Dust Dog

Warning! : Dry philosophical subject matter(with an emphasis on movies), do not read if easily bored.

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I have never liked Dustin Hoffman for a whole lot of reasons, including but not limited to say, His humongous nose which looks like it's big enough to hide a jumbo fucking jet in, or his completely accurate portrayal of a savant in Rain Man which I somehow see in every performance of his.

But all that changed when I saw Sam Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs' a few days ago, Sam Peckinpah is the sort of guy who makes the likes of 'Brad Pitt' or 'Ben Affleck' look like 8 year old girls with an infatuation for NKOTB when compared to the tough guys in his films. Obviously this tends to polarize his viewers with an even split between his rabid critics and his rabid fans, I belong to the latter.

What is so frightening about the movie is the fact that the fate that Hoffman's character suffers may very well be inflicted on any one without exception. Here is a quick list of the things that go wrong in his characters life;

1) He is a bespectacled American mathematician
2) His hot English Wife likes to show off her hot body to the local repairmen
3) She cheats on her husband with one of the said repairman
4) Due to complications of that tryst, she is raped by another
5) She doesn't reveal this to him
6) Due to an entirely unrelated turn of events, the same repairmen try to kill him, while his wife sides with the enemy
7) The guys attack his house, destroying it completely
8) All of this because he does what he feels is right.

Now, imagine this kind of a thing happening to you, and I can see why you would think twice before taking up mathematics, being Dustin Hoffman, marrying an English woman or even going anywhere near England.

This has got to be the most sympathized character ever played in history!, and to think that all his character wanted to do, was write a book on mathematics.

The movie is one of those which will have you wondering at the nihilism inherent in society which drives the otherwise cowardly mathematician to shoot\stab\pummel\tie\burn 5 thugs to death.

Add to this the meta-Irony of the director being labeled Misogynistic and misanthropic, and the movie is bound to be a difficult one to watch. So if you are tired of watching man-boys like 'Mathew McConaughey' or 'Will Smith' make fools of us all in mega-blockbusters, then this is the movie for you.

A girl once asked me why I equate real life to movies ? She was of the opinion that they weren't related, She was wrong. When they are not related, it isn't art, it's pornography.