philosophy in film

iambiguous · March 26, 2013, 10:17pm

The film that explores the infamous Leopold-Loeb case. So, at the very least, it encompasses Nietzsche and free will. And what could the relationship possibly be between them? Is the uberman welded or not welded to the laws of nature?

There are arguments that go back and forth over behavior of this sort. The mind of one who rationalizes doing anything simply because it wants to. A mind that measures the consequences only in terms of not getting caught. In my view, only the existence of God resolves it.

But, with or without God, if we do only what we must do than morality is a bit of a sham.

It’s always entertaining though to watch two “super-intellects” tear into each other once the jig is up and the mere mortals have them on trial for capital murder.

Of course at the end of the trial [in the film] any semblance of delving into this “philosophically” devolved into the exploration of “abnormal psychology” instead.

In my view though, the film’s title is somewhat of a misnomer. The idea that through a combination of nature and nurtue we are compelled to behave as we do was hardly stressed at all in Wilk/Darrow’s argument to the judge.

And the ending. Back to God? Well, this film is from the 1950s.

IMDb

[b]Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope, Tom Kalin’s 1992 film Swoon, and Murder by Numbers (2002) are all based on the Leopold/Loeb case, although they emphasize different aspects of the story. Hitchcock’s film highlights their belief in their own intellectual superiority and Kalin’s emphasizes the sexual aspect of their relationhip; this film focuses on the way their “thrill” crime unravelled and the innovative approach Clarence Darrow (renamed for this film as Jonathan Wilk) took to their defence… The TV movie Darrow also deals in part with Clarence Darrow’s involvement in the Leopold/Loeb trial.

Those who have seen the movie and are familiar with the case of Leopold and Loeb say that the movie is extremely accurate in its portrayal of the real story. Some events may be simplified and/or skipped over, but watching the movie is like reading a detailed account of the case. Only the names have been changed. Leopold’s autobiography, Life Plus 99 Years (1974), may give further insight into the case from Leopold’s point-of-view.[/b]

Leopold and Loeb at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb
At philosophical investigations: philosophicalinvestigations. … mitstart=5

trailer: youtu.be/MTzja2DQgg4

COMPULSION [1959]
Directed by Richard Fleischer

[b]Judd: To the perfect crime!
Arthur: Crime? Oh, my wealthy fraternity brothers. 67 dollars, and a second-hand typewriter.

…

Arthur: He’s asking for it, give it to him. That’s an order, Judd!

…

Judd: It would have been murder.
Arthur: Uh huh. And you know why I tried it, Juddsie? Because I damn well felt like it. That’s why.

…

Judd: Please, Artie - I’ll do anything you say.
Arthur: Anything?

…

Arthur: I want to do something that is really dangerous. I want to do something that will have everybody talking. Not just a few guys.

…

Judd: An experiment. Detached, with no emotional involvement. And no reason for it, except to show that we can do it.

…

Max [to Judd]: It just irritates me to see anyone as brilliant as you make a jackass out of himself over someone like Artie Straus.

…

Judd: Professor, I must agree with Nietzsche. Tribal codes and such do not necessarily apply to the leaders of society.
Professor: All men are bound by law, Mr. Steiner. And had Nietzsche been a lawyer instead of a German philosopher, he would have known that too.

…

Professor: Perhaps my thinking is outmoded. But I still cling to the theory that if we were all super-intellects, we would nevertheless, evolve our own code of laws.

…

Arthur: Stop worrying. It’s not that easy to trace an ordinary pair of glasses.
Judd: But suppose they do?
Arthur: So what? They’re not my glasses.

…

Arthur: You want me to order you to, Judd?

…

Judd: Sad? That’s a sentimental term. There is no such thing as sadness. Only the reality of things happening.
Ruth: You don’t really believe that.

…

Judd: What’s one life more or less? There were nine million people killed in the war. What does one little Chicago boy matter?
Ruth: Judd! You’re not that cruel.
Judd: No? Murder’s nothing. It’s just a simple experience. Murder and rape? Do you know what beauty there is in evil?!
Ruth: Is there?
Judd: Yes! Why don’t you run?
Ruth: Is that what you want me to do?
Judd: Yes!
Ruth: Do you have to attack me, Judd?
Judd: I don’t have to do anything! If I attack you, it’s because I choose to!
[he pushes her to the ground and starts ripping at her clothes]
Judd: Are you afraid of me?!
Ruth: I’m afreaid for you, Judd. I’m afraid for you!
[he stops and rolls off her]
Judd: I’m so ashamed!

…

Judd: What is it?
Athur: A Judas goat. Didn’t you ever see one?
Judd: No. What does it do?
Arthur: Watch and you’ll find out. See, when they get to the slaughterhouse, he ducks to one side and the silly sheep go in to get their throats cut—and that black devil knows it!

…

Arthur: Hey, come on—let’s go watch them slaughter the sheep.

…

Ruth: I can’t help feeling sorry for Judd and for Artie.
Sid: Sorry for them? Ruth, they plotted a cold blooded killing and went through with it like an experiment in chemistry.

…

Ruth: It wasn’t the way you think at all. He made an attempt at it. He couldn’t go through with it, Sid. He was like a child–a sick, frightened child.
Sid: I don’t understand you, Ruth. He tries to rape you and you defend him.
Ruth: I know. It’s difficult to understand but, see, you weren’t there, you didn’t see him like I did. If you did, you’d have some compassion or sympathy for him, believe me.
Sid: Sympathy? Ruth, you sound as though you’re sorry he didn’t go through with it.
[Ruth slaps him across the face]
Sid: I hope they hang him. I hope he hangs till the rope rots.

…

Arthur: So we sweat through 3 months of misery just to hear that?
[then to Wilk]
Arthur: I wish they had hung us right off the bat.[/b]

iambiguous · March 27, 2013, 2:44am

“…and you don’t mess around with Jim.”

Or Don. Watching these guys up on the screen is one thing, meeting up with them in “real life” something else altogether. I never did. I never want to either.

Start’s out with the classic shot of the boulder flying over Gal’s head into the pool.

The thing about being in “the business” though is that sometimes you don’t have a whole lot to say regarding exactly what that means. All the more so when you decide to get out of it. Having power in this world almost always means that someone has even more than you. And it’s a world way, way, way beyond good and evil. And even a bit further than that at times.

This is the guy for whom someone invented the expression, “he doesn’t have a decent bone in his body”.

He’s like a hand grenade. Only there is no pin. Just him [barely] holding himself in check. And we are never really clued in on the backstory. We can only guess why he evokes such fear in others. And we don’t know about back up: how dangerous is it to cross him? There’s Ted for example.

Bottom line: It’s a love story.

IMDb

[b]Ben Kingsley claims the character of Don Logan is largely based on his grandmother.

Reportedly the other actors were so stunned by ferocity of Ben Kingsley’s performance that they occasionally forgot their lines and much of the fear in their performances wasn’t difficult to act.[/b]

I believe that. And so will you.

trailer: youtu.be/zqDBAvWdHgE

SEXY BEAST [2000]
Directed by Jonathan Glazer

[b]Dee: What’s that?
Gal: A boulder! A fucking boulder! I was that close to gettin’ killed!

…

Gal: It’s only a tiddler, Aitch.
Aitch: That’s his problem.
[clunk]

…

Jackie: Are you definitely retired?
Gal: Yeah, I’m retired. Why?
Jackie: Definitely?
Gal: I’m definitely retired. What’s this about.

…

Gal: They don’t want no one else? They want me? Well, you’ve asked me and I said no. I’m retired. That’s it. So, why are we still talking? Jack?
Jackie: It was Don Logan.
Dee: Oh, Christ.

…

Gal: Tell him anything.
Jackie: You can tell him yourself.
Gal: What? He’s coming over?
Jackie: Tomorrow.

…

Gal: I’d be useless.
Don: Useless?
Gal: I would be.
Don: In what way?
Gal: In every fucking way.
Don: Why are you swearing? I’m not swearing.[/b]

Oh, that will change.

[b]Don: Listen, Gal, I’m gonna tell you a little story…

…

Ted: What are you staring at?
Harry: The back of your head.
Ted: Well don’t. Stare at the back of your own fucking head.

…

Ted: Men, or women?
Harry: Oh… definitely.

…

Ted: Where there’s a will - and there is a fucking will - there’s a way - and there is a fucking way. There’s always a fucking way.

…

Don: Do the job.
Gal: What?
Don: Do the job.
Gal: No!
Don: Yes!
Gal: No!
Don: Yes!
Gal: No!
Don: Fat cunt!
Gal: No, No, No!
Don: Yes, Yes, Yes!

…

Don: I fucked Jackie. Dirty cow. During what we were doing, she tried to stick her finger up my bum. I nearly hit the roof, you can imagine. I mean, what have you got to think of a woman who’d want to do that?

…

Don: Talk to me, Gal. I’m here for you. I’m a good listener.
Gal: What can I say, Don? I’ve said it all. I’m retired.
Don: Shut up.

…

Don: Shut up, cunt. You louse. You got some fuckin’ neck ain’t you. Retired? Fuck off, you’re revolting. Look at your suntan, it’s leather, it’s like leather man, your skin. We could make a fucking suitcase out of you. Like a crocodile, fat crocodile, fat bastard. You look like fucking Idi Amin, you know what I mean? Stay here? You should be ashamed of yourself. Who do you think you are? King of the castle? Cock of the walk?
[He punches Gal in the gut]
Don: What you think this is the wheel of fortune? You think you can make your dough and fuck off? Leave the table? Thanks Don, see you Don, off to sunny Spain now Don, fuck off Don. Lying in your pool like a fat blob laughing at me, you think I’m gonna have that? You really think I’m gonna have that, ya ponce. All right, I’ll make it easy for you. God knows you’re fucking trying. Are you gonna do the job? It’s not a difficult question, are you gonna do the job, yes or no?
Gal: No
Don: You’re doing the job.

…

Don: You ever worked in an office?
Jackie: No.
Don: Nice telephone voice. I’ve worked in an office. I was 17. Does that surprise you?
Dee: What, that you were 17?
Don [slow malevolent head turn]: You got very nice eye, DeeDee. Never noticed them before. They real?

…

Airport security: As you may know, all European airlines…
Don: Before you start, I wanna say something. Let ask you something. Have you ever been sexually assaulted? No, neither have I, until today on that plane.
Airport security: What?
Don: Yeah, that’s what I said. There’s me putting my bag up in the cupboard next thing ya know, I feel hands on me. Someone’s touched me, touched my front… my front bottom. I can’t believe it, I’ve gone all cold. I look around, he standing there isn’t he? That steward with the guilty look on his face. I was shocked, I didn’t know what to say. I had to sit down, I was that perturbed. Then his mate, the other one who was giving us all lessons on what we do if we land in the sea. How to wear your life jacket etc; He starts off, he starts looking at my all funny… suggestive. Now I don’t know if they’re wanting me for a twosome or something, I don’t know how they work it. But I’ll tell you what, it scared me. I was shaking like a leaf, so without thinking I lit up a cigarette to calm me nerves. I was trembling, I was very emotional and that when all the rest of it happened. It’s very regrettable. Now, I don’t want to kick up a fuss, right, press charges… contact the British embassy. I’d rather not pursue those chanells, that’s not my style. I’m not that sort of a bloke. I don’t want to lose the man his job. Man’s got to eat. And I’m sure he’s not representive of all you Spanish people. But I would appreciate it if you had a word with him, let him know he’s been rumbled. The one with the ginger hair.

…

Don: Not this time, Gal. Not this time. Not this fucking time. No. No no no no no no no no no! No! No no no no no no no no no no no no no! No! Not this fucking time! No fucking way! No fucking way, no fucking way, no fucking way! You’ve made me look a right cunt!

…

Gal [to Dee]: I love you like a rose loves rainwater, like a leopard loves its partner in the jungle, like…I don’t know what like. I love you. I love you.

…

Don [barely alive]: I fucked Jackie. Fucked her. Ask her, she’ll tell you. I fucked her.
Aitch: Yeah, well I’ve fucked you now, haven’t I?
[crushes Don’s head with a metal chest]

…

Gal: I’m not into this anymore, Ted.

…

Ted: You see, if I cared, Gal, if I fucking cared, if I gave a solitary fuck about Don…
[long pause]
Ted: Get out of the fucking car.

…

Back up:
Don: Told you you’d do the job
Move forward:
Gal: You were right Don. Technically speaking, you were right. But you’re dead. So shut up.[/b]

iambiguous · March 27, 2013, 7:38pm

This one comes straight from Roy Dillon’s mentor, Mintz:

There’s nothing to whipping a fool. Hell, fools were made to be whipped. But to take another pro, even your partner, who knows you and has his eyes on you, that’s a score.

Here’s another rendition of it. Maybe even better. We are even approaching House of Games.

Short con. Long con. Some are good at both, some at neither. And some learn along the way to get better and better. But how do
you trust someone who may be lying every time his lips move?

You watch them pull their scams and it dawns on you: the marks are so damn dense! Is this how they are out in the real world? Really, it’s tempting to go out and try it yourself. But it’s not for the introvert. If you are self-conscious, keep your day job.

Look for the con within the con within the con. And that’s not even counting the ones I probably missed. And the rich? Well, let’s just say they have cons all their own.

trailer: youtu.be/hrmpvIJiHNY

NINE QUEENS [Nueve Reinas] 2000

[b]Juan: It was the gun that convinced me.
Marcos [pulling out a toy revolver]: The gun? It was the only thing handy.

…

Juan: I’m not the smartest guy around but I’m street-wise…and I know that nobody gives you anything for free… especially someone like you. What do you want?

…

Juan: Hey, Marcos…just for today.

…

Marcos [to Juan]: What’s wrong with you? How can you work the streets with such a conscience?!

…

Marcos: This is not for you. You’re not into it. You could fuck up, and if that happens…
Juan: What could I fuck up? What kind of an idiot d’you think I am?
Marcos: The kind who thinks too much.

…

Marcos [to Juan]: And you have another asset that’ll make your life easier on the streets. Something money can’t buy. You look like a nice guy.

…

Marcos: Do you want to see thieves? Come. Those two are waiting for someone with a briefcase on the street side. That one, sizing up loaded victims. They are there, but you can’t see them. That’s what it’s all about. They’re there, but they aren’t. So mind your briefcase, your pocketbook, your door, your window, your car, your savings. Mind your ass. Because they’re there and they’ll always be.
Juan: Thieves.
Marcos: No…that’s what everybody calls them. They are spitters, breakers, skin workers, blind fronts, hoisters, hooks, stalls, petermans, night raiders, mustard chuckers, fences, operators, swindlers…

…

Marcos: Don’t worry. I won’t fuck you.
Juan: Why not?
Marcos: I’m getting old. And I’m sure you run faster than I do.

…

Juan: This guy is going to buy the stamps from us. We deliver them at ten and he’ll pay us $450,000. Ten percent for Sandler, and thirty percent of the balance is mine.
Marcos: Minus expenses.
Juan: Where’s the trick?
Marcos: What?
Juan: You’re screwing me. This is a trick. You’re pulling a trick.
Marcos: You think I’m screwing you? How?
Juan: I don’t know. I can’t understand it and it makes me mad. This is not real.
Marcos: It’s not real? This is as real as it gets, asshole. It’s 450 grand!

…

Marcos: D’you want me to sign an IOU? Among thieves, this is the way it’s done. It’s based on trust.

…

Gandolfo: I’ve just made a change in our agreement. An addition.
Marcos: In the price?
Gandolfo: No, in the package. I want to include her.
Marcos: Valeria, my sister?
Gandolfo: Valeria, yes. Knowing she’s your sister makes me hornier. Man, it’s only one night. Tonight. I’ve been wanting to fuck her since I got here but I couldn’t. And now I can. Do you want the money? Convince her.
Marcos: And if she doesn’t want to?
Gandolfo: Then the deal is off.
Marcos: You are willing to give up the stamps for a piece of ass?
Gandolfo: More than you are willing to give up the money.

…

Juan: Valeria won’t go for it.
Marcos: How do you know?
Juan: From what I’ve seen so far…
Marcos: You like her, shithead. I saw you looking at her. You must believe she’s a saint. Can’t you see the way she swings her ass? There are no saints.

…

Marcos: A check?!

…

Juan: I wanted to say something. I wanted to apologize.
Marcos: Why?
Juan: Because I didn’t trust you. The truth is I thought you were fucking me.

…

Marcos [to Juan]: Why do you give me that raped virgin’s look? What is it? You know my business. What did you expect?[/b]

iambiguous · March 28, 2013, 12:28am

What’s it mean? Yeah, right.

Besides, who cares. Some parts are nothing less than hypnotic. It’s a world we can only dream about. We go in and come out when, where appropriate. And it is all held together [or falls apart] in our imagination.

Dreams. People talk about how surreal and inexplicable they always are. But mine are hardly ever like that at all. I can almost always interpret them [one way or another] as being connected to the world I live in from day to day.

Like in this movie. What part is the dream, what part is not? The two segments overlap such that you clearly see connections. But you can never really be certain what the connections mean and from who they are derived. It’s all ambiguous. Much like the gaps between the way we think the world is and the way it really is instead.

Anyway, here are further speculations at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0116922/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm

At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Highway_(film

IMDb

[b]The house that Fred Madison lives in, along with most of the furniture in it, belongs to, and was designed by David Lynch.

David Lynch said he has only recently (2002) realized what subconsciously inspired the film: the O.J. Simpson trial. He said that the trial was a major influence on his mind during the stage of writing this script, which deals with a man who killed his wife.

Robert Blake told director David Lynch he was not going to give him a hard time about the script because Blake did not understand it. Blake also said he felt his character was the Devil.[/b]

trailer: youtu.be/1nKjO9QCSic

LOST HIGHWAY [1997]
Written and directed by David Lynch

[b]Voice over the intercom to Fred: Dick Laurent is dead.

…

Renee [on phone to the police]: Someone broke in and taped us while we slept. Isn’t that enough?

…

Ed [detective]: Do you own a video camera?
Renee: No. Fred hates them.
Fred: I like to remember things my own way.
Ed: What do you mean by that?
Fred: How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened.

…

Mystery Man: We’ve met before, haven’t we.
Fred: I don’t think so. Where was it you think we met?
Mystery Man: At your house. Don’t you remember?
Fred: No. No, I don’t. Are you sure?
Mystery Man: Of course. As a matter of fact, I’m there right now.
Fred: What do you mean? You’re where right now?
Mystery Man: At your house.
Fred: That’s fucking crazy, man.
Mystery Man [hands have a phone]: Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead.
[Fred dials the number]
Mystery Man [over the phone]: I told you I was here.
Fred [amused]: How’d you do that?
Mystery Man: Ask me.
[Fred’s facial expression turns from amused to serious as he’s rembering the anonymous video tapes]
Fred [angrily into the phone]: How did you get inside my house?
Mystery Man [voice]: You invited me. It is not my custom to go where I am not wanted.
Fred [into the phone]: Who are you?
[Both Mystery Men laugh mechanically, malevolently]
Mystery Man [voice]: Give me back my phone.
[Fred gives the cell phone back to the man in front of him]
Mystery Man: It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

…

Fred: Andy, who’s the guy on the stairs? Guy in black.
Andy: I don’t know his name. He’s a friend of Dick Laurent, I think. Yeah. I believe so.
Fred: But Dick Laurent is dead, isn’t he ?
Andy: He is? I didn’t think you knew Dick. How do you know he’s dead?
Fred: I don’t. I don’t know him.
Andy: Dick can’t be dead. Who told you he was dead?
Renee [approaching]: Who, honey? Who’s dead?

…

Guard: Captain Luneau?
Luneau: Yeah, Mike?
Guard: Captain…This is some spooky shit we got here.

…

Mr. Eddy: Shit. Is that cocksucker doing what I think he’s doing?

…

Mr. Eddy: This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

…

Mr. Eddy [to a tailgater after running him off the road]: Don’t tailgate! Don’t you ever tailgate! Do you know how much space is needed to stop a car traveling at 35 miles per hour? Six car lenghts! Six fuckin’ car lengths! That’s a hundred and six fuckin’ feet, mister! If I had to stop suddenly, you woulda hit me! I want you to get a fuckin’ driver’s manual, and I want you to study that motherfucker! And I want you to obey the the goddamn rules of the road! Fifty-fuckin’ thousand people were killed on the highways last year ‘cause of fuckin’ assholes like you! Tell me you’re gonna get a manual!

…

Mr. Eddy: I’m sorry about that, Pete. But tailgating is one thing I cannot tolerate.
Pete: Yeah, I can see that.

…

Hank: Lou, you recognize that guy?
Lou: Yeah…Laurent.

…

Alice [to Pete]: Maybe we should just skip dinner.

…

Hank: Fucker gets more pussy than a toilet seat.

…

Lou: What a fucking job.
Hank: His or ours, Lou ?
Lou: Ours, Hank.

…

Mr. Eddy: I’m sure you noticed that girl who was with me the other day. Good looking blonde. She stayed in the car. Her name is Alice. I swear, I love that girl to death. If I ever found out somebody was making out with her…I’d take this gun and I’d shove it so far up his ass, it would come out his mouth. And then you know what I’d do?
Pete: What?
Mr Eddy: I’d blow his fucking brains out.

…

Mr. Eddy: I’m really glad to know you’re doin okay. You’re sure you’re okay? Everything alright?
Pete: Yeah?
Mr. Eddy: I’m really glad to know you’re doin good, Pete. Hey, I want you to talk to a friend of mine.
Mystery Man: We’ve met before, haven’t we.
Fred: I don’t think so. Where was it you think we met?
Mystery Man: At your house. Don’t you remember?
Pete Dayton: No. No, I don’t.
Mystery Man: In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they’re sent to a place where they can’t escape, never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them, and fire a bullet into the back of their head.
Pete: What’s going on?
Mystery Man: It’s been a pleasure talking to you.
Mr. Eddy: I just wanted to jump on and tell you that I’m really glad you’re doing OK.

…

Alice: Did you want to talk to me? Did you want to ask me “WHY”?

…

Pete: Why me, Alice? Why choose me?
Alice: You still want me, don’t you, Pete?
Pete: More than ever. I want you. I want you.
Alice: You’ll never have me.

…

Fred: Where’s Alice?
Mystery Man: Alice who? Her name is Renee. If she told you her name is Alice, she’s lying.

…

Fred into the intercom: Dick Laurant is dead.[/b]

iambiguous · March 28, 2013, 7:25pm

Sex, drugs and rock n roll. Some things never change. Like, for instance, it having long since become just a business.

Usually though the focus is on the bedraggled burnt out male rock star. Not the beautiful young[ish] wife accused of wrecking the rock star’s life.

Two kinds of people use dope. Those who never expected much of themselves and use it to blast away the dreariness of a life lived on the stifling surface day after day after day. And those who thought they would reach the stars and need something to fill the godawful gap between that and where they have really landed instead. And, of course, all the other ones who have different reasons.

Here however there’s a kid involved. And sometimes that’s enough to recover. But after that? What sort of world are you recovering into? If it’s not a whole lot different from the world that drove you to drugs, then what?

And so much in this world revolves around the lowest common denominator.

Look for Betty Blue. And more than just a few narcissistic assholes.

trailer: youtu.be/FP_4aIenueM

CLEAN [2004]
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas

[b]Emily: Hang on…wasn’t I supposed to be making that deal?
Vernon: Yeah, you were supposed to be, three months ago.
Emily: I told you I’m in discussions with two major labels here.
Vernon: Yeah, well, I think it’s time to take what we can get.
Emily: You’re hawking Lee’s music at bargain-basement prices, and you don’t give a fuck!
Vernon: I’m being realistic. I’m in the real world.
Emily: What do you mean by that, the “real world”?
Vernon: I mean as opposed to some psychedelic junkie fantasy world, just for instance. I’m being straight with you.
Emily: Do you realize what this bullshit deal will do to Lee’s career?
Vernon: It’s as good as he’s going to get.
Emily: What? I can do better than that in two phone calls.
Vernon: Two phone calls? Really?
[he hands her a phone]
Vernon: Don’t let me stop you, be my guest. Make your fucking phone calls! Here, make your fucking phone calls!! It’s not my fault his reputation is shit.
Emily: Are you trying to say it’s mine?
Vernon: Yes, I am. So keep out of my way or I will slap you down.

…

Detective: Did you supply your husband with the heroin he overdosed on?
Emily: No.
Detective: And the heroin you were carrying at the time of your arrest, where did you get that from?
Emily: I got it from Lee.

…

Albrecht: I’m sure your lawyer told you. The court handed down its decision yesterday. Jay is staying with us. Father dead, mother in prison.
Emily: Yeah, no home, no job, nothing.
Albrecht: Do you intend to appeal it?
Emily: No, of course not. I can’t take care of him now.

…

Albrecht: Emily. There’s something I’d like to ask you. It’s a bit delicate. You see, it was difficult to explain his father’s death to Jay. He’s a well-adjusted boy, but sensitive. I’m scared. I’d prefer it if for the next few years, you’d agree not to see him. Rosemary and I have done everything we can to give him a stable environment, a home, a sense of belonging…and I’m afraid of unsettling him.

…

Emily: Fuck off! Fuck off!
Jean-Pierre: No need to say it twice.

…

Rosemary: I read the liner notes they want to put with the CD.
Albrecht: So did I.
Rosemay: I didn’t think much of them.
Albrecht: No.
Rosemary: They give a false image of him.
Albrecht: Yeah.
Rosemary: As if there was nothing but drugs in his life.
Albrecht: And misfortune.
Rosemary: It’s not true at all.
Albrecht: It’s journalists. They have this romantic idea of self-destruction.

…

Elena: How did it go?
Emily: Awful.
Elena: It didn’t work?
Emily: Yeah, it’ll work out. I don’t exactly have a choice. I learned that in prison
Elena: Learned what?
Emily: To adapt. If I want to see Jay, I have to change my life. Even if the new life sucks.
Elena: Being a junkie was better?
Emily: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

…

Jay: You didn’t tell me I was going to spend the weekend with her.
Albrecht: She’s your mother.
Jay: She killed my Dad. Grandma Rosemary told me so. He died because he took the drugs she gave him.[/b]

And on and on. The whole situation is a mess. Human all too human. Rosemary is seen as the culprit here but Roasemary is the only one who really has an emotional bond with him. And unequivocally wants one. So she has to die. And Emily gets to be creative [and clean] again.

Emily: You know what, drugs are more complicated than most people think they are. Some people need them because they are suffering, because they don’t know how to live any other way. Your dad was like that. And me too.
Jay: Because you are weak.

There you go. Stick yourself in there somewhere and play the blame game.

iambiguous · March 28, 2013, 10:05pm

Here’s a woman struggling to get in to Afghanstan. It’s true in part and not true in part. But what narrative isn’t.

It’s about women in Islamic Afghanistan from the perspective of women in the world we are more familiar with. I’m as appalled as most of us would be. Only I don’t have the Objective Truth to bolster my claims.

This is a grim fucking world. In some ways it may as well be prehistoric. This is religion at its most retrograde. It’s most mindless. Here it’s nothing less than a festering sore on humanity.

Just don’t try to persuade those who swallow it hook, line and sinker. Not even most of the women here. It is the infallible certainty they need to anchor “I” to.

And if that means having the doctor “examine” you through a hole in a curtain, so be it.

This is also about the casualties from all the mines that were planted druing the war with the USSR. Endless streams of men on crutches—missing legs, missing arms. Numb from the pain…in agony day and night. “Martyrs” from the Holy war.

And then that surreal scene of all those men on crutches racing out into the desert as prosthetic legs drop from the sky on parachutes.

And this film is from 2001. So that is before the American invasion—a new war, a new wave of devastation.

trailer: youtu.be/PwglCgW0H8M

KANDAHAR [Safar e Ghandehar] 2001
Written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf

[b]Nafas [voiceover]: In Afganistan each ethnic goup has a name and an image of its own. But the women in the country that make up half of the society have no name or image. Perhaps that is why they are all called “black heads.”

…

Nafas [voiceover]: I don’t know if it’s the government that forces these women to wear the burkas or if it’s more the culture that has forced the government to put them under these covers.

…

Man [hired to be her “husband”]: Lower your burqa first. It is a matter of honour. We are devout people. No man must see my wife’s face. People will ridicule you if your burqa is not worn properly. A burqa is not for show. It is a veil, to cover you. To cover you up!
Nafas: Allright I will do it, but I am not really your wife.
Man: That is true, you are not, but what will that matter to the scandalmongers? They will say, “His wife is not properly dressed”. The burqa is not an ornament. My honour is at stake.

…

Doctor: Weapons are the only modern things in Afghanistan.

…

Nafas: I had to come here for my sister, why did you come here?
Doctor: In search of God.
Nafas: Did you find Him?
Doctor: No.
Nafas: So why did you stay?
Doctor: I still search for God. I’m not a medical doctor. I first came here to fight. In the beginning I thought the path to God was fighting against the Russians. When the Afghans won, then the fighting about God began.[/b]

iambiguous · March 29, 2013, 2:31am

I’m lucky in one respect. The sort of things that bring me the most fulfilment [in my life now] don’t cost a whole lot of money: books, films, music. So I don’t need fancy cars, clothes, furnishings, food, booze, electronics and the like.

Others, of course, aren’t so lucky: they do. And, as we all know, one of the ways to get a lot of money is to steal it. But we all know the risk in doing that.

And this guy is only 5’6" tall. So [he feels] in order to compensate he needs money coming in by the barrel. Or he does if he is to keep his tall, leggy [and very beautiful] wife happy.

And the best way to steal a work of art is to replace it with a copy. It could be weeks before someone spots it.

But all this sort of fades into the background when he steals a painting from someone rather adept at tracking down and then stealing lives.

This is a peek into the brave new world to come. Kiss all you thought you knew about your privacy goodbye.

And whenever you hear the expression, “billions of dollars are at stake”, assume that damn near everyone is expendable.

Still, even in Norway thrillers tend to end in the most incredulous fashion. I mean, come on.

trailer: youtu.be/bFKM0ETjGjU

wiki

Roger Ebert praised the movie as “an argument for the kinds of thrillers I miss. It entertains with story elements, in which the scares evolve from human behavior. Unlike too many thrillers that depend on stunts, special effects and the Queasy-Cam, this one devises a plot where it matters what happens. It’s not all kinetic energy.”

HEADHUNTERS [Hodejegerne] 2011
Directed by Morten Tyldum

[b]Roger [voiceover—rules for stealing art]:
Rule #1 Make sure you know everything about those you visit
Rule #2 Never spend more than 10 minutes in each home
Rule #3 Do not leave any DNA traces
Rule #4 Don’t waste time getting an expensive reproduction. Even a simple forgery will go unnoticed for weeks
Rule #5 Sooner or later one of two things will happen: You find a work of art so valuable you never need to worry again or…you get caught

…

Roger [voiceover]: For someone like me to get what he wants, only one thing counts. Money. Lots of money.

…

Roger [to Lander]: This work is by Julian Opie and is worth a quarter of a million dollars. It consists of a few circles and lines. The coloration is monotone and without texture. The only thing – I repeat – the only thing that makes this work worth a quarter of a million is the artist’s reputation.
Lander: And your point is the same goes for leaders?
Roger: Exactly.[/b]

And headhunters apparently. Well, reputation and subterfuge.

[b]Roger: How much do you think it’s worth?
Diana: Tens of millions. Maybe a hundred.

…

Roger [aloud to himself]: What the hell is going on here? Shit, what’s going on?!

…

Roger [recalling what Clas had told him]: “Our main research was the tracking of people. Microscopic transmitters.”

…

Roger [recalling what Clas had told him]: “We developed this jelly containing hundreds of transmitters per milliliter. It adheres to all materials. It’s invisible and just about impossible to remove.”[/b]

From human hair, for example.

[b]Diana: How could you be so goddamn stupid? Steal works of art? To buy things I don’t even need? Who do you think I am?

…

Clas: I’ll give you a choice. If you tell me what the hell is going on, I’ll shoot you in the head. If not, you’ll get a bullet in your stomach.

…

Roger [voiceover]: My name is Roger Brown. I’m 5’6" tall. And you know what? That’s more than enough.[/b]

iambiguous · March 29, 2013, 8:48pm

Pick up the young gorgeous hitchhiker. Three folks in a car. Then three folks in a boat.

It’s all intimate and edgy. And then it’s all intimate and…ominous.

A touch of class. Then the male battle. Put the kid in his place. Impress the pretty wife. But the skipper is no match at all in
the “looks” department. And he is quite a bit older.

And then there’s the knife. Before and then after it falls into the water.

clip from film: youtu.be/LaBa2Wj3gHk

IMDb

[b]Roman Polanski had intended to take on the role of the young hitchhiker himself, but Jerzy Bossak, head of the Polish film unit KAMERA (under whose auspices the film was made), turned him down because he didn’t consider the director attractive enough. The character’s voice, however, is Polanski’s, who later dubbed the part over. Zygmunt Malanowicz had a strong, developed, bass voice, which was quite inappropriate for the character.

This was Roman Polanski’s directorial debut, and the only film he ever made in his native Poland. Shortly after the film was released, Polanski emigrated to France (then to England, and then to the US), where he established his international fame.[/b]

KNIFE IN THE WATER [Nóz W Wodzie] 1962
Written in part and directed by Roman Polanski

[b]Andrzej: Charged with manslaughter for running over a puppy.

…

Young man: You want to go on with the game?
Andrzej: You aren’t in my class, kid. But come on aboard.

…

Andrzej: When two men are on board, only one is the skipper.

…

Young man: See who does it first!

…

Krystyna: Why did you bring him along?

…

Andrzej: Get down there.
Young man: What for?
Andrzej: Get in the fo’c’sle. You’ll find a box there.
Krystyna: We’ll be ashore soon. Stop acting the skipper.
Andrzej: There’s a rag in the box.
[the young man brings the rag on deck]
Andrzej: That’s not all. The bucket too.
[the young man puts the bucket on deck]
Andrzej: I want the deck swabbed.
Krystyna: Can’t I do it?
Andrzej: Stay at the helm.

…

Krystyna: Say something nice to him.

…

Young man: Where’s my knife?

…

Krystyna: He’ll drown.
Andrzej: He can swim.
Krystyna: But he said…
Andrzej: He lied.

…

Krystyna: Murderer!
Andrzej: You’re just scared.
Krystyna: Lost your nerve. Tough guy! Phony! Clown! You only took him along to show off!

…

Krystyna [slapping the young man]: So you can swim!..You’re just like him. Only half his age and twice as dumb.

…

Krystyna: Don’t go to the police. It’s enough you are scared. He was behind the buoy. He dived when we checked. You were gone when he showed up. We shouted.
Andrzej: It’s all nonsense. You’re making it up.
Krystyna: Oh, he’s alive. So much so that I cheated on you with him.
Andrzej: I’m not scared. You are. So much so, you’re fantasizing.[/b]

The look on her face? Priceless.

iambiguous · March 30, 2013, 12:26am

48 hours in the Valley. The Valley. So these folks are going to be all over the map.

One of those movies in which there are a whole bunch of little plots that seemingly share nothing in common. And then they get all tangled up in each other. And then nothing is ever quite the same. For the the ones who survive anyway.

For two of them it becomes a romantic comedy. But just them.

The others get it coming and going. Some of them deserve to and some don’t. Just like in real life.

What the hell is this though, a comedy?

trailer: youtu.be/WP-SG4Q038M

2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY [1996]
Written and directed by John Herzfeld

[b]Dosmo: Are you sure she doesn’t have a fucking dog?

…

Teddy: Okay, little man one last walk to the park.

…

Lee [pulling out a stopwatch]: You have one minute to decide the rest of your life.

…

Lee: This is the one not to get wrong. Was it Helga who approached you on behalf of the North Koreans?

…

Dosmo [to Lee]: This thing isn’t about a gambling debt?

…

Midori: My mother Vietnamese, my father Japanese. How you say…a mutt?

…

Midori: You want nothing else?

…

Wes: Alvin, can I ask you a question?
Alvin: I hate it when people ask if they can ask a question. Just ask it!

…

Lee: You know Dosmo, curiosity killed the cat.
Dosmo: Oh, you’re a real pisser, aren’t you? You like fucking with people’s heads? How did you find me?
Lee: I looked you up in the phone book under “washout.”

…

Dosmo: Oh shit. A fucking dog!

…

Allan: Good girl.
Susan: Me or the dog?

…

Allan: You know, Susan, with a little surgury you wouldn’t have to be so homely.

…

Allan: He’s not vicious. He just wants to fetch. He’s waiting for you to throw the gun.

…

Lee: So much life revolves around a single minute. You have a minute egg, minute waltz, minute rice. People are always demanding that you give them a minute. Nobody realizes how valuable it is until they only have one left.

…

Lee [to Helga]: You’re not too tall. It’s the world that’s too short.

…

Helga [to Lee]: Sometimes I think you should have been born during the Spanish Inquisition.

…

Susan [to Dosmo]: He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s naturally cruel. He can’t help it. Don’t take offense.

…

Wes [to Becky]: Lady, we are the police.

…

Dosmo: Another fucking dog?!!

…

Allan: You know, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was raised in a trailer park. My father abandoned us, and my mother couldn’t even afford to send us to college. Now, I may be an asshole, but I’ve worked hard to become one.
Dosmo: Well you definitely achieved your goal.

…

Helga: Becky, we have to keep some secrets from you. In case you forget to call us about the insurance check.

…

Dosmo: He thinks I’m fucking around. You better tell him I’m not fucking around, Susan.
Susan [to Teddy]: He’s not fucking around.

…

Dosmo: Let’s go. Come on.
Teddy: I don’t think so.
Dosmos: Oh, Jesus. Are you kidding? You think I’m gonna shoot you?
Teddy: Go ahead. Shoot me. Shoot me.
Audrey: I think he’s suicidal.
Teddy: We all have our flaws.
Dosmo: I had a bad felling about you.

…

Dosmo: You’ll come with me?
Teddy: If you give me your word that once we’re safely out of the Valley, you’ll let everybody go.
Allan: You’d take this loser’s word? You can’t believe him!
Teddy: I’ll take his word over yours. It’s been my experience, more often than not, that a loser has more honor than a winner.
Dosmo: I give you my word.
Teddy: Your word of honor?
Dosmo: You got it.

…

Helga: Give me a minute. You give everybody else one.

…

Dosmo [to Lee]: YOU MOTHERFUCKING COWARDLY PRICK!
Lee [to Dosmo]: Come get me, Dumbo.[/b]

iambiguous · March 30, 2013, 5:35pm

Basically a day in the life of Jean Michel Basquiat. It seems he needs to raise enough dough to keep his apartment. So he sets out to sell a painting. And along the way we are dipped [dumped] into the 1980s New York art scene. Along with the “club scene”. Along with the “music scene”. Along with the “fashion scene.”

Very…extemporaneous.

And then there’s the freak show. The Lower East Side: “It looks like a war zone.”

What’s the story? Make one up.

[u][b]Fantastic soundtrack[/u][/b]

trailer: youtu.be/EzGWSl7iO7Y

IMDb

[b]In 1981, financial problems prevented the post-production and release of the film. Subsequently, parts of the film became lost over the years. After much searching, the missing materials were located in 1998. Finally, post production began in 1999 and the film was released in 2000.

Unfortunately, the original soundtrack became destroyed over the years. The producers were able to get most of the original cast to re-dub their dialogue. But Jean Michel Basquiat died in 1988. So Saul Williams was hired to dub Basquiat’s dialogue.[/b]

DOWNTOWN 81 [AKA THE NEW YORK BEAT MOVIE] 1981
Directed by Edo Bertoglio

[b]Narrator: Fairy tales can come true. Sometime it might happen to you. Especially when you’re young in New York. But once upon a time this place was the wild frontier and every youngster who was fast on the draw showed up on these streets to try his hand. Anyway the story you are about to see isn’t true. But it isn’t false either.

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: I was free. But the city wasn’t.

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: The streets looked really good to me. They looked like art.

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: I’m an artist. When you tell people that they usually say, ‘what’s your medium?’ I usually say, ‘extra large.’

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: Beatrice is a model. She makes more money in one day than I make in a year. And her job is standing still or walking.

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: Our equipment got ripped off.
Strange dude: You band got its equipment ripped off? Yeah, that fits the pattern.
Jean Michel Basquiat: What pattern?
Stange dude: Somebody’s ripped off every small time band in town.
Jean Michel Basquiat: What do you mean, “small time”?
Strane dude: You know, lousy equipment. Who would want to steal your stuff?
Jean Michel Basquiat: Who?
Strange dude: At first I thought it was a maniac but now I think it was a major record company. They used to not just sign guys like you but now they want to destroy you.

…

Jean Michel Basquiat: Man, sometimes life is just killing you.[/b]

iambiguous · March 30, 2013, 9:06pm

Do these CCTV complexes actually exist? Once you leave the house everything is within the range of the cameras. This means everything the bad guys do is captured on video. But it also means everything the good guys do is too. A trade off in this day and age? It’s Big Brother, sure, but most folks wouldn’t have it any other way. And if I lived there, I probably wouldn’t either.

The Red Road flats actually do exist in Glascow Scotland. According to wiki, “they were the tallest residential buildings in Europe at the time they were built.”

So I suppose the CCTV cameras exist too.

A working class project. Not the ideal abode for many. Why? Well, given the plight of folks who are clearly expendable to capitalists all manner of dysfunction can pop up: poverty, crime, drugs, booze…trash, filth…hoplessness, despair…men.

Anyway, being a CCTV operator, Jackie spots an ominous spectre from the past. She then takes advantage of her job to track him down.

You’re not going to believe why.

Shot in a DOGME 95 style: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95

trailer: youtu.be/C_57GyEWmwQ

RED ROAD [2006]
Written and directed by Andrea Arnold

[b]Phone message: Jackie, it’s Stuart Kincaid. I looked into things for you. There’s not much else to add, I’m afraid. He got early release for good behavior. I’m very sorry. It happens. All I can say as consolation is he will be back in a shot if he messes up.

…

Jackie [looking at TV monitor]: Christ.
[picks up the phone]
Jackie: This is City Eye control room. Ambulance needed on Kirkland Drive. It’s urgent, please hurry. It looks like a stabbing. A young girl. The girls who stabbed her are cutting through the flats at the back of Kirkland Drive. Several girls around 14. Look like they are from the Petershill School.[/b]

Certainly a good thing to have for stuff like this.

[b]Clyde [to Jackie at party she crashed]: Have we met?

…

Clyde [in bar]: I heard you came looking for me.
Jackie: I did.
Clyde: That’s nice. 'Cause I’ve been thinking about you. I have this feeling that I’ve met you before. But I can’t work it out.

…

Clyde: That’s my kid. Brownyn. She’s 13 now.
Jackie: She doesn’t look like you. You don’t get on?
Clyde: We don’t know each other. Her mother told her I was dead. I went to her school last week. She didn’t even know me. I’m working on it.

…

Clyde [to Jackie]: I’m not quite sure I know what’s going on.

…

Jackie: He killed my daughter!
Stevie: He never talks about what he did.

…

Jackie [on phone to police]: I want to drop the charges against Clyde.

…

Jackie: You killed my family. How dare you!
Clde: It wasn’t my fault.
Jackie: You were driving, off your head on crack. I want you to tell me about it.
[pause]
Jackie: It was my fault they went out. I needed a break. I shouted at her before she left. I told her to get out of my sight. It was the last thing I said. Please. Please.

…

Clyde: I lost control on the corner. The car went into the bus stop.
Jackie: Did they know?
Clyde: The man saw me, but not the kid. They died instantly.

…

Clyde: What can I say? This sort of shit happens every day. That’s life.

…

Jackie: My husband’s name was John. My little girl’s name was Sorcha.

…

Clyde: You shouted at your little girl the day she died. But at least she was loved. Some people don’t get that. Fuck this.[/b]

iambiguous · March 31, 2013, 2:13am

Professional football in America? Here the question is posed: What’s more pathetic 1] the sport 2] the players or 3] the fans.

Okay, I admit it: that’s the narrative I read into it. Reflecting my own prejudices as it were. Being that I hold, well, all three in contempt. Beer and circuses?

But here, as with most things: different strokes, different folks.

Paul is one of those football fanatics who make, let’s say, frequent calls into sports talk radio; but only first having written down everything he is going to say. His whole fucking life revolves around any given Sunday. No way though can he afford to actually buy a ticket to the games. Instead, he sits in the parking lot and watches it on a TV hooked up to the car battery.

And then one day out of the blue he spots his hero pumping gas…

Admittedly, the ending [in the bar] threw me for a loop. I thought this [as we were intended] and it was that instead. Clever.

IMDb

[b]Director Robert D. Siegel has said that between takes in the strip club, while other members of cast and crew were enjoying the company of dancers, actor Patton Oswalt was watching episodes of John Adams on his iPod in a private room.

Originally planned to be a straight-forward comedy titled “Paul Aufiero” but Robert D. Siegel personally re-wrote his script into a drama.[/b]

Trust me: It’s funny enough.

trailer: youtu.be/wybmI_ezdAQ

BIG FAN [2009]
Written and directed by Robert D. Siegel

[b]Sal: Dude, you were on fire.
Paul: I feel like it needed to be said.
Sal: The part about how they should get out their forks ‘cause they’re gonna be eating their words? That’s fuckin’ beautiful.
Paul: Yeah. I guess I just have a gift.

…

Paul: Hey, Sports Dogg. How ya doing? Um, I just got one thing to say to Eagle Nation, especially a certain Philadelphia Phil, and that is…ha! Ha ha ha! Just like I promised, we manhandled you on Sunday. For 60 solid minutes, we dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Quantrell Bishop was in your face all day long. What happened to shutting him down? Two sacks, seven tackles, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery? If that’s shutting him down, I’d hate to see not shutting him down! Ha! Quantrell was in your backfield so much, I almost mistaked him for an Eagle![/b]

Shit like this, call after call after call.

[b]Paul: He’s a cheat. He fucked her while he was still married.
Mom: Don’t say that word in my car.
Paul: Which one? “Fucked” or “cheat”?
Mom: You know.
Paul: It’s what he did. He fucked her. For years while he was married.
Mom: Stop it. I don’t want that language in my car.
Paul: Oh, so it’s worse for me to say it than for him to do it?
Mom: Cut it out, Paul.
Paul: No, I wanna know. Is it worse for me to say, “Jeff fucked his secretary,” than it is for Jeff to fuck his secretary?

…

Paul: I date.
Mom: Oh, sure. You’re dating lots of girls.
Paul: You don’t think I date?
Mom: I know exactly who you’re dating. Your hand.

…

Paul [turning down Sal’s slice of pineapple pizza]: I think when it comes to pizza toppings, I’ll trust the Italians over the Hawaiians.

…

Doctor [to Paul in the hospital after Quantrell Bishop bests the shit out of him over a misunderstanding]: Hematoma. It’s a bleeding from the vein between the brain and the skull. Fortunately, we were able to successfully drain it.
Paul: So I’m gonna be okay?
Doctor: You sustained some pretty heavy trauma, but long-run, you should be. We do need to keep you another few days for observation.
Paul: Another…few days? How long have I been here?
Doctor: Three days.
Paul: Three days. So…So the day is… Sunday?
Doctor: Monday.
Sal: Monday.
Paul [to Sal]: So, how did we do?
[Sal shakes his head]
Paul: What was the score?
Sal: 41-28.
Paul [incredulous]: We gave up 41 points to the Chiefs?!

…

Jeffery: I’ve been thinking.
Paul: Uh oh. That’s never good!
Jeffery: What this animal did to you, he’s gotta pay. We gotta hit him where it hurts-- in his wallet.
Paul: I don’t wanna be one of those assholes that sues Burger King for 50 billion because their Whopper’s too hot.
Jeffery: We are not talking about Whoppers here, Paul. We are talking about a rich, spoiled, millionaire athlete who viciously beat an innocent man within an inch of his life. Do you not think, we, as a society, have an obligation to hold its celebrities to the same–
Paul: What’s that thing where instead of saying “won’t,” you say “will not”? Or instead of saying “can’t,” you say “cannot”?
Jeffery: Contractions?
Paul: You stop using them whenever you want to sound smart or lawyerly–
Jeffery: Don’t be a fuckin’ wise ass, Paul! This is serious!
Paul: You don’t care about justice. You just want money.
Jeffery: What the fuck’s wrong with you, you thickheaded motherfucker? This motherfucker does not give a fuck about you. He is in his mansion playing his Xbox.

…

Jeffery [to Paul]: How do you get a concussion when you don’t got any fucking brains?

…

Philadelphia Phil [on radio]: Hey, how you doin’, Dogg? Oh, my God, I’m loving this. All right, that bunch of thugs that you call a team up there is showing their true colors for the whole world to see. All right? They’re just a bunch of dirty, no-good hooligan animals, all right, from Bishop on down.
Paul [on radio]: Hey, Dogg, how you doing? Um, listen, I’m just calling in response to that pea-brain Philadelphia Phil. I’m listening here. It’s unbelievable! I mean, you ever hear of innocent until proved guilty? It’s a little thing called the American Constitution. Maybe you should look it up. Now, we don’t know what happened at that club. We weren’t there! I mean, maybe-- maybe… unless-- unless they charge QB with something, they gotta let him play. They gotta let him play.

…

Detective [to Paul]: Well…let’s hope that amnesia clears up. When it does, I want you to give me a call. We wouldn’t want a crime like this to go unpunished.

…

Paul reading newspaper headlines: BISHOP CASE DROPPED…QB TO START SUNDAY

…

Paul [reading from the newspaper]: “In an unexpected turn of events, the lawyer for alleged–”
Jeffery: I’m taking a fuckin’ shit here!
Paul: “The lawyer for alleged Quantrell Bishop beating victim Paul Aufiero yesterday filed a $77 million lawsuit–”
Jeffery: Can we discuss this after I wipe my ass?
Paul: “…against the star linebacker in federal court on behalf of his client”?

…

Jeffery: I know you’re a fan of this guy, but you gotta stop looking at him as some kind of fuckin’ hero and start looking at him as some big, black, moulinyan jack-off asshole that gave you brain damage!
Paul: Hey, my brain’s fine.
Jeffery: Yeah.[/b]

Leaving out the racial slur and the motive, I still gotta go with Jeff on this one. On the other hand…

Paul: It was an accident. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. He was drunk! He-- He was out trying to have a good time with his friends.

That’s true. But still.

[b]Jeffery: Can I finish my shit now?

…

Sal [visiting Paul in jail]: Oh, oh! Hey, hey, hey. Hey…
Paul: What? It’s out?!
Sal: Hot off the press, from today’s Post.
Paul [looking at the Giants schedule]: Oh, my God. This is cake!

…

Paul: Oh, man.
Sal: What?
Paul: New England, December 20th. I get out of jail that week! Oh, man. Patsies are toast. There’s no way we’re losing with us in the parking lot.
Sal: Not a chance. 15 and 1.
Paul: Totally realistic.
Sal: Oh, man.
Paul: Oh, man. It’s gonna be a great year. [/b]

iambiguous · March 31, 2013, 7:18pm

It’s truly scary because in so many apalling ways, people can be. And if I were a pregnant woman, I wouldn’t watch this film in a million years.

Why are films like this made? I don’t know. I may as well ask myself why I watch them.

The victum here is a woman. Nothing unusual there. But so is the monster that stalks her. And that doesn’t happen very often in the horror genre.

From time to time the horror on display here makes it into the news. Someone will attack a pregnant woman solely in order to steal her unborn baby. What a fucking world, eh? Something is always much more frightening if you can actually imagine it happening to you or to someone you love. After all, there are not too many vampires or zombies or werewolves around.

And the maniacs are always the worst. You can’t reason with them. Only she is not exactly a maniac here. She has her reasons.

Warning: this thing is bloodier than Spartacus. And far more graphic.

The ending is a twist some will see coming and some will not.

Again, look for Betty Blue.

wiki

Bloody Disgusting ranked the film twelfth in their list of the ‘Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade’, with the article saying “One of the most audacious, brutal, unrelenting horror films ever made, Inside is perhaps the crown jewel of the new wave of extreme French horror films.”

trailer: youtu.be/oGeV7ejT74Y

INSIDE [À l’intérieur] 2007
Directed by Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

[b]The woman [sitting next to Sarah in hospital]: It’s horrible, the first one. In my case it took 13 hours to deliver it. Oh, murder. I mean murder. I was in such fucking pain. He put me through all that…but he was born dead.

…

Sarah: I don’t give a shit about Christmas.
Jean Pierre: You won’t be saying that next year, I guarentee it.[/b]

He won’t be saying much then either.

[b]The woman on the other side of the door: Your husband’s not asleep, Sarah. He’s dead.
Sarah: Who are you? How do you know my name?
The woman: Open the door and you’ll find out.

…

Sarah [locked in the bathroom]: Why me?
The woman: I want one.
Sarah: What kind of man would fuck a maniac like you?
The woman: You don’t want the child and I will take good care of it.
Sarah: What are you talking about?

…

Cop [aloud to himself]: It’s a fucking war zone…

…

Prisoner [handcuffed to the third dead cop]: Hey lady! She’s still in here! She’s still in here!

…

Sarah [to the woman]: They told me there were no survivors.

…

Sarah: It’s stuck![/b]

You can’t help but weep for this baby’s future.

iambiguous · March 31, 2013, 11:22pm

Joe accidently stumbles into all of this. Let’s not forget that part. The blowout? At that particular driveway?

A squallid, pathetic look inside Hollywood. Or so it is said to be. But I don’t know much about the politics of the film industry out there. Back then or now. I just know that [by and large] “the movies” are a commodity to these folks and what counts is how much money you can make producing them. Like cars or toasters.

But people [some of them] are always more complicated than that so occasionally it all gets tangled up in art too.

What must it have been like to become an aging star back then? Everything revolving around youth and beauty…and then it’s gone. How much has it changed over the past 60 years? Aside of course from the breakthroughs in plastic surgery.

Money is everywhere here. Sometimes it whimpers, sometimes it screams.

Real names pop up. And real people [from the films back then] too.

At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Boulevard_(film

SUNSET BOULEVARD [1950]
Written in part and directed by Billy Wilder

[b]Joe [narrating]: Maybe they weren’t original enough. Or maybe they were too original. All I know is they didn’t sell.

…

Joe [narrating]: I was way ahead of the finance company. I knew they’d be coming around and I wasn’t taking any chances. So I kept the car across the street in a parking lot behind Rudy’s shoeshine parlour. Rudy never asked any questions about your finances… he’d just look at your heels and know the score.

…

Betty: Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Gillis, but I just didn’t think it was any good. I found it flat and trite.
Joe: Exactly what kind of material do you recommend? James Joyce? Dostoyevsky?
Betty: I just think that pictures should say a little something.
Joe: Oh, one of the message kids. Just a story won’t do. You’d have turned down Gone With the Wind.
Sheldrake: No, that was me. I said, “Who wants to see a Civil War picture?”
Betty: Perhaps the reason I hated “Bases Loaded” is that I knew your name. I’d always heard you had some talent.
Joe Gillis: That was last year. This year I’m trying to earn a living.

…

Max: If you need any help with the coffin, call me.

…

Joe: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.

…

Norma: There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn’t good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!

…

Joe [narrating]: The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis - out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.

…

Joe: I’m not an executive, just a writer.
Norma: You are, are you? Writing words, words, more words! Well, you’ll make a rope of words and strangle this business! With a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongues!

…

Joe: Last one I wrote was about Okies in the Dust Bowl. You’d never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played out on a torpedo boat.

…

Joe: I didn’t know you were planning a comeback.
Norma: I hate that word. It’s a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.

…

Joe [narrating]: Sometimes it’s interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be. This promised to go the limit.

…

Max [to Joe]: She was the greatest of them all. You wouldn’t know, you’re too young. In one week she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later he strangled himself with it!

…

Joe [to Max]: I sure turned into an interesting driveway.

…

Joe [narrating]: It was all very queer. But queerer things were yet to come.

…

Joe [narrating]: The plain fact was she was afraid of that world out there. Afraid it would remind her that time had passed.

…

Norma: We didn’t need dialogue then. We had faces!

…

Betty: I’ve been hoping to run into you.
Joe: What for? To recover that knife you stuck in my back?

…

Joe: Are you really going to send that script over to DeMille?
Norma: My astrologist has read my horoscope, he’s read DeMille’s horoscope.
Joe Gillis: Has he read the script?

…

Joe [narrating]: I was thinking about that girl of Artie’s, that Miss Schaeffer. She was like all us writers when we first hit Hollywood, itching with ambition, panting to get your names up there. Screenplay by…Original story by…
[pause]
Joe: Audiences don’t know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.

…

First assistant director [after hearing that Norma has come to see DeMille]: I can tell her you’re all tied up in the projection room. I can give her the brush.
DeMille: Thirty million fans have given her the brush. Isn’t that enough?

…

First assistant director: I understand she was a terror to work with.
DeMille: Only toward the end. You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.

…

Betty: Oh, the old familiar story. You help a timid little soul cross a crowded street, she turns out to be a multimillionaire and leaves you all her money.
Joe: That’s the trouble with you readers, you know all the plots.

…

Max: I am greatly worried about Madame.
Joe: Sure you are. And we’re not helping her any feeding her lies and more lies, getting herself ready for a picture that will never be made. What happens when she finds out?
Max: She never will. That is my job, and it has been for a long time.

…

Norma [on phone to Betty]: You must forgive me for calling you so late but I really feel it is my duty. It’s about Mr. Gillis. You do know Mr. Gillis. Exactly how much do you know about him? Do you know where he lives? Do you know how he lives? Do you know what he lives on?

…

Joe [after Norma threatens suicide again]: Oh, wake up, Norma, you’d be killing yourself to an empty house. The audience left twenty years ago.

…

Joe: Norma, you’re a woman of 50, now grow up. There’s nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.
Norma [lost in the past] : I’m the greatest star of them all.
Joe: Goodbye, Norma.
Norma: No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.

…

Norma Desmond [to newsreel camera]: And I promise you I’ll never desert you again because after ‘Salome’ we’ll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!.. All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.[/b]

iambiguous · April 1, 2013, 7:02pm

A true story and/or based on actual events: It’s mostly true. Or at least it’s mostly not false.

Not often do you see it going in this direction: girl to boy, woman to man. But for the working class beasties out there, queer is queer. Only this way they can go in a whole other direction.

Out in the boonies with the loonies. Out in the sticks with the hicks.

It’s really hard to get your head wrapped around it though. Or it was for mine. It’s just almost always the other way around. She’s a woman. And she likes other women. But as she imagines a man would like other women—sexually, romatically, emotionally. And some women like “him” because they can clearly see how different “he” is from the redneck assholes they are used to having around them.

Believe it or not, folks are born and raised in places like this all the time. Places they get stuck in. Some for the entire length of their lives.

IMDb

[b]To prepare for her role, Hilary Swank lived life as a man for at least a month, including wrapping her chest in tension bandages and putting socks down the front of her pants much the same way that Brandon Teena did.

Hilary Swank won the lead role of Brandon/Teena after hundreds of other actresses had been considered and rejected over the course of three years. She told director Kimberly Peirce that, like her character, she was also 21 and came from Lincoln, Nebraska. But she was fibbing, and when Pierce later confronted her with the lies, she responded, “But that’s what Brandon would do.”

Hilary Swank was paid about $3,000 for her role.[/b]

the movie at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Don’t_Cry_(film
Brandon Teena at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena

trailer: youtu.be/aOarssJWHhI

BOYS DON’T CRY [1999]
Written and directed by Kimberly Peirce

[b]Lonny: So you’re a boy. Now what?

…

Nicole: You don’t seem like you’re from here.
Brandon: Where does it seem like I’m from?
Nicole: Someplace…beautiful.

…

Boys outside the trailer: You fuckin’ dyke!
Brandon: Damn, there’s a lot of ‘em!
Lonny: What have you done?!
Boys outside the trailer: Your fuckin’ faggot cousin, too!
Lonny: What is the matter with you?
Brandon: I don’t know! I don’t know what went wrong!
Lonny: You are not a boy! That is what went wrong! You are not a boy!
Brabdon: But they say I’m the best boyfriend they ever had.

…

Lonny: Do you want your mother to lock you up again? Is that what you want?
Brandon: No.
Lonny: Then why don’t you just admit that you’re a dyke?
Brandon: Because I’m not a dyke.

…

Brandon: So what’s your name?
Candace [laughs]: Candace. I hate it though, I’m thinking of changing it.
Brandon: Sometimes that helps. I’m Brandon.

…

John [to Brandon]: You’ve got the tiniest hands.

…

Brandon: Lana, you are one cranky girl.
Lana: You’d be cranky, too, Mr I’m-Going- To-Memphis-Graceland-Tennessee, if you were stuck where there’s nothin’ to do but go bumper-skiing and chase bats.[/b]

Bumper skiing? Don’t ask.

[b]Lana: God, I hate my life.
Brandon: I hate your life, too.

…

Kate: Welcome to the psycho ward.

…

Tom [about John]: Doctors say he’s got no impulse control.

…

Tom [putting his hand in the fire and keeping it there]: You ever try this?
Brandon: Tom, did you set your own family’s house on fire?
Tom [pulls out a knife and shows Brandon a bunch of scars on his body—he’s a cutter]: What about this? You ever do this?
Brandon: What the fuck, Tom?
Tom: Some people punch holes in walls. This…helps snap me back into reality. Gets control of this thing inside of me, so I don’t lash out at someone else. Me and John used to do it to ourselves all the time in lockup. I could always go deeper than him. He was such a wuss.

…

Brandon: I can’t believe you worked last night. You must be exhausted.
Lana: Me neither. I do it all the time, though. You don’t have to be sober to weigh spinach.

…

Brandon: Please…Please don’t get mad. One night. One night and I’m gone. They’re not gonna lock me up, are they?
Lonny: Teena, how the fuck do I know what they’re gonna do? I’m sick of watchin’ you fuck up.
Brandon: But…but I’m not fuckin’ up. It is so good down there, Lonny.
Lonny: In Falls City? They hang faggots down there. Did you know that?

…

Brandon [showing Lonny a picture of Lana]: Look. See, isn’t she beautiful?
Lonny: Yeah, if you like white trash.
Brandon: I’m gonna ask her to marry me.
Lonny: Before or after your sex-change operation? Before or after you tell her you’re a girl?[/b]

You sympathize with “him” but almost everything about him is on the surface.

Lana: I quit.
Brandon: Quit what?
Lana: My evil job. I’ve just been thinkin’ and thinkin’, what am I doin’ here? And then it came to me…I’ll go to Memphis with you.
Brandon: Memphis?
Lana: I got it all figured out. You’re right. I’ll make money singin’ karaoke…
Brandon: Lana…
Lana: You’ll manage me, and, if I’m no good, you’ll sing and I’ll manage you. Perfect. Nothin’ can go wrong if we’re together.
Brandon: Lana, um…it’s a little more complicated than that, you know?

Instead, he wants to stay right there in Falls City and open up a brand new trailer park.

[b]Cop: Miss Brandon? Miss Brandon, we put your Charles Brayman ID number through the computer yesterday, and this is what the Lincoln authorities faxed us over.

…

Lana: Candace, why do you look so funny?

…

Lana [visiting Brandon in jail]: Brandon, what’s goin’ on?
Brandon: You want the truth, don’t ya? It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. I’m a hermaphrodite.
Lana: What?
Brandon: Come here. It’s a person who has both…girl and boy parts. Brandon’s real name is Teena Brandon. Well, see, Brandon’s not quite a he. Brandon’s more like a sh…
Lana: Shut up. It’s your business. Look, I don’t care if you’re half monkey or half ape. I’m gettin’ you outta here.

…

Lana’s Mom: I invited you into my home and you expose my daughter to your sickness! Did you ever think about Lana in all this?
Brandon: That’s all I’ve been thinking about.

…

Lana’s Mom: I don’t want “it” in my house.

…

John [to Lana’s mom]: That is a bunch of bull. If I wanted to rape somebody, I got Mallory.

…

Brandon’s voice in a letter to Lana: “Dear Lana, By the time you read this I’ll be back home in Lincoln. I’m scared of what’s ahead, but when I think of you I know I’ll be able to go on. You were right, Memphis isn’t that far off. I’ll be taking that trip down the highway before too long. I’ll be waiting for you. Love always and forever, Brandon.”[/b]

iambiguous · April 2, 2013, 2:53am

Based on a true story.

Here the Holocaust is experienced by a boy who is just 14 years old. How does that make any difference? Well, he is not yet a “fully formed” adult. So this changes him in a way that someone older might not be able to entirely understand or appreciate. But ultimately his reaction is rooted in dasein. In the life he has lived. And that’s all this can be: a chronicle of one boy’s experience in the Holocaust.

As noted at IMDb, the author of the book the film is based on [a “semi-autobiographical novel”] was “shocked” by just how realistic the Buckenwald camp set was. So much so he had to leave after only a short time there.

Even in the camps, contingency, chance and change prevail. You just have considerably less control over them. And these men were the lucky ones. They ended up in the work camps. If you can call what had to endure being lucky. It just depends on how precious you view your life [and living it] to be.

Jews and “fate”? Like most things, it means whatever you need it to mean.

And just as it is impossible for almost all of us to grasp an experience like the Holocaust, it is impossible in turn for us to grasp the experience of surviving it. There are many different stories here too.

Look for James Bond.

IMDb

The production unexpectedly ran out of money halfway through and halted for several months in order to find new investors. This ended up working in its favor, since the young lead actor Marcell Nagy was going through puberty, and by the time they restarted he looked physically more mature, taller, and his voice deeper. By the time his character enters and survives the death camps he looks years older than when the film began, adding an element of reality that otherwise would have been created with make up.

trailer: youtu.be/9aifZLtzLdU

FATELESS [Sorstalanság] 2005
Directed by Lajos Koltai

[b]György [narrating]: I didn’t go to school today. Well, if only to ask my teacher to let me go home. I gave him father’s letter. He asked what the reason was. I told him father had been called up for forced labor.

…

Grandfather: You know what that Jewish fate means?
György: Well, the yellow star, for instance.
Grandfather: And much else besides. Thousands of years of relentless persecution, which we must bear with patience and resignation.
György: Why?
Grandfather: Because God inflicted it on us for our sins, and only from Him can we expect mercy.

…

Rozi: So people don’t hate you?
György: Who would hate me?
Rozi: Everyone.
György: But why?
Rozi: Because of this!
[points at his star]
György: Oh, that? Well, they may hate me, but I don’t think it’s me they hate. Not me personally, just in general.
Rozi: They hate in general?
György: In general, yes. Not you, not me, but…the idea of a Jew.
Rozi: Great. Because I for one don’t really know what that is.
Boy: What what is?
Rozi [despairingly]: Being a Jew.

…

Rozi: I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of it.
György: You shouldn’t be either.
Rozi: Then what’s the point of wearing this rotten yellow star?

…

György [hearing bombers overhead]: Will it drop or won’t it? That was the question. I just had to recognize the pittance of the stake, so that I could enjoy the game. I was beginning to grasp the simple secret of my universe. I could be killed anywhere, any time.

…

Rabbi [amidst the despair of men, women and children waiting to be shipped to the camps]: Without hope you are lost. And you can draw hope only from faith. The time of His victory shall come and all those who have forgotten His power will be one in repentance and call out to Him from the dust…[/b]

What else is there, right? At least if you are not able to achieve the victory yourself.

Man: Can you see anything?
György: A station building. I think.
Woman: Any name ot it?
György: Yes. A-usch-witz-Bir-ke-nau.
Man: What did you say?
György: Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Man: I’ve never heard of the place.
Another man: And you’re a geography teacher!

But they will all end up in Buckenwald. And then [for some] Zeitz.

Prisoner [observing those of faith]: They bear the eternal Jewish fate. Nothing makes any difference to them: they’re here on Earth temporarily. But they perservere because they’ve got an aim. Everyone needs some life-giving obsession. Something to keep their hope alive.

This is all just contradictory to me.

[b]Man on train: The main thing is it’s over, you survived. What do you feel now you’re home again, in the town that you left behind?
György: Hatred.

…

György: My father? Is he dead?
Old neighbor: He didn’t have to suffer long.

…

Old neighbor: Your old life is over. We were assigned a different fate then.
Gyorgy: But I accepted that fate.
Old neighbor: We all accepted it. We had no choice. But now we are free.
Gyorgy: We always were. There was always enough time. Things could have turned out differently from what they did. In Auschwitz just as at home when we bid my father farewell.

…

György: Did you learn what it means to be “a Jew”?
Rozi: It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.
György: I tried to comfort you, but I had no right because I was a Jew too.
Rozi: Why, what are you now?
György: I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even exist.

…

György [narrating]: People only ask about the horrors, whereas I should talk about the happiness of the camps next time, if they ask. If they ask at all. And if I don’t forget myself.[/b]

Again, he was one of the lucky ones. In other words [as always] relatively speaking.

iambiguous · April 2, 2013, 8:00pm

Based on actual events:

wiki article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Valley_of_Elah

This film came out about the time it seemed Iraq was on the verge of imploding and then exploding into utter chaos. Then came “the surge” and the narrative bounced back. To what exactly is still a political point of view. And it always will be. But one thing seemed crystal clear: those who ran the war from Washington were nothing less than incompetent fools. And almost without exception chickenhawks. And thousands upon thousands of men, women and children [here but mostly there] payed a heavy price as a result of it.

But that’s a political narrative too.

The PTSS part is as old as combat itself. I came back with pieces of it myself from a “tour of duty” in Vietnam. Another “the best and the brightest” debacle from the military industrial complex. Nothing here about that though.

This is just one tiny little piece of it all. Unless of course it’s your own tiny little piece. Your son this time.

And then there’s the competency of the local constabularies. Don’t get me started.

The point of the title [IMDb]:

[b]Hank tells Emily’s son the story of David and Goliath, which took place in the valley of Elah, an area 50 minutes southwest of Jerusalem. This story is a part of the tradition of the Abrahamic religions. David, a mere boy, battled the giant Goliath one-on-one. This story and the title serve as an allegory for any warzone (in this case, Iraq) where young, inexperienced American soldiers (the ‘Davids’) are thrown in the midst of a hostile, unpredictable and chaotic situation (which represents the ‘Goliath’) for which they are ill-prepared.

The soldiers are given orders which clash heavily with their conscience, like having to run over people with a van if they get in front of a convoy. It causes them to become so traumatized and conflicted, that they try to cope in dubious ways, like using drugs and torturing innocent war victims. In a sense, the ‘Davids’ become the arrogant aggressors (the ‘Goliaths’) themselves.[/b]

Goliath in this day and age is the war economy. Try using a slingshot against that.

trailer: youtu.be/D5PFAyUBVd8

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH [2007]
Written and directed by Paul Haggis

[b]Joan [to Hank]: Is there something you want to tell me?

…

Hank: I’ll call you when I get there tomorrow.
Joan: It’s a two-day drive.
Hank: For some people.

…

Detective Hodge: Well, it looks like the victim was killed by that fire site there then the body was chopped up, it was burned and animals scattered the parts, so…
Chief Buchwald: And you’re smiling like an idiot because?
Detective Hodge: Well, the military base bought this field from the city two months ago. City property only extends 50 feet from the center line of the road…so I don’t think it’s our body, chief.

…

Police official: Sergeant Deerfield, this isn’t necessary. It’s not how you wanna remember your son.
Hank: Maybe not…but it’s the way he left this earth, so I don’t see as I have any choice.

…

Police official: I understand Mike spoke a little Spanish?
Hank: And you think he could’ve been a drug mule because he spoke Spanish?
Police official: No…because somebody cut off his hands and his head.

…

Hank: Tell your MP friends they should be looking for a blue car, not a green one.
Det. Sanders: Why?
Hank: Because a blue car under a yellow light looks green. Doesn’t it?

…

Hank: Thank you.
Det. Sanders: It’s the least I could do.
Hank: I’d say that’s accurate.

…

Joan: I need to see him. I need to be with Michael.
Hank: He’s gone.
Joan: I need to be with my boy.
Hank: There is nothing left.
Joan: What the hell does that mean?
Hank: Joanie, for once in your life, will you take my word for something?
Joan: For once? For once? I seem to remember me being the one saying no…and you saying it’d be good for his character. Who won that argument, Hank?
Hank: Mike was the one who wanted to join. I sure as hell didn’t encourage it.
Joan: Living in this house, he never could’ve felt like a man if he hadn’t gone. Both of my boys, Hank. You could’ve left me one.

…

Det. Sanders: This boy died in a ditch beside one of our streets. Someone burned him like a cord of wood, leaving his remains for animals to chew on. With respect, if that was your son just back from Iraq I don’t think you’d be as happy about tossing this case off so you look better come election time.
Chief Buchwald: That was with respect?
Det. Sanders: That was my intent, yes sir.

…

Hank [to Private Ortiez]: Fucking wetbacks. It’s always knives, isn’t it? You like cutting people up?

…

Private Ortiez [to Hank]: Wouldn’t it be funny if the devil looked just like you?

…

Det. Nugent [on phone with Det. Sanders]: You remember that woman with the dead dog?

…

Lt. Kirklander: He’ll do serious time.
Det. Sanders: Yeah? How serious, huh? How serious? How much time?
Lt. Kirklander: As much as I could get.
Det. Sanders: Well, luckily for me, that means shit. You see these? Those are warrants. We have jurisdiction, you’re compelled to deliver those men. I want them now.
Lt. Kirklander: I am not the only one who made a deal. My C.O. Talked to yours. It is just one less headache for them.

…

Corporal Penning: …and then I look down, and I’m stabbing him.
Det. Sanders: You…? You are? And your friends didn’t try and stop you?
Corporal Penning:I think they were sort of stunned. They’re yelling. And Mike falls to the ground, and he’s dead. And Long is screaming, “Christ, what do we do now?” It was Bonner’s idea to chop him up. He used to work for a butcher. He knew how to work the knife around the joints. Made it easier. We would’ve buried the parts…but it was getting late and we hadn’t eaten.
Det. Sanders: You were hungry?
Corporal Penning: Starving. We stopped at the Chicken Shack. I liked Mike, we all did. But I think on another night that would’ve been Mike with the knife and me in the field.

…

Hank: I saw a video Mike shot. Him in the back of a Humvee. Looked like he was torturing a prisoner or…
Corporal Penning: We arrested some haji who was wounded. And we were riding along and Mike was pretending like he was a medic. And he would stick his hand in this guy’s wound…and he says, “Does this hurt?” And the haji screamed, "Yeah, yeah. " And then Mike would stick his hand in the exact same place and say, “Does that hurt?” It was pretty funny. It became a thing with Mike. That’s how he got the name "Doc. " It was just a way to cope. We all did stupid things over there.

…

Hank: You got a minute? I need to apologize to you.
Private Ortiez: You got some real serious issues, man.
Hank: Yeah, that’s true.
Private: I got an honorable discharge, if you can believe it.
Hank: It’s the Army, I can believe anything.

…

Hank [shows Ortiez a photograph of a body on the side of the road in Iraq]: You know what that is? Mike took it and e-mailed it to me. Why would he do that?
Private Ortiez: I don’t know what anybody’s told you. There are standing orders. You’re in a convoy someone or something gets in front of you, you do not stop. You stop, shitheads pop up with RPG’s and kill you all dead. First week in Iraq we’re driving downrange. Six of us in the back. You can’t see squat back there. Doc hit something. We hear it thump around underneath. He stops. Gets out. Drives on. Not a word. Later, some guy said we hit a kid. I don’t believe it. You ask me we hit a dog. We killed a dog. I don’t know what that is. No fucking idea.

…

[Hank runs a U.S. flag up the flagpole upside down]
School Janitor: Just like that?
Hank: Just like that.
School Janitor: It looks really old.
Hank: It’s been well used.
School Janitor: And I shouldn’t take it down at night?
Hank Deerfield: No. You leave it just like that.
School Janitor: That’s a lot easier.
Hank Deerfield: Hm.[/b]

Take that, Donald Rumsfeld! Take that, Dick Cheney! Take that, Dubya Bush!

iambiguous · April 3, 2013, 3:20am

You know what I’m looking for here: the extent to which it exposes the systemic machinations of crony capitalism or the extent to which it becomes a morality play pitting the more or less good guys against the real sons of bitches.

Take a wild guess.

Acknowledging of course how these things are always more complicated than can be reduced down to either/or.

And this isn’t the “boiler room” here. This is all the way up at the very top of the food chain. In fact, it’s a thinly disguised depiction of what happened to Lehman Brothers. And we know what followed from that.

Should we feel sorry for some of these bastards? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for sure—a few were considerably bigger bastards than others. And not a single one of them ever did time. At least not to my knowledge. In fact, most of them are busy now riding the current bull market. Though [increasingly] some insist it’s just another bubble.

So much of this revolves around understanding complex mathematical models [algorithms] these speculative “derivatives” are yanked up out of. That’s why most of us can still be duped: They can tell us practically anything they want. Then each side can get their “experts” to prove it.

IMDb

The CEO’s name, John Tuld, rhymes with the name of the ex-CEO of the now-defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld. Lehman Brothers, like the firm in this film, found themselves catastrophically over-leveraged in mortgage-backed-securities in the financial crisis of 2008. They eventually declared bankruptcy, and Richard Fuld was heavily criticized for his involvement in these events.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_Call_(film

trailer: youtu.be/uj4QrAcwVi0

MARGIN CALL [2011]
Written and directed by J.C. Chandor

Eric: I run risk management… it just doesn’t seem like a natural place to start cutting.

And boy does this come back to haunt them.

Lauren: I hope, considering your over 19 years of service to the firm, you will understand that these measures are in no way a reflection of the firms’ feelings towards your performance or your character.
Eric: I’m sorry??
Heather: She’s apologizing for what’s about to happen.
Lauren: Your company email, access to the server, access to the building, and your mobile data and phone service will all be severed as of this meeting. This gentleman will take you to your office so that you can clear out your personal belongings.

This happened to me after 27 years of “service to the firm”. No where near Wall Street though.

[b]Eric [to John]: You know I was just in the middle of a bunch of shit here that someone should really take a look at.

…

Sam [to the 20% who did not lose their jobs]: You are all still here for a reason… Most of this floor was just sent home forever. We have spent the last hour saying good-bye. They were good people and they were good at their jobs but you all were better. Now they are gone. They are not to be thought of again. This is your opportunity.[/b]

There. That was easy enough to rationalize.

[b]Peter: The volatility boundaries are basically set using historic patterns then stretching them out another 10-15%… roughly.
Will: So what’s happening?
Seth: We are starting to test those historic patterns.
Will: When?
Peter: Today. Tuesday. Monday, last Friday, last Wednesday and Monday. Two Fridays ago.
Will: Okay, I get it.
Seth: Fuck me…Once this thing gets going in the wrong direction…It’s huge.
Will: How huge?
Seth: The losses are greater than the current value of the company…?

…

Peter [to Seth]: Look at these people. Wandering around with absolutely no idea what’s about to happen.

…

Seth [to Peter]: I made almost a quarter of a million dollars last year… for what… pushing some numbers around on a computer screen, so a bunch of glorified crack addicts could take that information and pretend to understand it, and then make a bet against some other jock half way around the world who if he wasn’t doing this would probably be in some OTB somewhere putting it all on number seven. And at the end of the day one guy loses and the other guy wins.
Peter: You do know it’s a little more complicated than that, right?

…

Sarah: And what is your background? Your CV.
Peter: I have been with the firm for two years working with Eric that whole time…But I hold a doctorate in engineering, specialist in propulsion, from MIT, with a Bachelors from Penn. Jared: What’s a specialty in propulsion?
Peter: Well…in laymen terms my thesis was a study in the way that friction ratios effect steering outcomes in aeronautical use under reduced gravity loads.
Jared: So you are a rocket scientist?
Peter: Um…I was…yes.
Jared: How did you end up here?
Peter: Well it’s all just numbers really, you’re just changing what you’re adding up…and if I may speak freely the money is considerably more attractive here.

…

Will: You know, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn’t the fear of falling - it’s the fear that they might jump.

…

Will: So it looks like they are gonna have us dump this shit. Yeah, you watch.
Seth: How?
Peter: A trillion bucks?? How would they even do that?
Will: You can’t… it’s impossible. But they’ll figure out a way. I’ve been at this place for ten years and I’ve seen some things that you wouldn’t believe…and when all is said and done…they don’t lose money. They don’t care if everyone else does, but they won’t.

…

Jared: This is bizarre. It’s like a…dream.
Sam: Oh, I don’t know. Seems like we actually may have just woken up.

…

Sarah: It’s all legit…the kid killed it. The formula is worthless.
Jared: What do you mean?
Sarah: It’s broken.
Jared: There are eight trillion dollars of paper around the world relying on that equation??

…

John [to Peter]: Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that brought me here; I assure you that.

…

Tuld: So, what you’re telling me, is that the music is about to stop, and we’re going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism.
Peter: Sir, I not sure that I would put it that way, but let me clarify using your analogy. What this model shows is the music, so to speak, just slowing. If the music were to stop, as you put it, then this model wouldn’t even be close to that scenario. It would be considerably worse.

…

Sam: John…let’s just say we pull that off, which is saying something…the real question is who are we selling this to?
Tuld: The same people you’ve been selling this to for the last two years…and whoever else will buy it.
Sam: If you do this you’ve killed that market for years. It’s over. And you are selling something you know has no value.
Tuld (cuts him off cold): We are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price, so that WE may survive, Sam.
Sam: You’ll never sell a thing to any one of them again.
Tuld: I understand.
Sam: Do you?
Tuld: Do you?! This is it! I’m telling you, this is it.[/b]

Fortunately, for most of the others, they were too big to fail. Their cronies in Washington saw to that. The only consolation is watching them fuck each other over. The MBSs were literally junk and they stiffed their best clients. And they knew it.

[b]Tuld: Oh please, when did you become so soft.
Sam: Fuck you soft, you’re panicking.
Tuld: If you’re the first one out the door Sam, it’s not called panicking

…

Jared [to Will]: Sometimes, in an acute situations such as this, often what is right can take on multiple interpretations.

…

Will: Jesus, Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you’re necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin’ houses they can’t even pay for, then you’re necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin’ fair really fuckin’ quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don’t. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from. Well, that’s more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they’re gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we’re wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we’re gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.

…

Sarah: I didn’t think they were going to be able to get you back here.
Eric: Well, they told me they were going to drag me through hell on everything for the next two years - my options, my healthcare. Or I could come back here and make, uh, 176,471 dollars an hour to sit quietly in this room. Didn’t seem like much of a choice.
Sarah: It never is.

…

Tuld: So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That its all for naught. You’ve been doing that everyday for almost forty years Sam. And if this is all for naught then so is everything out there. Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn’t that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It’s all just the same thing over and over; we can’t help ourselves. And you and I can’t control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers. Happy foxes and sad sacks. Fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there’s ever been. But the percentages-they stay exactly the same. [/b]

I don’t know about you, but I believe it.

Sam [of Peter]: You’re keeping the kid?
Tuld: Keeping him? He’s getting promoted. It’s all hands on deck now Sam. There’s going to be a lot of money to be made coming out of this mess, we’re going to need all the brains we can get around here.

d63 · April 3, 2013, 3:44am

Ambig: always good to see that you are still going.

But do you really think you’ve done something that important that you can treat me like you do?

d63 · April 3, 2013, 4:48am

Love ya, man!