At six years old, I assumed that cartoons were all for kids. Maybe that's why I was so shocked by what my father had fallen asleep in front of. I walked in on him watching THE WALL right at the start of the trial scene. Just the voices in that song haunted me halfway through puberty, until I finally sat down and watched it. The one scene that really hit home with me was the sequence during "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" where these little kids were being marched into a food grinder. I think between that scene and the "trial" sequence, it took my dad over an hour to calm me down.
UNK SEZ: Carolyanne, I've been waiting for somebody to mention this one! I love this movie, but I can definitely see how it would freak out a youngster. The whole movie is like being stuck in the head of a crazy person and you can't get much more kindertraumatic than a bunch of kids lining up to jump into a meat grinder! Plus who can forget the immortal lines: "If you don't eat your meat you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"
I'm ashamed to say, both as a fan of Pink Floyd and as a fan of weird shit, that I have never seen The Wall. ::goes to sit in the corner head bowed::
I remember when I was a little kid and the song Brick In The Wall was a hit on the radio a few of my friends rented THE WALL (Back when VCRS were new and cost $1000 dollars!) I asked them the next day "How was it?" and all they could talk about was the scene where "the kids are put in a meat grinder"!
Now seeing that we were grammar school-aged and not on drugs (yet!) they probably didn't understand ANY of the movie but the part they could "relate to" (we went to Catholic school, so angry teachers were something we knew about!)
Fast-foward a few years and now I'm a teenager and one of my friends and I had nothing to do and no money. She said "Lets watch THE WALL" (Her older brother had rented it – this is when VCRs cost $300) I was Stone Cold Sober and I begged her not to put it on KNOWING I probably wouldn't enjoy it without the aid of beer, booze or something else that would alter the mind. She put it on anyway and I HATED it/ totally didn't get The Message. And the only scene I vividly remember? The Kids Getting Put In The Meat Grinder! (ooooh….and the guy who sang i Dont Like Mondays shaving off his nipples!)
What, nothing about the sexy-sexy-sexOMGMONSTERSEATINGEACHOTHER-sexy-sex sequence? 🙂
And the "lose your eybrows and nipples" grooming scene messed with me on a very visceral level.
And, you know, all the soul-destroying misogyny…
Mamamia: You're not alone. Â I think you have to be of a certain age to get drawn into THE WALL and actually be sold on the pretentiousness and ham-handed symbolism it offers. Â Of course, it helps to be a Pink Floyd fan – if you're not, the movie doesn't stand on its own and is downright laughable for the most part. Â Except for the fact that I have a policy of not walking out of any film, I probably would've walked on this one. (Sorry, Pink Floyd fans, I've actually given them a fair shake over the years – even seen them in concert – but while they're a decent band, Roger Waters as a composer and guitarist just never managed to grab my short hairs…)
I actually love PINK FLOYD and THE WALL is my favorite album by them – and felt this way when I viewed the movie….but I have always been more of a Beer Drinker than anything else and so I never got to take Acid , smoke a joint and go "woooooooooooah" to it.
I don't know why but I was thinking about THE WALL awhile back and I was thinking about how ****** up it was that the kid walked in on his mother screwing some guy who wasn't his father….and then I realized – that was in TOMMY! Hahaha.
Now TOMMY, on the other hand (that's THE WHO movie if anyone doesn't know) I was drunk when I saw it and I LOVED it. I watched it again SOBER (uh-oh!) a few years later and said "What a piece of crap!"
So yeah- these Rock Star movies are better viewed drunk or stoned or BOTH!
OK, I can see that. Â Sadly my disposition is such that booze or pot tend to make me MORE opinionated so bad movies would just piss me off more – although I can see booze making the flower/penis/vagina animation sequence that much more hilarious.
Time definitely seems to be a factor though – TOMMY is a good example. Â I remember the ads for PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE kind of freaked me out when I was a kid but actually seeing the movie later as a young adult only prompted the giggles. Â Paul Williams? Â As the Devil? Â Such comedic brilliance is so rare.
With The Wall, I really love this movie; the music is so amazing. With "The Trial" It's one of my MANY favorite songs of the wall (I have too many favorite songs to name.) When I first saw it, I never really found it frightening; just weird and surreal (but awesome at the same time, and I can see how some would be scared by it.)