Thanks for the memories!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

"Pink Floyd The Wall" is a study on a rock star's descent into depression, madness, and ultimate realization of what his life has been. Pink Floyd songs add as much to the meaning of the movie as the visuals (which are live and animated). I was in my early teens when I first saw this movie, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Viewing it for the second time in my forties, I understand it very clearly, and look upon it as a modern work of art. My most memorable, movie moment of "Pink Floyd The Wall" is the sequence where a fascist group has a rally and then take to the streets to destroy anyone who is not like them. This is especially notable today in America, where there is a growing movement of intolerance, hatred, and prejudice.Mannysmemorablemoviemoments

Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982): Dir: Alan Parker / Cast: Bob Geldof, Christine Hargreaves, Jenny Wright, Eleanor David, Alex McAvoy: Compelling dark musical masterpiece exploiting the walls of isolation. The film exposes numerous factors that contribute to this wall. Bob Geldof plays a cynical rock star found overdosed on drugs in his trashed hotel room. Flashbacks indicate his lonely childhood, mockery at school, an overbearing mother, his failed marriage, and his father's death in the war. His rage takes full effect as a groupie hovers in a corner as he trashes the room and sends a TV crashing to the ground below. Pink Floyd's title track brings conviction as a classroom becomes a slaughterhouse to faceless students marching in matching uniforms. Tremendous direction by Alan Parker aided by Pink Floyd whose lyrics fuel the story. It is also highlighted with exquisite animated segments. Geldof is ideal and dead to the world as his mind conjures up images of death, destruction and a possible ray of hope in the final scene. Christine Hargreaves plays his mother who neglects him. Jenny Wright plays a groupie who gets more than she bargained for in her attempt to seduce. Eleanor David plays his wife who answers neglect with an affair. Alex McAvoy as the strict teacher who spews a famous quote from the film. Visual masterpiece about breaking through to sanity again. Score: 10 / 10

When I first watched this film in my teenage years I really didn't get it, but then again the only reason that I watched it was because it was Pink Floyd. I then lent the movie to my boss and never saw it again (the moral of this story being – never lend a movie to your boss). Anyway, there is so much in this film that it is impossible to actually talk about it in the limited space on an IMDb review, however you can always go to Wikipedia, look at the discussion boards, or even visit my blog (sarkology.net) if you want to find out more about what is going on – especially if you are like me in my teenage years in that you loved the music, but the film simply went over your head.Anyway, I recently saw it again and surprisingly it made a lot more sense (probably because I am a lot older, and have seen quite a few weird and wonderful films such as this). You could say that it is basically an extended video clip of the entire Pink Floyd album The Wall, however it is much more than that (but if you do like the music then why not – watch it as an extended video clip). The film itself is very dark, and actually quite disturbing – especially if you are in the music industry, but then again Pink Floyd never shied away from attacking the music industry in their songs. According to Wikipedia, the production of the film eventually led to the split between Roger Waters and David Gilmor (and thus the end of what I considered the classic age of Pink Floyd).The film itself sticks closely, but not strictly, to the unity of time and place. If you have seen the film you may ask how, and my suggestion is that the film appears to take place over the period of a day, and most of the action occurs in the head of the protagonist, the rock musician Pink Floyd. The film opens with him sitting in a grungy hotel room watching television, and then goes through a series of flashbacks where we learn about the death of his father in World War II, his time as a child in the fifties, his failed marriage, and his descent into madness. We then cut back to the real world where his managers break down the door, inject him with amphetamines and drag him onto the stage where we are then thrown back into his hallucinatory world where he is a fascist dictator roaming the streets of London.The film touches on a lot of areas of modern society, such as the horror of war and how it not only tears apart families, but destroys the lives of innocent people; the modern education system that turns individuals into clones; the emptiness of the modern technological society; and the realities of the rock and roll lifestyle in that it is not as fulfilling as the media makes it out to be. The Wall is certainly a very confronting and challenging movie, and certainly deserves the accolades that it received (including the number 3 box office spot behind ET and An Officer and a Gentleman – but they were going to be really hard to beat – still, it is now a cult classic where as the two the beat it are quaint movies from the Eighties).

From my point of view - The Wall was, pretty much, just a mindlessly meandering, 90-minute rock video, showcasing the finger-pointing rantings & ravings of a whiny, self-destructive pop star named Mr. "Pink" Floyd, who turned out to be a delusional pothead seriously addicted to TV.Haunted by unhappy childhood memories, "Pink" (clearly an unbalanced Neo-Nazi wannabe) shaves off his eyebrows and inevitably loses his already precarious grip on reality.In spite of some impressive, in-your-face imagery, I'd say that the viewer would have to be well-beyond the "comfortably numb" stage to take The Wall's "We-Don't-Need-No-Education/We-Don't-Need-No-Thought-Control" nonsense at face value.When it came to utterly dry and humorless storytelling, The Wall certainly delivered its little tale of modern-day madness in aces.With its screenplay written by none other than Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd), I'd say that this dude definitely bit off more than he could chew with the likes of such a heavy-handed project as this.And when it comes to director Alan Parker, I think that if this guy had any rational sense he would've steered clear of this inevitable "train wreck" and tackled a more promising production.Yes, folks - "The child has grown. The dream is gone."