Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It is a movie that must be viewed every few years. I have done so since childhood. My father was a fan of the music and instilled in me the awesome musical tastes that I have today.
It is such an amazing movie. It puts the story to the music that Pink Floyd brought to us in the album The Wall. One of my all time favorites. And no, I am not a pot head, nor have I ever partaken in any pot. I enjoy the musical brilliance for what is it. Absolutely amazing.
In my most recent viewing (tonight) I came ponder why other movies of the sort were not made. It is not a musical. If any of you think that Grease was in the same genre, you need to blow it out your ass. The Wall is a movie made after the album to dramatize the music. Wouldn’t it be amazing if another band were to make another movie of the same sort? Take Dio’s Magica for instance. It would make an AMAZING movie. Why the hell haven’t they made that into a freaking movie yet?! Unfortunately, Ronnie James Dio has passed away recently-ish (May 16th, 2010) of stomach cancer. He will be missed greatly. But he had an amazing album that was prime for making a movie like Pink Floyd’s The Wall ( I personally vote that we, Dio fans, put together our money to make it happen… who’s with me?! It can be like that whole My Million Dollar Movie thing they did for A Little Bit Zombie, which was a great movie by the way.).
It may come as a shock to some of you that I have watched this movie so many times since I did not live in the days when Pink Floyd was big. I do get my musical tastes from my father… I mean, I had to have some influence from one of my parents, right? And it CERTAINLY was not going to come from my mother (she listened to, and still listens to, Korean Gospel and the like… ugh). I grew up listening to Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Dio, Ozzy Osborne, Metallica, and the like (my father had amazing taste in music). I mean, for god’s sake, as a child, I sang along to Mr. Tinkertrain. Isn’t that a little fucked up?
My father would put Pink Floyd’s The Wall (the movie) on at least every few years, and I have kept that tradition alive on my own after his passing. It just feels right. It was like our little ritual to watch this and enjoy the music and the acid trip visuals it had within it.
I remember asking my father when I was young what the flowers were doing to each other. He replied that it was just an acid trip. I did not realize the sexual symbolism in the vagina flower or the other penile flower impaling it. Nor did I realize what the judge was later on in the movie. I didn’t see the fact that he was talking out of his ass and that his “chin” was his ball sack. I watched the movie with the innocence of a child enjoying the music.
Furthermore, why does our society feel that the cartoons and movies we watched as children would no longer be considered suitable for our children of today. I mean, are we, as adults, altered in some way from watching Ren and Stimpy, The Looney Toons, or anything of the like? I then thought of the movies we watched as kids compared to the ones that have been made in recent years for children. The movies that had been rated G for us would rate PG-13 or worse these days! The veiled jokes in the movies from our childhood would raise an uproar for parents today. What about Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The booby trap. The chimp who said “Wise ass.” and the like would be frowned upon in today’s media. Cartoons and children’s movies are just not as good as they were when we were children.
Back on topic, Erika. Damn.
The Wall has so many poignant aspects in it that most people don’t seem to realize. The meat grinder for the children for instance. All people are different, but society seems to want to make us all the same non-thinking robots. This is especially true in our education system. I studied political science in college… in a very liberal college. And even though my exams and papers asked what my opinions were for social problems, the professors did not want to hear my actual opinion (though it WAS based in the reading material). I got higher scores for simply regurgitating the reading material and the opinions that were posed in the material. God forbid that the students draw their own logical conclusions and opinions based on the readings. I once wrote a paper on human rights violations, for instance, and because the paper I wrote was on North Korea’s blatant human rights violations (instead of say, Darfur), the T.A. (yes, T.A. who was herself an undergrad, because my university did not allow me much access to my actual professor) stated in her feedback that she did not see the fact that three generations of a defector’s family being put to death or in work camps being a poignant human rights violation. Or that the North Korean “constitution” was blatantly perverted to allow for a fucking dictator as being an issue.
Off topic again. Sorry.
Furthermore, in The Wall, I also noticed that wearing a lot of black is more menacing and totalitarian a visual than say wearing all pink. Why do we assign color in such a manner? Black is a good color. I will say, I wear a lot of black. Less than when I was a teenager. It is slimming and looks good on pretty much everyone. I think that if a totalitarian army were to wear all pink it would be far more menacing. The whole issue of color comes back to marketing. Pink for girls and blue for boys. It is ridiculous. Black is apparently too dark for most. I was told, for instance, that I should wear more color by a coworker. I thought I had worn more color for work. I wore black, gray, white, and occasionally green. Once, I even wore a purple shirt. That’s colorful and shit, right? Oh! And, I wore these really cute red high heels one day (even though they killed my feet).
But to go back to my original point, we should make more movies like The Wall. And the best option would be for Dio’s Magica to be made. The closest thing that I can think of that honors Dio’s awesomeness in movie form is The Pick of Destiny. Jack Black and Kyle Gass had Dio in their movie and he was a driving point for Jack Black’s character to pursue rock, which I applaud. Though The Pick of Destiny was a great movie, they should have made something with more Dio or with more Dio influence. Hell, you know what, I CHALLENGE Jack Black and Kyle Gass to make Dio’s Magica into a movie. The story is already there. Dio freaking laid it out for all of us. It needs to be made into a movie. That’s right, I called you out Tenacious D. You must accept my challenge…. Please?
Prepackaged Nonsense 