Sunday, August 30, 2009

#9 The People Vs Larry Flynt: The speech

Director: Milos Forman
Genre: Drama
Key Players: Edward Norton, the supreme court

It doesn't matter if it's Tom Cruise's Lt. Daniel Kaffee, Denzel Washington's regular Joe or Matlock himself, everybody loves a good speech. In Milo Forman's Oscar nominated tale The People vs. Larry Flynt, we follow Larry Flynt (a brilliant Woody Harrelson), creator and publisher of porno-mag Hustler Magazine, his drugged up love interest (a drugged up Courtney Love) and his young attorney and their many run-ins with the law and the Christian lunatics that run the US of A.

Like in all good courtroom dramas you need a grand speech. Cue Edward Norton's idealistic attorney at law, standing up for, not necessarily Flynt's agenda of peddling hairy beavers to the people, but for our right to choose and decide for ourselves, whether we want to buy it or not, and not just do as we are told by some self appointed morality police, in this case, the smug god-fearing fundamentalists on the right. When censorship and freedom of speech are being tampered with by religious retards, we need someone to stick it to them, a figure to rally behind. If that person's a questionable libertarian hero/crazy smut-uncle in a wheelchair, so be it. Nontheless, we need that speech.

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