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Simply A Masterpiece

Please don't spend money on this.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This documentary gave an interesting insight into the psychological concepts of masculinity, while presenting an interesting look into the concepts of why men act the way they do. It was even more interesting watching a documentary focused on boys and men, and the ways in which family and society contribute to aggressive masculinity. It gives a broader view to this issue by using a wide spectrum ranging from young boys to troubled young men to older criminals and male activists. I thought the documentary itself presented a very thorough view into the way in which males from a young age are constantly effected by outside sources to enhance their masculinity through aggression, sports, sexism, etc. to prove their own maleness. The documentary did this with emotion and humanity, using the many boys and men throughout to make this documentary stand out as something real while also speaking to the viewer. The documentary itself was very informative without ever getting boring, and dealt well with sensitive topics while helping the viewer feel that there is more to be done to help our boys and men.

Hard to believe these women couldn't find a man (other than the severely traumatized or psychiatrists in it) to work on this. If they had, they might have better addressed the enormous role women play in this problem. The vast majority of women encourage this wounded alpha male behavior. Its what I tell my 14 year old son- you'll get those women who pathologize boyhood, like the filmmakers and most every female teacher he's ever had (anyone notice the dearth of positive female educators in this film?), or they are going to get the "I want a bad boy" from most young women. I tell him to just be decent, humble you, and sooner or later you'll find the minority of decent women out there. Take a look at online dating profiles of women. What's the two characteristic almost every woman asks for? "You have to be confident and make me laugh all the time." They don't want a real person. They don't know what to do with them when they find one. Full time confidence and weakness and vulnerability don't jibe, my dears.

I'll start with saying I understand the motivation behind making this film. I think there needs to be much more discussion about these sorts of issues. There is a lot of social dysfunction in the world and men suffer the consequences and are a big part of the causes of this dysfunction. But so are women and they don't feature at all in this film, like they are just spectators or victims and not active participants. They had lots of guys sharing their experiences and that's nice and its important to tell those stories, but I consider myself an average guy and I never had any of these issues. I don't see myself or any of my friends in this film. It's like they missed out whole sections of society Because I can't see myself in the film I draw the conclusion that this film isn't relevant to me or the people I know. This perception may not be correct, but that's the way I see it. I thought in some respects this was a really silly and annoying film. It started by suggesting that masculinity is bad and not real because it's just a distortion or absence of femininity (like how darkness is absence of light and not "a real thing"). That put me off right from the start. I hoped it would get better but it didn't.Having just watched it, I can't actually recall many facts that were relevant. Mostly how boys/men are bad and bad things happen to them and how they perform worse than girls etc. Plus just lots of random people spouting their opinions without much justification. We are supposed to just take "experts" opinions as facts. This annoyed me even more. People can't seem to tell the difference between facts and opinion and there is no credible contrarian view when appropriate, so this is just a big propaganda piece (some parts). This film doesn't use facts of logic, it uses emotional appeal, manipulation and biased opinions. Nothing wrong with that as long as people are aware. Then they say insanely stupid stuff like: "boys can't tell the difference between reality and video games." That really got me mad. I run around lopping off people's heads with light sabers, but that doesn't influence me in real life in the slightest. I thought it was a bit rich that a film about men and masculinity was directed and produced entirely by women. Imagine a film entirely directed and produced by men, about femininity, telling women they need to do this and that. I'm not saying you can't do that, it just doesn't carry as much weight for me. Plus I guess its OK if you buy into the narrative that men and women are all the same (which I don't).I did like the last 5min though. Generally a good summary that gets some key points across.I wanted to like this film, but if I were to summarize the message of the film, it would be: "Men are bad and need to be more like women and just accept that as fact because we said so."I gave it a 3 because I didn't like the film, but I didn't hate it enough to give it a worse rating. It is a topic that needs more discussion, just not like this.

Such an important topic, namely trying to get to the route of masculinity to understand more fully why good boys oft turn into bad men ... and maybe, what we as a society, can do about this. But this documentary misses the mark, and turns out to be a confused, meandering, expose using irrelevant shock stats, several dubious commentators (and several excellent ones) and sadistic raw footage to villanise the male. The finger of blame is pointed at fathers, schoolyard bullies, schools, social hierarchy, TV, Hollywood movies, Internet Porn, Video Games, sport culture and rap. The message is that male dominance is endemic and pervasive, resulting in a small percentage of sensitive male teens become alienated, depressed, violent and possibly suicidal and *all* women being at risk of rape, violence and abuse. The female aspect needs exploration in a separate documentary, and to confuse the two in a documentary that masquerades as a factual narrative explaining the modern-male psyche is a big miss.