Prophetic Films

"Network" prophesized the advent of reality TV and inferior show quality for the sake of ratings 30 year ahead of its production. Watching Howard Beale (a formerly respected newsman) descend into madness while watching the audience laps it up is no different than audiences eating out of the hands of "Jersey Shore" or "Real Housewives". Furthermore, it shows that TV execs have no morals with respect to quality, as long as it gets the ratings (Faye Dunaway's character epitomizes this). A must watch, especially in this age.

If "Network" saw reality TV coming, "Dog Day Afternoon" saw news sensationalization. What starts out as a simple robbery transforms into a vicious media blitz. The media turns the robbers into heros, and then into villains when the reason for the heist is revealed. Meanwhile, everyone from the hostages to the pizza boy seems to revel in being part of the story.

"Psycho" brought forth the concept of a schizophrenic serial killer to the screen and in our faces. What was read about in pulp fiction and in the newspaper prior to 1960 was now visualized in the audiences' face. The concept of a demented murderer with a skewed set of morals in a realistic setting was not only novel, but would forsee the age of the "modern" serial killers from the late 60s onward.

While war and politics are nothing new, "Lawrence of Arabia" is a very interesting film in that it brought the story of a foreigner trying to free a country, while his compatriots were planning to take over the country it was "saving" from another empire (the Ottoman, in this case). Shadows of the American intervention of Iraq and American-Middle East relations are very visible here.

As many know, the movie was an inspiration for John Hinkley. However, in light of the Jared Loughner shootings, it is interesting that the similarities (strange set of ideals, descent into madness) predicted the "lone wolf/wolves" killings of Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, and others.

Many might not see it initially, but this movie (as well as the book) predicted the emergence of the punk rebellion in the late 70s.

The concept of "cable" and "video tape" was pretty new when this film came out. Well ahead of its time, as the concepts of being lost in TV, subliminal images, video porn, and, in some respects, pay per view are all explored in this film.

Paul Verhoeven started his prediction of the future with this film. Very interesting how the media presents serious subjects with such apathy. Commercialization of domestic security is well evident here. And in a way, the glorification of violence is satirized in the "real" encounters.

While some may see this as lessons from the 80s about drug addiction, there is one segment that is far more interesting that has never been explored in previous films: the abuse of legal prescriptions. This is seen in Ellen Burnstyn's character, who, obsessed with losing weight, starts abusing her amphetamines. A window into the Vicodin/Percocet/Oxycontin abuse that is occurring now.

Very predictive of the reality based game show and all the "prescripting" involved. However, this would be the real "Survivor", and not the one on TV, which should be called "Biggest B*tchfest".