philosophy in film

[iambiguous]

A slice of life. One that can only be understood if one is born into it…born and bred to absorb and internalize it into a “reality” that makes sense. But it is not a frame of mind many in the West are attuned to. More “Buddhistic” as it were.

This is the director who gave us Vertical Ray of the Sun above. So you know that, if nothing else, it’s going to be gorgeous to look it. And is it ever.

But this story unfolds back in the1950s and 1960s.

Some families are able to afford servants. And these servants call the man of the house “master”. And from time to time this particular master takes all the household money and just disappears for stretches of time. Presumably with other women.

And then there’s the terror Tin. He’s always tormenting someone. Usually Mui. Farting and urinating as he pleases. And Grandmother who never comes downstairs. She spends all her time praying.

Or the writer from an upper class family. Mui is only his servant girl but she is very beautiful. Enough said?

Anyway, Mui takes it all in as though fitting it into some totality that is just somehow “there”. Everything is entirely ordered. Which means everything is entirely necessary.

But here’s the thing though: It is as if these people lived entirely cleaved from the historical reality of Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, the country was at war. First against the French and then against the Americans. In turn, it was enmeshed in a civil war between the North and the South. Smack dab in the middle of the Cold War. The only hint of this however is the siren announcing the nightly curfew.

So perhaps it is imagining a world in which none of these terrible things exist. Or at least not for those able to shove them way into the background.

Here’s a film that lives and breathes a subjunctive sense of life. But out on an island somewhere all its own.

The very last image is of Buddha.

IMDb

[b]This was the first Vietnamese film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It lost to Belle Epoque from Spain.

Although the cast and crew of the film are mostly Vietnamese and the film takes place in Vietnam, it was actually filmed completely on a sound stage in Boulogne, France.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scent_of_Green_Papaya
trailer: youtu.be/1onAxSm4zVE

THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA [Mùi Du Du Xanh] 1993
Written and directed by Tran Anh Hung

[iambiguous]

A fictionalized account of a true story. This one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenson_v._ … aconite_Co.

There are men and then there are working class men. Sometimes that doesn’t make any difference and sometimes it does.

I worked in the ship yards and in the steel mills. So I can attest to the all the shit women had to put up with. Some of it revolved around sexual harassment and some of it revolved around the mentality that women were taking jobs from men: “They don’t belong here.” And the folks who know anything at all about capitalism know how bosses are quite adept at pitting workers against each. That’s what they do here. They pit all the other women against Josey for being a “troublemaker”. As though it was her behavior that started it all.

And this was the time when many, many heavy industry jobs were going overseas. So there were fewer such jobs around. So scapegoating was especially effective.

If capitalism was able to create enough living wage jobs there’d be less of this around. But it’s not. In fact in today’s world the more common refrain is, “you’re lucky to have a job at all.”

It took lots of guts to buck a system this entrenched. To be one of the first, in other words. Some of these guys were real pigs. And not just the ones in the pit.

And where the fuck was the union? At the forefront of reaction here.

Something like this can bring out either the best or the worst in people. But it’s gratifying to watch those for whom it brings out the worst…and then the best. The experience changes them forevermore.

Look for Anita Hill.

IMDb

[b]Some of the women standing up in the last courtroom scene were real plaintiffs.

The movie is based on the case: Jenson v. Eveleth Mines and is reported in the book: Class Action. The Josey Aimes character was in real life a woman named Lois Jenson who went to work for the mines in 1975 and endured 13 years of harassment before filing her first legal complaint of sexual harassment. By the time she received compensation from the company (in 1999) her children were all grown up and she had been forced to quit working because she was too disabled to work (as a result of harassment). She was raped and had a son, but it wasn’t when she was in high school. It was when she was older.

All of the incidents of harassment depicted in the movie actually did occur to various women. The incident where a porta-pottie is tipped over with a woman miner inside happened twice. The incident where a miner ejaculated onto a woman miner’s clothes in her locker occurred three times. Many more incidents of harassment occurred than could be shown in a 2 hour movie.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country_(film
trailer: youtu.be/jXkVQm0QPyY

NORTH COUNTRY [2005]
Directed by Niki Caro

[b]Josey [to lawyer in court]: Lady, you sit in your nice house…clean floors, your bottled water, your flowers on Valentine’s Day… and you think you’re tough? Wear my shoes. Tell me tough. Work a day in the pit, tell me tough.

…

Title card: In 1975, the iron mines of Northern Minnesota hired their first female miner. By 1989, male miners still outnumbered females by thirty to one.

…

Glory [noticing Josey’s wedding ring]: Married? Who’s the lucky?
[Josey looks distressed, licks her finger and starts to remove the ring]
Glory: Who’s the unlucky?
Josey: Me, I s’pose.

…

Josey: I haven’t made a decision yet. But the mine pays six times what I’m making now.
Hank [father]: Do you have any idea how many accidents there’ve been since this started? Somebody will be killed because of them women.

…

Glory: You know they don’t want us up there. Right?
Josey: Yeah, I got that.

…

Arlen: The mine is a shit pit. Dirt everywhere. Loud as all get-out. You’ll be hauling, lifting, driving and all sorts of other things a woman shouldn’t be doing, if you ask me…but the Supreme Court didn’t ask me, did they?

…

Arlen [to Josey]: The doctor says you look darn good under those clothes - sense of humor ladies, rulo numero uno.

…

Pavich: Do you even know what’s going on out there? Sweetheart, this country’s elected a president who’s letting the world flood our market with cheap steel. We’re knee-deep in layoffs. Mines are closing left and right.
Josey: What’s this got to do with Earl laying hands on Sherry like that?
Pavich: Are you hearing a word of what I’m saying? You’re taking jobs where there aren’t any to take. These boys aren’t your friends. I’m not your friend. You got no business being here and you damn well know it. But you’re not hearing that, are you? So let’s try something new. How about: Work hard, keep your mouth shut and take it like a man. All right?

…

Glory [to Josey]: Honey, you gotta get a gator’s skin on, you’re gonna work in this stinkhole. Just promise me something, do not go to Arlen with this one. Keep whining and moaning. We’re doing the exact thing they want us to do. Screw that. We can take any crap they dish out, can’t we?

…

Pavich [in court]: Look, men will always walk the line. It’s when they cross over it is when most gals give them a slap on the hand get them back on their side of that line. That’s how men and women have been handling problems since Adam and Eve.

…

Josey: I work damn hard every day, same as you.
Hank: Oh, now you’re the same as me.
Josey: Oh, no. There’s a few differences. You don’t go scared of what they write about you on walls…or what kind of disgusting thing you might find in your locker. You don’t gotta be scared that one of these days you’ll come to work and get raped.
Hank: You done?
Josey [after he walks out]: Yeah, I’m done.

…

Josey: I’m sorry, I’m not resigning.
Pearson [the mine owner]: Mr. Pavich will take care of the details.
Pavich: Happy to.
Josey: No. I’m not quitting. I need this job.
Pearson: Well, then I suggest you spend less time stirring up your female co-workers and less time in the beds of your married male co-workers…and more time trying to find ways to improve your job performance.

…

Bobby [grabs Josey and pins her to the ground]: You like that, don’t you? You like that. To grab your pussy like that, don’t you? I forgot you like it a little rough.
[he gets off of her]
Bobby: You’re gonna learn the goddamn rules if I have to beat them into you myself.

…

Bill: Look, Josey, the illusion is that all your problems are solved in a courtroom. The reality is that even when you win, you don’t win.
Josey: I know, but I’m right.
Bill: I’m sure you are, but right has nothing to do with the real world. Look at Anita Hill. Because she’s you. You think you’re outgunned at the mine, wait till you get to a courtroom. It’s called the “nuts and sluts defense.” You’re either nuts and you imagined it, or a slut and you asked for it. Either way, it’s not pleasant. Take my advice. Find another job. Start over.
Josey: I don’t have any start-over left.
Bill: Look, you’re a beautiful girl…
Josey: Yeah, I’m a beautiful girl. I could find a guy to take care of me. I’m done looking to be taken care of. I wanna take care of myself. Take care of my kids.[/b]

This is what she was up against back then. And this from the folks who believe her.

[b]Kyle: Pearson would never settle.
Bill: Sure he would.
Kyle: No. It would be her word against everybody else.
Bill: All the guys up there can’t be bad, which makes some of them witnesses.
Kyle: That mine is bread and butter for people around here. Nobody wants to shit where they eat.

…

Bill: You know what a class action is? It’s when a bunch of plaintiffs have the same issue. File a claim on behalf of the whole group, the class. It’s tough for the company to argue that you’re all lying. You’re all crazy. It’s why you have to get the others.
Josey: Why’d you change your mind?
Bill: It’s never been done before. Sexual harassment class action.
Josey: So you’d be doing this just because it’s never been done.
Bill: Yeah. Can you live with that?

…

Leslie: If she gets any other women, they’ll get their class and you’ll lose this case.
Pearson: Leslie, why do you think I hired you? Because you’re the smartest lawyer I could find? No. I hired you because you were the smartest woman lawyer I could find. But if you’re getting soft, I need to know now.
Leslie: I’m not soft. But I am pragmatic.
Pearson: Do the Minnesota Vikings have to put a girl in at quarterback? Of course not. Some things are for men and some things are for women. Mining is men’s work.
Leslie: Like lawyering?
Pearson: See, a man would never say something like that. Women take everything too personally.

…

Leslie: You’re gonna take it personally if she wins. First of all, you’re not insured for punitive damages. Plus, a loss here will change the way you run your business. Porta-Johns will be a blip on the radar. There’ll be paid leave for pregnancies. Lawyers to draft sexual-harassment policy. Not to mention that you will have helped establish a legal precedent that will affect every single company in America including the Minnesota Vikings.

…

Hank: My name is Hank Aimes. And I been a ranger all of my life. But I ain’t never been ashamed of it till now. When we take our wives and daughters to the company barbecue I don’t ever hear anybody calling them those names like “bitches” and “whores” and worse. I don’t ever see nobody grabbing them by their privates or, you know, drawing pictures of them on the bathroom walls doing unspeakables. Unspeakables. So, what’s changed? She’s still my daughter. Isn’t she? It’s a heck of a thing…watch one of your own get treated that way, you know. You’re all supposed to be my friends. My brothers. Well, right now, I don’t have a friend in this room. Fact is, the only one here that I’m not ashamed of…is my daughter.

…

Bill: What are you supposed to do when the ones with all the power are hurting those with none? Well for starters, Bobby, you stand up. Stand up and tell the truth. You stand up for your friends. You stand up even when you’re all alone. You stand up.

…

Kyle [reading on Glory’s behalf]: My name is Glory Dodge and I’m not fucking dead yet. I stand with Josey.

…

Ttitle card: The real women of the Mesaba Iron Range won their case in court. They received a modest financial settlement, but more importantly, they got the one thing that management didn’t want to give – a sexual harassment policy that would protect them and all other women who came after them.[/b]

[iambiguous]

They start out picking bananas but were both born with a gift. One for kicking a ball into the net, the other for stopping it.

One day they are walking down some obscure back road in Mexico and lo and behold, there’s Dario Vidali. Better known as “Baton”. In the world of futbol, he is a renouned talent scout. But now he’s just a guy with a flat tire. Tato and Beto help him out and then he watches them play. Eventually he shoots them right to the top of the world. One at a time as it were.

Of course along the way money changes hands over and over and over again. Talent, apparently, isn’t all that counts if you actually want to play the game. Everyone seems to have a cut of one or another percentage. But once you do make it big [down there] you’re a cross between a rock star and God. Still, if you are emotionally and intellectually shallow before the fame that’s not likely to change much after it. Mostly they’re preoccuped with accummulating “things”.

And one is addicted to gambling. Only he’s not very good at it. And the other wants to marry a woman who is only in it for the money. And then all the other things out there that can fuck up your life.

Sometimes it seems Gael García Bernal is in every goddamn movie ever made. Well, South of the Border anyway.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudo_y_Cursi
trailer: youtu.be/zAMlwcJchoQ

Rudo y Cursi [2008]
Written and directed by Carlos Cuarón

[b]Dario [voiceover]: A while back some wanker told me the most beautiful game ever invented began with the severed head of a soldier. And the enemy’s brutal kick. The first goal ever, unofficially, was when the head flew between two trees. Dreadful I said. That depends said the wanker. Dreadful for the goalkeeper, but for the striker it was glorious.

…

Beto: What the fuck?
Tato: What do you mean?
Beto: I said aim to the right. Why’d you shoot the other way?
Tato: I aimed right!
Beto: I meant the other right!

…

Dario [voiceover]: They say the first wars were between brothers. Then came games to prevent them though symbolic imitation of war. Pity, nowadays wars are mistaken for games and games for wars. Especially between brothers.

…

Dario [voiceover]: All life is a gamble, a ball hits the goalpost, or goes in for a goal. What makes the difference? Destiny, of course. That and the effect given to the ball when it’s kicked.

…

Dario [voiceover]: The bench is purgatory. It’s like quicksand, the longer you stay, the deeper you sink. It’s like taking your bride on a honeymoon, then not being able to make love, but having to watch 22 cretins and three bobbies have their way with her while thousands cheer.

…

Beto: That’s my cock!

…

Tato [to Beto]: Look, all they left was your dad’s painting. You lost all my stuff gambling, didn’t you?!

…

Man on the street [accosting Tato]: If you don’t play like you used to against Noparleros, we’ll beat the shit out of you. We know where you live, where you train, where you hang out…so you better play to win, asshole.
[he hands Tato a notepad]
Man on the street: Can I have your autograph?

…

Dario [voiceover]: Ever since futbol became a business, everything rides on results. No more joy in the game, only fear remains. No one takes chances because they cannot fail. It’s like living with a gun to your head.[/b]

And when the fix is in he personifies it.

Dario [voiceover]: Penalty means punishment. But only one man is penalized, the one who fails. The winner is covered in glory. If both are penalized, that means the grand game of life has defeated the beautiful game of futbol.

[iambiguous]

Irony abounds here. This film is based on the [incredible] book by Norman Mailer. It portrays a man who was in and out of prison his whole life. Gary Gilmore. One day he is released into the “general population” that is all the rest of us. But he never really makes the adjustment. And he hasn’t really changed at all. He ends up killing someone. And then someone else. Back he goes. Ironic because Mailer himself was instrumental in the release of another prisoner who, once out, killed a man. This one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abbott

This DVD is the infamous “director’s cut”. It pissed off a lot people. Why? Because it’s practically the only director’s cut that chops stuff out of the film instead adding footage to it. Apparently there were two versions filmed. One for the American audience and one for the rest of the world. Nudity and expletives gone. But since I have only ever seen the US rendition I’m not really sure what is missing. But others also insist that additional scenes were taken out too. That this is but a pale immitation of the original.

Again, Gilmore’s problem is that he has been in prison for so long he doesn’t know how to behave outside of it. And in prison inmates learn to survive from day to day in a vicious, dog eat dog world. He is basically a walking and talking id. He thinks with his gut. It’s hard for him not to just take what he wants. And fuck everyone else. In short, he’s a piece of shit.

And then he meets Nicole, an unwed mother of two. Apparently, she has spent her entire life on welfare. He’s 35, she’s 19. She’s the gasoline, he’s the match. Except when he’s the gasoline and she’s the match.

That’s the first part. The second part revolves around the death penalty. After he gets convicted and is sentenced to death he demands that they actually do it. But others out there are opposed to capital punishment so their aim is to keep him alive. His execution would be the first in 10 years. Here in America anyway.

Then the sensationalism kicks into high gear: the suicide pact, the political posturing, the histrionics. Finally, the part about Gilmore – his story – becoming a commodity. Something you can sell books regarding or shoot a film about. Stick it on TV and plaster commercials throughout.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execut … Song_(film
gary gilmore at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gilmore

THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG [TV movie 1982]
Directed by Lawrence Schiller from the book by Norman Mailer

[b]Title card: In the Spring of 1976, Gary Gilmore, who had served a sentence of 12 years for armed robbery, was paroled from the federal penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, into the custody of his cousin, Brenda. They had not seen each other since childhood.

…

Gary [watching a voluptuous young woman walk out of Vern’s shoe repair shop]: Look at that man. I ain’t seen nothing like that in twelve solid years. Mama! Shake it!!

…

Gary: Will you go to a motel with me?
Woman: No. I am here to be your friend. If the other is what you want you better look someplace else.
Gary: I’m sorry but I haven’t been around girls in a long time.
Woman: You can’t have it all in five minutes, Gary. You have to earn it bit by bit.
Gary: You know, you got it real easy.
Woman: Listen, I work hard. I’ve worked super hard to have my home and my car and my color TV.
Gary [disgusted]: Jesus, I don’t want to hear any more of that.
Woman: Well you’re gonna.
[Gary turns abruptly, angrily in her direction]
Woman: You want to hit me, don’t you?

…

Gary: I guess you think I eat like a pig just gobbling it down.
Vern: I noticed you eat fast.
Gary: You see, in prison you get 15 minutes to get your food, sit down, eat it and get out of there…otherwise you don’t eat.

…

Nicole: Don’t start what you can’t finish.

…

Gary: Go down on me, partner… I need it
Nicole: Don’t call me partner.
Gary: No, darlin’… I love it… I love it
Nicole: Yeah, you and seven other motherfuckers.

…

Gary: Katherine, I want you to take these cans of beer, they’re stolen property.
Katherine: My gosh, aren’t you afraid to do that?
Gary: No, I just walk in like I own the place.

…

Gary [pointing a gun at a gas station attendant he just robbed]: This one is for me. This one is for Nicole.

…

Val [reading the paper about the gas station robbery]: Judas priest. Do you believe this guy? What kind of an idiot would do that? Kill a guy for nothing. I can understand if he has to fight for the money. But anybody who’d take the cash and take the kid into the bathroom, lay him on the floor and shoot him in the back of the head twice, I mean, he’s got to be a psycho-maniac.
Gary: Maybe that guy deserved to die, Val.
Val: Come on, Gary, to shoot a kid for nothing, you’d have to be crazy, man.

…

Gary: You think Nicole has gone out with another man?
Brenda: I don’t know, Gary.
Gary: I think I’m going to kill her.

…

Sterling: Gary, I should take you to the hospital.
Gary: Hospitals don’t understand ex-convicts with gunshot wounds.

…

Gary [in a letter to Nicole]: I’m so used to hosility, deceipt, pettiness, evil and hatred. These things are my natural habitat. They have shaped me. I look through the world with eyes that suspect, doubt, fear, hate. All selfish and vain. I truly belong in a place this dank and dirty.

…

Judge: Since the verdict of the jury is death do you have an election as to the mode of death.
Gary: I prefer to be shot.

…

Boaz [to a reporter’s question regarding why Gilmore did what he did]: The prison system is a totally regimented and controlled way of life. For more than a dozen years Gary Gilmore was told when to go to bed, when to get up, when to eat. That is totally contradictory to our capitalist lifestyle. Then one day they put Gary out on the street and they say, “here, today is magic…now you’re a capitalist. Go out and do it on your own. Find a job, get up in the morning, get to work on time, manage your own money. Do everything we taught you how not to do in prison.” It’s guarenteed to fail.

…

Brenda: I’m wondering Gary how come you didn’t take enough pills to do the job?
Gary: What are you talking about?
Brenda: Gary, come on, you know a whole lot about drugs. You know how much to take. I bet you wanted to stay around long enough to make sure Nicole was dead.
Gary: You are a wretched woman.
Brenda: And you are a scum sucking pig.

…

Larry: In effect, I am offering Gary $50,000. This is a firm offer, not just a bargaining stance. These are the real prices that are available. There are other producers who will tell you the property is worth 10 million dollars. Watch them only offer a small amount now. The likelihood is the big piece will never be seen.
Vern: Mr Susskind called me from New York. He said the difference between him and you is the difference between a high school football team and the Dallas Cowboys.

…

Gary [to Larry]: Who is going to play me in the movie?

…

Gary [protesting his brother Mikal’s plans to appeal]: But you don’t have live here, I do.

…

Gary [to Mikal]: When they first sent me to juvenile, two boys held me down and raped me. I had to buck it. Two years later I was the one holding the new kids down.

…

Gary [at press conference]: It seems the people of Utah want to have the death penalty, but they don’t want to have any executions.[/b]

[iambiguous]

I think I am in love with Sarah Silverman. So for obvious reasons I’m going to love this movie. Even if I don’t.

And though I’m a big fan of Michelle Williams, I can’t think of her in any other film but Wendy and Lucy. So I pretend she is someone else. Like, say, Carey Mulligan. At the same time, I don’t really like Seth Rogen. I don’t even know why. So, for all those reasons alone, this is a complex movie for me to react to.

There must be a couple billion relationships like this one. You love and/or like your spouse but there is just something missing. Or it’s been going on now for years. Then you meet someone new [at work, in the gym, on a plane etc,] and something just sparks. Sexually, emotionally…a sharing of interests. You make each other laugh. You hardly know each other but already you feel secure enough to be a smartass. Before long you want both of them. The old and the new.

And everyone knows what it’s like when you first fall in love, right? With someone new. But sooner or later someone new becomes someone old too. And the part you loved about the old is now missing in the new. And there are parts about the new that really, really begin to irk you. But try as you might you can’t stop wanting to have them both.

There are just so many different combinations of variables here. It’s the way life is.

See if you can spot the gratuitous full frontal nudity.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_This_Waltz_(film
trailer: youtu.be/0yPzc_REvhU

TAKE THIS WALTZ [2011]
Written and directed by Sarah Polley

[b]Daniel [to Margot]: Who orders milk on a plane? It’s tomato juice asshole, that’s what you order on a plane.

…

Daniel: What are you afraid of?
Margot: I’m afraid of wondering if I will miss the plane. I don’t like being inbetween things. I’m afraid of…I’m afraid of being afraid.
Daniel: Sounds like the most dangerous thing in the world.

…

Margot [seemingly out of the blue]: I’m married.
Daniel: Oh. That’s too bad.
[he gets out of the taxi]
Daniel [pointing to the house across the street]: That’s too bad cause I live right here.
Margot: Oh shit.

…

Margot: You look so well.
Geraldine: I know. Really. I look in the mirror and want to fuck myself.

…

Margot [holding a painting Daniel made of her]: I guess my response is…Fuck you.

…

Sign on Daniel’s wall: WHY WOULD I LEAVE MY IDEAS TO YOUR IMAGINATION?

…

Margot: Sometimes I’m walking along the street and a shaft of sunlight falls in a certain way across the pavement and I just wanna cry. And then a second later, it’s over. I decide because I’m an adult, to not succumb to the momentary melancholy. And I thought that sometimes with Tony, she just had a moment like that. A moment of not knowing how or why, and she just let herself go into it and there was nothing anyone could do to make it any better. It was just her and the fact of being alive, colliding.
Daniel: Or maybe you just didn’t figure out what it was.

…

Margot: I’d like to make a date to kiss you.
Daniel: Well…my schedule’s fairly flexible.
Margot: Is it flexible in 30 years?
Daniel: 30 years?
Margot: I’d like to see you at the lighthouse in Louisbourg. I’d like to meet you there. I’ll be 58, I don’t know how old you’ll be…
Daniel: I’ll be 59.
Margot: I’d like to see you there, on this date, at…2PM. Eastern Standard time. August 5th, 2040, I’d like to kiss you. Until then, I’m married. But after 35 years of being faithful to my husband I think I’ll have earned one kiss from you.

…

Margot: Lou is a really excellent cook.
Daniel: If you like chicken.

…

Daniel: How was your anniversity?
Margot: It was okay.
Daniel: Okay?
Margot: Yeah. He’s…he’s the kindest, gentlest person in the world.
Daniel: He seems sweet. He sweems to love you very much.
Margot: He does. And I love him.
Daniel: Is that what you came here to tell me…that you love your husband and your anniversary was okay?

…

Margot [crying]: I can’t hurt him.
Daniel: I think you need to go home now, Margot.

…

Geraldine: Life has a gap in it. It just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it like some lunatic.

…

Margot: I should’ve called. I just didn’t know what to say…
Lou: It’s hard to know, I guess.

…

Lou: Hey Margot! I just bought a new melon baller and I’d like to gouge out your eyes with it.
Margot [smiles]: Yeah, me too
Lou: Bye, Margot
Margot: Bye, Lou.[/b]

You see, it’s this game they used to play. When they loved each other.

[iambiguous]

I tried time and time again but could never really get into jazz. It’s just not the kind of music built around hooks built around the sort of emotional reactions I crave. I don’t feel what I seem to need listening to it. Of course some jazz is more soulful than others. Whatever that means. But I don’t know anything at all about creating music. I am only able to react to the music that others do.

But I can already imagine the folks scoffing at that. Still, music is invariably a personal thing. We grow up in families and communities and cultures that tend to gravitate to certain kinds. It’s marbled through and through the fortuities of dasein.

The paradox with some musicians is this: in order to create the music they love they have to live life to the fullest. But in living life to the fullest they sometimes go out on the ledge. But out there are things that can put your life in peril. Here it’s the ravages of alcohol.

How far can you go – should you go – in making someone live the way you want him to rather than the way he wants to instead? What is for his own good? When do you just have to let go?

One thing for sure. Whenever I think of how important music is to me – very – I recognize just how much that pales next to the towering passion of folks like this.

And what is truly remarkable here is how all these people interact in a world that is seamlessly integrated. The subject of race simply does not come up. To these folks it is completely irrelevant. Or is made to seem to be.

IMDb

The character of Francis Borler is based on real-life person Francis Paudras who died in 1997. The character of Dale Turner played by actual jazz musician Dexter Gordon is based on a combination of real-life jazzmen Bud Powell and Lester Young. The real-life friendship between Paudras and Bud Powell has been the subject of several books.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Midnight_(film
bebop at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop
trailer: youtu.be/3rCJz6vGoFQ

ROUND MIDNIGHT [1986]
Written in part and directed by Bertrand Tavernier

[b]Hershell: You still playing them weird chords.
Dale: Yeah. Still at it Lady Hersh.
Hershell: You drive people wild who can’t follow the tune.
Dale: Yeah, I know.
Hershell: Then you’d be out of the business.

…

Hershell [to Dale]: You know who’s going to be waiting for you at the airfield in Paris, don’t you?.. You.

…

Eddie [voiceover]: If you had seen Hershell and Dale play together, Francis, it’s something that you could never forget. They were so new and so different and yet so close. Maybe it was all those memories that made Dale leave for Paris that Friday morning. Maybe what he saw in Hershell’s eyes was too frightening and too familiar.

…

Ace: It would be the best city in the world if I could just find some okra.
Buttercup: What the hell do you know about Paris, Ace? You don’t do nothin’ but stay in that damn room in your robe and slippers cooking all day.
Ace: At least I’m doing it in Paris.

…

Dale: Hey man can you buy me a beer?
Francis: Yes.

…

Francis: You, Bird, Bud Powell, Lester Young…you have revolutionized music. Last time you played in Paris I’m in the army and going to Algeria the next morning. But I wanted to hear you play so much, I jumped over the wall. And I got ten days in jail for that.
Dale [clasping his hand]: Do you have enough dough…for another beer?

…

Dale: They’re always paying all the wrong people in this world.

…

[Drunken man downs liquor and passes out flat on his back]
Dale [to bartender]: S’il vous plait, I would like to have the same thing he had.

…

Dale: You know, it just occurred to me that bebop was invented by the cats who did get out of the army.

…

Francis [after bringing a drunken Dale home]: Ace. Did something happen tonight?
Ace: To get him like that?
Fancis: Yeah.
Ace: When you have to explore every night…even the most beautiful things that you find can be the most painful.

…

Dale: You know, one night in Brooklyn this tenor player comes in and he sits down and he listens. And then he comes up to me and says: “I play you better than you.”

…

Dale: Listen to that, Francis. The swing bands used to be all straight tonics seventh chords. And then, with the Basie band I heard Lester Young and he sounded like he came out of the blue. Because he was playing all the color tones the sixths and the ninths and major sevenths. You know, like Debussy and Ravel. Then Charlie Parker came on and he began to expand and he went into elevenths and thirteenths and flat fives. Luckily, I was going in the same direction already. You just don’t go out and pick a style off a tree one day. The tree is inside you growing naturally.

…

Buttercup [to Francis]: You ain’t doing no better than me, boy.

…

Dale: I’m tired of everything except the…the music. My life is music. My love is music. And it’s 24 hours a day.

…

Dale: But never, never again, man. Don’t cry for me. Never again, Francis.
Francis: What else can I do…when you are killing yourself.
Dale: I’ll stop.
Francis: Stop?
Dale: I promise.
Francis: How? You never stopped before.
Dale: I never promised anybody before.

…

Darcey: It was you who taught me to listen to the bass instead of the drums.
Dale: Well, you would’ve learned that in 10 to 15 years anyway.

…

Dale [to Francis]: It’s funny how the world is inside of nothing. I mean you have your heart and soul inside of you. Babies are inside of their mothers. Fish are out there… in the water. But the world…is inside of nothing. I don’t know if I like this or not, but you’d better write it down.

…

Goodley: I prefer New York. New York for me, the music is better. That’s 'cos it’s tougher - there’s tougher things going on here, you know, and that’s because there’s tougher people here. It’s not for everybody, New York, you know what I mean?

…

Dale [to Francis]: S.O.S. Same old shit.

…

Booker: Tell Dale that Booker was here. He wants something. He’ll find me.

…

Francis [referring to Dale’s daughter]: How is Chan?
Dale: Like a stranger. And it’s too late to fix it.

…

Eddie: We would like to open with a tribute to a great jazz musician, a man who died a few years ago. He passed away ahead of us, but he was always doing things… ahead of us. He wrote a song just before he died that we’d like to perform tonight for you. His name is Dale Turner.

…

Dale [voiceover]: I hope Lady Francis that we live long enough to see an avenue named after Charlie Parker. A Lester Young Park. Duke Ellington Square…and even a street named Dale Turner.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Birdy. That’s it. Throughout the entire film he is Birdy. His “real name” is never revealed. The guy was obsessed with birds. Even before he got his mind all fucked up in Vietnam. The “weird kid”.

Of course it was flying that obsessed him. Flying over all the shit down here, for example. But that’s probably just me projecting him into my own obsession.

In the novel, it was WWII…here it is Vietnam. And that makes all the difference in the world to some folks.

The human mind. The places it can go. I recall the first time I saw this film. It was with a bunch of friends. And one of them had a young daughter who was watching it with us. We come to the scene at the rendering plant. Sudddenly the little girl realizes what is going to happen to the dogs they caught. She begins to shriek and wail. Really, really loud. She’s hysterical. I’d never seen anything quite like it. Her mom can only whisk her away and take her upstairs. It traumatized her for the longest time. Then I lost contact. But I go back to it from time to time while ruminating about dasein. I still wonder about her.

As for the ending, don’t get me started. Here’s one reaction from the site Reel Psychology:
queendom.com/articles/articles.htm?a=37

I won’t reveal the ending except to say that it is unexpected, abrupt, offbeat, quirky, strangely satisfying and in an odd way, entirely appropriate to what has come before. If memory serves me correctly, I recall the audience at my initial viewing of the movie applauding.

Let’s just say, I wouldn’t have been one of them. It’s not a question of whether it is an upbeat or not. More like, what the fuck does it have to do with all the stuff I just spent two hours watching?!

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdy_(film
trailer: youtu.be/hfGwJGrLz2w

BIRDY [1984]
Directed by Alan Parker

[b]Birdy: Do you like pigeons?
Al: What’s to like?
Birdy: They fly.
Al: They fly. So what?
Birdy: That’s enough.

…

Al: Jesus, Birdy, what happened to you? That fat-gut shrink, he wants me to jog your brain by getting you to remember things we did together. Did we jack one another off? Stuff like that. I don’t trust the guy. Everything’s too interesting to him.

…

Birdy [reacting to Al extolling the female breast]: I seen a picture in National Geographic, Al. They’re just like on a cow, but in a more stupid place.

…

Birdy: You ever wondered what our lives down here must look like to a bird, Al?

…

Al: Maybe life is shitty, Birdy. It is shitty. I’ll tell you something. I’m not trying to pin life anymore. I don’t even fucking understand it. I just want to make it through with some dignity, like everybody else. Of course, if there was any real dignity, there wouldn’t be any sex.

…

Al: Excuse me Major, is there something wrong with your secretary?
Doctor Weiss: You mean the spitting?
Al: Yes.
Doctor Weiss: Ever since he was in combat, he’s had a bad taste in his mouth. Don’t worry Sergeant, we’re working on him.

…

Birdy [at school]: Flying is much more than flapping wings. A bird can flap its wings and not move an inch then when it wants to fly the slightest flick of its wings sends it up against the sky. You have to feel that air has substance and can hold you up. It’s mostly a matter of confidence.

…

Birdy [to his father]: I guess it’s kinda hard to be good at something nobody wants, huh?

…

Al [to himself watching disabled vets in the gym]: Funny, in any other war we would have been heroes. Oh, man! We didn’t know what we were getting into with this John Wayne shit. Boy, were we dumb.

…

Birdy: I’m starting to worry that I’ll never really fly the way I’ve been going. As scary as a bird’s life must be…at least they have that. They can always fly away.

…

Birdy [to himself]: It occurs to me that all I did was put two birds in the aviary. Food and water and nothing else, and now there are four of them. I know this is perfectly natural. It’s one of the things life is about. But to see it happen in my bedroom…under my own eyes…is magic. All I want to do now is watch the birds.

…

Birdy [to himself]: The dream is as real to me now as my waking life. I don’t know where one begins and the other ends. In my dreams nothing holds me down. Everything is out and away. There’s nothing in my life to keep me here anymore. I wish I could die and be born again as a bird.

…

Birdy: Last night I flew. I really know what it feels like to fly.
Al Columbato: Oh, you flew? How?
Birdy: Well, I’m not sure. It’s not something you can really take apart. When I fly, it’s like in a dream. Only it’s not a dream. The thing is, Al, you can’t really put it into words. You just kind of have to feel it.
Al: You’re telling me you can fly like a bird?
Birdy: When I fly, Al… I am a bird.
Al: This is getting too weird, Birdy. You gotta stop it with this.
Birdy: I thought if anybody would understand it would be you, Al.
Al: Well, I don’t. I don’t even wanna hear about it.
Birdy: Why?
Al [shouting]: Because I’m tired of it! We used to have fun together. Now you are always off by yourself flying around inside your goddamn head! I hope this dream or whatever it is goes away. I think it’s bullshit!!

…

Birdy [to a surprised Al, who was expecting to see him dead after “flying” off the roof]: What?[/b]

[iambiguous]

A film depicting the only open revolt that had ever taken place at Auschwitz. It is based on a true story.

A film posing the question [as so many like this do]: What would you do?

There are many, many variables that come into play here, but I always make the distinction between those who do and those who do not believe in God. It just seems easier to do the “right thing” if you expect to be rewarded for it by God [and for all eternity] after you die. If on the other hand you believe that this life is all there is, then it is not unreasonable [to me] to start from the premise that one should do whatever it takes to stay alive. Recognizing that others will draw this line in different places. So there will be consequences you might have to accept for the things you choose to do.

Here, your life is extended by four months if you cooperate. You figure a lot can happen in four months. For example, the war might end. It’s 1944 afterall. But as you get closer to extermination yourself you figure what have you got to lose? Go out with a bang. Besides, given what you do for the Nazis, wouldn’t it be unbearable to live anyway? How could you face your families, friends and loved ones. On the other hand, if you are dead you won’t face anyone ever again anyway.

There is really no way to take these things in without God. It’s all just incomprehendable, unbearable without some transcending point of view to dump it all on. And I don’t have access to that. And this particular one is nothing less than ghastly. It’s so far beyond words you just end up sputtering. The arguments we have here about morality seem utterly surreal in this context.

IMDb

A 90%/scale reproduction of the Auschwitz/Birkenau death camp was constructed near Sofia, Bulgaria, for the shooting of this film. The actual plans for the original Auschwitz camp were used to build the set.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Zone
sonderkommandos at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando
trailer: myspace.com/video/fans-of-na … r/32403747

THE GREY ZONE [2001]
Directed by Tim Blake Nelson from his play

[b]Title card: As a part of the final solution, the Nazis employed “special units” know as Sonderkommondos, to aid in the extermination process at Thrid Rech death camps. These Jewish males ushered victums into the gas chambers, and processed their corpses after gassings. In exchange for their work, they received priveileges unheard by camp standards, before being exterminated themselves after four months.

…

Hersh: You’re dead already, either way. It’s just a matter of deciding how.

…

Mengele: This isn’t our war.
Doctor Nyiszli: Not mine.
Mengele: Nor mine. I can assure you. But, to allow this all to go to waste.
Doctor Nyiszli: I understand your position.
Mengele: Clearly you do more than that.
Doctor Nyiszli: As you wish.
Mengele: Meaning?
Doctor Nyiszli: There is no meaning.
Mengele: We’re going to be increasing the volume of our research.
Doctor Nyiszli: I shall need more staff.
Mengele: Then you shall have more staff.

…

Woman #1: If they find us, what do they do with the rest of our group?
Woman #2: You’re risking your own life.
Woman #1: Why should we risk theirs?
Woman #3: You both act like we put everyone in here. I don’t make you do anything. Be like them, both of you.
Woman #1: That isn’t what she’s saying.
Woman # 3: The whole barracks will be punished. They’ll be before they’re killed. Just like us. What’s the fucking difference when you’re dead anyway?
Woman #2: We made the choice, they haven’t.
Woman #3: I’m not listening to this anymore.

…

Hersh: Escape.
Max: Wait. Who? Us? You think you think we’ll escape? Even get past two kilometers from here?
Hersh: With guns.
Max: So we kill more of them. Destroy three of the crematorium.
Hersh: And get out.
Max: Is that what you’re after?
Hersh: If I get the chance, fuck yes.
Max: You tell them, if this is about escape, we’re out.
Hoffman: How can you speak for all of us?
Hersh: You gonna speak for yourself?
Max: Are you serious? What, you’re gonna go back to your normal life? Forget that. The point is it doesn’t make any sense.
Hersh: You live to tell.
Max:You’re not going to live. You won’t make it to the Vistula.
Hersh: Others have made it.
Simon: Others from the camp, not from the kommandos. They’ll give up on someone from Buna, or the camp, but not anyone who’s been inside the crematorium. What we could tell they’ll turn Poland upside down. If we want to accomplish anything, it has to be one thing. One end. And that’s destroying the machinery.

…

Hoffman: No one would make it.
Max: Even suppose you do, do you want to look anyone in the face, if any of your family is still alive? What you’ve done for a little more life…for vodka and linens.

…

Hoffman [outside the gas chamber]: You’re all fine! The quicker you get undressed, the quicker you’ll be clean, settled and reunited with your families.
Morris: Filthy liar.
Hoffman: Remember the number of the hook you hang your clothes on!
Morris: He’s a liar! I can’t believe it’s Jews doing this!

…

Hoffman: There’s a young girl who somehow survived the gassing. She’s still breathing. She’ll be burned alived.

…

Hersh: This is the Germans we are talking about. They stand corpses in the snow to get the proper count. Don’t fuck this up for one life! You’ll be shot on the spot and so will she. Then there’s an alert and our plans become impossible.
Simon: He’s right Max.
Hersh: It’ll drag us down. No single person is worth that. Look at her? Does she even have a mind left? Can she speak?
Doctor: We don’t know.
Max: We don’t kill people.
Hersh: We don’t? We put them in rooms, walk them in and strip them–look them in the face and say it’s safe.
Max: It’s not pulling the trigger.
Hersh: It’s locking them in. You leave the room. You bring them in–say it’s safe, you’ll see them when it’s over. Who put her inside? Now you think she made it through. God knows how you’re a hero.
Max: Not a hero. Not a hero, not a killer.
Hersh: What are you, Max? Better we do it than them?

…

Muhsfeldt: I never fully despised the Jews until I experienced how easily they could be persuaded to do the work here. To do it so well. And to their own people! They’ll be dead by week’s end, every soul. And we’ll replace them with others no different. Do you know how easy that will be?

…

Hoffman [to the little girl]: I used to think so much of myself… What I’d make of my life. We can’t know what we’re capable of, any of us. How can you know what you’d do to stay alive, until you’re really asked? I know this now. For most of us, the answer…is anything. It’s so easy to forget who we were before… who we’ll never be again. There was this old man, he pushed the carts, and on our first day, when we had to burn our own convey, his wife was brought up on the elevator. Then his daughter… and then both his grandchildren. I knew him. We were neighbors. And in 20 minutes, his whole family, and all its future, was gone from this earth. Two weeks later, he took pills and was revived. We smothered him with his own pillow, and now I know why. You can kill yourself. That’s the only choice. I want them to save you. I want them to save you more than I want anything. I pray to God we save you.

…

Muhsfeldt: Dr. Mengele says you’re the best surgeon he’s seen ever. A Jew, even, and he admits it. Which is astonishing. He says you do the work of five men. That without you his research would be impossible.
Doctor Nyiszli: Where is this leading?
Muhsfeldt: Your expertise has quintupled the torture.
Doctor Nyiszli: I haven’t…
Muhsfeldt: Has quintupled the torture of children in this camp, and that is fact! So that you can live here as you do, which is better than any other Jew. And better than all but a handful of Germans. Including me. I haven’t seen you once protest and as the workload has increased. And you’ve saved your family. We do what we do. You make up for that with the life of this one girl?
Doctor Nyiszli: I don’t pretend.
Muhsfeldt: Good. Don’t. And who is to die in her place? No one lives here without someone else dying.
Doctor Nyiszli: I don’t believe that.
Muhsfeldt: It’s a fact of the camp. It’s numbers. There’s only so much food, so much room.
Doctor Nyiszli: This is one child.
Muhsfeldt: Which you could say about anyone. Your wife and daughter. You save one, you take the life of another. Put her in a bed, give her food someone else doesn’t get, dies or is removed. To save her is a meaningless lie.
Doctor Nyiszli: It’s your lie, Herr Oberschaarfuhrer. We want the girl to live.
Muhsfeldt: If you tell me this information, I will spare the girl.

…

Gestapo Interrogator [executing prisoners]: I could say that I don’t want to be doing this, but that wouldn’t be true.

…

Girl [voiceover]: After the revolt, half the ovens remain, and we are carried to them together. I catch fire, quickly. The first part of me rises, in dense smoke, that mingles with the smoke of others. Then there are the bones, which settle in ash, and these are swept up to be carried to the river. And last, bits of our dust, that simply float there, in air, around the working of the new group…These bits of dust are grey. We settle on their shoes, and on their faces, and in their lungs. And they become so used to us, that soon they don’t cough, and they don’t brush us away. At this point, they are just moving, breathing and moving, like anyone else, still alive in that place. And this is how the work…continues.

…

Title card: Dr Miklos Nyiszli survived internment. He died of natural causes a decade after his release from the camps, never having practiced medicine again. His wife died in the late 1970’s. The whereabouts of his daughter are unknown.

…

Title card: Of thirteen consecutive units of Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz, the twelfth rebelled. Its members destroyed nearly half the ovens. These ovens were never rebuilt.[/b]

[iambiguous]

A segmented movie in which the characters more or less interact around a theme of your own making.

My theme of course is always narratives derived from circumstances that each of us experience individually in an overlapping world intertwining millions of them. You think, that’s what I would do…or that’s not what I would do. Or why in the world would someone do that…or put up with that…or not try something different.

For example, I would never in a million years consult someone to examine my life through tarot cards. And yet I’m amazed at how much her “reading” is applicable to my life.

To the best of my recollection, this is one of the few movies I’ve seen [maybe the only one] where a woman becomes pregnant, doesn’t want to be, opts for an abortion and has one – with almost no discussion of the “moral consequences”. Matter of factly? Well, she does cry afterwards but I think that’s more because of the things Nancy told her about herself.

So, what can you tell just by looking at her? Probably just the things managing to confirm your prejudices anyway.

IMDb

A Braille book that Carol Faber reads is “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez who happens to be the father of Rodrigo García, this film’s director.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_You … ing_at_Her
trailer: youtu.be/LngW9j0y4fM

THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER [1999]
Written and directed by Rodrigo García

[b]Nancy [a bag lady]: What does your husband think about this?
Rebecca: I don’t have a husband.
Nancy: Of course you do. Show me your ring finger.
[Rebecca shows Nancy her left hand]
Nancy: Are you a lesbian?

…

Rebecca [to Nancy]: That’s the second time you’ve called me a whore.

…

Nancy: I want to walk away with the rest of your cigarettes. You can send one of your assistants to buy you more. You have men working under you?
Rebecca: Yes.
Nancy: Send one of them. They’ll hate you for it…but they’ll jack off thinking about you anyway. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

…

Doctor Keener [to Rebecca having an abortion]: Don’t look down.

…

Jay [to Rose]: I wonder what time dwarfs go to bed?

…

Albert [to Rose]: Are you sure it was me?

…

Lilly [to Christine]: But I’m scared because I’ve heard that when people are very ill and they suddenly feel better, it sometimes means that the end is near. It’s like the body makes one last effort before losing the battle altogether.

…

Carol: God says to Adam, “Adam, I have something for you, but it’s gonna cost you an arm and a leg.” Adam thinks for a moment, then decides, “What can you give me for a rib?”
Kathy: That’s funny. Where’d you hear it?
Carol: From the Bible.

…

June: Do you live alone?
Carol: No. I live with my sister. She’s a detective.
June: That’s cool. Is she single like you?
Carol: Yes.
June: She’s not blind, of course. Why isn’t she married?
Carol: I guess she just hasn’t found the right man yet.
June: Maybe she didn’t wanna leave you all alone. Is that it? That would be wrong, of course. I think a blind person is perfectly capable of living on her own. Don’t you?

…

Carol [to Kathy, imagining why Carmen committed suicide]: …maybe she was just tired of dead ends, phone calls that were never returned, promises that were never kept, tripping over the same stone. I guess we’ll never know what she was thinking. It’s just as well. These are the things that can’t be shared.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Out of the blue and then out in the middle of nowhere two sociopaths invade a family’s home and kill everyone. In cold blood.

That’s when lots of folks back then realized that, for all intents and purposes, no one was really safe. And nothing has changed since, right?

And it’s how all those dots can get connected. Some guy in a prison cell tells another guy in there with him about a safe in the house of a guy he once worked for. The guy who is told gets out and tells his buddy. But there is no safe. And four human beings are slaughtered. And there could have beem two more if Dick and Perry had arrived when Bobby was there…or if the daughter’s friend had decided to spend the night. That spooky part of human interaction we can never quite pin down.

And then there is Floyd Wells. He started the ball rolling and then was instrumental in bringing it all to a stop.

In part the film explores the makings of “the crininal mind”. All the pieces from the past that get crammed inside the heads of some folks but not in the heads of others. It’s all overwhelming then and is still all overwhelming today. There are just too many different variables that can be understood in too many different ways.

Look for the word “bullshit”. This is the first time it was ever used in a Hollywood film.

IMDb

[b]To get the authenticity he wanted, Richard Brooks filmed in all the actual locations including the Clutter house (where the murders took place) and the actual courtroom (6 of the actual jurors were used). Even Nancy Clutter’s horse Babe was used in a few scenes. The actual gallows at the Kansas State Penitentiary were used for filming the executions, however, in a 2002 interview, Charles McAtee (who was State Corrections Director for Kansas in the 1960’s), clarified the hangman in the film was an actor, not the real deal.

The two pairs of eyes pictured on the movie poster are those of the real killers, not the actors portraying them. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Cold_Blood_(film
trailer: youtu.be/7IL-4wAzVCg

IN COLD BLOOD [1967]
Written and directed by Richard Brooks from the book by Truman Capote

Dick: Them birds don’t know it, but this is their last day on Earth.

Soon he can say the same thing about the Clutters.

[b]Dick: Four hundred miles west of here, Big Daddy Clutter’s place. That’s the layout. The works. Somewhere in that office, in one little old safe. And inside that safe, $10,000…maybe more.
Perry: You’ve seen it?
Dick: The safe? Right after you left the zoo, a new guy moved into the cell. Floyd Wells, serving three to five for robbery. He once worked for Clutter. He saw it.
Dick: And that’s your perfect score?

…

Dick: Doctors and lawyers. What do they care? Ever see a millionaire fry in the electric chair? Hell, no. There’s two kinds of laws, honey: One for the rich and one for the poor.

…

Perry: That was stupid - stealin’ a lousy pack of razor blades! To prove what?
Dick: It’s the national pastime, baby, stealin’ and cheatin’. If they ever count every cheatin’ wife and tax chiseler, the whole country would be behind prison walls.

…

Perry: Why’d you pick me for this job?
Dick: A perfect score needs perfect partners. Together we’re a perfect fit.
Perry: It’s your score. Where do l fit in?
Dick: I got you figured for a natural-born killer. Or did you lie about that punk in Vegas?
Perry: No.
Dick: Why did you kill him?
Perry: No special reason. Just for the hell of it.
Dick: That’s the best reason of all. Back there, you wanted to kill me. Just for a second, right?
Perry: It passed.
Dick: Hair-trigger temper. Somebody crosses you, voom! Yes, sir. You’ve got the gift, boy.

…

Cop: Al, you knew Clutter. Did he have a safe? Keep a lot of cash on hand?
Dewey: The old Kansas myth. Every farmer with a good spread is supposed to have a hidden black box somewhere filled with money. No. Herb paid everything by check. Even a $2 haircut.
Cop: Well, then why…if they’re going to shoot them all anyway, why…why did they first cut Clutter’s throat? Why did they first put him on a soft mattress box? To make him comfy? And why the pillow under the boy’s head?

…

Dewey: I didn’t catch your name.
Jensen [playing the part of Truman Capote]: Bill Jensen, Weekly magazine.
Dewey: If you’re not here to write news, what is your interest?
Jensen: Fairly basic.
Dewey: What’s basic about a stupid senseless crime?
Jensen: A violent, unknown force destroys a decent, ordinary family. No clues. No logic. Makes us all feel frightened. Vulnerable.
Dewey: Murder’s no mystery. Only the motive.
Jensen: How’d they enter the house? A key? Force a window?
Dewey: Probably just walked in.
Jensen: Don’t people around here lock doors?
Dewey: They will tonight.

…

Dewey: The question is why they did it.
Fellow detective: Why did Cain kill Abel? And who cares? They did it, and they’ll swing for it.
Dewey: If they did it and if we can prove it.

…

Jensen [to Dewey]: At the Menninger Clinic, right here in Kansas a study was made of four killers. They all had certain things in common. They all committed senseless murders. They all felt physically inferior and sexually inadequate. Their childhood was violent, or one parent was missing. Or someone else had raised them. They couldn’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. They didn’t hate their victims, they didn’t even know them. They felt no guilt about their crime, and got nothing out of it. And most important, they told the police or a psychiatrist that they felt the urge to kill, before they committed murder. Their warnings were disregarded.

…

Dick [to Perry]: I’m SICK of it, maps, buried treasure, ALL OF IT! So ship it, burn it, get RID of that ton and a half of garbage! There AIN’T no buried treasure, and even if there WAS, boy, hell, you can’t even swim!

…

Dick: Did you see those guys? They coulda robbed us!
Perry: What of?

…

Perry: We finally found it. The sunken treasure of Captain Cortés. Three cents a bottle!

…

Dick: What’s the matter?
Perry: Us. We’re the matter. We’re ridiculous. You tapping the walls for a safe that isn’t there. Tapping like some nutty woodpecker. And me. Crawling around the floor…with my legs on fire. And all to steal a kid’s silver dollar. Ridiculous!

…

Dick [to Perry, just after they are arrested]: Hey, Buddy, put in a call for that big, ol’ Yellow Bird!

…

Cop: Why do all you people get tattooed?
Dick: “All you people”? What people?
Cop: Convicts. You’re all tattooed. That tiger head. What does it do? Make you feel tough?
Dick: That cop’s badge, what does it do? Make you feel honest? Everybody’s got a tattoo. Only you people call them clubs. Elks, Masons, Boy Scouts. Salute. High sign. Low sign. Secret this and secret that. “No trespassing. Keep off the grass.” Nice, respectable, tattoo clubs. Poker clubs, golf clubs, tennis clubs. Clubs for gambling and clubs for drinking.

…

Perry [to Dewey]: It doesn’t make sense. I mean what happened. It had nothing to do with the Clutters. They never hurt me. They just happened to be there. I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman…I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat.[/b]

And just before he kills them flashbacks to his father:

[b]Prosecutor [to jury]: Mercy for them. The killers. How fortunate that their amicable attorneys were not present at the Clutter house on that fateful evening. How very fortunate for them that they were not present that evening to plead mercy for the doomed family, because otherwise, they would have found their corpses too. If you allow them life imprisonment, they will be eligible for parole in 7 years. That is the law. Gentlemen, 4 of your neighbors were slaughtered like hogs in a pen by them. They did not strike suddenly in the heat of passion, but for money. They did not kill in vengeance, they planned it for money. And how cheaply those lives were bought. $40. $10 a life. They drove 400 miles to come here. They brought their weapons with them.
[picks up a shotgun]
Prosecutor: This shotgun.
[picks up a knife]
Prosecutor: This dagger.
[picks up a rope]
Prosecutor: This is the rope they hogtied their victims with.
[picks up a vile of blood]
Prosecutor: This is the blood they spilled. Herb Clutter’s. They who had no pity, now ask for yours. They who had no mercy, now ask for yours. They who shed no tears, now ask for yours. If you have tears to shed, weep not for them, weep for their victims.
[picks up a copy of the Holy Bible]
Prosecutor: From the way the Holy Bible was quoted here today, You might think the word of God was written only to protect the killers, but they didn’t read you this: Exodus 20:13: “Thou shalt not kill.” Or this: Genesis 9:12: “Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

…

Jensen [voiceover]: According to an expert in forensic medicine neither one of them would have done it alone. But together, they made a third personality. That’s the one that did it.

…

Dick [to the prisoner in the next cell]: Hey Andy, do them books say what happens when you hang?
Andy: Well, your neck breaks… and then you crap your pants.

…

Jensen [voiceover]: Death row has its own routine. Shower. One man at a time, once a week. Shave, twice a week. The guard locks the safety razor. Safety first. No radios, no movies, no TV. No cards, no games, no exercise. No mirrors, no bottles, no glasses. No knives, no forks. No suicide allowed. They could eat, sleep…write, read, think, dream. They could pray, if so inclined. But mostly, they just waited.

…

Perry: But that’s it. When you hit the end of the rope your muscles lose control. I’m afraid I’ll mess myself.
Prison Guard: It’s nothing to be ashamed of. They all do it.

…

Reporter: Is he the…
Jensen: Yeah.
Reporter: How much does he get paid to hang them?
Jensen: $300 a man.
Reporter: Has he got a name?
Jensen: “We, the people.”

…

Perry [just before he is hanged]: I’d like to apologize, but who to?

…

Perry: You know, there was a time once when Pop and I almost had it made. Just the two of us. He was in a fever about some new project up in Alaska. A hunting lodge for tourists. It was gonna make us a fortune better than a gold mine. But most of all, it was gonna be something we never had before: A real home. We got it built, too. Just him and me, side by side. The day the roof was finished, he danced all over it. I never was so happy in all my life. It was a beautiful home. But no tourists ever came. Nobody. We just lived there all alone in that big, empty failure…till he couldn’t stand the sight of me…I think it happened while I was eating a biscuit. He started yelling what a greedy, selfish bastard I was. Yelling and yelling till I grabbed his throat. I couldn’t stop myself. He tore loose and got a gun. He said, “Look at me, boy! Take a good look 'cause I’m the last living thing you’re gonna see.” And he pulled the trigger. But the gun wasn’t loaded. He began to cry. Bawled like a kid. I went for a long walk. When I got back, the place was dark. The door was locked. All my stuff was piled outside in the snow where he threw it. I walked away and never looked back. I guess the only thing I’m gonna miss in this world…is that poor old man and his hopeless dreams.
Priest: I’m glad you don’t hate your father anymore.
Perry: But I do. I hate him…and I love him.

…

Perry [ just before he is hung]: I think maybe I would like to apologize, but who to?

…

Perry [to priest]: Is God in this place too?[/b]

[iambiguous]

Exotica is a strip club. It’s a place where sex sells right out in the open. Only there are rules. But how do you write down a liturgy when it comes to making distinctions between fantasy and reality. Here things can tend to become murky. Or even dangerous.

The human sexual libido in this day and age is often a timebomb. Here, for example, a “teenage girl” is brought out to arouse the clientele. And then the folks who make the money can rationalize it all away: It’s better “in here” then “out there”. As though this sort of thing does not carry over into the real world.

But then this isn’t really about that at all. Unfortunately, in my view. It hints at it, but never really goes below the surface.

In the club everything seems to be right on the surface. In the flesh. Measured in dollars and cents. But when they cut to the parts outside the club, you know there are things going on here you do not really understand at all. There is a sense of foreboding throughout as people stumble about trying to make connections with others. But it is always the emotional and psychological distances that rend us more. Sexuality just complicates it all the more.

In the club. Out of the club. Trying to wrap your head around it somehow. But never really succeeding.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotica_(film
trailer: youtu.be/w6TdqnXSLaM

EXOTICA [1997]
Written and directed by Atom Egoyan

[b]Eric: Let me ask you something, gentlemen: What is it that gives a schoolgirl her special innocence? Her sweet fragrance… Fresh flowers, light as a spring rain… Oh, my god, my god… Or is it her firm, young flesh, inviting your every caress, enticing you to explore her deepest and most private secrets? Well, gentlemen, I’m gonna let you decide that one for yourselves. Please join me in welcoming a sassy bit of jailbait to our stage. Yes, indeed. Come out, sweet Chrissy! Wherever you are, baby, come on out!

…

Eric: Mmm, what? What is it? What is it that gives a school-girl her special innocence? Is it the way they smell? The sweet smell of their perfume of their hair? The aroma of fresh flowers…Is it their gestures and the way they move? The way their body still holds on to some semblance of self-respect and and dignity? When they wrap their beautiful legs around you - tight, holding on - looking at you…you looking at them. It’s just…Or is it whatever comes out of their cute little mouths? All those questions, all that wondering that…It’s just, you know, you…They got their whole lives ahead of them, you know? And you’ve wasted half of yours away. Damn. What is it?

…

Zoe: What is this thing about Eric calling you “a sassy piece of jailbait”?
Christina: What’s this thing?
Zoe: It bothers me.
Christina: Why?
Zoe: It makes you out like a child or something.
Christina: Unlike the tartan skirt and my socks or the blouse or the way I act, right?

…

Zoe: Do you find it strange that he would still want to work here?
Christina: Zoe, not all of us have the luxury of deciding what to do with our lives. It’s a job, and he’s getting paid.
Zoe: I just find it cruel.
Christina: So fire him. As a favor.
Zoe: How can you be so detached?
[and then they kiss]

…

[repeated lines]
Eric: All right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s show time at the Exotica. And just to remind you that five dollars is all it takes to have one of our lovely ladies come over to your table and show you the mysteries of their world.

…

Christina: What are you thinking?
Francis: I was just thinking, what would happen if someone hurt you?
Christina: H-How could anyone hurt me?
Francis: If I’m not there to protect you.
Christina: I-You’ll always be there to protect me.

…

Francis: As you get older you become aware that the people you meet and the person you are… um, as carrying a certain amount of baggage. And, and that baggage creates tension.
Tracey: So what do you do about it?
Francis: Well, you can pretend it’s not there…or you can choose not to have friends…or you can acknowledge that it’s there and have friends anyway.
Tracey: Like my dad?
Francis: Right.
Tracey: I don’t think that I like my dad when he’s around you.
Francis: Hmm. Well, that’s…because your dad doesn’t like himself when he’s around me. But that’s okay. That’s part of what friends do to each other.

…

Francis: You know that feeling you get sometimes, Tracey…that you didn’t ask to be brought into the world?
Tracey: Yeah.
Francis: Well, then who did?
Tracey: What?
Francis: If you think that you didn’t ask to be brought into the world…then who did? All I’m saying is nobody asked you if you wanted to be brought into the world. You just ended up getting here. So the question is, now that you’re here…who’s asking you to stay?

…

Zoe: Mr. Brown, we’re all aware of what you’ve gone through. You’ve suffered a lot. But you have to understand that Exotica is here for your amusement. We’re here to entertain, not to heal. There are other places for that.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Music pirates from Taiwan? Yeah, apparently. And they are after an illegally procured recording of an opera recittal a young postman taped surreptitiously. Which then is confused with a cassette recording of criminal evidence relating to a prostitution ring, police corruption…and murder. The worlds on these two tapes could hardly be farther removed.

A peek into the Parisian underworld [both of them] that may or may not bear any resemblance to the way it is really like. Very strange characters here. Very strange plot. Very strange elements for a “thriller”.

Serious music spoken here. With serious artistes to appreciate it. And a gang of assassins [and a couple of thugs] who don’t. I’m never entirely sure however how all the parts fit together here.

As with Glenn Gould, Cynthis Hawkins has a thing about recording music. Only, unlike Gould, she detested it. Only the live performance counted. Okay, but how many can afford to hear her there? Jules wants the world to hear her sing.

IMDb

The producers were looking for an actress who fit the description of Cynthia Hawkins (the Diva) in the original novel - a beautiful black American woman who sings a flawless operatic soprano, and speaks both English and French fluently. They attended a performance of Carmen to familiarize themselves with opera performers. Wilhelmenia Fernandez was playing the title role the night they attended the opera.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diva_(1981_film
trailer: youtu.be/NeZ-tPYzTKk

DIVA [1981]
Written and directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix

[b]Jules: Do you like jazz?
Alba: Obviously! Or I’d be stealing mambo.

…

Cynthia Hawkins: You’re that postman?
Jules: I apologize.
Cynthia Hawkins: Do you take me for the Beatles? I’m no disco singer!

…

Jules: l heard you in Bordeaux. And last year. . .I went to Munich specially for the concert.
Cynthia Hawkins: You made the trip for me?
Jules: Yes, on the moped.
Cynthia Hawkins: On the moped. From Paris to Munich on a moped? You’re pulling my leg. No.
Jules: You even sang some Wagner. The Wesendonc Lieder. You wore a blue dress with pearls. A little girl threw a bouquet of red roses. There were 18 curtain calls, and you refused to sing. You refused.
Cynthia Hawkins: Nobody stole my dress that night. Don’t you like blue…?

…

Reporter: Madam, it’s no secret that you’ve always refused to record. The quality of recordings today is close to perfection. What don’t you like about them?
Cynthia Hawkins: I sing because I love to sing . Alone, I can’t. I need the public. The concert is an exceptional moment. . .for the artist, for the listener. It’s a unique moment.
Reporter: What do you think of secret recordings?
Cynthia Hawkins: It’s a theft, a rape. I despise them.

…

Gorodish: Some get high on airplane glue…detergents…fancy, complex things. My satori is this: Zen in the art of buttering bread!

…

Jules [eyeing the scene printed on Alba’s miniskirt]: Is that the Opera House?
Alba: No, that’s my ass.

…

Jules: Where are we?
Alba: In a castle.
Jules: What castle?
Alba: Where the witch makes poisoned red apples to advertise the toothpaste movie stars use.

…

Gorodish: Abyssus abyssum invocate.
Alba: What is Abyssus abyssum?
Gorodish: It means the abyss calls to the abyss

…

Jules: It’s the only recording.
Cynthia Hawkins: It was you?
Jules: It’s yours. It’s my gift to you. Forgive me.
Cynthia Hawkins: But… I’ve never heard myself sing!
Jules: Listen…[/b]

[iambiguous]

Another thriller. But this is no ordinary one. On 45 reviews, it got a 98% fresh at RT. It is more along the lines of a Blood Simple thriller. You’re never quite exactly sure what leads to who and who leads to what.

And it is also character driven. So meet Dale “Hurricane” Dixon. A character and a half. A cracker sheriff if there ever was one. How bad? Let’s just say the cops from Los Angeles are in way over their heads getting to the bottom of him. Only they think it is the other way around. And they’re both right.

He used her. And then he just dumped her. But sometimes the past has a way of creeping up on you. And, depending on where you are in the present, it can tie you in knots…knots you have no way of escaping. Or even kill you.

It’s dope again. I mean, one way or another, it always is, right? These folks just happen to be particularly vicious when you cross them. Or when they think you did. On the other hand, Ray did let Fantasia go looking for the little boy. That’s the best we can hope for from a psychopath. Only unlike Dick and Perry above we don’t really have a clue regarding what went into the making of these folks.

And then the part about race. Where to even begin down in rural Arkansas. And all the other places too.

In the end: What goes around comes around.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_False_Move
trailer: youtu.be/bsRioSC-fgg

ONE FALSE MOVE [1992]
Directed by Carl Franklin

[b]Bobby: How you doing?
Fantasia: Fine.
Bobby: Is Ray with you?
Fantasia: No.
Bobby: That’s good. Real good.

…

Jackie: If we tell where Marco lives, he’ll kill us.
Ray: Well what the fuck do you think we’re going to do?

…

Ray: They got a goddamn kid.

…

Dale [on phone]: You got six people dead out there at the same time. That don’t happen much here. Sometimes we get a stabbing. Colored boys, generally. One of them sticks another over a card game.

…

Fantasia: I don’t get you. Why don’t you loosen up and have some fun? Why don’t you get high with Ray and me? Don’t you want to feel good?
Ray: This is the biggest thing to ever happened to us. And you just sit there like a little brown turd.

…

Ray [seeing his picture in the paper about the murders]: That goddamn kid! Why didn’t you tell me about that fucking kid?!
Fantasia: I swear to God, I didn’t see any kid! He must have been hiding. Hiding real good.
[Ray smacks her hard across the face]
Ray: Quit lying!
Fantasia: Don’t hit me no more. Pluto, don’t let him hit me no more.
Pluto: Get rid of her, Ray.

…

Dale: I hope he does show up. 'Cause I got news for you. That white trash and them two niggers are…
[Cheryl Ann kicks him hard under the table; she motions with her eyes to Detective McFeely who is black][/b]

Oops.

[b]Cheryl Ann: I want to apologize for that comment before. I bet John feels terrible. Dale didn’t mean it. He just grew up talking that way.

…

Cheryl Ann: These people are dangerous, aren’t they?
Det. Cole: Yes, they are.
Cheryl Ann: I’ve never seen Dale this excited before. This case is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to him. He really likes you and John. I can tell. I think he looks at you like you’re heroes.
Det. Cole: Well, we’re far from that.
Cheryl Ann: You might want to tell him that. I have a little girl who needs her daddy. Dale doesn’t know any better. He watches TV. I read nonfiction.

…

[overheard by Dale in the restaurant]
Det. McFeely: Hurricane is waiting on the bad guys the way a kid waits for Christmas.
Det. Cole: Hurricane is a force of nature.
Det. McFeely: I like old Hurricane. He’s a nice fella.
Det. Cole: Guess what he told me this morning? He wants to come to L.A. And join the force. Det. McFeely: You’re kidding.
Det. Cole: Honest to God. He said he thought that me and him and “Macintosh” would make a great team.
Det. McFeely: No shit.
Det. Cole: He said he wanted a crack at the big time.
Det. McFeely: What did you say?
Det. Cole: I told him it was an interesting idea.
Det. McFeely: That’s the funniest thing I ever heard. Can you imagine that motherfucker roaming around Parker Center? He’ll put a stopper in the bottle. That yokel won’t last ten minutes.

…

Det. McFeely:…so that must be our mystery girl, Fantasia.
Dale: Her name’s not Fantasia. It’s Lila Walker.

…

Det. McFeely: Hurricane, just how well do you know this gal?
Dale: What do you mean?
Det. McFeely: You know what I mean.

…

Dale: Lila, even if I wanted to, I can’t help you.
[pauses]
Dale: I don’t have the legal authority.
Fantasia/Lila: You didn’t have the legal authority to fuck me when I was 17 years old…but that didn’t stop you, did it?

…

Fantasia/Lia: Instead of spying on me…why didn’t you come in and say hello to your son?
Dale: He’s not my kid.
Fantasia/Lia: Not your kid? He’s nearly as white as you are.
Dale: That proves nothing.
Fantasia/Lia: Are you calling me a whore? I was a virgin when we met, and you know it.

…

Fantasia/Lia [after Dale finds a gun in her purse]: I forgot that thing was even in there. Ray gave it to me for protection. I don’t know how it works.
Dale: You pull the damn trigger.

…

Fantasia/Lila: Wouldn’t Bonnie be surprised to know she had a half-brother in Nigger Town?

…

Fantasia/Lila: Me and my brother’s daddy was white, did you know that? Of course, we never knew him. He had another family. That’s why I kind of look white. Because my daddy was white. You figured since I kind of look white, you could fuck me, what the hell…Because I was kind of black…you could dump me, what the hell.

…

Little boy [Dale’s son…to his father]: Are you dead, mister?[/b]

[iambiguous]

Out of the blue a “normally terrrific kid” starts behaving in a destructive manner. The other kids were “annoying” him. That’s how it all begins. His disease. It stumps everyone. And it is a disease without a remedy.

This is a tough film to watch. Many wouldn’t if they didn’t have an inkling of how it ends. There is just something about the suffering of children that appalls us. Especially if you don’t have God to fall back on.

God. The one who was there when the disease began and when it was finally beaten back. I mean, what was He thinking when He came up with this one? It’s not only that innocent young children die…but in such a ghastly manner. It’s terrible. Even knowing it’s all acting I still find myself fast-forwarding from time to time.

There are so many things it might be. So welcome to the world of modern medicine. Miraculous in some respects and utterly, utterly exasperating in others. The parents are often forced to choose between ghastly or ghastlier alternatives. And some parents begin to wonder if their sick children are there for the scientists more or less than the scientists are there for the sick children. And the paradox for the parents is that in order to understand the disease well enough to tackle it themselves they have to spend less time with their child. And he has very little time left. Here you find yourself getting pissed off at lots of different people because they don’t seem to use common sense. But what the hell is that in complex bio-genetic syndromes like this? Still, different folks [parents, scientists, doctors, politicians] have different agendas. And all of them insist it is with the very best of intentions. But this in fact really is an indictment of those reactionaries in the medical “establishment” and the “competitive” scientific community who refuse to bend the protocal even in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence.

Some sick children can only hope they have parents like this child had.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo’s_Oil
at BBC news: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3907559.stm
death of Lorenzo Adone: guardian.co.uk/science/2008/ … h.genetics
trailer: youtu.be/CxkylRxJxh8

LORENZO’S OIL [1992]
Written in part and directed by George Miller

[b]Doctor: …it could be any one of a dozen things.

…

Doctor: …we are going to run some tests and get to the bottom of this thing.

…

Doctor: There is a family of diseases that’s quite rare: the leukodystrophies. Lorenzo has one of them. It’s called ALD. What ALD is is an inborn error of metabolism that causes a degeneration of the brain. It only effects males, usually between the ages of 5 and 10. Its progress is relentless. The end is inevitable. All boys with ALD die, usually withing two years of diagnosis.
Michaela: And there are no exceptions?
Doctor: No.
Michaela: Are you absolutely sure?
Doctor: I am so sorry.

…

Professor Nikolias: ALD is only carried on the female chromozone.
Michaela: Are you saying that Lorenzo got this directly from me?
Professor Nikolias: Well, in the sense that ALD is sex-linked, yes. It goes from mother to son.
Michaela: Then how did I get it?
Professor Nikolias: Well, the woman gets it from her mother.
Michaela: And if I inherited the defect, why don’t I have the disease?
Professor Nikolias: No, the woman is only the carrier, nothing else, but with each conception she has a 50-50 chance of passing on the defect. And when that happens…it’s the cruelest kind of genetic lottery.
Michaela: Lottery?
Professor Nikolias: It’s a clumsy word. I use it because it’s all arbitrary. No one is to blame.

…

Augusto: Dr. Nikolias, what about the other boys, what results are you seeing in them?
Professor Nikolias: As with Lorenzo it’s too early to tell. We need this study to run for the full six months.
Augusto: And that would tell you what is obvious right now? That avoiding apple skins and pizza has no effect on this brutal disease?

…

Augusto: When we first went to the Comoros, what did we do? We got to know the country, right?
Michaela: Yes
Augusto: We studied, we got to know the language, resources, its law. We studied, right? We should threat Lorenzo’s illness like another country.
Michaela: I don’t quite see the analogy.
Augusto: All right, all right. ALD has many dimensions, right?
Michaela: Yes
Augusto: So, in order to understand it, we need to command genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, neurology, ology-ology.
Michaela: Augusto, we don’t have time to go to medical school.
Augusto: Michaela, the doctors are in the dark. They’re groping in the dark. The’ve got Lorenzo on a turvy-topsy diet. And that bloody immunosuppression is brutal and useless. Michaela, we should not have consigned him blindly into their hands. He should not suffer by our ignorance. We take responsibility. So…we read a little. And we go out and inform ourselves.
Michaela: But…to miss time with him while he can still speak to us…
Augusto: Yes, I know, I know. But he expects it of us.

…

Professor Nikolias [to Augusto]: Do you know how many children die every year from choking on french fries? Many more than from Adrenoleukodistrophy. You see, ours is what is known as an orphan disease, too small to be noticed, too small to be funded, especially with the iron hand of “Reganomics”.

…

Ellard Muscatine: When Michael, our first boy, got sick, we searched around looking for anything that might help him. You know what was the best thing that happened? He was taken quickly. Now Tommy… he has lasted three years, for two of them, he’s been without his sight, his mind, everything that makes him a human being, he’s a vegetable. Y’know if you would just stop all this denial, you wouldn’t do a thing to prolong your boy’s suffering and indignity one minute longer.
Loretta Muscatine: Has it occurred to you that maybe he doesn’t want to be around anymore?[/b]

Christ, what do you say to that?

Michaela [to her suffering son]: Lorenzo, Lorenzo, listen to Mama. Can you hear me, my darling? If this is too much for you, my sweetheart, well, then, you fly. Fly as fast as you can to Baby Jesus. It’s okay.

What else is there?

[b]Augusto: Michaela! They are the same enzyme! There is one enzyme for both chains. It’s the same bloody enzyme!

…

Michaela: The life of one boy is not enough reward for you to risk the reputation of the institution and the esteem of your peers.
Professor Nikolias: That was uncalled for. Your responsibility is merely towards your own child. My responsibility is towards all the boys that suffer from this disease, now and in the future. Of course I anguish for the suffering of your boy. And of course I applaud you for the efforts you make on his behalf. But I will have nothing to do with this oil.
Michaela: We are not asking, Doctor, for your anguish or your applause. We are asking merely for a little courage.

…

Professor Nikolias [to the families of ALD patients]: Let me say you’re not going to get any insurance company or any government to support you unless you have our approval. And the only way to get this approval is through thorough testing!
Woman in the audience: That’s what they told the AIDS people about AZT. They fought for it and got it.
Woman in the audience: Because they were dying and didn’t have time to wait!
Man in the audience: We padded our walls yesterday. We want that oil!

…

Augusto: Michaela, do you ever think that maybe all of this struggle may have been for somebody else’s kid?

…

Title card: This film was completed at the end of 1992 and so far doctors all over the world have begun to prescribe Lorenzo’s Oil. If a diagnosis is made early enough the treatment stops the disease. So there is now a growing army of boys kept free from the ravages of ALD.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Have you ever been a conjoined twin? Me neither.

Penny [the prostitute] doesn’t quite know what to make of them. She just wants to get the hell out of the room. Though they are rather handsome. And truly dead ringers. But as with Chang and Eng, one was the “sickly” twin.

I suspect you won’t have ever seen a film quite like this one.

For the bulk of my life I was surrounded by people. And now I choose to live apart from them. But imagine going through your entire life and never being able to choose that. Always another right by your side. Literally a part of you. Though some I suppose would actually crave that. A guarentee of never really being alone in the world.

But, as Francis explains to Penny, they have nothing else to compare their life against.

And this wouldn’t be America if there wasn’t someone around trying to turn the whole thing into a buck. But then we wonder how they managed to support themselves until now. And then we find out.

Sometimes, there’s just no getting around having to endure being what others think you are.

And when the first dies?

trailer: youtu.be/Z-RUwT26eNE

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Falls_Idaho_(film
conjoined twins at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins

TWIN FALLS IDAHO [1999]
Written in part and directed by Michael Polish

[b]Penny: What’s that smell?
Elevator operator: Pee.

…

Penny: You know, this hotel is full of freaks.

…

Miles: I thought you had given up on this…get-rich-quick profession.
Penny: Well, it’s funny. I ain’t rich yet.
Miles: Well…as long as you don’t start to smoke the pipe.
Penny: Yeah. Me, the crack whore.

…

Miles: You’re both visiting from Siam?
Blake: No, sir.
Miles: I didn’t think so. Penny calls me saying she wants me to examine some sick Siamese.

…

Blake [to Penny]: Maybe I’ll call you…when I’m single.

…

Penny: Do you ever get lonely?
Blake: When?
Penny: Well, I was thinking, you were born with somebody…at your side. So I was wondering if you ever got lonely. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to.
Blake: No, that’s okay. I just never get a question like that. It’s usually if Francis and I share the same dick.

…

Penny: What’s it like being with someone all the time?
Francis [awake while Blake sleeps]: I don’t know any different. l’ve nothing to compare it to.

…

Penny: Do you ever think about separation?
Francis: Blake always says…‘‘We checked in together… we’ll check out together.’’ Blake could live a normal life when I go. He has a very strong heart. He’s the reason why my blood pumps and my heart beats. I’m alive because of Blake.

…

Francis: What’s wrong?
Blake: Us… lying here, back in this bed.
Francis: You want to leave?
Blake: I wish I could. I wish I could just get up and walk out of here…on my own.
Francis: And separate? You’d only be half a man to her.
Blake: I’d be free.

…

Francis: It’s not about freedom, it’s about cutting us…in half. You’d be a cripple. You’d be maimed. Somebody who pisses in the bag and carries it around with them.
Blake: Well, it may be better than carrying you around. Come on, Francis. Let go!
Francis: You took the short road. You always fall in love too quickly!
Blake: Did you ever think that if I took the long road you wouId have never lasted? Did you ever think…about me?

…

Doctor [looking at x-rays of Blake and Francis]: Intriguing, isn’t it?
Penny: Yeah.
Doctor: You look at something like this, and you go, ‘‘Wow… they are connected.’’ What’s important now is what they don’t share. Whether we did this on the day they were born or ten years from now…this day was gonna present itself.
Penny: It’s a doctor’s career day.
Doctor: If I could figure out why the fusion occurred in the first place… that would be a career day. There’s not one clue in the medical books why this happens. Why does the egg stop splitting in them…and not some other pair of twins? We’re just left with whatever Mother Nature decides to give birth to.

…

Blake [to Penny]: The sad ending is only because the author stops telling the story. But it still goes on…it’s just untold. [/b]

[iambiguous]

Based on actual events. And since this is a peek inside the real world of capitalism you can be reasonably sure it is going on still. The tip of the iceberg they call it.

For the Big Buckmeisters, real competition can be a drag. On the bottom line, for example.

The good news here is that the afflictions are mostly to our wallets. Rather than mostly to our very existence itself. See, for instance, Erin Brockovich above.

But this guy Whitacre plays the game on a whole other level. Especially when ADM brings the FBI into it. There are just so many balls you can keep up in the air. He’s a whistle blower, sure. But it’s more, uh, complicated than that. Way more.

Not only that but he is a veritable font of superfluous information. Only it seems so much less so coming from him. He thinks of himself here as secret agent 0014. Why? Because he is twice as smart as agent 007. And yet he actually thinks ADM will let him keep his job after the shit hits the fan. Why? Because he is so smart…and he did the right thing. He thinks he’ll be put in charge of running the company!!

His wife on the other hand thinks it’s the FBI: They’re brainwashing him! And then come all the “hypotheticals”. That’s when things really get complicated. It’s unbelievable. Jesus, this guy ends up with a prison term three times longer than the crooks he helped to catch! The government used him…and then dumped him.

But the truth of the matter is…

Well, forget that.

IMDb

[b]To prepare for the role of the overweight character Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon purposely gained weight prior to filming. He did this by eating lots of hamburgers, pizza, and dark beer, which he described in an interview as being “really, really, really fun.”

In an NPR radio interview, Matt Damon said that Steven Soderbergh, to get Mark Whitacre’s final apology to the judge just right, directed Damon to perform the lines as if he were accepting an Academy Award. (Damon said it was an example of “perfect direction”.)[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Informant!
mark whitacre at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Whitacre
Lysine price-fixing conspiracy at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine_pri … conspiracy

trailer: youtu.be/0hxi-z3ZZBI

THE INFORMANT! [2009]
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

[b]Mark [voiceover]: You know that orange juice you have every morning? You know what’s in that? Corn. And you know what’s in the maple syrup you put on your pancakes? You know what makes it taste so good? Corn. And when you’re good and help with the trash, you know what makes the big, green bags biodegradable?
Mark [to his son]: Do you?
Alexander: Uh-huh. Corn.
Mark: Corn starch. But Daddy’s company didn’t come up with that one. DuPont did.

…

Mark [voiceover]: Archer Daniels Midland. Most people have never head of us, but chances are, they’ve never had a meal we’re not a part of. Just read the side of the package. That’s us. Now ADM is taking dextrose from the corn and turning it into an amino acid called lysine. It’s all very scientific, but if you’re a stockholder, all that matters is corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.

…

Mark [voiceover]: Porsche or Porsh-a. I’ve heard it both ways. Three years in Germany, I should know that. What’s the German word for corn? The word I really like saying is “kugelschreiber.” That’s “pen”-- all those syllables just for “pen.”

…

Terry: Did the Japanese have these kind of problems with lysine?
Mick: I don’t give a shit about the Japanese. You just gotta get the goddamn lysine bugs to eat the dextrose and shit us out some money.

…

Mark [voiceover]: The pilgrims loved the corn-- they came for the religious freedom but they stayed for the corn-- but its missing three of your eight essential amino acids-- especially lysine. That’s why the Indians ate it with beans or lime. You feed a chicken corn and it gets sick. You feed it corn and lysine and it goes from egg to supermarket fryer in six months instead of eight.

…

Mark [voiceover]: I’ve been to Tokyo. They sell little-girl underwear in the vending machines right on the main drag, the Ginza, or whatever. Guys in suits buying used girl panties. How is that okay? That’s not okay.

…

Ginger [to Mark]: Whatever you do, Corky, no matter what’s going on, just be honest with them and tell the truth. Tell the truth no matter what the truth is.

…

Mark [voiceover]: There should be a tv show about a guy who calls home one day and he’s there, he answers, he’s talking to himself, only he’s someone else. He’s somehow divided into two, and the second one of him drives away and the rest of the show is about him trying to find the guy.

…

Mark [voiceover]: He seems like a really good guy. I hope he doesn’t mind me calling him Brian instead of Agent Shepherd. I might even try Bri out.

…

Mark [voiceover]: Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage of you call you to get you to drop your guard!

…

Mark [voiceover]: There are these butterflies in Central America. They’re blue and orange and yellow and have poison in their wings, just enough to stop a bird heart. But the birds know this somehow, so they don’t eat them. But there are other ones, butterflies, they’re orange, blue and yellow too but no poison wings. They’re just flying around, looking dangerous, getting by on their looks.

…

Mark [voiceover]: One of the Japanese guys told me a story. This lysine salesman is in a meeting with someone from ConAgra or some other company, I don’t know. And the client leans forward and says “I have the same tie as you, only the pattern is reversed.” And then he drops dead, face down on the table. Alive and then dead. Brain aneurism. Maybe everyone has a sentence like that, a little time bomb. “I have the same tie as you, only the pattern’s reversed.” Dead. The last thing they’ll ever say.

…

Mark [to Agent Shepherd]: Look, the price fixing is over. You tell me how I can prove it to you and I will.[/b]

Oops.

[b]Mark: Hey, how’d I do?
Shepherd: Mark, we have some problems.
Mark: Hey, wait a minute. I was looking at the thing. The needle didn’t even move.
Shephard: Mark, you don’t know how to read a polygraph.
Herndon: Mark, you splattered the walls with ink.

…

Herndon: What about the price fixing? It isn’t over, is it? There’s no “new attitude” right?
Mark: No, it’s been going on as recently as three weeks ago. Nothing’s changed. It’s not just lysine. It’s citric. It’s gluconate. There was a guy who left the company because he wouldn’t do it. He was forced out. The gluconate guy, he’s out of a job.

…

Mark [voiceover]: When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in, because they’ve got those black noses. They’d blend in perfectly if not for the nose. So the question is, how do they know their noses are black? From looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water and think, “I’d be invisible if not for that.” That seems like a lot of thinking for a bear.

…

Mark [to the FBI task force]: You guys still think I’m gonna be okay at the company, right? I mean, you guys are going to take down the bad guys, but I’ll be okay, right?

…

Mark [on the phone]: Well, they kept coming to the house and they only had ADM’s side of the story.
Shepard: You talked to the Wall Street Journal, Mark? What did you say? It’s real important that you not talk to the press.
Mark: Me? I told them I had no comment, but didn’t matter, they already had the story, anyway. They already had it. Did you see my stipple portrait? It’s pretty good.

…

Mark [voiceover]: I don’t owe Brian Shepherd the truth. I gave Brian Shepherd two and a half years of my life and now I have legal bills to show for it. And I’m the good guy in all this. I’m the guy who took on ADM. Is Brian Shepherd going to lose his job for that? His standard of living? I did enough for Brian Shepherd. Who’s gonna take care of me?

…

Mark: What if I just put out some hypotheticals. I’ll talk about certain financial situations, and you guys can tell me if they’re wrong, or how serious they might be. Okay, for instance, what if a company gave an executive a car, you know, a corporate car, and instead of driving that to work, he used his personal car, and gave his company car to his daughter. That be a problem?
Herndon: That’s it? That’s hypothetical?
Shepard: That shouldn’t be a problem.
Mark: Okay, what if it was a corporate plane, and the executive was using that for personal use.
Herndon: Basically the same thing.
Shepard: Maybe some IRS issues, but…
Mark: Okay, what if it was standard practice at ADM for executives to regularly accept kickbacks in cash.
Shepard [stunned]: How much money are we talking about, Mark?
Mark: Well, Brian, hypothetically, $500,000.[/b]

Closer to $5 million, then $7.7 million, then $9.5 million, then 11.5 million. According to Ginger, they bought 8 cars and never even drove 3 of them.

[b]Mark [voiceover]: Didn’t these guys see The Firm? Or read the book? It’s all there. Everything they did to me, they did to Tom Cruise.

…

Mark [voiceover]: We took the kids one year to the Renaissance Festival in Indiana. You get to be the White Knight. The kids get to ride a horse and joust against the forces of darkness with a helmet on. And the White Knight always wins - the forces of darkness fall onto an old mattress. Someone plays a Lute and plays a song from Medieval Times. The day we went it was maybe 90 degrees out and the heat and humidity index I can’t even remember what the radio said. We were next in line and the mare collapsed. Went down in a heap. Ginger was eating Ye Olde Drumstick and she dropped it in the dirt. The kids were crying. I remember this farmer saying he had a gun in his truck. Just like that. From the White Knight to a gun in the truck. They had everyone turn their backs before they put the animal down, but even if you couldn’t see you could still hear. How do you get that back? How does that get to be fair?

…

Mark I read this study in Time magazine when I was at Cornell, which is an Ivy League school, and there were people, including my mother, who never believed I would make it into an Ivy League school. Maybe Ginger, who I met in marching in the eighth grade. And the study said people had nice, sympathetic feelings about people who were adopted, and treated them better. So I made up this adoption story, and people did treat me better. And when I got a job, one of my professors told people at Ralston Purina that I was this amazing guy that had accomplished all this in spite of being adopted. And so it was really other people who spread the story, not me. Although I admit it was wrong to start it and everything, it was other people who kept it going, even the people at ADM.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Probably not based on a true story. Although any number of folks no doubt wish it could have been based on theirs.

As for all the lessons to be learned from watching it, I more or less discarded them and decided to stick with the one I call my own: that, coming or going, one way or the other, it’s still all dasein. And out in a world of contingency, chance and change. Even in a world of fantasy. There’s no getting around the way we bump into each other and set things into motion…things we can scarcely hope to fully understand.

And there is no getting around the part about being old. Whether you experience it first or [like most of us] last it can grind you down to the proverbial pulp. And fuck all the movies that try to make it seem instead like “the golden years”. That’s a lie. Or will be eventually. You may be as young as you feel but sooner or later it only goes in one direction. And while Benjamin notes there is nothing wrong with old age it’s not for nothing he’s going in the other direction.

So don’t ever forget: A life is a terrible thing to waste. As for what it means not to waste one, Benjamin Button may just as well have been Forrest Gump as far as I was concerned. Some folks wish life could be like this while others are eternally grateful it’s a whole lot more. Or a whole lot different.

For me the whole movie seems to revolve around this: “Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it.”

Except for the parts we can.

In other words, it’s how all the parts become the whole. And the extent to which we can understand and contol it. Or as Benjamin puts it. “…life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control…”

…shit happens. Or it misses us altogether. But not for long.

IMDb

The short story based on a remark by author Mark Twain. Twain famously remarked that ‘the best part of life was from the beginning and the worst part was the end’.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curiou … tton_(film

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON [2008]
Directed by David Fincher

[b]Dr. Rose: Where’d he come from?
Queenie: My sister’s child. From Lafayette. She had an unfortunate adventure. The poor child, he got the worst of it. Come out white.

…

Dr. Rose: Queenie, some creatures just aren’t meant to survive.

…

Queenie: You never know what’s comin’ for ya.

…

Benjamin: Momma? Momma? Some days, I feel different than the day before.
Queenie: Everyone feels different about themselves one way or another, but we all goin’ the same way. Just taking different roads to get there, that’s all.

…

Ngunda Oti: You’ll see little man, plenty of times you be alone. You different like us, it’s gonna be that way. But I tell you a little secret I find out. We know we alone. Fat people, skinny people, tall people, white people… they just as alone as us… but they scared shitless.

…

Mrs. Maple: Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?[/b]

This has always struck me as a crock of shit. Just the sort of thing you convince yourself is true in order rationalize getting old.

[b]Benjamin: It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.

…

Benjamin: You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

…

Benjamin [voiceover]: Sometimes we’re on a collision course, and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she’d stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who’d stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn’t been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot. When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn’t broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn’t stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would’ve crossed the street, and the taxi would’ve driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone’s control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.

…

Benjamin [voiceover]: Her leg had been broken in five places. And with therapy and time, she might walk again. But she’d never dance.

…

Daisy: Sleep with me.
Benjamin: Absolutely.

…

Daisy: Will you still love me when my skin grows old and saggy?
Benjamn: Will you still love me when I have acne? When I wet the bed?

…

Benjamin: How can I be a father when I’m heading in the other direction? It’s not fair to a child. I don’t want to be anybody’s burden.
Daisy: Sugar, we all end up in diapers.

…

Daisy: You are so much young.
Benjamin: Only on the outside.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Next to the downside of anger, the upside still holds the edge. Or, for some of us, is way out in front. It always depends on what it is exactly that pisses you off…and on what you can do about it. And on whatever happy stuff is still left standing. Then it’s all invested in the passage of time. Angry and glad, angry and glad…all the way from the cradle to the grave. Some keep score, some don’t.

The trials and the tribulations of upper middle class white suburbanites. All of them gorgeous. Some of them retired sports heroes. But, sure, they share things in common with the rest of us. I spotted a couple myself.

One thing’s for sure: Different things make different people angry. Not only that but the things that make some folks angry make other folks beam with delight. For example, I’m delighted that none of this shit ever happened to me. But I’m enraged at some of the stuff that did. Stuff these sort of folks know nothing about. But the common denominator is always the same: if it is big enough it can change your life – anyone’s life – forever.

Now, I know it’s just a cliche but there are any number of folks who would love to have these problems. But then who am I to make light of the stuff that makes others angry?

Just think of this as Parenthood with a smaller brood. On the other hand, I never saw the water well thing coming. Turns out she is angry for nothing and the upside is entirely fortuitous.

IMDb

Writer/director Mike Binder said that Kevin Costner’s character is an amalgamation of Detroit Tigers baseball players Denny McLain (from whom the character gets his first name) and Kirk Gibson.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Upside_of_Anger
trailer: youtu.be/54-KrQSmQCo

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER [2005]
Written and directed by Mike Binder

[b]Andy [voiceover]: A case in point in anger’s ability to change us is my mother. My mother was always the nicest person I ever knew. She was the nicest, sweetest woman than anyone who knew her ever knew. Then things changed…then she changed. She got angry. Good and angry. Anger has turned my mother into a very sad and bitter woman. If she wasn’t my mother, I’d slap her.

…

Terry [to her daughters]: Okay. You ladies are old enough now, I’m not gonna pull any punches here. He took his wallet…and he left. When he didn’t come home the other night, you know, I thought we got lucky and he was just in a car crash, dead by the side of the road, but the fact is, he’s run off with his little Swedish secretary, who, oh, what a coincidence, mysteriously left work three days ago and moved back to Sweden!

…

Terry: Your father is a small man. A very small man!
Hadley: I hope you’re not referring to his genitals because that would just be gross.
Lavender: Aww, dude, I was about to eat a string bean!

…

Hadley [seeing the dog is eating the chicken prepared for dinner]: Buddy, Goddamn you! Out!
Emily: What’s the big deal? He wasn’t licking it more than three seconds.
Hadley: The three second rule is for floors, not dog’s mouths. He spends all day licking other dogs’ asses.
Emily: It’s fine. You guys, it’s good chicken. It’s fine.
Andy: Like you’d eat it.
[waiting for her to try a piece]
Emily [tasting a piece of chicken]: It’s fine.
Hadley: You know the Zilwaukees’ Great Dane, “Mo’fo?” You’re licking his asshole right now.

…

Terry [to her daughters]: He’s a pig, your dad. Just a vile, selfish, horrible pig, but you know what? I’m not gonna trash him to you girls. I’m not.

…

Terry [on phone]: This was like…Halley’s Comet. It’s not coming around again for 57 years.
[she hangs up]
Denny [to himself]: What the fuck is Halley’s Comet?

…

Terry [to waiter]: I need a Bloody Mary as soon as is humanly possible.

…

Emily: Do you have any idea what a fucking idiot you sound like sometimes?
Terry: I love how you worry about how the letter you wrote to the parent that deserted you is too mean, but to the one who’s still here in the fight, you have no trouble saying the most vile things. Isn’t that a tad odd?[/b]

Yeah. But she still sounds like a fucking idiot sometimes.

[b]Gorden [after Lavender kisses him]: I’m gay.
Lavender: What?
[laughs]
Lavender: No you’re not.
[pause]
Lavender: Are you just saying that cause you don’t wanna kiss me?
Gorden: I like men.
Lavender: Have you ever had gay sex? What about sex with a woman? Just have sex with me and if you don’t like it, then you can be gay.
Gorden [sarcastically]: That’s really nice of you.
[he walks out of the room]

…

Terry [of her broken heart]: It’s not the kind of thing that ever heals.
Denny: Yeah, it does. It heals. It just heals funny. You know, you more or less walk… with a limp.

…

Shep [after Terry slaps him for sleeping with her daughter]: Who should I sleep with, Terry? Women like you? Your age? My age? I don’t. You know why? 'Cause younger women are nice. You take them out, and they’re actually grateful. “Oh look, a steak. Yummy.” You go for a walk after dinner, the air smells nice, they say, “Thank you. This was nice. This was fun. You’re funny. Tee-hee-hee.” What should I do, Terry? Settle down and marry some pissed-off thing like you? I’d rather have someone come over and do dental work, every day, from my backside, up… through my ass!

…

Denny [to Terry]: I am so sick of being your bitch. I put up with your shit because I know how much pain you’re in! But it’s ENOUGH! It’s a tall order for a patient motherfucker, and I am the furthest thing from that that you’re ever going to lay eyes on.[/b]

Hear, hear!

[b]Lavender [voiceover]: People don’t know how to love. They bite rather than kiss. They slap rather than stroke. Maybe it’s because they recognize how easy it is for love to go bad, to become suddenly impossible… unworkable, an exercise of futility. So they avoid it and seek solace in angst, and fear, and aggression, which are always there and readily available. Or maybe sometimes…they just don’t have all the facts.

…

Lavender [voiceover]: Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That’s what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It’s real, though - the fury, even when it isn’t. It can change you…turn you…mold you and shape you into something you’re not. The only upside to anger, then…is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they’re not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm. Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child. [/b]

[iambiguous]

This’ll kill you. Or will if you like clever parodies of mobster films. A pitch black comedy acted to perfection.

The family: Until death do they part. As in a blood oath.

She’s married to a hitman. He’s married to a hitwoman. They both get contracts to kill each other. What could go wrong?

Charley is dumb. I mean we’re talkin’ Sopranos dumb. Every time he turns around something knocks him for a loop. Which is almost every other scene.

And, as in the real world, the rationale is always the same: money. But right up there next to it is honor. Family honor. All the stuff about your comportment inside the family. But don’t try to explain the gap in logic to these guys. If you are outside the family you may as well be a bug. On the other hand, you can take advantage of it all by channeling Machiavelli from time to time. Expediently, as it were. An opportunist. Works the same for the cops too.

Only keep that part to yourself.

Still, below all the yuks, just how much different is this from the way things really do unfold among these folks? In other words, this is hardly what could be called a broad farce.

IMDb

There are reports that John Huston’s continual advice to Jack Nicholson before takes was, “Remember, he’s stupid.”

And he takes it. Really, the look on Charley’s face will sometimes remind you of R.P. McMurphy after the lobotomy.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prizzi’s_Honor
trailer: youtu.be/VEz13l-ULX0

PRIZZI’S HONOR [1985]
Directed by John Huston

[b]Charley: Mae, you’re still beautiful. Why don’t you find yourself someone who has nothing to do with the families. Settle down…have a couple of kids, a life. Practice your meatballs.
Maerose [sarcastically]: Sure, Charley. Thanks a hell of a lot. You’re a big help.
[she stalks away…the look on his face: priceless]

…

Marxie: I think you broke my wrist!
Charley: You won’t be needing it.

…

[Charlie tells Maerose about Irene]
Charley: I met her in a church. It just happened. I knew she was the woman for me. She’d organized the scam in Vegas. I go looking for the bad guy and it turns out to be my woman, can you imagine this? Not only that - Pop tells me she’s the piece man for the Nettabino contract. Just the same, I love her, Mae… I love her.
Maerose: Well…
Charley: How can I live with this? I gotta do something about it. I gotta straighten it out.
Maerose: Then do it.
Charley: Do what? Do I ice her? Or do I marry her? Which one?

…

Pop: Say listen, the Don wants you here for a big meeting tomorrow night.
Charley: Jesus, Pop, what about my honeymoon?
Pop: Well, you’ll have it in Brooklyn!
Charley: Aw, shit.

…

Charley [annoyed]: If Marxie Heller is so fuckin’ smart, how come he’s so fuckin’ dead?

…

Irene: I can’t believe it. I mean, what kinda creep wouldn’t catch a baby? If it was real it coulda been crippled for life.
Charley: He wasn’t paid to bodyguard no baby.

…

Charley: What’s the other thing you got to tell me?
Irene: Dominic, has put a contract out on you?
Charley: What, are you fucking nuts?
Irene: Charley, I’m the contractor.
Charley: Dominic hires my own wife to clip me?!

…

Irene: Charley, I’ve been doin’ three to four hits a year for the past couple of years, most at full pay.
Charley: That many?
Irene: Well, it’s not many when you consider the size of the population.

…

Charley: You’re my wife.
Irene: I’m your Pollock wife.

…

Charley [to Irene who wants here “nine hundred dollars” back]: That ain’t gonna make no sense to the Prizzis, honey. Remember the words of the late great Marxie Heller: “We’d rather eat our children than part with money.”

…

Don Prizzi [after Charley demurs when ordered to hit Irene]: Charley, you swore an oath of blood, my blood and yours, that you would always put the family before anything else in your life. We are calling on you to keep that sacred oath.
Charley: Irene is my family. She’s my wife.
Pop: Charley, she is a woman you have known only for a few weeks. She is your wife. We are your life.

…

Pop: It’s business, Charley. It’s only business.

…

Maerose: Holy cow, Charley, just tell me where you want to meet.[/b]

[iambiguous]

The wedding. The funeral. The parts inbetween. In some respects this could be any family, but in other respects it could only be this one. And that’s where we are always stuck, isn’t it? Some things seem to be part and parcel of the “human condition” and some things seem unique only to each of us.

One thing for sure: This is the modern world. And some things just seem to translate the same [or close enough to it] no matter where you are in it. Capitalism, for example. This is Taiwan, but winners are winners and losers are losers wherever this political economy takes root. And where you end up here can mean all the difference in the world to your family. Extended and otherwise.

And the turbulence can be all the greater for those in the “middle class”. The world economy is changing dramatically for some. And the folks in the middle are often rocked from all directions.

And over there as here is the all pervasive alienation embodied in a world with no real “spiritual” foundations from which to draw on for meaning. It’s a “postmodern” world filled with lots and lots of gadgets and distractions but they only take you so far in a “crisis of the soul”.

Finally, the gap between the way others are and the way we want them to be. Only some go farther and actually insist they be that way. And the closer we are related the more calamitous it can become.

Love and human remains. The lesson? Stoicism, mostly. Or so it seemed to me.

IMDb

Issei Ogata’s English dialog was re-written and even improvised during the shooting by Ogata himself. Yang wanted to have his Japanese character speaking realistically, not in the stereotypical manner Japanese characters in English-speaking films often do.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Yi:_A_One_and_a_Two
trailer: youtu.be/EbwNZGrRfF8

YI YI [2000]
Written and directed by Edward Yang

[b]Boss: NJ, take Mr. Ota to dinner tonight. Tell him we are keen to sign…but play hard to get. Let’s buy some time.
NJ: Why me?
Boss: You look honest!
NJ: So? Am I pretending?
Boss: What’s wrong with a little acting?
NJ: So honesty is an act? And friendship? Business? Is anything real left?

…

Min-Min [distraught]: I have nothing to say to Mother. I tell her the same things every day. What I did in the morning. In the afternoon. In the evening. It only takes a minute. I can’t bear it. I have so little. How can it be so little? I live a blank! Everyday, everyday…the same thing. I’m like a fool!

…

NJ [to his mother in a coma]: …there’s very little I am sure about these days. I wake up feeling unsure about almost everything. And I wonder why I wake up at all…just to face the same uncertainties again and again and again.

…

A Di: It’s all over…it’s all over…it’s all over.

…

NJ [to Sherry]: I never loved anyone else.

…

NJ [to Ota]: Who won?

…

Boss: Don’t get emotional. This solves our problem. We should celebrate! We didn’t promise Ota anything.
NJ: You know that hurts!
Boss: What hurts?
NJ: Mr. Ota is a good man! Where’s our dignity?
Boss: What’s that got to do with business?

…

Ting-Ting: Fatty, don’t feel this way because of me. It’s okay. We can still be friends. I’m still…
Fatty: Still what? Still cheerful, right? It’s all crap! Life’s not like your dreams! If it was, you wouldn’t need those love stories to kid yourself! Get lost! Get lost!!

…

Ting-Ting [to her Grandma, imaging her awaken and consoling her]: Why is the world so different from what we thought it was? Now that you’re awake and see it again… has it changed at all? Now I’ve closed my eyes…the world I see…is so beautiful.

…

A-Di: I’ve worked my butt off all these years. I didn’t do it for fun! You know, NJ, I’m never happy.
NJ: When you don’t love what you do…how could you be?[/b]