philosophy in film

Gee, what will the nasty corporations think up next? And maybe we should take this one all the way to the Supreme Court. See if it is compatable with the Constitution of the United States.

I bring that up because, lets face it, a lot of science fiction writers like to speculate about just how far capitalism will take things down the road. Is there anything beyond the pale when it comes to toting up the bottom line?

Cloning is just one more bank account here. On the other hand, if the workforce consist increasingly more of clones how many folks are still going to be around to actually purchase the products they manufacture? Manufacture the workers manufacturing the commodities. Then manufacture the consumers to buy them? Like nature manufacturing a colony of ants, termites, or bees?

As for an “identity”, it’s entirely fabricated. But that is in turn just a more sophisticated [controlled] reflection on how actual human communities fabricate an identity for their children historically or culturally. What is our childhood but that part of our lives where others “implant” our own memories?

The film begins with a super slick television commercial. No different from the shit we get today from Exxon or BP on the PBS News Hour or on CNBC:

There was a time when “energy” was a dirty word. When turning on your lights was a hard choice. Cities in brownout… food shortages, cars burning fuel to run. But that was the past. Where are we now? How do we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom! Right now, we are the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun, trapped in rock, harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today, we deliver enough clean-burning helium-3… to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who would have thought that all energy we ever needed is right above our heads? The power of the moon… the power of our future.

What’s the catch? Well, we can count on them not telling us.

Let alone Sam Bell. Besides, all most of us give a shit about is having the power. As cheaply as possible. We don’t really give a shit how it is gotten or delivered to us. Sam Bell’s a clone? So? Who the fuck is Sam Bell?

Look for HAL. Only this time on our side. Sort of.

Also, look for Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Something from the Bible, perhaps.

The director is the son of David Bowie.

What with all the clones [all the different Sams] and figuring out who is communicating what to whom, following all of this can be…taxing. Here is one perspcective on What Is Really Going On: hubpages.com/hub/Moon-the-Movie-Explained

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film
trailer: youtu.be/twuScTcDP_Q

MOON [2009]
Written in part and directed by Duncan Jones

[b]GERTY: Sam, you said it was the TV that distracted you… but when I came in, the TV wasn’t on. Perhaps you were imagining things?
Sam: Yeah, you think too much, pal.

GERTY: I’m sorry, Sam. Sam…I’m under strict orders not to let you outside.
Sam: I don’t appreciate that—being treated like a child. I don’t appreciate it.

Sam: I found him outside! I found him outside! Near one of the stalled harvesters…Who is he? Who is he?!
GERTY: We need to get him to the infirmary.
Sam: Not until you tell me who that is. You tell me who that is!
GERTY: Sam Bell.

Sam 1: Gerty?
GERTY: Yes, Sam?
Sam 1: Is there someone in the room with us?

Sam 1: Gerty, Gerty, what the fu—what the hell’s going on? Who is the guy—Who is the guy in the rec room? Where did he come from? Why does he look like me?

Sam 1: Who is the guy in the rec room?
GERTY: Sam Bell.
Sam: Come on, come on, come on!
GERTY: You are Sam Bell. Sam, what is it? It might help to talk about it.
Sam 1: I don’t understand what is happening… I think I’m starting to lose my mind.
GERTY: We can run some tests. I haven’t let Sam contact Lunar. They do not know that you were recovered alive from the accident.
Sam: “Recovered alive”? What do you mean? Why did not you report it to Central? What are you talking about?
GERTY: I’m here to keep you safe, Sam.

Sam 1: Gerty says you’re Sam Bell. I’m Sam Bell, too!
Sam 2: What?
Sam 1: Well, we’ve got that going for us.

Sam 1: Who’s looking after the harvesters?
Sam 2: Harvesters are fine. It’s the fact that I’m here talking to a clone that’s slightly troubling.
Sam 1: I’m not a clone. I’m not a clone! You’re the clone.

Sam 1: You know Tess?
Sam 2: Yeah, I know Tess.

Sam 1: They’re sending a rescue unit? Why? Why are they sending a rescue unit?
Sam 2: To fix the stalled harvester. They didn’t think I was up to it.
Sam 1: Well, then I’m going back. That’s it for me.
[Sam 2 scoffs]
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: Is that what you really think?
Sam 1: Yeah. I’ve got a contract! I’m going home.
Sam 2: You’re a fucking clone. You don’t have shit.
Sam 1: Hey, I’m going home!
Sam 2: Home! You’re not going anywhere. You know, you’ve been up here too long, man. You have lost your marbles. What do you think, Tess is back home, waiting on the sofa in lingerie? What about the original Sam? Huh?
Sam 1: I am the original Sam! I am Sam-fucking-Bell!! Hey! Me! Me! Gerty, am I a clone?
GERTY: Are you hungry?

Sam 2: What about the other clones?
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: We might not be the first two to have been woken up. You said that that model had already been started when you got here. Well, who started it? There might be others up here right now. Think about it. How did I get up here so quickly after your crash?
Sam 1: I don’t know…
Sam 2: They didn’t ship me in from Central. There wasn’t time. I must have come from the base. I bet there’s some kind of secret room.

Sam 1: Why would they do that? What’s the motive?
Sam 2: Look, it’s a company, right? They have investors, they have shareholders. Shit like that. What’s cheaper? Spending time and money training new personnel…Or you just have a couple of spares here to do the job? It’s the far side of the moon! Those cheap fucks haven’t even fixed the communication satellite yet!
Sam 1: Tess would know, she would have told me…
Sam 2: Hey, Gepetto, wake up! You really think they give a shit about us? They’re laughing all the way to the bank!

Sam 1: Gerty…Gerty? Am I really a clone?
GERTY: When you first arrived at Sarang, there was a small crash. You woke up in the infirmary. You suffered minor brain damage and memory loss. I kept you under observation and ran some tests.
Sam 1: I remember, yeah, I remember that…
GERTY: Sam, there was no crash. You were being awakened. It is standard procedure for all new clones to be given tests…to establish mental stability…and general physical health. Genetic abnormalities and minor duplication errors in the DNA can have considerable impact on…
Sam 1: What about Tess? What about Eve?
GERTY: They are memory implants, Sam. Uploaded, edited memories of the original Sam Bell. Sam, it’s been several hours since your last meal. Can I prepare you something?

LI Technician [on screen with prerecorded message]: Lay down, relax and breathe deeply. The cryogenic protection pod is designed to put you into a deep sleep for the duration of your three-day return journey back to Earth. As you begin to feel sleepy, think about the magnificent job that you’ve done. And how proud your family are of what you’ve accomplished. Lunar Industries remains the #1 provider of clean energy worldwide due to the hard work of people like you.

Sam 1 [to Sam2]: I found your secret room.

Sam 1: Gerty, why did you help me before? With the password? Doesn’t that go against your programming or something?
GERTY: Helping you is what I do.

[Sam is making a video phone call from the Moon to his home on Earth, while covering the camera with his hand]
Eve: Hello?
Sam 1: Is this the Bell residence?
Eve: This is the Bell residence. Could you call back? There’s something wrong with the picture.
Sam 1: I’m trying to reach Tess Bell.
Eve: I’m sorry, she passed away some years ago.
[long pause]
Sam 1: Are you sure?
Eve: Yeah, I think so. I’m her daughter. Can I help you?
Sam 1: …Eve?
Eve: Yeah.
Sam 1: Hi! Hi, Eve. How old… How old are you now?
Eve: I’m 15. Do I know you?
Sam 1: Sweetheart… How did mommy die, sweetheart? How did mommy die?
Eve [turns around and calls to someone off-screen]: Dad!
Dad [the original Sam Bell]: Yeah?
Eve: There’s someone asking about mom.
Dad: Who’s asking about mom?
[Sam immediately breaks off the call]

Sam 2: You’ll be okay?
GERTY: Of course. The new Sam and I will be back to our programming as soon as I finished rebooting.
Sam 2: Gerty, we’re not programmed. We’re people, do you understand?

News announcer: Clone six, the clone of Sam Bell has been giving evidence that CEA’s board of directors meeting in Seattle…

Talk Show Host: You know what, he’s one of two things. He’s either a wacko or an illegal immigrant. Either way, they need to lock him up. Line two! [/b]

Micmacs? Loosely translated as “non-stop shenanigans”. And what are they directed at? What else: the French equivalent of the military industrial complex. And if anything can stop them it is surely shenanigans.

So, let’s start them up here too. Bring those fuckers to their knees!

Tongue in cheek? You bet. But not really. In reality, for example. These folks are portrayed to be the scumbag assholes that many of them actually are. If only as caricatures. They make buckets of money by mass producing commodities that blow people to bits. Then some pretend it’s all about doing their bit for freedom and democracy.

Bazil, meet Slammer. And together with others they come to inhabit this very strange world. One that is [if nothing else] a wonder simply to behold. For one thing it is in a cave dug under a trash dump. Anyway, together these very strange people decide to help Bazil avenge the death of his father and his own near-death at the hands of some particularly scurrilous arms manufactures.

Think of this as the equivalent of a micmac team here in America provoking Lochheed Martin into going to war against Boeing.

Of course you can go too far in trying to portray these folks as cartoon characters. Then they become the equivalent of the Acme Corporation in the Roadrunner capers.

Bottom line? Well, if you want to put an end to the mass production of weapons of war simply shame the folks who own the companies that make them. In fact, you wonder why no one had ever thought of this before.

Oh, well: silly movie, silly ending. Though done with the very best of intentions of course.

IMDb

[b]Jean-Pierre Jeunet first came up with the idea for the film by visiting a local restaurant where some of the regulars were known arms dealers. Jeunet was intrigued by their “nice-looking faces”.

The director describes his film as a cross between Delicatessen and Amélie.[/b]

And that it is.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micmacs_(film
trailer: youtu.be/TjKW0tG7I8s

MICMACS [Micmacs à Tire-Larigot] 2009
Written in part and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

[b]Doctor: If I operate, he could become a vegetable. If I don’t, he could die any second.
Nurse: Better to live and risk sudden death, than live with no idea you’re alive.
Doctor: You shoulde have studied philosophy. Anyone got a coin?
[a coin is flipped]
Nurse: Heads.
Doctor: Okay, leave the bullet in. He’ll drive airport security wild.

Nicolas Thibault De Fenouillet [on the phone]: Throw the clown out. A bullet in the head? Something to rmember us by!

Speaker: We are now world leaders in the field of fragmentation bombs. Our position in the gulf nations is four times greater, and we’ve lowered collateral damage between 7 and 9 percent. As you know, we’re not monsters. We don’t want anyone dead. We know a wounded soldier costs the enemy more than a dead one. Our CBS scatter 202 projectiles and clears the equivalent of four futball fields. We were present in the Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan…

François Marconi: …our tracer bullets, explosives and armor piercing bullets are the sharpest, most destructive and most effective! Rimbaud was a poet who became an arms dealer. I’ll do the exact opposite.
[everyone laughs and snickers]
François Marconi: I’ll continue to associate ambition and ammunition, so our sales go out with a bang!
[more laughter]

Georges [driver]: Rimbaud, an arms dealers…is that a historical fact?
François Marconi: Absolutely. He died of gangrene, with an amputated leg.
Georges: Baudelaire had syphillis?
François Marconi: Verliane had the DTs, Lorca was shot, Nerval hung himself from a lampost.
Georges: I’d never encourage my kid to become a poet.

François Marconi [to his son]: Not Rambo…Rimbaud.

Repeated line: It’s salvaged gear!

Nicolas Thibault De Fenouillet: Who do you work for?!
Bazil: Let’s just say I’m freelance.

Bazil [aloud to himself]: Aeschylus died when a tortise hit him on the head. Lully got gangrene, beating time to music. Barbarossa drowned in a river after he forgot to remove his armor. And I’m going to die tonight of fright…like the fool that I am.

Man in office: Everyone, go to youtube and type “arms dealers fooled”.[/b]

Stanley Kubrick’s birthday is coming up.

The first and only (as far as we know) Top 10 list Kubrick submitted to anyone was in 1963 to a fledgling American magazine named Cinema (which had been founded the previous year and ceased publication in 1976). Here’s that list:

  1. I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953)
  2. Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
  3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
  4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)
  5. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
  6. Henry V (Olivier, 1944)
  7. La notte (Antonioni, 1961)
  8. The Bank Dick (Fields, 1940)
  9. Roxie Hart (Wellman, 1942)
  10. Hell’s Angels (Hughes, 1930)

What would you say was his most philosophical film?

I’ve always found it interesting to learn about how different cultures view each other and so forth; especially in regards to stereotypes about each other. It’s always surprised me how often storylines involving Europe and Europeans are used in Japanese animation. It’s always interesting to see how Europe and Europeans are portrayed in anime.

See, for example, the portrayal of French “table manners” in Ranma.

Last Exile is another good one to add; Napoleonic battles fought on airships!!! Yeah!

Anime certainly reflects back a very different non-European understanding than we ourselves project onto others. They portray our modernity as not the inevitable outcome of human history, but as a particular style of existence that is as specific and hard to pass final judgment on as any other. Modernity as contingent, as a certain set of practices–and as something both liberating and terrifying. And yet they are most keenly aware of the supreme danger of technology. Akira is the movie to watch on that note–and a most timely film, too.

The true story of a contract killer. This guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski

But how true?

For instance, consider this from a review of the film at IMDb:

The Iceman, Richard Kuklinski, comes off as a sympathetic character in the end, whereas in real life he truly was a cold emotionless and sociopathic killer. His family weren’t so much cherished and loved as they were possessions that were his and his alone.

Sympathetic, maybe. But only with respect to his family.

And that’s the tricky part here. After all, what will fascinate most folks is how he did manage to conceal what he did for a living – beng “contracted” to snuff out the lives of others – from his own family. He really only had to rationalize his behavior to himself. But how long could he realistically hope to keep all of this a secret?

Think about it: How would you react if you found out your own father or husband or brother or son was a professional hitman? Or, in this day and age, I suppose, mother, wife, sister or daughter?

And it is always particularly surreal to me how some of these gangsters manage to reconcile what they do with God. They make sure their wives and kids are brought up in the Church and then still do what they do. The way they can keep these things separate in their head. The human capacity to rationalize!

Yet in a long list of true crime docs this is often revealed to be the case: folks living secret lives. They may not be murderers but they sure as shit are not who you think they are. Or not always. The fragmented personality in a fragmented – “postmodern” – world. You sometimes wonder: How long before it’s the norm?

The bottom line here though seems to be this: read the books: amazon.com/The-Iceman-Story- … 0345540115

and:

amazon.com/The-Ice-Man-Confe … DN2GZ5N4VG

Or watch the HBO doc: youtu.be/_vn7Hz2PK7s

The film just does not [cannot] really make you understand how the past and the present came together to create this man.

IMDb

While in prison, Richard Kuklinski claimed to be responsible along with four other men for the kidnap and murder of former Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa on July 30 1975 in a restaurant parking lot in Detroit. The five-man team were allegedly given the contract on Hoffa by Tony Provenzano, a captain in the Genovese crime family. Kuklinski claimed to have been paid $40,000 for the hit…The claims only surfaced after Kuklinski’s death in March 2006 in a book by author Philip Carlo and will probably never be substantiated.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iceman_(film
trailer: youtu.be/aciNNjzyS20

THE ICEMAN [2012]
Written in part and directed by Ariel Vromen

[b]Deborah: So, what do you do for a living?
Richard: I dub cartoons for Disney.

Roy: What’s your name?
Ritchie: Ritchie Kuklinski.
Roy: You know who I am?
Ritchie: Mm-hm.
Roy: So if I came down here, I must have had a good reason.
Ritchie: I didn’t say you didn’t have a good reason, I said the date was…
[Roy slaps him]
Roy: If you want to complain about life, you’re talking to the wrong fucking guy.

Roy [whipping out a gun and aiming it at Ritchie]: Look at that. The fucking guy is cold as ice. Come on, you got to feel something for somebody. Got a girlfriend?
Ritchie: I’m married.
Roy: Then why do you act like you don’t give a shit?
Ritchie: What do you want?

Roy: I’m closing the porn lab. Sorry, but you’re out of a job. But if you can follow orders, you got everything to gain.
[he hands the gun to Richie]
Roy: Go put the bum out of his misery. If you don’t have it in you, now’s the time to say it.

Roy [to Ritchie]: What you’re going to be doing is you’ll be watching my back. You’ll be collecting debts, sending messages, whatever the messages are. But if I need you, Scicoli or Josh here is going to get in contact with you. And payphones only. Now, you’re going to deal with whatever we can, for whatever reason.

Man at dinner: And now look at him. He goes from dubbing cartoons to international banking.
Ritchie: It’s currency exchange.
Woman: Cartoons? Is that what you call porn these days?
Deborah: Porn?

Anabel: They’re coming back from Vietnam?
Ritchie: Yeah.
Anabel: Dad? Sister Marjorie says it’s God’s will.
Ritchie: What’s God’s will?
Anabel: The people who died in Vietnam. That doesn’t really make sense to me.
Deborah: Well, you know, honey, there’s just too many people in the world for God to care about everyone. So that’s why we look after each other.
Ritchie: Yeah, your mom’s right. God’s got nothing to do with it.[/b]

How organized crime becomes disorganized:

Leo [from the Gambinos]: Rosenthal steals half a mil in cocaine, then shoots the couriers. You’re being held responsible by the Cubans for his actions.
Roy: How do you figure that? How the fuck am I responsible?
Leo: He goes around throwing your name. Demeo this, Demeo that. Starts a war, so now everyone thinks you’re involved.
Roy: He was just trying to help me out, Leo!
Leo: Help you out? Ha! Then it’s your fault you made him feel sorry for you. You want to be friends with the Gambinos, then be real with me. I understand you got this relationship with Rosenthal. But the couriers he killed and stole from, they were linked to the Callies, Roy. Nothing gets forgotten.
Roy: Leo, you’re asking me to kill Rosenthal?
Leo: Why don’t you stop asking questions you know the answers to?
Roy: I took the kid from the streets! I raised him like he was one of my own.
Leo: Then that’s your problem. Kid goes around telling everybody he’s your son and they hold the father accountable.
Roy: They were fucking coked out delivery boys! Who gives a fuck?!
Leo: Who gives a shit about them. But that’s not the point. You understand? They’ll come after you and him no matter what. Do you fucking understand that in your fucking thick head?
Roy: Fuck me.
Leo: You get what I’m telling you?
Roy: Yeah, I get it.
Leo: Even people you consider friends will come after him. You got that friend, Marty.
Roy: What about Marty?
Leo: He already started spreading the word where to find him. This is one big fucking mess we don’t need, Roy. Clean it up.

Of course it is Ritchie who is assigned that task.

[b]Marty [as Ritchie aims the gun at him]: Hey, what the fuck’s going on?
Ritchie: He changed his mind.
Marty: No, no, no, no. Look, Rosenthal’s my best friend. I would never say anything.
Ritchie: Not my problem.
Marty: Well, do… no! No! Not…Please don’t! God, please! God, please!
Ritchie: What, are you praying?
Marty: God, please! Please!
Ritchie: You really believe that? You think God will come down and save you? All right. I’ll give you some time. Pray to God. Tell him to come down and stop me. Go ahead. Our Father…
Marty [praying]: Our Father…
Ritchie: I’m not feeling nothing. Nothing at all. Try harder.
Marty: What? I’m…
Ritchie: This your last chance.
Marty: No. No. Don’t.
Ritchie: I think God’s busy.

Roy [to Ritchie]: The Gambinos want to hurt me. The Callies want my whole fucking family dead. The other day, there’s a car that I don’t recognize, it’s parked outside of my house. Looked Cuban enough, piece of shit car, dark skin, I think one thing. So I panic. I shoot him dead. Turns out it’s a fucking Puerto Rican kid selling vacuum cleaners to help pay his way through college.

Ritchie [to his brother]: Joey, look, it don’t matter. You killed a little girl. Nobody’s going to forgive you, okay?
Joey: Yeah, I know I did. I know.
[Ritchie just stares at him through the glass]
Joey: A wife? Fucking kids? Who are you kidding? You’re going to end up just like me, right here. So go fuck you and your fucking family.
Ritchie [slams the glass]: Take care.
[he turns and walks away]

Ritchie [shouting]: I buy you all this shit, I buy you this fucking house, I buy you your fucking jewelry! I send the girls to private school!
Deborah: Do not raise your voice to me, Richard.
Ritchie: “Richard?” What happened to “Ritchie?”
Deborah: I don’t know.

Mr. Freezy [to Ritchie]: So, is it my lucky day, or my last?

Ritchie: So who do you work for?
Mr. Freezy: I work for everyone. Gambinos, Luchezis, Pananos, you name it. What about you? Red with the arrow through the eye? That was you, wasn’t it? That’s fucking legendary. Was that target practice?
Ritchie: Somebody wants somebody dead, who am I to question it?

Mr Freezy: Let me show you something. Coroners are lazier than cops. If it looks like a heart attack, it is.
Ritchie: Arsenic?
Mr Freezy: Pure cyanide. Careful. It’s rare. Pricey. Comes as a powder. You can liquefy it, spray it, bake it in a fucking cake. Pour it in a guy’s shirt, he’s dead before you can say I’m sorry. No more stake outs. I can do that anywhere. I don’t have any friends, so it makes it easy. I only feel alone around other people. Couldn’t be truer.

Ritchie: My daughter’s birthday’s going on in there. Roy, I have guests. My whole family is there.
Roy: Maybe I should go in and say happy birthday to her. You’re doing hits with Freezy for Leo Marks behind my back? After what I’ve been through with Rosenthal?! Now you’re going to send me to another fucking funeral?
Ritchie: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Roy: Don’t fucking lie to me. Who do you think you’re talking to? You fucking lie to me. Maybe we’ll talk to your friend Terry, seems to think that you and I are friends. I can’t imagine what you’ve been telling your family. Poor sons of bitches, thinking their dad’s a decent guy. What are you going to tell your wife when I fucking blow your kids’ heads off? You think you got something good? Man becomes so full of it, he forgets what’s true.
[Ritchie’s daughter comes up to the car]
Ritchie: Don’t let him touch her. Don’t let him touch her.
Anabel: Daddy? Daddy? What’s going on?
Roy: All right, Jimmy, wait a minute. You best be looking over your shoulder, Ritchie, 'cause if we cross paths again, I’m going to bury your whole fucking family.

[b]Leo: Go. Go home to your family. Life can be very random sometimes.
Ritchie: Yeah. You’re right.
[he shoots him dead]

Ritchie [on phone]: Betsy? You paged me?
Betsy: Yes, Daddy. There was an accident. It’s Anabel. She’s in the hospital.
Ritchie: What happened, honey?
Betsy: It was a hit and run.

Ritchie [looking down at Deborah in the hospital]: This is the end of it. There ain’t going to be nothing else to be afraid of. I promise.
Deborah: I didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid.

Ritchie [voicover]: I never felt sorry for anything I done…other than hurting my family. The only thing I feel sorry for. I’m not looking for forgiveness. I’m not repenting. I know I’m wrong. I’m wrong. I do want my family to forgive me. Oh, boy. Ain’t going to make this one. Holy shit. This would never be me. This would not be me. You see the Iceman crying? Not very macho. But I hurt people that mean everything to me. But the only people that mean anything to me.

Postscript: Richard Kuklinski was sentenced to two life sentences in the same cell block as his brother Joey. He never saw his family again. In 2006, he died in Trenton State Prison. He was scheduled to testify at the trial of the Gambino family underboss. Foul play was suspected. Kuklinski is believed to have killed over 100 people.[/b]

From time to time some folks think about AIDS and they ask themselves: Suppose this very dangerous, virulent virus was not transmitted through bodily fluids. Suppose instead it was transmitted as the flu is transmitted: airborne and [thus] was everywhere.

Can you then imagine they would point out the widespread reaction to gays if it was thought that this affliction was derived from homosexuality?

Things can always be worse, I suppose. Life is, after all, existential.

Of course, AIDS is not everywhere because it is not an airborne pathogen. But that doesn’t stop any number of folks from using it as an excuse to express their own virulent fear of or hatred toward gays.

And this film unfolds at a time when there was considerably more uncertainty about the nature of the disease. The Reagan era. Reactions were more deeply rooted in the fear that just being around gays was a kind of, well, death sentence. And not just in working class communities where there was ignorance regarding a lot of things relating to homosexuality.

This all transpires in a prestigeous law office. Educated, sophisticated folks surely. But no less scared shitless about AIDS. And no less wallowing in prejudice.

Is this based on a true story?

No, but it bears similarities to events in the lives of attorneys Geoffrey Bowers and Clarence B. Cain. IMDb
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bowers

Anyway, AIDS is truly what one might construe to be an “existential crisis”. Especially back then. There is your life before and your life after you contract it. It changes how you think about a lot of things. Or it certainly can.

IMDb

[b]Tom Hanks had to lose almost thirty pounds to appear appropriately gaunt for his courtroom scenes. Denzel Washington, on the other hand, was asked to gain a few pounds for his role. Washington, to the chagrin of Hanks, who practically starved himself for the role, would often eat chocolate bars in front of him.

The protestors outside the courthouse holding signs are based on the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, led by “Reverend” Fred Phelps. Phelps calls this movie “one of my favorite comedies”.

Director Jonathan Demme wanted people not familiar with AIDS issues to see his film. He felt Bruce Springsteen would bring an audience that would not ordinarily see a movie about a gay man dying of AIDS. The movie and the song, “The Streets of Philadelphia”, did a great deal to increase AIDS awareness and take some of the stigma off the disease.[/b]

The song: youtu.be/4z2DtNW79sQ

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_(film
trailer: youtu.be/cl4B9AU45P4

PHILADELPHIA [1993]
Directed by Jonathan Demme

[b]Walter: What’s that on your forehead, pal?
Andrew: What? Where?
Walter: That… right there on your forehead.
Andrew: Oh, I got whacked in the head with a racket ball.

Joe: What happened to your face?
Andrew: I have AIDS.
[Joe lets go of his hand and backs away]

Andrew [after explaining that he got fired]: That’s their story. Wanna hear mine?
Joe: How many lawyers did you go to before me?
Andrew: Nine.
Joe: Continue.

Joe: All right. Explain this to me like I’m a two-year-old, okay? Because there’s an element to this thing that I cannot get through my thick head. Didn’t you have an obligation to tell your employer you had this dreaded, deadly, infectious disease?
Andrew: That’s not the point. From the day they hired me to the day I was fired I served my clients consistently, thoroughly, with absolute excellence. If they hadn’t fired me, that’s what I’d be doing today.
Joe: And they don’t want to fire you for having AIDS…so, in spite of your brilliance, they make you look incompetent. Thus, the mysterious lost files. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
Andrew: That’s correct. I was sabotaged.
Joe: I don’t buy it, Counselor.
Andrew: That’s very disappointing.
Joe: I don’t see a case.
Andrew: I have a case. If you don’t want it for personal reasons…
Joe: Thank you. That’s correct. I don’t.
Andrew: Well, thank you for your time, Counselor.
Joe: I’m sorry about what happened to you. It’s a bitch, you know?[/b]

Of course the first thing Joe does is go to his doctor to make sure he doesn’t have AIDS – just from being in the same room with Andy and shaking his hand.

[b]Doctor: The HIV virus can only be transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids… namely, blood, semen and vaginal secretions.
Joe: Right. Yeah. But isn’t it true they’re finding out new things about this disease every day? Now, you tell me today there’s no danger. Go home. I go home. I pick up my little baby girl. Then I find out six months from now on the news or something: Whoops! Made a mistake. Yeah, you can carry it on your shirt or your clothes or…

Wife: You have a problem with gays, Joe?
Joe: Not especially.
Wife: Yes, you do. How many gays do you know?
Joe: How many do you know?
Wife: Lots. Karen Berman, my aunt Theresa…Cousin Tommy who lives in Rochester… Eddie Meyers from the office… Stanley, the guy who’s putting in our kitchen cabinets.
Joe: Aunt Theresa is gay? That beautiful, sensuous, voluptuous woman is a lesbian? Since when?
Wife: Probably since she was born.
Joe: Oh, man. All right. Well, hey, I admit it, okay? I’m prejudiced. I don’t like homosexuals. There. You got me. I mean, the way these guys do that…thing, don’t they get confused? You know, I don’t want to be in bed with anybody who’s stronger than me…or who has more hair on their chest. Now, you can call me old-fashioned, conservative. Just call me a man. Besides, I think you have to be a man to understand how really disgusting that whole idea is anyway. Think about those guys pumping up together… trying to be macho and faggot at the same time. I mean, I can’t stand that shit. Hey, I’m bein’ totally honest with you, okay?

Joe [to his wife]: I got a question for you. Would you accept a client if you were constantly thinking, “I don’t want this person to touch me. I don’t want him to even breathe on me”?
Wife: Not if I was you, honey.

Joe: The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination…
Andrew: …subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes…which precedes the physical one.
Joe: This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics.

Charles [after learning of Andrew’s discrimination lawsuit]: Now, regarding Andy, I want to know everything regarding his personal life. Does he frequent those pathetic bars on Chestnut Street? What other homosexual facilities does he go to? What deviant groups or organizations does he secretly belong to?

Bob: Let’s make a fair settlement offer and put this tragic business behind us.
Charles: Andy brought AIDS into our offices into our men’s room. He brought AIDS to our annual goddamn family picnic.
Walter: We ought to be suing him, Bob.

Joe [to the jury]: Forget everything you’ve seen on television and in the movies. There’s not gonna be any last-minute surprise witnesses. Nobody’s gonna break down on the stand with a tearful confession. You’re gonna be presented with a simple fact: Andrew Beckett was fired. You’ll hear two explanations for why he was fired: Ours and theirs. It is up to you to sift through layer upon layer of truth…until you determine for yourselves which version sounds the most true.

Joe [to the jury]: There are certain points that I must prove to you. Point number one: Andrew Beckett was…is…a brilliant lawyer. Point number two: Andrew Beckett, afflicted with a debilitating disease made the understandable, the personal, the legal choice to keep the fact of his illness to himself. Point number three: His employers discovered his illness. And, ladies and gentlemen, the illness I’m referring to is AIDS. Point number four: They panicked. And in their panic, they did what most of us would like to do with AIDS…which is just get it and everybody who has it as far away from the rest of us as possible. Now, the behavior of Andrew Beckett’s employers may seem reasonable to you. It does to me. After all, AIDS is a deadly, incurable disease. But no matter how you come to judge Charles Wheeler and his partners in ethical, moral and human terms, the fact of the matter is when they fired Andrew Beckett because he had AIDS they broke the law.

Belinda: Fact: Andrew Beckett’s performance on the job varied from competent, good, to oftentimes mediocre…to sometimes flagrantly incompetent. Fact: He claims he’s the victim of lies and deceit. Fact: It was Andrew Beckett who lied…going to great lengths to conceal his disease from his employers. Fact: He was successful in his duplicity. The partners at Wyant, Wheeler did not know that Andrew Beckett had AIDS when they fired him. Fact: Andrew Beckett is dying. Fact: Andrew Beckett is angry because his lifestyle, his reckless behavior has cut short his life. And in his anger, his rage, he is lashing out. And he wants someone to pay.

Joe: Let me tell you something. These people make me sick. But a law’s been broken. You remember the law?
Bartender: At least we agree on one thing, Joe.
Joe: What’s that, Charlie?
Bartender: Tutti-fruttis make me sick too.

Lawyer: Ms. Benedict, how did you contract the AIDS virus?
Ms. Benedict: Through a transfusion. I lost a lot of blood giving birth to my second child.
Lawyer: So, in your case there was no behavior on your part which caused you to be infected with the virus. It was something you were unable to avoid. Isn’t that correct?
Ms. Benedict: I guess. But I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else with this disease. I’m not guilty. I’m not innocent. I’m just trying to survive.

Joe: Did you have something to do with this file being lost accidentally on purpose? Did you have anything to do with this file being misplaced?
Jamey: Absolutely not.
Joe: Are you a homosexual?
Jamey [startled]: What?
Joe: Answer the question! Are you a homo? A faggot? A punk? A queen, pillow biter, fairy? Bootie snatcher, rump roaster? Are you gay?
Lawyer: Objection!
Judge: Order!
Belinda: Where did this come from? Suddenly counsel’s attacking his own witness? Mr. Collins’ sexual orientation has nothing to do with this case.
Judge: Please have a seat, Miss Conine. Would you approach the bench, Mr. Miller?
[Joe approaches the bench]
Judge: Could you kindly share with me exactly what’s going on inside your head…because at this moment, I don’t have a clue.
Joe: Your Honor…everybody in this courtroom is thinking about sexual orientation, sexual preference…whatever you want to call it. Who does what to whom and how they do it. They’re looking at Andrew Beckett. They’re wondering about it. They’re looking at Mr. Wheeler, Miss Conine, even you, Your Honor. Trust me, I know they’re looking at me and thinking about it. So let’s get it out in the open. Let’s get it out of the closet. Because this case is not just about AIDS, is it? So let’s talk about what this case is really all about: The general public’s hatred, our loathing, our fear of homosexuals…and how that climate of hatred and fear translated into the firing of this particular homosexual…my client, Andrew Beckett.

Judge: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation.
Joe: With all due respect, your honor, we don’t live in this courtroom, do we?

Andrew: Congratulations, Counselor.
Joe: Congratulations?
Andrew: You’ve survived what I assume to be your first gay party intact.
Joe: Let me tell you something. When you’re brought up the way most people are in this country…there’s not a whole lot of discussion about homosexuality…or what do you call it, alternate lifestyles. As a kid you’re taught that queers are funny, queers are weird. Queers dress up like their mother, that they’re afraid to fight…that they’re a danger to little kids. That all they want to do is get into your pants. That pretty much sums up the general thinking, if you want to know the truth about it.[/b]

From the director of 6ixty Nin9 above.

No box stuffed with cash here though. Instead, it’s about suicide and love. About two people who could not possibly be less alike coming together and changing everything. Or everything that needs to be changed in order to motivate one not to commit suicide and the other to, well, she changes too. Kind of.

Kenji is a librarian. Which may or may not explain why Kenji is also anal-compulsive to a fault. Even his suicide note will come to encompass precision itself: straight to the point: “This is bliss”.

Until his asshole brother shows up. Yukio. A yakuza. Okay, so maybe later. But then he goes on to meet the beautiful and mysterious Noi. And that becomes bliss instead. Cicuitously as it were.

How circuitous? Well, it is only because Noi’s sister Nid spots Kenji about to commit suicide [again] by jumping off a bridge [and is struck dead by a passing car] that they meet at all. Him a full blown neat freak and her a full blown slob.

With one of the strangest endings I have ever seen. I mean really strange.

Also, with a really gorgeous soundtrack: youtu.be/xkJk1GyYhf8

IMDb

[b]Yukio Mishima, the author of “The Last Lizard”, the book featured in the film, committed Harakiri (suicide by stabbing yourself in the stomach with a short knife). This is perhaps one of the reasons why Kenji likes the author.

The Thai title means, literally, “Love Story, a Little, a Lot” with a play of words on “Noi” and “Nid” which means “few” and “small” respectively. The two words are also the names of the sisters in the movie so the title can also means “Love Story of Noi and Nid, a Lot”. Another interpretation can be “A small/little Love Story that is a lot”. The actresses who play Nid and Noi are real sisters.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Life_in_the_Universe
trailer: youtu.be/tU2QhICrdgY

LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE [Ruang Rak Noi Nid Mahasan] 2003
Written in part and directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

[b]Kenji [voiceover]: My name is Kenji. This could be me three hours from now. Why do I want to kill myself? I don’t know…I wouldn’t kill myself for the same reasons as other suicidal people. Money problems…Broken heart…Hopelessness…No, not me. Many books say “Death is relaxing.” Did you know that? No need to follow the latest trends…No need to keep pace with the rest of the world…No more e-mail…No more telephone…It’ll be like taking a nap… Before waking up refreshed and ready to begin your next life. That’s what they say.

Yukio [to Kenji]: You can’t just read, you’ll go crazy.

Yukio: Suicide again?
[he looks up at the noose]
Yukio: Going to hang yourself this time?

Takashi: You can’t go back to Japan. The boss will kill you.
Yukio: But I’ve been with him a long time. He’s just in a bad mood.
Takashi: A bad mood? You fucked his daughter! If you fucked my daughter, I’d cut your dick off and stuff it in your mouth!
Yukio: Really? You’ve seen too many yakuza movies.

Noi: Did you fuck Jon?
Nid: Who told you that?
Noi: Did you fuck him? Jon told me everything today.
Nid: What? What did that dickhead tell you? Yeah, he’s a dickhead. He’s shit!
Noi: So why did you have to go fuck a shit like that? You couldn’t leave him alone because he’s my shit, right?

Noi: What are you doing? How dare you come in here? Get out! Get the fuck out! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!
Kenji: I’m sorry.

Noi: Why you not go home?
Kenji: It smells too bad.
Noi: What?
Kenji: My house smells bad.
Noi: Smell bad? Why?
Kenji: Two dead people inside.

Noi [to Kenji]: Hey! You need a woman.

Kenji: You’re beautiful.
Noi: Enough. You’re smelly.
Kenji: Really?
Noi: Yes.
Kenji: OK.
Noi: You should take a bath.
Kenji: Okay, I will.
Noi: Now.
Kenji: Now?
Noi: Now…I say now.

Noi: You want to see me again?
Kenji: Yes.
Noi: When?
Kenji: One day.[/b]

Based on the account of an actual serial rapist/murderer who had run amok in South Korea in the 1980s. He was never caught. The crimes remain unsolved to this day. At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwaseong_serial_murders

And in South Korea [back then especially] the cops tended to be considerably more agressive in their pursuit of…justice. For example, take the plight of Kwang-ho.

And even bringing in a top notch detective from Seoul didn’t help. In fact the first thing the local detective does is mistake him for the killer and beat him up.

On the other hand, most of these cops and CSI detectives did not strike you as all that particularly…bright. If there was any possible way to fuck up a crime investigation, they had it covered. Think the Keystone Cops on steroids.

Still, it will always be perplexing how the minds of killers like this work. They do these very sick and brutal things for reasons that are all twisted up inside their heads…and in ways that are almost impossible to nail down. We can only hope that we do not become their next victim. Especially if you are a young and pretty woman. And inclined to wear red. Then the element of sex comes into play and these labyrinths are often the most convoluted of all. Here’s a man who always requested one particular song to be played on the radio. But only on rainy nights. And then, after hearing the song, he goes out to rape and murder someone. Or so it seemed.

One interpretation of the ending:

Park visits the scene of the first murder simply for nostalgia’s sake, since not solving that case was one of his deepest regrets. Then, from the girl he finds out that someone else has been visiting the scene, and deduces that most likely that one is the murderer. He asks the girl what did he look like (perhaps a final and faint attempt to solve the case) but she can’t provide any more detail other than he was just an ordinary looking guy, reminding him again of his failure. Then he looks at the camera hoping that the real murderer (the movie is based on a true story) will be watching the movie and perhaps feel a little bit of guilt.

IMDb

[b]Beginning in June 2000, it took Joon-ho Bong a year to write the script for Memories of Murder (2003), yet he has stated that: “For the first six months, I didn’t write a line of the script. I just did research.”

Despite the film being based on a series of real murders in the Korean provincial town of Hwaeseong during the 1980s, Joon-ho Bong also drew a lot inspiration from a play called ‘Come See Me’ which dramatized the incidents, to the extent that he stated in an interview: “If it weren’t for KIM Gwang-rim’s play [Come See Me], I would have had a lot of problems establishing the structure.” While he also gained the idea for the depiction of the era from the graphic novel ‘From Hell’ by the writer Alan Moore, which was given to Bong by the journalist Tony Rayns as a gift. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories_of_Murder
trailer: youtu.be/NtOutxGJK5o

MEMORIES OF MURDER [Salinui Chueok] 2003
Written in part and directed by Joon-ho Bong

Detective Park: Who received the call on this? The crime site is getting ruined! Damn forensics team isn’t here yet! This is a mess! Why does this shit happen to me?! How can I investigate like this?

And that’s right before the tractor runs over the most crucial piece of evidence.

[b]Detective Park [looking over at the forensics team]: Jesus, look at those sliding fools!

Detective Park: Kwang-ho. Let’s talk man to man. You see a pretty girl, you want to do her.

Detective Park [to detective Seo]: You should have told me. My mistake. But how can a detective be such a poor fighter?!

Detective Park [to Kwang-ho who is mentally retarded]: Women hate this face, don’t they?
[Kwang-ho nods]
Detective Park: They grimace and all fucking run away.
Kwang-ho: It’s true. I’ll kill them all. Everyone who grimaces at my face. I’ll kill them all. Those women who grimace, they’re all in my head.[/b]

Then they get his “confession”: cased solved!

[b]Chief: Detective Seo, you’re dumping shit on cooked rice here!
Dectective Seo: I told you before Kwang-ho isn’t guilty! Chief…the cords around their necks we’re tied with three tight knots. Look at Kwang-ho’s webbed hands. Could he do that? Even a child can see it!

Detective Cho [to Kwang-ho]: I only beat you up because I care about you.

Detective Park: Always in rape cases, at the crime scene, there’s one or two of these hairs left behind.
Chief: So?
Detective Park: I’m saying the criminal must not have any hair down there.
Chief: You mean hairless?
Detective Park: That’s right, hairless. A total baldie. For example, a Buddhist monk who shaved the hair down there. The perfect crime!

Detective Park [to the chief after hearing Kwon’s radio theory]: Baldies…
Chief: But how do you investigate? Pull down the pants of passing men?[/b]

Uh, nope. Park puts on his Keystone Cop thinking cap instead. Cut to the bathhouse. Then to the fortune teller.

[b]Rape suspect: But…is jerking off a crime?

Detective Seo: Name: Ahn Mi-seon, age 28. Estimated time of death, last night between 7:30 and 8:00.
Chief: That’s the time you and dectective Park were fighting like madmen. Right?

Technician in morgue: There’s something in the vagina… Looks like a peach… Nine pieces.
Detective Park [to dectective Seo]: Do you see this kind of thing in Seoul often?

Park Hyun-gyu [suspected of being the killer to the detectives]: Even kids in this town know you torture innocent people!

Detective Seo: No eyewinesses, not one piece of evidence. We need something, shit. Just a confession will do. Just need to beat that bastard to an inch of his life.
Detective Park: You’ve changed…

Detective Seo [to detective Park]: Kwang-ho. I always wanted to ask you. When you dragged him up the mountain, he talked about Hayng-sook’s death in so much detail…[/b]

Bingo: He saw the nurderer. But they manage to fuck this up too. For one thing, Kwang-ho gets hit by a train and dies.

[b]Detective Park: What’s wrong?
Detective Seo [reading a DNA report from America that cannot pin the murders on Park Hyun-gyu]: There’s a mistake. This document is a lie. I don’t need it.

Park [no longer a detective]: Did you see his face?
[the schoolgirl nods]
Park: What did he look like?
Schoolgirl: Well… kind of plain.
Park: In what way?
Schoolgirl: Just… ordinary.[/b]

Ordinary people. Of course that will always be understood differently in different historical, cultural and experiential contexts. No getting around that conundrum right?

Here the ordinary people are composed largely of upper middle class American citizens in the late 20th century. All white. All comfortably enscounsed in exurbia. At least on the surface. Is that important to note? Well, it can be, sure. All I know is it is hard to imagine a family farther removed from the one I grew up in.

But these “ordinary people” now find themselves in an extraordinary set of circumstances. How ordinary will they remain? Do they rise to the occasion? Or will it sink them? Why one and not the other? And is it really true that we can only account for these things one set of circumstances at a time? Or are there lessons to be learned that transcend the uniqueness of each particular challenge?

And for each one of us [sooner or later] a time will come when we are challenged. And others will judge us. And almost always by their own frame of reference. It does get complicated, doesn’t it?

And what do demographics really matter when you lose someone you dearly love. Or if you feel responsible in some manner for the loss? Here it is all about figuring out what you either can or cannot control. And knowing in particular that you will never, ever be able to control everything. Or even really understand it. And always that gap between the tragedy then and the life you have to live now from day to day. We all experience it differently.

Then there’s the part where the rest of the world just goes on living.

IMDb

[b]The film and source novel’s “Ordinary People” title comes from Judith Guest’s book: “They are ordinary people, after all. For a time they had entered the world of the newspaper statistic; a world where any measure you took to feel better was temporary, at best, but that is over. This is permanent. It must be.” The novel is a school text on the English curricula at many American high schools.

Robert Redford decided to do the film because the story’s family reminded him of his own in the way it talked around issues.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_People
trailer: youtu.be/UZYHe8IAlto

ORDINARY PEOPLE [1980]
Directed by Robert Redford

Teacher: Conrad, what’s your theory on Jude Fawley? Was he powerless in the grip of circumstances…or could he have helped himself?
Conrad: I don’t… Powerless? He thought he was.
Joel: He was a jerk. He was hung up on morals. It was senseless.
Teacher: That’s too easy, Joel. Paul?
Paul: I found the book really hard to follow. I couldn’t figure it out.

American Youth discuss Jude the Obscure by Thoamas Hardy.

[b]Dr. Berger: How long were you in the hospital? Four months. What did you do?
Conrad: I tried to off myself. Doesn’t it say that there?
Dr. Berger: It doesn’t say what your method was.
Conrad: Double-edged Super Blue.

Dr.Berger: What needed changing?
Conrad: I’d like to be more in control.
Dr. Berger: Why?
Conrad: So people can quit worrying about me.
Dr. Berger: Well, I’ll tell you something. I’ll be straight with you. Okay? I’m not big on control. But it’s your money.
Conrad: So to speak.
Dr. Berger: So to speak.

Coach: Are you on medication? Tranquilizers? Anything?
Conrad: No. No. Sir.
Coach: Did I ask you if they gave you shock?
Conrad: Yeah. You asked me. Yeah. They did.
Coach: I’m no doctor, Jarrett. But I wouldn’t let them put electricity in my head.

Dr. Berger: Is any place easy?
Conrad: The hospital was.
Dr. Berger: It was? Why?
Conrad: Because nobody hid anything there.

Karen: Are you seeing a doctor?
Conrad: Yeah. I’m seeing one. Are you?
Karen: Uh, Dr. Crawford gave me a name. I went for a while. It didn’t work. He told me the things I already knew. Finally, I decided the only one who can help me is myself. At least that’s what my dad says. But if it’s something you want to do that’s what you should be doing.
Conrad: I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up. I sort of got shoved into it.

Conrad: I miss it sometimes. The hospital. I really do.
Karen: But things have to change. You know?
Conrad: But that’s where we laughed.
Karen: But that was a hospital. This is the real world.
Conrad: Yeah, I guess you’re right.

Conrad: When I let myself feel, all I feel is lousy.
Dr. Berger: Oh well excuse me, I never promised you a rose garden.
Conrad: Oh fuck you Berger.
Dr. Berger: What?
Conrad: FUCK YOU!
Dr. Berger: Hey, that’s it! [/b]

What’s it? Man I have been there so many times myself with shrinks. What works? What doesn’t? What should work? What shouldn’t? Or maybe all he really needs is to fall in love.

[b]Dr. Berger: What shit have you pulled? What shit? You can find one example. Don’t say you tried suicide. What have you done lately?
Conrad: I’ll never be forgiven for that. Never. You can’t get out the blood in her towels…and in her rug. Everything had to be pitched. The bathroom tile had to be regrouted. She fired the maid because she couldn’t dust the goddamn living room right. If you think I’ll forgive…she’s gonna forgive me…
Dr. Berger: What?
Conrad: I think I just figured something out.
Dr. Berger: What?
Conrad: Who it is who can’t forgive who.

Jeannine [in restaurant booth Conrad sits with Jeannine, the suicide attempt scars on Conrad’s wrist are displayed]: Did it hurt?
Conrad: I don’t remember, really.
Jeannine: You don’t want to talk about it?
Conrad: I’ve never really talked about it. To doctors. But, not to anyone else. You’re the first who’s asked.
Jeannine: Why did you do it?
Conrad: Uh… I don’t know. It was like… falling into a hole. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and you can’t escape. All of a sudden, it’s inside…and you’re the hole. You’re trapped. And it’s all over. Something like that. It’s not really scary…except when you think back on it. 'Cause you know what you were feeling… [/b]

Then “the guys” come in. So much for suicide…

[b]Conrad [on phone]: Hello. Hello. Is Karen there?
Karen’s mother on phone: She… Bill.
Bill [Karen’s father]: Hello.
Conrad: Is Karen there? This is Conrad Jarrett. I’m a friend of hers.
Bill: Karen’s dead.
Conrad [shocked]: What? What?
Bill: She killed herself.

Conrad [to Dr. Berger]: It must be somebody’s fault…or there’s no point!

Conrad: We shouldn’t have gone out there. We should have come back when it started to look bad.
Dr. Berger: Okay, so you made a mistake.
Conrad: Why did he let go? Why?
Dr. Berger: Maybe you were stronger. Did it ever occur to you that you might be stronger?

Ward: Beth, we don’t want anything from you; Audrey, Cal, Connie and Me, we just want you to be happy.
Beth: Happy?! Ward, you tell me the definition of happy. But first you better make sure your kids are good and safe, that they haven’t fallen of a horse, been hit by a car, or drown in that swimming pool you’re so proud of!
Audrey: Oh Beth!
Beth: Then, you come and tell me how to be happy!

Calvin [to Beth]: We would’ve been all right…would have made it all the way…if there hadn’t been any mess. But you can’t handle mess. You need everything neat and easy. I don’t know. Maybe you can’t love anybody. It was so much Buck. When Buck died it’s as though you buried all your love with him. I don’t understand that. Maybe it wasn’t even Buck. Maybe it was just you. Maybe, finally, it was the best of you that you buried. But whatever it was…I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what we’ve been playing at. So I was crying. Because I don’t know if I love you anymore. And I don’t know what I’ll do without that.[/b]}

Amnesia is always a plot device that a filmmaker can use to explore themes that revolve around identity and reality and mind. How do they come together and intertwine from the cradle to the grave?

And why do we choose to remember some things and not others? And how can we know for sure that what we do choose to remember is what in fact actually occured? And what happens when others remember the same events differently?

And then the part where memory and identity and reality and mind are merely functions of the brain – and perhaps not even within the autonomous reach of “I”.

Memoryrealitypastpresent. Lifedeath.

Here the memories and the loss of memories revolve around a tragic automobile accident – the consequences of which are nothing short of surreal. The survivor, Hiroshi Takagi, is a medical student and the class he is in are now dissecting cadavers. It is then that he realizes that the cadaver assigned to him is the woman he once loved – Ryoko Ooyama, the woman who died in the automobile accident he was in. The accident was ruled to be the fault of the other driver but that is not how Ryoko’s parents choose to remember it. And we can only remember what the director chooses to impart to us up on the screen.

What really unfolded between Hiroshi and Ryoko before the crash? What is the “true” reality here? And what role does the beautiful and mysterious Ikumi play in the reconstruction of that reality? And in the construction of a new one? And the role played by autoerotic asphyxia – is that vital to the plot here or entirely extraneous?

Sex and death.

Look for the world’s thinnest woman. Or one of them.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_(film
trailer: youtu.be/nih18elH03U

VITAL [2004]
Written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

[b]Instructor: The ovum, a product of almost pure chance, by means of cellular growth, divergence and migration, creates an organism.

Instructor: This person experienced trauma to the frontal lobe section. The area is responible for personality and memory. From this we can conclude the following: Human character is not constant.

Instructor: The brain and the spinal cord form the central nervous system. Nerve cells are concentrated in this area. I wonder, then, where the soul lies?

Instructor: Beneath this, however, there is the vast realm of the unconscious. It is here that our suppressed desires can cause deep mental conflict as they strive to realize themsleves.

Student [looking at the cadaver]: Is it common for the subject to be so young?
Technician: No, it is very rare.
Student: I wonder how she died?
Technician: You’ll find out as you dissect.

Doctor [holding a dissected heart in hid hand]: How many times did this heart beat? 70 times a minute is 4200 times an hour. In a day? Well, 24 times that. Then times 365 for a year. How many times if you live to be 80? And yet my TV set broke after just 6 years.

Ryoko’s father: Why have you come here? Just go away? Your parents were very sincere about their grief. What I really want to see is your sincerity. You were driving when it happened. I still feel you murdered my daughter. If you want to mourn her, do it when you truly remember her.
Hiroshi: I’m already starting to rmemeber. Right now, at college, I’m doing my dissection practice. There something I need to know, if you can tell me. I think Ryoko…is on the dissection table. I don’t quite understand it.
Ryoko’s father [aghast]: Are you serious? Well? Tell me it’s not true! You heartless fuck! You want to know if it’s her, right? How the hell should I know?! Just before she died, she told us she was leaving her body to science. We didn’t even know you could do such a thing. And now you think you’re poking around inside her?!

Ryoko [sitting next to Hiroshi in a car on the highway]: Hiroshi, what would it be like to crash into something?

Ikumi: What’s gotten into you? Why are you chasing a dead woman? What about those of us still living? All your happy false memories. What chance do I have against all those?

Instructor: Our four-month dissection program is now over. Make sure you return the bodies to their original form. Check that bones and organs have been replaced and the kidneys are on the correct side. Put the sash next to the hands. The tabi and sandals go by the feet. The triangular cloth and the headdress go by the head. Drape the kimono over the body. Place the cane next to the right hand. Drape the shroud over the face. Lay the flowers inside. Now place the lid on the coffin. We will now close our eyes and pay our last respects. The coffins will be taken now.[/b]

Later the coffins and all that is in them will be burned to ashes. The rituals to blunt what is in the end just the brutal facts of existence. Of life and death. Of being and nothingness.

Ryoko: You know I often wonder…if you could see some paert of your life again, years after you die, which part would you choose?
Hiroshi: The last images of the last Martian robot. Mankind’s final memory.
Ryoko: You still have a long time to live, so you can’t answer properly. As for me…

With gangsters you figure this: that what they do to each other is only what the cocksuckers deserve. But when a kid gets all tangled up in it it gets considerably more problematic. Especially when the kid doesn’t have a clue regarding what “business” his father is in. And then when he finds out the hard way. In the interim though he sees a lot of things that he really doesn’t understand much at all. And then one day he does.

How does he find this out? Just plain curiousity about his dad. He needed to confirm that is dad was a hero. And then [just like that] it all comes to revolve around the consequences of this one fortuitous incident. But this is what fascinates some more than others: the butterfly effect in human interaction.

Then the part about family conflicts. One family being your own flesh and blood kin and the other family being, well, you know which one. And sometimes your obligations here can get really, really fuzzy. As in, say, when they become a matter of life and death. And you never really know what will finally push a man over the edge among folks like this. You never really know where to draw the lines. Stress begets more stress still. And that begets consequences.

And [obviously] some of these thugs are more inclined to be honorable than are others. Yes, even a thug can have a code. But there is always a hierarchy in crime. And some are allowed to be more honorable than others.

And what does all of this ultimately come down to? The fucking money of course.

On the other hand, the events here all unfold in the early years of the Great Depression. And that was a time when there were a lot more desparate men stumbling around willing to do whatever it took to, among other things, sustain their very existence. And that of their loved ones. It’s just that these slimey bastards took things to the extreme. Or were ordered to. All we can do then is bet on the least contemptible ones.

Personal observation: This would have been a better film had it not decided to become a situation comedy [for about 15 minutes] once the father and the son were out on the road. And the end could have been better.

IMDb

[b]The movie is loosely based on actual events and a real enforcer for mobster John Looney, who was betrayed by him.

Notice that Michael Jr. isn’t eating his pie and ice cream in the diner when he and his father are talking about the money. According to Sam Mendes, in earlier takes Tyler Hoechlin gobbled up his pie, not considering that he would have to perform the scene again and again. By the time they got to the take that’s in the film Hoechlin was stuffed and couldn’t take another bite. Tom Hanks by contrast knew to put small amounts of food into his mouth and eat slowly.

One of the locations for one of the bank robberies was physically perfect but the wrong way round. There was only room to shoot from right to left and not vice versa. So production designer Dennis Gassner and his team had to dress the location, reversing street signs, license plates and even switching steering wheels on all the cars.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Perdition
trailer: youtu.be/IjbSYkY5hVA

ROAD TO PERDITION [2004]
Directed by Sam Mendes

[b]Michael Jr. [voiceover]: There are many stories about Michael Sullivan. Some say he was a decent man. Some say there was no good in him at all. But I once spent 6 weeks on the road with him, in the winter of 1931. This is our story.

Peter: Why are you always smiling?
Connor: ‘Cause it’s all so fuckin’ hysterical.

Peter: What’s Papa’s job?
Michael Jr.: He works for Mr. Rooney.
Peter: Why?
Michael Jr.: Well, Papa didn’t have a father…so Mr. Rooney looked after him.
Peter: I know that, but what’s his job?
Michael Jr: He goes on missions for Mr. Rooney. They’re very dangerous. That’s why he brings his gun.

Michael Sr: We’re just talking to him, right?
Connor: Sure.

Michael Sr [looking down at Michael Jr]: Oh, Jesus…You saw everything?
[Michael Jr. nods]
Michael Sr: Jesus.

Michael Jr: Does Mama know?
Michael Sr: Your mother knows I love Mr. Rooney. When we had nothing, he gave us a home…a life…and we owe him.

Jack: Mr. Rance met with John and me earlier to make another bid for our involvement in the unions.
John: And I told Mr. Rance what I told him before: What men do after work is what made us rich. No need to screw them at work as well.

Michael Sr: You gonna frisk me?
Frank the Bouncer: Should I?
Michael Sr: It might be a good idea.

Note written to Tony Calvino: KILL SULLIVAN AND ALL DEBTS ARE PAID
Michael Sr [knowing what that means]: Michael…

Connor: Pa, I’m sorry.
John: What did you do?! Stupid!
Connor: The kid would’ve talked. I’m sorry.
John: Goddamn you! Goddamn you! I curse!..The fucking day!..You were born! I curse it!

Michael sr [to Michael Jr]: This house is not our home anymore. It’s just an empty building.

Kelly: You have friends in Ireland, Mike. Why don’t you take Peter and leave?
Michael Sr: I can’t take Peter. He’s dead. So where’s Connor?
Kelly: He’s in hiding.
Michael Sr: Where?
Kelly: You know I can’t tell you that. You think sticking a gun to my head is gonna make any difference to me? If I tell you, I’m a dead man anyway. We both are. Think, Mike. Don’t be stupid. I’m just the messenger.
Michael Sr [lowers his gun]: Then give Mr. Rooney a message for me.
Kelly [relieved]: What is it?
[Sullivan shoots him dead]

Frank Nitti [after Michael Sr. requests a sanctioned reprisal against Conner Rooney]: All these years you’ve been living under the protection of people who care about you, and those same people are protecting you now, including me. So, if you go ahead with this, if you open that door, you’re walking through it alone, and all that loyalty, and all that trust will no longer exist for you. And Mike, you won’t make it. Not on your own, and not with a little boy.
Michael Sr: You’re protecting him already?
Frank Nitti: We’re protecting our interests, Mike.

Nitti: You heard?
Connor: Dad, listen to me. He’s in the building. You can end this now. Take him now.
John: Connor, get upstairs.
[Connor leaves the room]
John [aloud to himself]: God help me. God help me. What do I do?
Nitti: You think objectively. And you make your choice. What would you do if Sullivan were just some guy?
John: God help me. Make it quick.
Nitti: And the kid?
John [anguished]: Oh, Christ. No, no.
Nitti: One day the kid becomes a man…Think he won’t remember?
John: I said not the kid.
Nitti: All right. I know who to call…There’s a guy who’s done some work for us in the past. He’s gifted.

Michael Sr [as Maguire loads his camera]: Is that, uh…your profession or…your pleasure?
Maguire: Both, I guess. To be paid to do what you love…ain’t that the dream?

Maguire [to Michael Sr]: I shoot the dead. Dead bodies, that is. I don’t kill them. [/b]

[b]Michael Jr: So, what are you gonna do?
Michael Sr: Something I can’t do alone. You have to listen to me now, okay? Or else both of us are dead. I have to make Capone give up Connor. There’s one thing Chicago loves more than anything…and that’s their money.

Mr. McDougal: Well this is a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting another deposit until the end of the month.
Michael Sr: Actually, I’m making a withdrawal.

Michael Sr: And I want dirty money only, everything you’re holding for Capone that’s off the books. Open the safe.
Mr. McDougal: You’re insane. You know they’ll find out who you are.
Michael Sr: The name’s Sullivan. You want me to spell it?

Betty the Waitress: So what brings you guys to the middle of nowhere?
Michael Jr.: We’re bank robbers.

Michael Jr: So when do I get my share of the money?
Michael Sr: Well… how much do you want?
Michael Jr: Two hundred dollars.
Michael Sr: Okay. Deal.
[Michael Jr stops eating and thinks for awhile]
Michael Jr: Could I have had more?
Michael Sr: You’ll never know.

Rance: What do you think you’re going to accomplish by interfering with our business, Mr. Sullivan?
Michael Sr: This has nothing to do with your business.
Rance: It’s all business. That’s what you fail to grasp. And in business, you must have something to trade. And you, Mr. Sullivan, have nothing to trade. Especially not for anyone as valuable as Connor Rooney.

Michael Jr.: Did you like Peter more than me?
Michael Sr: No. I loved you both the same.
Michael Jr.: You were always… different with me.
Michael Sr: Was I?
[the father thinks for a while]
Michael Sr: Well, I suppose it was because Peter was just such a sweet little boy, you know? And you…you were more like me. And I…I didn’t want you to be.

Michael Sr: He murdered Annie and Peter!
John: There are only murderers in this room! Michael! Open your eyes! This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven.

Michael Sr: Think. Think. They’re protecting him now, but when you’re gone, they won’t need him. This ends with Connor dead regardless.
John: That may be…but you are asking me to give you the key to his room so you can walk in put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. I can’t do that.

Michael Jr.: What are you going to do?
Michael Sr: Just one last thing, and then it’s done.

John [to Michael Sr.]: I’m glad it’s you.

Nitti [on phone to Michael Sr]: I understand. But then Al wants your assurance that after that, it’s over. The Lexington Hotel, room 1432.

Michael Jr [voiceover]: I saw then that my father’s only fear was that his son would follow the same road. And that was the last time I ever held a gun. People always thought I grew up on a farm. And I guess, in a way, I did. But I lived a lifetime before that, in those six weeks on the road in the winter of 1931. When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them…he was my father. [/b]

Not many terms of endearments were exchanged in my family. Not that I remember anyway. And every family has their own dynamic in this regard. Some have too many and some have too few. And when you have too many or too few that can lead to all manner of dysfunction. Or so the experts tell us. Too many and you have dependency issues, too few and, well, we know what that can lead to.

I wonder: Does it explain me, perhaps?

Here it’s actually harder to pin down. The mother is no stranger to endearments but she is hopelessly neurotic. And her daughter will always have to deal with that. And then inflict it on her own family. Then it goes around and around in circles as everyone creates their own turbulent reactions. But it’s always the kids that bear the brunt of it. At least until it’s their turn to pass it all down the line.

Bottom line: Who we become is always embedded [either more or less] in our “inner child of the past”. And there’s only grasping this or not grasping this. The implications, for instance.

Of course that still doesn’t explain Flap though. At times you look at Jeff Daniels playing him and you know why they picked him for the movie Dumb and Dumber. Ironically, he plays the bookish intellectual here. But there are all sorts of ways one can manage to become an…idiot. And even the most intelligent of men [and he is certainly not one of those] can be complete shits. If not all the time.

As for the rest of them, let’s just say they are not at all the sort of folks that I would ever choose to hang around with. And vice versa. But that no doubt is my problem.

Anyway, terms of endearment become all the more problematic when, out of the blue, you receive a death sentence. From the doctor. And then the reactions become all the more turbulent when you are still relatively young. You find yourself dying and that changes everything. Especially when you have three young kids. You have to come up with things to say to them [and all the others] when there is nothing that can be said that will change anything.

IMDb

[b]Debra Winger behaved erratically on the set of this film because she was trying to get over a severe cocaine addiction. At one point, she and Shirley MacLaine got into a shoving match.

James L. Brooks received a special gift at the end of production, to congratulate him for completing his first movie. This was a book of “Life in Hell” cartoons, drawn by Matt Groening. Brooks was so impressed with the comics that he asked Groening to create cartoon shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show (1987). This gave rise to The Simpsons.

Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger were both nominated for 1983’s Best Actress Oscar, which went to MacLaine. On her way to the podium, she reportedly whispered to Winger, “Half of this belongs to you,” to which Winger reportedly replied, “I’ll take half.”[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Endearment
trailer: youtu.be/zY0GM9KHU8o

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT [1983]
Written and directed by James L. Brooks

Aurora: Let me go, just for a minute.
Husband: You’re going to stare that baby into a coma.
Aurora: Stop exaggerating.
Husband: It’s not good to keep checking and imagining terrible things.
Aurora: I know, I know.
Husband: Here it starts. Here we go.
Aurora: Rudyard…Rudyard, she’s not breathing.
Husband: Honey, she’s sleeping. The baby’s sleeping.
Aurora: No…Rudyard, it’s crib death.
Husband: It’s sleep! She’s asleep, honey.
Aurora: Maybe.

Just sleep. But you can well imagine the future of this relationship.

Aurora: I’m totally convinced if you marry Flap Horton tomorrow, it will be a mistake of such gigantic proportions, it will ruin your life and make wretched your destiny.
Emma: Why are you doing this to me?
Aurora: You are not special enough to overcome a bad marriage. Emma, use your brains. Flap is limited. He hasn’t got any imagination. Even at this age, all he wants is a secure teaching job.

Flap?

[b]Emma: Mother… I’m marrying Flap Horton tomorrow. I thank God Flap’s getting me out of here. If this is your attitude, don’t even bother coming to my wedding.
Aurora: That’s right. No, I think you’re right. The hypocrisy was bothering me, too.

Emma: The only school that would accept his associate professorship is in Des Moines.
Aurora: He can’t even do the simple things, like fail locally.

Garrett: Well, anyway, they cancelled the dinner, but I was really thinking about asking you out. Seriously. Ain’t that a shocker?
Aurora: Yes. Imagine you having a date with someone where it wasn’t necessarily a felony.

Emma: Don’t yell, but I really think that I may be pregnant again.
Aurora: Oh! No! Oh, no! And you’re going to have it, I suppose?
Emma: Yes, of course. What’s happening to you, anyway?
Aurora: Don’t act like that’s so terrible. Bright young women are having simple abortions.
Emma: “Simple”?
Aurora: Then they get wonderful jobs. You can have it in Colorado.
Emma: I don’t know why I tell you anything. I seem to like you less and less.
Aurora: You know why, Emma? Because I am the only person who tells you the truth. How will your life get better if you keep having children with that man? What miracle is going to come along to rescue you?

Sam: You’re a very rude young woman. I know Douglas from the Rotary and I can’t believe he’d want you treating customers so badly.
Checkout Girl: I don’t think I was treating her badly.
Sam: Then you must be from New York.

Garrett: I think we’re going to have to get drunk.
Aurora: I don’t get drunk, and I don’t care for escorts who do.
Garrett: You got me into this. You’re just going to have to trust me about this one thing. You need a lot of drinks.
Aurora: To break the ice?
Garrett: To kill the bug that you have up your ass.

Aurora: Would you like to come in?
Garrett: I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.

Aurora: Everything would have been just fine, you know, if you hadn’t gotten drunk. I was… I… I just didn’t want you to think I was like one of your other girls.
Garrett: Not much danger in that unless you curtsy on my face real soon.
Aurora: Garrett! What is it that makes you so insistent on shocking and insulting me? I mean, I really hate that way of talking. You must know this. Why do you do it?
Garrett: I’ll tell you, Aurora. I don’t know what it is about you, but you do bring out the devil in me.

Aurora [looking at the homage to himself on Garrett’s wall]: I’ll tell you what. I think this is really sad, that you feel that you need all this stuff to impress girls with.
Garrett: Need it? Sometimes it isn’t enough. There’s nothing wrong with using your assets.
Aurora: I think it turns your profession into a sex trap.
Garrett: Oh, come on. Everybody uses whatever they have. I earned it! There are 106 astronauts in the whole fucking world and I’m one of them!

Doctor: You have a lump in your armpit. How long has it been there?
Emma: I don’t know.
Doctor: There’s two of them. It’s not very big, though. I have to be out of town next week but you shouldn’t wait. They should come out.
Emma: Come out? Should I be scared?
Doctor: If you’re scared, you’ll be happier when it turns out to be nothing.

Aurora: Rosie…our girl is in trouble. She has a cyst that’s malignant. They’re taking her to a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. [/b]

The Big One.

[b]Dr. Maise: We do more and more on an outpatient basis. We shouldn’t need to take her back, unless the illness escalates.
Aurora: But you’re not telling me anything.
Dr. Maise: What are you confused about?
Aurora: How is she?
Dr. Maise: I always tell people to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Aurora: And they let you get away with that?

Aurora [to workmen hanging her paintings]: Careful there. Those are worth more than you’ll ever make in your lifetime.
[they stare at her]
Emma [to the workmen]: I grew up with it my whole life. You can take it for a couple of minutes.

Aurora [to Garrett]: Who would ever have expected you to be a nice guy?

Aurora: Do you have any reaction at all to my telling you I love you?
Garrett: And I was just inches from a clean getaway.

Aurora: And you know what?
Emma: What?
Aurora: I got up the nerve to tell him I loved him. You know what his reaction was?
Emma: I don’t give a shit, Mom, I’m sick.

Aurora: Flap…Patsy wants to raise Melanie and maybe the boys. I think they should be with me, don’t you?
Flap: What can you be thinking about?
Aurora: Raising three children, working full time and chasing women requires a lot more energy than you have. You know, one of the nicest qualities about you is that you recognise your weaknesses. Don’t lose that quality when you need it the most.
Flap: You have no right, nor any invitation, to discuss where or how my children live. [/b]

Maybe, but in the end though he gives them up.

Flap [to Emma]: I’m thinking about my identity, and not having one anymore. I mean, who am I, if I’m not the man who’s failing Emma?

Horror films can be as much about the unknown as the supernatural. They probe into the dark recesses of the human psyche and the ghosts and the goblins might well be “metaphors” for all the stuff that most disturb us about [among other things] living and dying.

As noted at wiki:

[Pulse] is a philosophical exploration into the alienation and loneliness of modern existence due to technology. Communication breakdown and isolation are the main themes of the film.

After all, more and more some seem less and less inclined to live among others “in reality”. Instead, they choose to interact in virtual worlds that proliferate “on line”. They basically exist in an exchange of thoughts and feelings that they impart to characters [personas] they play in places like this. Or in Sim worlds. “Reality” then becomes more a frame of mind that they use to mold and maniplate others – tugging and pulling them into their own narcissistic narratives [webs].

Who are they then? Other than who you think they are.

Imagine the internet here as a kind of purgatory.

One thing for sure: Be careful what you click “OK” for on the internet. And get yourself a good supply of red tape.

Anyway, few are better at exploring this sort of thing cinematically then the folks from the “far East”. It’s not for nothing that film critics point out over and again how “American remakes” of them are generally for shit. And this one is no exception. At RT, the 2001 original [from Japan] garnered a 73% fresh rating on 49 reviews. The 2006 American edition garnered a 10% fresh rating on 69 reviews.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_(2001_film
trailer: youtu.be/EfoJpCSs2lU

PULSE [Kairo] 2001
Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[b]Junco: I don’t know what Taguchi was depressed about. He never said anything, so what could we have done?
Yabi: Maybe he suddenly just wanted to die. I get that way sometimes. It’s so easy to hang yourself.

Ryosuke [looking at the computer screen]: What’s this?
Haure: That? Something we programed here. If two dots get too close, they die, but if they get too far apart, they’re drawn together.
Ryosuke: What’s it for?
Haure: A minature model of our world…but only the grad student who designed it understands it.
[he goes back to the screen]
Haure: I wouldn’t suggest staring at it too long.

Haure: What got you started on the internet…wanted to connect with other people?
Ryosuke: Maybe…I don’t know.
Haure: People don’t really connect, you know. Like those dots simulating humans. We all live totally separately. Or that’s how it seems to me.

Haure [staring at the computer dots]: Isn’t it strange? Almost like ghosts. Sometimes these things turn up. At first, they look like the other dots.
Ryosuke: What are they?
Haure: I don’t know.

Harue: I always wondered what it’s like to die. From when I was really little I was always alone. I thought that after death you live happily with everyone over there. Then in high school it dawned on me you might be all alone after death, too.
Ryosuke: There’s no way to know. How could you?
Harue: The idea was so terrifying. I couldn’t even bear it. That nothing changes with death, just right now…forever.

Ryosuke: Nobody knows what happens when you die…But I do know that I am definitely alive and so are you, Harue. That’s for sure. right? So I don’t want to think about the fact that we’ll die someday. Just maybe in 10 years, or at least while we’re still alive they’ll invent a drug that prevents death. Then, we could live forever and ever. Of course you might think I am crazy to say that, but I’d rather bet on that.
Harue: You want to live forever?
Ryosuke: Yes.
Harue: That sounds like fun?
Ryosuke: Yes, that’s what I think.

Haure [to Ryosuke…but more to herself]: Ghosts won’t kill people. Because that would just make more ghosts. Instead, they’ll try to make people immortal. By quietly trapping them in their own loneliness.

Spectre [to Ryosuke]: Forever. Death is eternal loneliness. Forever. [/b]

It’s all about this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam

Of course to “hustle” has always had two meanings. Especially here in America. On the one hand, someone who hustles is often applauded for being in alignment with the American Dream. You make it here if you work hard, if you’re willing to pay your dues, if you bend over backwards to make something of yourself. Everything is said to revolve around individual effort. So, if you are one of the winners you earned it; and, if you are one of the losers, you have no one to blame but yourself. Conservatives of course love this particular narrative.

Liberals, on the other hand, are often more in tune with the other meaning. This one: hustling as something that involves conning others, exploiting others, using others for your own personal gain and then dumping them along the side of the road [to riches] when you have used them up.

Anyway, the second meaning is something that folks from other countries often don’t even have a translation for:

The American term “hustle” has no direct translation in many other languages. The studio approved the alternative titles American Bluff in France, American Dream in Israel, American Scandal in Argentina, American Sting in Portugal, and American Scam in Quebec. IMDb

In “reality” of course each point of view may or may not be relevant depending on the individual involved and the circumstances in which he finds himself. Or herself. There are just too many complex variables involved here. And always they are open to interpretation. And even then only to the extent that you understand them or are able to actually control them.

In other words, what a cluster fuck this 1] either turned out to be or 2] almost turned out to be.

On the other hand, these two [three? four? more?] were real slimeballs. You sort of have to be when the whole point of your business to is to prey on desparate people.

Of course “hustling” can be just as much personal as political and economic. All the games that are played on the suckers. But then we often find ourselves wondering: Am I the sucker? Oh, and never get emotionally involved with the mark. Not even if it’s just male bonding.

IMDb

[b]The film is a fictionalized telling of the Abscam (short for Arab scam) scandal of the late 1970s and early 1980s, an FBI operation that began as an investigation of trafficking in stolen property, but was later expanded to include political corruption.

The fight scene that takes place in the bedroom between Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence is completely improvised. A version of it had been written in the script, but the actors were struggling to connect with it, so director David O. Russell ultimately decided to allow them to say what they wanted.

According to Christian Bale much of the movie was improvised. So, during the shooting of the film he noted to David O. Russell, “You realize that this is going to change the plot greatly down track.” To which the director replied, “Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that’s it.”

Tied with Gangs of New York (2002) and True Grit (2010) for second-highest number of Academy Award nominations with no wins at 10, following The Turning Point (1977) and The Color Purple (1985) at 11.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Hustle
trailer: youtu.be/ST7a1aK_lG0

AMERICAN HUSTLE [2013]
Written in part and directed by David O. Russell

[b]Title card: Some of this actually happened.

Irving [voiceover]: Did you ever have to find a way to survive and you knew your choices were bad, but you had to survive? I learned how to survive when I was a kid out on the streets. And I would rather be on the taking side then the getting taken side, any day of the week. Especially after I saw my father get taken. I mean, seeing that scarred me for life.

Irving: Is that Duke Ellington, on your bracelet?
Sydney: Yeah, as a matter of fact it is. He died this year, you know?
Irving: I know. I doubt anyone else here knows or cares about it.
Sydney: Well, I care about it. He saved my life many times.
Irving: Mine too. Which one?
Sydney: Jeep’s Blues.
Irving: Jeep’s Blues?
Sydney: Yeah. Jeep’s Blues.
Irving: You wanna hear it?
Sydney: Right now?
Irving: Yeah.

Cosmo Interviewer: Our cover story right now is about cunnilingus. What do you think about that?
Sydney: I like it.

Irving [voiceover]: I felt like we had a secret. Just the two of us. You know, like that thing when you just wanna be with the one person all the time. And you feel like just the two of you understand that nobody else gets. I could just tell her everything about myself. And I never had anybody like that in my life before. It felt like, finally, I can truly be myself. Without being ashamed without being embarrassed.

Sydney [realizing Irving’s angle]: Everybody at the bottom crosses paths eventually in a pool of desperation and you’re waiting for them…
Irving: How about we?

Irving [voiceover]: As far as I can see people are always conning each other to get what they wanted. We even ‘Con’ ourselves. We talk ourselves into things, you know. We sell ourselves things whether we do need or want. You know, we are dressing 'em up. We leave out the risk. We leave out the ugly truth. Pay attention to that. Cos, we are always conning ourselves in one way or another. Just to get through life.

Rosalyn: We fight and then we fuck, that’s our thing.
Irving [voiceover]: She was the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate. She was better than any con artist I ever met. Including myself. And she had me like nobody had me…I was her mark.

Richie [to Sydney]: I know you think - look at me, hey, Edith - I know you think Irv loves you. I know you think you know him. You think that he sees the world as this cold, dark place. He cares about nobody but a very few people on a short list: His son, his father, Rosalyn, and you. You think you’re on the top of the list? What if you’re not? What if you’re not on that list? What if you’re not even on that list at all? He’d be in here right now if he took the cheque, but no, you did. God, it’s so clear to me, it’s crazy, it’s clear to me, but it’s not clear to you. He uses you, Edith, to protect himself, to protect his son, and his wife in Long Island. No? Yes. He put a ring on her finger, he adopted her son. They have a huge house and they have two huge cars, what does she do all day? I’ll tell you what she does: She plays with her nails, she watches TV, and she spends your money; the money that you make. I don’t like that you’re in jail while he’s going free, I don’t like any of that, I want to help you. All the razzle-dazzle that he does? It’s not good, it’s not real, it’s fake, it’s not real. Who you are is who you are, between you and God. You and your soul, that’s what matters, that’s what counts, that’s what I’m about. That’s what I see in you. Tell me you didn’t feel it the first time we saw each other? Am I crazy? I don’t think so.[/b]

Cons on one side of the law trying to con cons on the other side. Meanwhile the biggest cons are often perfectly legal in the United States of crony capitalism. Federal, state and local. And that’s before we get to the Mob. And these guys go all the way back to Nucky Thompson. For all practical purposes.

[b]Sydney: Rosalyn will never let you go. She used Danny against you. Because she’s too messed up to let you leave.
Irving: I can’t leave him. I love him, alright? He is my son.
Sydney: Richie said you will say that.
Irving: Richie? The cop?
Sydney: Yeah.
Irving: You’re on a first name basis?
Sydney: Yes, I am. I am not even on your list, am i?
Irving: What list?
Sydney: Your list. Your short list…your long list. I’m not even on any of your fucking lists. I thought that you loved me.
Irving: I do love you.

Richie: How do you know the Sheikh?
Irving: Because he’s my friend Al, from Queens.
Al “the Sheikh”: I do aluminium siding and roofing.

Irving [in a museum]: I wanna show you something. This Rembrandt here, people come from all over the world to see this.
Richie: Yeah, he’s good. Yeah.
Irving: It’s a fake.
Richie: But, come on, it’s impossible.
Irving: People believe what they wanna believe. The guy who made this was so good that it’s real. To everybody. Now, who is the Master? The Painter…or the Forger?
Richie: That’s a fake?
Irving: This is the way the world works. Not black and white like you say. Extremely grey.

Irving [voiceover]: The crazy thing about people: the more you say ‘no’ the more they want in on something. It is so stupid.

Irving [to Richie]: I’m like the fucking Vietcong, man, all right? I’m in and I’m out. I was there the whole time. You don’t know it, all right? That’s the fuckin’ art of becoming somebody who people can pin their beliefs and their dreams on.

Richie: You playing me? You doing this… or are you playing him? It would be very bad for you if you’re playing me.
Sydney: You’re gonna have to decide for yourself, kid.

Irving: I believe that you should treat people the way that you want to be treated. Right? Didn’t Jesus say that, or something?
Carmine: He may have.
Irving: Also, I think you should always take a favour, over money. I think Jesus said that as well.

Rosalyn [to Irving]: You wanna be more like Carmine? Why don’t you build something, like he does? Instead of all your empty deals; they’re just like your fuckin’ science oven. You know, I read that it takes all of the nutrition out of our food! It’s empty, just like your deals. Empty! Empty!

Sydney [to Irving]: You’re nothing to me until you’re everything.

Richie: You got any other questions?
Paco: Yeah, I think the name of this operation is offensive. What, Abscam? “Arab-scam”? It’s racist!
Irving: Are you fucking kidding? What do you care? You’re Mexican.

Irving [voiceover]: What are the fucking odds, you got an italian guy from Miami knowing Arabic. It turns out, he’s got casino investments, in the middle east.

Sydney: What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Rosalyn: What do I think I’m doing? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re going to come in here and judge me for flirting with someone else when you’ve been fucking my husband for how many years?
Sydney: You don’t have any fucking clue what’s going on!
Rosalyn: I have a ring on my finger. We have a child together!
Sydney: He doesn’t love you, Rosalyn. He loves me. And you know it, and I know it, and he knows it. And it might be done now, but it was beautiful, and it was real…
Rosalyn: Stop it.
Sydney: …and we loved each other.
Rosalyn: Shut up.
Sydney: You scare him, and you manipulate him, and you use your son!
Rosalyn: Well, he must like it on some level. He must want it, because he keeps coming back for it. It’s like that perfume that you love, that you can’t stop smelling even when there’s something sour in it. Can’t get enough of it. Well guess what? He’s never gonna leave me. He’s always going to want me, and I will make you so sorry, Edith. I will make you so sorry for what you’ve done to my family. Mark my words!
Sydney: That is fucked up! I would never say anything that fucked up to anybody, but you do because you’re gross inside. You’re so fucked up and gross.
Rosalyn: Oh, I’m gross inside?
Sydney: Yeah!
Rosalyn: Maybe you’re gross inside. What, robbing people and all that shit that you do? Maybe we’re both gross inside. That’s what Irving loves about us. At least he’s consistent. You know, sometimes in life, all you have are fucked up, poisonous choices.
[She kisses Sydney and laughs]

But not for long.

[b]Richie: I love you. It is real now. I just…I just said it. So, now is the time. Look at me, look at me. I love you. I love you. I just said that.
Sydney: Do you want the truth? Do you want real?
Richie: I’m ready for real.
Sydney: This is real. Do you hear my voice? This is real. This is real. I want you to hear what’s real.
Richie [startled by her change of accent]: What?
Sydnay: This is me.
Richie: What do you mean? Well, you’re doing an accent? Your american accent?
Sydney: No, there is no English. There’s only American. There’s no English.
RIchie: What are you talking about? Stop it, you’re Edith. Your birth records say…
Sydney: I falsified my records back to birth. I falsified them. My name is Sydney Prosser. I am from Albuqurque, New Mexico. I’m not Edith Greensly. There is no Edith Greensly.
Richie: You’re…freaking…me…out.

Rosalyn: Life is ridiculous. And you know that I would never say anything bad about your father in front of you, but your father is a sick son-of-a bitch.
Danny: Daddy’s a sick son-of-a-bitch?
Rosalyn: Don’t repeat that…but yes.

Carmine: Irving…look, I’m a good person.
Irving: You are a good person.
Carmine: I’ve been doing this for a long time. For twenty years! Do you think I would’ve taken that money. If it wasn’t the right thing to do?
Irving: You’re a good person. I know that, but in all honesty…
Carmine: You said that was the only way Irv. You chased me, you remember?
Irving: They fucking made me do it. I was asked to do that or go to jail.
Carmine: You made me go back to the plaza, To take that money. You piece of shit! I was gone! You fucking prick! You motherfucker!!! You fucking chased me, you piece of shit! I was gone! I left!!

Sydney: People believe what they wanna believe, Richie.
Richie: No, because you conned me. That’s why. Because you fucking conned me. You did.
Irving: That…that doesn’t sound so good either. You know what I mean. But, let’s just assume you wanna go with that story. Really? That’s the story, you wanna go with? That’s what you want the New York Times to hear. That you got conned by the very con men who you forced to entrap the members of congress in the first place. That’s what you wanna go with? That doesn’t sound so good for your whole thing does it? How ironic…that the ones who’re working hardest to get the economy of New Jersey’s going…those are the ones you round up. Why? Because they are the easiest to go after? What about the real bullshit artists? You didn’t even come close to the big leagues. Those big guys. The money men.
Richie: That’s what I was trying to go after.
Irving: Well I’m sorry to telling you, you got none of 'em.

Irving [voiceover]: We took down some very big guys. Some of whom, they were just doing business as usual, helping their communities or their states, but some of them knew they had larceny in their blood, and they even admitted it. But in all, it was six congressmen, one United States senator, and my friend Carmine Polito. We gave the two million back, so that Carmine got a reduced sentence, 18 months. The loss of his friendship would haunt me the rest of my life. When the story was written, Richie DiMaso’s name was never mentioned. Syd and I, we moved in together. Rosalyn? She would always be interesting. Our conning days were behind us. You can fool yourself for just so long, that your next reinvention you better have your damn feet on the ground. We got a loan from a bank and were able to go gallery-legitimate. The art of survival, is a story that never ends.[/b]

Next up: Jeep’s Blues: youtu.be/uUcEGOLfUTE

Here is a hetereosexual male playing a homosexual male exposing all of the homophobic foibles of heterosexual men and women in America. What could possibly go wrong? Let’s ask Ron Paul.

And how in the world could…would…should one react to it without pissing at least some folks off?

Bottom line: Ask yourself: Is this funnier than it is inanely stupid? And can this possibly be known for sure?

It’s especially funny if you like to see folks being made complete fools of. Sure, it sounds cruel but you almost always think that these folks are complete fools – so that makes it okay. Well, if your politics are liberal and progressive.

On the other hand, sometimes he goes too far and things get downright…crude. Repulsive even. If only from a particular point of view. Even mine from time to time.

It is alleged that, aside from the skit with Harrison Ford, all of these encounters are supposed to actually be nonscripted. Maybe. But I don’t believe it. Paula Abdul sitting on the Mexican? The focus group? The interview with Ayman Abu Aita? The Dallas talk show? The extreme fighting bit?

On the other hand, the “interview” with Ron Paul seemed utterly genuine. The Libertarian bigot? Let’s ask his son, Rand.

IMDb

[b]According to Sacha Baron Cohen, Harrison Ford is in the only scene that was scripted, and was the only actor that was in on the joke.

In October 2006, entertainment blog website Defamer.com jokingly reported the title would be “Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt”. Numerous websites around the world - including IMDb - reported this to be the actual working title

The sequence where Bruno enrolled at the Alabama National Guard, filmed at the Alabama Military Academy in Fort McClellan, Anniston, went undetected until a young cadet who recognized him from Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), notified elder officers who were unfamiliar with the actor. [/b]

Nope. Doesn’t ring true at all to me.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCno
trailer: youtu.be/hfSu9zqRZH0

BRUNO [2009]
Directed by Larry Charles

[b]Bruno: Modelling, a lot of people think it’s easy. But it’s the hardest job in the world, isn’t it?
Heather Hahn [supermodel]: It’s very hard. Standing in heels all day, and everyone’s watching you, so you have to make sure your walk is good.
Bruno: Yeah, it’s really hard, 'cause you’ve gotta remember, like, to put your right leg forward and then put your left leg forward and then, like, which one now? Right leg again, and then, like, the left one. And then sometimes you even have to turn.
Heather: Yeah. And especially the turn. It’s so scary.

Bruno: In September 2008, I left for Milan Fashion Week to shoot a new season of Funkyzeit. Brüno had backstage access for the hottest show of the week, de la Prada. So I wore the jewel of mein wardrobe, a suit made entirely out of Velcro.[/b]

So, which is more hilarious: Bruno in the Velcro suit or the fashion show itself:

[b]Bruno [voiceover]:I realized that night that the fashion world was superficial and vacuous. So, I decided instead to go to Los Angeles to become a celebrity. I was going to be the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler.

[at the Pink Cheeks anal bleaching salon]
Bruno: You were actually my second choice. I was going to go to the salon that maintains Salma Hayek’s inner thighs, but the team that do it were booked up for the next four days because she’s got the Elle Style Awards. And they said they’re, like, really, really exhausted after they do her.
Lady: They’re exhausted after they wax Salma Hayek? She must have a lot of hair.
Bruno: They say that after a waxing, there’s enough to stuff a mattress.

Bruno [pointing to a photograph of Mel Gibson]: The Fuhrer?

Focus group advisor [after the focus group views Bruno’s video for a TV show]: So if you could describe this show in one sentence…Can anybody give me one sentence? Go ahead.
Focus gourp member: The worst piece of crap I have ever seen.
Focus gourp member: What sick human being came up with something like this?
Focus gourp member: I wanted to poke my eyes out with hot needles.
Focus gourp member: You’d have to bnorrow the needles from me.
Focus gourp member: No logical person would consider a show like this unless they had some sort of a mental or moral defect.
Focus gourp member: It was worse than cancer.
Focus gourp member: The only way this guy will ever be famous is in a sex tape.

Ron Paul [after Bruno strips to his underwear]: All right! Get out of here! This has ended.
Bruno: What’s going on?
Ron Paul [to his aide]: That guy is queerer than the blazes. He took his clothes off. Let’s get going.
Aide: What happened?
Ron Paul: He’s queer. He’s crazy. He put a hit on me. He took his clothes off!!

[At Nicole and Suzanne Defosset’s Charity PR office]
Nicole: Global warming’s only getting worse. So…Now, I think that would be… That’s something to get involved now, so, we can just help ease the… Like, after us, in order to help for our future. In order for everyone…It’s just a beneficial thing to be involved with now.
Bruno: I’m really into doing something maybe for Africa. Is that still cool or…
Suzanne: Saving some kind of extinct animal? What’s going extinct right now?
Bruno: I don’t know, like elephants or something?

Bruno: What’s the coolest type of charity to get into at the moment?
Nicole: Save Darfur.
Bruno: Save what?
Suzanne: Save Darfur. Angelina Jolie.
Bruno: Is that in, like, Iraqi or something like that?
Nicole: Yeah, that’s in the… It’s in… Yeah. Yeah.
Bruno: Is there anywhere in the world that no celebrity has tried to fix? Darfur is the big one now. What’s the new one? What’s Dar-five?

Brüno [voiceover]: I was going to become famous by solving a world problem! But which one? Clooney’s got Darfur, Sting’s got the Amazon, and Bono’s got AIDS! Luckily, there was still one shithole left to fix: the Middle Earth.[/b]

He means the Middle East of course.

[b]Bruno: I’ll be honest with you. I want to be famous. And I want the best guys in the business to kidnap me. Al-Qaeda is so 2001.
Ayman Abu Aita: I don’t like.

Bruno: Can I give you guys a word of advice? Lose the beards, because your King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa.
Ayman Abu Aita: What did he say?
[the translator translates and Ayman Abu Aita reacts]
Translator [to Bruno]: Get out! Get out now!
Bruno [voiceover]: I was encouraged to leave the Middle Earth.

Bruno [at the airport lifting a black infant out of a cardboard box on the luggage carousel]: Madonna has one. Brangalina has one. And now Bruno has one.

[Bruno interviews parents who want their children in the movies]

Bruno: Would you be ready for your baby to be strung up on a crucifix next to mine?
Parent: Fine. Yeah, I don’t mind her being up on a crucifix. Sure.

Bruno: Is your baby comfortable with bees, wasps and hornets?
Parent: George is comfortable with everything. He’s fine.

Bruno: Is he comfortable with dead or dying animals?
Parent: Yes.
Bruno: Great.

Bruno: Amateur science.
Parent: What do you mean by that?
Bruno: You know, some untrained people conducting scientific experiments.
Parent: Should be fine.
Bruno: You know, her mixing the pots of acid and that type…
Parent: Okay.
Bruno: And so it’s a yes.
Parent: Yes.

Bruno: Is your baby fine with antiquated heavy machinery?
Parent: Yeah, she’s fine. She’s been around that.
Bruno: Would she be fine to operate them?
Parent: Yes.

Bruno: Is your baby fine with lit phosphorus?
Parent: Yes.
Bruno: Excellent. Does he like it?
Parent: Loves it.

Bruno: A little sensitive subject here. How much does she weigh?
Parent: She’s about 30 pounds.
Bruno: Thirty pounds. Can she lose 10 pounds in the next week?
Parent: In the next week, seven days. I’d have to do whatever I could.
Bruno: If there’s a problem losing the weight, would you be ready to have her undergo liposuction?
Parent: If that was a last resort and she didn’t lose the few pounds, then, yeah, we’d have to do that.
Bruno: Great. Fantastic news. We have chosen your baby to be dressed as a Nazi officer pushing a wheelbarrow with another baby as a Jew in it into an oven.
Parent: Into an oven?
Bruno: Congratulations. How do you feel?
Parent: Great, if she got the job.

Brüno [on talk show]: There’s a lot of African Americans in Africa!
African-American Lady: No! There’s a lot of Africans in Africa!
Brüno: That’s racist!

TV Host Bey: All right, but wait a second. You are the baby’s father now. And you chose to dress that baby up in a T-shirt that says what?
Bruno: Gayby.
Bey: That’s not the baby’s name, is it?
Brüno: No, I gave him a traditional African name.
Bey: So what’s that?
Bruno: O.J.

Bruno: Things have got to change. I want to become straight.
Pastor Jody Trautwein: Awesome.
Bruno: Once I’m straight, can I still play the clarinet?
Pastor Jody Trautwein: If it doesn’t remind you about some of the behaviour that you engaged in when you put your lips around it. If it doesn’t remind you of that, then I say go for it and play the clarinet with everything inside of you. If it does remind you of that, then I say put it down, give it away, let a friend hold it until you know in your mind you’re ready to pick it up again and it wouldn’t remind you of that.

Brüno: So you were never gay?
Pastor Jody Trautwein: [shakes head] Mh-mh.
Brüno: It’s ironic that you should have amazing blowjob lips.
Pastor Jody Trautwein: These…these lips were made to praise Jesus.

Drill Sergeant: Your finger’s in my alley.
Brüno: Not yet.

Brüno: Look at the four of us; we are so like the Sex in the City girls!
Donny [the hunter]: Oh no, we aren’t either!
Brüno: Which one are you, Donny?
Donny: I ain’t any one of them, I’m Donny.
Brüno: That is such a Samantha thing to say!

Brüno [to the hunters]: I wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning and find that I’m torn in my arschenholer.

Brüno: Look me in the eye.
Angry Swinger: This is a fuckin’ swingers’ party. OK? If you don’t want pussy, if you don’t want fuckin’… then quit fuckin’ touching me and quit looking at me. I definitely ain’t lookin’ at you in the eye. OK? I didn’t come here for no fuckin’ queer shit, OK? I know what you’re doin’.[/b]

The Cube. Is it just another metaphor for existence itself: I never asked to be here but now that I am what the fuck does it all mean? Either that or being “imprisoned”: In “what exactly?”

As for all the folks in here with me – why do they have to think and feel the way they do, and not the way I do. And what happens when we do get out? Are we really better off out instead of in?

And then, in any event, what is the right “attitude” to take about however we construe the situation to be?

And the existential element: you never quite know what is around the corner. Or, here, in the next room.

And [as always] that tricky relationship between whatever reality might actually be and whatever it is that we think [believe] that it might actually be.

You know, like in here.

Only in the cube one of them was actually in on its creation. Though not in the sense that they invented it or designed it. In other words, not in the sense that God designed or invented human existence. Everyone it seems is only so far up or so far down the food chain.

Summed up best perhaps this way:

Quentin: Why put people in it?
Worth: Because it’s here. You have to use it, or you admit it’s pointless.
Quentin: But it, it is pointless.
Worth: Quentin…that’s my point.

Look for the nihilist. And [of course] prime numbers.

IMDb

[b]Not only are the characters named after prisons but they reflect the prisons themselves. Example: Kazan (the mentally challenged character), in Russia is a disorganized prison. Rennes (the “mentor”) was a jail that pioneered many of today’s prison policies. Quentin (the detective) is known for its brutality. Holloway is a women’s prison, and Alderson is a prison where isolation is a common punishment. Leavenworth runs to a rigid set of rules (Leaven’s mathematics), and the new prison is corporately owned and built (Worth, hired as an architect).

Director Vincenzo Natali directed a follow-up short film in which we see what is outside the cube. Natali has made a solemn vow never to reveal what was outside the cube, and destroyed the video years ago.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film
trailer youtu.be/MY5PkidV1cM

CUBE [1997]
Written in part and directed by Vincenzo Natali

[b]Quentin: How many people are in this thing?

Quentin: Listen, we can’t go climbing around in here.
Holloway: Why not?
Quentin: There’s traps.
Holloway: What do you mean traps?
Quentin: Booby traps. I looked in the room down there, and something almost cut my head off.

Quentin: Does anybody remember how they got here?

Holloway: It’s like Chile. They always come in the middle of the night.
Quentin: Who?
Holloway: Only the goverment could build something this ugly.
Quentin: It ain’t government.
Holloway: Then what is it?
Quentin: I don’t know.
Holloway: Aliens.

Holloway: We have about 3 days without food and water before we are too weak to move.
Leaven: Well, they have to feed us, don’t they?

Holloway: Why would they throw innocent people in here? Are we being punished?
Leaven: I’ve never done anything to deserve this.
Quentin: Forget about all that! You can’t see the big picture from in here, so don’t try.[/b]

Sound familiar?

[b]Quentin: Let’s start with us. We got an escape artist and a cop. There’s gotta be a reason for that. You’re a doctor, Holloway. That gives you a function, a reason, right?
Holloway: No! It just makes me go, “Why me and not one of the other ten million doctors out there?”

Holloway: I think we have to ask the big questions! What does “it” want? What is “it” thinking?
Worth: “One down, four to go.”

Quentin: Why don’t you tell us what your purpose is, Worth?
Worth: Often wondered that myself. I’m just a guy, I work in an office building doing office building stuff. I wasn’t exactly bursting with joie de vivre before I got here, life just sucks in general.
Holloway: Oh I can’t stand that attitude.
Leaven: 'Cos he’s right.[/b]

Spotted the nihilist yet?

[b]Leaven [looking at the “room numbers”]: Prime numbers! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!

Quentin: Somebody has to take responsibility around here.
Worth: And that somebody has to be you?
Quentin: Not all of us have the luxury of playing nihilist.
Worth: Not all of us are conceited enough to play hero.
Quentin [growing increasingly angry]: This is a will to live. Everybody’s got it, Worth, even you. Especially you! Hiding behind that cynical front.
Worth: A will to live. That’s the warm, cozy feeling deep inside? Thanks, Quentin, I’m a new man.
Quentin: Oh. Poor Worth. Nobody loves me. If that’s the chip on your shoulder, why did you lug it all this way? Why didn’t you just lie down and die?

Worth: You think we matter? We don’t.
Quentin: Put us out of your misery so we can get on with getting out of here!
Worth: Oh, you’re not getting out of here.
Quentin: Yes, we are.
Worth: No, you’re not.
Quentin: Yes, we are!
Worth [shouting furiously] There is no way out of here!
Quentin [suddenly realizing Worth knows more than he’s telling them]: Gotcha.
Holloway [shocked]: How do you know that?
Quentin: Answer the question, Worth.
Holloway: Oh, God.
Quentin: Who are you?
Worth: I’m the poison. I designed the outer shell.

Holloway [speculating on what is behind Worth’s “sarcophagus”]: It’s all the same machine, right? The Pentagon, multinational corporations, the police. If you do one little job, you build a widget in Saskatoon, and the next thing you know, it’s two miles under the desert, the essential component of a death machine. I was right! All along, my whole life, I knew it! I told you, Quentin. Nobody’s ever going to call me paranoid again! We’ve gotta get out of here and blow the lid off this thing!
Worth: Holloway, you don’t get it.
Holloway: Then help me, please. I need to know!
Worth: This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It, it’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is not watching you.
Holloway: What kind of fuckin’ explanation is that?
Worth: It’s the best you are gonna get. I looked, and the only conclusion I could come to is that there is nobody up there.
Quentin: Somebody had to say yes to this thing.
Worth: What thing? Only we know what it is. [/b]

Me, I’m backing Holloway.

[b]Worth: I mean, somebody might have known sometime before they were gone, they got fired, or voted out, or sold it, but if this place ever had a purpose, it got miscommunicated, or lost in a shuffle. I mean, this is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project. Do you think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a clear conscience, and a fat paycheck.

Quentin: But why put people in it?
Worth: Because it’s here. You have to use it, or you admit it’s pointless.
Quentin: But it, it is pointless.
Worth: Quentin… that’s my point.
Holloway: What have we come to? It’s so much worse than I thought.
Worth: Not really. Just more pathetic.

Worth: We’re both part of the same system. I drew a box, you walk a beat. It’s like you said, Quentin, is keep your head down, keep it simple, just look at what’s in front of you. I mean, nobody wants to see the big picture. Life’s too complicated. I mean, let’s face it, the reason we’re here is that it’s out of control.

Leaven: Ok. The biggest the cube can be then is…26 rooms high, 26 rooms across, so…17,576 rooms.
Holloway: Seventeen thousand, five hundred and seventy-six rooms?!
Leaven [thinking]: Descartes! Cartesian coordinates. Of course, coded cartesian coordinates. They’re used in geometry to plot points on a dimensional graph. These numbers are markers, and grid reference, like latitude and longitude on a map. The numbers tell us where we are inside the cube.

Quentin [after deliberately letting go of Holloway]: She…slipped…

Worth: Hey! Listen to what I’m saying. There was a room there before. We haven’t been moving in circles, the rooms have.

Leaven: This room moves to 0, 1, and -1 on the X-axis, 2, 5, and -7 on the Y and 1, -1, and 0 on zed.

Leaven: At first, I thought that they were identified by prime numbers, but they are not. They are identified by numbers that are the power of a prime.
Worth: Can you calculate that?
Leaven: The numbers are huge. Maybe if I had a computer.
Quentin: You don’t need a computer.
Leaven: Yes I do.
Quentin: Figure it out! I’m not dying in a fucking rat maze!
Leaven: Look. Nobody in the whole world could do it mentally. Look at the numbers…567, 898, 545 There’s no way I can factor that! I can’t even start on 567! It’s astronomical! [/b]

Enter Kazan: the autistic-savant.

[b]Leaven: So, guess what? This is the room we started in. I was right. We should never have moved in the first place.
Worth: The bridge…

Leaven [reaching the exit of the cube]: What are you doing? You can’t quit now. It’s not your fault!
Worth: I have nothing to live for out there.
Leaven: What is out there?
Worth: Boundless human stupidity.
Leaven: I can live with that.[/b]

But only one makes it out alive. And it’s not her.

Think Cube with a bigger budget. So, sure, it seems more sophisticated. More CGI stuff for example. But it’s not nearly as good as the first one because that is basically where all the new bucks go: making it look better. The cube is now a tesseract. And a tesseract is said to be to a cube what a cube is to a square: it adds another dimension.

But that can then introduce an element of “reality” that increasingly becomes just sheer speculation. Fun but the foundation is often considerably less stable. It can also make interactions between the folks in the cube [and between the folks in the cube and the cube itself] become considerably more, say, hyperbolic.

Alas, what they should have spent the additional bucks on is the script. Gone [bascially] are the provocative characters asking provocative questions.

It seems that the first cube had rules. A gigantic puzzle. Like a Rubik’s Cube. But it revolved around numbers. Decode them and there was a chance to get out. No numbers here though. Well, one. But significantly less intriguing. And it was as though the inside of the Rubik’s Cube was suddenly surging up to the surface…crushing everything in its path. Think multiverse and quantum interaction here. Though no mention of Rational Metaphysics or Affectance Ontology.

What is the “meaning” of it all? What lies “behind” the cube? ? Here is one take on it: horrornews.net/58894/the-cube-mo … franchise/

There is also a third movie in this franchise. But it is the prequel. I have it somewhere in my collection but haven’t gotten to it yet.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_2:_Hypercube
trailer: youtu.be/JSFP2a7g7Js

CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE [2002]
Directed by Andrzej Sekula

[b]Maguire: Numbers. Where’s the goddamn numbers?
[the portal closes before he can decide what to do]
Maguire: Oh God, oh God. There has to be something.
[he opens a briefcase, but it does not contain whatever he was looking for]
Maguire: Oh, goddamn it! I mean, they’re my numbers! Don’t I at least get a shot at my numbers, you stupid fucks? I want a chance! I want a chance, like everyone else!

Kate: This is Sasha. She’s blind. And she’s very scared.
Jerry: What a bummer, to be blind in this place.

Kate: What are you doing?
Jerry: I’m marking the rooms.
Kate: This is the fourth room you’ve been in?
Jerry: Yeah.
Kate: I thought you said you’ve been wandering these rooms for hours.
Jerry: Yeah. That’s the weird thing isn’t it? Each one of these rooms has six of these doors and portals, but no matter how many different doors and portals I go through I always end up in the same three rooms. Until now.
Kate: It’s as if the rooms were moving around…or something.

Jerry: How do you do, Mrs. Paley?
Mrs. Paley: Hello.
Jerry: You don’t happen to know why you’re here, do you?
Mrs. Paley: Oh, dear, I was never very good at philosophy.

Sasha: It’s getting closer.
Kate: Sasha, do you know what “it” is?
Sash: No, not really. But I can hear it. All the time, even when you don’t. And it sounds…it feels wrong.
Mrs. Paley: Maybe we’re in Hell.

Jerry: I designed the door panels in here. The touch sensors. I was freelancing for a subcontractor, I…
Kate: You didn’t think this was worth mentioning before?
Jerry: I signed a confidentiality–
Simon: Well, given our current situation, I’d say it’s null and void. What the hell is this place?
Jerry: I don’t know. Look, you don’t think the guy that makes the toilets in the space shuttle, gets to see the plans for the rest of it?
Simon: You must have had some idea what they were building.
Jerry: It was experimental. It was a prototype.
Simon: For what?
Jerry: I’m not sure. Leading-edge stuff. There were rumors…
Simon: What kind of rumors, Jerry? What rumors?
Jerry: Quantum teleportation.
Max: You mean, like…‘Beam me up, Scotty’?

Jerry: Let’s call one dimension, length, and represent that with a simple line. Now, two dimensions are length and width, which can be represented by a single square.
Now if we extend that square, one more dimension we get a cube, which has three dimensions. Length, width, and depth. If you take this cube, and extend it one more dimension we get a tesseract.
Rex: I thought time was considered to be the fourth dimension.
Jerry: Sure. That’s one idea. But what if you have a fourth spatial dimension?
Kate: Let’s just say that we are in this hypercube…that it is is real – does this diagram show us how to get out?
Jerry: Well, uh…no. A hypercube isn’t supposed to be real. It’s just a theoretical construct.
Simon: Well, is there a theory on how we might get out of this theoretical construct?

Jerry: 60,659 rooms?
Kate: This place must be huge.
Mrs. Paley: Oh yes. In a hypercube there can be 60 million rooms.

Kate: Is it possible that you worked for Izon Research Affiliates and your dog’s name is Skippy?
Mrs. Paley: How did you know where I worked?
Kate: Oh, God. She worked for a weapons manufacturer.[/b]

See, I told you Holloway was closer to the truth above.

[b]Mrs. Paley: Some things should never be created. They exist for theoretical purposes only. It would never last.

Jerry: I know what just happened there was a little shocking, but it actually makes total sense if we’re in a really multi-dimensional quantum environment. One fundamental idea of a quantum universe, is that parallel realities can actually exist simultaneously.
Simon: How do you know that, Jerry? All you designed were the door panels!
Jerry: I read it in Rosenzweig book, it was a big part of his theory. What if whoever designed this stinking thing somehow managed to create a place where parallel realities can crossover like that?
Kate: So what you are saying is that we just saw Simon and Mrs. Paley in a parallel universe?
Jerry: Yes! Yes!

Simon: Don’t open it, Max! Say Jerry’s right. I think all of this is a hoax, okay? I think Jerry’s either full of shit or part of this experiment. But I’m agreeing with you, Max. I think we’re all pumped so full of LSD and I think we’re hidden in some CIA hospital in Area 51…or whatever. But let’s just say, on the off-chance that Jerry is actually right. Then what happens if whatever the fuck it was in there that killed the guy, killed me, what happens if that fucking thing gets in here?!

Mrs. Paley: It’s stunning. The math of it. It’s a perfect quadrangular oscillation.[/b]

But then it starts…darting about.

[b]Sasha: It is hopeless.
Kate: No, it’s not. I’m gonna figure this out.
Sasha: ‘Figure it out.’ Trust me, precious, if I haven’t figured it out, you sure as shit aren’t going to.
Kate: What did you just say?
Sasha: I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to–
Kate: Why do you think that you should be able to figure this out?
Sasha: I wasn’t kidnapped. When I found out they were putting people in here, I tried to blow the whistle on them. So they came after me. I escaped into the one place they wouldn’t dare follow me–in here. Poetic justice, don’t you think?
Kate: Who are you?
Sasha: Max was right. Jerry was wrong. I exist.
Kate: Oh my God. Sasha. Of course.
Sasha: Sasha is the nickname for Alexandra.
Kate and Sasha together: Alex Trusk.

Simon: You gotta love these parallel universes.

Kate: It’s Jerry’s diagram. It’s all the numbers. They’re all just suddenly in here. It’s Jerry’s markings–that dead physicist’s equations-- and that damn colonel’s corpse, just hanging there as ifwe never even rescued him? Everything keeps appearing over and over again.[/b]

Get it?

[b]Kate: Who are you?
Simon: Yeah, it’s me. Good old Simon. Do you remember this, do you? Well, I’ve waited a long time for payback.
Kate: But, that was just seconds ago.
Simon: Don’t be so stupid Kate. You know time works differently in this place.

,

The Man: Hello, Kate. Welcome back. So, you figured it out.
Kate: Yes, sir. No time to spare.
The Man: The device–any luck?
[Kate says nothing]
The Man [referring to a small, clear plastic box with an object inside]: We’ll take that to Darcy and see if anything recorded on it.
[a soldier shots Kate in the head…a phone rings…The Man answers it]
The Man: Sir? Yes, sir. Phase two is terminated. I see. Yes, sir. Right away, sir.[/b]

Wow. A very mysterious ending. Completely unintelligible for example.

When it comes to gangs, Johannesburg is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on earth: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1919382.stm

This film is “inspired by real events”. That seems particularly tricky when trying to decide just how true it is. But one thing seems reasonably clear: there are gangsters…and then there are gangsters. These gangs literally take over entire buildings.

Or you might ask yourself this: Was Robin Hood a gangster? Or is such a comparison simply preposterous?

Crime does pay. Or it sure does for some. And in the ghetto it is [for all practical purposes] the only way to pursue an “empire” without, say, a college degree…or an inheritance.

But here the man [Lucky Kuene] is wanted by both the law and the lawless. He is a hero to some…and a steaming pile of shit to others. His philosophy of life revolves around this:

Lucky [voiceover]: I have two heroes, Karl Marx and Al Capone. Al Capone said, “If you’re gonna steal, steal big and hope like hell you get away with it.” And Karl Marx said, “All property is theft.” I think they’d both be proud of me.

The film begins with his arrest. And then in the interrogation room he “takes us back to the beginning”: to the end of apartheid in South Africa. Back to a time he once had a dream…

Good luck trying to make up your mind about him. About what he does. About those trying to stop him. It all gets entangled up in black and white, in rich and poor. In before and after.

And then the simply surreal relationship with Leah. Her parents are rich white Jews and she knows nothing about what Lucky really does for a living.

IMDb

[b]A mixture of languages can be heard throughout the movie. Much of what the main characters speak to each other is township slang known as Tsotsitaal (literally ‘gangster language’) which is composed of vocabulary from Zulu, Sotho, Afrikaans, English, other African languages and invented slang. It is generally associated with young township-dwelling men, though some terms have entered mainstream South African parlance.

Writer-director Ralph Ziman learned how a gang had stolen a whole building in Hillbrow in Johannesburg through coercion. He began researching the phenomenon by interviewing reporters, police officers, social workers and lawyers, only to discover that the practice is highly commonplace in South Africa.

The title comes from the idea that when you look at the district of Hillbrow from a distance, it stands proudly on a hill, like a New Jerusalem.

The budget was so low on the film that old cameras were used as were skateboards in place of dollies. The budget was considerably less than many of the music videos that Ralph Ziman had directed. [/b]

Interview with the writer/director
scriptmag.com/features/gangs … alph-ziman

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangster’s … Jerusalema
trailer: youtu.be/0d5KdM4tzvI

GANGSTER’S PARADISE [JERUSALEMA] 2008
Written and directed by Ralph Ziman

[b][Lucky is interviewed about his life]
Interviewer [in interrogation room]: I want the real story this time. Take me back to the beginning.
Lucky: The beginning. Soweto. 1994. Freedom. The new South Africa. A new dawn. A new day. A fresh start. A clean page. A new beginning…

Nazareth: We’re in the procurment industry.
Zakes: He is a carjacker.
Nazareth: Hijack is a dirty word. It’s called “affirmative repossession”.
Lucky: Aw, come on man, we didn’t fight the struggle so that we could become criminals.
Nazareth: And I didn’t fight apartheid to be poor either. I may be a Communist, but I believe that God helps those who help themselves. [/b]

See how rationalization works?

Lucky [voiceover]: When financial aid for the university proved problematic, Nazareth organized us an “apprenticeship” He also put us in touch with a business associate…
[cut to a shot of dozens of guns and rifles]
Lucky: …to procure the necessary supplies.

He tried to go to college first. The university accepted his application. But his family could not afford to send him.

[b]Nazareth [to Lucky and Zakes after watching the armored car heist from Heat]: Boys, I have a job for you…

Lucky [voiceover]: If Hollywood movies could teach you how to knock over amorored cars, bank robberies were a walk in the park.[/b]

But then…

[b]Lucky [voiceover]: We were having too many close calls. Cops, frustrated by rising crime rates and a legal system that couldn’t keep those arrested behind bars, took the law into their own hands.

Nazareth: I hear you are reapplying to the university.
[Lucky nods]
Nazareth: What are you going to eat, books? You can’t quit from crime. Crime is the biggest growth industry in the country.
Lucky: Correction, Comrade Nazareth. Private security is. Last year it surpassed mining.

Lucky [voiceover]: Nomsa had dropped out of Jo’burg Tech and followed me to Hillbrow to attend the university of life. She’d found work as a bank teller…and a way to make it pay. She learned what we all knew. If you want to get by, take a job where there is something to steal.[/b]

And her scam is a beaut. But it’s nothing compared to Lucky’s.

Lucky [voiceover]: Johannesburg. A city fathered by gold, mothered by money, then commandeered by white men with cruelty and greed. Al Capone said you can go a long way with a smile. But you can go much further still with a smile and a gun. But if I was going to graduate from this shithole to my beach house, it would take a gun in one hand, and a briefcase in the other. And my best shit-eating grin.

Welcome to the birthday of the Hillbrow People’s Housing Trust. With Lucky Kuene as Robin Hood.

[b]Lucky: What if he goes to the police?
Lucas: This is purely a civil matter. There’s no such thing as theft of fixed assets. The police can’t do anything about it unless the owner gets a court order. And that will take him around a year or more.
Lucky: And all the time we are collecting rent…

Santos Roibiero [the rich white slumlord that Lucky is shafting]: This is the only country in the world where you have to take shit in 11 official languages.

Lucky [voiceover]: We were taking back the streets one building after another after another. I looked around and what I saw was an empire waiting to happen.

Lucky: What’s with you white people? You have nice houses, smart cars, fancy clothes and you still come here. Why?
Leah: I guess when you’re rich, poverty seems glamorous. It’s got a certain charm.

Lucky: Look at them coming and going from church. Hillbrow is like the new Jerulsalem.
Leah: It’s more like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lucky: How can you say that?
Leah: Hillbrow is the crime capital of the world.
Lucky: It’s just a place where poor black people come to make a living.
Leah: Don’t play the race card with me.
Lucky [laughing]: Old habits die hard. You’d be surprised how effective it can be.

Swart [a white cop who is out to bring Lucky down]: You know what the problem with South Africa is? The bad guys go free and the good huys can’t touch them.
Reporter [who is black]: But how did it come to this?
Swart: Look who is running the country. These are guys we arrested. We put them in jail. No wonder they think the criminals are the victims. It’s our fault.
Reporter: Who do you mean by “our” fault?
Swart: I mean us, the white cops…from before.
[pause]
Swart: Well…that’s a different story. I’ll tell you something about this fucker Kuene. I’m going to take him down.

Lucky [voiceover]: Nazareth’s drug bust and Ngu’s covert expansion into all corners of my empire was exactly the excuse that Swart needed.

Lucky [voiceover]: They say behind every fortune is a crime. The greater the fortune, the greater the crime. But I don’t know about that. It seems the only people who say that probably never made one. What’s important in life is to set goals and go after them. Who knows, I might even talk Leah into moving along the coast. After I’ve moved into a building…or six. After every revolution comes a new order. But before that comes opportunity. After all, wasn’t it PW Botha who said, “Adapt or die”?[/b]

Point of view and the butterfly effect.

That’s what this film explores. The entirety of the “action” encompasses only 20 minutes of a particular afternoon in New Orleans. The same 20 minutes as experienced from the perspective of 5 different sets of individuals: Cory, Alexa and Dom, Marti and Clyde, Doke and Brown, Few.

It’s as if you can imagine them sitting down in a classroom afterward and discussing, say, philosophically, what the overall “reality” is here. There will be some things they can all agree on. Things for example that did in fact happen. Things, in other words, that the film viewers can agree upon in turn because they are all watching the same movie.

But there will be other things that [inevitably] revolve around a subjective interpretation of the events. Things that involve motivation and intent. Or things that revolve around moral and political narratives.

It’s always the same dynamic. Each of us sees [experiences] only parts of the whole. And we see [experience] it from our own perspective. But imagine an “objective” point of view which sees the whole of the interactions over the entire twenty minutes. Then imagine if we were then given access to the “whole thing”. What would we then be more likely to own up to insofar as “what really happend”? And what parts would/could there still be disagreements about? Those parts in which there is no way in which to “settle it once and for all”?

At first the parts here seem entirely disconnected. But then they come into sync. Sort of. But only as points of view. Or as manifestations of, “what if, instead…”

Some pretty decrepit folks here. But then impoverished, working class communities in New Orleans tend to produce them. Or so it would seem. On the other hand there are threads here reaching deep into human interactions that surely do transcend New Orleans. For example, all the way to the Vatican…by way of Dick Cheney’s rendition of the war on terror.

The power of few? Few is what folks call her. It is short for Fueisha. She makes a suggestion to a couple of gangsters: “Don’t deal with pain by inflicting more”. And because they heed her advice there are folks who will live instead of die.

Not only that but she ends up saving the Shroud of Turin. I shit you not.

Look for hyper contingency, chance and change.

One take on it: popmatters.com/review/170259 … -than-one/

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Few
trailer: youtu.be/WJuovcCmL9k

THE POWER OF FEW [2013]
Written and directed by Leone Marucci

What is the worst way to die? Well, far too many to count obviously but right up there at [or near] the top of many lists will be “eaten by a shark”.

Just think about it. Enough said?

Open water. As in water water everywhere. Literally for hundreds of miles. And there you are bobbing up and down in the middle of it. Alone. Nobody knows you are there. The folks in charge of the diving party don’t know how to count. Or was this really more about the guy who forgot his mask? Or the fact that you prefer to keep to yourself…apart from “the group”? Or just a series of misunderstandings whereby you became basically invisible to everyone else? No one seemed to remember you when it was time to go.

Fate perhaps? Or dumb fucking luck?

Anyway, you know it is only a matter of time before the sharks show up. And once that happens it is only a matter of time before things start to disintegrate between them. They are becoming terrified and that makes them angry for being in this terrifying situation and soon enough they need to vent that anger. And venting it on the shark isn’t an option.

Based on a true story. This one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_and_Eileen_Lonergan

IMDb

[b]This film is inspired by a true story about an American couple, Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who in 1998 went with a scuba group (Outer Edge Dive Company) to an area off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. They were accidentally left behind due to a faulty head count taken by the dive boat crew. There were 26 other divers and 5 crew members who failed to notice that the couple was not on the boat. It was not until two days later on January 27, 1998, that the pair was found to be missing after a bag containing their passports and belongings was found in the dive boat. A massive air and sea search took place over the following three days, but failed to find them. The couple was never found.

Blanchard Ryan is in fact deeply afraid of sharks and as a result Daniel Travis had to enter the shark infested waters first each day to assure her they were not in danger.

The entire movie cost less than half of the cost of a typical Hollywood movie’s sound effects budget.

According to an interview with Blanchard Ryan, producers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau spent nearly half of the budget to get Stuart Cove and his shark wranglers for two days, and to make sure the two actors would be completely safe around the sharks.

No CGI was used in this movie. Director Chris Kentis fed the sharks tuna to get real feeling of the main characters being in the ocean together with the sharks. As long as they were eating the tuna they didn’t harm Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Water_(film
trailer: youtu.be/Z9q1qJi1nMs

OPEN WATER [2003]
Written and directed by Chris Kentis

[b]Passenger: Are there any big fish like sharks?
Davis: Yeah. We’re going out to the open ocean, so chances are you probably might see a shark or three. But, you know, like I tell everybody who sees a shark, if you don’t want to see it, close your eyes. No problem. Sharks over here are not very aggressive towards human beings, so therefore you don’t really have to worry about sharks.

Davis: Linda is on surface support, so if you surface in a distance away from the boat, you want to let her know that you are OK. You start to let her know you are OK by giving her a big “O” over your head. If you are not Ok, you do the international distress signal. The international distress signal is simple, very easy to do. It’s like this:
[he jumps up and down and starts screaming]
Davis: “Help! Help!” [/b]

They all laugh.

[b]Davis: Okay, that’s everybody.

Susan: Where’s the boat? Daniel. Where’s the boat?
Daniel: That’s a good question.
[he spots boats at a distance]
Daniel: I guess it’s one of those.
Susan: You gotta be kidding me.
Daniel: It better be one of those.

Susan: You think it’s time to swim?
Daniel: Swim where?
Susan: I don’t know. I think…That one is the closest.
Daniel: Honey, it’s a bad idea. We are not sure that’s our boat. And if it’s not our boat, that means we could swim farther from our boat.

Susan: I hate to tell you this, but, I didn’t see anything that looks like any kind of coral formation. Could you just show me? I’d just feel better. Cause I don’t see anything.
Daniel: Shit!
Susan: What?
Daniel: You don’t see it, because it’s not there.
Susan: So does that mean…
Daniel: …that since we’ve surfaced, we’re drifting. Oh, shit.
Susan: But what does that mean? Should we swim? Goddam it. We wasted all this time.
Daniel: Honey, I hate to tell you this, but swim or not, we’re going where this current decides.

Susan: Was that a shark?
Daniel: I don’t know. I think it was a dolphin.
Susan: No it wasn’t a dolphin, because if it was you would be over there playing with it!

Susan: Oh, Jesus Christ! I thought he said the sharks never come that close.
Daniel: He also said the boat would be here.

Susan: But what do we do if it comes back?
Daniel: I don’t know.
Susan: Do we splash? Do we stay still? You are the one who watches “Shark Week”.
Daniel: First of all, we should be in a cage.

Susan: I can’t stand not knowing what’s under me.

Susan: I’ve just never heard of anything so fucked up in my entire life. Who’s ever heard of two people getting left in the middle of the ocean before?
Daniel: I have actually.
Susan: Where?
Daniel: Dive magazines. It’s a lot more common than you think.

Susan [seeing a shark swimming right in front of them]: What kind of sharks are those?
Daniel: Big ones.

Susan: I don’t know what is worse, seeing them or not seeing them.
Daniel: Seeing them.

Daniel [screaming in outrage]: Unbelievable!! This is truly un-fucking believable. The best part is that we paid to do this. We paid to be out here! We paid those incompetent fuckers to drop us out in the middle of the fucking ocean! We wanted an ocean view. Boy, did we get it?!!

Daniel: Could you maybe answer one last question? Has this somehow over the hours become my fault?

Daniel: You believe what you want to believe. But I know for certain that we were in the right spot.
Susan: It’s not just a matter of being in the right spot. It’s being there on time.
Daiel: We were on time. We were early. He said 10:30.
Susan: Do we always have to get it so close? For God’s sake, Why don’t we stay with the group? We always have to do things different than everybody else?!

Daniel: The only reason we are out here in the first place is because of your fucking job!
Susan: What?
Daniel: If it were not for your job, we would not have thrown our plans out the window, rushed around at the last minute and settled on this fucking trip! We would be at home, in the middle of our hectic lives, which right now sounds like heaven to me. And in a month’s time, as we planned, seven months ago, we would be where we were supposed to be in the first place, and paying less than we are now to be shark bait!

Susan: I can’t even believe you’d bring that up right now. You were the one who picked the dates.
Daniel: Oh yeah, of my whopping two choices - this was the better date.
Susan: I wanted to go skiing!

Susan: You are all right?
Daniel: Oh, my God. I don’t see it.
Susan: Are you ok?
Daniel: I don’t know. I’m bit. Oh, my God, honey. I’m bit. The fucker bit me!

Daniel: This can’t be happening! How could this be happening?! I got bitten by a shark. We could actually be eaten alive by a shark out here. We don’t know anybody who’s ever been bitten by a shark. There are always three or four guys there on the shark show. They’re always surfers!

[a camera has been found in a shark’s stomach]
Man: Check it out.
[laughs]
Child: What’s the yellow thing?
Man: Man, they really do eat anything. I wonder if it works.[/b]