"Into The Wild" (2007)

[quote] The Academy virtually ignoring the movie- despite it's winning multiple other awards.

Uh, it was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Hal Holbrook for Best Supporting Actor.

Too far fetched a story.

Was the guy in the story bisexual? I always got that impression.

Great book, great movie, great soundtrack, Emile peen. Who could ask for anything more?

I don't care about this but just wanted to point out that Sean Penn is directing a movie soon.

It's a movie that his ex wife Robin Wright had wanted to star in years ago but she could never get it off the ground. Now, asshole Penn is not only directing that same movie but his new gf Charlize Theron will play the part that Robin Wright wanted to play.

Asshole.

Can we talk about IMAGINARY HEROES instead? Hirsch's character was definitely gay/bi in that. And the plot was twice as interesting despite containing half the melodrama, no "true story' schmaltz and no songs by Eddie Vedder. I hear from friends of friends that Penn and Hirsch were difficult on set, so.

Ryan Donowho is more interesting than Emile. He was incredible as the gay best friend in unrequited love with him in IM---looks wise it seems improbable, but Ryan totally sells it. His character has a subtle, gradual arc where his feelings for Hirsch go from sibling protectiveness to a lover's--it's unusual.

He's so talented a musician AND actor (he's a street percussionist mostly), and I don't know why he hasn't had the accolades Hirsch has (I put it down to an aversion to publicity and an unwillingness to kiss ass). If you haven't seen IM, check out clips with Ryan, it's heartbreaking (I posted one below).

Ah, and guess what? After a quick wiki, I just found out the writer of IMAGINARY HEROES Dan Harria got his start in the biz as a protege of Bryan Singer.....who hired him at 22 to write and edit the script for X2 (X-Men II)

Which explains why there was a metric tonne of UST between the two troubled teen best friends Iceman and Pyro---the writer, Dan Harris, was trying out dialogue for his future characters Tim and Kyle (Hirsch and Donowho).

Wasn't Aaron Stanford rumoured to be at gay for a while back there?

...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

To most of the moviewatching public, Robin Wright is "Robin Who?". When you try to remember her in a film, there is just a gray spot.

I thought I read somewhere that the "Into the Wild" guy was mentally ill?

Nope. It wasn't a suicide. It was due to bad luck and poor choices. McCandless ate the wrong food (berries? seeds? I've forgotten) and accidentally poisoned himself. Had he done more research beforehand and trained properly to live in such a remote and wild area, he may have known better. He might have increased his chances for success. His actions were incredibly risky and he paid the price.

He was disillusioned about society and the big city, but not about the wilderness. He wanted solitude and Independence, not an early, painful death.

The movie was so long and dreary, several members of the audience in which I attended committed suicide.

[quote] To most of the moviewatching public, Robin Wright is "Robin Who?". When you try to remember her in a film, there is just a gray spot

Really? Nobody remembers "The Princess Bride" or "Forrest Gump?"

The next time "White Oleander" plays on cable, don't miss it. Wright's character, a Bible quoting pop tart who takes in a teenager for foster care, was mesmerizing.

[quote]Can we talk about IMAGINARY HEROES instead?

We can if you have $18.

[quote]I thought I read somewhere that the "Into the Wild" guy was mentally ill?

Ya think?

Lol. Tell us how you really feel, R5.

I agree. He is a raging asshole.

Loved the film too. Think Sean not getting nominated for this was a mistake but the academy made it up to him the next year for Milk.

They are still arguing about whether he died from poison seeds or from starving.

His sister has a book coming out in November that supposedly tells things she never disclosed to Krakauer when he was doing the original book.

It's hard to root for a hero that does something stupid on purpose.

Thanks, R6.

R5, That film (The Last Face) seems like it will be horrible. Robin Wright lucked out.

Things you may not know about Chris McCandless

Robin wright is a seriously underrated actress.

[quote]It's a movie that his ex wife Robin Wright had wanted to star in years ago but she could never get it off the ground. Now, asshole Penn is not only directing that same movie but his new gf Charlize Theron will play the part that Robin Wright wanted to play.

Robin Wright is a far better actress than Charlize Theron (see Wright in The Pledge). The Charlize Threron/Sean Penn coupling is plain weird, but it would not surprise me if they got married. She wants a "bad boy" and he wants a woman who is beauty-wise way out of his league.

I think we agree on that, R25.

The movie that brought us Kristen Stewart.

Sean was too into the story in ways that hurt it.

The Wild Truth

...the real story of Chris's life and his journey has not yet been told - until now. The missing pieces are finally revealed in The Wild Truth, written by Carine McCandless, Chris's beloved and trusted sister. Featured in both the book and film, Carine has wrestled for more than twenty years with the legacy of her brother's journey to self-discovery, and now tells her own story while filling in the blanks of his. Carine was Chris's best friend, the person with whom he had the closest bond, and who witnessed firsthand the dysfunctional and violent family dynamic that made Chris willing to embrace the harsh wilderness of Alaska. Growing up in the same troubled household, Carine speaks candidly about the deeper reality of life in the McCandless family. In the many years since the tragedy of Chris's death, Carine has searched for some kind of redemption. In this touching and deeply personal memoir, she reveals how she has learned that real redemption can only come from speaking the truth.

McCandless was a nutjob. His death was no loss. He went into the Alaskan bush with a bag of rice, a 22-caliber gun, an old map he got at a gas station, some paperback books and a whole lot of arrogance. Totally unprepared, he though he could survive on his wits. But the dumb cluck ended up starving or getting poisoned by potato seeds. At any rate, his death was entirely due to his stupidity and ego.

Some people admire him as some kind of symbol of man's search for higher meaning. But he was just some deluded dope who went off half-cocked and ended up dying a lonely, meaningless death. And it was entirely his own fault.

I never knew the true story of his parents.

According to the 8 children fathered by Walter McCandless, Walter was an alcoholic wife abuser. He fathered Chris and Carine while still married to his first wife. His fist wife finally had enough of his abuse and infidelity, packed the six kids into a car and left. She then had difficulty getting child support from Walter and often worked 3 jobs to support the family.

Walter and Billie moved with Chris and Carine to VA, but Walter was still an alcoholic wife abuser. Carine and Chris had more financially than most families, but they grew up in a disturbed household.

His story makes more sense when this is taken into consideration. I thought he was just a spoiled rich kid from a basic nuclear family.

He was clearly schizophrenic or on the way to being schizo. There was an account of when he worked at that grain factory that his boss entered his apartment and there was a rancid smell -- apparently McCandless had left raw chicken out for some time and couldn't smell the odor. Loss of smelling abilities is a sign of schizophrenia... coupled with all his other weird behavior - yeah, mentally ill. But that wouldn't be palatable to movie and book audiences. And his family will remain in denial of that until they die.

I don't know if he had death wish or mental illness. He left a sign that said:

Attention Possible Visitors. S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?"

Sounds like he wanted help.

R5, idolized by DL or not, Charlize Theron is also an asshole for going along with him.

At least we know it won't be nearly as good as what Robin would have done with it.

Oddly enough, it was well within his power to rescue himself, only he didn't know it. He was cut off from civilization by a rushing river. There was a self-propelled zip-line that would have taken him over the river to a spot where he could have walked back to safety. It existed for the very purpose of aiding stranded hikers and campers. But he neglected to do any research about the area he was staying in. He didn't know the zip-line was there.

He was the ultimate libertarian. He hated authority, hated rules, hated laws. He would not get a hunting license because he believed the government should have no say in what he chose to eat.

Yet if everybody decided not to get hunting licenses and eat whatever the fuck they want, wildlife would be decimated. And what if I wanted to eat your dog? Should the government tell me I can't?

He insisted he wanted total freedom from laws and authority. But he found out that there are laws everywhere on earth, especially laws of nature.

One of those laws of nature is the survival of the fittest. You can't find enough food to stay alive? You lose.

r36, it's not clear, with the new poison theory, whether or not it would've mattered if he knew it or not.

It was theorized he was in and out of lucidity, and might not have had the mental capacity to a)remember it was there, and b)figure out how to use it.

I read the book, and i don't think he was schizo at all.

i have a daughter who went "off the grid" for 3 years because she objected to government, authority and our general "accepted" way of living This American Life. She is bipolar, and yes - still alive and living in a home with a partner, home, daughter and family.

I really think he wasn't informed about sustained nutrition (in general) and local flora.

His lack of information was the real reason for his death. It's sad, he seemed like a very advanced soul.

Maybe that was the point. Note that we are still talking about this far beyond the book/movie. Souls do choose their purpose, and maybe this was his soul's choice - to spur conversations, decisions, etc.

Not sure why he was the one who was idolized. There's at least one of these idiots every year in Alaska.

People like R11 are why this is such a tragedy. They want to fetishize what he did rather than warn other people not to be so stupid.

r40 -- were they always around or start arriving because of McCandless?

"It's sad, he seemed like a very advanced soul."

No, he seemed like a lost kid who was clued enough to realize that the life he had sucked, but didn't have a fraction of the clues it would take to make a new life for himself.

He knew nothing about nature, obviously, because the first thing you have to know about nature is understanding the wilderness around you. In order to survive in the wilderness, you have to know how it works! Know the plants, the animals, the weather, the waters... the kid was starving in the fucking summer, imagine what an Alaskan winter would have done to him.

r42, yes and yes.

There are always those types in the North, we get them here (Canada).

The numbers have increased exponentially due to his death.

Article from the Guardian on the phenomenon-it's considered a pilgrimage site.

Found this:

Krakauer believed that the mold from the potatoes he survived on ended up killing him. He relied too much on this one kind of food for survival.

I'm not as interested as I was before I found out what the real one looked like.

r46, I wouldn't trust Krakauer for shit.

He's twisting around a lot trying to make the guy blameless. He's known for having a selective writing ability re: personal vs factual accounts, especially on Into Thin Air.

He picks out his narrative for maximum public impact and works around it.

[quote]No, he seemed like a lost kid who was clued enough to realize that the life he had sucked, but didn't have a fraction of the clues it would take to make a new life for himself.

I agree, but I also admire him for taking the risk.

Krakauer is KNOWN for thoroughly researching his topics. That the subjects' families start seeing dollar signs is not his fault. In his book he went well out of his way to examine all sides of this, including poking holes in both stories, that he was well prepared with bad luck and that he didn't know what he was doing. JK if anything writes it as a cautionary tale about letting the mythology of the wild overwhelm the necessities of the wild.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

More on Carine McCandless' book and an interview with her:

I thought the movie was painfully boring

It's good, but not that good. Hardly "haunting."

Yes [53]. Just like this entire thread.

White people problems.

Starving to death is a white person problem?

Schizophrenia is a white person problem?

Dysfunctional families are a white person problem?

Please explain.

McCandless was so dumb. He shot a moose, which would have provided him with meat for a year if the dumb twit had known how to preserve it.

McCandless picked up survival training tips by listening to people he met during his travels. He heard the way to preserve meat is to smoke it. But actually the right way to do it is to dry it out in strips. He tried to smoke the moose carcass, but most of the meat ended up getting spoiled and inedible. It was just another instance of how woefully unprepared and uninformed he was. He died due to his own arrogance and incompetence. He is no one to admire or emulate. He was an idiot.

[quote] Krakauer believed that the mold from the potatoes he survived on ended up killing him. He relied too much on this one kind of food for survival.

This has been disproven by plant experts. McCandless simply starved to death. He'd been tramping around the country -- not eating well; working at very strenuous physical labor jobs; hitchhiking and walking for miles in bad weather; dressing poorly for the weather wherever he showed up. People were always offering him boots or warm jackets. For month, he was essentially a homeless guy who took physically strenuous oddjobs before he showed up in Alaska. He was in poor physical condition by the time he got to the Stampede Trail and it was all downhill from there.

There are people who go off into the wilderness for a while, but they are people who grew up hunting, fishing and camping with their family members. They are taught by their parents and grandparents what they need to know to survive, and they read up on "roughing it." McCandless did not have this background, nor did he care to learn how to be a true wilderness guy.

He probably thought that working all day at some farm, ranch or oilfield doing physical labor and then eating a tin of beans for supper was toughening him up, but it was really weakening him.

He reached his caloric point of no return on the Stampede Trail, not very far from civilization.

Foolish and stupid. He was born into a well off family. Had he been born poor I might have had more empathy.

[quote]Too far fetched a story.

And yet it is a true story.

[quote]He was born into a well off family. Had he been born poor I might have had more empathy.

I rather be born poor and loved than rich and abused.

I also wonder about the water he drank. Did he bring a large supply of freshwater to drink from or did he drink from the river? There are all kinds f bacteria living in river water that could give you a very bad bout of diarrhea. Just one bout of diarrhea can cause severe dehydration and electroloyte imbalance to someone who has been roaming around the country, sleeping rough and eating crap for 2 years.

Even swimming or washing in contaminated water can infect you.

I was thinking something similar, r63. If he became really ill, he would be too weak to find food to eat. I was thinking about when I had the flu for 2 weeks and how weak I was from it. It could be a downward spiral.

At least if you're rich R62 you can get a good education and get away from your family. But judging by your use of grammar it would be money wasted.

Krakauer is one of those non-scientific people who is a hiker/outdoorsy type who simply couldn't understand how a young, "healthy" man could starve to death so quickly. Krakauer and others like him load up on energy bars and buy top rated equipment and weather-appropriate clothing, then go climb Mt Everest.

He really doesn't know what two years of living a marginal life-- yeah, I said "marginal" -- can do to the body. Alexander Supertramp was often tramping and flopping all over the place without money or supplies and without warm clothing and boots for 2 years.

On the one hand, it seems bizarre to me that Krakauer needed to supply an excuse for McCandless's death in the form of "potato seed mold" (which was not true). On the other hand, it's not like Krakauer has a degree in nutrition, so caloric deficit and long term malnourishment isn't something he'd be familiar with.

[quote]At least if you're rich R62 you can get a good education and get away from your family. But judging by your use of grammar it would be money wasted.

And that is exactly what he did, r65. It worked out well for him didn't it? And yes, in many ways it would be money wasted.

His father was fucked up. It's not surprising the son would be fucked up, both from his life experiences with dad and from genetics.

Of course it's possible for a person to learn wilderness skills without that kind of family background, R59, IF a person is willing to put in some serious study time. Skills must be learned, habits of civilization must be unlearned, and the natural world has to be understood.

How do the seasons affect your locale? When to the elk, geese, and salmon arrive, or depart? What plants are edible, or poisonous? During Alaskan winters, when can you go out to hunt, and when will the cold kill you if you step outside? How to make a shelter that will keep you alive in an Alaskan blizzard, out of free local materials? What water is safe to drink, where do you get water when even the ocean is frozen solid? What are the local bears like? A person doesn't just need skills to survive in the wilderness, they need in-depth local knowledge.

The only way that kid could have pulled off living wild in a strange environment is to have spent some time with local mentors - ideally a couple of years. Chatting with a few bums wasn't enough, and if that kid didn't know that he was too dumb to live.

I remember back packing was a 70s fad that disappeared in the 80s and early 90s. It returned in the mid to late 90s (money was around) disappeared after 9/11 and came back with "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed in 2012...

r70, the newer backpacking gear is really light weight. I have resumed backpacking in my 50s and love it. If I were younger I would hike the entire PCT in one season.

He was such a dipshit. He was working on some guy's farm and the guy asked him to stay 10 more days. McCandless said no, he wanted to hitchhike north by April. The other guy offered to buy him a plane ticket to Fairbanks so he could stay the extra days and still get to Alaska in April, but McCandless refused saying that would ruin his trip. Very rigid guy. Not a good trait in a wilderness wannabe.

I just saw Into the Wild on Netflix (missed it when it came out). While I would not want to move to Alaska to live in the middle on nowhere, I do sometimes wonder what the daily grind is all worth. Work, go to the gym, consume, strive to make more money, etc. Maybe up and leaving for a simpler (yet civilized life) might be something worth considering. I knew a couple who left LA and moved to some random town in Oregon where the Goonies was filmed. They are loving the simple life. I admire Chris McCandless for living life on his terms, let the consequences be damned.

BUMP

Emile Hirsch went full frontal and showed off a huge bush. Loved it.

What a wasted life.

Chris Mccandless, Timothy treadwell and Carl McCunn, who was the biggest Alaskan Wilderness dipshit? God they were all stupid in different ways.

Alaska people don't understand what the fuss is about McCandless, because supposedly lots of people are out there off the grid, SURVIVING. And I think there has been a few rescue attempts for dumbshits making the "pilgrimage" to the bus, annoying the fuck out of locals & authorities.

Emile Hitsch is beautiful, so there's that.