philosophy in film

iambiguous · August 16, 2013, 1:38am

There are as many ways to be in love as there are people. The trick is always to come as close as you possibly can to someone who comes as close as they possibly can to you. And that might work out well if life wasn’t always awash in contingency chance and change. You either grasp the full signifigance of this or you do not. Until one day life itself either brings it into sharper focus or it does not.

Like the day you grow old. We all experience it in as many different ways as it is possible for any human being to experience it. And thus the extent to which this can be shared with others will always be infinitely problematic. Or will be for all practical purposes. The only consolation being [for some] that it is only a matter of time before we all endure it.

And then the truly scary part where people can have you committed to a mental institution because they think your behavior is strange enough to warrant it. Even though in this case it does seem strange enough to warrant further investigation. But then lots of folks would then point out the obvious: that mine is too. Me among them.

Lives can get so fucking complicated. And watch them fall apart. And somehow that has to be reconciled with others. And [at times] with the powers that be.

Also, did they jump or were they pushed?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_and_Queen
trailer: movies.nytimes.com/movie/313596/ … n/trailers

KINGS AND QUEEN [Rois et Reine] 2004
Written in part and directed by Arnaud Desplechin

[b]Nora [voiceover]: I’ve always thought that love means never having to ask. My second husband claimed the contrary. He wasn’t very considerate. When I complained, he would say, “Just ask.”

…

Here’s what you hear on the machine when you call Ismael: “This machine doesn’t take messages. I can’t be reached. Mercier and Landeau of the IRS, you’re crooks. I’ll never pay you! It’s a scandal to deploy such idiotic acrimony in hounding a respected citizen. And an artist! Fuck you, Mr. Landeau!”[/b]

The shrinks [and a “third party”] have him committed.

[b]Man from the hospital: Sir, that rope in the living room, what’s that for?
Ismael: What rope?
Man from the hospital: The one with the noose, hanging in the living room, with a stool below it.
Ismael: I’m not suicidal, okay? I understand, you see the rope, the chair and leap to conclusions. But I just need to know that I can do it. Though I never will. Isn’t there something similar in Cicero or Seneca? Or the Stoics?

…

Doctor [to Nora]: His bowels are in such a state that we did nothing. His belly is devastated. We sewed him back up, that’s all.

…

Elizabeth [Ismael’s sister]: You missed Christmas.
Ismael: True, but I brought presents.
Elizabeth: It’s July.

…

Elizabeth [after receiving the Christmas present – a check – from Ismael]: What am I supposed to do with this?
Ismael: It’s to help you succeed in what you want to do.
Elizabeth: But I make money. You come to offer me money? Can’t you fucking ask yourself what I really want?!
Ismael: That’s what the money is for. So you can do what you really want, without wasting time painting plates.
Elizabeth: “Wasting time”? What do you know about what I think about saving MY time, saving MY life.

…

Elizabeth: I don’t want to be a painter! I want to be a mother! It’s not about the money. I’ll take it [for the twins] but your concern for me…“Besorgen” in philosophy, right? You’re the little king of your world, playing with your soldiers, leaving me like a dog![/b]

One of those conversations. The ones I chose myself to pull back from completely.

[b]Ismael [of Nora to the shrink]: Just think, a murderess! She’s killed but I’ll survive!

…

Nora [on phone]: Chloe. Believe me, he’s melting away. It’s horrible. He’s lost 25 pounds in three days. He’s melting away before my eyes. You have to come. He’s in pain. He keeps taking stronger and stronger doses.

…

Arielle [to Ismael]: Until I’m totally lost, I’m not in love.

…

Home care provider: Your father has taken a lot of morphine. Too much. If he increases his doeses now, it will kill him. We need to wean him off of it.
Nora: I don’t want him to suffer. In any case, he is doomed.
Home care provider: You can’t say “doomed”. He’s ill but he’s still alive, isn’t he?
Nora: You can’t save him. He’s in pain all the time. And he’s so frightened of dying. What can I do?
Home care provider: You can be his daughter. And hope for a miracle.
Nora: What? There are miracles with bowel cancer?
Home care provider: No, not many. But you can pray very hard for a miracle this time.
Nora: I have to pray?
Home care provider: You don’t have to, but what else can you do?
Nora: What about you, do you pray?
Home care provider: No, not really.

…

Nora [reading a note from her father who has just died]: “My beloved lttle daughter, your egoism has been monstrous. I think it is partly my fault that you have turned out this way. I wish I didn’t love you but, of the two daughters your mother and I had, you were the prettiest. And you needed to seduce me and I needed to be seduced. I was very lonely, your mother was in the hospital and that made it easy for you. I’ve loved you madly all these years. Your sister has cut herself off while you have blossomed. More agressive each day, more insolent, caustic, cold, superficial. Even so, I couldn’t help but cherish you. Now, I feel rage towards you, that I cannot put out, even with my body in tatters. I burn with anger in the face of your evil rebellion. I’m guilty because it was me who urged my little girl to be proud. And I was so fond of your pride. Like curdled milk, your pride has turned into sour vanity. Your pride has become a stupid affection. Today, you’re bursting with bitterness, my child, just like me. You’re my daughter all right. You think your dry laugh conceals your delight? You’re delighted because pride makes you weak but your bitterness gives you formidable power. You were so submissive. Until I discovered your submission hid an iron will and an envy that struck terror into my heart. I fear you, I hate you my little girl. I’m dying. And I find it unfair I should die while you live. If only you had my cancer and were in pain. If only I had the time to forgive you after you die. So I die with rage in my heart. I cannot stand the idea of you surviving me. I wish you would die instead of me.”[/b]

Completely out of the blue…or not? It was to me if not to her.

[b]Ismael [to his father after the most bizarre holdup imaginable]: You have to close this fucking store!!

…

Ismael [to Elias]: This is the only advice I have for now: Of course, we’re always right. But it’s always possible that we could be a bit wrong too. Being a bit wrong is very good news. It means you don’t have the whole answer. That life will be more exciting and full of surprises than you thought.

…

Nora [voiceover]: I watch Elias and Ismael approaching and think life is strange. There are four men I loved. I killed two of them. And that doesn’t mean anything. I feel no remorse. My other two men walk towards me. I know they’ll survive me. That’s all I need to be happy. The cycle of woes is over. [/b]

Though she forgot to add: “For now.”

iambiguous · August 16, 2013, 5:31pm

It’s not your bayou, or my bayou. It’s Eve’s bayou. And this is rural Louisiana. Some years ago. Everyone is looking for signs and warnings. Voodoo, superstition and curses abound. So, let’s start here: we will only understand these relationships up to a point.

A young girl, Eve, just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wakes up in the carriage house and finds her philandering father going at it with a woman who is not her mother. He has some explaining to do.

Only her sister comes to the rescue this time. With her own tall tale. But sooner or later his pecker is going to get him into the sort of quagmire that will start things to unraveling. Things a whole lot more important than ejaculating. Dad, it seems, is a womanizing asshole. But is he also a monster? That depends on who is doing the remembering.

But this family is primed for implosion. If it hadn’t been that it would have been something else. Incest, perhaps. Beyond that though are all the factors from before that lead up to these things…relationships that can never really be pinned down with any real precision. And these folks are well off – dad is a doctor – and have an extended family for backup.

But here’s a mother who keeps her kids locked in the house because some fortune teller with cat bones told her to “watch your kids”. Then when some other parent’s child is hit and killed by a bus she figures the curse is lifted and she celebrates. The kids are now free to go out and play. It’s always the [at times] complex, mysterious relationship between “in my head” and “out in the world”. And that’s about as color-blind as things get in this world.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve’s_Bayou
trailer: youtu.be/Mzq6owbsId0

EVE’S BAYOU [1997]
Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons

[b]Eve [voiceover]: Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old.

…

Eve [to Louis, her father]: You love Mama?
Louis: Your momma is the most beautiful, perfect woman I have ever met. Your momma’s a lady. I will always love her.

…

Eve: You told daddy you didn’t practice no voodoo.
Mozelle: She was desparate.
Eve: Does it work?
Mozelle: We’ll see.
Eve: But what if it don’t?
Mozelle: I don’t think she’ll sue me.

…

Roz: When I first met Louis, I saw him set the leg of a boy who had fallen out of a tree. And I thought to myself, “Here is a man who can fix things. He’s a healer, he’ll take care of me.” So I leave my family, and I move to this swamp, and I find out he’s just a man.
Mozelle: We’re two of a kind, my brother and I. One day, he’ll open his eyes and see you for the first time…he’ll see that what he’s been looking for is right in front of him. Then he’ll stop looking for what he already has.
Roz: But what if it’s too late?

…

Elzora: Some things are better left unsaid.
Mozelle: I paid you a dollar, old woman. Now tell my fortune.
Elzora: I don’t need no cat bones to tell your fortune, Mozelle Batiste. You are a curse. The Black Widow. Next man that marries you is a dead man. Like the others. Always be that way.

…

Roz: Which one of your patients you going to see, Louis?
Louis: Woman, go get your palm read and let me do my work.

…

Eve: Mama keeps stabbing herself in the kitchen! Show her your hands, Mama.
Roz: I think you’d better hush…
Eve: And where Daddy? He’s never home. He’s supposed to be home sometimes!
Roz: Listen, you little ingrate. Your father works hard so we can have a house with four bathrooms!
Eve: Not every night he’s working, I know he’s not!

…

Roz [to Cisely]: When I was your age I was just like you. I thought I knew everything. Now even the things I’m most familiar with seem mysterious to me.

…

Eve [to Cisely about to leave home to have her head shrunk]: If you leave me alone with them, I’ll die. I’ll die, Cisely.[/b]

That is when Cisely tells her about sitting on daddy’s lap one night.

[b]Mozelle: Life is filled with goodbyes, Eve, a million goodbyes, and it hurts every time. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve lost so much, I have to find new things to lose. All I know is, there must be a divine point to it all, and it’s just over my head. That when we die, it will all come clear. And then we’ll say, “So that was the damn point.” And sometimes, I think there’s no point at all, and maybe that’s the point. All I know is most people’s lives are a great disappointment to them and no one leaves this earth without feeling terrible pain. And if there is no divine explanation at the end of it all, well…that’s sad.

…

Eve: How do you kill someone with voodoo?
Mozelle: Hmm, I almost forgot you was there. Stick some pins in a doll, perhaps. I really don’t know. What made you ask that?
Eve: Nothing.
Mozelle: Well, you must have been thinking something before you said it. What led you to that particular thought?
[Glances at Eve]
Eve: I don’t know…
Mozelle: Is there someone you’re angry with? Someone you want dead?
Eve: I’m going inside.
[she turns to leave]
Mozelle [stopping Eve]: No, I think you better tell me what’s on your mind! You have five seconds.

…

Lenny [to Louis]: If you ever speak to my wife again, I will kill you.

…

Eve [voiceover]: Memory is the selection of images, some elusive, some imprinted indelibly on the brain. Each image in like a thread, each thread woven together to make a tapestry of intricate texture…and the tapestry tells a story and the story is our past.[/b]

iambiguous · August 17, 2013, 5:35pm

A psychological thriller. Always the best kind. After all, regarding mental afflictions, the sky’s the limit.

She shows up at the school to pick up her daughter, Bunny. They insist Bunny is not registered there. And then before we know it it’s suspected by the authorities that she does not even exist at all. So: Is it her daughter or her sanity that is missing?

But then if it’s her sanity that’s missing so is the sanity of her brother. Only they have had a very strange relationship since childhood. Also, there are some really weird people here. Like Miss Ford. She collects children’s nightmares. And the landlord. A creepy, truly slimey bastard. If only he could be just a figment of her imagination.

And then there’s the “doll hospital”. You never saw so many dolls in all your life.

Of course in this day and age abducted children seem to be everywhere. At least here in America. They didn’t invent “Amber Alerts” for nothing. But this is England in the mid sixties. In some respects a whole different world.

Look for Dr. Dave Bowman [sans HAL]. And, for all intents and purposes, Norman Bates.

IMDb

A remake was planned during the period of 2007-2009. Reese Witherspoon was attached to the project which was ultimately shelved.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Lake_Is_Missing
clip: youtu.be/KDMB9hXq_Zs
trailer: tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1900 … iler-.html

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING [1965]
Directed by Otto Preminger

[b]Ann: This woman is crazy!
Miss Ford: Don’t you think we all are, to one degree or another? Crazy, I mean. Especially children.

…

Steven: Miss Ford, if you know something please level with us. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.
Miss Ford: Embarrass me? How would you do that?
Steven: By calling the police.
Miss Ford: What an enchanting idea. The telephone is in here.

…

Ann: What would anybody want with Bunny’s things? It’s like a nightmare.

…

Ann: I don’t understand. How can a child just disappear?
Superintendent Newhouse: Either you’ve been the victim of a very eccentric burglar or…
Ann: Or what?
Superintendent Newhouse: Or the child’s things were never here.

…

Ann: That superintendent asked me for a list. A list of all the people who have seen Bunny since we arrived in England. Now, what does he need that for?
Steven: Suspects, I suppose.
Ann: No, he sounded like…like he wanted to be sure there really was a Bunny.

…

Miss Ford [to the superintendent]: Apparently, she had this completely imaginary companion.
Superintendent Newhouse: Who, Bunny?
Miss Ford: No, the mother, when she was a child. And she called her Bunny.

…

Miss Ford: That young man is worried about his sister. Desparately worried.
Superintendent Newhouse: Isn’t that natural?
Miss Ford: Is it? Natural I mean. I should have thought the natural thing was to worry about the child.

…

Superintendent Newhouse [to Steven]: Tell me about you and your sister…when you were children.

…

Steven: Why are you pouring liquor into my sister when you know she is so upset? What are you up to Newhouse?
Superintendent Newhouse: I’m trying to find the truth.
Steven: Is that what you were looking for in our apartment?
Superintendent Newhouse: I just want to find one simple thing…one small simple proof.
Steven: Proof of what?
Superintendent Newhouse: That Bunny Lake exists.

…

Andrews:: Did you expect to find the child, sir?
Superintendent Newhouse: Not just the child. Neither of them came. Neither one of them. You know what that means, don’t you, Andrews? You and I made them up. We made up the whole family.

…

Doll “surgeon”: Oh, yes, I remember. This doll had almost been loved to death. You know, love inflicts the most terrible injuries on my small patients.[/b]

iambiguous · August 17, 2013, 10:21pm

Yes, this is a true story; and, yes, there really are people like this in the world. Lots of them I suspect. But I suspect even more there are many more on this side of the pond. America after all seems to mass produce them.

As much as anything else though, this is also the story of the modern media. Here giving us a taste of what it would eventually blossom into today. It’s about what can happen to you when you find yourself on the wrong side of a frenzied “true crime” story—one of those “crimes of the centuries”. All of your life and accomplishments can go out the window. Or be flushed down the toilet. Instead, everything gets reduced down to this: How Can You Defend These Evil Monsters!

The ones here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders

Here’s a man consumed by [consumed with] the best of intentions. A religious man trying to bring reforms to prisons in England. From his point of view nothing anyone does puts them beyond the reach of forgiveness. And then redemption. Of course, there are those who are particularly skillful in playing those with that mentality. And then there’s always the “politics”. It’s what can happen when your ideals get stuck in the vice that is reality. Here, sometimes you eat and bear and sometimes the bear eats you.

This is one of those classic situations where there is a truth to be found. But we have no way in which to procure it beyond either believing or not believing what the protagonists tell us. Here, again, without God [an omniscient point of view] we are on our own. And even with respect to what “the facts” are.

You see here why some folks [like Longford] are drawn to God. But all I really see are folks who cannot bear to live in a world without one.

IMDb

To look as much as possible like the real Lord Longford, Jim Broadbent wore a prosthetic nose and chin that took two hours to apply each day. A prison guard who had known the real Lord Longford was once very startled when Broadbent entered the prison door in costume. To make himself walk very slowly and lamely when Longford sees Myra Hindley for the last time in the movie (when the character is 92 years old), Broadbent put small, painful stones inside his shoes.

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

LONGFORD [2006]
Directed by Tom Hooper

[b]Lord Longford: I can’t sit on the board of a prison-visiting charity and start drawing lines.
Lady Elizabeth: Yes, you can. Frank, that woman’s inhumane. She’s…she’s a monster. She murdered innocent young children. We don’t even know how many.
Lord Longford: But as a prisoner, she’s still perfectly entitled to be visited.

…

Hindley: I think it’s me you’re looking for.
Lord Longford: Myra Hindley?
Hindley: I got rid of the peroxide before the trial. I was blue at the trial, for most of it. And then red for the sentencing. Apparently it counted against me - showed I had no remorse.
Lord Longford: I wasn’t aware of a correlation between hair colour and contrition.

…

Lord Longford [in a letter to Hindley]: “As a young man, I wasn’t much interested in God. Quite the opposite. This one day I was just overwhelmed by the sheer pointlessness of an existence without the prospect of an afterlife. That’s when I realized that without a religious dimension, there was little meaning to life.”

…

Lord Longford [in first visit with Ian Brady]: What can I do for you, Mr. Brady?
Brady [looks sad and troubled]: I’d like to find my way back to God, Lord Longford. Will ye help me?
Lord Longford [eagerly]: Most certainly, if that’s what you want to…
Brady: Don’t ye fucking dare. If ye start that pious mumbo-jumbo with me, I will jump across that table and bite out your tongue.

…

Prime Minister: I remember you asking your country to forgive the Germans after the war.
Lord Longford: They were starving, Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: But so were we. It was 1947. There’s an endearing childlike quality about you, Frank. But no one wants children in the cabinet.

…

Brady: I want to tell ye about Myra, whom ye no doubt believe is sincere in her religious conversion. Let me tell ye, that woman cares no more about God than she does about the piles in my arse. What she cares about is getting out! And she thinks you’ll help her. But the minute your back is turned, she mocks ye!
[pulls three letters from his lap]
Brady: For your silly hair… and your clothes… and your “self-important autobiography that’s only published 'cause his family owns a bloody publishing house!”
[pauses for effect]
Brady: What? She didn’t tell ye she was still writing to me?
Lord Longford: No.
Ian Brady: Oh, dear. She probably didn’t tell ye she was fucking that little prison officer either? A nun? They do it under the bed in the cell, apparently. Four times a day! She has a very high sex drive, our Myra. It’s the sort of detail ye might want about your new girlfriend. She needs it all the time… like a man, in that way. Like a man in other ways, too. She’s strong! That came in handy, as ye can imagine. When the kids were wriggling and trying to get away. Take my advice. Go about your other prisoners. Nice, uncomplicated ones with broken noses and knuckle tattoos. Stay clear of Myra, because she will destroy you. Certainly destroyed me. That’s a thought ye’ve not had before - that Myra egged me on. That without her, none of it would have happened.
[Lord Longford stands up to leave]
Brady [shouting furiously at Lord Longford’s back]: Listen to the tape, that’s my advice, if ye want to know what she’s really like! And when ye do, bear this in mind: that it was her that insisted they call us “Mommy-y-y!” and “Daddy-y-y!” Not me!

…

[Lord and Lady Longford are sitting up in bed looking at pornographic magazines, such as Mayfair and Slave, to decide whether they are offensive]
Lady Elizabeth: Frank, it’s harmless. Completely harmless.
Lord Longford: I disagree. These things are read by children at a vulnerable age. The boys on the bus can’t have been more than twelve.
Lady Elizabeth: And in our day it was just the same.
Lord Longford: Nothing like so graphic or as available. Look at it! Sexual arousal is Pavlovian - if boys grow up thinking that these kind of breasts or this kind of submission is normal, they’ll expect it in later life.
Lady Elizabeth: I’m afraid I’m with Marilyn Monroe on this. When asked what she thought about sex she thought for a moment and then said that she felt it was here to stay. And if it is, so is prostitution and so is pornography.

…

Brady: Well, look who it is! Lord Porn! I told ye to leave her alone, Frank. And ye didn’t. And now look: half the country has ye earmarked as her lackey, the other half as a gullible fool. So I’m gonna tell ye again. Nice and slowly, so ye don’t forget it. Leave… Myra… Hindley… alone! Or she will do to you what she did to me. She will destroy you.

…

Brady: An hysteric! That’s what she is. Are ye familiar with the term, in its strict, clinical use?
Lord Longford: No.
Brady [very seriously]: An hysteric is someone who gives to people, reflects back to them, that which they believe makes them most acceptable…most likable…what they think others want to see. And Myra Hindley is a classic hysteric. It explains why to you, she’s a virtuous, church-going angel. To her co-prisoners and dykes, she’s a strong woman with a soft heart. And to me: she was a brutal sadist - and a cruel killer - with not an ounce of remorse in her.
Lord Longford [resisting the idea]: If she is this guilty, why did you insist on her innocence at the trial?
Brady: Because I loved her. How could ye not love a girl like that?
[Softly, gently]
Brady: Come on, Frank…don’t look like that. Ye know exactly what I’m talking about.
Lord Longford: No. I’ve spoken to the prison governor about having you reassessed as a mental case -
Ian Brady: Deny it, Frank. Look me in the eye, and tell me ye weren’t a little sweet on her yourself.
[Very softly and gently]
Brady: The knight on his white charger… riding in to save the damsel…
[whispers like a woman]
Brady: “Save me, Lord Longford… save me!”[/b]

Sure seems that way to me.

[b]Lady Elizabeth [to her daughter after visiting Hindley in prison]: It seemed to me that for years I have been merrily attacking your father for supporting her, without having the slightest idea what I was talking about. And I must say my eyes have been opened, rather. Ironically, the thing that finally persuaded me to offer her my help was the very same thing that had so made me hate her in the first place: the fact that she is a woman. Did you know there have been half a dozen similar child murders? The reason none of us has heard about them is because the killers in each case were men. And men, being sadistic violent killers, isn’t a story. Incidentally, in each case, the men have also been paroled. The reason that Myra Hindley is still in jail and has never been considered for parole, is because she is a woman. And for that reason she will always have my understanding…if not my sympathy.

…

Hindley: The police have been to see me. Brady’s talked to the press about the other bodies.
Lord Longford: What other bodies?
Hindley: Pauline Reade. And the Bennet boy. He hasn’t given them any details yet, but he says he knows where they’re buried, and before he grabs the initiative I’m going to come clean and tell the prison “I know”.
Lord Longford: But you know nothing about the bodies…you’ve told me as much yourself.
[Hindley stares blankly]
Lord Longford: What are you saying?

…

Lord Longford [on the radio struggling to bare his soul in public] Forgiving her has proven difficult, very difficult. Not for what’s she’s done to me, that’s neither here nor there; but for the terrible crimes themselves. Forgiveness is the very cornerstone of my faith. And the struggle to deepen my faith is my life’s journey. In that respect she has enriched my spiritual life beyond measure, and for that, I will always be grateful to her.
[trembling slightly]
Lord Longford: If people think that makes me weak…or mad…so be it. That is the path I am committed to. To love the sinner, but hate the sins. To assume the best in people, and not the worst. To believe that anyone, no matter how evil, can be redeemed…eventually.

…

Hindley [smiles fondly]: Rubbish! My hair is falling out, and I’m dying of emphysema.
Lord Longford: Well, you still look wonderful to me!
Hindley: Well, you’re blind.
Lord Longford: Nearly, yes.

…

Lord Longford: And you’re confession to God. Was that just a lie too?
Hindley: I’m trying Frank, to know the God that you know. But if you had been there, on the moors, in the moonlight, when we did the first one, you’d know, that evil can be a spiritual experience too.

…

Lord Longford: Had you been hanged, I would never have had the privilege of getting to know you!
Hindley [gazes at him with sadness in her eyes]: You really believe that, don’t you?
[he smiles at her shyly, and says nothing]
Hindley: Must be a rather nice place to be.
Lord Longford [he glances around them]: Where?
Hindley: Inside your head.[/b]

iambiguous · August 18, 2013, 5:53pm

I don’t think this is a particularly well made film. But it does allow you to imagine the brave new world just on the horizon. Or, for some of us no doubt, a world that is already here. And it did garner a 69% fresh rating at RT on 29 reviews.

We all know that surveilance cameras are increasingly the rule when we are “out in publc”. And this will always bother some more than others. Especially with regard to “the government”. But then there is also the reality of stalkers. And I suspect that no one would be pleased with the idea of someone breaking into their home and installing audio mics and video cameras in, say, the bedroom or the bathroom or, well, all the other rooms too.

This takes stalking to a whole other level. He spies on her, gets to know all things she likes and dislikes…and then “accidently” bumps into her at the coffee shop. He lets her know that he likes and dislikes all the same things! Remember Healy from There’s Something About Mary? Only it’s not for laughs here.

The film seems to indicate the equipment to do this readily available at any electonics store…relatively cheap and not really all that difficult to install. And it doesn’t have to be a stranger either. It can be someone [anyone] you invite into your home for any number of reasons.

The conceit here is that we see these interactions from the perspective of the surrveilance equipment itself. What we see is what anyone who installs this stuff in your home [or follows you around when you leave it] sees. And all the while you are assuming you’re in your own private little world.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_with_Her
trailer: youtu.be/YVKgaqtSQF0

ALONE WITH HER [2006]
Written and directed by Eric Nicholas

[b]Title card: Every minute, 3 people become the victims of stalking in the United States. What concerns us most is that recent technology has created a golden age for predators to track and terrorize. Hidden video cameras, microphones and spy equipment can now be purchased for next to nothing and are available through the internet and retail stores everywhere…to anyone.

David Wiseman, U.S. Department of Justice

…

Doug: My wife and I need to keep an eye on our nanny while we’re away from home.
Sales clerk: Right. We have all kinds of housefold objects with built in cameras. Or you could do it yourself. You can hide this one in anyroom…you know, TV, clock radio, VCR, whatever.
Doug: How much is this?
Sales clerk: This one goes for sixty-nine dollars and it comes with the receiver.
Doug: Do I need a license or something?
Sales clerk: No, you’re good to go. It’s totally legal.

…

Amy: It’s funny, you know. Scary.
Doug: What?
Amy: How much we have in common?

…

Amy: I need you to leave.
Doug: I have done everything for you. When you…when you lost your job, when you hurt yourself, when you had nothing, I took care of you.
Amy: I know you did.
Doug: But you want to go back. To what? Huh? To being alone? To this empty room? To that brush?
[uh-oh]
Amy: What the fuck are you talking about? You said “brush”. My brush. What did you mean by that? How did you know about…[/b]

Practically her final words.

iambiguous · August 18, 2013, 10:01pm

A true cult classic. But since we are not all members of the same cult that will mean different things to different people.

It’s not based on a true story. But not being based on a true story doesn’t mean much in today’s world. Why? Because we know just by watching the daily news that it could happen. That it does happen. Sort of. Folks seem to be held captive by one or another maniac practically every other week now. And not only in America!

Of course God’s in the mix. And class. And poverty. When this sort of thing happens they are almost always in the midst of it somehow. That and pathology.

Try to imagine. For 30 odd years your mother kept you locked in [for all intents and purposes] a dungeon. You’ve never been “out in the world” at all. And then suddenly you are. The only way you know how to behave is by imitating your mother. And then others. So that’s what you do. You mimic everyone you come across. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is surreal. Sometimes it is…unsettling.

Anyway, they all live happily ever after in the end. But just the ones that count. Not that any of this is meant to be taken, say, literally.

IMDb

[b]During shooting director Rolf de Heer heard a rumor that the Australian government might legalize the death penalty. Outraged at this, he wrote an alternate ending which featured Bubby being arrested and hanged for his crimes. de Heer eventually changed his mind and the ending was never shot.

There were 32 different Directors of Photography during the shoot. The idea was to have a different D.P. for every new place that Bubby went to not only give the film more of an experimental feel, but also to eliminate the worry of having to always have the same crew on set every day.

The feral cat killed in the movie was killed humanely by a vet, and not suffocated as depicted in the movie. The same cat was used both when it was alive and after it had been put to sleep. The kitten depicted to be killed later in the movie was not feral, and was not really killed, it was only sedated.

The “wheelchair robbery” scene was based on an actual event that the director had witnessed while writing the script.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Boy_Bubby
trailer: youtu.be/YXZ4u2ZVWOc

BAD BOY BUBBY [1993]
Written and directed by Rolf de Heer

[b]Mother [to Bubby]: Don’t move! Jesus can see everything. He tells me you moved, by Christ, I’ll beat you brainless!

…

Bubby: Bubby naughty…

Mother [starts smacking him]: Oh, Christ! What you done?! You… filthy little cunt! You dirty little shit! I’ll send you to hell, just you see, you’ll go to hell, and your eyes will fall out, and your prick will fall off, you dirty little SLIME![/b]

At least he has a cat to torment.

[b]Bubby [to the cat]: And if the poison doesn’t get you…God will.

…

Harold [Bubby’s father who shows up out of the blue]: And yet I never knowed I had a son! Good, healthy-looking specimen, too. You done well, Flo. Hey, son! You can call me Pop! I’m your Pop!

Bubby: Pop. Pop.

Father: He’s gettin’ the idea.

Bubby: Pop. Pop-pop-pop…Pop. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

…

Bubby [smothering mom and pop]: Now… you be still, Pop. Mum…you be still, too.[/b]

And just like that he’s, uh, free. Like you and I are now. Well, if we were Bubby and lived smack dab in the middle of a working class community in Australia.

[b]Bubby: Well, if that’s all there is… we’re stuffed.

…

[Bubby approaches buxom Angel for the first time]
Bubby: You’re a sexy woman. God, you’ve got great tits. Great big whoppers!

…

Bubby: Jesus can see everything I do… and he’s going to beat me brainless!
The Scientist: Come.
[the scene changes; they are no longer in a huge church but in a huge factory]
The Scientist: You see, no one’s going to help you Bubby, because there isn’t anybody out there to do it. No one. We’re all just complicated arrangements of atoms and subatomic particles - we don’t live. But our atoms do move about in such a way as to give us identity and consciousness. We don’t die; our atoms just rearrange themselves. There is no God. There can be no God; it’s ridiculous to think in terms of a superior being. An inferior being, maybe, because we, we who don’t even exist, we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth. We measure; we plot; we create wonderful new things. We are the architects of our own existence. What a lunatic concept to bow down before a God who slaughters millions of innocent children, slowly and agonizingly starves them to death, beats them, tortures them, rejects them. What folly to even think that we should not insult such a God, damn him, think him out of existence. It is our duty to think God out of existence. It is our duty to insult him. Fuck you, God! Strike me down if you dare, you tyrant, you non-existent fraud! It is the duty of all human beings to think God out of existence. Then we have a future. Because then - and only then - do we take full responsibility for who we are. And that’s what you must do, Bubby: think God out of existence; take responsibility for who you are.

…

Bubby [now alone out on the street]: Fuck you, God! Strike me down, if you dare! Fuck you, God. Fuck you, God! Strike me down, if you dare!

…

Bubby [to the outline of his dead mother on the floor]: You be right, Mum…Bubby no fit no more out there.

…

Bubby [singing]: Tell you a story/Sad but true/Tell you a story about you know who/Bad Boy Bubby/Bad Boy Bubby Blues.

…

Angel [to Bubby]: A band?

…

Bubby [mimicing the scientist]: It is the duty of all to think God out of existence.
Angel: You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?

…

Angel [taking Bubby to her home for dinner]: This is going to be fun…
Angel’s mother: How do you like your dinner, Mr Pop?
Bubby: Pizza be better than this.
Angel’s mother: Our daughter has a healthy appetite, don’t you think?
Angel: Mother, don’t start.
Angel’s father: Be quiet! Let your mother speak uninterrupted!
Angel’s mother: Thank you, dear! We tried to bring her up as best as we could but she’s been rather a disappointment to us.
Angel’s father [to Angel]: Be the first time you didn’t finish your dinner!
Angel’s mother: I find fat people so…so gross! So unfortunate, of course but so…ugly. And what do you think, Mr Pop?
Bubby: I think Angel is beautiful.
Angel’s Father: She’s a fat slut.
Angel’s Mother: Watch what you say, dear.
Angel’s Father: Better be known that she’s a fat slut.
Angel’s Mother: If God had wanted us to be fat, he’d just made us all the same way, wouldn’t he? But he didn’t! God doesn’t like fat people! Fat people are an abomination in his eyes!
Bubby [mimicing the scientist]: Fuck you, God! Strike me down if you dare! Angel be beautiful. God be a useless cunt!

…

Angel: My parents were just waiting to die anyway, Bubby. They were both riddled with poisons and cancers…Asbestos from the brake linings. Lead from the car exhaust. PCP’s from the car seats. Dioxins, parathidions, dieldrin, Mercury. Radioactivity. Whoever did it, just put them out of their misery.
Bubby: Ashes to ashes…dust to dust. That be nice.
Angel: They be poisoning us! They be poisoning the air that we breathe!
Bubby: If the poison don’t get you…then God will![/b]

iambiguous · August 19, 2013, 10:58pm

Another cult movie. Another argument over what the hell that means. But this one is in the book.

A movie within a movie. A man hiding his identity on and off the screen.

Quiet on the set! And…action! Now you see him, now you don’t. Here the danger is real, there it’s just for the shot. Meanwhile, we are watching the spectators watching the movie being made. What’s real and what is not? The director is even clever enough to intertwine them into something resembling a reality. His, for example. And in order to get it just the way he wants it, everything else becomes irrelevant…just as everyone else becomes expendable.

Cameron isn’t a real stunt man. He just plays a stunt man who is playing someone else in the movie. And a real stunt man is hired to play him playing the stunt man. But the guy did survive 26 months of combat in Vietnam. Doing the real thing as it were. So, as he insisted to Chuck, “give me a break”. But, of course, he’s just an actor playing a Vietnam vet. Just as he is an actor playing a criminal. We grasp this but we are still very curious to know what crime he actually committed. Why, in other words, are the actors playing the cops after him?

Eli isn’t a real director either. He is being directed by a real director though. Just as [more or less] the real director is being directed by the films producers and the folks who run the studios.

Anyway, the bottom line: It’s just a movie about how movies intertwine what is being made up regarding things that could in fact have happened. Or have in fact happened. After all, the Vietnam war was real. And post traumatic stress syndrome is real. But in the movies though are the rewrites. And that’s all it takes to change reality there.

Look for Charles Manson.

IMDb

[b]Although actors like Martin Sheen and Jeff Bridges were lobbying hard for the part of Cameron, Steve Railsback clinched the part after director Richard Rush saw his stirring performance as Charles Manson in Helter Skelter.

Stunt coordinator Charles Bail, who is frequently known as Chuck Bail, worked as an actor in the film playing a character, Chuck, also a stunt coordinator.

Co-screenwriter Richard Rush has said of the rejection of his first draft script by Columbia Pictures studio executives: “They couldn’t figure out if it was a comedy, a drama, if it was a social satire, if it was an action adventure…and, of course, the answer was, ‘Yes, it’s all those things’. But that isn’t a satisfactory answer to a studio executive”.

In an interview with ‘American Film’ magazine in 1981, director Richard Rush said the film “…had in it an irresistible metaphor for me. The idea of a fugitive hiding his identity by posing as a stuntman and falling under the dominance of a director seemed like a marvelous way to examine our universal panic and paranoia over controlling our own destinies. And it offered a chance to do it inside the structure of a big screen big action picture, which would be entertaining at the same time”.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stunt_Man
trailer: youtu.be/BesLJgU0ZBs

THE STUNT MAN [1980]
Written in part and directed by Richard Rush

[b]Cop [as Cameron plays a pinball machine]: You’re gonna win.
Cameron: Win what?
Cop: A free game.
Cameron [bitterly]: Just what I need, one more chance to lose.

…

Cameron [to Nina after he “rescues” her]: Just like in the movies!

…

Cameron: If you want to get home for Thanksgiving, you better figure the guy coming at you is trying to kill you. Learned that from the gooks.
Eli: Gooks? That has a nostalgic ring. You really did call them gooks? I thought that was just Time Magazine.

…

Eli: You did that very well.
Cameron: Hey, I just listened.
Eli: There are few actors in the entire world who have mastered that art. Anyway, it was a very good audition.

…

Cameron: The cops are going to know exactly what I look like.
Eli: Oh stop all this worrying. You must have heard surely of movie magic. You shall be a stunt man who is an actor who is a character in a movie who is an enemy soldier. Who will look for you?

…

Cameron: I knew daredevils in Vietnam, and I ain’t got nothin’ against them, it’s just they’re all dead.

…

Raymond: I’ll never understand why these guys take the chances.
Eli: I don’t know. Probably because all we know is that we shall die…It makes us so scared, so crazy we’ll do anything…Which is what our film is about…or did no one tell you that.

…

Cameron [after demonstrating a leap for Chuck]: My specialty’s the broad jump.
Chuck [angrily]: And Burt’s specialty was drowning!

…

Eli: Sam, this picture is my child. What would you say if the studio said your daughter Jennifer would look better with her fingers chopped off?
Sam: Well, being an insecure writer, I’d call my agent and get a second opinion.

…

Eli: Nina the actress so fair / Who fancied a man with blond hair. / But Raymond discovers / As he lifts up the covers / That his double - young “Lucky”- is there.

…

Eli [to Cameron]: Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray’s belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he’d be a happy man!

…

Cameron: Why are you trying to save my ass?
Eli: Because you’re almost as crazy as the young man I’m making this film about. Besides, I’ve fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature.

…

Eli [after an effects shot involving a dummy has gone wrong]:It’s so awful, it’s beautiful. I do wish I could use it.
Sam: That’s all we need.
Eli: Well, we need something, Sam, and damn well you know it. Something better.
Sam: Better? How better?
Eli: Something less boring. Something crazier.
Sam: A dead man’s boots are dropped over his own airfield out of chivalry. That’s not crazy enough for you, huh?
Eli: They did it in a film called “Wings.” Even the dummy was bored.

…

Cameron [after Eli urges him to read how to get out of a sunken car, and avoid Burt’s fate of presumed drowning]: Did Burt read this book?
Eli: Offhand, I’d say no.

…

Eli [after a cameraman says cut because there’s only 22 seconds of film left]: In 22 seconds, I could break your fucking spine. In 22 seconds, I could pinch your head off like a fucking insect and spin it all over the fucking pavement. In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut. What I seem unable to do in 22 seconds is to keep you from fucking up my film!

…

Cameron: What should I congratulate you for? The fucking scene or for fucking the director?
Nina [miffed]: For fucking the director, honey. Didn’t you know that’s how little girls get into the movies?

…

Eli: I lost you Nina…to that swell wholesome fine looking kid, that soldier boy wanted by the police, the FBI, the sheriff, the Army and possibly the Vietcong. And for God knows what crime. Christ woman do you not see the man…he’s gleaming with blood.
Nina: He says that you are trying to harm him.
Eli [after a pause]: Any number of people are trying to harm him.

…

Cameron [to Nina]: I’m beginning to feel like something Sam wrote. I’m not real. I’m some jerk American flyer from World War I who has to go off some bridge and die because the goddamn script says so. If they just tore out that page…just ripped it out, I’d be flying again. If they crossed it out and wrote something else like “at the last moment the car veers off from the railing and he goes speeding off to live happily ever after”.

…

Eli [to Cameron, who has completed the car stunt]: Oh, God. I don’t believe it’s breathing. There are some days in which I can’t do one thing right. I hope this doesn’t fuck up our relationship, you being alive and all.

…

Eli: I know a man who made an anti-war movie… a good one. When it was shown in his home town, army enlistment went up six hundred percent. I’m trying to convince the world with my movie that there is a reasonable and better way of getting home for Thanksgiving.[/b]

iambiguous · August 20, 2013, 9:21pm

A strange and beautiful woman [think, say, Jeanne Moreau] shows up. She murders a man and then she’s gone. On to the next one. Five in all. Of course: Why?

When you see this for the first time it’s particularly intrguing. That’s because the men she murders seem to have absolutely nothing in common. One is provincial, barely scrapping by, one is comfortably enscounced in the middle class, one appears quite wealthy and worldly, one is a slimeball crook, one is a sophisticated artist. We know it has something to do with her husband being shot…but how do the pieces all fit together?

Avenge your husband’s death, sure. It was, after all, on your wedding day that he was “gunned down”. But is everything really as it seems? For example, there is the part about intentions. Or is that not really important?

This one is “in the tradition of Hitchcock”. I’ve never really been entirely certain what that means but I do know this: with Hitchcock, the mystery [like the murder] is almost never supernatural. Folks just like you and I are perfectly capable of providing that. Often by simply misunderstanding what is going on. But Hitchcock is almost never this…surrreal? The fifth murder in particular.

Shades of Kill Bill? Or rather, Kill Bill being a shade of this.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Wore_Black
trailer: youtu.be/xbb7LBLJvoc

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK [La Mariée Etait En Noir] 1968
Written in part and directed by François Truffaut

[b]Moran: Miss Becker, open the door, please, it slammed shut.
Julie: I slammed it shut. I’m the one who locked you in.
Moran [pounding on the closet door]: Open up, Miss Becker!
Julie: Stop it. I’ll tell you why I did it. I’m not Miss Becker.
Moran: What do you mean? Who are you?
Julie: I’m Julie Kohler. David Kohler’s widow. I came here tonight to kill you.
Moran: Let me out of here! Please, listen to me! Let me explain what happened. I’ll explain the whole thing to you!

…

Moran [to Julie]: It was a terrible accident, and because of it our careers, our futures, could have been ruined. Bliss, Coral, Delvaux, Fergus and I weren’t really friends. We were a group of bachelors in a boring, small town. We’d get together to play cards and kid around. We only had two common interests. Hunting and women. After the accident, we felt guilty and yet innocent. We made a quick decision to break up and never see each other again.

…

Detective: I’ve known killers caught with a smoking gun, brazenly refusing to admit their crime, but this one beats all. She admits to committing four murders, and won’t say what the motive was. I’m stumped by the way this woman, so intelligent, let herself be caught.[/b]

Well, we know why, don’t we?

iambiguous · August 21, 2013, 2:03am

I never really played arcade videogames. The “classics” or otherwise. So, I’ll never know first-hand why those who played them passionaitely prized their skills [or their “world records”] as though they were, I don’t know, Super Bowl champions? Nobel Peace Prize winners?

But [as kids] most of us know what it’s like to be really good at something. And by something, I mean at anything. If you could pitch pennies better than anyone, or pitch horseshoes, or pitch baseballs. It didn’t matter. Somebody in your neighborhood had to set the records. So why not you?

But with videogames [back then] everyone in the universe seemed to be playing them. And not just kids. If you held the world’s record for playing Donkey Kong you were [in that world] a fucking rock star. A fucking God. That is, until somebody new came along and beat it. Or alleged that he did on videotape.

One thing for sure. This was a world populated almost entirely by boys and men. All white apparently. And I don’t recall seeing a single female participant. Why? Nature? Nurture?

And then there’s the whole question of “cheating”. Here Billy Mitchell pretty much comes out looking [at best] like a hypocrite.

IMDb

[b]Several of those depicted in the documentary, including Wiebe and Mitchell themselves, claim that it does not accurately depict events. For example, Wiebe and Mitchell were, and still are, on much friendlier terms than is suggested, and another player’s record was in place during some of the events but is omitted. The director has conceded to many of these claims in statements, arguing that the fictionalized account is more entertaining.

On March 5, 2010, Hank Chien became the new Donkey Kong world record holder, scoring 1,061,700 points. On August 7 2010, Bill Mitchell regained the Donkey Kong record with a score of 1,062,800. Steve Wiebe regained the title on September 20, 2010 with 1,064,500 points. As of 10 January 2011, Hank Chien holds the world record with 1,068,000 points.[/b]

Here’s where we stand today [I guess]: donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2011 … cores.html

Go ahead, take a shot at it.

[I wonder if they keep records on philosophical feats; for example, “most references to dasein”]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_o … f_Quarters
trailer: youtu.be/xMJZ-_bJKdI

KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS [2007]
Directed by Seth Gordon

[b]Billy Mitchell: There’ll always be the argument that video games are meant to be played for fun. Believe me, some of it’s a lot of fun. Video games are meant to be played at home, relaxing on a couch amongst friends. And they are, and that’s fun. But competitive gaming, when you wanna attach your name to a world record, when you want your name written into history, you have to pay the price.

…

Title card: “This is a war universe. War all the time. There may be other universes, but ours seems to be based on war and games.” William S. Burroughs

…

Walter Day: I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, “Hi, I see that you’re good at Centipede.”

…

Billy Mitchell: The top French pilot in World War I shot down 24 enemy planes. The top American pilot-- you don’t know his name, do you? Nobody does. But it’s Eddie Rickenbacker. Shot down 26 enemy planes. The German Ace, the Red Baron. Everyone knows who the Red Baron is. That’s 'cause he shot down 87 enemy planes. I mean, he was the best. There’s just–There’s a level of difference between people, and it translates into some games.

…

Robert Mruczek: Pattern recognition and memorization is key. If you do not know the next pattern coming up in a Tron Light Cycle Event, you will lose your life.

…

Announcer: When Billy Mitchell walks into an arcade, you know, everything stops. There’s electricity around Billy Mitchell. Everybody wants to crowd around him. Everybody wants to see him.

…

TV Newscaster: On July 4, at a New Hampshire arcade, 34-year-old Billy Mitchell became the first person to master Pac-Man by recording the first ever perfect game.

…

Gamer: To get through every board of Pac-Man, getting every dot, every energizer, every ghost that’s applicable, to reach to the final 256th screen without dying? That’s–lt’s impressive in its own right.

…

[Top gamers talk Donkey Kong]

Gamer: Well, Donkey Kong, without question, is the hardest game. lt’s ridiculously difficult on the first screen. Donkey Kong is releasing these barrels. You got to jump over the barrels. You gotta duck the barrels. You can grab a hammer and hammer the barrels.

Gamer: Okay, the secret about the barrel board is you can actually control the barrels. Right above this ladder, you’ll do a quick left, and then a hard right turn. See how it went down? Went down again. You gotta get past all the barrels, the fireballs, get up the ladders. And as soon as you get to her, Donkey Kong takes her away to the next level.

Gamer: The average Donkey Kong game doesn’t last a minute. lt’s absolute brutality. Each of the 18 elevator boards represents the greatest challenge in video game playing.

Gamer: The average gamer on Donkey Kong will never get past the third elevator stage. Just the slightest touch from one of these springs, kills you. There’s no hammer for them. There’s no way to defeat them. All you can do is avoid them. That’s it. And the secret to the third elevators is knowing which spring to go on, and then knowing which spring to move up the ladder on, and recognizing when you must retreat. lf you don’t time it just exactly right, you will die.

Gamer: The actual game play involves so much eye-hand coordination, mind-body coordination, fast reaction time, and comprehensive thinking. Such a high level of precise execution. So much skill… involves so much learning. You have to have deep comprehensive intelligence.

Gamer: For years and years, it was believed that Billy’s record of 874,000 in was really the highest score anyone would ever get.

…

Steve Wiebe: I was havin’ the game of my life. I was–I think I got 600,OOO, uh, and I hadn’t died yet. And then I started hearing some noises coming down the stairs, screaming…
Derek Wiebe [his young son yelling]: Daaad!
Steve Wiebe [playing Donkey Kong]: Yes, Derek. What’s wrong?
Derek Wiebe [upset and angry]: Wipe my butt! Stop playing Donkey Kong! Stop playing Donkey Kong! Stop playing Donkey Kong!
Steve Wiebe: And it’s all on tape, and I–That’s the tape I had to send in to–to Twin Galaxies!

…

Seattle newscaster: Bill Gates isn’t necessarily the most famous name in Redmond tonight. Coming up, meet the man who’s at the top of his game. A Donkey Kong world record.

…

Steve’s friend: He was a big celebrity there for a bit in Seattle. Even though it was this silly video game thing, it’s not many of us that have a buddy who’s the best in the world at something.

…

Billy Mitchell: No matter what I say, it draws controversy. It’s sort of like the abortion issue.[/b]

I don’t see any difference, do you?

[b]Gamer: Numerous classic games, they all have something in common. They have an end to the game play. There’s not quite enough memory for the final board. It’s called a ‘‘kill screen’’ because basically, there’s no way to finish the level. That some sort of random data, or code, inside the program, ends up getting used for what you see on the screen. Donkey Hong is really strange in that it actually lets you play the final screen–the kill screen level–for maybe five seconds or so. Everything looks normal and then, suddenly, Mario just up and dies on you.

…

Brian Kuh: You know, he’s gonna have to play it perfectly, he’s at the hardest part of Donkey Kong, and it’s not gonna get any easier. So we may have an exciting moment here, or you know, the pressure may get to him, one of those random elements might happen. Sounds like he just cleared another board, but we could have a wild barrel, or some aggressive fireballs. I thought I was gonna be the first FunSpot kill screen, and then I had three fireballs trap me, I had the hammer in my hand, they still got me. So anything can happen in Donkey Kong. So for someone else to beat me to the kill screen would be a letdown, but lets see what happens, maybe he’ll crack under the pressure and maybe I’ll get my chance to do it first.[/b]

Nope, he didn’t.

[b]Steve Wiebe: It’s kind of ironic that he went-- He was a guy that pushed for live scores all the time. And now here I am at Funspot busting my ass to get a live score and he just submits taped scores now and then gets the record.

…

Jillian Wiebe: “Work is for people who can’t play video games.” Billy Mitchell

…

Walter Day: The Mitchell/Wiebe rivalry is among the greatest: the Yankees and Red Sox, Maris and Mantle, Hekyll and Jekyll.

…

Jillian Wiebe [his young daughter]: I never knew that the Guinness World Record Book was so…I never knew it was so important.
Steve Wiebe: I guess a lot of people are…yeah, a lot of people read that book.
Jillian Wiebe [while directly looking at Steve, her father]: Some people sort of ruin their lives to be in there.

…

Mike Thompson: I’ve heard a lot of talk of Billy Mitchell, and I’ve heard a lot of talk of strange videos and things. But I haven’t heard much in the way of him getting in front of a camera crew with people and getting a record in front of people. I haven’t heard about that yet. Maybe he did that 25 years ago. But I haven’t heard of him doing it lately, and it makes you wonder why not.[/b]

iambiguous · August 21, 2013, 4:44pm

From Donkey Kong to “the rape of Nanking”. Jesus, what a fucking world we live in.

The way the story is told is this: Celebrity actors – Woody Harrelson, Stephen Dorff, Mariel Hemmingway etc. – speak the words of the men and women who were actually there at Nanking when the Japanese invaded. It seems the role that Germany played in 20th Century Europe is the role that Japan played in the Far East: imperialist warmongers. Those who would not hesitate to commit genocide if necessary.

The folks who gave their testimony here were largely Westerners. They just happend to be there because one was a missionary or the child of a missionary or taught at the university or was a businessman etc.

But there are also many “ordinary Chinese” here who focus in on the details. I could note them, you could note them. We can both be appalled. But this is just a tiny fraction of all the atrocities that have been inflicted on the human race. And war is just one of the means to that end. And the bottom line is always the same: those who perpetrate and then perpetuate them have their reasons. Their own “kingdom of ends”. Everything is rationalized in the name of one or another alleged “truth”.

And, as is always the case in catastrophes like this one, it always comes down to options. The rich have them and the poor do not. And so it goes.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_(film
trailer: youtu.be/oMn7Q6coFbg

NANKING [2007]
Written and directed by Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman

iambiguous · August 21, 2013, 9:25pm

What does it tell you about modern art and celebrity and fame?

[insert wink here]

Good, at least we are both on the same page.

For some, the only thing more surreal than looking at modern art is listening to the artists [and the critics] talk about it. They have words they connect to the painting but it is as though any other words would fare just as well. It’s both a “technical” and an “aesthetic” experience. Some being more qualified than others [apparently] to make that distinction…and then to pass judgments on one and/or both. On the other hand, no one really has much to say about it anyway. They look at it…and they just know: “This is nice. I like it.” Things like that.

I’m sorry, but I have always been particularly ironic about this stuff. But then how hard is that? Or, rather, what do I know about it? Still, he’s no Lionel Dolby.

And then the truly murky part about his mother. The past in other words. It always works differently for each of us. Made all the murkier though because we often don’t have access to the past of others. Only what they tell us about it. Which all too often is only what they think it is anyway. The murkiest reality of all.

Listen for the soundtrack. It’s…exceptional.

IMDb

[b]Gary Oldman’s character, Albert Milo, wasn’t a real person, but is actually a portrayal of director Julian Schnabel.

In the film, David Bowie is adorned in the actual wigs worn by the real Andy Warhol.

The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat refused to allow his works to be used, so the director, Julian Schnabel, personally painted the reproductions which are used throughout the film.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basquiat_(film
trailer: youtu.be/LeTT9XYesnw

BASQUIAT [1996]
Directed by Julian Schnabel

[b]Rene [voiceover]: Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. There’s no trip so horrible that someone won’t take it. The idea of the unrecognized genius slaving away in a garot is deliciously foolish one. We must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh for really sending this myth into orbit. I mean, how many pictures did he sell, one? He couldn’t give them away. He has to be the most modern artist, but everybody hated him. He was so ashamed of his life that the rest of our history will be contribution to Van Gogh’s neglect. No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another like Van Gogh. In this town, one is at the mercy of the recognition factor. One’s public appearance is absolute. Part of the artist’s job is to get the work where I will see it. I consider myself a metaphor on the public. I am a public eye, a witness, a critic. When you first see a new picture. You don’t want to miss the boat. You have to be very careful. You might be staring at Van Gogh’s ear.

…

Basquiat: I-Is this the s-s-suicide h-h-hotline?
Voice: Yes. My name is Chris. What’s yours?
Basquiat: Jean Michel.
Chris: That’s a beautiful name. French?
Basquiat: Haitian. I’m going to kill myself. I’m taking pills. Reds, blues, greens.
Chris: What? Wait a minute… talk to me.
Basquiat (about to sob): This city’s k-killing me.

…

Basquiat: Hey, Benny, how long does it take to get famous?
Benny: Four years. Six to get rich.

…

Benny [to Basquiat]: And you gotta do your work all the time. The same kinda work, the same style – over and over again, so people recognize it and don’t get confused. Then, once you’re famous, you have to keep doing it the same way, even after it’s boring – unless you want people to really get mad at you – which they will anyway.

…

Benny [to Basquiat]: Famous people are usually pretty fuckin’ stupid.

…

Basquiat: You wanna buy some ignorant art? Ten bucks.
Warhol: Gee, ignorant art?
Basquiat: Yeah…Like – stupid, ridiculous, crummy art.
Warhol: Ohhh. That’s new. That sounds good.
Basquiat: Ten bucks apiece.
Warhol: Well, gee, you didn’t work very much on these. I can give you like five.

…

Rene: What’s your real name?
Basquiat: Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Rene: Oh my God, you sound famous already!

…

Rene: When I speak nobody believes me, but when I write it down everybody knows it to be true.
[pause]
Rene: There’s never been a black painter in art history that’s been considered really important, you know?
Basquiat: Are you writer or a white writer?
Rene: I may be white but I’m a “niggah”. You ask anybody.

…

Cynthia Kruger: I don’t know…This one’s nice, but I don’t know if I could live with it. That green is so… institutional. It’s fascinating, his choice of crossing out words that way.
Annina: Yeah, well, they are more meaningful in their absense, no?
Cynthia Kruger: I just don’t know if I can live with the green.
Basquiat: You want me to make it a nice shit brown?
Tom Kruger: I beg your pardon. Nobody makes fun of my wife but me.

…

Big Pink [after Basquiat rescues her scarf]: Oh! How can I ever thank you?
Basquiat: Maybe I can squeeze your titties?

…

Rene [voiceover]: What is it about art anyway that we give it so much importance? Artists are respected by the poor because what they do is an honest way to get out of the slum using one’s sheer self as the medium. The money earned, proof, pure and simple, of the value of that individual, the artist. The picture a mother’s son does in jail hangs on her wall as proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched. And this is a much different idea than fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. But you can never explain to someone who uses God’s gift to enslave, that you have used God’s gift to be free.[/b]

How close is that to the truth?

[b]Interviewer: You’ve had twenty-three one man shows, been in forty three group shows from Zurich to Tokyo. You’ve had over fifty articles written about you, switched galleries – how many times? DJ’d in the hottest clubs.
[he reads from press clipping]
Interviewer: “…one of the youngest artists ever to be included in the Whitney Biennial”…also produced a rap record. It’s said you’re quite the ladies man – even dated Madonna for a couple months! All this at the ripe old age of 24. One might ask: is there anything left for Jean Michel Basquiat to do? Bottom line: What is it that get’s you out of bed in the morning?
Basquiat [grinning ironically]: I hate this man. Can you shut that recorder off.

…

Interviewer: Do you consider yourself some sort of primal expressionist?
Basquiat: You mean a primate? Like an ape?
Interviewer: Do you consider yourself a painter or a black painter?
Basquiat: Oh, I use lots of colors, not just black.
Interviewer: How do you respond to being called, “the picanny of the art world?”
Basquiat: Who…who said that?
Interviewer: That’s from Time magazine.
Basquiat: No, no, no, no, no. They said I was the Eddie Murphy of the art world.

…

Interviewer: Let me open something up here. You come from the middle class. Your father is an accountant. Why did you live in a cardboard box on Tompkins Square? Do you feel you were being exploited…or are you yourself exploiting the, uh, white image of the black artist from the ghetto…
Baquiat: Ghetto? I don’t exploit it, no. Other people…See, you made me put my foot in my foot. Other people…other people might exploit it. It’s possible.
Interviewer: Is it true that your mother resides in a mental instituion? Is that right?
[no response but his face is contorted]
Interviewer: You angry?
Basquiat: Now? Right now?
Interviewer: No, as an artist?
[no response]
Interviewer: Okay, good. That’s good.

…

Basquiat: Ah, piss paint!
Warhol: Not piss paint, Jean, oxidation art!
Basquiat: Yeah, I hate cleaning brushes too.

…

Basquiat: Giorgio?
Giorgio: Yes, Mr. Basquiat.
Basquiat: You see this table behind me?
Giorgio: Yes.
Basquait: Put their bill on my tab.

…

Milo: Let me tell you, Jean Michel, there are about ten people on the planet who know anything about painting. And Andy is one of them. You know, your audience isn’t even born yet.

…

Title card: Jean Michel Basquiat, American painter, died on August 12th, 1988 of a heroin overdose. He was 27 years old.[/b]

iambiguous · August 22, 2013, 4:16pm

There are characters you bump into on the screen and you think, “Hey, on the inside, that’s just the way I think…that’s just the way I feel”. But on the outside [and especially in your interactions with others] you couldn’t possibly be farther removed. So, who are you really trying to fool?

See if you can figure out the one closest to me. Hint: It’s not Louise, Sophie, Sandra, Jeremy or Brian.

Johnny is right out on the edge. But he has done a lot of deep thinking about our place in the universe so he’s not just throwing a dart in the general direction of the bullseye and hoping to at least hit the wall. He always at least lands on the board. But we have to do more to survive from day to day than just reasoning about things. And those parts he hasn’t quite mastered. Quite the opposite you might say. Here he is more like a bottle of nitro-glycerine.

Johnny and Louise have a back story. In manchester. But we never find out what that is. Now, in London they seem to be on very different paths. But all the time you know that, much like your own, these are just teeny, tiny slices of all the different ways one can choose to live his or her life. If you have any real choice at all.

It’s like the end of the world here. But, on the good days, it’s only brutal. And then there is Jeremy to remind you that bad as things are, they can always get much, much worse.

IMDb

The script was largely created by improvisation during 11 weeks of rehearsal before shooting. The script was only 25 pages long.

This makes the film all the more remarkable.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(film
trailer: youtu.be/7WdAPqhnzwQ

NAKED [1993]
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

[b]Johnny [to Sophie]: I used to be a werewolf, but I’m all right no-OOWWWWWWWWWW!

…

Johnny [to Sophie]: I mean, tossing all these satellites and shuttles out into the cosmos. What do they think they’re gonna find up there that they can’t find down here? They think if they piss high enough, they’re gonna come across the monkey with the beard and the crap ideas? And it’s, like, “Oh! There you are, captain! Are you busy? Because I’ve got a few fundamental questions for you.”

…

Louise: What are you doing here? You look like shit.
Johnny: I’m just tryin’ to blend in with the surroundings.

…

Louise: So, how did you get here?
Johnny: Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.
Louise: I see you haven’t changed.
Sophie: He’s a fuckin’ genius, this geezer!

…

Johnny: How’s your mum?
Louise: Fine. How’s yours? Still pulling pints?
Johnny: She’s dead. She’s still a good fuck though. I mean, the rates are a bit extortionate… but I do get a discount what with being the son and everything.
Sophie: Apparently, you shouldn’t stick anything up your cunt that you can’t put in your mouth.

…

Louise: Were you bored in Manchester?
Johnny: Was I bored? No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody - you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.

…

Johnny: You know what frightens me about the human body?
Sophie: What?
Johnny: Well, it’s like the, er, most sophisticated mechanism in the entire universe, and yet it’s so fuckin’ quiet, isn’t it? Know what I mean?
Sophie: Dunno. Mine makes enough noise.
Johnny: It’s like this, er, wet, pink factory. What the fuck are they makin’ in there? I mean, what’s the product? You never see no delivery trucks comin’ and goin’, do you?

…

Johnny [to Sophie]: Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night it was never weaker.

…

Maggie: Have you ever seen a dead body?
Johnny: Only me own.

…

Brian: Waste not, want not.
Johnny: And other clichés.
Brian: But a cliché is full of truth, otherwise it wouldn’t be a cliché.
Johnny: Which is in itself a cliché.

…

Brian: You got nowhere to go, then?
Johnny: I’ve got an infinite number of places to go, the problem is where you stay.

…

Johnny: Has nobody not told you, Brian, that you’ve got this kind of gleeful preoccupation with the future? I wouldn’t even mind, but you don’t even have a fuckin’ future, I don’t have a future. Nobody has a future. The party’s over. Take a look around you man, it’s all breaking up. Are you not familiar with the book of Revelations of St. John, the final book of the Bible prophesying the apocalypse?.. He forced everyone to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one shall be able to buy or sell unless he has the mark, which is the name of the beast, or the number of his name, and the number of the beast is 6-6-6… What can such a specific prophecy mean? What is the mark? Well the mark, Brian, is the barcode, the ubiquitous barcode that you’ll find on every bog roll and packet of johnnies and every poxy pork pie, and every fuckin’ barcode is divided into two parts by three markers, and those three markers are always represented by the number 6. 6-6-6! Now what does it say? No one shall be able to buy or sell without that mark. And now what they’re planning to do in order to eradicate all credit card fraud and in order to precipitate a totally cashless society, what they’re planning to do, what they’ve already tested on the American troops, they’re going to subcutaneously laser tattoo that mark onto your right hand, or onto your forehead. They’re going to replace plastic with flesh. Fact! In the same book of Revelations when the seven seals are broken open on the day of judgment and the seven angels blow the trumpets, when the third angel blows her bugle, wormwood will fall from the sky, wormwood will poison a third part of all the waters and a third part of all the land and many many many people will die! Now do you know what the Russian translation for wormwood is?.. Chernobyl! Fact. On August the 18th, 1999, the planets of our solar system are gonna line up into the shape of a cross… They’re gonna line up in the signs of Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio, which just happen to correspond to the four beasts of the apocalypse, as mentioned in the book of Daniel, another fuckin’ fact! Do you want me to go on? The end of the world is nigh, Brian, the game is up!
Brian: I don’t believe that. Life can’t just come to a stop.
Johnny: All right, I’m not saying that life will end or the world will end, or the universe will cease to exist. But man will cease to exist! Just like the dinosaurs passed into extinction, the same thing will happen to us! We’re not fuckin’ important! We’re just a crap idea![/b]

Need I point out that 1999 has come and gone? But I don’t that against him.

[b]Johnny: Do you think that the amoeba ever dreamed that it would evolve into the frog? Of course it didn’t. And when that first frog shimmied out of the water and employed its vocal cords… in order to attract a mate or to retard a predator…do you think that that frog ever imagined that that incipient croak…would evolve into all the languages of the world, into all the literature of the world? Of course it fucking didn’t. And just as that froggy could never possibly have conceived of Shakespeare…so we can never possibly imagine our destiny.
Brian: I know what my destiny is.
Johnny: Yeah, but what you’re experiencing, as far as I can gather with all these manifestations of, uh, regression and precognition and transmigratory astral fucking chatterings is just the equivalent of that first primeval grunt…because evolution isn’t over. Man isn’t the be-all and fucking end-all. Look, if you take the whole of time and represent it by one year, were only in the first few moments of the first of January. There’s a long way to go. Only now we’re not going to spout extra limbs and wings and fins because evolution itself is evolving.

…

Brian: You don’t believe in God.
Johnny: Of course I believe in God. You see, the thing is, Brian that God is a hateful god. Must be because if God is good, then why is there evil in the world? Why is there pain and hate and greed and war? Doesn’t make sense. But if God is a nasty bastard, then you can say, “Why is there good in the world? Why is there love and hope and joy?” Well, let’s face it. Good exists in order to be fucked up by evil. The very existence of good enables evil to flourish. Therefore, God is bad. And it doesn’t matter how many past or future existences you have because they’re all gonna be riddled with grief and anguish and sickness and death. You see, Brian, God doesn’t love you. God despises you. So there’s no hope and mankind is just a component of the device by which the devil creates itself. Are you with me?[/b]

Nope. But then we’re not really supposed to be, are we?

[b]Johnny: Oh, “Jane Austen” by Emma.
Woman in window: That’s one of me favorite books.

…

Jeremy: Was your tattoo painful?
Sophie: Yeah.
Jeremy: Good.

…

Jeremy: Hope I haven’t given you AIDS, Sophie.
Louise: Jesus Christ!
Sophie: Are you serious?
Jeremy: I was merely jesting.
Louise: Very funny.
Jeremy: I think AIDS is rather healthy in its way.
Louise: You what?
Jeremy: I realise that’s not the fashionable thing to say, of course.
Louise: No, it’s not.
Jeremy: But the world is over crowded, isn’t it? It does need a little pruning.
Sophie: You fuckin’ better be joking.

…

Johnny: No matter how many books you read, there is something in this world that you never ever ever ever ever fucking understand.

…

Sophie: What is a “proper relationship”?
Louise: Living with someone who talks to you after they bonked you.[/b]

iambiguous · August 22, 2013, 10:19pm

Lord Humongous? The Medusa car? Well, what do you expect for $17,000?

You see the end of the world everywhere these days. Or you do on cable television. Survivalists there are all the rage. One show after another pointing out all of the different ways the human race can be reduced down to rubble. A global economic meltdown, nukes, comets, asteroids, coronal mass ejections, global warming calamities. Are you ready for it? There is no question of it coming. Only when it gets here.

More important still: Do you have a buddy to watch your back? We all know that male bonding is still the center of the universe. And we all know what can happen when a woman gets in the middle of it. But there are not many women like Milly.

Think Alyssa Jones and then some. Alas, a woman can only shine [in this culture] when she becomes just like one of the boys. It’s almost never the other way around. And she did warn him.

Of course there’s the apocalypse “out there” [the Big One] and the one that we create for ourselves in our own backyard [the little one]. But they are only perceived as little by the folks not floundering about in the middle of them. When you are in the middle of one it really can seem like the end of the whole fucking world.

One of those ticking time bomb movies. You know it’s going to explode but you don’t know where or when. Or how many times. Or who makes it all the way to the end.

[no audible dialogue]

IMDb

[b]No functionality of the Medusa car was faked during filming. The real-life car is equipped with two flamethrowers, smoke screen, a bleach drift-kit, adjustable rear suspension, and 3 surveillance cameras; all controlled from the dashboard. It also has a roll cage and stow-able, fold-down back seat.

Director Evan Glodell built his first flamethrower at the age of 12. It was prone to malfunction and only had a 6 foot range.[/b]

trailer: youtu.be/IY3FRWcK_LI
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellflower_(film

BELLFLOWER [2011]
Written and directed by Evan Glodell

[b]Woodrow: That settles it. We’re switching to diesel. Propane is for pussies.

…

Woodrow: Since this is out first time hanging out, I thought I’d take you someplace nice.
Milly: Uh, yeah. Fuck that. I wnat you to take me to the cheapest, nastiest, scariest place that you know of. If I don’t get sick, I’m gonna be pissed off.

…

Woodrow [testing the medusa flame thrower]: What if it blows up or something?
Aiden: Then we’re going to be on fire.

…

Woodrow [to Courtney]: Is that a gun in your purse?

…

Woodrow: This is a really big gun.
Courtney: Mmm. Yeah.
Woodrow: [aiming the gun at his own face]: So if I pulled the trigger right now, it would go off?
Courtney: Yes.
Woodrow: And I would be dead?
Courtney: Yes, you would shoot yourself in the head and be dead.

…

Woodrow [retching into the toilet]: Everything is fucked up. I have fucking brain damage. And fucking shitty fucking scars all over my fucking body. And my fucking heart is broken. I’m fucking pissed and I don’t even know who to fucking blame.

…

Courtney: Have you seen Woodrow?
Milly [chuckling]: Have you?
Courtney: You piece of shit.
Milly: Fuck you. You’re supposed to be my best friend.
Courtney: We don’t even fucking talk anymore, you piece of fucking shit!
Milly: Get the fuck out of my house.
Courtney: No! Not until you get down on your knees and tell me you’re a piece of filthy shit.
Milly [brandishing a knife]: Get the fuck out of my house. I will fucking slice your throat if you don’t get out of my house!

…

Aiden: Okay, Woodrow, I’m putting all her shit in a box so you don’t have to stare at it anymore. And then when you’re feeling well enough, we’re gonna burn it.

…

Aiden: Your car is really badass dude. We could just get in the car, put the flamethrower in the trunk, leave town. Do you know how awesome it would be if we like went to some small town and went to one of the local bars, pulled up in that car? People would be like ‘Holy shit, who are these guys?’ and we would be like 'Come outside and take a look at our flamethrower". Dude, I don’t think you realize how cool your car is. I’m fucking serious though dude. We could take the flamethrower and guns and get a shit load of drugs and liquor and put them all in the trunk and just fucking go… can you imagine two sweet ass dudes like us in that car traveling through the desert across America. We would look so fucking cool. We could go places and park the car where we know we look cool… Hang out smoking cigarettes, leaning against the car looking cool and let people look at us. Get fucking get trashed on drugs in the middle of nowhere and drive 150 miles an hour naked down the freeway while we hang out the window shooting shotguns at freeway signs and fucking historical landmarks and fucking jack rabbits. DUDE, we could make some fucking jack rabbit jerky and jack rabbit shoulder pads for our new leather jackets. Dude, you are like lord humungous. You are fucking lord humungous! You are lord fucking humungous… the master of fire, the king of the waste land. Lord Humungous doesn’t get cheated on by some stupid bitch. Lord humungous doesn’t say ‘was it good for you?’. He doesn’t say ‘who called?’ or ‘Where were were u last night?’, and he doesn’t leave the fucking gang when he falls in love. Nobody fucking tells lord humungous what to do. Lord Humungous fights what he wants to fight and fucks what he wants to fuck and when all else fails he drives straight into the fucking tanker. The thing is, is that Lord Humungous dominates his women and they fucking love him for it. Seriously, we should get out of here. We should get away from all of this shit… make new friends and meet people and stuff.[/b]

Nope. It just wasn’t meant to be. Or maybe it was. That’s for you and I to decide.

iambiguous · August 23, 2013, 6:35pm

But there was one man who…

And one of the most common scenarios here is the loner standing up to the bullies. In, say, a private boarding school. But this one is layered just a bit more. And that makes it stand out. Really stand out.

It is not only bullies that run the student body, but bullies that run the school. And then the bully at home. You always want to be like Erik yourself. And then you start in on calculating why exactly you are not. Sometimes the gaps are beyond your control. But then again, sometimes they are not. Sometimes you just don’t have the balls.

And then there’s this: In being the victim of bullies all too often it can turn you into a bully yourself. It’s always about the context though and you’re point of view. That never changes. And that can either be the good news or the bad news. And that never changes either. And this one is bursting at the seams with class. Or for some, caste.

This is all about tyrants and how to confront them. Through passive resistence or open revolt? Or simply by becoming invisible to them. But it’s always the same: what is at stake? what have you got to lose? And some are more ruthlessly tyrannical than others. Imagine King or Ghandi going up against the Nazis. The ante can always be upped. And to the grave if necessary.

In the end though, he doesn’t just give them a pounding, he outwits them. More to the point, he humiliates them. He is simply smarter than they are. But they get their own licks in as well. And if they can’t get him they can always go after those he cares about.

This is based at least in part on a true story. Two of them apparently.

IMDb

[b]The movie is based on a novel by Jan Guillou. Jan Guillou attended a boarding school himself when he was a teenager and the novel is partly based on his own experiences.

Johan Rabaeus who play Erik’s abusive stepfather went to a boarding school much like the one in this film and he claimed he lost his soul there.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_(2003_film
trailer: youtu.be/wq78hdCILaI

EVIL [Ondskan] 2003
Directed by Mikael Håfström

[b]Stepfather [after slapping Erik for dropping his fork]: Let’s have a talk after dinner, just the two of us.

…

Headmaster: Never, I repeat never, in all my years as headmaster of this school, have I met a more vicious pupil than you with such a brutish level of behavior. That some teachers happen to defend your academic ability does make up for your behavior. In fact, it makes it even worse. It’s beyond understanding. It’s deeply worrying. There is only one word for people like you, and that is “evil”. Evil in its purest form. What you need is a good thrashing.[/b]

The irony is lost on him too.

[b]Pierre: Here the students keep order.

…

Erik: Pierre, what happens if you hit them back?

…

Dahlen [after Erik refuses his order to shine the shoes]: What are we going to do with him?
Otto: Relax. He’s new.

…

Erik: Do you really think it is possible to resist them non-violently?
Pierre: That’s what I want to think.

…

Pierre: I just wanted to say, you’re my friend.
Erik: You’re my friend too, Pierre.
Pierre: You’re the only friend I’ve ever had in this school.

…

Erik: What bloody ring?

…

Berg: Sport is democratic, Erik. Remember that. [/b]

But it’s another lesson that Erik learns from him.

[b]Erik [at mealtime sniffing the air]: Strange. Can anyone smell shit? Shit. I smell shit.

…

Erik: What’ll happen if I win?
Berg: You’ll be untouchable. I promise. It’s a matter of honor for me.

…

Pierre [after Dahlen pisses on his bed]: Don’t you understand what this is about? They’re trying to get at you. They’ve just changed their tactics.

…

Erik [to Berg]: You said I’d be untouchable. That it was a matter of honor for you. But there’s no honor here. You know that. There are many different ways of making life hell for people.[/b]

Berg just looks at him. He says nothing. It’s all rigged. There’s only one possible solution now: the script.

[b]Pierre: Silverheim is cruel. He’s an evil human being. But why? Was he born like that or has he been here too long, maybe beaten as well. That’s how the system works, isn’t it? Kicked around in the lower form? Revenge later on…
Erik: I just know that people like Silverheim have to be fought. Someone like him must never win. Not now or ever. That’s it!

…

Teacher: Why didn’t you defend him? Are you as cowardly as the others?
Erik: You get expelled if you fight a council member.
Teacher: The thing that separates humans from animals is not only intelligence, it’s also morality. The ability to know the difference between good and evil. You have all behaved like animals. Like vultures. It’s undignified! Do you hear me? Undignified! This has got to stop.
Erik: I don’t think sir understands exactly what’s happened here.

…

Erik [to his step-father]: It’s over! You’re getting out of here! In half an hour you’re going to be in the hospital. You won’t see, your nose will be snapped, your arms will be broken. You won’t dare tell anyone. You’ll say that you fell down the stairs…This is going to hurt a hell of a lot. You’ll be screaming until you pass out. I swear I’m going to do it. People like you have to be destroyed.[/b]

iambiguous · August 24, 2013, 12:41am

We should always do the right thing. And, depending on what it is we are talking about, there will always – more or less – be a consensus regarding what exactly that is. But beyond that it’s…philosophy?

Of course when the temperatures soar into the triple digits it’s always going to be a lot harder to do the right thing anyway. Especially for those folks actually sweltering in it.

It’s now been almost 25 years since Lee brought this one out. So, are we any closer [or perhaps maybe even farther away still?] from doing it right? I’d like to think that I am. But then [philosophically] I always get stuck in the same places.

Lee seems to be on both sides of the divide here: There’s the part clearly rooted in racism and there’s the part not really rooted much in racism at all. You can almost read Bill Cosby’s rap interspersed between the lines. But folks still put the line in different places. And, in the end, it all seems to be about the rage.

It closes with a quote from Martin Luther King about hatred and violence defeating itself. Some will make the connection between that and the movie they just saw…but others will just grunt and snort derisively. You’re call.

IMDb

[b]This film was inspired by an actual incident in New York where some black youths were chased out of a pizzeria by some white youths in a section of New York known as Howard Beach.

All of the scenes of the corner men were improvised.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing
trailer: youtu.be/muc7xqdHudI

DO THE RIGHT THING [1989]
Written and directed by Spike Lee

[b]Mister Senor Love Daddy: Today’s temperature’s gonna rise up over 100 degrees, so there’s a Jheri curl alert! That’s right, Jheri curl alert. If you have a Jheri curl, stay in the house or you’ll end up with a permanent black helmet on your head fuh-eva!

…

Sal: Pino, get a broom and sweep out front.
Pino: Vito, get a broom and sweep out front.
Vito: Huh?
Pino: Get a broom and sweep out front.
Vito: What?
Pino: GET A BROOM AND SWEEP OUT FRONT.
Vito: See, Pop, it’s just what I was telling ya. Every time you tell Pino what to do, he tells me to do what you told him what to do.

…

ML: Well, gentlemen, the way I see it, if this hot weather continues, it’s going to melt the polar caps and the whole wide world. And all the parts that ain’t water already will surely be flooded.
Coconut Sid: You’re a simple motherfucker. Now where you read that shit, eh? Polar caps…
ML: Don’t worry about it. But when it happens, and I’m in my boat, and your black asses are drowning, don’t call for me to throw you no rope, no lifesaver, or no nothing.
Sweet Dick Willie: You fool! You’re 30 cents away from having a quarter! Where the fuck you gon’ get a boat?

…

Buggin’ Out: Hey, Sal, how come they ain’t no brothas on the wall?
Sal: You want brothers on the wall? Get your own place. You can do what you wanna do. You can put your brothers and uncles and nieces and nephews, your stepfather, stepmother, whoever you want. See? But this is my pizzeria. American-Italians on the wall only.
Buggin’ Out: That may be fine, Sal, but you own this. Rarely do I see any American-Italians eating in here. All I see is black folks. So since we spend much money here, we do have some say.

…

Coconut Sid: Look at those Korean motherfuckers across the street. I betcha they haven’t been a year off da motherfucking boat before they opened up their own place.
Coconut Sid: It’s been about a year.
ML: A motherfucking year off the motherfucking boat and got a good business in our neighborhood occupying a building that had been boarded up for longer than I care to remember and I’ve been here a long time.
Sweet Dick Willie: It has been a long time.
Coconut Sid: How long?
ML: Too long! Too long. Now for the life of me, I haven’t been able to figger this out. Either dem Koreans are geniuses or we Blacks are dumb.
Coconut Sid: Fuck you. It’s got to be because we are black. Ain’t no other explanation.
Sweet Dick Willie: Hold on, you motherfuckers. I’m tired of hearing that old excuse. I’m tired of hearing that shit.
ML: You know, I swear, man, I will be one happy fool when we open our own business right here in our own neighborhood. I swear to God, I will be the first in line to spend what little money I have there.
Coconut Sid: Be right there with you, man.
Sweet Dick Willie: You motherfuckers are always talking that Keith Sweat shit, “I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that”. You ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing but sit you monkey ass on this corner. Hey, ML, when you gonna get your business?
ML: What?
Sweet Dick Willie: Yeah, just what I thought. You ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing. But I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, hear me, I’m gonna go over there and give them Koreans more of my money.

…

Mookie [to the camera]: Dago, wop, guinea, garlic-breath, pizza-slingin’, spaghetti-bendin’, Vic Damone, Perry Como, Luciano Pavarotti, Sole Mio, nonsingin’ motherfucker.
Pino [to the camera]: You gold-teeth-gold-chain-wearin’, fried-chicken-and-biscuit-eatin’, monkey, ape, baboon, big thigh, fast-runnin’, high-jumpin’, spear-chuckin’, three-hundred-sixty-degree-basketball-dunkin’ titsun spade Moulan Yan. Take your fuckin’ pizza and go the fuck back to Africa.
Stevie [to the camera]: You little slanty-eyed, me-no-speaky-American, own-every-fruit-and-vegetable-stand-in-New-York, bullshit, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Summer Olympics '88, Korean kick-boxing son of a bitch.
Officer Long [to the camera]: You Goya bean-eating, fifteen in a car, thirty in an apartment, pointed shoes, red-wearing, Menudo, mire-mire Puerto Rican cocksucker. Yeah, you!
Sonny [to the camera]: It’s cheap, I got a good price for you, Mayor Koch, “How I’m doing,” chocolate-egg-cream-drinking, bagel-and-lox, B’nai B’rith Jew asshole. [/b]

Let’s face the facts: In America, this shit runs deep. Just a whole lot deeper in some communities than in others.

…

[b]Mister Senor Love Daddy: WE LOVE ROLL CALL, Y’ALL! Boogie Down Productions, Rob Base, Dana Dane, Marley Marl, Olatunji, Chuck D, Ray Charles, EPMD, EU, Alberta Hunter, Run-D.M.C., Stetsasonic, Sugar Bear, John Coltrane, Big Daddy Kane, Salt-n-Pepa, Luther Vandross, McCoy Tyner, Biz Markie, New Edition, Otis Redding, Anita Baker, Thelonious Monk, Marcus Miller, Branford Marsalis, James Brown, Wayne Shorter, Tracy Chapman, Miles Davis, Force MDs, Oliver Nelson, Fred Wesley, Maceo, Janet Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Count Basie, Mtume, Stevie Wonder, Bobby McFerrin, Dexter Gordon, Sam Cooke, Parliament-Funkadelic, Al Jarreau, Teddy Pendergrass, Joe Williams, Wynton Marsalis, Phyllis Hyman, Sade, Sarah Vaughn, Roland Kirk, Keith Sweat, Kool Moe Dee, Prince, Ella Fitzgerald, Dianne Reeves, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Bessie Smith, Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, Steel Pulse, Little Richard, Mahalia Jackson, Jackie Wilson, Cannonball AND Nat Adderley, Quincy Jones Marvin Gaye, Charles Mingus AND Marion Williams. We wanna thank you all for makin’ our lives just a little brighter here on We Love Radio!

…

Pino: Pop, I’m sick of niggers. It’s like I come to work, its planet of the apes. I don’t like being around them. They’re animals.
Sal: Why you got so much anger in you?
Pino: Why? I’ll tell you why. My friends, they laugh at me. They laugh right in my face. They tell me, “Go. Go to Bed-Stuy. Go feed the moulies.”
Sal: Do your friends put money in your pockets, Pino? Do they put food on your table? Do they pay your rent or put a roof over your head? They’re not your friends. If they were your friends they wouldn’t laugh at you.

…

Sweet Dick Willie: You wanna boycott someone, Bug? You ought to start with the goddamn barber that fucked up your head.

…

Radio Raheem: Give me 20 D Energizers.
Sonny: 20 C Energizers?
Radio Raheem: Not C, D.
Sonny: C Energizers?
Radio Raheem: D, motherfucker, D. Learn to speak English first, all right?
Kim: How many you say?
Radio Raheem: 20, motherfucker, 20!!

…

Sweet Dick Willie: It ain’t never too hot or never too cold for fuckin’!

…

Tina: Trust you? The last time I trusted you, Mookie, I ended up with a son.

…

Buggin’ Out: You can’t kill us all! You can’t kill us all! You can’t kill us all! You can’t kill us all!

…

Sal [to Mookie]: What the fuck is wrong with you? This ain’t about money. I could give a fuck about money. You see this fucking place? I built this fucking place with my bare fucking hands. Every light socket, every piece of tile - me, with these fucking hands.[/b]

iambiguous · August 24, 2013, 4:36pm

One of those movies that pique your interest if only because the narrative itself seems intriguing. Out of the blue a 16 year old kid stabs an autistic boy and kills him. Why? He doesn’t know why. But it turns out he has a deeply pessimistic – sad – take on the human condition. How does that fit into it? And what about all the other dots that need commecting. Will they get to the bottom of it?

That’s what counts. Different folks may come to different bottoms…as long as they can all assure us that the bottom is there. It’s got to be there somewhere. Otherwise, anyone can say what the bottom is. Or what the top is. Or how to get from the bottom to the top. Or how to avoid falling to the bottom.

And there are so many different ways in which to hit bottom. But all of us have a different combination of trials and tribulations. Of suffering and pain. And for all manner of depth and duration. The way Leland frames everything is what disturbs others. He seems to reflect this nihilistic sense that when you add up all the parts you never reach either the top or the bottom. You just arrive at whatever particular destination that you think you have. Nietzsche’s “why?” remains unanswered. All we are left with are the usual cliches: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. It was wrong.

But he is not being cynical. And that’s the key. What he is being instead is…philosophical. He sees the world the way he does because that is the least unreasonable way in which to see it.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United … _of_Leland
trailer: youtu.be/84st1QOkNys

THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND [2003]
Written and directed by Matthew Ryan Hoge

[b]Leland [voiceover]: When I say I don’t remember that day, I’m not lying. I wish I did, but I just don’t. Sometimes the most important stuff goes away. Goes away so bad it’s like it was never there to begin with.

…

Leland [voiceover]: This one is something a friend of mine said to me. “You have to believe that life is more than the sum of its parts, kiddo.” I remember it right now to the “kiddo” part. But when I think about what she said, the same thing always comes into my head. What if you can’t put the pieces together in the first place?

…

Woman on airplane: Aren’t you an actor?
Fitzgerald: Aren’t we all?

…

Leland [writing in his school journal]: I know what they want. They want a reason.

…

Leland [voiceover]: And that’s when I figured out that tears couldn’t make somebody who was dead alive again. There’s another thing to learn about tears, they can’t make somebody who doesn’t love you any more love you again. It’s the same with prayers. I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God. If you ask me, the devil makes more sense than God does. I can at least see why people would want him around. It’s good to have somebody to blame for the bad stuff they do. Maybe God’s there because people get scared of all the bad stuff they do. They figure that God and the Devil are always playing this game of tug-of-war game with them. And they never know which side they’re gonna wind up on. I guess that tug-of-war idea explains how sometimes, even when people try to do something good, it still turns out bad.

…

Pearl [who is cheating on his girlfriend]: I’m only human, man.
Leland: It’s funny how people only say that after they do something bad. I mean, you never hear someone say, “I’m only human” after they rescue a kid from a burning building.

…

Fitzgerald: Chapter two.
Pearl: What’s that?
Fitzgerald: You’re not here out of some selfless devotion to my son or your admiration for my work. You’re here because you smell a good book and I’m chapter two.
Pearl: I want to write about your son…but I don’t want to exploit him
Fitzgerald: There’s no distinction.

…

Leland: You know what the funny thing about earthquakes is? After an earthquake you see people pulling other people out of broken down buildings and people hugging and junk because they saw a little girl’s shoe in the middle of the road and no little girl around. Then a couple days later they forget all about it…
Pearl: Well it still shows you that there’s goodness in people.
Leland: During earthquakes at least…

…

Leland [to Pearl]: It covers my eyes. It’s all I can see. Say there’s some kids playing baseball. All I see is the one kid they won’t let play because he tells corny jokes. And no-one thinks they’re funny. Or I see a boy and a girl in love and kissing, you know. I just see that they’re gonna be one of those sad old couples one day who just cheats on each other and can’t even look at each other in the eye. And I feel it. I feel all of their sadness. I feel it probably even worse than that sad old couple or that corny kid will ever feel it.

…

Pearl: This is bullshit, Elden. This is just red-tape bullshit and you know it.
Elden: No, Madison, this is about you running your own program. You asked me about this kid, I told you no. Then you, in effect, say: “Fuck you, I do whatever I want. Elden Gilmore be damned.”
Pearl: Look, this is about a kid who was so screwed up…
Elden: No, this is about a book. And you wanna talk about red-tape bullshit? Let’s talk about how fast I could have you fired for turning your classroom over to non-certified personnel while you went off to play your ‘20/20’ bit with this kid. Man, I am pulling you from S.H.

…

Leland [voiceover]: I think there are two ways you can see the world. You either see the sadness that’s behind everything or you choose to keep it all out.

…

Leland [voiceover]: I would lie there and think about Mrs. Caldron and I’d think about Ryan and I felt things tighten in my chest. Felt like I was drowning. There’s all this sadness and there’s nothing you can do about it. And all I wanted was for it to go away. When I say I don’t remember that day, I’m not lying. I wish I could remember but I don’t. At least that stuff you want me to.

…

Leland [voiceover]: Maybe it makes sense now. Maybe somewhere in all of this there’s a reason. Maybe somewhere in all of this there’s a why. Maybe somewhere there’s that thing that lets you tie it all up with a neat bow and bury it in the backyard. But nothing, not getting angry, not prayers, and not tears, nothing can make something that happened unhappen.

…

Leland: The worst part is knowing that there is goodness in people. Mostly it stays deep down and buried. Maybe we don’t have God because we’re scared of the bad stuff. Maybe we’re really scared of the good stuff. Because if there’s no God, well, that means it’s inside of us and we could be good all the time if we wanted. So when we do bad things, it’d be because we want to or because we have to. Or maybe we just need the bad stuff to remind us what the good stuff is in the first place.[/b]

iambiguous · August 24, 2013, 10:02pm

This is Martin Scorceses’s debut film. Now, others are able to react to that in ways far, far more sophisticated than I ever will. And that is because I really don’t know much about making movies—all the technical components that differentiate a good one from a bad one. Or all of the achievments that constitute a great one. I’m not able see the masterpieces that come later reflected bit by bit in this one.

To me a movie is mostly about the narrative. About the characters interacting in and around it. About why they do what they do and not something else. About how that makes me think and feel. About what I might have done instead given the manner in which I think and feel now. By the end of it I’m only wondering if the movie has changed any of that. And here it basically confirms my own prejudices.

An attractive man meets an attractive woman. That’s almost always the starting point. They meet by chance. On the surface they hit it off. The chemistry part. But he is from a different world. A world, for example, that makes a crucial distinction between “a lady” and “a broad”. The woman he is with now is not a broad. But she does harbor a dark secret. She’s damaged goods. And while he inhabits a morally murky world out on the mean streets, he was infused with a Catholic upbringing he is always able to reconcile it with.

It’s a frame of mind I will almost certainly never understand.

IMDb

[b]In order to get distribution for his film, Scorsese was told to add nude scenes so it could be promoted as a sexploitation film. So he shot the fantasy scene showing J.R. imagining encounters with prostitutes.

There is no question mark in the title “Who’s That Knocking at My Door.” Having a question mark in the title of a movie is considered bad luck in the industry.[/b]

clip: youtu.be/wh1yj9lMtVQ
trailer [of sorts]: youtu.be/P-jaIFHEBfs

WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR [1967]
Written in part and directed by Martin Scorcese

[b]Girl: I really liked the girl in that picture.
JR: The girl on the picture?
Girl: Yeah.
JR: Let me tell you something, that girl in that picture was a broad.
Girl: What do you mean, “a broad”?
JR: A broad. You know, there are girls and there are broads. A broad isn’t exactly a virgin, you know what I mean? You play around with them, you don’t…You don’t marry a broad, you know?
Girl: Come on, you don’t mean that.
JR: I mean it. Sure, I mean it.

…

JR: I understand now and I forgive you.
Girl: Forgive me?
JR: Yes, I forgive you, and I’m going to marry you anyway.
Girl: You can’t marry me anyway.
JR: What do you mean?
Girl: It does bother you, doesn’t it?
JR: Well, yeah, it bothers me, damn it. But I said that I loved you and I’m gonna marry you anyway.
Girl: No, no…I can’t. I mean, I won’t marry you on that basis.
JR: What basis?
Girl: But don’t you understand? It can’t work that way.

…

Girl: You’ll always find a way to bring it up.
JR: You’re damn right I could bring it up. And if that’s the kind of broad you are…Because I feel the way any reasonable guy would feel.

…

JR: Come off it, will you? What kind of broad does that make you? And tell me something else. Who else is going to marry you? Tell me that while you’re at it, you whore. Because that’s what you are, if you don’t know it by now, you whore.

…

Girl: Go home. Go home.[/b]

He really doesn’t get it. He is genuinely baffled. After all, he’s being sincere. He is willing to marry her even though it’s all her fault! What’s her fault? Watch it and see.

iambiguous · August 25, 2013, 6:33pm

Bleek’s mom is hell bent on making sure Bleek’s life is nothing at all like his friends. He’s gonna be somebody someday. So he better pick up that damn horn and start blowing scales. So, does she go too far? Think Serena and Venus and Tiger.

But there he is, up on the stage fronting his own band. Playing music into the wee small hours of the morning.

We’ve seen this before: the artist obsessed with his art. Everything else is farther down the list. Only the list doesn’t always cooperate. The pressures are coming from all directions. And while the art can be a refuge from it, it can sometimes make the turbulence quake all the more. A balance has to struck. Again and again and again and again. But there are 5 in the band. And they all have their “lady-friends”. Some [including Bleek] more than one. And then the part about the money.

And wouldn’t you know it: another gambler in the bunch. The manager.

Human interaction and jazz: It’s all about the improvising.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo’_Better_Blues
trailer: youtu.be/8rOccA4znWo

MO’ BETTER BLUES [1990]
Written and directed by Spike Lee

[b]Friend: I’m glad my mom ain’t like your mom, Bleek. She let’s me do what I want when I want.

…

Bleek: Who asked you?
Left Hand: Nobody asked me, man.
Bleek and Shadow [in unison]: Then shut the fuck up!

…

Clarke: Everything with you is so damn regulated. A certain time to do this, a certain time to do that. Everything’s on a scedule, a timetable. Loosen up, tightass.
Bleek: Let me explain something to you. Life is short, okay? I need it like this to get everything done. I like order.
Clarke: Order’s fine, but you’re ridiculous.

…

Bleek: Boning?
Clarke: You’re been more imaginative.
Bleek: Oh, I’ve got a million of them. You ever hear of the mo’ better?
Clarke: Mo’ what?
Bleek: Mo’ better makes it mo’better.
Clarke: We don’t make love because you don’t love me.
Bleek: Oh…
Clarke: But in the meantime I’ll settle for some of that mo’ better.

…

Bleek: I make my living with my lips.

…

Indigo: What would you do Bleek, if you couldn’t play anymore?
Bleek: Probably roll up in a corner and die. I’d play at my own funeral.

…

Giant: What does size have to do with it?
Shadow: A lot. You keep coming up short.

…

Bleek [to Giant]: I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night.

…

Bleek: But the jazz, you know if we had to dep… if we had to depend upon black people to eat, we would starve to death. I mean, you’ve been out there, you’re on the bandstand, you look out into the audience, what do you see? You see Japanese, you see, you see West Germans, you see, you know, Slabobic, anything except our people - it makes no sense. It incenses me that our own people don’t realize our own heritage, our own culture, this is our music, man.
Shadow: That’s bullshit.
Bleek: Why?
Shadow [slurred]: It’s all bullsh… Everything, everything you just said is bullshit. Out of all the people in the world, you never gave anybody else, and look, I love you like a step-brother, but you never gave nobody else a chance t- to play their own music, you complain about… That’s right, the people don’t come because you grandiose motherfuckers don’t play shit that they like. If you played the shit that they like, then people would come, simple as that.[/b]

iambiguous · August 25, 2013, 11:53pm

As near as I can tell, the actual title of this film [in French] is “A Pornographic Liason”. The English DVD, however, changes it to An Affair of Love. That in and of itself speaks volumes regarding cultural differences. On this side of the pond it is just too unseemly for a man and woman to predicate their relationship on sexual encounters. And sexual encounters presumed to be “kinky” – though the exact nature of the act itself is never explicitly named.

Still, it is the sexual fantasy of a relatively young and attractive woman who was not able to get any of her male partners to perform it with her. So her only recourse was to put an ad in one of “those” magazines. You can imagine then just how “out there” it must have been. But, again, we are never told what it actually was.

What they hadn’t counted on apparently…but certainly should have anticipated as one possibility…was an emotional attachment. But then what’s one more misunderstanding in a world consumed by millions of them everyday.

So, is sex stranger than love?

In some respects, it’s like a remake of Last Tango In Paris. It’s about two people meeting anonymously to fuck: no names, no occupations, no back stories about the family, about the past. It just seems more…civilized? And no butter.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Une_liaison_pornographique
trailer: youtu.be/o5XwbpUq3vA

AN AFFAIR OF LOVE [Une Liaison Pornographique] 1999
Directed by: Frédéric Fonteyne

[b]Her [to interviewer]: It was a pornographic affair. That’s it. A purely and expressly pornographic affair. That’s pornography: It’s sex, nothing but sex, only sex. We were there just for sex. Well, a special kind of sex. I had this fantasy that I wanted to carry out.

…

Interviewer: This thing you did…why won’t you talk about it? Out of modesty?
Him: No, no, no. Not out of modesty, it’s not that.
Her [in another location]: Look, at my age, I can talk freely vabout sex, but that…
Interviewer [to Her]: You don’t dare?[/b]

Nope, not that. Just something they want to keep between themselves. Better perhaps for us to imagine what our own fantasy might be.

[b]Her [voiceover]: In the movies, sex is either heaven or hell. In life, it’s often between the two. But with him it was perfect. Total osmosis.

…

Her: See you Thursday. Maybe?
Him: Maybe.

…

Her: Declaring your love isn’t picking a woman up.You simply declare your love. Sometimes you don’t want to seduce someone. Sometimes, you’re so much in love all you can do is declare your love. Have you ever felt that? A feeling so strong, you have no choice, you have to declare your love.

…

Her: I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone before. The feeling is so strong, that it has to be true, you see?

…

[He does, he doesn’t. Then he becomes pragmatic]

Him: There’ll be other things. Things you’ll find out about me that you didn’t know before. Things that may disturb you.
Her: Maybe.
Him: You’ll end up hating me.
Her: Maybe, maybe not. I’m ready to risk it.
Him: We don’t know each other.
Her: People never know each other. We don’t even really know ourselves! What about you? What do you feel for me?
Him: I don’t know.

…

Him [to interviewer]: For me it was obvious. I was in love. The ideal woman. I wanted to make a bet. On her. On us. You only live once.
[a long pause]
Him: And then I knew. She didn’t want to. She wanted to stop. She hadn’t said anything but it was obvious. I could read her face. She wanted to stop. She was afraid of saying it. She didn’t dare. I had to dare for her.

…

Him [to her]: It won’t work between the two of us.
Her: No…

…

Her [to interviewer]: I’d decided to stay with him. I’d even decided to fight to the bitter end if he refused. And then when he said that the two of us wouldn’t work it seemed obvious. He was right. We had to split up.[/b]

Love and human remains. But every once in a while a couple of folks come so fucking close to it.

[b]Interviewer: Couldn’t you tell us what it was? Your fantasy…
Him: No. Even if you tortured me, blinded me, or strapped electrodes to my testicles, no. I’d rather die first.

…

Her [to interviewer]: Who the hell cares what it was! It could be anything yet it was always the same thing. It was an act of love. Even if it was special, even if people don’t understand, even if they find it sick, even if it was purely sexual at first—that’s what it was all the same—an act of love. That’s the important part.[/b]

My guess: Uh, something scatological.

iambiguous · August 27, 2013, 12:41am

From the director of Nine Queens above. Another masterpiece. Sadly, he died of a heart attack in 2006. He was only 47 years old.

Here’s a guy trapped in the mundane routine that is his daily life. Yet he is always plotting something daring. But the schemes never come out from inside his head. What might happen then if he stumbled into a set of circumstances in which the plotting involved actual daring. And actual consequences. How might that measure up to the plots he concocts inside his head?

But first he has to get to it.

Sontag invites him to go hunting. He declines. But his wife just left him so he changes his mind. But once there the hotels are all booked. As it turns out though there’s a local who has rooms to rent deep in the woods…

And that’s how it all begins to unfold. Chance and contingency melding again into change. And [for some of them] nothing is ever the same. Though it’s not out of the question that one might just end up back where he started.

In other words, he takes that crucial leap. The one many of us imagine taking ourselves. But this not like the bank job in his head. After all, you can’t carefully plot something when you are forced to wing it from day to day to day.

And then there’s that sword of Damocles dangling over his head: the epilepsy. The aura. He can never be certain when it will descend.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Aura
trailer: youtu.be/Y2Vrnp9knJY

THE AURA [El Aura] 2005
Written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky

[b][Esteban is telling a friend in great detail how the bank they are now in could be robbed]
Estaban: It can be done neatly. It can be done well.
Sontag: And if it’s that easy, why aren’t people robbing them all the time?
Esteban: People are robbing all the time, but they do it badly. Because they’re idiots. The police and the criminals, all of them.
Sontag: I still don’t get what’s stopping you from really doing it.
Estaban: It’s just a game.

…

Sontag: And what if something goes wrong? What if someone dies?
Estaban: There’s no reason why anyone should die.
Sontag: Yes, there’s a reason. There’s a load of guys with guns. The typical situation in which people die.
Estaban: No, not if everything’s properly planned.
Sontag: What the fuck are you talking about? Who do you think you are? Billy the Kid? You’ve got a very weird fantasy for a taxidermist.

…

Diana: What are they like? The fits, I mean. Do they hurt?
Estaban: No…No, they don’t hurt.
Diana: And do they come on all of a sudden?
Estaban: Well, no…A few seconds before it happens I know I’m going to have an attack. There’s a moment…a shift. The doctors call it an aura. Things suddenly change. It’s as if…as if everything stopped, and a door opened in your head, that lets things in.
Diana: What things?
Estaban: Sounds…music…voices…images…smells. The smell of school, of kitchen, of family…It tells me the fit is coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it… nothing. It’s horrible…and it’s perfect because during those few seconds, you’re free. There’s no choice, there’s no alternative, nothing for you to decide.

…

Casino insider: Does Dietrich have something to tell me?
Estaban: What do want me to say?
Casino insider: Are you fucking with me? He didn’t come yesterday, he hasn’t called or confirmed. And now he sends some guy to the casino playing his chips, his system, and wearing his fucking tie! Are you fucking with me?! Where is Dietrich?!
Estaban: He couldn’t come.[/b]

Being dead as a doornail.

[b]Diana: How did I end up here or how did I end up with a guy 30 years older than me? Because that’s what they always ask me.
[pause]
Diana: Dietrich was a friend of my father’s. I had to get out. And it seemed like the only way to get away from home. It wasn’t very hard. The day he came to get me, my dad went mad and confronted him. Dietrich beat him so badly, it took him a week to recover. And I left with him. With the first punch, I realised he was made of the same shit. Nothing had changed. But it was already too late by then.

…

Esteban [to Diana]: Dietrich isn’t coming back. Ever.[/b]