The Girl next door

We've really detailed this thread for another movie that was baited into the discussion, but I'll go ahead and bite anyway.

I'm a huge college football fan, and specifically I'm a fan of WVU. 3 years ago we recruited and offered a scholarship to a player with a rough history who grew up in a very bad part of Florida. I'm going to just paste the wiki part of his history that is relevant below. Before I do that I want to mention that he just passed up a chance at the NFL to come back and finish his degree, has been an integral part of our team off the field - by recruiting, keeping the younger kids out of trouble, and leading the team in times of trouble. He's had one incident, but is turning into a very fine person.

"Devine was 3 months old when his father died in 1988 of complications from AIDS,[26] and 11 years old when his mother also died of AIDS.[26] Custody passed to his maternal grandmother, but the two did not always see eye to eye. Eventually, Noel moved in with the Liz and Robert Harlow Sr, the parents of one of Noel's friends. [27] Devine himself is the father of two children by two different women. [28] He was also a witness to a shooting late in 2004, in which one of Noel's friends, 15 year old Rashard Patterson, was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest."

I guess I"m just adding that though his was an athletic opportunity there are many stories of people that climb out of these situations and lead a great life - it probably isn't normal, but to say there is no hope is a bleak outlook.

Most kids in the hood only have sports to look forward too. If you cant get a Football/Basketball/Baseball etc scholarship some where, then chances are, your gonna be in and out of jail until ultimately, you land in prison due to selling drugs or murdering someone.

There are a very few exceptions to this...but they are rare and few and in between.

Your just simply not gonna find many Michael Oher stories around. If that dude wasnt taken in by a good family, then he probably wouldnt have gotten the recognition that he has and he would have ended up in some gang and never would have signed an NFL contract.

In the end, there are a lot of hopeless stories coming out of the ghettos in the USA. 9/10 kids cannot get out of the ghetto. That small % is the exception and definitely not the rule.

To make it better?

Look around - Hollywood has been re-doing movies this entire decade. I understand that you know this, but its not exactly anything new.

Sorry for being a big fat thread derailer :X.

Bottom line - I think I'm too chicken to take your dare :).

Oh, yeah, I was talking about Precious, not The Girl Next Door... sorry for contributing to the derailment! (I won't take the dare either)

I haven't seen Precious, but according to the wikipedia entry, she had two sons. Mongo, with Down's, and Abdul, who was healthy and HIV-negative. By comparison to the his mother and his brother, he's doing pretty good. For as long as Precious lives, he has an excellent role model. She doesn't let something as trivial as imminent death get in the way of working to improve her life. Everybody dies eventually, and living in the ghetto, where the average life expectancy is probably something like that of a third-world country, if you gave up every time your life was threatened, everybody would be curled up in the fetal position 24 hours a day. Precious' determination to overcome the odds is exactly the type of example her son needs to overcome his own obstacles and hopefully escape the ghetto.

And so, there is hope for Abdul. It might not be much, but it's more than can be said for many other children in the ghetto. If Precious didn't give up hope, why should we? As sickeningly cheesy as that sounds :hide

This is apparently based off of a true story. I watched it again recently and its pretty damn brutal. It was actually hard for me to watch in certain spots. There is some incest, rape, torture and everything in this movie. They do some unspeakable things to that poor girl and the mother of the boys is main culprit behind all of it. There is an evil undertone to this movie. Its just a fucked up story. Once the brutality of the poor girl starts, it knocks you in the mouth and then proceeds to curb stomp your nuts off.

I recommend this to anyone that is into Shock/Documentary of a true story.

This movie was harder to watch for me than Frontiers or Martyrs was.

I suck, I already made post on this movie.....but yeah =p

Seen this yet Roz? giggles

Is this worse than Requiem for a Dream, or Oldboy?

Yes.

This movie is really graphic and its really sad. There are some parts that certain people will either have to look away or turn the movie off at times. Its raw.

Ive seen some of the most hardcore horror flicks ever made and this one made me wince several times. What is worse, its based on a true story.

This is the real girl:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Likens

Yeah I have no desire to watch this movie =/

I liked it for the shock factors, everything else aside. Im big time into torture/death/gore scenes. So this fits up my alley.

Yea, but don't you think it's a bit wrong to use this girls story (I just read the thing on wiki, it's pretty damn sad) for a gore/shock movie? I can see an intense drama where the story is told in an artful manner, but one that appeals to the horror/gore crowd? Those movies usually have a subpar script and use shock value to appeal to their audience, so why are we putting this girls story in that subpar script role? It just feels wrong to me. I have zero desire to watch this.

Agreed, Vulash. There are much better and more tasteful stories to use as gore movie plots!

The movie's been done like 3 times, right? Once with Ellen Page?

Because im sure it would have been shocking and gory if anyone watched it unfold in rl when it actually happened. I seriously doubt there was anything softcore or artful about it.

So unless your talking from a respectful standpoint about her situation, then IMO make it as realistic as possible. Put the movie viewer in the cellar with her and make them feel her pain. I think a director taking a darker/evil/realistic/raw vibe with the script (which is exactly what happened here because lets face it, this situation was dark and evil) instead of something much less revealing is the best route to go with movies like these. Make the viewer feel it. Punch the viewer in the mouth without remorse. Make them feel dirty afterwards for watching it and that is exactly what this director did. This movie needed to be raw. Either way, its not gonna be a happy go lucky movie to watch.

I understand the respectful route if thats what your saying. If you dont think directors should exploit true stories like these, then that is a different story. But if your gonna do a movie about a fucked up and sad situation, then make the movie fucked up and sad.

Or do the world a favor and don't make the movie.