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Spanking the Monkey (1994)

post #1 of 9
8/10/10 at 9:41pm
Thread Starter 
So...incest.

I saw this movie years ago due to the Kevin Smith quote on the box. Boy was I not ready for it. With David O. Russell's work since, including Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, it's interesting to go back to his earlier work.

It's about as Indie as you can get, with simplistic (but effective) shots and a plot that mostly stems from character conflict and dialogue. So Ray is a budding med student that is forced to forsake an internship so he can take care of his mother, who has broken her leg and is bedridden for months. Ray's father is a travelling salesman that is away from home most of the time. Ray finds it hard to get reacquainted with old friends, and is sexually frustrated by not finding the privacy to masturbate and the mixed vibes from the girl next door. Plus his mom keeps coming onto him...

Needless to say the second half of the movie shocked the hell out of me, and I found it almost impossible to relate to Ray as a character from that point on.

Any thoughts on what the MESSAGE of this movie is? Very ambiguous ending.
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post #2 of 9
8/10/10 at 10:23pm
The main message I took from the movie was basically "this is how serial killers are born" pretty much, but then I was 18 when I watched it.

Dunno whether I'd want to revisit it tho personally.
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post #3 of 9
8/11/10 at 5:38pm
Thread Starter 
Serial killer? I don't know, I think Russell wanted to create an impossible situation, and yet try to make us understand.

Guess there's not much interest in this movie...
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post #4 of 9
8/11/10 at 6:07pm
What'd his mom look like?
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post #5 of 9
8/11/10 at 6:12pm
If only there was some way to find out who starred in movies. Or to even watch the movies themselves.
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post #6 of 9
8/11/10 at 6:48pm
I've never seen this one, but I snagged it off IFC the other day, and it's sitting on the DVR at home. Curious to see it after a decade of David O. fandom (and after Davies' stint on LOST)... but I don't expect it to be a comfortable experience.
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post #7 of 9
8/11/10 at 8:06pm
hmmm... you guys are making me want to see the end. I've only seen teh 1st 3/4 or so. Also I didn't belive that she was his mother. It seemed like a fake relationship to me. They had no maternal/ son chemistry. She seemed like a stepmother.
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post #8 of 9
8/11/10 at 8:20pm
Thread Starter 
There's a major scene when Ray tells his father over the phone "Mom and I slept together."

I need to head over to the "insane theories" thread, because Ray could be a young Faraday. Course correction indeed...
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post #9 of 9
9/5/10 at 2:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisey's DEATH View Post
Also I didn't belive that she was his mother. It seemed like a fake relationship to me. They had no maternal/ son chemistry. She seemed like a stepmother.
I think I felt the same way when I watched this on video back in high school. I don't think I was ready for the movie in that I didn't find the incest in the movie to FEEL all that taboo. Never gave the film much thought since then, but I think it's for the same reason you mention. The movie didn't really make me buy that she was really his mother. More like a stepmother in their chemistry.

Either that, or I'm totally cool with incest! Odd that this thread caught my attention. A friend of mine just told me about this and I was reading about it:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Kirk...101907283.html

Why only the mother is being charged (the son is a grown man), I don't know...
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