Falling Down (1993)
I suppose it reinforced some misandric stereotypes about menacing men, but I sure did enjoy the movie
Falling Down, with Michael Douglas. My favorite scene was when he tried to order breakfast at a fast food restaurant, and they wouldn't give it to him because it was now lunch hour. By that point in the movie he has an automatic weapon, and he accidentally discharges it toward the ceiling, then tries to explain his mistake to the other customers in order to calm them down. The tension of that scene is thick, especially when the manager smiles at him and informs him coldly that they stopped serving breakfast at 10:30, mere minutes ago. A close runner-up favorite scene is when he takes a bazooka to a local road project and accidentally blows that one up too.
Yes, he ends up validating his wife's request for a restraining order and her obtaining of full custody of their daughter, and kills himself in a dramatic climactic scene. Seems obligatory; they just have to let out the evil male demon in popular movies like this. But at least we see the world and its frustrating and arbitrary injustices through his eyes, rather than someone else's eyes.
Gran Torino (2008)
One movie that I think illustrates a positive aspect of males is
Gran Torino, in which Clint Eastwood befriends some Hmong neighbors, teaches one of the boys about life, teaches him a trade and loans him his tools, stands up for him against the neighborhood thugs, and ultimately sacrifices himself for the people he has grown to love. The sacrifice is appreciated, not expected. Speaking of expected, I loved how the movie portrayed his relatives, with their chronically entitled mindsets and disrespectful demeanor; it says so much in so few words about the worst aspects of western culture. In a befitting twist, he leaves them nothing in his will, and instead gives the lion's share of his possessions to the boy who he mentored and befriended.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Like
Falling Down, this movie confirms a few negative stereotypes about men; Jack Nicolson's character is a statutory rapist who feigns mental illness. But at the same time, it reveals that men really do struggle with emotional problems and often contend with authority figures that expect routine controls out of them. I remember Nurse Ratched, denying the inmates the right to watch the World Series on the pretext that it would rock the boat of the hospital's routines -- routines that included daily administration of mind-altering drugs by the female nurses to the male patients. That movie really illustrated some of the struggles that men go through, such as repressed emotional pain, and even Nicholson's character was subjected to the physical pain of shock therapy when he didn't conform like a good little patient. The symbolism of
One Flew resonates on so many levels; it was really a memorable movie.
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