Change Your Image
edward_eubanks
Reviews
Sling Blade (1996)
After 15 years, I finally got around to watching this movie last weekend. It really was a tour de force for Thornton who wrote, directed, and starred in this movie.
However, Thornton deserves jack-of-all-trades accolades as he mastered none of the endeavors. I mean, they were all okay, but none were superb.
The problem both with the writing and portrayal of the title character, Karl Childers, is that we did not get a real feel for what motivated the character. We are given his history but no sense of the conflicts which must have driven him, his choices, his decisions, and his actions.
Maybe it was Thornton being subtle. However, after thinking about the movie for hours after watching it, I have come to some conclusions about the character. First, and most importantly, Childers was not intellectually retarded. In fact, he was quite intelligent. He showed a self-taught knowledge of engines and was able to plan and carry out actions with a Swiss precision and a German efficiency. Instead, Thornton was socially stunted due to the extremely poor socialization he underwent as a child. It was not that Thornton could not learn --he learned well-- the problem was that he was taught all the wrong things.
Still, even as a child, Thornton had an innate concept of right and wrong which propelled his actions. This was exhibited in the handling of his brother and the killing of his mother. Though more mature some 20 years later, this innate sense of right and wrong would continue to rule his life.
The other thing that was not explored in the movie was the motivations for the actions of the main character's parents. To be sure, they were odd ducks, but no so odd as to be totally different from humanity. The key in understanding how the child was treated is in understanding the relationship of the parents. It was made clear that Karl's mother was caught cheating on his father. But it may be the case that she was a habitual cheater and that Robert Duvall, who played Karl's father, doubted the paternity of both children. He proclaims in the movie, "I have no son." He did not accept either child and was brutal in the handling of both.
It is likely that the son was "taught" the same skewered values of right and wrong and just and acceptable retribution from his parents. He had been taught, and as much as he tried to rise above what he knew was viewed as wrong by the majority of civilization, he was in the end bound by it. Understanding this is to understand the character.
Little Ol' Bosko and the Cannibals (1937)
Wonderful Score
Little Bosko is giving cookies by his mother to take to grandma. Bosko has a big imagination. Instead of being hunted by a wolf, Lil Black Bosko is hunted by cookie-loving cannibals.
Lots of racial caricatures common at that time. Cartoons like this can't be made now and shouldn't have been made then but the great score and wonderful animation superbly redeems this cartoon.
If you like Fats Waller, you'll like these cookies.