Thursday, January 31, 2008

Movie Challenge

A game we're doing at the office right now.

Name a movie that does not involve death, sex, or love. Cannot be a documentary, cannot be a cartoon/children's film.

Deaths not on screen but central to the plot disqualify the film, e.g. you cannot use the Blair Witch Project even though nobody actually dies in it.

It's also bad form to use films which are outside our cultural space (e.g. Asian films intended for the domestic market). The idea of the game is to see if it is possible to make a movie for ourselves as an audience that does not involve sex, love or death.

I came up with a couple eventually, but it wasn't easy. One was a fairly well-known and mainstream film, but from a few decades back; the other was more recent, but obscure.

Any takers?

41 comments:

space_maze said...

Hmm. I've got some ideas, though this is harder than it at first sounds.

I'm not sure how chaste a movie's got to be to not be about sex. And does the hypothetical threat of death disqualify a movie - ergo, if someone is afraid of dying, but doesn't eventually?

And the "no violence" part is also a grey area.

Off the top of my head - some of these movies I haven't seen in a long time, so I might be wrong:

Back to the Future 1, 2 and 3 (All three have someone dying, but the death being prevented from ever happening)

A Skanner Darkly

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2010

Tron

Star Trek IV

Various British romance movies that quit before it gets to the sex. I'm excluding this genre too.

Anonymous said...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:

Dunst gets sexed.

Star Trek IV:

Shatner sexes Nimoy and a whale.

Back to the Future:

Mikael Jay Fox sexes himeself.

space_maze said...

Oh, right. I forgot the naked people on ESotSM.

I'm slipping.

Anonymous said...

Lost in Translation:

Bill Murray karate chops Scarlete Johannssenn in the bar and at the end.

Ribisi sexes Shatner.

Director's cut.

Alex said...

Lost in Translation:

Bill Murray karate chops Scarlete Johannssenn in the bar and at the end.


What karate chops? He never hits her in the movie. They drive around and sing karaoke.

Anonymous said...

Scarlete Johannssenn sings a dirty song about Murrays characters mother making sexy and Murray takes a drink and chops her in the neck.

Directos cut.

Alex said...

Scarlete Johannssenn sings a dirty song about Murrays characters mother making sexy and Murray takes a drink and chops her in the neck.

Directos cut.


In the Directors Cut they have Bill violently hitting Scarlett to harm her? Wow. That must have been a very different movie than the regular theatrical release most people saw.

Alex said...

It's a Wonderful Life (Director Frank Capra - 1946)

Anonymous said...

It's a Wonderful Life:

Jimmy Stewart visits a prostitute. Kicks a camel twice.

Alex said...

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock 1954

Alex said...

Mary Poppins - 1964

Anonymous said...

You keep loosing.

Rear Window:

Jimmy Stewart handjob-cripplegasm.

Mary Poppins:

Julie Andrews up-skirt.

Keep up efort!

Alex said...

What database are you using to get these crazy answers?

Julie Andrews up-skirt? Cripplegasm? (that's not even a word)

I'm not going to keep playing because the database you're using is stupid. I understand you've probably never seen the movies I'm talking about.

Have fun though!

Anonymous said...

Save you time:

Blade Runner:

Ford and Hauer man-on-man.

North by Northwest:

Cary Grant no pants in field, massages balls, say bad words about pillot.

Driving Miss Daisy:

heavy petty scene in back seat.

Marathon Man:

Hoffman cripplegasm.

Gone with the Wind:

see titile.

Giustino said...

I think there's no sex or violence in A Hard Day's Night, unless you count screaming teenage British fans throwing themselves at the Beatles' car as 'violence'

antyx said...

Eh, sorry, the original post was wrong.

No death, sex or love. Violence is OK as long as it's non-lethal.

So Lost in Translation is disqualified because it's about love. Back to the Future as well (the parents).

antyx said...

Hard Day's Night is a documentary, no?

Anonymous said...

Hard Day's Night:

Ringo.

Anonymous said...

Hard day's Night:

Ringo cripplegasm on drums.

Kristopher said...

No, it's mock. Shows four Beatles living together communally etc. The band would have broke up in 65 if they had lived together.

But does This is Spinal Tap (mockumentaries) count?

Kristopher said...

Space Maze's Eternal Sunshine should suggest a bevy of similar movies, like I Heart Mike Huckabee (Jude Law, Dustin Hoffmann). Maybe Flasher needs to disqualify "experimental" too.

Otherwise, I'm not coming up with much , right now.

Anonymous said...

I Heart Huckabees had love in it.

The Pursuit of Happyness.

Unless the paternal bond between a father and his son qualifies as love...

Kristopher said...

I thought "love" here meant chaste love of any kind.

antyx said...

No, I think the spirit of the question is movie-romance.

Doris said...

I wanted to say Little Miss Sunshine but then remembered that the grandfather overdosed...

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? Not really a children's movie, no one dies that wasn't dead already... that I can remember, anyway. and there's no love or sex in there (yet)

antyx said...

Well, death was a central theme of the Philosopher's Stone, what with the orphan being pursued by the murderer of his parents and all... also, yes, it is a children's film, even though it was also enjoyed by adults.

Anonymous said...

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Anonymous said...

Breach?

A River Runs Through It?

Anonymous said...

Minu Leninid [All My Lenins]
Nobody's Fool

space_maze said...

To Philosopher's stone: Professor Quirrel does snuff it.

Anonymous said...

All my lenins has a sex scene.
E.T? A children's movie or not?
Operatsoon Õ?
Stalker - no, it has some love.

G. said...

I'd name bunch of italian b-movies from the 50s but I guess it wouldn't be that fair so...hmm...what about The Trial?

Or, even better...anyone up to some cinema evening in tallinn??

antyx said...

Other than the fact that I hardly ever get out to Tallinn these days - sounds good...

Anonymous said...

"Scent of a Woman" (1992: Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, Philip Seymour Hoffman) as best I recall "does not involve death, sex, or love." The blind colonel's suicidal mood doesn't count as actual violence, nor does the memorable tango scene count as sex, though I suppose it's SEXY...

Anonymous said...

Scent of a Woman: The colonel pays a nice visit to a prostitute and later flirts with the young guy's teacher. Plus, he flirts with a stewardess and talks dirty on the phone... and who can forget the memorable quote "when in doubt, fuck"...

Anonymous said...

Kerli,
Maybe flirting and sensible advice ("when in doubt, etc.") don't count, but it's been a few years and I didn't remember a hooker. Guess I'll pull down the DVD and watch it again some time soon.

Kristopher said...

Eros and thanatos hang heavy over Scent of a Woman though. Doesn't Pacino state his intention is to make love to the most beautiful woman and then "go home and blow (his) brains out"?

Another "ease his pain" movie is maybe unimpeachable -- Field of Dreams. I can't think of anything wrong with that one, unless long-dead baseball players disappearing in the cornfield is too deathy.

Anonymous said...

Love this flick. Isn't Frank Slade's speech to the assembled school a barnburner, though? However, I liked the 1974original "Profumo di donna" even better. Directed by Dino Risi, based on "Il buio e il miele," a novel by Giovanni Arpino. Both Risi and star Vittorio Gassman won major French and Italian awards for that one.

Anonymous said...

Risi has slow brother Salvadore who made exact same version of film with the name Empirsi le busone. It is nasty film with Soffia Lorena wearing mustach.

Anonymous said...

What a queer thing to say.

Ted said...

Stranger than paradise (jim jarmush).

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