philosophy in film

[iambiguous]

A tiny town somewhere in New Hampshire. Everybody knows everybody else. But that’s only past the front door. In other words, as is always the case, inside a few of the homes are any number of “family secrets”.

You watch enough of these films and you begin wonder just how many families out there are not dysfunctional.

Then again who wants to see a movie about them?

I always see this as the way each of us pieces the past together differently. And then the way we stitch what we think was true into what we think is right and wrong. And then the way we have to stich that into all the conflicting narratives of everyone else we interact with. But what are the limits of our responsibilities to “family”. How much shit should we be forced to take before we strike back— or just go out on our own?

And even in a small town the politics of class is everywhere. Or maybe especially there because it sticks out all the more glaringly.

But it’s mostly about men and violence.

How the hell are we supposed to feel about this guy? Well, how close to or far away from his life is yours? I know some chunks of my life certainly do overlap.

IMDb

[b]During their praise of the film, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel noted that James Coburn was the perfect kind of person that seems like he could intimidate a man like Nick Nolte, who is famous for playing domineering and blustery men.

James Coburn came out of retirement to act in the film. He would later win an Oscar for his performance.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affliction_(film
trailer: youtu.be/yBvzSs2qo1c

AFFLICTION [1997]
Written and directed by Paul Schrader

[b]Rolfe [voiceover]: This is the story of my older brother’s strange criminal behaviour and disappearance. We who loved him no longer speak of Wade. It’s as if he never existed.

…

Wade: You know I get the feeling like a whipped dog some days. Some night I’m gonna bite back, I swear!
Rolfe: Haven’t you already done a bit of that?
Wade: No, no, I haven’t. Not really. I’ve growled a little, but I haven’t bit.

…

Lena: How about you Rolfe? Are you saved?
Rolfe: No, I’m not.
Lena: But then you’ll be in hell.
Rolfe: I guess I will. Me and Mom and Wade and Pop. We’ll all be there together.

…

Glen: Not one of you is worth a goddamn hair on that good woman’s head!

…

Lena: Jesus is more powerful than any demon.
Glen: Oh go fuck yourself!

…

Glen: That’s what I’ve got for children. Jesus freaks and candy-asses!

…

Lillian: I’m sorry about your mother, Wade. I liked her. You never know how much women like that suffer. It’s like they live their lives with the sound turned off – and then they’re gone.

…

Wade: It makes me mad. That somebody can pay to kill somebody, his own father-in-law, and not be punished for it. Don’t that piss you off?
Rolfe: Not particularly.
Wade: Right’s right, goddamnit! Don’t you care what’s right?
Rolfe: I care about what happened. The truth.

…

Rolfe: I was always careful around Pop. I was a careful child. And I’m a careful adult. But at least I was never afflicted with that man’s anger.
Wade [laughing]: That’s what you think.

…

Wade [to LaRiviere]: I’m free of you! You’re not on my back anymore! You see how easy it is?

…

Rolfe [voiceover]: You will say that I should have known terrible things were about to happen. You will say that I was responsible. But even so, what could I have done by then? Wade lived on the edge of his emotions. He was always first to receive the brunt of our father’s anger. He had no perspective to retreat to, even in a crisis.

…

Wade: Love? What the fuck do you know about love?
Glen: Love? I’m made of love!

…

Rolfe [voiceover]: The historical facts are known by everyone. All of Lawford, all of New Hampshire, some of Massachusetts. Facts do not make history. Our stories, Wade’s and mine, describe the lives of the boys and men for thousands of years: boys who were beaten by their fathers, whose capacity for love and trust was crippled almost at birth, men whose best hope for connection with other human beings lay in detachment, as if life were over. It’s how we keep from destroying in turn our own children and terrorizing the women who have the misfortune to love us; how we absent ourselves from the tradition of male violence; how we decline the seduction of revenge. Jack’s truck turned up three days later in a shopping mall in Toronto. Wade killed Jack, just as surely as Jack did not kill Evan Twombley, even accidentally. The link between Jack and Twombley, LaRiviere and Mel Gordon existed only in Wade’s wild imaginings. And briefly, I admit, in mine as well. LaRiviere and Mel Gordon were indeed in business. The Parker Mountain Ski Resort is now advertised across the country. The community of Lawford, as such, no longer exists. It is an economic zone between Littleton and Catamount. The house is still in Wade’s name, and I keep paying taxes on it. It remains empty. Now and then, I drive out there and sit in my car, and wonder, why not let it go? Why not let LaRiviere buy it and build the condominiums he wants there? We want to believe Wade died that same November, froze to death on a bench or a sidewalk. You cannot understand how a man, a normal man, a man like you and me, could do such a terrible thing. Unless the police happen to arrest a vagrant who turns out to be Wade Whitehouse, there will be no more mention of him. Or his friend, Jack Hewitt. Or our father. The story will be over, except that I continue. [/b]

[iambiguous]

It begins with an accident. Then a ferocious argument. They’re practically spitting on each other. Then he backs off. Then the cops come.

Johnny the truck driver is a familiar face to the cops. He was in prison three times. Once he put his wife in the hospital for two weeks.

But Matty has her own problems. Her husband the art teacher is a philandering asshole.

Try to guess where this is going.

Lots of us wake up one morning and find the gap between what our life is and what we want it to be [or once thought it might be] all but intolerable. But life is existential. So, for some of us, it’s not entirely hopeless. But we can’t rely on someone else to wrtite that script for us. Still, we are always taking a chance with someone new. We only know what they tells us about the past, for instance.

And sometimes we go back to someone not because we really want them; it’s more that we don’t want someone else to have them.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_Belgium
trailer: youtu.be/Q2J2EI14q20

MOSCOW, BELGIUM [Aanrijding in Moscou] 2008
Directed by: Christophe Van Rompaey

[b]Vera: Mom, are you taking a bath?
Matty: No, a big black guy is giving me a massage…

…

Matty: How hold are you?
Johnny: 29
Matty: I’m 41.
Johhny: So?
Matty: Want me to explain it in words with one syllable?

…

Johnny: You look nice.
Matty: You don’t need to get any ideas. I’ve come just to piss off my husband. My husband lives with his 22 year old girlfriend. He was her teacher. He teaches at the Art Academy. He’s very talented and makes beautiful things and I still love him. So don’t get any ideas.

…

Matty: Just say you want to sleep with me!
Johnny: No! My intentions are honorable.
Matty: You’re talking garbage. Anyway, Da Vinci was gay.
Johnny: Really?
Matty: And Mona Lisa isn’t smiling. She’s being eaten up inside by sadness. She’s just trying to hide it. She’s trapped, stuck.
Johnny: How do you know all this?
Matty: My husband told me. You…you just want to park it inside me.

…

Vera: Mom, your shirt is on inside out.

…

Johnny: Do you know what they say in Italy? ‘Ti Amo’
Matty: D’you know what they say in Ledeberg? ‘Kiss my ass!’

…

Matty: So you hit her because you loved her.

…

Johnny: That’s typical of an intellectual! Do you know what my Dad always used to say? He said, “John, all those intellectuals have one thing in common: they don’t know shit!”
Werner: He was a philosopher, was he?[/b]

[iambiguous]

This is mostly about the bombs themselves. And about those trained to put them out of commission. The war is just “there”. Why it is there…or whether it is a just war…is not explored much at all. And the extent to which it reflects the actual experiences of those assigned to do the task is not something I really know much about.

For some it might be analogous to a film focusing on a German bomb squad during World War II. There is no political or moral context to speak of at all.

Let alone the part about the money.

One such critique: crittheory-mcs.blogspot.com/2010 … ocker.html

Does this actually glorify or glamourize war? I think an argument can be made for that. Sgt. James seems to thrive on it. He’s the cowboy hero sort. He’s the “wild man”. He’s the adrenaline junkie and it is hardly ever made clear that’s not a good thing here. I just see too much of the macho warrior bullshit that any idiot in the military can fall for. I didn’t detect much irony here at all. But sure, I might have missed it.

Like, say, the scene in the cereal aisle of the supermarket when James gets home. The gap between that and what he’d just been through over there. His son and the boy with the bomb sewed into his chest. But all the wild man is thinking about is getting back over there. And Cheney and Bush Inc. will be more than happy to oblige him.

IMDb

The expression “the hurt locker” is a preexisting slang term for a situation involving trouble or pain, which can be traced back to the Vietnam War. According to the movie’s website, it is soldier vernacular in Iraq to speak of explosions as sending you to “the hurt locker”.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hurt_Locker

trailer: youtu.be/JIgEhiUVKh8

THE HURT LOCKER [2008]
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

[b]Opening Quote by Chris Hedges: The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.

…

Sanborn: I can’t get it in.
Thompson: What do you mean you can’t get it in? Pretend it’s your dick.
Sanborn: How about I pretend it’s your dick?
Thompson: Well in that case you’ll never get it in.

…

Eldridge: Aren’t you glad the Army has all these tanks parked here? Just in case the Russians come and we have to have a big tank battle?
Sanborn: I’d rather be on the side with the tanks, just in case, than not have them.
Eldridge: Yeah, but they don’t do anything. I mean, anyone comes alongside a Humvee, we’re dead. Anybody even looks at you funny, we’re dead. Pretty much the bottom line is, if you’re in Iraq, you’re dead. How’s a fucking tank supposed to stop that?
Sanborn: Would you shut the fuck up, Owen?
Eldridge: Sorry. Just tryin’ to scare the new guy.

…

Eldridge: He’s a rowdy boy.
Sanborn: He’s reckless.

…

James: Well, if he wasn’t an insurgent he sure as hell is now.

…

Sanborn: I was in intelligence seven years before I joined EOD. We ran missions in every shithole that you could possibly imagine. So, I’m pretty sure I can figure out a redneck piece of trailer trash like you.
James: Looks like you’re on the right track

…

Eldridge [after James removes his bomb suit]: What are you doing?
James: There’s enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I’m gonna die, I want to die comfortable.

…

Sanborn [as James approaches unexploded bomb]: You know, these detonators misfire all the time.
Eldridge: What are you doing?
Sanborn: I’m just saying shit happens, they misfire.
Eldridge: He’d be obliterated to nothing.
Sanborn: His helmet would be left. You could have that. Little specs of hair charred on the inside.
Eldridge: Yeah. There’d be half a helmet somewhere, bits of hair.
Sanborn: Have to ask for a change in technique and protocol, and make sure this type of accident never happen again, you know? You’d have to write the report.
Eldridge: Are you serious?
Sanborn: I can’t write it.
Eldrige: I mean are you serious about killing him.

…

James [to Eldridge]: Everyone’s a coward about something.

…

Sgt. James [Speaking to his son]: You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don’t ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older…some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you’ll realize it’s just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it’s only one or two things. With me, I think it’s one.[/b]

War is hell?

[iambiguous]

Hanoi. The present. But how different really is this from the lives of many folks here? Lots of themes apparently seem to overlap in the modern world. Family, friendship, marriage…infidelity. Incest?

The difficulty though is you have no idea the extent to which this reflects life “on average” in Vietnam today. Are these folks basically “typical”? Also, there are no political narratives here. That they inhabit a "communist” nation doesn’t seem a factor. Or maybe Vietnam is just following in the footsteps of China. Nominally socialist but in fact state capitalist.

Try though to even imagine a film of this sort being made in Hanoi 40 years ago. Here the entire focus is on personal relationships…and among those able to afford that.

In the opening scene, Hai turns on the stereo and we hear Lou Reed’s “Pale Blue Eyes”. I wasn’t expecting that. But what do I really know about Vietnam all these years later?

It sure is beautifully filmed though. Gorgeous. And the score is equally affecting.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vertic … of_the_Sun
trailer: youtu.be/4ma2Bt8c1Kc

THE VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN [Mua He Chieu Thang Dung] 2000
Written and directed by Tran Anh Hung

[iambiguous]

It’s the American dream: rags to riches. The self-made man. Only on the other side of the law.

All that mindless mayhem chasing after all that money. And all that machismo

As with the Sopranos we are dealing here with folks that are little more than thugs. They have no class, style or wit. No interest really in anything other than being gangsters. They’ve got power. They get to boss people around. They wear the best suits and buy the most expensive bottles of wine in the most expensive restaurants in town. They’ve got big cars and big boats and big guns. But they’re basically hoodlums, dupes, goons, gorillas. Philistines, vulgarians, rubes.

But not sheep. And that’s where the narrative aims to go. This man basically takes what he wants while most of us only get what we are given. There is something about having this sort of power that is appealing to those who take shit all their lives. But there are many different ways to get it.

That’s why we need Mama Montana to put it all in perspective.

But this is still predicated largely on the sheer stupidity of the government’s “war on drugs”. That and the corruption. There is so much money involved here that folks in the government, the military, the police etc. can readily be bought off. Down there especially. But also up here.

IMDb

[b]When director Brian De Palma submitted the film to the MPAA they gave it an “X rating”. He then made some cuts and resubmitted it a second time; again the film was given an “X rating” (one of the reasons apparently being that Octavio the clown was shot too many times). He yet again made some further cuts and submitted it a third time; yet again it was given an “X”. De Palma refused to cut the film any further to qualify it for an R. He and producer Martin Bregman arranged a hearing with the MPAA. They brought in a panel of experts, including real narcotics officers, who stated that the film was an accurate portrayal of real life in the drug underworld and should be widely seen. This convinced the 20 members of the ratings board to give the third submitted cut of the film an “R rating” by a vote of 18-2. However De Palma surmised that if the third cut of the film was judged an “R” than the very first cut should have been an “R” as well. He asked the studio if he could release the first cut but was told that he couldn’t. However since the Studio execs really didn’t know the differences between the different cuts that had been submitted, De Palma released the first cut of the film to theaters anyway. It wasn’t until the film had been released on videocassette months later that he confessed that he had released his first unedited and intended version of the film.

Despite the title, Tony Montana is called “Scarface” only once throughout the movie, and in Spanish at that (“Caracicatriz”).[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarface_(1983_film
trailer: youtu.be/7pQQHnqBa2E

SCARFACE [1983]
Directed Brian De Palma
Written by Oliver Stone

[b]Title card: [first title cards] In May 1980, Fidel Castro opened the harbor at Mariel, Cuba with the apparent intention of letting some of his people join their relatives in the United States. Within seventy-two hours, 3,000 U.S. boats were headed for Cuba. It soon became evident that Castro was forcing the boat owners to carry back with them not only their relatives, but the dregs of his jails. Of the 125,000 refugees that landed in Florida an estimated 25,000 had criminal records.

…

Immigration Officer: You ever been to jail, Tony?
Tony: Me? Jail? No way. No.
Immigration Officer: Been in a mental hospital?
Tony: Oh, yeah. On the boat coming over.

…

Tony: You a communist? Huh? How’d you like it, man? They tell you all the time what to do, what to think, what to feel. Do you wanna be like a sheep? Like all those other people? Baah! Baah!
Immigration Officer: I don’t have to listen to this bullshit!
Tony Montana: You wanna work eight, ten fucking hours? You own nothing, you got nothing! Do you want a chivato on every corner looking after you? Watching everything you do? Everything you say, man? Do you know I eat octopus three times a day? I got fucking octopus coming out of my fucking ears. I got the fuckin’ Russian shoes my feet’s comin’ through. How you like that? What, you want me to stay there and do nothing? Hey, I’m no fuckin’ criminal, man. I’m no puta or thief. I’m Tony Montana, a political prisoner from Cuba. And I want my fuckin’ human rights, now!
[slams desk]
Tony: Just like the President Jimmy Carter says. Okay?
Immigration Officer: Carter should see this human right. He’s really good. What do you say, Harry?
Immigration Officer: I don’t believe a word of this shit! They all sound the same to me. That son of a bitch Castro is shittin’ all over us. Send this bastard to Freedom Town. Let them take a look at him. Get him outta here.
Tony: You know somethin’? You can send me anywhere. Here, there, this, that; it don’t matter. There’s nothing you can do to me that Castro has not done!

…

Tony: What you tell 'em?
Manny: I told 'em what you told me to tell 'em, I told 'em I was in sanitation, they didn’t go for it.
Tony: Sanitation?! I told you to tell 'em that you was in a sanitarium, not sanitation, sanitarium!

…

Tony: He’s political.
Manny: Yeah. Well, he’s coming in here today, man. Castro just sprung him. This guy, man, was one of the top dogs for Fidel in the early days. But Castro felt like he couldn’t trust him anymore and threw him in jail. But while he was on top, he tortured a few guys to death. And one of the guy’s brother is a rich guy in Miami now, and he wants the favor repaid. That’s where we come in.[/b]

Murder: You gotta start somewhere.

[b]Tony [to Manny]: Your big shot friend better come up with something soon. I didn’t come to the United States to break my fucking back.

…

Frank [to Tony]: You’re gonna find that when you stay loyal in this business you’re gonna move up. You’re gonna move up fast. Then you’ll find out your biggest problem is not bringing in the stuff…but what to do with all the fucking cash!

…

Frank: Lesson number one: Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed!
Elvira [sarcastically]: Lesson number two: Don’t get high on your own supply.

…

Tony [to Elvira]: You’re good-looking. You got a beautiful body, beautiful legs…a beautiful face, all these guys in love with you. Only you got a look in your eye like you haven’t been fucked in a year!

…

Tony: Me, I want what’s coming to me.
Manny: Oh, well what’s coming to you?
Tony: The world, chico, and everything in it.

…

Tony: In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

…

Elvira [after Tony tries to kiss her]: Don’t get it confused, Tony. I don’t fuck around with the help.

…

Mama Montana [to Tony]: You know, all we read about in the papers today are animals like you and the killings. It’s Cubans like you who are giving a bad name to our people. People who come here to work hard and make an honest living for themselves.
Gina: Mama! He is your son!
Mama Montana: Son? I wish I had one! He’s a bum! He was a bum then and he’s a bum now! Who do you think you are, hm? We haven’t heard a word from you in five years. Cinco anos. You suddenly show up here and you throw money at us? You think you can buy me with your money?
Tony: Come on, mama.
Mama Montana: You think you can come in here with your hot-shot clothes and make fun of us?
Tony: Mama, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Mama Montana: No that is not the way I am, Antonio! That is not the way I raised Gina to be. You are not going to destroy her. I don’t need your money. Gracias! I work for my living. I don’t want you in this house anymore! I don’t want you around Gina! So come on, get out! And take this lousy money with you! It stinks!

…

Tony [to Sosa]: I never fucked anybody over in my life didn’t have it coming to them. You got that? All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don’t break them for no one. Do you understand? That piece of shit up there, I never liked him, I never trusted him. For all I know he had me set up and had my friend Angel Fernandez killed. But that’s history. I’m here, he’s not. Do you wanna go on with me, you say it. You don’t, then you make a move.

…

Bernstein: You ought to smile more, Tony. You gotta enjoy yourself. Every day above ground is a good day.

…

Frank: I’m giving you orders. Blow!
Tony: Orders? You giving me orders? The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls.

…

Manny: Right now, you happen to be the best thing in his life. The only thing that’s any good, that’s pure. Of course he doesn’t want you mixing with those people…growing up to be like him. He has this father thing for you. Feels like he has to protect you.
Gina: Protect me against what?
Manny: Against guys like that asshole you were dancing with tonight.
Gina: I like Fernando. He’s a fun guy and he’s nice. And he knows how to treat a woman. All right?
Manny: He knows how to treat a woman?
Gina: Yes.
Manny: By taking her to the toilet to make out?

…

Frank: Tony, don’t kill me, please!
Tony: I ain’t gonna kill you.
Frank: Oh Christ, thank you! Thank you!
Tony [looking at Manny]: Manolo, shoot that piece of shit!

…

Tony: Chi Chi, get the yeyo.

…

Tony: You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!

…

Tony: You know what your problem is, Pussycat?
Elvira: What’s that?
Tony: You don’t got nothing to do with your life. Why don’t you get a job? Work with lepers. Blind kids. Anything’s gotta be better than lying around all day waiting for me to fuck you.

…

Tony: Is this it? That’s what it’s all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, fucking, sucking? Snorting? Then what? You’re 50. You got a bag for a belly. You got tits, you need a bra. They got hair on them. You got a liver, they got spots on it, and you’re eating this fuckin’ shit, looking like these rich fucking mummies in here… Look at that. A junkie. I got a fuckin’ junkie for a wife. She don’t eat nothing. Sleeps all day with them black shades on. Wakes up with a Quaalude, and who won’t fuck me ‘cause she’s in a coma. I can’t even have a kid with her, Manny. Her womb is so polluted, I can’t even have a fuckin’ little baby with her!

…

Tony [to the people in the restaurant]: What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!

…

Mama Montana [to Tony]: Why do you have to hurt everything you touch? Why do you have to destroy everything that comes your way? ¡Malagradecido!

…

Tony: You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend![/b]

[iambiguous]

Let’s start with the obvious: The Pin is no Tony Montana. We’re talking about a single brick here. It’s just small fish in a small pond. But that doesn’t make the danger any less real for the minnows perceived to have fucked up. Here then [as always] only One Man can straighten it all out.

One Man armed with the script.

But I’ve always been a sucker for this sort of protagonist: the outsider, the iconoclast, the cynical and nihilistic loner. But ultimately he becomes his own worst enemy for expecting the rest of the world to share his point of view. That’s all it is though: a point of view that makes sense to him given the reality of his own life. But why should others living entriely different lives understand it in the same way, let alone go along with it.

So [in part] this is really a film about how not to love someone: on your terms only.

But mostly it’s a complex and convoluted “who did what to whom–and why?” A murder mystery. This time though with a bunch of kids from high school.

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

trailer: youtu.be/uM7E0XGiyrc

BRICK [2005]
Written and directed by Rian Johnson

[b]Brendan: Still picking your teeth with freshmen?
Kara: Well, you were a freshman once.
Brendan: Way-once, sister.

…

Laura [on phone]: Who are you? Or I’ll hang up.
Brendan: You don’t know me - I’ll save you some time.
Laura: I know everyone and I’ve got all the time in the world.
Brendan: Folly of youth.

…

Emily: Brendan, I know you’re mad at all these people, cause you think I went away from you and went to them. But you’ve got to start seeing it as my decision, stop being angry because where I want to be at’s different from where you wanna be at.

…

Emily: And stop picking on Dode. He’s a good guy. He’s a good friend.
Brendan: So what am I?
Emily: Yeah, what are you? Eating back here alone, hating everybody. I mean, who are you judging anyone? God, I really loved you a lot but I couldn’t stand it, I had to get with people. I couldn’t handle life with you, I had to see what was what.

…

Brendan [to Brain]: So now that we’ve shaken the tree let’s wait and see what falls on our heads.

…

Brendan: I was going to make up some bit of information or set up some phony deal, anything so you’d let me walk. Then I was going to go to the vice principal and spill him the street address of the biggest dope port in the burgh.
[The Pin’s eyes shoot to Tugger, who doesn’t flinch]
Tug: He knows zip.
Brendan: 1250 Vista Blanca, the ink blotter at the desk in the den in the basement of the house with the tacky mailbox.

…

Brendan [to Tug]: Which wall’s the door in?

…

Brendan: Your muscle seemed plenty cool putting his fist in my head. I want him out.
The Pin: Looky, soldier…
Brendan Frye: The ape blows or I clam.

…

The Pin [to Brendan]: What are you services, exactly - so I can be specific on the invoice

…

Laura: Do you trust me now?
Brendan: Less now than when I didn’t trust you before.

…

Brendan: Why are you telling me all this? What’s your play?
Laura: You think nobody sees you. Eating lunch behind the portables. Loving some girl like she’s all there is, anywhere, to you. I’ve always seen you. Or maybe I liked Emily. Maybe I see what you’re trying to do for her, trying to help her, and I don’t know anybody who would do that for me.
Brendan: Now you are dangerous.

…

Kara: You better be sure you wanna know what you wanna know.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Stephanie loves Howard who loves Lane who loves Peter who loves Stephanie. Stephanie who is already married with kids. And since these are characters invented by Woody Allen their interactions will generate a lot of unrequited ambiguites about “the human heart”.

With two additional characters around to reflect his contempt for pop culture and despairing sense of doom and gloom in confronting the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless and absurd universe.

Here are people who at times are so close…and yet so far removed from really understanding each other. And also groping about to understand things that can only ever be understood obliquely anyway.

For all intents and purposes these 6 people may as well be the only inhabitants on Earth. But even if that were true you can’t make complex things simple. That is basically always Allen’s meaning. Most folks get flustered because they can’t seem to get others to really understand them. But some get flustered all the more because they grasp their own sense of “identity” in the same way. It’s a contraption, a fabrication, a work in progress from the cradle to the grave. Making things simple is just the way most choose to fit all of the existential fragments together.

One thing for sure: He didn’t blink at the end of this film.

IMDb

[b]Director Woody Allen cast and shot this film twice, without telling the original cast. In the re-shot version, Maureen O’Sullivan, Charles Durning and Sam Shepard were replaced by Elaine Stritch, Denholm Elliott and Sam Waterston respectively.

Movieline Magazine reported that as of 2011, September is Woody Allen’s lowest-grossing movie (at only $486,484). [/b]

I guess he should have used more CGI.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_(1987_film
clip from the film: youtu.be/kW-drCJhqSE

SEPTEMBER [1987]
Written and directed by Woody Allen

[b]Peter [to Lane]: The only point I wanted to make is that some people are survivors and others allow life’s tragedies to annililate them and this is just one of the cruelties of living.

…

Diane: It’s hell getting older. Especially when you feel 21 inside. All of the things that sustain you throughout your life just vanish one by one. You study your face in the mirrror and you notice that something’s missing. And then you realize it’s your future.

…

Lane: How are you going to drive home?
Howard: The same way I always do—thinking about you.

…

Peter: What branch of physics were you involved with?
Lloyd: Something much more terrifying than blowing up the planet.
Peter: Really? Is there anything more terrifying than the destruction of the world?
Lloyd: Yeah. The knowledge that it doesn’t matter one way or the other. It’s all random…resonating aimlessly out of nothing and eventually vanishing forever. And I’m not talking about the world. I’m talking about the universe. All space, all time just a temporary convulsion. And I get paid to prove it.
Peter: Do you feel so sure about that when you look out on a clear night like tonight and see all those millions of stars? That none of it matters?
Lloyd: I think it’s as beautiful as you do…and vaguely evocative of some deep truth that always just keeps slipping away. But then my professional perspective overcomes me and a see more penetrating view of it…and I understand it for what it truly is…haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent.
Peter: Look we shouldn’t be having this conversation. I have to sleep alone tonight.
Lloyd: That’s why I cling to Diane and consider myself very lucky. She is warm and vibrant, holds me while I sleep. That way I don’t have to dream of photons and quarks.

…

Stephanie: Stand up.
Lane: I want to kill myself.
Stephanie: Don’t say that.
Lane: I have no reason to get up tomorrow.
Stephanie: Well then, you’re just going to have to make up a reason.

…

Lane: Are you and Peter in love with each other?
Stephanie: We just became attracted to each other. These things happen.
Lane: But you knew how much I cared about him.
Stephanie: I didn’t instigate it. It just happened by itself. You know we’re all up here isolated from the world. Unpredictable things happen.

…

Stephanie: Tomorrow will come and you’ll find some distractions. You’ll get rid of this place, move back to the city, find work, meet someone, fall in love. And maybe it will work out and maybe it won’t. But you’ll find a million petty things to keep ypu going, and distractions to keep ypou from focusing on…
Lane: On the truth.
Stephanie: I don’t know what the truth is…and you don’t either.

…

Stephanie: Do you really want to die?
Lane: No. That’s my problem, I always wanted to live. [/b]

[iambiguous]

I guess if you are a genius you can make up your own rules. After all, all it takes is to accomplish something no one else has. And, as a mathematician, all that subjective and subjunctive crap sort of flies out the window. The equation either works or it doesn’t. The problem is either solved or it isn’t. The work is either original or it’s not. After all, it’s not the same as grappling with things like identity and value judgments.

And no matter how beautiful the mind works up at the chalkboard, it’s always a bit more convoluted when the transactions revolve around, say, love or sex. Or mental illness.

In a sense this is like watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. What is real and what takes place only in his head? Or, in the case of Chuck Barris, his creative mind?

Aside from all that, I have always been drawn to folks who were convinced that others did not like them. Especially given the extent to which they withdrew into what they loved most.

Six degrees of coincidence…

John Nash is often asscoiated with game theory. So is Melvin Dresher:

Wiki: Melvin Dresher’s research has been referred to and discussed in a variety of published books, including Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone and A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar.

Dresher died in 1992. Shortly thereafter I began a letter correspondence with his daughter Olivia Dresher. Olivia Dresher is a close friend of Victor Munoz. And Victor Munoz’s alter ego Bianco Luno prompted the creation of my “a thread for mundane ironists” here at ILP.

IMDb

[b]The film was shot in sequence in order to help Russell Crowe develop a consistently progressing manner of behavior.

The problem that John Nash writes on the blackboard in his lecture is a real one (unlike in other movies, where math on boards is usually either too simple or fake). There is an important theorem in mathematical physics that directly says the answer to this is 1. Later, when he discusses the problem with Alicia Nash, he makes additional restrictions for the solution, without which the problem is much harder, so he is pretty confident she didn’t solve it.

While this film is inspired by the life of John Nash, there were elements from his life that were deliberately omitted: 1) he was married twice, both to the same woman (Alicia Nash); 2) in the past, he had several affairs with both men and women; 3) he was arrested by the police by scandal; 4) He fathered a child out-of-wedlock in his twenties; 5) he believed that through his mental illness the extra-terrestrials spoke him, giving his advanced knowledge by means of cosmic connection with them; 6) he tried to renounce to his American nationality some times, in the belief that the USA government pursued him; and 7) he made numerous anti-Semitic comments during his period of extreme mental illness, most of which equated Jews with world Communism.

The Riemann Hypothesis mentioned throughout the movie is a real and famous problem in mathematics that has gone unsolved (it has not been proved yet) for nearly 150 years. Many other important theories have been proved on the condition that the Riemann Hypothesis holds, hence its importance. In the year 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts listed the Riemann Hypothesis as one of seven “Millennium Prize Problems” and offered a $1,000,000 reward to the person that proves it.[/b]

FAQs at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0268978/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film
John Nash at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.
trailer: youtu.be/Q3G9lnyXJGU

A BEAUTIFUL MIND [2001]
Directed by Ron Howard

[b]Helinger: Mathematicians won the war. Mathematicians broke the Japanese codes… and built the A-bomb. Mathematicians… like you. The stated goal of the Soviets is global Communism. In medicine or economics, in technology or space, battle lines are being drawn. To triumph, we need results. Publishable, applicable results. Now who among you will be the next Morse? The next Einstein? Who among you will be the vanguard of democracy, freedom, and discovery? Today, we bequeath America’s future into your able hands. Welcome to Princeton, gentlemen.

…

Nash: There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad that tie is.

…

Charles [to Nash]: Is my roommate a dick?[/b]

Well, at least he is real.

[b]The imagined Charles: So what’s your story? You the poor kid that never got to go to Exeter or Andover?
Nash: Despite my privileged upbringing, I’m actually quite well-balanced. I have a chip on both shoulders.

…

Nash: The truth is I don’t like people much and they don’t like me.
The imagined Charles: But why, with all your obvious wit and charm.

…

Nash [looking out upon the students at Stanford]: I cannot waste time with these classes…and these books. Memorizing the weaker assumptions of lesser mortals! I need to look through to the governing dynamics. Find a truly original idea. That’s the only way I’ll ever distinguish myself. It’s the only way that I’ll ever…
The imagined Charles: Matter.

…

Hansen: Nash. Who’s winning - you, or you?

…

Woman [at bar watching Nash stare at her]: Maybe you want to buy me a drink.
Nash: I don’t exactly know what I am required to say in order for you to have intercourse with me. But could we assume that I said all that. I mean essentially we are talking about fluid exchange right? So could we go just straight to the sex.
[slap!]

…

Nash: Adam Smith said the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself, right? That’s what he said, right?
Sol: Right.
Nash: Incomplete. Because the best result will come from everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself [/i]and[/i] the group.

…

Helinger: You do realize this flies in the face of a 150 years of economic theory?
Nash: Yes, I do, sir.
Helinger: That’s rather presumptuous, don’t you think?
Nash: It is, sir.
Helinger: Well, Mr. Nash, with a breakthrough of this magnitude, I’m confident you will get any placement you like.

…

The imagined Parcher: Oppenheimer used to say, “Genius sees the answer before the question.”
Nash: You knew Oppenheimer?
Parcher: His project was under my supervision.
Nah: Which project?
[pause]
Nash: Oh, that project.

…

The imagined Parcher: Nazi engineers were attempting to build a portable atomic bomb. The Soviets reached this facility before we did, and we lost the damn thing.
Nash: The routing orders at the Pentagon, they were about this, weren’t they?
Parcher: The Soviets aren’t as unified as people believe. A faction of the Red Army calling itself Novaya Svobga, “the New Freedom”, has control of the bomb and intends to detonate it on U.S. soil. Their plan is to incur maximum civilian casualties. Man is capable of as much atrocity as he has imagination. New Freedom has sleeper agents here in the U.S. McCarthy is an idiot, but unfortunately that doesn’t make him wrong. New Freedom communicates to its agents through codes imbedded in newspapers and magazines, and that’s where you come in. You see, John, what distinguishes you is that you are, quite simply, the best natural code-breaker I have ever seen.
Nash: What exactly is it that you would like me to do?[/b]

Help them decode hallucinations?

[b]Alicia: The problem you left on the board, I solved it.
Nash: No, you didn’t.
Alicia: You didn’t even look!
Nash: I never said the vector fields were rational functions. Your solution is elegant…though ultimately incorrect.

…

Alicia: I once tried to count all the stars. I actually made it to 4,348.
Nash: You are exceptionally odd.

…

Nash: I find that polishing my interactions in order to make them sociable requires a tremendous effort. I have a tendency to expedite information flow by being direct. I often don’t get a pleasant result.
Alicia: Try me.
Nash: All right. I find you attractive. Your aggressive moves toward me indicate that you feel the same way. But still, ritual requires that we continue with a number of platonic activities before we have sex. I am proceeding with these activities, but in point of actual fact, all I really want to do is have intercourse with you as soon as possible.
[pause]
Nash: Are you gonna slap me now?[/b]

Quite the contrary

[b]Nash: She’s so small.
The imagined Charles: Well, she’s young, John. That’s how they come.

…

Nash: Alicia, does our relationship warrant long-term commitment? I need some kind of proof, some kind of verifiable, empirical data.
Alicia: I’m sorry, just give me a moment to redefine my girlish notions of romance. Okay, how big is the universe?
Nash: Infinite.
Alicia: How do you know?
Nash: I know because all the data indicates it’s infinite.
Alicia: But it hasn’t been proven yet.
Nash: No.
Alicia: You haven’t seen it.
Nash: No.
Alicia: How do you know for sure?
Nash: I don’t, I just believe it.
Alicia: Hmm. It’s the same with love, I guess. Now, the part that you don’t know is if I want to marry you.

…

Nash [gouging his arm]: The implant is gone. I can’t find it. It’s gone.

…

Dr. Rosen [to Alicia]: You see, the nightmare of schizophrenia is not knowing what’s true Imagine if you suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments most important to you were not gone, not dead, but worse, had never been. What kind of hell would that be?

…

Alicia [watching Nash convulse from electo-shock treatment]: How often?
Dr. Rosen: Five times a week for ten weeks.

…

Dr. Rosen: You can’t reason your way out of this!
Nash: Why not? Why can’t I?
Dr. Rosen: Because your mind is where the problem is in the first place!

…

Nash: Rosen is right about one thing. You shouldn’t be here. I’m not safe anymore.
Alicia: Would you hurt me, John?
Nash: I don’t know.

…

Alicia [to Nash after telling Rosen she won’t sign the commitment papers]: Rosen said to call him if you try and kill me or anything.

…

Nash: What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career - the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you.
[looking at and speaking to Alicia]
Nash: You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.[/b]

[iambiguous]

The movie The Departed is a remake of this film. They are both equally well made. Too close to call as far as I am concerned. But there is only one Jack Nicholson. So maybe not.

Both films deal with the same aspect of identity. You go in undercover thinking of yourself one way. But the new experiences you have [prolonged over the years] can change who you think you are. The best example of this is still Donnie Brasco. But there are overlapping ramifications explored here as well.

Here’s the thing though. If I’m a gang boss worried about undercover cops I’d order all of the men under me to commit some major crime. A hit for instance. Or if I’m a top cop worried about the men under me I’d order them all to take a lie detector test. Which makes you wonder how this all really does unfold out in the “real world”.

Or, again, just make the stuff legal to buy. You know, like booze and tobacco. Restrict and regulate the sale…but take the criminal element out of it.

IMDb

[b]When Yan and SP Wong are waiting at the elevator, the digital floor counter skips the 4th floor. In China and Hong Kong, the number 4 is considered bad luck because it sounds similar to the word ‘death’.

The alternative ending found as a special feature on most Western DVD releases was created for release in China, where the authorities were uncomfortable with the political implications of the original ending.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infernal_Affairs
trailer: youtu.be/c5NzWpouyMk

INTERNAL AFFAIRS [Mou Gaan Dou] 2002
Directed by Wai-keung Lau, Alan Mak

[b]Title card: [Nirvana Sutra] Verse 19: “The worst of the eight hells is called Continuous Hell. It has the meaning of Continuing Suffering. Thus the name.”

…

Sam: What thousands must die, so that Caesar may become the great. But I don’t believe in destiny. We now have the power to take fate in our hands.

…

Wong: Yan, you’ve been busted for assault three times. So I’m offically setting you up with a department shrink. You’re much too involved in your role. You’re acting like a real criminal. Have you forgotten you’re a cop?
Yan: You tell me it’s only 3 years. But it keeps getting extended over and over. I’ve been doing this shit now for 10 years!
Wong: I could erase your file if you’d rather be a gangster.
Yan: What do you want me to do? Never get my hands dirty? That doesn’t work for a gangster. I might as well wear my badge.

…

Wong: Let me tell you a story. Two men need an organ transplant, but there’s only one organ. So they play a game. They each put a card in their pocket. Whoever can guess the other’s card wins the organ.
Sam: You know I can see your card.
Wong: I see yours as well.[/b]

Well, you know what I’d recommend.

[b]Mary [to Ming]: I know what my next novel will be about. A man with multiple personalities. The second he wakes up, he could be anybody. He starts to forget which one is the real him.

…

Ming [after killing Sam]: I’ve chosen.

…

Yan: Should I salute you?
Ming: No, don’t. How long have you been an undercover?
Yan: I’ve followed Sam for 3 years; I had several other bosses before. All together, it’s been 10 years.
Ming: 10 years? I should salute you, instead.
Yan: I just want an identity. I want to be a normal man.
Ming: Getting tired?
Yan: You’ve never been a mole. You won’t understand.[/b]

Oh, I think he does.

Yan: Too bad I still can’t find the stooge. I’ll take him down when I’ve found him.
Ming: Don’t worry. Let me give you back your identity, I’ll open your file, but I don’t have the password.
Yan: What’s the Morse Code for undercover?

[iambiguous]

There is no way many folks today will understand the reaction to the original astronauts. Or imagine the risks involved. Back then no one was really entirely sure what would happen to a plane and a pilot that broke the sound barrier…let alone travel thousands of miles an hours in a zero g environment. Somebody always has to go first.

And only one can be the very first to get it all started. On the other hand, if Jay Leno goes Jaywalking and stops folks on the street to ask them, “Who is Chuck Yeager?”, how many do you suppose will know? And while a few might remember John Glenn, how many can name the other six?

Of course back then you had to be both white and male to even have a chance to risk it all.

Not sure how true it actually is but one of the funniest things you’ll ever see on film are the top scientists here trying to decide what sort of folks to pick as the first astronauts. But it does show clearly how new all this was. And you’ve got to remember all this unfolded in reaction to the initial Soviet accomplishments in space. It scared the shit out of many. As Senator Lyndon Johnson grumbled, “…and now the Communists have established a foothold in outer space. Pretty soon they’ll have damned space platforms so they can drop nuclear bombs on us, like rocks from a highway overpass.”

IMDb film triva: imdb.com/title/tt0086197/tri … tt_trv_trv
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_Stuff_(film
trailer: youtu.be/S5NlUClafis

THE RIGHT STUFF [1983]
Written and directed by Philip Kaufman from the book by Tom Wolfe

[b]Narrator: There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.

…

Girl at Pancho’s: I just noticed that a fancy pilot like Slick over there doesn’t have his picture on your wall. What do you have to do to get your picture up there anyway?
Pancho: You have to die, sweetie.

…

Pancho: Why Yeager, you old bastard. Don’t just stand there like some lonesome god-damn mouse-shit sheepherder. Get your ass over here and have a drink.

…

Yeager: Half these engineers’ve never been off the ground. They’re liable to say the sound barrier’s a brick wall in the sky. It’ll rip your ears off if you try to go through it. If you ask me, I don’t even believe the damn thing exists.

…

Man on the ground as Yeager reaches mach 1: What’s that sound?
Pilot: He bought the farm.

…

Yeager: Hey, Ridley, make another note here, would ya? Must be something wrong with this ol’ Mach meter. Jumped plumb off the scale. Gone kinda screwy on me.
Ridley: You go ahead and bust it, we’ll fix it.

…

Pancho: What are you two rookies gonna have?
Cooper: Rookies? Now hold on, sis. You are looking at a whole new ballgame here now. In fact, in a couple of years, I bet you’re even gonna immortalize us by putting our pictures up there on your wall.
[unwittingly referring to the dead pilot memorial over the bar]
Cooper: What? I say somethin’ wrong here?

…

Lyndon Johnson: And as I was sayin’, whoever controls the high ground of space controls the world. The Roman Empire controlled the world because it could build roads. Later, the British Empire was dominant because they had ships. In the Air Stage, we were powerful because we had the airplane. And now the Communists have established a foothold in outer space. Pretty soon they’ll have damned space platforms so they can drop nuclear bombs on us, like rocks from a highway overpass. Now HOW IN THE HELL did they ever get ahead of us?!

…

Chief Scientist: Our Germans are better than their Germans.

…

Chief Scientist: I agree with those who say we could launch a pod.
Senator Johnson: A pot?
Chief Scientist: A POD - a, uh, capsule. Now, we would be in full control of zis pod. It vill go up like a cannonball, and come down like, uh, a cannonball, splashing down into ze water, the ocean, vith a parachute to spare the life of the specimen inside.
Senator Johnson: Spaceman?
Chief Scientist: SPE-CI-MEN.
Senator Johnson: Well, what kind of spe-ci-men?
Chief Scientist: A tough one. Responsive to orders. I had in mind a jimp.
Senator Johnson: JIMP? Well what the HELL is a jimp?
Chief Scientist: A jimp. A-a-a jimpanzee, Senator. An ape.
President Eisenhower: The first American into space is not going to be a chimpanzee!

…

Yeager [to NASA recruiters]: You need lab rabbits.
Recruiter: Sorry, I didn’t get that.
Yeager: I said you need lab rabbits to curl up in your damn capsule. With its heart going “pitter-patter”. And a wire up the kazoo. I don’t hold with it.
Crossfield: I don’t either. You want a pilot to become a balistic missile. And then splash down - possibly get lost at sea.
Pancho: See, some peckerwood’s gotta get the thing up there. And some peckerwood’s gotta land the son of a bitch. And that “peckerwood” is called a “pilot”.

…

Yeager: I’ll tell you something else, anybody that goes up in the damn thing is gonna be Spam in a can.

…

Cooper [during the lung capacity test]: Ha! 93 seconds. Read it and weep.
[notices Glenn and Carpenter are still exhaling]
Glenn: Congratulations, Scott. Darn good.
Carpenter [shaking Glenn’s hand]: You were probably just getting warmed up, John. Next time I doubt I’ll be the one to win.
Grissom [to Gordo]: You hear that? We were competing with Archie and Jughead!

…

Cooper [ordered to give a sperm sample]: Yeah, but uh, nurse, how am I supposed to uh…
Nurse Murch: The best results seem to be obtained through fantasization, accompanied by masturbation, followed by ejaculation.
Cooper: Well, that sounds easy enough.

…

Shepard [during enema continence test]: Tell me something, Mr. Gonzalez. You ever have any explosions doing this?
Gonzalez: All the time. It’s a mess.

…

Grissom: Fuckin’ A, bubba.

…

Astronaut groupie: Four down, three to go.

…

Slayton: What Gus is saying is that we’re missing the point. What Gus is saying is that we all heard the rumors that they want to send a monkey up first. Well, none of us wants to think that they’re gonna send a monkey up to do a man’s work. But what Gus is saying is that what they’re trying to do to us is send a man up to do a monkey’s work. Us, a bunch of college-trained chimpanzees!

…

Shepard: Dear Lord, please don’t let me fuck up.
Cooper: I didn’t quite copy that. Say again, please.
Shepard: I said everything’s A-OK.

…

Eric Sevareid [broadcasting]: There’s another hold from NASA, another delay. Alan Shepard sits there, patiently waiting. What can be going through a man’s mind at this moment?
[cut to Shepard in his space capsule]
Shepard: Gordo?.. Gordo, I have to urinate.
[cut to Alan’s wife]
Wife: Alan must have had four cups of coffee before he left this morning.
[cut to Shephard]
Shepard: Request permission to relieve myself.
Cooper: Look, the man has got to go. Now, it’s either that or we get the lug wrench and pry kim out.
Chief scientist: Do it in the suit.

…

Betty Grissom [after her husband’s flight]: I thought I was going to be Honorable Mrs. Astronaut, and now they are treating me like I’m Honorable Mrs. Squirming Hatchblower.
Grissom: I did not do anything wrong! The hatch just blew! It was a glitch! It was a technical malfunction! Why in hell won’t anyone believe me?!

…

Yeager: Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he’s sittin’ on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I’ll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that’s on TV. Ol’ Gus, he did all right.

…

Glennis Yeager: You know the government spends all that money teaching you pilots how to be fearlress. But they don’t spend a god-damned thing teaching you how to be the fearless wife of a test pilot.

…

Cooper: You know something, Gus? I got me a new house, new furniture. Got me $25,000 a year on a magazine contract. Got me a Corvette. Got free lunch from one end of America to the other - and I ain’t even been up there yet.
Grissom: Yeah, I noticed that.
Cooper: Oh, you noticed that, did you? Well I guess they’re just saving the best for last.
Grissom: Yeah, I guess so, Hot Dog. Just be sure you don’t screw the pooch.

…

Narrator: The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed, along with astronauts White and Chaffee, when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher, farther, and faster than any other American - 22 complete orbits around the world; he was the last American ever to go into space alone. And for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.[/b]

[iambiguous]

From the director of Kids. And based on a true story.

Where do you draw the line? How far does a bully have to go before you decide, fuck it, he’s crossed the line, let’s kill him? Do you imagine that, philosophically, this line can ever be known for sure? Or should it never be crossed? Always let “the law” handle it?

The “kids” are from Florida this time. So, is that better or worse than being a kid from New York?

The only think left to say is, “they’re just kids.” And this is America, right? At least where I am it is. And this particular set of circumstances is so fucking pathetic that’s really the only alternative. I mean, there’s no point in going to the parents. Unless you want to make things worse. Though some of them are just oblivious.

And unlike the kids from Kids these boys and girls are not exactly living in families hanging by a thread economically. I just assume they acquired this mentality from the MTV/Rap world they think they’re supposed to live in. And to emulate.

Incredibly, the “hitman” here may well have been the brightest of the bunch. After all, he “planned” this!! Really, you have to see it to believe it. The kids from River’s Edge are Rhodes Scholars by comparison.

IMDb

The plainclothes officer who arrests Marty is Frank Ilarraza, a real-life police detective who arrested the real Martin Puccio in 1993. His character is listed in the credits as “Detective Frank Ilarazza”, playing “himself”.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_(2001_film
the murder of Bobby Kent at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Bobby_Kent
trailer: youtu.be/d0y-CUdF8Ws

[b]note: some explicit dialogue[/b]

BULLY [2001]
Directed by Larry Clark

[b]Marty [on the phone with a customer]: I want you to suck my big dick.
Marty’s Mom [from downstairs]: Marty honey, dinner!
Marty [into the phone]: I want you to lick my balls.

…

Bobby: You enjoyed that back there, didn’t you?
Marty: No way, man, I ain’t queer like those guys.
Bobby: Yeah, bullshit, bullshit, I think you like dick. You don’t gotta lie to me, boy, I know you like dick.

…

Lisa: So, how was it? I told you he was a stud.
Ali: The fucker just raped me.
Lisa: Shit, Ali, make up your fuckin’ mind. I mean I told you he was kinky.

…

Marty: It’s been like this since we were little fucking kids, Lisa. He’s always been like this. Bobby always beats the fuck out of me whenever he wants and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. I’ve begged my fucking parents to move…
Lisa: You could move away yourself!
Marty: I’m not even a fucking high school graduate.
Lisa: Yeah, I know, tell me about it. So there’s nothing we can do to stop him ever?
Marty: We could kill him, but that’s about it.
Lisa [smiles]: That’s what I was thinking. He treats everyone like shit. He’s always mean. He’s always cruel. He beats you up. He’s even too weird for Ali and she’s into everything! He’s the source of everybody’s troubles, Marty. And even still, he’s going to finish high school and go to college and probably get rich.
Marty: Yeah, and I’m going to be delivering pizzas to him in Weston. How would we get a gun?
Lisa: My ma has one.
Marty: Shit! That motherfucker! He’s fucking dissed me… he’s fucking treated me like shit my whole goddamn life!
Lisa: Let’s kill him.

…

Donny: Holy shit, what the fuck is the gun for?
Lisa: To kill Bobby Kent, don’t you remember?
Donny: Oh, yeah.

…

Lisa’s Mom: You guys don’t work, you don’t go to school, you don’t do anything. All you do is lay around and drive your cars and eat us out of house and home. You know how that makes me feel?
[Long pause]
Donny: Mad!

…

Donny: Shit, I never knew nobody who killed somebody.
Ali: Me neither.
Heather: Just my grandpa. I never knew him. Yeah. My grandpa was a bad drunk. Really bad. He’d rape anyone dumb enough to walk by his room and one night… he got… um, really pissed at my grandma and he took a claw hammer to her face. And, uh, after that, he just… he locked himself up with her in his room for two whole days and he kept drinking and having sex with her after she was dead. My mom was in the house the whole time.
Donny: Fuck.
Heather: She was only 15.
Ali: Holy shit.
Heather: You know, it really messed with her head. After that, she only hung out with guys who beat the hell out of her. And when I was little, she’d get drunk and she’d drag me and my brother out of bed at, like, four in the morning and she had all the news clippings about my grandpa and the trial transcriptions and she’d read them over and over again. And I knew every word before kindergarten. I think that’s how I learned to read.

…

Lisa: The hitman needs a ride.

…

Bobby [after Marty starts to stab him]: Please Marty, please! Please, whatever I did, I’m sorry!

…

Heather: Is he dead yet?
Donny: Getting there.

…

Derek K: You were his best friend so you’re gonna be the number one suspect.
Marty: Dude, that don’t make sense, man. I should be, like, the last motherfucker they suspect.
Derek K: No, you’re not a cop. You don’t know how these sick bastards think.

…

Derek D.: I definitely didn’t.
Donny: What?
Derek D.: I didn’t kill anybody. I just went along for the ride.
Donny: You fuckin’ drowned the guy!
Derek D: Hey listen, fucker, I only helped carry the body 'cause that mafia motherfucker was gonna beat the shit out of me!!
Lisa: I didn’t do shit.
Donny: Either did I.
Derek D: You stabbed him first, asshole!
Donny: Fuck man, the blade went in an inch.
Derek D.: What about the other ten times?!

…

Derek D: God damn it, Lisa, give me the bat back. I gotta return it or pay for it.[/b]

Again, if this is actually how this all unfolded it’s nothing short of dumbfounding.

[b]Hitman’s Brother [to Lisa over the phone]: Anyways, you all should turn yourselves in.
Lisa: Turn myself in? I might go to jail.
Hitman’s Brother [to his father]: She’s afraid they’ll go to jail.
Hitman’s Father: Tell her you’ll write to her.
Hitman’s Brother [to Lisa]: Hey man, I’ll write to you.
[Hitman’s father slams down the phone]

…

Donny [in courtroom]: I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing here, I didn’t do shit, I don’t know what I’m fucking here for…
Marty: You stabbed him, dude!

…

Ttitle card: Heather, 7 years. Derek D., 11 years. Ali, 40 years. Donny, life in prison. Derek K., life in prison. Marty, death by way of electric chair.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Here’s what it’s about:

Using almost no dialogue, the film follows a number of residents (both human and animal) of a small rural community in Hungary - an old man with hiccups, a shepherdess and her sheep, an old woman who may or may not be up to no good, some folk-singers at a wedding, etc. While most of the film is a series of vignettes, there is a sinister and often barely perceptible subplot involving murder. IMDb

A subplot I keep missing. But then the film is so fascinating to look at I’m never really looking for it anyway. Men being poisoned by their wives I think. And the corpse in the river?

The film depicts a way of life that [I suspect] is alien to most of us. A small town intergrated into nature, folks molded as children into an integrated whole: a place for everyone and everyone in his or her place. But by no means isolated from the “modern world”. There are factories, for example. Economies of scale. Them that own them, them that don’t.

Is this a “better” way to live? Maybe, maybe not. But as with any human community, there is what we see on the surface [and know to be true] and all the nooks and crannies that submerge into an underground [where reality is in the shadows and just a point of view].

This film got a 100% fresh rating at RT. And on 33 reviews too. No one didn’t like it.

at wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukkle
trailer/clip: youtu.be/Ev0l_2Scdqs

HUKKLE [2002]
Written and directed by György Pálfi

[iambiguous]

There are folks able to think about time travel in ways that are one hell of a lot more sophisticated than I can. I simply don’t have the background in the requisite sciences needed to grasp just how plausible this stuff [in the film] is.

Maybe folks like James Saint can tell us [once and for all] just how close to or far away from it is to the actual Rational and Metaphysical truth.

It really would be nice though to actually know what the hell they are talking about. But the film hits the ground running as far as the science is concerned. If you don’t get it, tough shit.

Here are a couple of youtube videos that might help:
youtu.be/KgSWgww_fIE
youtu.be/q9I_qo9V8cE

What is most intriguing though is the way they plug the science into a day to day [and then month to month] narrative that is actually rather suspenseful. It’s not all just science. It even comes down [as one might expect] to a matter of life or death. And [of course] it destroys their friendship. Well, whoever these characters even are now. Or how many of them there are.

IMDb

The budget for the entire film was around $7000. Most of the money was spent on film stock.

FAQs at IMDb imdb.com/title/tt0390384/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film
trailer: youtu.be/P0xssBnCNaE

PRIMER [2004]
Written and directed by Shane Carruth

[b]Aaron [voiceover]: Meticulous, yes. Methodical, educated; they were these things. Nothing extreme. Like anyone, they varied. There were days of mistakes and laziness and in-fighting, and there were days, good days, when by anyone’s judgment they would have to be considered clever. No one would say that what they were doing was complicated. It wouldn’t even be considered new, except for maybe in the geological sense. They took from their surroundings what was needed and made of it something more.

…

Robert: My free time? Which free time? Free time after the fifty hours a week at work, after the thirty hours I spend working nights in the garage…?
Abe: We’re all working the same schedule. We’re all working the same schedule. I know.
Robert [with hurt feelings]: And, and it’s not a Tesla coil.
[sarcastically]
Robert: I guess I could shave a couple minutes off my day by eating on the toilet.

…

Aaron: You know that story, about how NASA spent millions of dollars developing this pen that writes in Zero G? Did you ever read that?
Abe: Yeah.
Aaron: You know how the Russians solved the problem?
Abe: Yeah, they used a pencil.
Aaron: Right. A normal wooden pencil. It just seems like Philip takes the NASA route almost every time.

…

Abe: What’d you do to this thing?
Aaron: Huh? What?
Abe: It looks like a dog digested it!

…

Aaron [voiceover]: There was value in the thing. Clearly. Of that they were certain of. But what is the application? In a matter of hours… they had pinned it to everything from mass transit to satellite launching. Imagining devices the size of jumbo jets. Everything would be cheaper. It was practical and they knew it. But above all that, beyond the positives… they knew that the easiest way to be exploited… is to sell something they did not yet understand. So they kept quiet.

…

Aaron [voiceover]: Abe had taken on the task of quantifying and explaining the device. But as weeks became months their enthusiasm became a slow realization that they were out of their depth.

…

Abe: If you ditch work this afternoon, and promise to do the few small things I ask you; I will in return show you the most important thing that any living organism has ever witnessed.

…

Aaron: Who was that Abe?

…

Aaron: In RussellfieId, I got a hoteI room and tried to isolate myself.
Abe: Wait, what do you mean ‘‘isolate’’?
Aaron: I closed the windows, I unplugged everything in the room—the telephone, TV, clock, radio, everything. I didn’t want to take the chance of running into someone I knew or seeing something on the news that might…If we’re dealing with causality, and I don’t even know for sure. I just…
Abe: What?
Aaron: Took myself out of the equation.

…

Abe: I know you’ve done it, and I can only assume that you don’t have cancer or male impotence. But what is your opinion on how safe this thing is?
Aaaron: I can imagine no way in which this thing would be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I’m still alive.

…

Aaron: I just left everything the way I found it. I left the machine alone and didn’t turn it off, and just cleared out of there.
Abe: So your double wouId find everything the same later that day and get in the box?
Aaron: Right, but also, I or my double or someone was in the box coming backwards. So who knows what that would’ve done if I’d turned the machine off.

…

Aaron: Look, Abe, look, I’m not going to pretend like I know anything, okay, about paradoxes, you know, or what follows them. And, honestly, I really don’t believe in any of that group anyway, you know, kill your mom before you’re born, whatever. It must work itself out, somehow. This is what I know for sure. The worst thing in the world is to know that the moment you are experiencing has already been defined, that this is the second or third time through, or whatever. And do you ever feel like…I don’t know…maybe things aren’t right, like maybe your life is in disarray…or just not what you would like and you start to wonder what caused this.[/b]

All that dasein stuff, in other words.

[b]Abe: I’m not into the whole ‘‘destiny, there’s-only-one-right-way’’ thing.
Aaron: I’m not either. But which is worse, thinking you’re being paranoid or knowing you should be?

…

Aaron: Abe, are you hungry? I haven’t eaten since later this afternoon.

…

Abe: How, how do cell phones work? If, if there’s two duplicate phones and I call the same number, do they both ring at the same time, or is there…
Aaron: That’s not how it works.
Abe: Yes, it’s a radio signal, so it…
Aaron: No, it’s a network. The network, the network checks each area. When it finds a phone, it stops ringing. It only, it rings the first one.
Abe: This, this one’s ringing.
Aaron Right.
Abe: So, the one your double has in Russellfield can’t be…
Aaron: Right. I think we broke symmetry.
Abe: Are you sure that’s how cell phones work?
Aaron: No.

…

Abe: A half an hour ago I was asleep. This car alarm woke me up. These kids were down skating by, hitting all cars on the block. So we go right now, do our business at Platts’, get back in the box and come back before those kids set off those alarms. All we really have to do is stand there in plain sight. That should scare them off. That way my double sleeps through the night they don’t have this conversation, and they get in the box tomorrow as usual.[/b]

What could be clearer?

[b]Abe: There is no way I wouId tell anyone about this. No way.
Aaron: Can you think of any reason you might?
Abe: No.
Aaron: Sometimes we do things but don’t know how we got to that point.
Abe: No, I can’t. I can’t think of any reason why I would.
Aaron: Well, I can’t either.
Abe: What if it was an emergency?
Aaron: So you’d do it if it was an emergency?
Abe: No, I don’t know.
Aaron: What, so you might then?
Abe: I don’t know. What kind of emergency?
Aaron [voiceover]:The permutations were endless. They tried again going to the source, but even while keeping them separated from Abe by two rooms, Thomas Granger’s condition could only be described as vegetative. From this, they deduced that the problem was recursive; but, beyond that, found themselves admitting, against their own nature, and once again, that the answer was unknowable.

…

Aaron [voiceover]: How? And that’s where I would have entered the story. Or exited it, depending on your reference.

…

Aaron [voiceover]: I can tell you with certainty what I did that night, when it was my turn, but I think it would do little good. Because what the world remembers, the actuality, the last revision, is what counts, apparently. So, how many times did it take Aaron, as he cycled through the same conversations, lip-synching trivia over and over? How many times would it take, before he got it right? Three? Four? Twenty? I’ve decided to believe that only one more would have done it. I can almost sleep at night, if there’s only one more. Slowly and methodically, he reverse-engineered a perfect moment. He took from his surroundings what was needed, and made of it something more. And once the details had been successfully navigated, there was nothing more. Maybe the last minute moral debate…until the noise of the room escalates into panic and background screams, as the gunman walks in. And eventually he must have got it perfect and it must have been beautiful…with all the praise and adoration he had coming. He had probably saved Iives, after all. Who knows what wouId have happened if he hadn’t been there?

…

Aaron [voiceover]: Now I have repaid any debt I may have owed you. You know all that I know. My voice is the only proof that you will have of the truth of any of this. I might have written a letter with my signature, but my handwriting is not what it used to be. Maybe you’ve had the presence of mind to record this. That’s your prerogative. You will not be contacted by me again. And if you look…you will not find me.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Who can count on you? And what exactly qualifies someone to insist that another should be counted on? Counted on to do what exactly?

What are our obligations to others? And what are their obligations to us?

Especially family obligations. Over and again we hear things like, “But he’s your brother [or sister, mother, father etc]. You have to do it.”

Huh?

I certainly did let my own family down. Abandoned them more or less. I honestly don’t know if they are dead or alive. Fortunately, none of them ever really counted on me for much either. They just expected me to think about things more or less the way they did.

Watching this is like looking at inkblots. Different people will see different things depending on the manner in which they were predisposed to react one way rather than another. I don’t particularly see myself here in any of them. But I was certainly rooting for some more than others. One in particular.

Terry has no roots and he doesn’t want any. And I blew my own opportunity here years ago.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Count_on_Me
trailer: youtu.be/WfBoo0XvGfE

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME [2000]
Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan

[b]Terry: I’ve actually got to confess to you, Sammy that the reason you may not have heard from me for a little while is that I’ve been kind of unable to write…on account of the fact that I was in jail for a little while.

…

Terry: But you know what? I can’t run around all the time doin’ stuff or not doin’ stuff because it’s gonna make you worry! Because then I come back here, and I tell you about my fucking traumas, and I get this wounded little “I’ve Let You Down” bullshit, over and over again, and it really just – cramps me! Like I just want to get out from under it! And here I am back in this fuckin’ hole explaining myself to you again![/b]

That’s when he tells her he’s just back in the “fuckin’ hole” to ask her for money.

[b]Sammy: Terry? Can I ask you something?
Terry: Sure.
Sammy [with some difficulty] Well – I mean, do you ever go to church anymore?
Terry: Come on, Sammy, can we not talk about that shit?
Sammy: Do you?
Terry: Um – No, Sammy. I don’t.
Sammy: Can you tell me why not?
Terry: Um, yeah. Because I think it’s ridiculous.
Sammy: Well – can you tell me without like, denigrating what I believe in?
Terry: Because I think it’s primitive, OK? I think it’s a fairy tale.

…

Terry: Did you not even want me to come visit?
Sammy: Of course I want you to visit, you idiot! I’ve been looking forward to seeing you from the moment I got your letter. I told everyone in town that you were coming home. I cleaned the whole fucking house just so it would look nice for you! But I had no idea you were just broke again! I wish you’d just send me an invoice!

…

Terry: You mind if I ask you a personal question?
Rudy: I don’t know.
Terry: Do you like it here, I mean in Scottsville?
Rudy: Yeah.
Terry: Why?
Rudy: I don’t know, my friends are here, I like the scenery…I don’t know.
Terry: I know, I know, it’s just so…there’s nothing to do here.
Rudy: Yes, there is.
Terry: No, there isn’t, man. It’s narrow. It’s dull. It’s a dull, narrow town full of dull, narrow people who don’t know anything except what things are like right around here. They have no perspective whatsoever, no scope. They might as well be living in the 19th century 'cause they have no idea what’s going on, and if you try and tell 'em that they wanna fucking kill you.
Rudy: What are you talking about?[/b]

Rudy is 8 years old.

[b]Terry: What’s the matter with you?
Sammy: Nothing, I’m just tired.
Terry: Wanna smoke some pot?
Sammy: No, I don’t…why, you got some?

…

Rudy: Who are you talking about?
Terry: Some wild kids we used to know.
Rudy: Were you a wild kid?
Terry: Not as wild as your mom.
Rudy: Yeah, right…
Terry: Oh, you don’t believe me?
Rudy: No.
Terry: Ask her.
Rudy: Mom, were you wild?
Sammy [after a long pause]: No comment.

…

Sammy [whispering]: Terry, I fucked my boss.
Terry: What?!
Sammy: And his wife is six months pregnant…
Terry: Jesus Christ, Sammy!

…

Sammy: I realize that you’re mad at me…
Terry [deadpan]: I’m not mad at you…
Sammy: …but he didn’t do anything to you. And you cannot promise a little boy that you’re gonna…
Terry: …I just, you know, after all that religious conversation, I just realized it’s probably not so good for him to be spending so much time with someone like me who doesn’t believe his life is important “in the scheme of things”.

…

Sammy: I don’t know what the church’s official position is on fornication and adultery these days, and I felt really hypocritical not saying anything to you about it before, but…what is the official position these days?
Ron: Well…it’s a sin.
Sammy: Good, I think it should be!
Ron: But we try not to focus on that aspect right off the bat.
Sammy: Why not? I think you should.
Ron: Well…
Sammy: Maybe it was better when they screamed at you from the box for having sex with your married boss, they told you what a terrible thing it was, they were really mean to you. Maybe it would be better if you just told me that I’m endangering my immortal soul and that if I don’t stop, I’m gonna burn in hell. Don’t you ever think that?
Ron: No, not really.
Sammy: Well, it’s a lot better than all this, “Why do you think you’re in this situation” psychological bullshit you hear all the time.
Ron: Well… Why do you think you’re in this situation?
Sammy: W-W-Which one?
Ron: All of them.

…

Sammy: This is incredible.
Brian [smiling]: Mmmm.
Sammy: That is not what I mean.

…

Sammy [answers the phone]: Hello?
Brian: Yeah, Sammy, it’s Brian.
Sammy: Brian!
Brian: What the hell happened to you today, lady?
[Sammy rolls her eyes and hangs up]
Sammy [after phone rings again]: Hello…
Brian: You’re fired!
Sammy: Good!
[slams phone down]

…

Sammy [to Terry]: You know, I admit I may not be the best mother in the world, but I’m doing the best I know how, and he doesn’t need you to rub his face in shit because you think it’s good for him! He’s gonna find out that the world is a horrible place and that people suck soon enough and without any help from you!

…

Rudy [as Terry is packing up to leave]: Where are you going?
Terry: I don’t know. I just want to get out of this town. And if you’ve got any sense when you get old enough you’ll get out of here too. Your Mom’s gonna live in this town for the rest of her life, and you know why? Because she thinks she has to. Don’t ask me why, but that’s the truth. She thinks there’s all these things she has to do, but you want to know one thing about your Mom? She’s a bigger fuck-up than I ever was. I mean, I know I messed up. You think I enjoy getting thrown in jail because I wanted you to face that prick your Dad like a little man and see what kind of a guy he is? I know I got a little carried away, and I lost my temper just a little bit - which is not the end of the world either, by the way, just for future reference - And now she’s kickin’ me out of my own house because - you know, because I fucked up a little bit. Which I totally admit. I was like - totally ready to admit that.

…

Sammy [to Brian]: You know, if I were you, I’d be a little nervous about firing somebody I’d just had an affair with, okay?

…

Terry: I do know where I’m going. I’m going to Worcester and I’m gonna try to see that girl. And then depending on what happens there, I thought I’d try to see if there’s any work for me out West. And if there is, I’m gonna head out there for the summer and try to make some money. And if there isn’t, I’ll figure something else out. Maybe I’ll stay around the East. I don’t know…I really liked it in Alaska. It was really beautiful. You just – It made me feel good. And before things got so messed up I was doin’ pretty well out there. Seriously. But I couldn’t stay here, Sammy: I don’t want to live here.

…

Terry: Hey, Sammy… Remember when we were kids, remember what we always used to say to each other . . .? [/b]

[iambiguous]

Anyone who has made a political commitment over an extended period of time knows the price that is sometimes paid with respect to family and friends. Especially when the commitment is to radical politics.

Is it worth it?

Well, if you see the world one way and you want it to be another way instead…what are you going to do about it? What are you willing to do about it? What are you willing to give up to make this “a better world”? It’s a trade-off. Some can make it, some cannot. The kids, however, never set it all in motion. They sort of have to go along because everything revolves around how “safe” it is for the parents.

This film always rips me to shreds. It portrays a world that really needs to be changed but the consequences of doing so can be no less substantial. There’s just no way it can be ordered so that bad things don’t happen to good people. And even good and bad here are often just points of view. And then so much of the outrage is internecine: reform or revolution?

For example, how do you feel about those who help to manufacture napalm? Fuck them? On the other hand, when they blew up the facility a janitor [who wasn’t supposed to be there] was blinded and paralyzed for life. The rest is politics. If you share their political convictions you’ll find a way to rationalize it, and if you don’t, you won’t. It’s tragic that the world has to be this way but it is really the only way it can be if folks are convinced it really needs to be changed. And then they cross paths with those who want to keep it exactly the way it is—and won’t back down

Oh, and then there is still all the goddamn personal shit. Just like the rest of the world.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_on … (1988_film
trailer: youtu.be/ZBM5kzLG6z8

RUNNING ON EMPTY [1988]
Directed by Sidney Lumet

[b]Harry [reading the paper aloud]: Arthur and Annie Pope continue to elude capture despite several sightings of the couple who went underground after claiming responsibility for the 1971 bombing on the University of Massachusetts military research lab. The laboratory is credited with the development of napalm used extensively in the Vietnam war.
[he puts the paper aside]
Harry: Why did they have to blow it up?
Danny: Because they didn’t stop making it when they asked them politely.
Harry: Come on, Danny, I’m serious.
Danny: Because they were dropping that stuff on people.

…

Lorna [to Michael]: So, now that we’ve determined that I belong here, let’s talk about you.

…

Annie: It’s just music.
Arthur: It’s bourgeois crap. Fucking chamber music. It’s decadent white skin privelege crap!

…

Danny: Aren’t we supposed to question authority? You taught me that! Who do you think you are, General Patton?

…

Annie: You’re not a revolutionary. No, that requires more than playing with guns. It requires compassion and discipline…
Gus [who wants Arthur and Annie to help them rob a bank for the “revolution”]: Hey, you judging me? No, you judge yourself, lady. You’re living like some kind of middle class suburban housewife. You’re living a lie. Just like you said. Why don’t you take this little Norman Rockwell family and turn them in?!

…

Michael: If you want to go back, that’s fine with me.
Lorna: You’re a bully.
Michael: No. I’m a liar.

…

Annie: Look what we are doing to these kids, Arthur. They’ve been running their whole lives like criminals, and they didnt do anything! It isn’t fair.[/b]

Here is basically what it all comes down to:

[b]Father: I wonder if you will know what it’s like not to see your child for 14 years.
Annie: Dad…
Father: Not knowing if she is living or dead. Not knowing if that child was responsible for the death and mutilation of another human being.
Annie: I didn’t kill anybody.
[pause]
Annie: Look, I didn’t come here to defend myself or to talk politics. If you don’t believe by now that what I did was an act of conscience to stop the war then there is nothing I can say to you that will change your mind.
Father: That man was blinded and partalyzed.
Annie: He wasn’t supposed to be there!

…

Father: Yes, you were young. And talented and beautiful. My God, Annie, why did you through it all away?!

…

Annie: Will you take Danny, dad? He want’s to study music. He’s good. They want him at Juilliard.
Father: Just like they wanted you. Still have that practice board?
Annie: So far. Danny learned to play piano on it.
Father: So you taught him. There’s some irony in this. Don’t you think, Annie? Here you are, asking me to take Danny into a life that you ran from like a shot out of hell. This what he wants?
Annie: I think so. Got himself an audition without telling me. He’ll need money and people to care for him.
Donald: Don’t you think this is too much to ask? We hardly know the boy. If we take him, there’d be FBI agents following us everywhere we go. You’d never be able to see him. We’re too old for this.
Annie: Yeah. I think it’s too much to ask.
[pause]
Annie: I have another son, he’s ten, Harry.
Father: Yeah. Heard about it on the news.
Annie: I plan to turn myself in when he doesn’t need me anymore, when he’s old enough.
Father: And Arthur?
Annie: I can’t speak for him.
[pause]
Annie: Please think about this.
Father: Annie. He can come to us.

…

Arthur: We’re moving base camp kids.

…

Arthur: Get the bike out of the back.
[pause]
Arthur: Now, get on it.
Danny: What are you talking about, dad…
Arthur: Get on the bike. You’re on your own, kid. I want you to go to Juilliard.
Danny: But, dad, I want to go with you.
Arthur: We’ll see you again. You can be sure.
[pause]
Arthur: Your mother has arranged things with your grandfather, alright- call him. And I think you have some friend’s around here.
Annie: I love you, baby.
Arthur: We all love you. Now, go out there and make a difference. Your mother and I tried. And don’t let anyone tell you any different.

…

Harry: Bye, Danny![/b]

This really is a fucking tragedy.

[iambiguous]

There are particularly bad places to come across a psychopath. Out in the middle of the Pacific ocean, for example. Who are you going to turn to? And where exactly can you go to hide?

The horror here is [once again] invested in another actual human being. They tell us one thing and in reality it is something else altogether. It’s just that sometimes the gaps can more consequential.

Billy Zane. He has one of those faces, doesn’t he? It’s handsome, sure. But it’s also so goddam sinister. Why is that? Why do most react to it that way? Why is he often cast in this sort of role? Remember him from Titantic? It’s just strange how that seems to work. Nature? Nurture?

And the traumatic opening sequence. The accident. The dead son.

This film is effective because Zane’s character is especially chilling. He’s not the sort of maniac you’re used to. He isn’t flailing about all the time. But you know that he can be. On the other hand, she seemed to have missed a lot of opportunities to become a maniac herself. Ambiguities abound here in their “relationship”.

And I would have preferred a more ambiguous ending.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Calm_(film
trailer: youtu.be/fhBzJ9gPoY8

DEAD CALM [1989]
Directed by Phillip Noyce

[b]John [to Rae]: We’ve got weeks and weeks. Calm days, calm sea. And we’re gonna get strong. And when you are strong, then we’ll go home. And then we’ll start again.

…

John: Well, look at that. The first boat we’ve seen in 3 weeks.

…

Hughie: There were six of us. The others died 10 days ago. One by one. It all happened in a day.

…

John: What happened?
Hughie: Ever thought about how life can hinge on the smallest thing? I mean, ever since I was a kid, I thought salmon was for cats.

…

Hughie: At first we thought it was the tourists trots…until Chantel looked at her hand and said, “Picasso should have painted it.” It had seven fingers.

…

Hughie: Score one for Mrs. Ingram. She has a hell of a season ahead of her.

…

Hughie: Friends?
Rae: Friends.

…

Rae: You know what I’d love for lunch? Fresh asparagus, then, um, pasta - angel hair pasta with heaps of basil, garlic, olive oil and, um, apple pie. Yeah. Uh, John, have you got a towel?[/b]

No, but he has a flare.

[iambiguous]

Making a buck off the Pope? Why not. After all, unlike Papa, Beto is poor. And he also has a family to feed. Unlike Papa.

The idea is to build a toilet along the Pope’s route. In other words, to charge folks for using it. What could possibly go wrong?

God willing, as it were.

And then Beto still has Heaven to look forward to.

In the interim, he’s a two-bit smuggler struggling to survive from day to day. Again, unlike Papa.

Your heart really goes out to Silvia though. She has dreams and the only thing that stands between them and her is reality. The rather simple reality of being born into the wrong family. A poor one.

Of course, unlike the Pope, God does see all of this. So just be patient folks.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope’s_Toilet
trailer: youtu.be/mhLiAjXqb3g

THE POPE’S TOILET [El Baño del Papa] 2007
Written and directed by César Charlone, Enrique Fernández

[b]Ttitle card: The events of this story are in essense true and it’s only by chance that they didn’t occur the way they are told here.

…

Silvia: Mom, are you going to that Pope thing?
Carmen: If God wills it.

…

Neighbor: I’m going to sell quiches.
Carmen: You’re going to use the Pope to do business?
Neighbor: No, I’m going to work and benefit from the crowd. Valvulina’s going to sell chorizo.
Carmen: There’s going to be a big change around here, but God punishes those things.
Neighbor: Punishment is the politicians we’ve got. What we really need is a miracle.

…

[Repeated line]
Beto: I’ve got my thinking cap on!

…

Silvia: I will never become a smuggler!
Beto: What will you become then, Miss Universe?[/b]

Everyone is preparing to milk the Pope’s visit:

[b]Man: Did you hear what Cantinflas did?
Backie: What?
Man: He sold his house for two cows?
Blackie: Two cows? He’s crazy.
Man: How’s he going to barbecue them?
Blackie: Doesn’t know.
Man: Crazy dumbshit.

…

Woman: …I bought 5,000 buns…
Woman: …79 kilos of meat…
Woman: …1,500 hamburgers…
Woman: …10 kilos of flour…

…

Beto [to man who sold his bike to sell sausages]: Is the Pope going to save you too?

…

Sign on a wall: JOHN PAUL II THE WORKING WORLD SALUTES YOU!

…

Beto: God will help us.
Carmen: If He doesn’t help the poor, who does He help?

…

Meleyo: Who covers your ass? The Pope? The military? Those little shop owners? No, it’s me who covers your ass. The son of a bitch mobile patrol, Beto! What do I tell Luna? What do you want? You want me to bring him to your home so your daughter can lick his belly and your wife can suck him off? You choose, Beto. You choose.

…

Carmen: Did you sell anything?
Neightbor: Only my soul to the Devil.

…

Blackie [touching Beto on the head]: What saves you is your thinking cap.

…

Television reporter: The inhabitants of Melo received the Holy Father’s blessing, with joy and reverence. His blessing will bring love and understanding for all. And work, health…
Beto [scoffing toward the TV]: Work?
Television reporter: …development, a better life. A properous future awaits us.
Beto: You can stuff your future up your fucking ass! What properous future?! What does he mean?! The Pope doesn’t have a clue!

…

Title card: The Pope never came back. It’s estimated that on May 8th, 1988, fewer than 8,000 people attended the speech. Most were from Melo. 387 stands were set up. There were about 400 Brazilians. And some 300 journalists.[/b]

The media had the town expecting 20,000 at a minimum…and then all the way up to 200,000!

Beto’s voice [from inside the toilet]: I have an idea!

[iambiguous]

Imagine viewing this film when it first came out. With no real understanding yet of what Bush and Cheney Inc. had in store for this country.

On the other hand:

wiki:

Significantly, the film is silent about what happens to ‘Satellite’ after the Americans finally land in their refugee camp. Some critics believe that the film reflects the true sentiment of Iraqi Kurds, many of whom suffered greatly under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and strongly supported the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Sigh. It always revolves around dasein situated out in a particular world embedded in a particular political economy.

Turks, Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Allah. Endless war. And kids. Lots of kids. But not like the kids most of us know. Homeless kids who have lost their parents to the wars. And then there are the mines. And those children [some armless and legless] who are paid to collect them.

The film opens with a young girl leaping to her death. A suicide. After she drowned her own child. But once you watch the entire movie you won’t be wondering why.

IMDb

[b]All of the child actors in this movie were actual refugees.

The first film to be made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Red Fish, which appear commonly throughout the film, are one of the seven symbols of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, and symbolize life within life. Ironically, Nowruz is on March 20, the day the United States staged the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, during which the film takes place.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_Can_Fly
trailer: youtu.be/RWlfU1ONgyw

TURTLES CAN FLY [Lakposhtha Parvaz Mikonand] 2004
Written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi

[b]Title card: Kurdistan, Iraq-Turkish border. A few weeks before the U.S.-Iraq war.

…

Satellite: Not long now before USA comes!
Old man: What’s USA?
Satellite: USA means America. Have you seen the movie Titantic? Titanic. Washington, San Francisco, Bruce Lee.

…

Old man from Iran: That boy is very important. He makes predictions. These days money is in the news. War! The world is at war. Everybody’s after news.
Old man from Iraq: Buy a satellite to get the news.
Old man from Iran: A satellite? What for? It’s all lies. They lie to fill their pockets.

…

Satellite: My job is to install the dish, which I did. I have to go now. I did my job. I’m responsible for the village children. I have to make an income for them.[/b]

He is barely a teenager himself.

[b]Satellite [pointing to CNN on the TV]: Here is Mr. Bush, Esmaeel! The world is in his hands!

…

Satellite: Okay, mister. How much for the mines today?
Ahmad: How many have you got?
Satellite: 96.
Ahmad: You used to bring 10 or 15. What’s happened?
Satellite: Don’t think about that. How much?
Ahmad: 22 dinars and not a fals more.
Satellite: What? 22 dinars? You paid more before. You think I don’t know you sell them to UN for 2200 dinars each?!

…

Agrin: I can’t take care of the bastard all night long!
Brother: What was that? You said bastard again?
Agrin: If he is not a bastard, then what is he? Isn’t he the child of those who killed our family and did this to me? Now he is my child.

…

Satellite [reading aloud a leaflet dropped from American helicopters]: “It’s the end of injustice, misfortune and hardship. We are your best friends and brothers. Those against usw are our enemies. We will make this country a paradise. We are here to take away your sorrows. We are the best in the world.”

…

Satellite [to Riga]: It’s a mine! Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it, it’s a mine!

…

Esmaeel: You kept saying, USA, USA, until you fell on a USA mine.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Your young son is killed by a hit and run driver. And so you think, “this beast must die”. And that is exactly what you set out to do.

A hit and run. Most times there is no intention to kill. It is a stupid accident. Or it is due to negligence. Or to excessive speed. Or to distraction. Or to drink. The true crime most figure is in leaving the scene. But does this justify killing the offender? And even if you believe it does, the “law” can still intervene. It can destroy what is left of your own life. By putting you in prison for example.

Might all of the infinite number of circumstantial contexts then be reduced down to Justice? Remember The Crossing Guard?

As is often the case in human interaction, a frame of mind begins here but in the course of arriving there, there’s no way to predict with any degree of certainty what might unfold. And thus perhaps to change it. And yet, depending on both the time alloted and the junctures reached, it becomes [or can become] a matter of life or death.

What is crucial here though is that this man is a beast. A bully, a brute, a bombastic boor. He seems to possess the emotional and intellectual depth of a Nazi. The ambiguous ending then is really beside the point. It’s not who killed him that matters so much as that he is dead.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Man_Must_Die

THIS MAN MUST DIE [Que la Bête Meure] 1969
Written and directed by Claude Chabrol

[b]Charles [voiceover]: I will kill a man. I know neither name, address nor looks. But I will find him and kill him.

…

Charles [voiceover]: It may take 6 months, one or two years, but I will find him. I’ll make friends with him. I’ll wait patiently. When he’s trapped, I’ll look at him and smile. Directly in the eye. And I will make him deserve his death!

…

Charles [voiceover]: The result is disappointing. Five exhausting weeks for nothing. Dead ends. False hope which leave me desparate. I realize my search is limitless. I’m only one human being tracking another. My only arm is my patience. I have all the time. I have all my life. And all his. Unless chance interferes. Chance is wonderful. And it exists. It’s the only thing that exists. The point of my pen on this paper is like everything in the world…a coincidence.[/b]

The needle in a haysack kind it turns out.

[b]Charles: Many friends?
Helene: Not many. My brother-in-law.
Charles: Isn’t he a member of your family?
Helene: No. Yes. No matter.
Charles: Where does he live?
Helene: In Quimper. He own’s a garage.

…

Charles [voiceover after meeting Paul]: A monstrous being…a caricature of a perfectly evil man such as one hopes never to meet in life. I feared I’d find a friendly man. Now my joy to eliminate it will be.

…

Charles [voiceover]: Lovers often hesitate, not out of shyness but to prolong their awaiting happiness. I, full of hatred am savouring what awaits me. His killing will only be a gesture of a man throwing away a useless peel of a fruit slowly enjoyed to the pit.

…

Charles [to Philip]: Most people prefer the Odyssey. But the Iliad is the most sublime ever written. Later on, when you read Kafka, you’ll see it’s similar. But Homer is better. There’s a town which is mentioned. And no one ever enters. Hundreds and hundreds of young heroes fight and die for that inaccessible and unreal thing.

…

Charles [to Philip]: When a bad poet describes death, he automatically uses cliches. He writes about eyes frowning, at the sweat beading on the forehead. Of the ghastly inhuman grin. There’s none of that in Homer. Every death he describes is particular. Real even.

…

Charles [in a letter of “confession” to Helene]: “Now I am going to set sail. I will go far and never return. I will disappear Helene, erase myself. I acted like a coward. The prison scared me. And I accepted Philip’s sacrifice. I shall choose my own punishment. Brahms wrote a song paraphrase Ecclesiastics. It says ‘The Beast must die. But the man too. One and the other must die.’”[/b]

[iambiguous]

Even “interiors” revolve largely around demographics. Which is why some will watch a film like this enthusiatically nodding their heads while others will shake their own in disbelief. For some it’s the whole point and for others it has no point at all.

It’s bound by historical and cultural assumptions. And by endless squabbles regarding 1] what it means to be creative and 2] which of them is. Everyone is always self-conscious about what they say because there seem to be certain things one should not say.

Let’s face it, some folks are intent at designing the mind’s interiors as others would design the interior of their home.

In any event, it always seems to reinforce my decision to pull completely out of my own family; and to settle instead on the conviction that, first and foremost, one must always be one’s own best friend. It really makes no difference that I resided instead in the belly of the working class beast. Never let a family suck you down into something you know in your heart of hearts is bullshit. Even if you know there is no “right way” in which to live, it’s not all that hard to discern a “way of life” that rankles you down to the bone.

Just to note: This may be more Willis than Woody but the film is absolutely gorgeous to look at.

IMDb

First serious dramatic film of Woody Allen and as such Allen’s first film which was not a comedy. Woody Allen was known for comedy, and wanted to break the mold by having no humor at all in this picture. At one point the family is gathered around the table laughing at a joke which Arthur has just told, but we never hear the joke.

Yet there will always be the cynics who think of this as one of Woody Allen’s funniest films.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interiors
trailer: youtu.be/lhphrzgPpaE

INTERIORS [1978]
Written and direceted by Woody Allen

[b]Arthur [voiceover]: The truth is she’d created a world around us that we existed in, where everything had its place, where there was always a kind of harmony. Great dignity. I will say it was like an ice palace. Then suddenly one day, out of nowhere, an enormous abyss opened up beneath our feet and I was staring into a face I didn’t recognise.

…

Michael [into a microphone]: “The basic popularity and appeal of Mao for so-called American Marxists.” This is supposed to go in the sequence - in under the sequence in reel two about South Africa. Um… what we wanna do is get two examples. The idea is his style was Marxist-Leninist - Mao’s style - but that he was accessible to the lower classes because of his use of homilies. An example is: “The hardest thing is to act properly throughout one’s whole life.” What the hell does that mean? Or, even worse…[/b]

Then Eve arrives with her expensive vase and ruminations about “earth tones”. An upper middle class sort of irony, in other words.

[b]Renata: Increasing thoughts about death just seemed to come over me. Um, these, uh…A preoccupation with my own mortality. These feelings of futility in relation to my work. I mean, just what am I striving to create anyway? I mean, to what end? For what purpose, what goal? I mean…Do I really care if a handful of my poems are read after I’m gone? Is that supposed to be some sort of compensation? I used to think it was, but now, for some reason…I can’t…I can’t seem to…I can’t seem to shake the real implication of dying. It’s terrifying. The intimacy of it embarrasses me.

…

Michael: Why don’t you work with me?
Joey: Because political activity is not my interest. I’m too self-centred for that.
Michael: That’s my whole point. It would get you off yourself.

…

Joey [to Michael]: I feel a real need to express something but I don’t know what it is I want to express or how to express it.

…

Renata: The book didn’t get the response it deserved. I hate to tell you how often they’ve missed the boat.
Frederick: Stop lying to me. I count on you for honesty, not flattery.
Renata: I’m not lying. I’m not lying. And who cares what anybody thinks? They think what I think.
Frederick: My work once showed promise and I haven’t delivered.
Renata: Your work’s not fashionable. You should be thankful for that, for God’s sakes. What are you after? The superficial acclaim of some little book reviewer in some room somewhere? We’ve always talked about fine work that means something in the long run.
Frederick: I don’t care about fine work! I don’t wanna wait 20 years! I wanna be able to knock somebody over now!..And half the stuff that’s written, it’s garbage, they praise sky-high![/b]

We seem to have the same sort of prickly dilemma here regarding “serious philosophy”.

[b]Renata: Drink yourself unconscious. That’s one cliché of being a novelist you have no problem with.
Frederick: Yeah, I sure can drink.
Renata: You’re fine as long as I keep everything going.
Frederick: What? You mean the cheques from Daddy so you can write yourself into immortality?

…

Renata [to Frederick]: I just experienced the strangest sensation. It was as if I had a sudden clear visión where everything seems sort of awful and predatory. It was like… It was like I was here and the worid was out there, and I couldn’t bring us together.

…

Renata: What are these? Are these Joey’s photographs?
Frederick: Oh, yeah.
Renata: Let me see.
Frederick: They’re not very good, I’m afraid.
Renata: No. She doesn’t really have an eye.
Frederick: She’s gonna wanna know what you think, so you’d better get ready.
Renata: Poor Joey. She has all the anguish and anxiety of the artistic personality without any of the talent.

…

Pearl: You’ll live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to.

…

Joey [of Pearl to Arthur]: She’s a vulgarian!

…

Frederick [to Flyn]: I did a terrible thing last week. I wrote about this friend’s book. Not a very good book. I pointed that out. Which is what I was getting paid to do. But I was extremely cruel about it. And I took great pleasure in my cruelty. My anger scares me. I don’t like what I’m becoming.

…

Frederick [to Flyn]: It’s been such a long time since I made love to a woman I didn’t feel inferior to.

…

Joey: Mother, is that you? You shouldn’t be here, not tonight. I’ll take you home. You look so strange and tired. I feel like we’re in a dream together. Please don’t look so sad. It makes me feel so guilty, so consumed with guilt. It’s ironic, because I’ve cared for you so, and you have nothing but distain for me, and yet I feel guilty. I think you’re really too perfect to live in this world. I mean, all the beautifully furnished rooms, carefully designed interiors, everything’s so controlled. There wasn’t any room for any real feelings. None, between any of us. Except Renata, who never gave you the time of day. You worship Renata. You worship talent. Well, what happens to those of us who can’t create? What do we do? What do I do when I’m overwhelmed with feelings about life? How do I get them out? I feel such rage toward you! Oh mother, don’t you see, you’re not just a sick woman. That would be too easy. The truth is, there’s been perverseness, and willfulness of attitude in many of the things you’ve done. At the center of a sick psyche there is a sick spirit. But, I love you. And we have no other choice, but to forgive each other.[/b]

That’s what I learned to discard. We don’t have to forgive at all if we don’t feel someone deserves it. It’s just that calculating this will always be a complex and ever shifting point of view.