Tandem parking = you get two parking spaces, but the first car gets blocked in my the second. Better than only one parking space, but not as good as two non-tandem parking spaces. The author is trying to be cute like these are silly made up phrases, but this is a real and matter of fact description of a parking set…

The film isnt about the racism though. Its just not. It exists, as in real life, as a thing that happens that no one really cares about, at least in small town white america.

His bigotry costs him everything.

And it’s a black man that serves him justice.

His character flaws are part of his character, they’re not a major part of the story.

Why do you think the director should have gone further with that and turned it into a deeper subplot?

No one has said that to me either.

You want to know why a complex dramatic work about anger and forgiveness didn’t shoehorn a polemic subplot about the evils of racism in somewhere? Because that would’ve been dumb.

I haven’t seen this yet, but it seems unfair to me that someone with a rotten character flaw can’t also carry some good in them. Otherwise everyone’s just a stereotype, and that’s not particularly interesting.

Actually, I don’t think Three Billboards remotely cares if it is viewed as “woke”.

It is actually great.

Did we watch the same film?

It’s an inconvenient, uncomfortable movie about uncomfortable people who can be very ugly to each other and leave a lot unresolved. You are supposed to feel uncomfortable finding humanity in Rockwell because of how viscerally loathsome he was for the first half - I know I was uncomfortable. I also know it all felt…

I think if you made Rockwell violent and angry but not a racist, and still a cop, the reaction would be: “Oh, so we’re just not going to ADDRESS how RACIST cops can be???”

I don’t think the billboard guy forgives the racist cop. He gives him some orange juice when they find themselves in the same hospital room, but a small act of kindness toward someone who’s wronged you isn’t necessarily forgiveness.

It would’ve been entirely disingenuous for him to make a complete 180 in the film and “learn” something from what happened to him. Someone who has spent their entire existence as a violent, racist, homophobic P.O.S. is going to need a lot more than a few days for any kind of real turnaround. Hell, it might take…

It’s really hard to critique a movie and it’s message when you haven’t actually seen it.

Agreed. There was no redemption for any character. All of this criticism doesn’t really resonate with me.

Chicago is Midwest. They’re just trying to say that they’re better than the rest of the Midwest, which has the rural, culture-less stereotype.

I don’t care how long you’ve lived there. Chicago is in the Midwest, a Midwestern city, therefore, Chicago is Midwest, just like Minneapolis, Detroit, and St. Louis. That’s some urban elitism shit, buying into stereotypes that Midwest means ignorant white people in corn fields. I live in Minneapolis, which is…

I don’t see the ending as a redemption for McDormand or Rockwell.

So, we complain about the trend of movies bowing to audience expectations, and then we slam movies for not being as woke (or the wrong kind of woke) as we expect them to be?

Which is pretty shocking in it’s own right that anyone would willingly say that about themselves considering Pepsi tastes like absolute garbage.