Movies i've never seen because.....

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by L.J.

Do know some about what Stone has been through. Sure he doesn't feel like killing is cool with what he went through in Vietnam. Have read about the film and listened to people talk about it. Just never has been one for me. To me it comes across like Scarface. Well acted a good script just don't like the way that lifestyle is portrayed in Scarface.

NBK is the exact opposite of glorifying psychopathy. It's an utter damnation of modern society -- oh to imagine if it had been made in the social media age! -- and how the complete absence of social, moral, and ethical structures leads directly to what Mickey and Mallory become and do. The title is essentially ironic, as although M&M are certainly psychopaths and were thus born that way, the media glorification they receive is not due their condition but to the condition of the American society.

I mean, think about it. How many people know who Casey Anthony is, or, at least, who she was while her trial was going on? I'll bet it was a higher percentage of Americans than could name their representative in Congress. Or Jodi Arias?

It's a prescient piece of work, giving a precise picture of exactly where American media culture and obsession with murderers and their trials was headed.

As to Scarface, I'd also disagree with that interpretation. Just because Tony Montoya has become a cultural icon of sorts that doesn't mean that the film itself is presenting him as such. Again, it says more about American society than it does the film's narrative. If anything, it's a story of greed and gluttony leading to the ultimately tragic downfall of an extremely flawed individual.

Tony lived "The American Dream" in that he became obsessed with consumption and acquisition and power. Although hardly any would say this outright, those are the foundations upon which this "American Dream" concept is built. Get all you can no matter the cost, consume as much as you can no matter the cost, acquire as much power as possible no matter the cost to those around you. Rinse and repeat.

Now, whether or not one agrees that the "American Dream" is comprised of those ideals, whether out in the open or hidden in code-words, that's what Scarface is about: A flawed, but not necessarily fatally so, individual becomes consumed by the very dream he is pursuing and it leads to a loss of self and, in the end, the loss of his very life.

tl;dr -- I don't believe that either film glorifies what some say they do, but just the opposite: they condemn the society that creates these monsters.