philosophy in film

[iambiguous]

How do you go about integrating all the terrible things that really do happen to flesh and blood human beings into a narrative that employs fanatasy? Here’s this sweet little girl interacting with these adult men [mostly men] who have experienced some truly terrible ordeals. How do you tell her the story? Especially the part about the lines being drawn between fantasy and reality?

Well, as is often the case, we take out of it only what we are first able to put into it: “I”. Then it comes down to the extent to which the story has an impact on “I” and changes it.

But this is one of those films where the cinematography [the passing images] alone can make it all worth while. It’s engaging enough just to look at it. Something out of a dream. Leave the “meaning” for others, some will suggest.

Googly, googly, go away? Don’t try this at home. Not if you expect it to work. You may as well pray to God.

Don’t make the mistake of letting your children watch this. It could even be argued that, in allowing Catinca Untaru to act in it, they are guilty of child abuse.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just a film about stuntmen.

IMDb

[b]The film was shot in 28 countries for four years.

The director claims that there are no special effects in the film despite its surreal looks. Everything was shot on real locations.

A miscommunication between the casting agent and Catinca Untaru led her to believe that Lee Pace was a real-life paraplegic. Director Tarsem Singh found that this brought an added level of believability to their dialogue, so he decided to keep almost the entire cast and crew under the same impression.

Singh shot the hospital scenes with Catinca Untaru in chronological order. As filming progressed over the course of six weeks, she grew taller and her English improved, like her character would have in real life.

One of the significant plot developments - Alexandria’s misinterpreting the letter E as the number 3 in a note written by Roy - was derived from an accidental misreading by the 6 year old actress during filming, which the director then realized he could adapt into a clever twist in the story.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(2006_film
trailer: youtu.be/EeAyIQ_OT_I

THE FALL [2006]
Directed by Tarsem Singh

[b]Patient [to Roy]: One cripple to another no woman is worth suicide.

…

Roy: What’s that?
Alexandria: Food.
Roy: Where’d you get it?
Alexandria: The chapel.
[feeds him a communion wafer]
Roy: I’m sorry I shouted at you. I was angry.
Alexandria: No problem.
Roy: Are you trying to save my soul?
Alexandria: [not understanding] Hmm?
Roy: Are you trying to save my soul? Do you understand me?
Alexandria: What?
Roy: Did you understand what I meant?
Alexandria: What you said?
Roy: I said, are you trying to save my soul? Giving me that?
Alexandria: What mean that?
Roy: The Eucharist.
Alexandria: What?
Roy: The Eucharist. The thing you gave me. It’s a… it saves your soul.
Alexandria: Hmm? The thing I give you… what?
Roy: The little piece of bread that you just gave me. It saves your soul.
Alexandria: What? What? What?

…

Alexandria [after Roy asks her to get him morphine pills: he wants to commit suicide]: Ask the head nurse.
Roy: I’m asking you as a friend.
Alexandria: But it’s stealing.
Roy: No it’s not. Not if you need it. It’s no different from stealing bread from the church. I need the pills to finish the story.

…

Blue Bandit [Roy in the story]: What a mystery this world, one day you love them and the next day you want to kill them a thousand times over.

…

Roy [as he is about to ingest morphine pills…or so he thinks]: When I fall asleep. You have to go.
Alexandria: Why?
Roy: Because I don’t want you to see me like this.

…

Roy: Sugar. They’ve been giving him sugar!

…

Alexandria: I fell again…I didn’t tell anyone about our secret. Not even when they tortured me with needles.

…

Roy [to Alexandria]: That story was just a trick to get you to do something for me. There’s no happy ending for me.

…

Alexandria: What means suicide?

…

Roy [to Alexandria]: It was the natural order of things…all things must die.

…

Alexandria [crying as Roy finishes the story]: Why are you killing everybody? Why are you making everybody die? Don’t kill him. Let him live. Don’t kill him. Let him live.[/b]

[iambiguous]

This is like no other “gangster” film you have ever seen before. Why? Because there are elements here you just don’t find in the genre. Not the least of which is the artwork. Or the part about Leukemia.

In fact, in some respects the part about crime and criminals is on the back burner. It is the personal stuff that draws you in here. His daughter, his wife, his friend. And the ending in particular. It sticks with you for a long time. Or it did me.

There’s Nishi with his wife. And there’s Nishi with practically everyone else. There’s the decorated cop. And there’s the ex-cop bank robber. There’s the thug. And there’s the tender, loving husband.

In other words, there are parts bursting at the seams with the beauty and serenity of nature, of art, of creativity. And then out of the blue…the grotesque, violent, blind stupidity of human behavior. Folks at their best, folks at their worst. Or at their best and then at their worst.

It’s how the two are interwoven. It will either appeal to you or it will not.

IMDb

[b]The paintings that appear throughout the movie were painted by Takeshi Kitano himself after his near-fatal motorcycle accident in August 1994.

Examples: guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/ … tano-paris

The Japanese title translates into 'Fireworks", but if you look further into the basis of the Japanese character for ‘fireworks’, you will see that it is composed of two smaller words - ‘fire’ and ‘flower’. And like the linguistic basis of the title, the story and style of “Hana-Bi” is the synthesis of two opposing images, one being an agent of destruction, and the other a symbol of birth and renewal.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hana-bi
trailer: youtu.be/cQPnn1aEhpM

FIREWORKS [Hana-bi] 1997
Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano

[iambiguous]

I like clever. So I like this. Though, admittedly, what some call clever others call simply contrived. But then anything clever has to first be contrived. So folks will always argue about how cleverly it is contrived.

Actually, given the protagonist, this crime is engineered. All the parts are fitted meticulously into place and, as a mechanism, it is manufactured much as a watch might be. Only there is a flaw in the design. And that’s too bad [from one point of view] because it really was quite ingenious. But the flaw only comes to the surface after he beat the charge. The first charge.

And the best psyvhological thrillers are the ones in which there is a contest between two very smart people. You get to pick the one you want to be victorious and then see which one it is. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes you just can’t make up your mind. For me, this is one of those. The guy is an arrogant, self-serving bastard. But then so is the lawyer.

And this is also about how our legal system [the corporate side, say] is able to throw big bucks at the brightest lawyers out there. And in this Wall Street culture “public service” becomes increasingly less enticing for those who would do the most good.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracture_(2007_film
trailer: youtu.be/a66BjFDecRo

FRACTURE [2007]
Directed by Gregory Hoblit

[b]Ted: I love you.
Jennifer: I know.
Ted: Does he…Mrs Smith?
[He shoots his wife dead]

…

Judge [to Willy]: I appreciate your concern for the dignity of the court 007. Unfortunately, the man is a tax-paying citizen and entitled by our constitution to try and manipulate the legal system like everybody else.

…

Willy: Look, the gun is in this house. Maybe he was wearing gloves. Maybe he had time to change. But it’s in the house…and I’ll tell you why it’s in the house. Because people were watching the house. And he never came out. And I could be wrong…but I don’t think that the gun grew little gun legs and ran out of the house.

…

Willy: I’m not going to play any games with you.
Ted: I’m afraid you have to old sport.

…

Ted: You know, my grandfather was an egg farmer.
Willy: This isn’t going to be about your, uh, “rough childhood,” is it?
Ted: No, I used to candle eggs at his farm. Do you know what that is? You hold an egg up to the light of a candle and you look for imperfections. The first time I did it he told me to put all the eggs that were cracked or flawed into a bucket for the bakery. And he came back an hour later, and there were 300 eggs in the bakery bucket. He asked me what the hell I was doing. I found a flaw in every single one of them - you know, thin places in the shell; fine, hairline cracks. You look closely enough, you’ll find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.
Willy: You looking for mine?
Ted: I’ve already found yours.
Willy: What is it?
Ted: You’re a winner, Willy.
Willy: Yeah.
[chuckles nervously]
Willy: Well, I guess the joke’s on me then, isn’t it?
Ted [grinning]: You bet your ass, old sport.

…

Ted: Yes, I wish to object.
Judge: On what grounds?
Ted [getting up]: I don’t know…
Willy: Your honor…
Ted: Um, I don’t know what, uh, you’d call it, but, uh, they… It wasn’t the first time it happened either… but, um. I, um, I don’t know the, uh, legal terminology.
Judge: Well, why don’t you try to explain it in layman’s terms.
Ted: Um… fucking the victim?

…

Ted: My dick has evidence.
Judge: Excuse me?
Ted: My Dick is good.

…

Willy: You taking me off this case?
Joe: Your bags are already packed. Just go.
Willy: Even if I find new evidence?
Joe: From where? The evidence store? What, are they open early the day after Thanksgiving?
Willy: My witness lied to me.
Joe: Yes, because he could. Because you weren’t looking. And I know why. Your head was in the fast lane on your big salary. So you picked that and what we do here…is not very important any more.
Willy: So that’s what this is about, isn’t it? I’m not gonna be like you in 20 years.
Joe: Hey, you be very careful.
Willy: You wanna judge me, be my guest…but this thing was a setup. The confession, everything.
Joe: Maybe. But it didn’t have to turn into a public humiliation for this office. You walked in there unprepared. You were arrogant and sloppy, and you did damage. How much, we don’t even know yet. And I noticed you didn’t even care to ask. But don’t worry yourself, Willy. We’ll clean up after you.

…

Lt. Nunally: I warned you about him.
Willy: You warned me that he was smart. You didn’t warn me that you were stupid.

…

Doctor: They all move, they-- they twitch, they make sounds. You think they’re dreaming, but they’re not. It’s just–It’s just what’s left of the system. Even if she comes back she may not remember how to speak let alone who shot her.
Willy: What if she can hear you?
Doctor: She can’t.
Willy: It happens, right? People wake up. It’s not impossible.
Doctor: What are you gonna do? Keep asking the same question different ways till you get the answer you want?
Willy: I guess. That’s what I do.
Doctor: Hmm. I knew I shoulda gone to law school.

…

Judge Gardner: You know what nobody understands about certain kinds of low pay public service work, every now and then you get put a fucking stake in a bad guys heart. I’m not supposed to talk about that when I visit third grade classes for career day and it doesn’t get you very far in the country club locker room, but its hard to beat when you actually get to do it.[/b]

Yeah but you can’t do that and become rich.

[b]Secretary: You’ve found the murder weapon!
Willy: I haven’t decided that yet.

…

Ted: You really need to be nice to me now, Willy.
Willy: Why?
Ted: Because…what’s left of a life depends on a machine powered by a cord that leads to a plug in an electrical outlet…and I decide when it gets pulled. That’s why.

…

Joe: We all lose, Willy.
Willy: I let a man get away with murder. How am I supposed to live with that?
Joe: Well, you learn to.
Willy: Well, I hope not.
Joe: Well, you know, if it makes you feel any better…technically you let a man get away with attempted murder. For what it’s worth.

…

Ted [to Willy]: And the look on his face, oh. He was trying to get her back to life. And I was pissing myself laughing. Because I took both the bastards out with one fucking bullet.

…

Willy [to Ted]: She was alive. When you first went to trial for attempted murder your wife was still alive. But you just had to pull that plug, didn’t you?

…

Willy [to Ted]: I just don’t know why you didn’t let it go. Doctor said, uh, she probably woulda outlived us all.[/b]

[iambiguous]

This is world entirely alien to me. It’s the mid nineteenth century in New Zealand. A “backwater” community on the west coast. A white coummunity interacting with the native Maori community. So, I wouldn’t even begin to pass judgments on the behaviors I see. Mostly I wonder this: Could this have been a true story? It’s not. But could it have been?

Try to imagine the gap – the psychological gap alone – between a “cultured” woman from Glascow, Scotland married off to man from the sticks on the other side of the world. He is a decent sort who wants to make her happy but as far as she is concerned he may as well be from the dark side of the moon.

Same with George. Another “oaf” as Flora puts it. But this one is able somehow to figure out a way to fit the piano into his relationship with her. One key at a time as it were. Strip piano. This way he might win her heart. And [being a man] all the other parts too.

It must be something women have to deal with all the time. They know the part about sex has to be factored in. But what about the parts that are more than that? What about the parts that make a relationship fuller? Anyway, this is one of the strangest love stories you’ll ever see. On or off the screen.

IMDb

[b]The last movie Nirvana Frontman Kurt Cobain watched before he died.

Despite winning an Oscar at a young age, Anna Paquin admitted to David Letterman in 2009 that she recently watched the film for the first time.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano
trailer: youtu.be/I_kaUp8NDDU

THE PIANO [1993]
Written and directed by Jane Campion

[b]Ada [voiceover]: The voice you hear is not my speaking voice–but my mind’s voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why–not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last. Today he married me to a man I have not yet met. Soon my daughter and I shall join him in his own country. My husband writes that my muteness does not bother him - and hark this! He says, “God loves dumb creatures, so why not I?”

…

Seaman: Does your mother prefer to come on with us to Nelson?
[Ada signs vigorously to Flora]
Flora: She says, No. She says she’d rather be boiled alive by natives than get back in your tub.

…

Stewart: What would you think if someone played a kitchen table like it were a piano?
Aunt Morag: Like it were a piano?
Stewart: It’s strange isn’t it? I mean it’s not a piano, it doesn’t make any sound.
Aunt Morag: No, no sound.
Stewart: I knew she was mute, but now I’m thinking it’s more than that. I’m wondering if she’s not brain affected.
Aunt Morag: No sound at all?
Stewart: No, it was a table

…

Stewart: Flora will explain anything Ada says. They talk through their fingers. You can’t believe what they say with just their hands.

…

Ada: I have told you the story of your father many many times.
Flora: Oh, tell me again! Was he a teacher?
Ada: Yes.
Flora: How did you speak to him?
Ada: I didn’t need to speak. I could lay thoughts out in his mind like they were a sheet.
Flora: Why didn’t you get married?
Ada: He became frightened and stopped listening.

…

Flora: She says its her piano and she won’t have him touch it. He’s an oaf. He can’t read. He’s ignorant.
Stewart: He wants to improve himself. And you’ll be able to play it. Teach him how to look after it. You can’t go on like this. We’re a family now. We all make sacrifices and so will you! You will teach him and I will see to it!

…

Flora: Actually, to tell you the whole truth, Mother says that most people speak rubbish, and it’s not worth it to listen.
Aunt Morag: Well, that is a strong opinion.
Flora: Aye. It’s unholy.

…

George [to Ada]: Undo your dress. I want to see your arms. Play. Two keys.

…

George: I want to lie together without clothes on.[/b]

Ten keys.

[b]George: I have given the piano back to you. I’ve had enough. The arrangement is making you a whore, and me, wretched. I want you to care for me. But you can’t. It’s yours, leave. Go on, go.

…

Stewart: Where’s your mother? Where’s she off to?
Flora: TO HELL!

…

George: Ada, I’m unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I’ve suffered. I am sick with longing. I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. So, if you have come with no feeling for me, then go. Go. Go. Get out. Leave!

…

Flora [to Ada]: I’m not going to call him Papa. I’m not going to call him anything. I’m not even gonna look at him.

…

Stewart [to Flora]: Take this to Baines. Tell him if he ever tries to see her again I’ll take off another and another and another![/b]

“This” being one of Ada’s fingers.

[b]George: What happened? Tell me. Tell me! Where is she? Shh. Quiet down! Quiet down. Where is she?
Flora: He chopped it off.
George: What did she tell him? What did she tell him? I’m going to crush his skull.
Flora: Nooo! No, no! He’ll chop her up!

…

Stewart [to George]: Understand me. I am here for her, for her I wonder that I don’t wake, that I am not asleep to be here talking with you. I love her. But what is the use? She doesn’t care for me. I wish her gone. I wish you gone. I want to wake and find it was a dream, that is what I want. I want to believe I am not this man. I want my self back; the one I know.

Ada [voiceover]: I teach piano now in Nelson. George has fashioned me a metal finger tip, I am quite the town freak which satisfies! I am learning to speak. My sound is still so bad I am ashamed. I practice only when I am alone and it is dark.

Ada [voiceover]: At night! I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine.

Ada [voiceover]: “There is a silence where hath been no sound / There is a silence where no sound may be / In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea.” Thomas Hood.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Move over Travis Bickle.

A grimmer man. A grimmer world. A grimmer movie. It looks as though someone smeared a film of shit over the camera lens.

In some respects, Taxi Driver is a day at the beach next to this one. It’s unrelentingly bleak, brutal…forboding. I suspect that most will react to it depending in large part on just how deep the hole they are in is now. Though some no doubt will inject a nihilistic philosophy into it and see it all as some sort of commentary on “the human condition”.

The Butcher after all is considerably more philosophical than Bickel. He has given this thing more, uh, thought.

Truly, it takes cynicism to a whole other level. For example, it leaves my own trailing in the dust. But there’s also this part:

The Butcher: The rich hardly ever go to prison. Prison is made for the poor. And laws are made for the rich. So the poor got no right to steal. Just to be ripped off and fucked over. No problem with that! White-collar scumbags like him can steal your money, your happiness and your dignity. All in total legality. Every day these crooks, sons of crooks, protected by laws written by their kin, slip their hand in your pocket and their finger up your ass…What’s more they want you to smile.

He tries [again and again] to find work. But nothing is available for a butcher. Times apparently are tough. He wants a new Robespierre to come along. Him for example. Only on a much smaller scale. He’s got one gun and three bullets.

Note: Some explicit language.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Stand_Alone_(film
trailer: youtu.be/a2LrPPzQhkM

I STAND ALONE [Seul Contre Tous] 1998
Written and directed by Gaspar Noé

[b]The Butcher [after an unsuccessful job interview at a slaughterhouse]: What? A fairy treating me like that? Tell me I’m dreaming! As if I didn’t know his wife dropped him the day she caught him having his sphincter rimmed by an employee. All the horsemeat butchers in Paris know that little Mr. Blanchat likes cock. He lets his ass do the blow jobs. And who’s he to be so proud? I hear his father was of the same ilk. I wonder why there are so many queers among the rich. Must be their lack of strenuous effort. They lounge around doing jack shit and their genes grow soft and degenerate. Yes indeed, that’s the way it is. France Fruitcake, not Horsemeat! Bullshit liar! I’m ashamed this guy is French. France is truly the kingdom of double-crossing scum. The better they dress the worse they are. Apllication card, my ass! I should have blown the scum away on the spot.

…

[MORALITY, in huge block letters, is displayed against a black screen at opening of film]
Man: You know what Morality is? I’ll tell you what it is. Morality is made for those who own it. The rich. And you know who’s always right? The rich. And the poor pay the price.
[JUSTICE displayed and then back to bar]
Man: You want to see my Morality?
Captive bar patron: Yeah.
Man: Yeah?
Captive bar patron: Yeah.
Man: Sure you won’t regret it?
Captive bar patron: I don’t know.
Man: I think it’s gonna scare you. Take a look.
[Pulls out and displays an automatic pistol]
Man: That’s Morality for you. You know why I carry this around? Huh? Because the guy in blue who shows off his Morality, dig? He’s got the upper hand, dig? He and his fucking Justice. But I… But I… Here’s my Justice.
[bar patron is obviously disturbed but is trying hard not to show his discomfort]
Man: Whether you’re right or whether you’re wrong. Same difference, friend.
[He finally stops waving the pistol and with a sense of satisfaction puts it back beneath his leather jacket]

…

Title card: Les Cinemas de la Zone present the tragedy of a jobless butcher struggling to survive in the bowels of his nation. SEUL CONTRE TOUS: Alone Against All.

Narrator: To each his own life, to each his own Morality. My life?

[Various photographs, relevant to the narration are displayed, as the narrator continues]

Narrator: There’s nothing to it. It’s the life of a sorry chump. They should write that someday. The story of a man like so many others, as common as can be. It starts off in France, shithole of cheese and Nazi lovers. Our man is born near Paris in 1939. In '41 his mother abandons him. He’ll never see her again. At the War’s end, he finally finds our who his father was. A French Communist killed in a German death camp. He’s now six years old. Inner turmoil is part of him. Meanwhile, an educator nabs his innocence in the name of Jesus. At the age of 14, driven by survival, he learns to be a butcher. For ten years he works around saving up penny after penny to pay for his market place. At 30, he succeeds and sets up shop in Aubervilliers. After a rough couple of years, his horsemeat trade gains momentum.

Narrator: At last he can start living. He dates a young worker and bursts her hymen at the Hotel of the Future across the street from the factory she works in. But events precipitate. Nine months later, he fathers a baby girl, Cynthia, rejected by the mother. She abandons them and he’s forced to raise his daughter on his own. Years go by. The meat market struggles on. The butcher pays installments on a small flat. He raises his daughter, who’s locked in muteness.

Narrator: She reaches puberty. She takes on shapes. The father, unwilling bachelor, must resist temptation. And that’s when tragedy strikes. The young girl has her first period.

Narrator: Stricken by an unfamiliar pain, she heads for her father’s shop. A worker tries to seduce her on her way over. A neighbor spots them and takes the girl to her father. Seeing blood on her skirt, he can only think of rape. He grabs a knife and takes off after the criminal. On a nearby construction site he sees another worker. The butcher stabs his knife into his face. The innocent man survives, the butcher winds up in jail and his daughter is placed in an institution. He writes a few letters to her. Months go by. The butcher is forced to give up his flat and shop. He’s out of jail, but all is lost.

Narrator: To survive, he takes a job in a bar. He becomes the matron’s lover. She gets pregnant and offers to sell her bar to start over from scratch, in another city. With the proceeds, she can afford to lease a meat market. Having no other choice, the man accepts.

Narrator: For the first time, he visits his daughter. He tells her goodbye. She watches him leave without a word. The next morning, he drives out of Paris with the matron hoping to escape the dark tunnel of his existence.

Narrator: They reach Lille and stay with the matron’s mother, waiting to find a flat and shop of their own. Unlike his native Paris, streets in northern France seem sad and deserted. For the first time in his life, he feels like a stranger. Images of his dead father, a deportee, rise to the surface.

Narrator: But the butcher, like every man, is a being of pure survival. He decides to forget his past & his betrayal of his daughter. And his love for her. Well, Love is a mighty big word. Few can claim to know what Love is.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: Death isn’t much of anything in the end. We make such a big deal out of it. But up close, it’s like nothing. A body without life, nothing more. People are like animals. You love them, you bury them and then it’s over. Still, it’s my first time seeing it. Hers too. But she seems all upset. Yet there’s nothing to get all mushy over. All right, yeah. I’ll walk her home. She looks fragile. Besides…she’s pretty.

…

Old Friend: Life is a battle, each and every day.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: Love, friendship, it’s all bullshit. Juvenile illusions to hide the fact that human relations are nothing but cheap business.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: The hotel owner, your friends, the barber. They don’t give a fuck. Show them you’re not in the money and they’ll throw your ass out. And they’ll do it in the most humilating way.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: Never turn your back on violence. It’s a man thing!

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: It’s clear. To each his own Morality. To each his own Justice.

…

Title card: WARNING: YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO LEAVE THE SCREENING OF THIS FILM…DANGER DANGER DANGER

…

The Butcher [in his head…and on the screen…he has just raped and killed his daugther…now he has the gun pressed to his neck]: Here we go. They won’t escape. The red button. Soon, the void. And all they’re gonna get from me is shreds of my brain. The void. Here I go. It’s over.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: Strange how I’ve failed at everything. My birth. My youth. My love life. My shop. I should never have been born. No. Never. My entire life is a mistake. Except for my daughter…

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: I don’t know how today’s going to end. But here with you, I exist. And I’m happy.
[he unbottons his daughter’s jacket and starts to fondle her breast]
The rest doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s our last day. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll never shoot myself. Maybe I’ll make love to you. And tomorrow I’ll be locked up. So what? Jail isn’t the end of the world. If worse comes to worse, I can always hang myself.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: In the end, maybe my life has meaning. To protect you. To bring you all the happiness that nobody else will ever give you. You are my little girl. And I will make you … a woman. We’ll do it. And we’ll be happy. It will be our secret.

…

The Butcher [voiceover]: People think they’re free. But freedom doesn’t exist. There are only the laws that strangers have made for their own good. Laws that bind me to unhappiness. And among those laws one says I must not love you because you are my daughter. And why? If they forbid us this love, it’s surely not because it’s evil…but because it’s too powerful. Between us…that’s I’ll I can see. [/b]

[iambiguous]

If anyone had told me ten years ago I’d be watching a fascinating film depicting “the moving true story of volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet”, I certainly would not have responded by saying, “what, again?”

The poachers here use machine guns. And the antelope are all out on the open plain. Of course they do have their reasons. It seems the wool from the animals is highly prized in “foreign markets”. And that’ll do it, of course. So here we have the local folks just trying to earn a living in order to susbist from day to day and the capitalists well up the chain of command where the really big bucks are made.

It’s the way of the world. And all of this becomes entangled in faith and a way of life that seems rather futile to me. Only it turns out it is not. But how much longer can it be sustained in this strange admixture of the modern and the traditional.

Here it is not only men but nature too that can be merciless. The quicksand for example. It’s unlike any I have ever seen depicted in film.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kekexili:_Mountain_Patrol
trailer: youtu.be/rosOtYVJM4I

MOUNTAIN PATROL [Kekexili] 2004
Written and directed by Chuan Lu

[b]Ga Yu [voiceover]: Kekexili… the last virgin wilderness of China. This plain, nearly 4,700 meters high… is the only remaining habitat of the Tibetan antelope. In 1985, poachers began hunting antelopes for their fine wool…which was prized in foreign markets. Within a few years the number of antelopes plunged from one million to under 10,000.

…

Ga Yu [voiceover]: A volunteer civilian patrol was formed in 1993 to combat the poachers. It was led by Ritai, a retired Tibetan army officer. The patrol fought fierce battles with the poachers arousing the attention of the outside world. In the winter of 1996 poachers murdered one of the patrolmen. My newspaper immediately sent me to cover the story.

…

Ga Yu: I’m a reporter from Beijing.
Ritai: I don’t have the time.
Ga Yu: Wait a second. You want this place to be declared as a nature reserve. Maybe I can help.

…

Ritai: Qiangba’s not with us anymore.
A-Wang: Chasing after another girl?
Ritai: He was killed by the poachers. You be careful.

…

Ritai [to Ga Yu]: We bury more than 10,000 antelopes each year.

…

Ma Zhanlin: I skin the animals.
Ga Yu: How much do they pay you?
Ma Zhanlin: Five Yuan for each pelt. I’m the fastest skinner in Ge’ermu. All my children are here, too. He’s my eldest, here’s the middle one, and the youngest. They’re all skinners. In the past, I was a shepherd. I herded sheep, cattle, and camels. Now the grasslands have turned into desert. The sheep and cattle all gone dead or sold off. It’s tough to survive here.

…

Patrolman: In Kekexili each step may be the first human footprint ever made on that spot since the world began. Those aren’t my words. Two years ago, a geologist came from Beijing. I took him to Kekexili and he said that to me.

…

Ma Zhanlin: I can’t make it.
Ritai: Yes, you can. It’s 200 kilometers to the Al Mountain. And 100 more to the Kunlun Pass. You can make it. If you don’t make it, then it’s your fate.

…

Ga Yu: Your whole situation looks pretty desperate.
Ritai: We’re short of money, short of men, short of guns. My guys haven’t been paid for almost a year.
Ga Yu: Can the country help?
Ritai: We’re not officially employed.
Ga Yu: How do you pay for the patrol?
Ritai: We have to raise the money ourselves.
GaYu: What do you do with the pelts?
Ritai: We hand most of them over to the authorities.
GaYu: Do you sell some to raise the money?
Ritai: I’ve sold the pelts before. I had no choice.[/b]

And why not? If you can sell the pelts to raise the money to fund the patrols that go after the poachers, it will be as though the antelope did not die in vain.

Ma Zhanlin: This is our boss.
Ritai: I’ve been chasing you for years.
Gunman: Why?
Ritai: You killed my antelope.
Gunman: So did a lot of people.
Ritai: That’s no excuse.
Gunman: So what do you want?
Ritai: You to come with me.
Gunman: Captain, if you let me off the hook…I’ll buy you two cars and I’ll build you a new house, too.
Ritai: Surrender your guns and come with me.
Gunman: Sure! Let’s give the Captain our guns. We’ll join his mountain patrol.
[the others all laugh]

Then Ritai is shot dead.

Titlecard: This film was inspired by the Wild Yak Brigade, a real life volunteer group that patrolled the Tibetan Plateau during the 1990s. The volunteers helped raise international awareness, leading to a reduction in poaching and a clamp down on the illegal trade of shahtoosh, the wool of the Tibetan antelope. The population of Tibetan antelope in 2006 was believed to be more than 100,000 and growing. The Chinese government disbanded the brigade in 2001 after establishing its own anti-poaching unit to help protect the animals.

[iambiguous]

What does it mean to be a “good girl”? Well, it means to be like all the other girls. And what does that mean? Well, spend a few days watching everything you can on telelvision. See if it doesn’t come to you.

Lots of films like this one though. The “culture” tends to mass produce folks that are pretty much like everybody else. They’re not too bright, interesting, curious, immaginative…or looking to change that. They embrace pop culture and consuming mass quantities of “stuff”. They are obsessed with all things celebrity and in figuring out how to be one themselves. For about 15 minutes.

The solution? Well, it’s completely apolitical of course. You just miraculously bump into one of those few and far between folks who do not buy into it…and he or she changes you. Of course that won’t work until it finally begins to dawn on you that you feel trapped in a life that is exactly same every single day. And one without a shred of real passion…or meaning. Only it might be said that these two have not really thought it through all that much. And they both work at Retail Rodeo. Besides, he’s about as mature as Eddie Haskell.

Oh, and then there is Cheryl.

As for the ending, she is basically smack dab in the middle of square one again. Not a fucking thing has really changed save the baby. Some will see it as a bad girl who has learned her lesson. She is back to being a good girl again. But others will see it for what it really is instead. And that could be anything.

Anyway, you can almost imagine something like this actually happening.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Girl
trailer: youtu.be/FZXynl7z4hU

THE GOOD GIRL [2002]
Directed by Miguel Arteta

[b]Justine [voiceover]: As a girl you see the world as a giant candy store filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and you see a prison and you’re on death row. You wanna run or scream or cry but something’s locking you up. Are the other folks cows chewing cud until the hour comes when their heads roll? Or are they just keeping quiet like you, planning their escape.

…

Corny: You got any interest in reading the Bible?
Justine: I have my own, you know, beliefs.
Corny: Well, we don’t preach fire and brimstone. 10 Commandments, gotta live by those. Other than the usual ways, we’re not interested in scaring people. We’re about loving Jesus.
Justine: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of like my nights to myself.
Corny: Well, maybe you’ll have night after night of eternal hellfire all to yourself. Just kidding you.

…

Justine: Whatcha readin’?
Holden: Catcher in the Rye… I’m named after it.
Justine: What’s your name?
[Holden stares at her blankly]
Justine: Catcher?

…

Justine: What happens at the end of your book?
Holden: He has a nervous breakdown, goes to a mentaI hospitaI.
Justine [considering that]: Hmm.

…

Cheryl: Here’s your change and fuck you very much.
Shopper: Excuse me?
Cheryl: And thank you very much.

…

Justine [to Holden]: I hate my job. I hate everybody here. I’m starting to understand why maniacs shoot everybody to pieces.

…

Justine: They call you Tom?
Holden: It’s my slave name. Holden is what I call myself.

…

Justine [to Holden]: I was Iooking at you in the store, and I Iiked how you kept to yourseIf. I saw in your eyes that you hate the worId. I hate it too.

…

Justine [voiceover]: After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of the light can make you giddy. Strange thoughts come into your head and you better think’em. Has a special fate been calling you and you not listening? Is there a secret message right in front of you and you’re not reading it? Is this your last, best chance? Are you gonna take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?

…

Bubba: If I were a woman, I’d be a slut. A lesbian slut.

…

Phil: I’ve been thinking about what you were saying about my sperm being Iow. I mean, I know I’ve got good sperm. Baby-making sperm. I suppose it couIdn’t hurt to have it confirmed by an expert.
Justine [out of the blue]: Who gives a shit? Who needs a fucking baby, anyway? Why don’t you get that goddamn TV fixed?
Phil [startled] What the heII?!
Justine: It sounds Iike a heIicopter is landing in here.

…

Cheryl: The first rule of fashion is you have to look weird. What I’m doing has come straight here from France.
Old Woman: Oh?
Cheryl: It’s called Cirque du Face, meaning “Circus of the Face”, and it’s all the rage with the Frenchies, ma’am.
Old Woman: Well, you’re the professional.

…

Justine [voiceover]: Bubba sat like that for what seemed like 10 years before he began to speak. When he opened his mouth, he talked about the sad ruin that was his life. He talked about how he loved Phil and me and how he always wanted a girlfriend like me, and to be like Phil…to this imaginary girl like me who he’d never found. Then he talked about giving up dreams, and how it’s part of getting older. Bubba had given up his dream of being Phil. He had accepted his fate of being Bubba, always and forever. Then last week, a door that had always been shut swung wide open. Bubba felt this was no chance coincidence. A cosmic force was at work. The sounds of me making love to a man who wasn’t Phil was like a shout in Bubba’s ear from the creator himself. What it meant or what to do or why, Bubba didn’t know. All he knew was that he hated me for poisoning the well of idealism from which he had drunk for so long. I was no longer Bubba’s image of perfection. I was just a liar and a whore, and that sickened him. But on the other hand, he loved me for releasing him from the chains of bitter envy that bound him to Phil. Phil was no Superman, just a cuckold and a fool, and that was beautiful. Bubba felt there was one thing left for us to do. Something that would solve both of our problems and end this tragic saga.
Justine: Bubba, I’m not gonna sleep with you.
Bubba: Look, you got your choice to make, destroy your marriage and break your husband’s heart, or have sex with me right now.

…

Justine: Holden, go home, sober up, meet me after work and we will talk about this.
Holden: Where are you going?
Justine: I gotta help Phil with his sperm.
Holden: What?!
Justine: Just go! Go on!
Holden: I can’t share you, Justine. Maybe with one man, but not with a whole bunch of them!

…

Holden: You know, sometimes I think to myself: At least it can’t get any worse. But it can! It can get worse! As long as you can say you hit rock bottom, you haven’t.

…

Phil [to Justine and Bubba]: Dumb doctor says that my sperm is no good.

…

Phil [to Justine]: It looks like that wind is picking up again.

…

Justine [voiceover]: How it all came down to this, only the Devil knows. Retail Rodeo is at the corner on my left. The motel is down the road to my right. I close my eyes and try to peer into the future. On my left, I saw days upon days of lipstick and ticking clocks, dirty looks and quiet whisperings. And burning secrets that just won’t ever die away. And on my right, what could I picture? The blue sky, the desert earth, stretching out into the eerie infinity. A beautiful never-ending nothing.

…

Jack: Attention, Retail Rodeo employees, this is Jack Field, your store manager. As most of y’all know by now, we lost another empIoyee yesterday. Holden was a thief and a disturbed young man. What happened was a sad thing. Let’s learn a lesson from this, like: Don’t steal and don’t be disturbed.

…

Justine [voiceover]: That day I read the story Holden had wrote for me. It was kinda different from the other ones but kinda the same. It was about a girl who was put upon, whose job is like a prison, and whose life has lost all meaning. Other people don’t get her, especially her husband. One day she meets a boy who is also put upon and they fall in love. After spending their whole lives never getting got, with one look they get each other completely. In the end the girl and the boy run away together into the wilderness, never to be heard from again.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Road trip. At least the first half. But, unless it’s a comedic farce [like, say, the movie Road Trip], it goes without saying you won’t like the movie unless you like at least one of the folks on it. And if you end up liking three for three, all the better. And it’s not often they are all women. All the better still.

Naturally, at least two of them could not possibly be more different. Meaning [at first] they really get on each other’s nerves. One get’s choked up watching The Way We Were and the other can’t stop laughing. So you know what’s coming there.

And then there’s Holly. And the murder trial. And AIDS.

At first I didn’t even recoginze Mary Louise Parker. And that’s because whe lost 20 pounds to play the role. And that’s because her character here is afflicted with AIDS. In fact, the part about AIDS is everywhere here. That and gender. The film does the best it can to give us unsights into both. But nothing can ever really be pinned down. Not even with the help of tarot cards.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_on_the_Side
trailer: youtu.be/ud7XQ87-nU0

BOYS ON THE SIDE [1995]
Directed by Herbert Ross

[b]Jane [to Johnny]: She’s holding you back, man. Everyone says so. She’s like Yoko with bangs.

…

Jane: Look, Robin, right? You’re a nice lady and I’m sure there’s a lot of things about yourself that you just can’t help and I understand that. But I don’t fuckin’ think we mesh at all. And I’m sure there’s somebody out there who wants to go cross country with the whitest woman on the face of the earth, singing Carpenter songs and reliving childhood memories. But it ain’t me.

…

Robin: Don’t you ever knock?
Jane: Not in a public toilet, no.

…

Jane: Oh well, tell me. What do you want?
Robin: It’s not very liberated, I know but I want a husband with a decent job. And, I want two kids, a boy and a girl, in that order, and a soap box colonial with three bedrooms, a sun porch, a stairway with a white banister, and a convertible den.
Jane: You could’ve been Donna Reed in another life.

…

Nick: Stick to what you know, Jane. That’s something about you girls I could never figure out. What’s sex like without a dick?
Jane: I don’t know, man. You tell me.

…

Holly: Did I hurt him?
Jane: What do you mean did you hurt him, you hit him on the head with a bat!

…

Jane: No, we’re not taking drug money on the road with us. Put it back.
Holly: Well, it’s not like you can tell by looking at it.
Jane: OK, you have a point. We’ll take half.

…

Holly: I can’t go to jail. Not with the baby.

…

Jane: You were gonna bring a baby into that house?!
Holly: Oh, like, what were my options?
Jane: How about abortion?
Holly: I couldn’t do that. I’d feel like a murderer.
Jane: Honey, you ARE a murderer!
Holly: Oh, God. To think it’s possible I killed my baby’s daddy.
Jane: “To think it’s possible?” You hit him in the head with a baseball bat. He’s dead.

…

Jane: AIDS? You tellin’ me she’s got AIDS?!
Doctor: Yes. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.

…

Jane: What is this, below the belly button?
Robin: I’m not going to say “pussy” if that’s what you’re after, okay, I hate that.
Jane: Okay. So, what do you call it?
Robin: Down there.
Jane: Oh, come on! “Down there!”
Robin: Well, “vagina” seems so formal.
Jane: But you make it sound like a basement!
Robin: Okay. Honestly? Fine. “Hoo-hoo” or “cissy.”
Jane: You’re kidding, right? A “hoo-hoo” or a “cissy,” what is that?
Robin: Well that’s what my mother called it. I had a hoo-hoo or a cissy and my brother had a “noodle” or a “dingle.”
Jane: And that’s what you still call it?
Robin: Well, it’s better than “pussy.” Or “beaver.” What’s that about? I never got that. Or worse…
Jane: Worse? Did you say worse? Now, what could be worse? I have to hear you say it.
Robin: Well, you know. I’m not going to say it.
Jane: Oh, come on! “C-U-N-T.” Come on, please?
Robin: I don’t think so.[/b]

But Jane finally drags it out of her. Then they walk about the house shouring it. And this means what exactly?

[b]Abe: It smells like marijuana out here.
Holly: Clove cigarettes.
Abe: Now you know that’s not good for the baby.
Holly: Yeah, well, having him come out of that tiny hole is not good for me, either, so we’re even.

…

Robin: No. No. You don’t understand. I…I’m…positive. I tested positive.
Alex: It’s okay. I know. I know.
Robin: Who told you? It was Jane. She told you.
Alex: Yeah, she told me. It was no big deal. She said you were shy and had…had a bad time with some guy and I guessed, and she didn’t deny it. It just came up real casually. It’s just part of your history, like hey, she’s on the rebound or something so be careful, you know. It just came out…
Robin: What does that make you? The big hero? Bringing sex to the unfuckable.

…

Robin: You don’t know anything about it. Anyway, it’s none of your business. You’re the one that’s in love with somebody that you can never have.
Jane: Do me a favor, okay? I’ll stay out of your love life and you stay out of mine.
Robin: Not just my love life. My life. Stay out of my life!
Jane: Meaning what?
Robin: That means maybe this isn’t working. Maybe you should move.
Jane: Okay.
Robin: And take that fucking piano! If you don’t, I’ll leave it out in the rain. I swear to God I will.
Jane: All right.

…

Abe: You’re not…you’re not over him yet, are you?
Holly: Well, we’re all over him. Like, six feet over him.

…

Elaine: Jane is a black lesbian?!
Abe: Yes, ma’am. That’s right.
Elaine [to Robin]: And she was living here, with you?
Holly: No, no, no, no. She was just living here. They weren’t like, fucking or anything…Were you?

…

Elaine: They do that now, don’t they?
Robin: What?
Elaine: Call themselves “lesbos.”
Robin: Oh, Mom.
Elaine: And she makes it sound like a compliment.

…

Massarelli: You are, however, one of these gay women that we read about, or do you prefer lesbian?
Jane: Do I prefer them to you?
Massarelli: Are you gay?
Jane: Do I look gay?
Massarelli: One last time: Are - You - Gay?
Jane: Yes - I - Am.
[Massarelli turns away, satisfied]
Jane: And I’m sure you hear that from women all the time. But in my case, it happens to be true.

…

Abe: I do know that there is no kind of family without the law. None whatsoever. Because the law that governs this society is the same law that holds the family together.
Jane: Where did you read that? On the side of a Cheerios box?

…

Elaine: I do the best I can, honey. I know it’s not enough, and I’m sorry. But that’s what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you, and fight for you, when everyone else is gone. And it ain’t always who you expect. But you just have to make do.

…

Robin [to Massarelli]: …it was over between them. I know you think a girl like her, the most important thing in her life is a man, but she didn’t need him. She had us. I don’t know what it is, but, there’s something that goes on between women. You men know that because it’s the same for you. I’m not saying one sex is better than the other. I’m just saying, like speaks to like.

…

Massarelli: Are you a lesbian too, Ms. Nickerson?
Robin: No sir…but at times I understand the inclination.

…

Robin: It’s just it’s…lonely. Between me and everybody else there’s all this space all the time and it gets bigger and bigger and I’m on one side, you know and, I’m screaming and…and they’re waving. And the one person I think I’m holding is waving too.
Jane: I’m holding you.

…

Robin: It was me you loved, wasn’t it?
Jane: Yeah. Still.[/b]

[iambiguous]

A sophisticated art dealer from Chicago shows up in North Carolina to meet an eccentric artist. So, while there, why not drop in on the Husband’s weird [and somewhat less than urbane] family. What can’t go wrong?

It’s got comedy and drama written all over it. Only what’s comedy to some is drama to others. Misunderstandings are built right into “world views” this far removed.

These are the kind of folks that really do get on the nerves of those that are of another kind altogether. But probably no where near as much as they get on the nerves of each other. Let me put it this way: the nicest one is the most obnoxious of all. Okay, admittedly, not every one will agree.

Also, admittedly, a lot of it is just politics. Or awash in religion. The nicest people in the world can irritate the shit out of you when they rub you the wrong way there. I know they do me. There are the parts I come to like…sometimes a lot…but then they open their mouths.

trailer: youtu.be/fGXlIvf5RMU
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junebug_(film

JUNEBUG [2005]
Directed by Phil Morrison

[b]Wark: Now, here… I couldn’t finish Lee’s cock on the front… so I painted it around on the back.
Scout: That’s General Lee’s cock?
Wark: Ya.

…

Madeleine [to Wark]: I love all the dog head men. And computers. And all the scrotums.

…

Ashley: I want to know everything there is to know about you. I want you to tell us every little thing.
Madeleine: God. That would be so boring.
Ashley: Not to me. What-Makes-You-Tick? Were you born in Chicago? I was born right here. I’ve lived here all my whole life. My favorite animal is the meerkat. Do you know what they are? They’re so cute. I’ve got this little charm bracelet with meerkats on it. Did you have lots of boyfriends? I bet you did. Did you ever try out for cheerleading or anything? I tried out, but I didn’t make it.[/b]

She never fucking shuts up. And she’s known her about 3 minutes. Then:

[b]Madeleine: I was born in Japan. My father was in the diplomatic service. And then we moved to Africa. And then to Washington, DC for a short while and then back to Africa and then to Chicago.
Ashley: I’ll bet you went to college, huh?

…

Johnny [at work]: I worked with this one guy. He liked to go deer hunting. He got a tic stuck on his anus. He thought it was a hemorrhoid. He kept on putting Preparation H on it for week, made it all supple. He had his wife look at it and she screamed, “Oh my God, it’s a tic!”. He pulled it off and stomped it and it wouldn’t even crush because the Preparation H made it so soft.

…

Ashley [to Johnny]: God loves you just the way you are. But He loves you too much to let you stay that way.

…

Ashley [to Madeleine]: All I really want is for Johnny to love me like he did in high school.

…

Madeleine [startled when Johnny puts his hand on her ass]: What are you doing? Hey. Oh shit. I’m sorry. Oh my god, Johnny, it’s so sweet almost. I’m sorry.
Johhny: What, you think I’m a fuckin’ idiot? Ever since you got here you’ve been playing me, man. Don’t tell me you didn’t mean anything by it. I know it when I see it. I’m not stupid! I’m not an idiot!
Madeleine: Johnny, you completely misunderstood me. I was helping you. Sweetheart, listen…
Johnny: Oh shut up! You bitch! Fuck! Where the hell you think George come from anyway? He’s no better than us! And neither are you.

…

Peg [to Ashley]: I don’t want your water breaking. We just had the upholstery cleaned.

…

Madeleine: I believe, Mr. Wark, I love your work more than Mark Lane does.
Wark: I’m a collaborator with God. This life here is just a saddening well of tears. I got no great wish to tarry here. And I’m ready to ascend anytime. But my job here is to make the invisible visible.
Madeleine: I want to help you. I want to give you the opportunity to do just that. I can.
Wark: There. Right there, that’s my Niggerland Uprising series. Poor old nigger slaves arising up against their evil oppressors. I never could draw a colored face. I’ve never known one personally. I just look in a mirror and put my own in there. I want you to tell him that he’s helping me get my message to the world.
Madeleine: You could reach the whole of Europe with me. Think about that.
Wark: Sissy says New York.
Madeleine: Okay, well, if New York is the obstacle I can absolutely guarantee you that we would show in New York. We work with Mimi Steinberg there…
Wark: A Jew?
Madeleine: What?
Wark: Jewess? That lady? That wouldn’t be what we want’n to do.
Madeleine: Mark Lane is Jewish.
Wark: What?![/b]

Is she even listening to this guy? Or is it always about the art?

[b]Ashley [after she lost her baby]: It’s not my fault.
George: Course not.
Ashley: And all that time and all that stuff I got and all those months. It was just all for nothing! And those fucking doctors! They think that they know everything! But they don’t know anything. They don’t know anything. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why would God let this happen! Why would he. I just wanted something good to come out of all of this!

…

George [to Madeleine on the way back to Chicago]: I’m so fuckin’ glad we’re out of there.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Watch enough reality crime docs and you know this sort of stuff really does go on all the time. People kill folks for money. Family folk. Or hire other folks to do it. But that’s what happens when you live in a culture where having money is second only to drawing breath in priority. Only in “reality” almost nobody charges $25,000. Five, ten thousand tops. Some will even do it for a couple hundred dollars…or just for the fun of it.

But then the entertainment industry does like to rub it in the faces of those who need money [or want a lot more of it]: here, look at all these folks who have it. Wouldn’t you like to be like them?

The folks here are your stereotypical poor white trash. And yes they live in a trailer park. But then I once did too. There must be different kinds. And this is Texas. Dallas, Texas. But not the part where the Ewings lived. Though folks killed for money there too. Basically, these folks are just offered up for us to gawk at. As near as I can figure. And then to measure the distance between their lives and our own.

And the only one you really care about at all is Dottie. She is sort of, well, naive and innocent. And sweet. She’s a bit, uh, slow. But pretty as hell. And a virgin. She’s almost like a little girl.

IMDb

[b]The film was released theatrically with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA for “graphic aberrant content involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality” but was edited down to an R rating for the home video release so that the DVD and Blu-ray could be sold in certain stores. The reason for the R rating given by the MPAA was for “strong and disturbing violence, sexuality, graphic nudity, drug use and language”.

In an interview Gina Gershon revealed that she wore a merkin. After ordering a wide variety, she settled on one she named Bertha.[/b]

Good to know.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Joe_(film
trailer: youtu.be/uP08PfpIvO4

KILLER JOE [2011]
Directed by William Friedkin

[b]Chris: Open the door!
Sharla [answers door, naked from the waist down]: What?
Chris: Jesus, put some clothes on! Why would you answer the door like that?
Sharla: I didn’t know it was you.

…

Chris: You ever hear of Joe Cooper?
Ansel: No.
Chris: He’s a cop. A detective actually. He’s got a little business on the side.
Ansel: Well what’s he do.
Chris: He’s a killer. He kills people.

…

Dottie: I heard y’all talking about killing mama. I think it’s a good idea.
Chris: Well, there you go.

…

Killer Joe: That poor, miserable bastard set his own genitals on fire just to teach his girlfriend a lesson. I guess he showed her. I wonder if she ever got over it.
Dottie: Was he all right?
Killer Joe: No. No, he was not all right. He set his genitals on fire.

…

Killer Joe: Don’t change plans on me again.

…

Dottie: Are you gonna kill my mama?
Killer Joe: I don’t know. Why?
Dottie: I was just curious.

…

Killer Joe: My payment is $25 thousand dollars, in cash, in advance. No exceptions.
Ansel: 25?
Killer Joe: Yes sir.
Ansel [to Chris]: I thought you said 20.
Chris: I was told 20.
Killer Joe: 25. Is that a problem?
Chris: We don’t have a problem with 25. That’s not our problem.
Killer Joe: What is your problem?
Chris: We have a problem with the advance.
Killer Joe: No exceptions.
Chris: Sir, let me explain. One of the reasons we’re interested in having this done, is my mother holds a very large insurance policy.
Killer Joe: They usually do.
Chris: We thought if we could guarantee payment after the policy had been covered…
Killer Joe: Look, this really isn’t open for discussion. The conversation is finished.
[Chris goes after him as he leaves]
Killer Joe: What did you think this is, Let’s Make a Deal? This is serious business you’re fucking with here, boy.
Chris: I’m aware of that.
Killer Joe: No, I don’t think you are. I don’t take you seriously
Chris: This is going to get done, one way or another.

…

Killer Joe [looking put the door at Dottie]: Of course we never discussed the possibility of a retainer.
Chris: What do you mean?
Killer Joe: You know where to reach me. Call me if she is interested.
Chris: Are you talkin’ about my sister?
Killer Joe: Is that who she is?

…

Ansel: We could kill her ourselves.
Chris: Dad, you’re gonna kill somebody? You can’t even tell time.

…

Killer Joe: Dottie, do you trust me?
Dottie: Not quite.

…

Killer Joe: Tuna casserole! May I serve?
Dottie: How are you gonna kill my mama?
Killer Joe: That’s not appropriate dinner conversation, Dottie.
Dottie: It is if you poison her.

…

Ansel [to Chris]: Who told you about Killer Joe?!

…

Chris [to Dottie…but really to the world]: Do you like Texas? These people talk about it like it’s such a great place and all, but it’s really just A BUNCH OF GODDAMN HICKS AND REDNECKS WITH TOO MUCH SPACE TO WALK AROUND IN!!
Dottie: It’s warm.

…

Killer Joe [holding out a photograph]: Whose dick is that?
Sharla: Where’d you get that?
[he walks over to Ansel]
Killer Joe: Is that your dick, Ansel?
Ansel: No.
Killer Joe: Now, whose dick is it?

…

Killer Joe: I mean all she did was suck his cock and try and steal your money. It could have been worse.
Ansel: How?
Killer Joe: Well… no, I suppose that’s about as bad as it gets.

…

Killer Joe: This is lovely. Who would like to say grace?

…

Dottie [moving her finger back to the trigger]: I’m gonna have a baby.[/b]

[iambiguous]

As with Primer above, this is all about the [at times] entirely enigmatic implications of time travel. What if this and what if that. But not nearly as scientifically technical. Here it’s just there. Still, trying to keep all these relationships “rational” in your head is more than most of us can manage…at least once you get past the first Hector. And even then it’s always slipping in and out of our capacity to fully grasp.

Some argue that this film is less of a mindfuck than Primer. Don’t believe them. Unless of course they’re right. I just see it as a different sort of mindfuck. There are fewer characters but the relationships between them all [going back and forth in time] is just as perplexing. At least to someone as conflicted regarding the science of “time travel” as I am. It’s all about the law of unintended consequences. Okay, but who can really know what the hell that means regarding multiple versions of your self.

On the other hand, I have always been one of those folks who enjoy falling into the performance of the magician without having to figure out how [exactly] it was done. Though with time travel no one is really entirely certain if it even can be done.

All that aside, I think this is a really clever movie. I’m just not exactly sure why.

Here’s a review of it: brightwalldarkroom.com/post/5220 … rimes-2007
And another: pajiba.com/film_reviews/time … review.php

IMDb

[b]When Hector first goes into the house, he passes a computer screen. The top of the screen is labeled “Time Machine Configuration Interface (beta).” The bottom right displays the warning “Caution: Please pay for your software,” implying that the time machine is running off an unlicensed beta of the software.

The shirt that the girl in the forest is wearing depicts Schrödinger’s cat.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecrimes
trailer: youtu.be/KHfTjYfmc2s

TIMECRIMES [Los Cronocrímenes] 2007
Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo

[b]Clara [to Hector]: Time flies around here.

…

The Scientist: We’ve seen each other before, right? The liquid you’re soaked in…that tank is still a prototype.
[Hector is watching himself in the past through a pair of binoculars]
The Scientist: You went back in time.

…

The Scientist: For God’s sake you can’t go back home. You’re already home.

…

The Scientist [trying to explain what happened]: This is you. The arrow moves forward from past to future, okay? But at this point you enter the tank [the time machine] and travel an hour and a half into the past…to here. You become a sort of Hector 2. The one at your house is Hector 1.
Hector: Hector 1?
The Scientist: Hector 1—your reflection in the mirror, remember? But there’s only one arrow.
Hector: But for how long?
The Scientist: Your “reflection” will last up to here. You can hide here, while I’ll reconfigure the tank. I’ll have it ready for nightfall. Hector 1 will show up. I’ll get him in the machine and send him to the past.[/b]

This is 1 + 1 = 2 compared to what’s coming.

[b]The Scientist: What is this? You called your house? I say lay low and you call your house?!.. Did you talk to yourself?
Hector: No, I just called the house.
The Scientist: Did you talk to yourself?!

…

The Scientist: I can’t put a chain on you or lock you in the basement. But if you alter events and stop Hector 1 from getting in the tank, it will be the end of your life as you know it. Your wife will prefer to be with him and not you.
Hector: Can’t I just go home and explain?

…

The Scientist: If you travel back into the past and alter events, stopping Hector 1 from getting in the tank, there will be three of you which will likely cause a chain reaction of events beyond your control.

…

Hector: You knew what would happen.
The Scientist: Yes.
Hector: Why?
The Scientist: Because Hector 3 told me.
Hector: Hector 3? .
The Scientist: Hector 3 – the third one.
Hector: You’re kidding me?
The Scientist: You weren’t the first to appear in the tank. You were the second. The first had appeared earlier. He had threatened me. He made me act surprised to see you. He made me go along with it.

…

Hector: Wait a minute. You mean the second trip I’m about to take was already made?
The Scientist: Apparently, you couldn’t solve your little problem. You told me yourself it failed.
Hector: It makes no sense.[/b]

Tell me about it.

[iambiguous]

One of those Nothing Is As It Seems films. Some being better than others of course. The important thing here is that you actually give a damn about it being one way rather than another. And that basically revolves around your reaction to the character it’s all happening to. If you come to care about him, you’re rooting for him.

And I liked Jake…so there you are.

Nothing really goes too, uh, deep here. A lot of twists and turns in and around Hollywood. And isn’t that where sexual dysfunction and really bad films are born? There’s a lot of that here. But as with the “murder mystery” itself it all seems rather tongue in cheek. You’re never really meant to take it all that seriously.

And then there’s Melanie Griffith as Holly Body. She is absolutely delicious in this role. Fucking great. In fact she was nominated for a Golden Globe; and for a Circle Award by the New York Film Critics; and won the Best Supporting Actress award from the National Society of Film Critics.

And, yes, that weird house is the real thing. It’s not just a potemkin village. Or some special effects gimmick.

IMDb

[b]Brian De Palma originally planned for this to be the first Hollywood film to boast unsimulated sex scenes. The studio thought differently.

Bret Easton Ellis’ book American Psycho references this film many times, it is one of the main character, Patrick Bateman’s, favorite movies.

Dennis Franz based his portrayal of Rubin the Director on Brian De Palma.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Double
trailer: youtu.be/L5YCZ5TAcWs

[b]Note: some explicit language[/b]

BODY DOUBLE [1984]
Directed by Brian De Palma

[b]Detective [to Jake]: I want you to think real hard about this. As far as I’m concerned you’re the real reason Gloria Revelle got murdered. If you hadn’t been so busy getting off by peeping on her…if you had called the police about your blood brother, the Indian, Gloria Revelle would still be alive.

…

Male Porno Star: I’m not just a stunt cock, I’m an ACTOR!

…

Jake [auditioning for a porno flick in order to meet Holly Body]: I like to watch.
Porn producer: Makes you hot, doesn’t it?
Jake: Yeah.
Porn producer: Makes me hot too. Real hot. Come over here. I’ll show you how hot.
[he tosses the “script” on the desk]:
Porn producer: All right. Take off your clothes. I want to take some pictures.
Jake: Um, okay. What is that we’re watching?
Porn producer: I don’t know. What are you some kind of method actor?

…

Porno director’s assistant: Where’s the come shot?
Porno director: Huh? Come?
Porno director’s assistant: The come shot. I thought we were shooting “Body Shots” here. Not Last Tango In Paris.

…

Holly Body: I do not do animal acts. I do not do S&M or any variations of that particular bent, no water sports either. I will not shave my pussy, no fistfucking and absolutely no coming in my face. I get $2000 a day and I do not work without a contract.

…

Holly Body: I have a routine that is a sure 10 on the peter-meter.

…

Kimberly: By the way what’s the film about?
Holly Body: That’s good. We need more comedians in the business.[/b]

This scene with Kimberly and Holly is a true classic!

[b]Holly Body [shouting out loud to herself]: Fucking freaky actors! Masochistic directors! I should have known when he didn’t even know what a come shot was!!

…

Holly Body: You’re going to get a lot of dates when this comes out.[/b]

[iambiguous]

The proposition is simple: You kill one brother and we won’t kill the other. And why not. The one he has to kill is a shitbird so foul and disgusting you’re thinking in some cases abortion ought to be mandatory. Or, as Captain Stanley puts it, “Arthur Burns is a monster, an abonination.” The massacre at the Hopkins place for example.

The wild, wild west we had over here in America is like an episode from Bonanza compared to what the went on in Australia. Or so it seems. Deadwood comes closer to this. And this film is said to portray it about as authentically as can be done. Right down to the buttons on the clothes.

And the aboriginals. But it’s not like there was much talk [back then] of equality—separate or otherwise. Is this the way nature intended for us to be? Is “civilization” still largely an illusion. Something we invented to tame the beast…on paper?

As for Martha…feminism was clearly a million miles away. A lot of tough calls here.

And, yes, David Gulpilil is in this one too.

Oh, and what a great performance put in by John Hurt. This one: youtu.be/QUVsDy0sc3k

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proposition
trailer: youtu.be/8jIy0am72qc
Nick Cave, The Rider: youtu.be/DZtHXFZd7-4

THE PROPOSITION [2005]
Directed by John Hillcoat
[The screenplay was written by Nick Cave]

[b]Captain Stanley: Australia. What fresh hell is this?

…

Captain Stanley: Make no mistake, Mr. Burns, I will civilize this land.

…

Captain Stanley: I wish to present you with a proposition. I know where Arthur Burns is. It is a God-forsaken place. The blacks won’t go there, not the tracks; not even wild men. I suppose, in time, the bounty hunters will get him. But I have other plans, I aim to bring him down - I aim to show that he’s a man like any other. I aim to hurt him. And what will most hurt him? Well I thought long and hard about that, and I’ve realized Mr. Burns, that I must become more inventive in my methods. But those be my words listen to me now, don’t say a word. Now suppose I told there was a way to save your little brother Mikey from the noose. Suppose I gave you a horse, and a gun. Suppose Mr. Burns, I was to give you and your young brother Mikey here a pardon. Suppose I said that I could give you a chance to expunge the guilt, beneath which you so clearly labor. Suppose I gave you 'til Christmas. Now, suppose you tell me what it is I want from you.
Charlie: You want me to kill me brother.
Captain Stanley: I want you to kill your brother.

…

Lamb: Forgive me, sir, but I’ve been stuck here with no one but this sorry sack of Hibernian pig shit for conversation. Poor, poor Dan O’Reilly. Sit, sir. Drink with me.
[Charlie cocks his gun and points it to Lamb]
Charlie: One more crack about the Irish, Mr. Lamb, and I’ll shoot you. Am I clear?
Lamb: Oh, as the waters of Ennis, sir. Let us drink, then, to the Irish. No finer race of men have ever… peeled a potato.
[Charlie cocks his gun again and points it to Lamb]
Charlie: Do you pray, Mr. Lamb?
Lamb: Good Lord, son, no, I do not. I was, in days gone by, a believer. But alas, I came to this beleaguered land, and the God in me just . . . evaporated. Let us change our toast, sir. To the God who has forgotten us.

…

Lamb: Charles, perhaps you’ve read “On the Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection” by Charles Darwin. Oh, don’t be thrown by the title, he had some most fascinating things to say. Chilling things. Mr. Darwin spent time studying Aboriginals. He claims we are, at bottom, one in the same. He infers, Mr. Murphy, that we share a common ancestry with monkeys.
[cackles]
Lamb: Monkeys!!!

…

Lamb: Mr. Murphy, Russia, China, the Congo, oh, I have traveled among unknown people in lands beyond the seas. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for this godforsaken hole.

…

Lamb [speaking of Arthur Burns]: We are white men, Sir, not beasts. Oh, he sits up there in those melancholy hills; some say he sleeps in caves like a beast, slumbers deep like the Kraken. The Blacks say that he is a spirit. The Troopers will never catch him. Common force is meaningless, Mr. Murphy, as he squats up there on his impregnable perch. So I wait, Mr. Murphy. I wait.
Charlie [Knocks Jellon out with a beer mug]: Aye, you wait. You wait here… bounty hunter.

…

Fletcher: Word came this morning from Eight Mile Creek that Dan O’Reilly’s place was attacked.
Captain Stanley: Are you sure it was blacks?
Fletcher: Dan O’Reilly had so many spears in him that he resembled your good old garden variety English hedgehog. It’s simple, Captain. It’s called the law of recirocity. Kill one of them and they are going to kill one of ours.

…

Dunn: Who the fuck left Danny Boy out in the sun?
[he’s taking a piss]
Dunn: Hey, Jacko, you lazy bugger, I told you to bury that bastard last night. He stinks worse than you. Jacko!
Two Bob: You got the wrong fuckin’ black man.
Arthur: Slowly now, Sergeant. Put your privates back in your pants and turn around. Come to steal my brother a horse, and we find ourselves a copper.
Dunn: You fire that gun, you’ll have eight more all over you.
Arthur: Fair enough.
[he puts the gun away and draws knife]
Arthur: Step into the shade, Sergeant. To the back.
Dunn: Has Charlie found you, then? Stanley’s little mate.
Arthur: Over there, by the straw. That’s right. Stay. Lay down, Sergeant.
Dunn: I know something you don’t know. Your brother’s come to kill you. I can help.
Arthur: You can help me? Help your fucking self!
[he stomps repeatedly on Dunn’s head]
Arthur Burns: . Help! Your! Fucking! Self! Copper.

…

Lamb [to a trussed up Charlie]: To be speared by a savage. How extraordinarily quaint.

…

Lamb: For what is an Irishman but a nigger turned inside out?

…

Lamb [his dying words]: There’s night and day brother, both sweet things. Sun and Moon and stars, all sweet things. And quiet, there’s a wind on the east. Life is very sweet, brother.
Arthur: Life is very sweet, brother, who would wish to die?
Lamb: Ah.
Arthur: George Borrow, I believe. A worthy writer, and a beautiful sentiment sir. But you’re not my brother.
[he pushes his knife into Lamb]
Arthur: This may hurt.

…

Samuel [looking out at the sun setting]: It sure is pretty.
Arthur: You can never get your fill of nature, Samuel. To be surrounded by it is to be stilled. It salves the heart. The mountains, the trees, the endless plains. The moon, the myriad stars. Every man can be made quiet and complete. Even the lowliest misanthrope or the most wretched of sinners.
Samuel: What’s a misanthrope, Arthur?
Two Bob: Some bugger who fuckin’ hates every other bugger.
Samuel: Hey, I didn’t ask you, you black bastard
Arthur: He’s right Samuel. A misanthrope is one who hates humanity.
Samuel: Is that what we are, misanthropes?
Arthur: Good lord no. We’re a family!

…

Arthur: You got me, Charlie. What are you going to do now?[/b]

[iambiguous]

It’s hard to believe this is the same actor who played Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. I liked that one too. But this is my favorite performance by Michelle Williams. Wendy is the character I would most like to meet [again] in “real life”. And there is not any particular reason why. At least none that I’ve come up with. Well, other than the fact I’ve known folks just like her. On the other hand, who hasn’t dreamed of making it all the the way up to Alaska…getting away from all the shit down here. Just being able to start some new shit there. And with your beloved dog.

But when you are out on the road to getting there things can become precarious as hell. It’s almost always about the goddamn money. And you either know what it’s like to be in a situation like this or you don’t. And I do. And I’ve met a Wendy or two or three or four along the way.

I’m just grateful the filmaker didn’t go all the way in depicting what might have happened to her with that miscreant out in the woods. Coming as close as they did was gruesome enough for me.

IMDb

[b]Director Kelly Reichardt was worried that Michelle Williams was “too pretty” to play the role. She asked Williams to go without makeup and not wash her hair for two weeks during filming.

Michelle Williams was so scruffy during filming that when bystanders came up to chat with the crew they totally ignored her.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_and_Lucy
trailer: youtu.be/7QXEK64ba08

WENDY AND LUCY [2008]
Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Security guard: You can’t sleep here Ma’am.
Wendy: My car won’t start.
Security guard: Yeah, I can hear that. But you can’t park here. That’s the rules. You’re just gonna have to get the car off the property.

What an asshole. Her car is in the middle of this big, empty Walgreens parking lot! But then that’s what he is paid to be. In fact, it turns out he’s nothing like he is paid to be. He’s decent, in other words.

Andy: The rules apply to everyone. If a person can’t afford dog food they shouldn’t have a dog.
Store manager: Andy…
Andy: The food is not the issue, sir. It’s about setting an example, right?
Wendy: Sir, I’m not from around here. I can’t be an example.

Andy would make the perfect Nazi. You just want to punch him in the face. Or, rather, you would if you were me.

[b]Wendy: Not a lot of jobs around here, huh?
Security Guard: I’ll say. I don’t know what the people do all day. Used to be a mill. But that’s been closed a long time now. Don’t know what they do
Wendy: You can’t get a job without an address, anyway. Or a phone.
Security Guard: You can’t get an address without an address. You can’t get a job without a job. It’s all fixed.

…

Lucy [weeping]: I’m sorry, Lu. I lost the car. You be good. I’ll be back. I’m gonna make some money and I’ll come back. Okay, Lu? Be good.[/b]

You just don’t get more alone than she is here. And hunched down in that train car, it just breaks your fucking heart.

[Hobbes_Choice]

@iambiguous

I
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_and_Lucy
trailer: youtu.be/7QXEK64ba08

WENDY AND LUCY [2008].

That film killed me.
But where’s the philosophy?

[iambiguous]

It was by sheer coincidence this film came out in the same year that the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident had made headlines around the globe:

IMDb: The movie was released on March 16, 1979. By a bizarre irony, the disaster at the nuclear power plant at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island happened just 13 days later on March 28th.

And I will never forget that. Why? Because I live in Baltimore County, Maryland and this nuclear power plant was close enough [Dauphin County, Pennsylvania] that had the worst possible scenario been realized – with the wind blowing in the right [meaning the wrong] – direction it could have been a true calamity. There was actually talk of having to evacuate the entire area. And to make matters worse it happened the same week I had had surgery. I could barely hobble around the fucking house!

But not much about the industry since. At least not in America. On the other hand, TMI virtually put a stop to what many predicted would be a collossal growth in the use of nuclear power in the US of A.

More to the point, the film exposes the very, very intimate [incestuous] relationship between crony capitalism and the corporate media. For a story like this one they all work together as a seamless unit to protect the bottom line. And that ain’t the safety of the community. The fix was in.

IMDb

[b]The model for the control room of the plant was based upon the control room at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon (along the Columbia River). At the time, it was the only nuclear plant in the US to offer tours that included a tour of the gallery that looked down into the control room.

The movie’s title is based on the theoretical but implausible notion that if a nuclear meltdown were to occur in the United States, the nuclear core would melt all the way through the Earth’s core and emerge on the other side of the world. However, China is simply a metaphor for the other side of the world. If such an event could occur it would emerge in the Indian Ocean.

Because the Three Mile Island accident, which resulted in the release of radioactive steam, occurred just weeks AFTER release of this movie, many people associate the movie with Three Mile Island. However, the potentially FAR more dangerous “Incident at Browns Ferry” (Alabama) happened in 1975, four years earlier, and was caused by a number of construction flaws, operational issues, and safety failures. Brown’s Ferry Alabama is more properly the “true” basis of this story. No similar situation happened in California.

When the film was first released on 16 March 1979, nuclear power executives soon lambasted the picture as being “sheer fiction” and a “character assassination of an entire industry”. Then twelve days after its launch, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. It was commented how the events had left nuclear executives embarrassed with egg on their faces.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
trailer: youtu.be/6PJ-BzXAN1c

THE CHINA SYNDROME [1979]
Directed by James Bridges

[b]Gibson: There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a routine turbine trip.

…

Jack: See where that water’s coming from. Wherever it’s coming from we’ve got to get rid of it. Look at this, Ted. Hey Barney, open 14 a d 15.
Ted: You can’t do that.
Jack: Open 'em Barney.
Ted: The book says your can’t.
Jack: Screw the book. We’re almost up to the steam lines!

…

Jack: We may have uncovered the core!

…

Jack: We gotta dump pressure!
Barney: Jack! We can’t take that chance!
Jack: Gordon, you let me know the split second the LPCI comes in. Water…
Ted: Eight inches. Still droppin’.
Jack [looking up to the Heavens]: Oh, please, God, cover it!
[Jack is sweating bullets]
Jack: COVER IT!
[after what seems like an eternity]
Ted: It’s coming up. It’s coming up! We got it!!

…

Kimberly [after the decision to keep the film in the vault]: Richard, I am not ashamed that I have got a good job and I have every intention of keeping it and getting a better one. And if that means they’ve got me then they’ve got me.[/b]

If it was your job [your livlihood] on the line would you do “the right thing”?

[b]Jack: What makes you think they’re looking for a scapegoat?
Ted: Tradition.

…

Greg Minor [nuclear engineer after viewing Richard’s film]: I may be wrong, but I’d say you’re lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California.

…

Greg Minor: I don’t know, but they might have come close to exposing the core.
Elliot Lowell [physics professor]: If that’s true, then we came very close to the China Sydrome.
Kimberly: The what?
Elliot Lowell: If the core is exposed for whatever reason the fuel heats beyond core heat tolerance in a matter of minutes. Nothing can stop it. It melts right down through the bottom of the plant…theoretically to China. Of course as soon as it hits ground water it blasts into the atmosphere and sends out clouds of radiation. The number of people killed would depend on which way the wind is blowing. Rendering an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable…not to mention the cancer that would show up later.

…

Jack: I decided to double check the welding Xrays. They’re identical, Herman. It’s the same picture over and over and over.
Herman: Come on, Jack no contractor can possibly supply every stupid document the government calls for. So they didn’t take all the pictures they were supposed to. So what? These Xrays are 6 years old.
Jack: So are those welds down there. We should get radiographs of the pump support structure.
Herman: What? That’s absurd. You know how long that will take, Jack? What it would cost? $15 million to $20 million. Forget it! Go back to the control room and start her up. We go back on-line today. The company is losing half a million bucks a day. Start her up Jack.

…

McCormack: What’s our alternative, let this lunatic wipe out a billion dollar investment? At least this buys time; it will take the press an hour to get here.
Gibson: I wouldn’t count on it.
McCormack: I’m counting on you to take care of the God damn press. Now you do your Job, and let me do mine.
Gibson: Yes sir.

…

McCormack: Scram the son of a bitch!

…

Ted [of Jack]: He was not a loony. He was the sanest man I ever knew in my life.[/b]

[iambiguous]

“Don’t trust nobody.”

With the long con you’re always wondering: Could they do that to me? Would I fall for it? And chances are you’e thinking: no fucking way. You’re just too smart to to be reeled in like this sucker. Let alone to swallow the bait.

But few are smarter than she thought she was. Still, we all have our vulnerabilites. And a grifter [gifted to be sure] can spot them a mile away. The “tell”. And then play it for all it’s worth.

Margaret’s? She’s…anal. She’s locked up tighter than a drum. But [apparently] she is looking for someone to pry her open. Mike does. He opens her up and then some. And for that he will end up paying the ultimate price.

But, come on, we all know the most common tell of all is greed. Here you have the suckers lining up. Only Margaret doesn’t have a clue.

Let’s face it, most of us go about this sort of thing vicariously. We step outside the law abiding world by watching Sons of Anarchy. Few have what it takes to actually become a member of the fabled 1%. But some of us want to. And Mike hooks one of them here.

Or the script does.

IMDb

[b]Ricky Jay is a sleight-of-hand artist and an acknowledged authority on the art of the con. In an NPR interview, Jay related that when David Mamet needed a short-change scam to be explained in “House of Games”, he asked Jay for details of an authentic short-change hustle. However, Jay did not want to betray the confidence of the hustlers he knew who still used various short-change cons for their “livelihood”. The envelope switch you see in the final film is an original switch invented by Ricky Jay specially for the film. Later, it was reported that an amateur thief had been caught attempting to use the switch as he had learned it from the film.

According to Mamet, despite the excellent reviews the film received in a limited showing in four theaters, Orion decided against spending the money for the prints and publicity that would have accompanied a general release and sent the film almost directly to TV and video.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Games
trailer: youtu.be/A0eFfE8oa98

HOUSE OF GAMES [1987]
Written and directed by David Mamet

[b]Billy: What am I doing here?
Margaret: You’re here to take control of your life.
Billy: You wanna know something? What the hell do you care? You’re rich. You’re comfortable. You got your goddamn book you wrote. All the time you wanna help me, you don’t do dick, man. You don’t do nothing. You and your goddamn book, it’s talk. It’s just talk. The whole thing is a con game.

…

Mike: Wait, wait, wait. What is this? What are you gonna do to me? What are you fronting off about? And if I’m this bad dude, why don’t I just take out some gun, blow you to a billion parts?
Margaret: I’ll tell you why. Cuz I think you’re just a bully.
Mike [chuckles]: Just a bully? What, you’re not gonna let me carry your books? Aren’t you a caution.
Margaret: Let’s talk turkey, pal.

…

Mike [to Margaret]: Do you know what a “tell” is?

…

Mike: What’d you do, win again?
George: That’s right. If you wanna win the hand, you’ve gotta stay in 'til the end.

…

Mike: I think you’re bluffin’. I think you’re tryin’ to buy it.
George: Then you’re gonna have to give me some respect or give me some money.

…

Mike: He didn’t do the thing with his ring.
Margaret: No, he did it.
Mike: He did? Then what the fuck is he doing with a flush?!

…

George: I told you a squirt gun wouldn’t work.
Mike: A squirt gun would’ve worked–you didn’t have to fill it!

…

Margaret: A sucker born every minute, huh?
Mike: And two to take 'em.

…

Mike [to Margaret]: The basic idea is this. It’s called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine. How do you get money when you have no money? Watch closely. This is called “short con”.

…

Margaret: So you can’t cheat an honest man?
Mike: That’s probably true. But what we’ve just seen is a slightly different principle.
Margaret: Which is?
Mike: Don’t trust nobody.
Margaret: Were you in the Marines?
Mike: Everybody gets something out of every transaction. I give that guy my confidence. I ask him for help. What he gets is he feels like he’s a good man.

…

Mike: Do you wanna make love with me?
Margaret: Excuse me?
Mike: Because you’re blushing. That’s a tell. The things we think, the things we want. We could do them or not do them but we can’t hide them.
Margaret: What is it you think I want?
Mike: I’ll tell you. Somebody to come along. Somebody to possess you. To take you into a new thing. Would you like that? Do you want that?
Margaret: Yes.

…

Margaret: Some people would say that you’re an interesting man.
Mike: I’m a con man. That’s what I am. I’m a criminal. You don’t have to delude yourself. You can call things what they are. You can call yourself what you are.
Margaret: What am I?
Mike: Listen to me. Cos there are a lot of things in the world. There are many sides to each of us. Good blood. Bad blood. Somehow, all those parts have got to speak. You know what I’m talking about. The burden of responsibility has become too great. It’s true, isn’t it?
Margaret: Yes, it is.
Mike: Babe, I know that it is. I read a book once which said this: If you’re fired from your job, when you’re going home, take something. A pencil, something to assert yourself. Take a memento. Take something from life. I think what draws you to me is this: I’m not afraid to examine the rules and to assert myself. And I think you aren’t either.
Margaret: Do you really think so?
Mike: Yes. That’s exactly what I think.[/b]

How about you?

[b]Joey: The bitch is a booster.
Mike: The bitch is a born thief, man.
Dean: So, you had her made from the jump?
Mike: I’m tellin’ ya. A ton of fuckin’ bricks! Show me some REAL con-men.
Joey: Yeah, we showed her some con-men.
Mike: We showed her some DINOSAUR con-men. Some old style.
Joey: Yes, sir.
Mike: Years from now, they’re gonna have to go to a museum to see a frame like this.
Joey: That’s right.
Dean: Took her money and screwed her, too.
Mike: A small price to pay.

…

Mike: Oh, you’re a bad pony. And I’m not gonna bet on you.

…

Mike [to Margaret]: My knife. You said you took my knife from the hotel room. You see, in my trade, this is called - what you did - you cracked out of turn. You crumbed the play.

…

Mike: What do you want? What do you fucking want from me? You want your 80 grand back? I can’t give it back. I split it up. So what do you want? Revenge?
Margaret: I gave you my trust.
Mike: Of course you gave me your trust. That’s what I do for a living! You asked me what I did for a living. This is it. Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. Really. You’re a good kid.

…

Mike: What? What do you want me to do?
Margaret: You took my money.
Mike: How naughty of me.
Margaret: You raped me. You took me under false pretences.
Mike: Well, that’s just what happened, isn’t it? OK, you got stung. And you’re hurt. I can understand that. I wanna know how you could do what you did to me. It wasn’t personal. And, funny as that sounds, I’m sorry that it happened. But it did. And we’ve all gotta live in an imperfect world.
Margaret: You used me.
Mike: I used you. I did. I’m sorry. And you learned things about yourself that you’d rather not know. I’m sorry for that. You say I acted atrociously. Yes, I did. I do it for a living.

…

Margaret [after shooting him in the leg]: Beg for your life, or I’m going to kill you.
Mike: Hey, fuck you! This is what you always wanted, you crooked bitch! You thief! You always need to get caught, cuz you know you’re bad. I never hurt anybody… I never shot anybody… You sought this out…This is what you always wanted. I knew it the first time you came in…You’re worthless, you know it? You’re a whore! You came back like a dog to its own vomit! You sick bitch! I’m not gonna give you shit![/b]

[iambiguous]

This being smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression folks have to come up with all sorts of ways to make ends meet. And who is to say that thieving…robbing banks…is wrong when it seems to be the only way to get what you need to, say, subsist from day to day. And, okay, sure, all that other stuff too. Some are just more resourceful at it than others.

Of course you’re always looking over your shoulders for the law. Especially when you start in on blowing people away. That’s the trajectory here. You start out thinking you’re dealing with the gang that couldn’t shoot straight and before you know it there’s a body count. Suddenly they’re not so sympathetic anymore. In fact, they become increasingly more pathetic instead.

And then there’s the folks that get mixed up with them. Fall in love with them. Find themselves impregnated by them. Or betray them.

Shelley Duvall is in this one. Olive Oyl. The wife and the mother from The Shining. She is one of those actors you end up pondering about thusly: What the hell ever happened to her? Well, some of the accounts floating around are…strange.

Look for Nurse Ratchet. And the Klingon Ambassador.

IMDb

Of the ambush shoot-out sequence, co-scriptwriter Joan Tewkesbury said: “Bob [Altman] wanted more gunfire because of course we were living through all the assassinations. Bob wanted them to just kill, to kill the house with bullets. Overkill. Without asking any questions they just went in and shot the house until it fell down, literally. And then when Bowie was carried out, he was like another deer they shot while hunting”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves_Like_Us_(film
trailer: tcm.com/mediaroom/video/2984 … iler-.html

THIEVES LIKE US [1974]
Directed by Robert Altman

[b]Chicamaw: I can tell he sells marijuana just by how he drives.

…

T-dub [reading a newspaper account of their escape from prison]: “When asked why the three trustees were able to escape, the warden Everett Gaylord, replied, ‘well, if you can’t trust a trustee, who can you trust?’”

…

Bowie: Miss Keechie, do you know what the Mississippi state animal is?
Keechie: What?
Bowie: You know, the state animal.
Keechie: I don’t know. A deer, maybe?
Bowie: No, sir! It’s a squashed dog in the road! You know what the state flower is?
Keechie: Did you shoot that man in Selpa?
[long pause]
Bowie: It was him or me. He’s come around the car after me with a gun…It’s a weed.

…

Keechie: You know anything about cows, Bowie?
Bowie: No, I’m from the Ozarks. The only thing we grow there are rocks and tomatoes.

…

Mattie [showing Bowie the rewards being offered for their capture]: Maybe this will sober him up some.

…

Bowie: I’ll give you the straight of it, Keechie. I ain’t sorry those two cops are dead. I ain’t sorry for anything I ever did in this world. The only regret I got is that I didn’t get 100,000 instead of 19. And that I never pitched pro ball.

…

T-Dub: Yeah, I made my mistake when I was a kid. I shoulda been a doctor or a lawyer or run for office. I shoulda robbed people with my brain instead of a gun.

…

Bowie: You know what the Mississippi state tree is?
Keechie: Oh, Bowie, I don’t know.
Bowie: It’s the telephone pole.

…

Chickamaw: I’ll tell you one thing, Bowie. I don’t see how the hell you do it. I mean, you come back here, run these roads, pull a thing like that back yonder, and then you beat them laws left and right. I don’t see how you do it. You ain’t nothing but a big country boy, and you’re chumpy as hell at times, and yet, by God, you do it.
Bowie: Just luck.
Chickamaw.Yeah, just luck. Let’s call it that. Hell, you ain’t nothing but a country school chump…God, Bowie, you make me look like 30 cents. And what the hell do the papers do all the goddamn time? It’s all about you. It rips my guts out!

…

Keechie: I think it’ll be a boy.
Lady in Train Station: Can you tell?
Keechie: Well I hope it is. But if it is, he sure will not be named after his dad, God rest his soul. He crossed me up once too often, lying. He didn’t deserve to have no baby named after him.[/b]

[iambiguous]

This is the sort of stuff that, back in 1969 when we first landed on the Moon, some figured we’d be doing about now. Or, at any rate, a hell of a lot farther along than we actually are. And I think it’s a safe bet that for most of us [okay, all of us] this is as close as we are ever likely to get to it. Why oh why does space, the final frontier, have to be so goddamn vast?

I mean, come on, how far into the future before our descendants hear something like this:

Earth that was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many. We found a new solar system, dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Each one terraformed, a process taking decades, to support human life, to be new Earths.

Apparently, it helps here to have seen the sci-fi television series Firefly. And, in fact, I never even heard of it. But I have seen most of the original Star Trek episodes. And that’s important because it prepares you to view the world as either “civilized” or “savage”.

So, which ones are we? And don’t forget to include the means here along with the ends.

Here the characters don’t discuss things, they banter. They exchange repartee. They always say clever things and never take the danger all that seriously. Much less death. But one thing always stays the same: the military industrial complex. And here they weaponize human beings as never before. In other words, one way or another there is always going to be the incarnation of the Bilderberg Group.

Bottom line? That, in the long run, human aggression is a good thing. Don’t fuck with it. That and love.

How implausable is all this? Beam me up, Scotty. But I suspect more than just a small chunk of it is tongue in cheek. That’s true, right?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film
trailer: youtu.be/ZLv_GTmAbEE

SERENITY [2005]
Written and directed by Joss Whedon

[b]Teacher: With so much social and medical advancements we can bring to the Independents why would they fight so hard against us?
Young River: We meddle. People don’t like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don’t run, don’t walk. We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right. We’re meddlesome.
Teacher: We’re not telling people how to think, we’re just trying to show them how.

…

The Operative: Like this facility, I don’t exist.

…

Dr. Mathias [referring to Dr. Simon Tam who has just helped his sister, River Tam, escape]: Gave up a brilliant future in medicine as well. It’s madness.
The Operative: Madness?
[walks over to the holographic projection of River and Simon escaping through an air vent]
The Operative: Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At his face? It’s love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous.

…

Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define “interesting”.
Wash [deadpan]: Oh God, oh God, we’re all going to die!
Mal [on the ship’s intercom]: This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then…explode.

…

Mal: Just get us on the ground!
Wash: That part’ll happen pretty definitely.

…

Mal: Doctor, I’m takin’ your sister under my protection here. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up.

…

Zoë: Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later.

…

Zoë: It’s just that in the time of war, we would never have left a man stranded.
Mal: Maybe that’s why we lost.

…

Jayne: I’ve been to the edge…it just looked like more space.

…

Wash: Can I make a suggestion that doesn’t involve violence, or is this the wrong crowd for that?

…

Jayne: What’re we expectin’ to find here that equals the worth of a turd?

…

Shepherd: You got a plan?
Mal: Hiding ain’t a plan?

…

Shepherd: It’s not your way, Mal.
Mal: I have a way? Is that better than a plan?

…

Mal: Ah, hell, Shepherd, I ain’t looking for help from on high. That’s a long wait for a train don’t come.

…

The Operative: I want to resolve this like civilized men. I’m not threatening you. I’m unarmed.
Mal: Good.
[he pulls out a gun and shoots Operative in the chest, knocking him into the wall]
The Operative [grabbing Mal from behind]: I am, however, wearing full body armor. I am not a moron!

…

The Operative [to Mal]: You are fooling yourself, Captain. Nothing here is what it seems. You are not the plucky hero, the Alliance is not an evil empire, and this is not the grand arena.
Inara: And that’s not incense.

…

Mal [to River]: Are you anything other than a weapon?

…

Mal: Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

…

Shepherd [dying]: I killed the ship that killed us. Not very Christian.
Mal: You did what was right.
Shepherd: Coming from you that means - almost nothing.

…

The Operative: Define “disappeared”.

…

The Operative: You’re fighting a war you’ve already lost.
Mal: Yeah, well, I’m known for that.

…

Mal: Ready to get off this heap, back to civilized life?
Inara: I, uh… I don’t know.
Mal: Good answer.[/b]

[iambiguous]

Imagine if this stuff was real. It would be but one more layer to consider when discussing the nature of love. Or, for that matter, of morality. And that’s the last thing the objectivists need, right?

Anyway, if you could erase someone from your memory – someone who provoked only the most painful of recollections – would you? And it’s not really as fanciful as you might imagine. For instance, on the latest edition of Through the Wormhole, Morgan Freeman focused on scenarios not all that far removed from this. We are increasingly heading toward a world in which our brains [our conscious states] can be “hacked” or manipulated by others; and in any number of bizarre ways. It’s, well, mindboggling stuff.

In the interim though we still have to deal with all the exasperating reprecussions of “falling in love” in the world we live in now. And let’s face it…the only realistic way to deal with all the bad memories of the folks before is to create new ones with others now. I always just assumed there is no way an old relationship can compete with how you first feel when you meet someone new and fall in love. Or even in lust. It takes an exceptional relationship to top that. More love and human remains.

Expect to be confused. But don’t waste your time trying to untangle the different narratives. In fact the whole point of the film is to show how futile it can be to try to impose some sort of linear logic on love. And this is, after all, the world of Charlie Kaufman.

And I’m grateful for any film in which Jim Carrey isn’t acting like a maniac—and for almost the entire first hour.

IMDb

The idea was brought to Michel Gondry by his friend the artist Pierre Bismuth who suggested, “You get a card in the mail that says: someone you know has just erased you from their memory…”

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Su … tless_Mind
FAQ at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0338013/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
trailer: youtu.be/lnSgSe2GzDc

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND [2004]
Written in part and directed by Michel Gondry [from the mind of Charlie Kaufman]

[b]Joel [voiceover as Clementine acknowledges him by raising her coffee mug]: Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?

…

Joel: Clemintine. It’s a pretty name though. It’s, uh…it means “merciful”. Right? Clemency?
Clemintine: Although it hardly fits. I’m a vindictive little bitch, truth be told.

…

Clementine: You’re not a stalker, or anything, right?
Joel: I’m not a stalker. You’re the one that talked to me, remember?
Clementine: That is the oldest trick in the stalker book.
Joel: Really? There’s a stalker book? Great, I gotta read that one.

…

Card from Lacuna Inc:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Eakin
Clementine Kruczynski has had Joel Barish erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. Thank You.

…

Carrie: What can I say, Joel. She’s impulsive. She decided to erase you almost as a lark.

…

Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage?
Howard: Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it’s on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss.

…

Clementine: Face it, Joely, you’re freaked out because I was out late without you, and in your little wormy brain you are trying to figure out, “Did she fuck someone tonight?”
Joel: No, see Clem, I assume you fucked someone tonight. Isn’t that how you get people to like you?

…

Patrick: You know that girl we did last week? The one with the potatoes.
Stan: That girl? Yeah, that’s this guy’s girl!
Patrick: Yeah. Well uh, I kind of fell in love with her that night.
Stan: What? You little fuck!
Patrick: What?
Stan: She was unconscious, man.
Patrick: Well, she was beautiful and… I stole a pair of her panties as well.
Stan: Jesus!
Patrick: What? It’s not like - I mean they were clean and all.
Stan: Don’t tell me this stuff! I don’t wanna hear this shit!

…

Patrick: Mary hates me. I’ve never been popular with the ladies.
Stan: Maybe if you stopped stealing their panties.

…

Mary [to Stan]: “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders”. That’s Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil. Found it in my Bartlett’s.

…

Joel [to Clementine]: Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.

…

Joel: Mierzwiak! Please let me keep this memory, just this one!

…

Joel: He’s seducing my girlfriend with my words and my things! He stole her underwear. Jesus Christ, he stole her underwear!

…

Stan: He’s off the map! He’s off the map!

…

Clementine [to Joel]: Hide me somewhere deeper, somewhere really buried. Hide me in your humiliation.

…

Clementine: Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.
Joel: I remember that speech really well.
Clementine: I had you pegged, didn’t I?
Joel: You had the whole human race pegged.

…

Carrie: You’re stoned and you’re driving.
Rob: Pot balances me out. Pot brings me up. That’s why I smoke it if I’m going to be drinking.

…

Joel [listening to himself on the Lacuna tape]: I mean, she’s smart, I think, but not educated. I couldn’t really talk to her about books, you know? She’s more a magazine-reading girl. Her vocabulary leaves something to be desired. Sometimes I was embarrassed in public. She would pronounce library, “libary”.

…

Joel [on the tape]: What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she’s a stranger.

…

Joel: I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.[/b]

Well, there you go. Take it or leave it.