Movie Review- The Experiment with Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker

From what I understand, this movie bears a very close resemblance to the Stanford prison experiment by Phillip Zimbardo (Author of "The Lucifer Effect").  Unfortunately I didn't read the book or anything related to Zimbardo's experiment before watching the movie.  It didn't change the fact that the film was amazing.  And scary.

As you can probably tell by my reviews I'm not going to spoil the ending.  In fact, I'll try not to spoil too much in the movie either.  I'll just touch on a few key points, hopefully enough to get anybody interested in these kinds of movies to want to check it out.

If you don't want to see a good man turn evil, don't watch this movie.  It's scary to think about... a darkness that lies within each of us.  When you feel powerful, you may feel that you're forced to do questionable things to maintain that power... or increase it.  When you feel powerless you may find it hard to ignore your conscience and focus on your own survival.  

The basic premise of the story is a group of men respond to an ad in the paper about an experiment paying a pretty decent sum of money for only two weeks of work.  The experiment is simple:  some of you will be playing guards in a makeshift prison while the rest will play the prisoners.  There are rules in place that they must abide by otherwise the experiment is over and they will not get paid. 

The limits of the rules are tested.  The roles become more serious on both sides.  Violence, despair, and questions of morality are all central points as you watch the men either fight or succumb.  Usually it's both.

I'm reminded of the saying... Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  It's scary to think anyone of us could become the monsters we all hear about.  Using violence to impose our will.  It's scary but it happens. 

This movie proves that.  Whether or not this is exactly what happened during the Stanford prison experiments isn't the scary part.  The scary part is not knowing what DID happen... how much worse it could have been... and if it will happen again.

Will we see the rise of violent dictator the likes of Hitler? 

Or worse...

Will we know him?

Want to catch this flick? Click here!

Book Review- "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk

You may have seen the movie.  You remember the lines:  "First rule about fight club... you don't talk about fight club,"  "I want you to hit me as hard as you can," and "I do not like them Sam-I-Am."  Wait...

The book was written in a way very, VERY different than what I was used to.  There were no quotations when the narrator spoke.  Sometimes it took a moment to figure out whether it was a thought he was conveying or something he actually said aloud. 

You could spend a lifetime talking about this novel.  From the pace of it... the ending you could only predict if you saw the movie beforehand (or if you have an addiction to Wikipedia)... things that happened in the world after the novel... and things that existed long before it.  A lot of us were left with the question...

Are there any Fight Clubs?

See?  No quotation marks around that question.  Because I'm the narrator.

That question isn't the one that matters to me.  I know that people have been beating each other up long before Palahniuk's book and it won't stop anytime soon.  People who can't even read will make a "club" like this.  Our society is filled with the kinds of things that can destroy us by setting us free. 

Which would you rather be?  Destroyed until you're free or free until you're destroyed?

In the end, you're probably going to have the same amount of demons, nightmares, and holes in your cheeks.  Your wounds both physical and metaphorical will exist all the same. 

Then again... can we only achieve true enlightenment and utopia through chaos? 

I will never allow myself to believe this.  I don't see the past as our answer.  I just see changes in this present in order for a brighter future.

An amazing book... an insightful author... and commentary on where we are, who we are, and what might be best for us.

Want to check it out? Click Here!