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Knowing our Dolphin Talk made the mini episode made me laugh

Yeah I agree. I don't know if this is kinkshaming so much as Katie not feeling comfortable with this kink and that's ok. Not everyone's kink is compatible and this doesn't sound like she felt safe or comfortable. You don't just spring that shit on people that's really rude. A considerate partner would have been like "Hey I'm into this would you be ok with it?" and get her consent to ... role play / talk dirty ( is that what this would be called? talk sickly?) Consent is key . Without the consideration for his partner to ask for her consent he's an asshole and people who don't bother for consent usually suck at sex because they don't bother to notice their partner's needs.

He is 100 percent dead at the end. First of all, the dialogue as the camera scrolls past the news clips at the end is all voice over. That's the only time any VO is by someone other than Bickle's, so it leads me to believe that it's all in his head, and it's his story/fantasy the way we hear his thoughts as he writes. It's like the lies he writes to his parents about who he wishes he were instead of who he is. Second, all the clips are purely his fantasy of how he wants to be seen. It's the voice of Iris's dad profusely thanking him for returning his daughter and how great she's doing now that she's back at home. One of the news clips reiterates how grateful his parents are for finding their daughter. No way that happened. Now, regarding him being hailed as a hero by law enforcement - he straight up murdered people (you don't get leniency for them being "bad guys") carrying multiple unlicensed firearms, not to mention attempted political assassination. I just don't buy that any of the info we get in the VO or by the news clips on his wall were anything other than his own fantasies.

I'll answer as to why this movie affects me deeply. To me it's a brilliant depiction of a lonely, stunted guy. I was never as extreme as Travis, but on some level I understand this kind of seething anger underneath the loneliness. There was a time in my life when I felt similar things (again, not to that extreme, but along those lines). The highly subjective presentation of this individual’s psyche has never been done so well, IMO. I find it mesmerizing. What I also love about the film is that I don’t think it lets you off the hook for that: it shows how that mindset can lead to extreme violence, how ugly it can be. I know, not everyone takes the right message from this. Some people think it's practically an instruction manual. I can only describe what it says to me. I think the film shows SOCIETY vindicating Travis for his actions. I don't think the FILM itself endorses that vindication. I absolutely agree that in 2018 it feels like "Incel: The Movie" (someone on the Facebook group posted that). But to me that is just further proof of how sensitive and prescient it was to this particular kind of social disease.

I'm pretty sure Schrader and/or Scorsese have confirmed that they did not intend for the end to convey Travis' death. Yeah yeah, death of the author and all that. People can interpret it as they like. But personally I also don't think it plays as a dream sequence. I think the film is taking yet another turn and challenging the audience who would hero-worship Bickle, showing how his "heroism" is basically made-up and not actually a fix for what ails him.

Kink shaming is real. People will say things like "Man, furries (or insert some other turn on) are fucking weird and I don't get why anyone would do that. They are so gross" is kink shaming. That doesn't mean someone is forcing me into being a furry when I don't want to. I understand that people have kinks that others aren't comfortable with. People shouldn't be forced into sex they don't want or enjoy. That said, I'd leave this person. With bug chasers being real and AIDS being real, I'd be very wary of someone who brought that up in a first sexual encounter without discussing it first.

Lol well I wouldn't have thought we would get into an argument about it but okay.

I don't think Travis is dead. Paul Schrader has talked about the woman who attempted to kill Gerald Ford was on the cover of Newsweek. I think he meant the ending to be a critique of American values. There was an episode of Inside The Actors Studio with either Scorsese or DeNiro where they mentioned discussions of a sequel at one point (that I assume never left the idea stage). Can't do a sequel if he's dead. I might believe Travis died except the very last shot of him reacting to something in the rearview mirror. If the movie ended with nothing but praise, I might go with it. But that reaction to whatever Travis saw implies to me that even though he "accomplished" what he wanted, he's still unwell. He's not fixed. Whether that means he kills again, I don't know.

I would be careful there because it is a thing, however it's typically a thing done by conservative outside parties not cool with how consenting adults have fun in the bedroom. This wouldn't be kinkshaming because if Katie doesn't like this then that's her decision and not shaming the dude at all. Although one would argue maybe we should shame this dude's kink cause that's crossing a line in my opinion. But everything else I agree with. Life is too short for bad sex, and this dude sounds like danger. Katie please leave him.

How dare you sir. Dr Pepper has never had to lie it's way into anything. If anything it's the Margot Channing of cokes and the minute it ran across the stage naked at 4 years old we all knew that was THE coke.

I love when directors don't just do a cameo for the sake of doing a cameo, but decide that they are going to play the most sadistic fuck in their own movie. The other classic example is Roman Polanski in Chinatown, who slices Jack Nicholson's nose. And not exactly sadistic, but it's disturbing when Spike Lee himself (as Mookie) throws the trash can through the window that sets off the riot in Do The Right Thing.

To try to dissect your argument, I'm reading two complaints: an unsympathetic protagonist, and a narrative that doesn't serve him a just fate. People might have different views about how "unsympathetic" Bickle is. He is definitely a pathetic/tragic/unlikeable figure, but as to whether we can relate to his mindset at all (as the Uber driver could) depends on whether we detest/criticize society even more than we detest/criticize the protagonist. Are we like Bickle, looking out from behind glass, throwing spitballs at the world from a distant remove, or are we an active part of that dirty, pornographic, politically phony society? The first complaint is answered by not how much we like Bickle, but how interesting we find him. Raskolnikoff, Macbeth, Holden Caulfield, were all S.O.B.s. None of us would want to hang out with any of them, but we are fascinated by them. Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho" is kind of an 80's Travis Bickle. He is also completely absolved at the end, which is a critique of 80s Reaganism as much as Taxi Driver was a critique of its own era. So the "happy ending" is really anything but. I wanted to respond to this because I actually felt the same way about Raging Bull upon first viewing. I did not give a shit about Jake LaMotta, and didn't care for the film as a result. I must have seen something relatable, if not sympathetic, about Bickle that I couldn't about LaMotta.

I have to confess that I don't get the praise heaped upon Taxi Driver at all. It's a story about an isolated and psychologically unwell man who, in his alienation, becomes increasingly angry about his lot in life/the perceived failings of women and minorities/the state of the world until he concludes that the only way he can make his mark and right society's wrongs is through violence. And (overlooking Paul's alternate interpretation of the ending) Bickle is ultimately vindicated: he murders a bunch of "filth" to "rescue" an innocent, is hailed as a hero in the press, and even gains the grudging respect of the woman who once rejected him. Viewed for the first time in 2018, it reads more like Elliot Rodger apologia than a critique of misogyny. What am I missing? I am genuinely perplexed.

Who is Dr Pepper?

I'm impressed that only three of the callers (that they played, anyway) used the popular 2013 joke format of saying that something smells like [actual thing that smells] and [negative concept].

My old job used to take me down to Columbus, GA from time to time and I’ve been by the RC Cola plant. It’s a sad little building. Royal Crown is the Travis Bickle of colas. Incidentally, with the same job, I actually got to go *in* to the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Atlanta. That place is impressive. Super clean. Coca-Cola is the Don Lockwood of sodas. Now ask me who Dr. Pepper is...

Amy mentioned that Scorsese seemed to make a lot of movies in the "same" mold, but IMO that's only true if you look at his movies that have become the most famous. Those are usually violent movies, often involving gangsters (or at least loud Italian Americans). But if you go into the "deep cuts," his career is more varied than he gets credit for: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore The Last Waltz New York, New York The King of Comedy After Hours The Last Temptation of Christ The Age of Innocence Kundun The Aviator Hugo Silence Seems like a lot of different stuff tackled there: small character studies, a concert film, movies about religion, a musical, a television satire, period costume dramas, a tribute to classic silent cinema. He's not always doing the same thing.

Why am I not surprised that RC Cola is the drink of choice of skeevy, 1970's porn theaters?

Lots of deserved praise for how good the performances and musical score are (boy are they). I'd also like to highlight the brilliance of the editing, by the great Marcia Lucas. This will also come up with Star Wars, as she was George Lucas' wife at the time and basically saved that movie in the editing room, but I also took note of what she did on Taxi Driver. The editing is pretty astonishing. The movie keeps "bleeding" scenes into each other, playing dialogue from the previous scene while the new one starts visually, layering images on top of each other, to really put you in Travis' headspace at all times. This approach also makes it feel propulsive, like it's always hurtling forward to the inevitable climax, even when it seems like nothing is really "happening." It's pretty brilliant. I'm sure a lot of this is Scorsese too (his other movies also feature interesting editing choices), but given what you can find about Marcia I bet she had a lot of influence here too. Seems like she had a huge influence on that whole New Hollywood generation: Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola. http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html

If I'm not mistaken, yes this movie did inspire him update: looked it up. Hinckley's lawyers actually brought up Taxi Driver in court

This so much. I don't know what to do with bros who so aggressively misinterpret these movies. Some people have the impulse to blame the filmmakers for making a movie that so many people didn't "get," but on the other hand I have little doubt that if they made a movie that aggressively celebrates the positive experiences of women or non-white people, those same bros wouldn't see the value in that either. Some people only see what they want to see -- just like Travis Bickle.

I loved the episode but their were a couple points that I would disagree with. In terms of Bickle possibly suffering from PTSD, I think it's very likely that he was in the military in some capacity. The war would have just been ending as this movie was filmed and Bickle, at 26, would have been the right age for service. Now, here's the tricky part - did he actually see action? I don't think so, but I do have a theory. In the scene where Bickle is doing push-ups, we see a nasty scar on his left shoulder blade. This is, as far as I remember, the only time we see his bare back and it is never commented upon. While this could just be a manifestation of self-flagellation, I think, like Charlie Sheen's character in Platoon, there's an argument to be made that maybe Bickle was a soldier that got injured right out of the gate and was sent home. It would definitely be a traumatic experience and might account for his insomnia. I can't understand why you would show that scar if it doesn't tell us something about Bickle. I also strongly disagree with Amy and Paul in regard to why Bickle chooses the guns he does. Yes, they were guns used by fictional characters, but there is absolutely no indication that Bickle would even know or register this. Amy and Paul actually called Dirty Harry and James Bond Bickle's "heroes," but if the movie makes anything abundantly clear, it is that Bickle is completely pop culture blind. He doesn't know popular music or movies, he doesn't seem to read, and when he tries to watch television, he kicks it over. His lack of pop culture awareness is part of what fuels Bickle's disconnect. However, I absolutely do believe that those are the guns being sold because of their pop culture relevance. I just think that connection would be completely lost on Bickle.

I completely agree! Fans of these movies (and I would put Goodfellas in here as well) make the movies themselves unbearable. I hate mentioning that I love Taxi Driver or Fight Club to any dude if I don't already know them really well because I'm afraid of who that person might be and how they might misinterpret why it is I love these movies. David Fincher himself even said he would never let any man that said his favorite movie was Fight Club anywhere near his daughter lol. But these are still excellent films, and Taxi Driver still blew my mind the first time I saw it.