Thoughts on Robin Williams · 5:38pm Aug 13th, 2014
I feel sad that he's dead, just like everyone else in my circle of friends. But when I saw one of those friends list the movies she saw of his that she liked, I felt conflicted, because some of those movies I can't really recommend. Patch Adams in particular is a movie that I violently rejected when I first saw it, because of how childish and cloying its treatment of subjects far beyond its ken was. I didn't even know that the movie straight up lies about the details of the actual Patch Adam's life until years later, and I hated the movie anyway. Remember that scene when Patch, in a fit of grief, talks about how humans are the only animals who kill their own kind? That's bullshit, as any zoologist will tell you. So no matter how much of a tragedy Robin Williams' death is, I still want that movie to go fuck itself.
Why is it that this is the most prevailing thought about Williams' death, anger that people are including this movie in the celebration of all of Williams' positive accomplishments? I don't hate Williams at all, unlike a vocal minority who is presumably no longer vocal now that he's dead. I love Aladdin, I like the premise behind Hook, and I even thought he was a great creepy murderer in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia. But as a whole, Williams' career was a mixed bag, and it's something that I'm trying not to mention in front of people more upset than I am.
How about any of you? Did Robin Williams mean much to you? Does anyone share my feelings about him?
All I know is I need to make sure I see some of his more serious movies. Only ever saw the comedies.
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I've heard great things about The Fisher King. Stay away from the cloying sentimental shit like Patch Adams and Jack.