So who here has seen "Monster"?

let me know when you're in glasgow, next, after, let's say, ... the end of the month. I will definitely be able to make time, then.

Dude, I'm never in Glasgow these days. Come to Edinburgh!

(Just curious. I havent seen the film either, tho I'd like to).

you did not really SEE it.

There were two - the one guy that stopped his car for her but didn't want sexual favours, he just wanted to help her (bit fuzzy on the details, but do remeber that he was shown as being entirely noble/sympathetic) and the mentally handicapped guy (who granted was no knight in shining armour, but no monster either.)

fwiw I didn't for one second think that the movie was implying that what Theron's character was doing was justifiable, or feel that most of her victims "deserved" it. I felt sorry for her at the end, sure - but wouldn't have exactly cheered if she had gotten away w/ it, either.

But then, I'm not as attuned to the misandry that dominates the vast majority of modern society as you are.

Besides, anyone who's studied up on serial and mass killers knows that 85% of them are completely reprehensible and undefendable. Aileen might very well fall into the 15% left who have a background so nightmarish that it's hard to desire harm done to them equal to that done to their victims.

[This is coming from someone who holds the highly controversial political viewpoint that capital punishment here in the U.S. is supportable, BTW. I do, however, think certain individuals do not deserve such a punishment, and Wuornos was one of them. But it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did take seven individuals' lives and that it was only the first one that could be excused as self-defense, so.... Gray area? Perhaps.]

At times I felt pity for her character, but the overwhelming use of music during certain moments to add to the dramatics (and the appaling use of music at the end to "sweep" the viewer into some kind of sympathy) was appaling. Again, if I was a relative of any of these people killed by her I would be galled that Hollywood turned her story into a love story and actually asked me to view her victims as "kind of asking for it anyway" - which was the implication.

I'm totally against capital punishment and anyone who is for it should be ashamed.

I don't really get how the movie was supposed to portray the victims - I mean, apart from those that rape & blackmail her, most of them are shown in a very neutral light; you can't really expect the movie to give you the same amount of "humanizing" of characters that are only on the screen for like five minutes as it does to its main character. Thinking that because of that the movie's saying that the victims were asking for it anyway is engaging in some wild projection, yo.

(and the appaling use of music at the end to "sweep" the viewer into some kind of sympathy)

sympathy don't mean approving.

You CAN make a movie about killer (serial or otherwise) that humanises the killer and yet makes sure that, in doing so, it asks the audience to like/ enjoy watching them or play the movie out for entertainment. I'm thinking of "Dead Man Walking" (which admitedly had its own agenda - that being opposotion to the death penalty but which was a movie that left you feeling numb) and "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer".

Not really no, because (in that case just as in this one) I'd be sympathising w/ the character onscreen, not the actual real live person.

I'm arguing for the movie's morality in its own world, btw, not as a portrayal of real-life events. It might very well be atrociously twisting the facts, but the accusations that you raised against it (i.e. that it portrays the victims as "deserving it") are unfounded.

damn @ this fuckin guy in the broomfield doc -http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__ZC6F3SCITU/TDi4E5YgfVI/AAAAAAAACsE/BrYxkPbOAeI/s320/Glazer.JPG