-The Manchurian Candidate (1962) - The lead actor's name is Laurence Harvey (father of Domino Harvey) whose character was captured and brainwashed by the Soviets during the Korean War and is trained to kill the presidential candidate.
-(1963) Lee Harvey Oswald, a man with a communist background, kills the president.
-Taxi Driver (1976) - Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a `lone crazed gunman'... (http://imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary)
- (1981) John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of actress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver.
-The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Includes the dream sequence in which "Jim" (Leonardo DiCaprio) strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds--in slow motion--to blow away the teacher and all the kids in the room.
- (1997) In Paducah, KY, a student shoots eight of his classmates huddled in a prayer circle killing two girls and later blaming the movie.
-Natural Born Killers (1994) - "Delivery boy Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) falls in love with customer Mallory Wilson (Juliette Lewis). He soon helps her kill her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and enabling mother (Edie McClurg), beginning their macabre journey down Route 666. Their M.O.: every few miles, they attack everyone within their site, invariably leaving only one person alive to tell the tale. The two are made famous by unscrupulous reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy jr.), as they run across the countryside, pursued by the equally sadistic Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore). Just before the trial, a ratings-whoring interview by the same reporter who made them famous leads to pandemonium, not just within the prison itself, but nationwide. A satire of the media, public opinion, and the modern attitude toward violence." (http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/plotsummary)
(1999) - It is discovered that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned Columbine while referring to April 20, 1999 as the day of "Natural Born Killing".
-Elephant (2003) - A fictionalized retelling of the Columbine shootings, school-shootings in general, told from the perspective of several high-school kids.
-(2005)- Just weeks before he killed fellow students at his own high school, Jeff Weise watched a movie about a Columbine-style school massacre with his friends, Elephant.
I'm not trying to create a scapegoat out of the movie industry. I am also completely against censorship. However there seem to be too many parallels, more than what is listed for these movies, to have not heavily influenced psychopaths.
This argument has also been applied to video games lately, but I want to know what ya'll think of movies' influence.
-(1963) Lee Harvey Oswald, a man with a communist background, kills the president.
-Taxi Driver (1976) - Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a `lone crazed gunman'... (http://imdb.com/title/tt0075314/plotsummary)
- (1981) John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of actress Jodie Foster, who played Iris in Taxi Driver.
-The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Includes the dream sequence in which "Jim" (Leonardo DiCaprio) strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds--in slow motion--to blow away the teacher and all the kids in the room.
- (1997) In Paducah, KY, a student shoots eight of his classmates huddled in a prayer circle killing two girls and later blaming the movie.
-Natural Born Killers (1994) - "Delivery boy Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) falls in love with customer Mallory Wilson (Juliette Lewis). He soon helps her kill her abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and enabling mother (Edie McClurg), beginning their macabre journey down Route 666. Their M.O.: every few miles, they attack everyone within their site, invariably leaving only one person alive to tell the tale. The two are made famous by unscrupulous reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy jr.), as they run across the countryside, pursued by the equally sadistic Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore). Just before the trial, a ratings-whoring interview by the same reporter who made them famous leads to pandemonium, not just within the prison itself, but nationwide. A satire of the media, public opinion, and the modern attitude toward violence." (http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/plotsummary)
(1999) - It is discovered that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned Columbine while referring to April 20, 1999 as the day of "Natural Born Killing".
-Elephant (2003) - A fictionalized retelling of the Columbine shootings, school-shootings in general, told from the perspective of several high-school kids.
-(2005)- Just weeks before he killed fellow students at his own high school, Jeff Weise watched a movie about a Columbine-style school massacre with his friends, Elephant.
I'm not trying to create a scapegoat out of the movie industry. I am also completely against censorship. However there seem to be too many parallels, more than what is listed for these movies, to have not heavily influenced psychopaths.
This argument has also been applied to video games lately, but I want to know what ya'll think of movies' influence.
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