screenwriters! I just said that it’s because in a typical marriage, it’s the women who are the decisive ones, the stronger ones.
…
All three leads in the movie were great. And Frank Langella’s disfiguring burn scars – a touch of unsettling genius, a perfect blend of creepiness and gore, without being too much of either. I loved the retro-70s look and feel, though I thought I caught a couple of anachronisms. And even though the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre-for-dummies played a bit role in the movie, I always love flicks that toss around the philosophical bean bag.
….
Grade: solid B
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