Answers From Men

July 2, 2011

1. Gladiator (2000) – The former general, Maximus raced home, finding that his house had been pillaged, his wife had been raped, killed, hung, and burned, and that his son had been trampled by horses, and hung also. Maximus rides into his land as billows of smoke rise from his home. Once he reaches the archway of the land that he earned through years of service to the king, he is floored by the sight of his wife and child hanging lifeless at the entrance. Distraught with pain, he grabs the charred, dirty feet of his wife and balls like newborn. The raw emotion that this scene emits is gut-wrenching. Maximus holds the limp feet of his innocent family in the realization that his righteous actions caused their deaths.

2. Anchorman (2004) – Ron Burgandy, a news anchor, has just come from a lovely, eventful evening with his new lady love, when he is asked what love is. This question prompts a melodic, completely random answer that involves all a good old-fashioned sing-along.

3. Requiem for a Dream (2000) – Marion Silver and her boyfriend are in a losing fight with heroin. Her boyfriend has been arrested and has an infected arm from excessive needle use, she has gone into to performing sex acts at bachelor parties, and their neighbor has started being treated for dementia with shock therapy. The montage of Marion performing onstage with another drugged woman, her boyfriend having his arm amputated, and the neighbor being shocked is overwhelming.

4. The Crying Game (1992) – In a time when alternative lifestyles were not so mainstream, the moment of revelation in The Crying Game catapulted cross-dressing and transgendered people into the limelight and shocked the conscience of movie-goers.

5. Gone with the Wind (1939) – The seminal moment of this movie occurs at the end of the it. The culmination of Rhett Butler’s frustration with Scarlett O’Hara, the woman he loves, builds up to a crescendo where he proclaims, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”, in response to her asking where will she go from there.

6. Braveheart (1995) – William Wallace was captured by the King of England having been betrayed by the people that he fought to free from English oppression. He was tortured mercilessly, being beaten, getting stretched by horses, and then being disemboweled while tied to a table. His torturer whispers to him constantly that the pain could end by claiming allegiance to King Richard of England. With his last breath, he summons all of his inner strength and yells for freedom instead.

7. When Harry Met Sally (1989) – When Harry Met Sally enlightened men worldwide on the low frequency of women’s orgasms. Men, in general, thought that they were vagina whisperers and that women reached orgasm at their whims. Sally proved to Harry that they were sadly mistaken with a public faux-orgasmic performance.

8. Seven (1995) – Seven built an entire mystery around grotesque murders committed as retribution for people ignoring the seven deadly sins of Dante. The movie built intensity with each death, until the final scene when Det. David Mills completes the last of the seven deadly sins.

9. The Exorcist (197) – Regan MacNeil was America’s first introduction to real horror. She had grown men terrorized of small children once she was possessed by a demon. Her projectile vomiting and her head turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees is still the standard by which horror movies are judged.

10. Schindler’s List (1993) – Schindler’s List had bone-chilling images including naked men and women running into the medical examiners room to decide their fate, which included being shot immediately, being experimented on, or being forced into hard labor and then facing one of the two former fates.