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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2561 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 31, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Last week while discussing Ridley Scott's ham-fisted commentary on the Iraq War in Kingdom of Heaven, @ABigGuy4U mentioned that one of his favorite things about historical epics was how they acted as double period pieces, saying as much about the period they were made in as the period they depict.

That got me thinking, what are some of your favorite unintentional time capsule movies that are more interesting about what they tell us about the time they were made than the time they depict?

Chinatown was made in 1974 and set in the 1930s, and with its themes of public corruption, it can easily be read as a commentary on the Watergate scandal.

Its spiritual successor from 1997, LA Confidential, was set in the 1950s. With its narrative about corrupt police officers, police brutality, institutional racism and muckraking journalists, it's easy to read it as a reaction to the beating of Rodney King, the subsequent riots, and the trial of OJ Simpson and surrounding media circus.

I remember seeing LA Confidential but I can't recall any narrative about institutional racism.

Impossible to talk about this without spoilers.

Dudley and his men murder Stensland and the other customers in the Nite Owl coffee shop. Dudley's original plan was to frame three young black men for the murders, which he planned to do by having his men surreptitiously plant the shotguns used in the murders in their car, then have his men shoot them dead in their apartment. Dudley reasoned that no one would bat an eyelid if three young black men were killed "resisting arrest". However, the plan goes awry when Exley and Vincennes arrive at the apartment building at the same time as Dudley's men and arrest the three men unharmed. During interrogation, Exley ignores the three men's consistent pleas of ignorance about the Nite Owl killings, and ultimately all three men are eventually shot dead by the police anyway, as Dudley had originally planned.

Additionally, there's the opening of the film in which a squad of white LA police officers viciously beat up a group of Mexicans in their prison cell, which was directly based on a real event and which has obvious parallels to the beating of Rodney King.

I see. Thanks. It was a long time ago that I saw it.

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