Awful Message
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d_henderson1810 — 10 years ago(July 12, 2015 08:33 PM)
Guess what, that happens a lot.
How old are the kids again? Maybe they should after-school activities or a stay at a child-minding centre.
I am not saying that the wife has to work, but then she can't just whine about how hard the husband has to work as well, considering that she wasn't complaining about the nice roof it put over their heads, or the nice food it put on the table, or the nice clothes it allowed her to buy. -
xix_azn_luv_xix — 12 years ago(March 17, 2014 03:16 PM)
My parents own their own business and work every day for the past 42 years never closing except MAYBE on Christmas. I wish they would once in a while take a day off and spend time with us My dad is already almost 70 but shows no signs of wanting to slow down.
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toychaser2005 — 11 years ago(April 05, 2014 09:43 PM)
I disagree with your point of view of the message. I don't think they were trying to Paint his character as a bad guy. I think the point of the movie was - he had a good life, but he believed that in order to be a good Dad and a good husband, that he needed to attain a grand amount of financial success. He was spending so much time working for the sole purpose of becoming Partner, not to just go to work and pay the bills.
He thought finances meant a better life for his children and his wife, he was not simply trying to sustain his middle class life - he thought that was "sh!t". What he learns is that all those finances did not make him a better Father nor a better husband and that his life was just fine the way it was, he did not need to become partner or advance his career.
Walken's character touches upon this when he tells Sandler about the lucky charm character always chasing the pot of Gold, and when he reaches it finding out it's just cornflakes. -
clownbaby866 — 11 years ago(April 09, 2014 10:46 PM)
Let's call it what it is: a contemporary comedic version of It's a Wonderful Life. Obviously it's not even in the same realm as It's a Wonderful Life, but I think it's a good dramatic turn for Sandler.
As for the message, I think it's a good one. If you get too boggled down with finicky details like how the wife doesn't work and he has to work more to support his family, then yeah sure, it's a bad message. But the message is simple; don't let work get in the way of your family life. You can work hard and still spend time with your family. I know real life isn't so cut and dry and you do have to make sacrifices and will disappoint your family, butthis is a movie. This isn't real life. It's an imitation of life. You can probably point out flaws in every single movie ever made. Why didn't this character do that? Why didn't they think of this? Why does it have to be that way? Well, because it's a movie. No one wants to watch a movie about a guy working crazy hours and coming home to an understanding wife and not experiencing any problems whatsover, then going back to work the next day, and so on and so on.
In conclusion, the OP seems pretty bitter. I feel sorry for you. Maybe you should watch lighter comedies so you wont get so down.
"Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." -
d_henderson1810 — 10 years ago(January 05, 2016 11:59 AM)
But what about professions like being a doctor or someone who is "on call".
People get sick at any time, houses catch fire at any time, and other things happen when it is most inconvienient.
I think that if you marry someone in a busy job, you know what you signed up for. Don't take the fruits of the other person's labor and then complain about him or her doing that labor.
The real reason the wife bosses him around is because she was a controlling shrew. In fact, Sandler's character is getting it on all sides, and should stand up for himself more, and lay down the law, once and for all, even if it costs him everything. If she really loves him, she will take his standing up for himself on board, and they will try to work through things. If not, then the marriage wasn't based on much anyway. -
TheFatDruidofNacyl — 11 years ago(January 16, 2015 12:18 AM)
We was not a bad man but in his pursuit of trying to give his family nice things he was missing out on his family. It is like would you rather have a father that could buy you expensive toys and fast food all the time, or a father that could spend time with you. Teach you how to throw and catch a baseball.
His boss gave him an opportunity with a client. When working on the project would clash with his plans with his family the boss didn't have a problem finding someone else to do the job because he already had plans. It wasn't like he would lose his job. You even see that even with him willing to work all the time and kiss ass that he wasn't getting the promotions quickly. So he is actually better off balancing between work and family.
I doubt he was going to risk his kids going hungry or them becoming homeless for it. They just wouldn't be able to afford all the nice expensive things the neighbors had.
Even Walken's character said that he was a good guy that just needed a break. This was the whole reason he was going through the journey.
Come visit my
http://theblackrosecastle.com -
MonoEnojado — 11 years ago(February 14, 2015 10:18 PM)
"Yet how was he repaid? His wife ran off with the swimming coach (and I bet she cleaned Sandler's character out in the divorce and he was paying her alimony) and his kids were ungrateful little brats. If he turned into a distant, uncommunicative old man, maybe it's because he was sick of being taken for granted. "
I'm going to write a short reply, because I've had a couple of beers. I think you're forgetting something important about how the remote works. With the remote, Michael could skip things he didn't enjoy (mostly routine). At first he skip moments, then days, then months and later even years. Morty explains Michael that when he skips moments, his body is there but not his mind, i.e. he's on autopilot.
That's an important reason why he got distant with his family. They sometimes looked at him and he was just standing there without caring about anything, just
being
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scoulter2 — 10 years ago(April 23, 2015 09:00 PM)
You know I was watching The Devil Wears Prada a couple of weeks ago, and I had a bit of a revelation which was the recent recession killed movies like this. Before the recession people were basically of the mentality that (at least in the world of entertainment) your family is the most important thing and the best thing you can do for them is spend time with them, and if that meant sacrificing time and money at work so be it. This was such a strong theme in movies because if you happened to lose your job over it (in movie world) you could just go get another no problem because the economy is good and who would want to work for a place that you had to sacrifice time with your family with anyways?
Then the recession happened and a whole lot of people suddenly started appreciating the fact that they still had a job or that it was suddenly very difficult to find a new job if not impossible. Suddenly movies where people are killing themselves at work and not being supported in their personal life for doing so (like you said Sandler was doing this for his family who largely didn't appreciate it) was looked at in a different light by the audience. The audience was no longer noticing that the character was being somewhat neglectful of their family, instead the audience started to notice that the character has a job and working hard at it and his family was largely disdainful of that fact.
So yeah my theory is that the recession changed a lot of people's thinking, and thus started questioning old truisms like the importance of having and keeping a job vs being the best parent ever. -
vivlet — 10 years ago(September 08, 2015 12:03 PM)
I just finished watching it shudder and I had the exact same thoughts. The poor guy didn't deserve to go through all that.
The disturbing moments in the movie outweighed the comedic ones, to be sure
And what was with the weird futuristic designs? What year is this supposed to take place in? I was so confused. -
Noufa — 9 years ago(May 12, 2016 06:21 PM)
Not buying it.
I agree that the ZPG crowd has forced through policies that penalize large families in America. But their influence is limited to Hawaii, coastal California, the DC beltway & NYC. In other locations, a large majority can easily downscale in order to put more emphasis on family. It can be done.