philosophy in film

Lester Burnham’s own [so much more civilized] recreation of fight club.

How many movies are there like this? Dozens. That this is a great one doesn’t really change anything. The American Dream exposed instead to be the American Nightmare. But the problem [like the solution] has little to do with the systemic forces that propel the culture into the future. Instead, it is the attitudes of those not clever enough to see through the sham that is “the suburbs”. And then, finally, to abandon it altogether for the Big City. There to sell dope and be “cool”.

Sure, it’s more than that. But how much more? The personal here is clearly political but that is still all it seems to come down to: me, myself and I.

On the other hand, it might be worth perusing more in depth:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Beauty_(film

IMDb

The title of the film refers to a breed of roses that while pretty and appealing in appearance, is often prone to rot underneath at the roots and branches of the plant. Thus, the tagline “…look closer” tells the viewer that when they look beyond the “perfect suburban life” they will find something rancid at the root.

AMERICAN BEAUTY
Directed by Sam Mendes

[b]Lester [narrating]: Look at me, jerking off in the shower… This will be the high point of my day; it’s all downhill from here.

…

Lester [narrating]: That’s my wife, Carolyn. See the way the handle on her pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That’s not an accident.

…

Brad: Jesus. Calm down. Nobody’s getting fired yet. That’s why we’re having everyone write out a job description, mapping out in detail how they contribute. That way, management can assess who’s valuable and–
Lester: Who’s expendable.
Brad: It’s just business.

…

Lester: So, Janie, how was school?
Jane: It was okay.
Lester: Just okay?
Jane: No, Dad, it was spectacular.

…

Lester: Well what makes you so sure she wants us to be there? Did she ask us to come?
Carolyn: Of course not. She doesn’t want us to know how important this is to her. But she’s been practicing her steps for weeks.
Lester: Well, I’ll bet money she’s going to resent it, and I’m missing the James Bond marathon on TNT.
Carolyn: Lester, this is important. I’m sensing a real distance growing between you and Jane.
Lester: “Growing?” She hates me.
Carolyn: She’s just willful.
Lester: She hates you too.

…

Lester: We can leave right after this, right?

…

Angela: I’m used to guys drooling over me. It started when I was about twelve. I’d go out to dinner with my parents. Every Thursday night, Red Lobster. And every guy there would stare at me when I walked in. And I knew what they were thinking. Just like I knew guys at school thought about me when they jerked off.
Jane: Vomit.
Angela: No, I liked it. And I still like it. If people I don’t even know look at me and want to fuck me, it means I really have a shot at being a model. Which is great, because there’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary.

…

Jim: Hello! We’re your neighbors from two doors down and we just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood!
[hands the Colonel a gift basket]
JB: Everything’s from our garden, except for the pasta.
Jim: Yes, it’s from Fizzoli’s, it’s amazingly fresh, you just pop it in water and it’s done! I’m Jim Olmeyer.
[shakes the Colonel’s hand]
Jim: And this is my partner Jim.
JB: Jim Berkely, but people call me J.B.
[extends his hand to shake]
Colonel Fitts: Ah, let’s just cut to it, what are you selling?
Jim: Nothing, we just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.
Colonel Fitts: You said you’re partners, so, uh what’s your business?
Jim: Well, he’s a tax attorney.
JB: And he’s an anesthesiologist.

…

Colonel Fitts: How come these faggots always have to rub it in your face? How can they be so shameless?
Ricky: That’s the whole thing, Dad. They don’t feel like it’s anything to be ashamed of.

…

Ricky: Forgive me, sir, for speaking so bluntly but those fags make me want to puke my fucking guts out.
Colonel Fitts [cautiously, after a long pause]: Well, me too son. Me too.

…

Ricky: Hi. My name’s Ricky. I just moved next door to you.
Jane: I know. I kinda remember this really creepy incident when you were filming me last night?
Ricky: I didn’t mean to scare you. I just think you’re interesting.
Jane: Thanks, but I really don’t need to have some psycho obsessing about me right now.
Ricky: I’m not obsessing. I’m just curious.

…

Angela: What a freak! And why does he dress like a bible salesman?
Jane: He’s just so confident, it can’t be real.
Angela: I don’t believe him. I mean, he didn’t even like, look at me once!

…

Lester: It’s OK, I wouldn’t remember me either.

…

Catering boss: Look. I’m not paying you to do whatever it is you’re doing out here.
Ricky: Fine. So don’t pay me.
Catering boss: Excuse me?
Ricky: I quit. So you don’t have to pay me. Now, leave me alone.

…

Ricky: Welcome to America’s Weirdest Home Videos.

…

Carolyn: What are you doing?
Lester: Nothing.
Carolyn: You were masturbating!
Lester: I was not.
Carolyn: Yes you were!
Lester: Oh, all right! So shoot me, I was whacking off! That’s right, I was choking the bishop, chafing the carrot, you know, saying “hi” to my monster!
Carolyn: That’s disgusting.
Lester: Well, excuse me, but I still have blood pumping through my veins!
Carolyn: So do I!
Lester: Really? I’m the only one who seems to be doing anything about it.

…

Lester: I figured you guys might be able to give me some pointers. I need to shape up. Fast.
Jim: Are you just looking to lose weight, or do you want increased strength and flexibility as well?
Lester: I want to look good naked.

…

Lester: Well you know what? I’ve changed! And the new me whacks off when he feels horny!

…

Carolyn: Well, I see you’re smoking pot now. I think using psychotropic drugs is a very positive example to set for our daughter.
Lester: You’re one to talk, you bloodless, money-grubbing freak.

…

Brad: [reading Lester’s job description] “My job consists of basically masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men’s room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell.” Well, you have absolutely no interest in saving yourself.
Lester: Brad, for 14 years I’ve been a whore for the advertising industry. The only way I could save myself now is if I start firebombing.

…

Brad: Man. You are one twisted fuck.
Lester: Nope. I’m just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose.

…

Buddy [with Carolyn having sex in a motel room]: Do you like getting nailed by the King?
Carolyn: Yes, fuck me your majesty!
[afterward]
Carolyn: That was exactly what I needed. The royal treatment, so to speak.

…

Lester: I’d like to fill out an application.
Counter girl: There is no job for manager, it’s just for counter.
Lester: Good. I’m looking for the least possible amount of responsibility.

…

Ricky: It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. Right? And this bag was just dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember…I need to remember. Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.[/b]

There’s that part, sure.

[b]Carolyn: Your father and I were just discussing his day at work. Why don’t you tell our daughter about it, honey?
Lester: Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus.
Carolyn: Your father seems to think this kind of behavior is something to be proud of.
Lester: And your mother seems to prefer that I go through life like a fucking prisoner while she keeps my dick in a mason jar under the sink.
Carolyn: How dare you speak to me that way in front of her. And I marvel that you can be so contemptuous of me, on the same day that you LOSE your job.
Lester: Lose it? I didn’t lose it. It’s not like, “Whoops! Where’d my job go?” I QUIT. Someone pass the asparagus, please.

…

Lester: Oh, yeah, and one more thing, from now on we’re going to have alternate dinner music because frankly - and I don’t think I’m alone here [looks in Jane’s direction] - I’m tired of this Lawrence Welk shit!

…

Carolyn: You ungrateful little brat! Just look at everything you have. When I was your age I lived in a duplex!

…

Carolyn: This is a $4,000 sofa, upholstered in Italian silk. This is not just a couch.
Lester: IT’S! JUST! A! COUCH! This isn’t life, it’s just stuff. And it’s become more important to you than living. Well, honey, that’s just nuts.

…

Jane [turning the camera on Ricky]: Don’t you feel naked?
Ricky [looking down, grinning]: I am naked.

…

Jane: Somebody should just put him out of his misery.
Ricky: Do you want me to kill him?
Jane: Yeah, would you?

…

Mr. Smiley Counter Girl: Whoa! You are so busted.

…

Ricky: Dad, you don’t really think that me and Mr. Burnham…?
Colonel Fitts (furious): Don’t you laugh at me! I will not sit back and watch my only son become a cocksucker!
Ricky: Jesus, what is it with you–
[The Colonel backhands him]
Colonel Fitts: I swear to God, I will throw you out of this house and never look at you again.
Ricky: You mean that?
Colonel Fitts: Damn straight I do. I’d rather you were dead than be a fucking faggot.
[A beat Ricky suddenly smiles]
Ricky: You’re right. I suck dick for money.
Colonel Fitts: Boy…
Ricky: Two thousand dollars. I’m that good.
Colonel Fitts: Get out.
Ricky: And you should see me fuck. I’m the best piece of ass in three states.
Colonel Fitts (exploding): Get out!! I don’t ever want to see you again!!
Ricky: What a sad old man you are.

…

Ricky [after his dad hit him]: Mom, I’m leaving.
Mother: Okay. Wear a raincoat.

…

Ricky: If I had to leave tonight, would you come with me?
Jane: What?
Ricky: If I had to go to New York. To live. Tonight. Would you come with me?
Jane: Yes.

…

Angela: Jane! He is a freak!
Jane: Well, then so am I! And we’ll always be freaks and we’ll never be like other people.

…

Angela: Yeah? Well, at least I’m not ugly!
Ricky: Yes, you are. And you’re boring, and you’re totally ordinary, and you know it.

…

Jane: Are you scared?
Ricky: I don’t get scared.
Jane: My parents will try to find me.
Ricky: Mine won’t.

…

Lester: Man oh man…man oh man oh man.

…

Lester: You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry…you will someday.[/b]

The devil made me do it. Really, a film has to be pretty arresting before I will fall for that crap. In large part it depends on who is playing the devil. Robert De Niro for example.

They put movies like this in the “psychological horror” genre. And that often makes all the difference in the world. For one thing it is often bursting at the seams with “atmosphere”. The kind that no doubt permeate the darkest souls.

And this has become one of the “cult films” you hear about from time to time. Meaning that only some are able to “get it”. Do I have to apologize then for not being one of them?

I’m more along the lines of this:

“Angel Heart is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it’s an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit”. Roger Ebert

In any event [from wiki] here’s how some [most?] remember it:

Angel Heart gained attention and controversy even before its release. Lisa Bonet was previously known for her role on the family-oriented sitcom The Cosby Show, and several seconds of her extended, graphic and blood-drenched sex scene with Rourke had to be trimmed in order to secure the film an ‘R’ rating on initial release, though later an uncut X rated version was released.

IMDb

[b]Robert De Niro’s performance is an impersonation of Martin Scorsese.

Alan Parker claims that Robert De Niro’s performance as Louis Cypher was so eerie and realistic that he generally avoided him during his scenes, letting him just direct himself.[/b]

I believe it.

ANGEL HEART
Written and directed by Alan Parker

[b]Pastor John: I want you to show right now how much you love God! I want you to show as your tithe! I want you to open up your hearts! And open up your wallets! And open up your purses! And give it up! Praise the Lord! Somebody’s been talking about me, talking about I’ve been riding around in a Cadillac! If you love me, and you wanna give to me, then I should be in a Rolls Royce!

…

Louis: You know, some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul, did you know that?
Harry: No, I didn’t know that.
Louis: Would you like an egg?
Harry: No thank you, I got a thing about chickens.

…

Margaret: Do you speak French, Mr. Angel?
Harry: I’m from Brooklyn.

…

Margaret: Lies and cruelty come very easily to some people.

…

Harry: What’s your name?
Epiphany: Epiphany Proudfoot.
Harry: Your mother left you a very beautiful name, Epiphany.
Epiphany: Not much else.

…

Harry [to Toots]: Next time you get a delivery of a chicken foot, you might need help. As far as I’m concerned, any dead chicken is a good chicken.

…

Harry: Only cops and bad news don’t knock.

…

Harry: Hey, you ever watch the Mickey Mouse Club? 'Cause you know what today… today is? Today is Wednesday. It’s the “anything can happen” day.

…

Harry: The other night I saw you and Toots boogying with the cock-a-doodle. Looked like you were having some party.
Epiphany: What’s your problem? It’s a free country.
Harry: Not for chickens it ain’t.

…

Harry: You sent the gift-wrapped chicken foot, didn’t you?
Epiphany: Toots had a big mouth.
Harry: I guess he did, judging by what the cops found in it.

…

Harry: There’s too many dead bodies floating around…even for Louisiana.

…

Harry: This whole thing has to do with religion. It’s very weird. I don’t understand it. It’s ugly.
Louis: They say there’s just enough religion in the world to make men hate each other, but not enough to make them love each other.

…

Harry: She was doing my chart. I gave her Johnny’s birthdate, February 14th. Except someone got to her and took out their own Valentine card. They split her open, and they cut out her heart. I guess she couldn’t predict the future for herself.
Louis: The future isn’t what it used to be Mr. Angel.

…

Louis: I have old-fashioned ideas about honour. You know, an eye for an eye…stuff like that.

…

Harry: Who the fuck are you, Cypher?
Louis: Watch your language!
Harry: I don’t give a fuck, if this is a church. I don’t like churches. They give me the creeps.
Louis: Are you an atheist?
Harry: Yes, I am. I’m from Brooklyn.

…

Harry: Black magic.
Krusemark: Black, white, what’s the difference? Margaret was always . . .
Harry: Evil.
Krusemark: Evil is a dunghill, Mr Angel. Everyone gets on his own and speaks about someone else’s.

…

Harry: Louis Cyphre . . . “Lucifer!” Even your name is a dime store joke.
Louis: “Mephistopheles” is such a mouthful in Manhattan, Johnny.

…

Louis: No matter how cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.

…

Detective: You’re gonna burn for this, Angel.[/b]

I’ll bet there were a lot more kids like this after the movie came out. There must be millions of them by now. And, if anything, even more mindless today.

And it’s not that they are immoral that disturbs most—it’s that they are amoral. Utterly narcissistic…hedonistic to the bone. If they want to then it’s okay to do.

IMDb

The film was given an NC-17 rating in the United States, which caused controversy at Miramax Films, whose parent company is The Walt Disney Company. Disney forbids the release of films rated NC-17. Alarmed by this, Miramax heads Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein came up with a simple solution: they made a one-off independent distribution company, Shining Excalibur Pictures, which handled the films distribution.

Hey, a buck is a buck. Twenty million of them, in fact.

wiki

[b]In Kids, Clark cast New York City “street” kids with no previous acting experience in the film, notably Leo Fitzpatrick (Telly) and Justin Pierce (Casper). Clark originally decided he wanted to cast Fitzpatrick in a film after watching him skateboard in New York, and cursing himself when he could not land certain tricks. Korine had met Chloë Sevigny in New York before production began on Kids, and cast her in a small role as one of the girls in the swimming pool. She was later given the leading role of Jennie when the actress hired to play her (Mia Kirshner) was fired.

Because of its unexpurgated subject matter centering on relatively young teenagers, Kids has been controversial. The film includes much explicit sexual dialogue and depicts scenes of date rape, physical violence, drug dealing, alcohol abuse, theft, seduction of barely pubescent minors, and explicit teenage sexual displays, as well as (apparently) adolescent actors/actresses in near but not quite explicit exposure. The original version of the film was rated NC-17 in the US.

After this film, Fitzpatrick was constantly dealing with harassment from people who believed he was really like his character, Telly. According to an interview with bit-part actor Jeff Pang (who plays himself), many of the party scenes in the film were completely unscripted. The cameras would roll and the “kids” would just get drunk, get high, and play around. There is debate however, as to whether the “blunt-rolling tutorial” scene in Washington Square Park used real marijuana or not.[/b]

Note: Some explicit dialog.

KIDS [1995]
Directed by Larry Clark

[b]Telly: When you’re young, not much matters. When you find something that you care about, then that’s all you got. When you go to sleep at night you dream of pussy. When you wake up it’s the same thing. It’s there in your face. You can’t escape it. Sometimes when you’re young the only place to go is inside. That’s just it - fucking is what I love. Take that away from me and I really got nothing.

…

Telly: But like, if you deflower a girl man, man, you’re the man. No one can ever do that again. You’re the only one. No one, no one, has the power to do that again.

…

Telly: Who am I? I’m the motha-fuckin virgin surgeon.

…

Telly: [looking around in a cornershop] Have you got diss-digg?
Korean store owner: Diss-digg? What is Diss-digg?
Telly: Diss-digg, diss-digg, diss-digg…Have you got it?
Korean store owner: …I don’t know… wha…
Casper [grabbing his crotch]: He said “this dick” motherfucker!

…

Nurse: Jennie, you’ve tested positive for the HIV virus.
Jennie: What?
Nurse: The test isn’t one hundred percent accurate. You should…
Jennie: I tested positive?
Nurse: I’m sorry.
Jennie: But I only had sex with Telly.
[the nurse is silent]
Jennie: I just came to keep Ruby company.

…

Ruby: Shh. Come on, it’s gonna be OK.
Jennie: That’s it. I’m gonna have to tell my little brother, I’m gonna die. I can’t make him his lunches anymore.

…

Kim: So this is your new girl, huh?
Telly: I hope so. For now.
Kim: You like 'em kinda young, right? Babies?
Telly: I like 'em new.

…

Jennie: What if you can’t make yourself happy?
Taxi Driver: Then I don’t know. You know what you do then, you forget, you block it out. My grandmother told me how to be happy. She said if you want to be happy don’t think.

…

Kid at the rave: Don’t you know trix are for kids?

…

Telly: Shut the fuckin’ door!!

…

Casper: Jesus Christ, what happened?[/b]

Etc etc etc etc etc

Not much dialogue with this one. And certainly no philosophers.

As for objective morality…you tell me.

Ayn Rand:

Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded.

Quest For Fire title card:

80,000 years ago, man’s survival in a vast uncharted land depended on the possession of fire. For those early humans, fire was an object of great mystery, since no one had mastered its creation. Fire had to be stolen from nature, it had to be kept alive - sheltered from wind and rain, guarded from rival tribes. Fire was a symbol of power and a means of survival. The tribe who possessed fire, possessed life.

Rand. What a fucking genius.

Look for the extraordinary scene where Everett McGill [as Noah] watches a member of the homo-sapien tribe create fire using human technology. The expression on his face over the course of the scene is nothing less than riviting. He should have garnered an Oscar for it.

And look for Clay Morrow’s screen debut.

IMDb

[b]The language used by the cavemen, which comprises all of the spoken dialogue, was created by Anthony Burgess. Burgess is best known as the author of the novel and film A Clockwork Orange, and creator of the language, Nadsat, used in it.

The special features and commentary state that there are only two species of hominids in the movie, Homo-sapiens and Neanderthal. Naoh and Ika are Homo-sapiens; however, the director commentary states that Ika’s people are “more evolved”.

This film has often been likened to an extended version of opening Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

One of the principal reasons Rae Dawn Chong was cast as Ika was because she was completely comfortable with being nude. She remained nude on the set most of the time between scenes (while in full body makeup) to stay in character.

Everything in the film was shot live; there were no optical effects done in post production.[/b]

wiki article:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fire_(film

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=gSWjkYAjAzA

QUEST FOR FIRE
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud

As a connoisseur of all things dasein I am drawn to identities that are profoundly shaped [distorted, disfigured] in childhood. By way of trauma, for example. Is this a realistic portrayal of that? Probably not. But it is certainly possible to imagine events like this unfolding. If only approximately. And if not exactly as scripted in Hollywood.

Besides, if Bridget Fonda is in it I will find a way to rationalize watching. And boy oh boy is she ever in this one.

And it did almost get a fresh rating at RT.

Hedra. Hydra.

IMDb

[b]For the scene where Jennifer Jason Leigh seduces Bridget Fonda’s boyfriend, without him realizing at first that she isn’t who he thinks she is, Leigh was still having her make-up applied so the scene was shot with Bridget Fonda playing her own double.

Whoopi Goldberg auditioned for the role of Allison Jones.[/b]

wiki

The character of Hedy has been cited as an example of borderline personality disorder. She suffers from a markedly disturbed sense of identity, and tries to remedy it by adopting wholesale the attributes of her roommate. It is implied that she feels a deep-seated emptiness, while her fear of abandonment leads to drastic measures.

SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
Directed by Barbet Schroeder

[b]Prospective roommate: I’m an incest survivor, you know. I don’t remember it but I know that I survived something. My therapists think so.

…

Allie: You lied to me! lf she hadn’t called, would I have found out? I think that’s really scary, okay?

…

Hedra [to Allison]: Where the hell have you been?

…

Hedra: I’m sure you’ll be very happy…and I’ll be alone.
Allison: You’ll find someone, Hedy. I mean, if I can …
Hedra: Why don’t you look in the mirror? Look! You’re in a different league. I know that.

…

Hedra: You promised this wouldn’t happen. Exactly this.[/b]

That is true. She did. She is fucking her over aside from all the other stuff.

[b]Hedra: I’m not talking about getting paid, I’m talking about getting even.

…

Hedra [on the phone posing as Allison to Mitch]: Listen, you pathetic shit. Do you want to hold on to your business? No, you listen to me, asshole! If you trash me around town, you’re fucked and your family is, too! It won’t just be you.
Hedra [to Allison]: Let me tell you, he is pissing in his p.j.'s right now.
Allison: Gee, Hedy, I hope you never get mad at me.

…

Allison: You gotta be kidding me…

…

Graham: Either she’s gone by Saturday, or I go to the police, okay?
Allison: That was very impressive.
Graham: I can be butch when I have to, I get it from my mother.

…

Allison: I know you weren’t yourself when you did this, Hedy.
Hedra: I know. I was YOU.

…

Allison: Hedy’s parents said that for years they tried to explain to her that her sister’s death wasn’t her fault. She never forgave herself for surviving. So, every day I try to forgive Hedy for killing Sam. Then, I try to do what she couldn’t: forgive myself. I know what can happen to someone who doesn’t.[/b]

Wives and concubines and mistresses and lovers. What’s the difference? You’ll decide. She is the fourth of whatever you wish to call them. And at least they’re not servants. Although the pretty servants have access to things the others don’t.

As noted below this is – visually – a gorgeous movie. Forget the content altogether if you must. Just look at it.

Ritual is everything. Ritual means it is necessary. And necessity carries over beyond the grave. Here, however, they choose to call them “customs”.

And, as is the custom – here, there and everywhere – for everyone at liberty others must become trapped. And above all else: the pecking order: The Master…then everyone else.

No one is really sympathetic here. But what can I possibly know of this time and place? Still, being a mistress “back then” was truly a vicious and cutthroat dog eat dog world to peck in. But the one most inclined to confront it is often the least sympathetic of all.

Here is one perspective on the “ethics” of the film:
sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/raise_red_lantern/

wiki

[b]Although the screenplay was approved by Chinese censors, the final version of the film was banned in China for a period. Some film critics have interpreted the film as a veiled allegory against authoritarianism.

Desson Howe of The Washington Post states that “In purely aesthetic terms, Raise the Red Lantern is breathtaking.”

James Berardinelli…states that “Songlian is the individual, the master is the government, and the customs of the house are the laws of the country. It’s an archaic system that rewards those who play within the rules and destroys those who violate them. Furthermore, in such a system, the innocent individual becomes the executer of new incoming victims, making one’s outcome even more tragic, as it is analyzed by Gil Hizi of ThinkingChinese.”[/b]

On the other hand:

Chinese journalist and activist Dai Qing has said that the film, along with many of Zhang Yimou’s earlier works, caters too much to Western taste; “this kind of film is really shot for the casual pleasures of foreigners”.

RAISE THE RED LANTERN [Da Hong Deng Long Gao Gao Gua] 1991
Directed by Yimou Zhang

[b]Songlian’s mother: Rich man? If you marry a rich man, you will only be his concubine.
Songlian: Let me be a concubine. Isn’t that the fate of a woman?

…

Songlian: Why are there so many red lanterns?[/b]

She’ll find out.

[b]The master: I like it bright and formal.

…

Housekeeper: The Chen family customs go back many generations. It is important that you obey them.

…

Housekeeper: Kowtow to our ancestors.

…

Second mistress: Where the master spends the night, that mistress gets a foot masage and lighted lanterns. With a new wife as young and pretty as you, I’m afraid I won’t be enjoying these privileges for quite some time.

…

Second mistress: How useless. I only have a daughter.

…

Fourth mistress: What is that small room above? It’s locked with a big chain.
Second mistress: The house of death. Don’t go there. Several people have died there.
Fourth mistress: What people?
Second mistress: Women from past generations. They were hanged there. Don’t ask about it. Nobody here wants to talk about it. Don’t go there again.

…

First mistress: What do I matter? I’m just an old woman.

…

Third mistress: Zhuoyun has the face of Buddha and the heart of a scorpion.

…

Third mistress: You’re new here and the master isn’t tired of you yet. But if you don’t give him a son, you’re in for some hard times.

…

Third mistress: Good or bad, it’s all playacting. If you act well, you can fool other people; if you do it badly, you can only fool yourself, and when you can’t even fool yourself, you fool the ghosts.

…

Songlian: Everyone here is plotting against each other. What’s the meaning of all this?

…

Songlian: YOU MURDERERS!!

…

Fifth mistress: Who is that?
Servant: She was our Fourth Mistress. She has gone mad.[/b]

What could we expect? Communists or Nazis, men are men are men? And the ravages of war will bring out the beast in anyone. That’s certainly the narrative many will embrace.

But people being people it is almost always more ambiguous than that. Or maybe not. Most of us go into these terrible atrocities vicariously. We see what others did, what others endured and we react…appropriately.

The individual in all of this?

From RT:

The horrors and moral compromises of war set the stage for this harrowing drama from director Max Färberböck, based on a true story. An anonymous female reporter (Nina Hoss) is living in Berlin in the spring of 1945; most of the city has been reduced to rubble by bombing, the German army has been decimated, and most of those left behind are expecting the arrival of Russian troops and fearful of what awaits them. The reporter is one of a number of women who are hiding wherever they can in the city, expecting that they will be raped and brutalized by the Russians. It doesn’t take long for their worst fears to be realized as the emotionally ravaged Russian soldiers take out their anger and frustration on their new captives. But the reporter, who can speak Russian, is determined not to allow herself to be violated by the soldiers, and she decides to curry favor with a Soviet officer who will then protect her from his underlings. The reporter’s plan works as she becomes the lover of Major Andrej (Yevgeni Sidikhin), an officer with decidedly mixed feelings about his work. But as the reporter trades consensual sex for the safety Andrej can give her, both are aware who is the victor and who is a captive, and elsewhere in Berlin both German survivors and the soldiers occupying Berlin show the scars of war as they bring out the worst in one another. Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin (aka A Woman in Berlin) received its world premiere at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming

IMDb

[b]The autobiographical book, of the same name, and film, is based on the diary of its author, Anonyma (meaning “unnamed author”), which is set between the dates of 29th April 1945 to 22nd June 1945.

Anonyma’s memoir was virtually banned in Germany when it was first published in the late 50s. However, it became a huge bestseller and nationwide sensation when it was reprinted in 2003.

It is estimated that between 95,000 and 130,000 Berlin women were raped by Russian soldiers in the four months in 1945 that the Russian army occupied the city.[/b]

Anonyma was later revealed to be journalist Marta Hillers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Hillers

Was Hillers herself a Nazi?

rape and war:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_rape

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=xEZxcSf9HwM

A WOMAN IN BERLIN [Eine Frau in Berlin] 2008
Written and directed by Max Färberböck

[b]Anonyma: Where to begin? What are the right words?

…

Anonyma: Now we step on the corpses of dead women just to get a jar of jam.

…

Anonyma: Why do you take a woman with no desire?
Soldier: Willing women are dirty.

…

Woman: Come with us.
Anonyma [narrating]: Come with us? Where to? Our house was stormed for the next few days. Day and night. One woman hung herself. Another was shot and killed. Nobody was spared. Every feeling is dead.

…

Anonyma: War and dying used to be men’s business. That’s all over. Damn Russians! Officer, General, Commander. I go for the highest rank. Starting now, I decide who gets me.[/b]

Of course you have got to be someone who can decide that.

[b]Anonyma: The rapings continue. They are in every house. We are the Russians now. At their service.

…

Russian soldier: Berlin is one big whorehouse!

…

Anonyma: I can’t really say that the Major rapes me. I am at his disposal. A whore? Perhaps. I only met a whore once in my life. People said not to talk to her, that she she was bad. What does that mean anyway? Bad.

…

Anonyma: How often?

…

Anonyma: Contrary to German men, Russian men appreciated educated women. But the war wasn’t over yet…

…

Anonyma: I fear misfortune has a greater imagination.

…

Andreij: Here! What’s better? Tell me! His prick or my bike?

…

Anonyma [narrating]: Every child yells for war, he said. And that nothing, no person or nation could stop that cycle. Except death.

…

Anonyma [to Andreij]: War changes our words. Love is no longer what it once was. Yet I still want my husband to find the woman he left behind.

…

Anonyma [of Andreij]: Damn Russian idealist. He sees the world the way he wants to be.

…

Gerd [to Anonyma] : You’re all shameless. Don’t you realize that? It’s disgusting just to look at you.

…

Anonyma [to Andreij]: How do we go on living?

…

Anonyma [narrating]: Gerd, my beloved Gerd. What do we do now? Turn back the hands of time? Back to the first words you said. You said, “30 minutes. Just give me 30 minutes and you will never leave me.”[/b]

So he leaves her instead.

The Company. No, the other one. And we know what that means: profits before [way way way before] people. And whoever gets in the way of that is, among other things, expendable. In other words, the future there is pretty much like the present here. Except we don’t have Ash to do the dirty work. Drones still have to do.

Science fiction. An oxymoron…but not really. It speculates about a possible future that is made-up – scripted – but one that may well unfold in some approximation. It’s less horror or fantasy because it does not employ plot devices that many might deem “supernatural”. It’s just projecting what science already knows to be possible [or plausable] into an imagined context down the road. And Alien is creme de la creme in that regard.

IMDb

[b]The rumor that the cast, except for John Hurt, did not know what would happen during the chestburster scene is partly true. The scene had been explained for them, but they did not know specifics. For instance, Veronica Cartwright did not expect to be sprayed with blood.

For the awakening from hypersleep segment, Veronica Cartwright and Sigourney Weaver had to wear white surgical tape over their nipples so as not to offend certain countries.[/b]

ALIEN
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Dallas: Bones are bent outward, like he exploded from inside.

…

Lambert: Let’s get the hell out of here.

…

Ripley: Ash, that transmission. Mother’s deciphered part of it. It doesn’t look like an S.O.S. It looks like a warning.

…

Dallas: Something has attached itself to him. We have to get him to the infirmary right away.
Ripley: What kind of thing? I need a clear definition.
Dallas: An organism. Open the hatch.
Ripley: Wait a minute. If we let it in, the ship could be infected. You know the quarantine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination.
Dallas: He could die in twenty-four hours. Open the hatch.
Ripley: Listen to me, if we break quarantine, we could all die.
Lambert: Look, could you open the god-damned hatch? We have to get him inside.
Ripley: No. I can’t do that and if you were in my position, you’d do the same.
Dallas: Ripley, this is an order. Open that hatch right now, do you hear me?
Ripley: Yes.
Dallas: Ripley. This is an order. Do you hear me?
Ripley: Yes. I read you. The answer is negative.

…

Dallas: Paralyzes him, puts him in a coma, then keeps him alive. Now, what the hell is that?

…

Dallas [looking at a pen being dissolved by alien’s body fluid]: I haven’t seen anything like that except, uh, molecular acid.
Brett: It must be using it for blood.
Parker: It’s got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don’t dare kill it.

…

Ash: Well, as I said, I’m still collating actually, but uh, I have confirmed that he’s got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. Has a funny habit of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Is that enough?
Ripley: That’s plenty. What does it mean?
Ash: Well, it’s an interesting combination of elements making him a tough little son-of-a-bitch.
Ripley: And you let him in.
Ash: I was obeying a direct order. Remember?
Ripley: Ash. When Dallas and Kane are off the ship, I’m Senior Officer.
Ash: Oh, yes, I forgot.
Ripley: You also forgot the Science Division’s basic quarantine law.
Ash: No, that I didn’t forget.
Ripley: Oh, I see, you just broke it. Hmm?

…

Ash: Ripley, for God’s sake, this is the first time that we’ve encountered a species like this. It has to go back. All sorts of tests have to be made.

…

Dallas: I just run the ship. Anything to do with the science division Ash has the final word.
Ripley: How does that happen?
Dallas: It happens because that’s what the Company wants.
Ripley: Since when is that standard procedure?
Dallas: Standard procedure is to do what the hell they tell you to do.
Ripley: Did you ever ship out with Ash before?
Dallas: I went out five times with another science officer. They replaced him two days before we left Thedus with Ash. Hmm?
Ripley: I don’t trust him.

…

Brett: Right.

…

Parker: This son of a bitch is huge! I mean, it’s like a man; it’s…it’s big!
Ash: [softly] Kane’s son.

…

Ripley: Ash. Any suggestions from you or Mother?
Ash: No, we’re still collating.
Ripley: [laughing in disbelief] You’re what? You’re still collating? I find that hard to believe.
Ash: What would you like me to do?
Ripley: Just what you’ve been doing, Ash, nothing.

…

Mother: PRIORITY ONE INSURE RETURN OF ORGANISM FOR ANALYSIS. ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS SECONDARY. CREW EXPENDABLE.

…

Ash: There is an explanation for this, you know.

…

Parker: Jesus. It’s a robot. Ash is a goddamn robot!

…

Parker: How come the Company sent us a goddamn robort?
Ripley: They must have wanted the alien for their weapons division. He’s been protecting it all along.

…

Ripley: Ash, can you hear me? Ash?
Ash: [speaking in an electronic, distorted voice] Yes, I can hear you.
Ripley: What was your special order?
Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.
Ripley: What was it?
Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.
Parker: The damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?
Ash: I repeat, all other priorities are rescinded.

…

Ash: You still don’t understand what you are dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor. Unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.

…

Ash: I can’t lie to you about your chances, but…you have my sympathies.

…

Ripley: When we throw the switches, how long before the ship blows?
Parker: Ten minutes.
Ripley: No bullshit?
Parker: If we ain’t outta here in ten minutes, we won’t need no rocket to fly through space.[/b]

Once a great lawyer for The Cause, now a cynical defender of druggie scumbags. You know where this is going. But it still works. It draws you into a world that exposes the yawning gap between the textbook version of our criminal justice system and the reality that is “a harrowing maze of unscurpulous prosecutors, white supremist hate groups and police corruption.” Not to mention the slimey politics coming at you from all directions.

There are gaps between perceptions of reality so wide they are all but unbridgeable. So we do the best we can. It’s just that the stakes involved are also perceptions of reality. And there are so many different ways for something not to be as it seems.

Look for the greater good.

wiki

[b]The film is loosely based on an investigative series of articles written by Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist K. W. Lee on the conviction of immigrant Chol Soo Lee for a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gangland murder. The news coverage led to a new trial, eventual acquittal and release of the prisoner from San Quentin’s Death Row. Screenwriter Wesley Strick based the character of Eddie Dodd on real-life Bay Area defense attorney Tony Serra.

At the time of True Believer’s release, K.W. Lee told the Charleston Gazette he enjoyed the film “as fiction … but it was not a true picture. They have completely preempted the struggle of Asians.”[/b]

TRUE BELIEVER
Directed by Joseph Ruben

[b]Translator: Mrs. Kim went to all the courthouses. They all speak of you, they all say the same thing.
Eddie [puffing up a little with pride]: Oh, what do they say?
Translator: You do cases cheap.

…

Eddie: Attilla the Hun had a mother.

…

Eddie: I don’t venerate drug dealers, Roger. To the contrary. We check the government’s attempt to abridge our civil liberties. Through the use of informants, eavedropping, unreasonable searches and seisures.[/b]

That’s what he tells himself now. But that doesn’t make it less true.

[b]Eddie: You want to be a criminal defense attorney? Then know this going in: Everybody’s guilty. Everybody.

…

Cecil [residing in a psychiatric hospital]: I always t-tell the truth. That’s why I’m here.

…

Reynard: Well, let’s not drag the constitution into this.

…

Eddie [to reporter]: I’m not saying there was a conspiracy. Law enforcement is too disorganized for that. No, I suspect sloth was the culprit – lassitude. My client made a convenient patsy…

…

Roger [after Eddie was beaten up by ex-Aryan Army member]: I can’t believe we’re going to see a bunch of Nazis…at night!
Eddie: There’s no one else to talk to! The tattoos are phony!
Roger: So?
Eddie: So, no upstanding member of the Aryan Army would paint them on. They take those teardrops very seriously. They’re badges of honor, of courage! Only their most vicious, sadistic, cruel killer elite get to wear them!
Roger: Oh, I feel much better now.

…

Eddie: Who’s Chuckie Roeder?
Teardrop: Chuck? Rhymes with suck? Chuckie Roeder is no longer a comrade in the resurrection of our nation. We expelled that faggot junkie last year.
Eddie: Do you know where he can be found?
Teardrop: Hanging with his tongue out and a sign around his neck says “I Betrayed My Race” along with the rest of society’s scum, on the Great Day of the Rope.
Roger: Um…prior to the Great Day of the Rope, where can Chuckie be found?
Teardrop: Mixing with mongrel races.
Eddie: Anything along the lines of a job? An address?

…

Roger: Come off it, Eddie! We’re all committed to the case, we all believe it’s a good fight.
Eddie: Good fight? You think I’m going into court to make a fucking statement? You think Shu is a shit, we go down, but go down nobly? This is a man looking at 40 years of HARD TIME! He could’ve had a deal and been out in five, but he bet it all on ME! Don’t give me that liberal yuppie bullshit about a good fight, this isn’t fucking Yale! A good fight is one you WIN!

…

Eddie [reading the printing on a bag]: “Art’s supplies. ‘Everything for the plumber’.”

…

Eddie: I went up against the goddam D.A. himself but I didn’t care because I trusted you, because I believed in you, because I thought there was a bond between us! Didn’t you feel that?
Shu [looking at Eddie as though he were an alien life form]: You’re out there and I’m in here. My bond – my trust – is with the dudes in here that watch my ass. I took an oath of loyalty to them. You’re out there. Who are you to me? When you leave this place you’re going out to dinner or a movie or get laid. I’m going back to my cell and wait to die. So tell me: Where’s our bond?

…

Roger: Art Esparza killed Jimmy Chin. The killer wasn’t Chinese! Cecil Skell was right!
Eddie: [ecstatic] Everybody else was wrong, the one fucking lunatic was RIGHT!
Roger: Does this mean the phone company killed Kennedy?

…

Vincent: You know, for eight years I’ve been waiting for some genius to notice it took me an hour to drive seven blocks?

…

Eddie: I must know one thing…how could you do it?
Robert: It was a trade-off, Mr. Dodd. I’d do it again.
Eddie: [to the judge] Your Honor…the defense rests.[/b]

We can’t live in a world where eveyone becomes whoever they want to be. Where everyone does whatever they want to do. There have to be rules that facilitate a least dysfunctional social interaction. And this gets particularly problematic with respect to sexuality and children. What should be permitted and what should not? What should be encouraged and what should be frowned on? Even forbidden?

There are always answers. But not always easy answers.

And this may not be about sexuality at all, just gender. The best we can really hope for is tolerance.

Garnered a 97% fresh rating at RT. On 60 reviews.

IMDb

Script written from April 2010. The main actress was found on the first day of casting. The film was shot in twenty days in August 2010 with a crew of fourteen.

wiki

The film is supposed to explore themes of ambiguous sexuality. Writer/Director Céline Sciamma said of her film “The movie is ambiguous about Mikael’s feelings for Lisa. It plays with the confusion. I wanted it to be that way.”

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-Oys-IcWE

TOMBOY
Written and directed by Céline Sciamma

[b]Lisa: You’re not like the others.

…

Lisa [thinking Laure is Mikael]: You look great as a girl.

…

Jeanne: Why do you pretend to be a boy?

…

Lisa: You sure you’re in the fourth grade? I didn’t see your name on the class list. Weird, cause there is only one class.[/b]

Now it begins to dawn on Laure: it has to unravel.

[b]Laure [to her father]: We have to leave here. Please.

…

Lisa’s mother: Lisa?
Lisa: Yes?
Lisa’s mother: Come here. This is Mikael’s mum. She’s come here to say Mikael is not actually Mikael but a girl, not a boy. She’s waiting for you in the kitchen.

…

Rayan [to Laure]: We hear you’re a girl. We’re gonna check that.
Lisa: Stop it! What do you think you’re doing?
Rayan: We’re gonna check if she’s really a girl.
Lisa: Leave him alone.
Rayan: You’re right. It’s YOU who’ll check.
Lisa: No, I won’t.
Rayan: If she’s a girl, then you kissed her. It’s disgusting. Right?
Lisa: Yes, it’s disgusting.
Rayan: Then, you’re gonna do it.
[Lisa pulls down Laure’s pants]

…

Lisa: What’s your name?
Laure: My name is Laure.[/b]

Elegy: a poem for a dead person. But occasionally the living dead will do.

Another film where the woman can be anything…as long as she is very, very beautiful. Is this bullshit? Or are we really hard wired to pursue this trope [tripe] over and over and over again?

Oh, and they all have to be 1] cultured and 2] intellectuals. And, up to a point, that always works for me.

But: When you do fall in love with someone [much younger] who is cultured, intellectual and ravishingly attractive, jealousy will sooner or later rear its ugly head.

Is this in fact about Philip Roth facing the ineluctable truth of growing older and older in a culture that grows younger and younger? It’s the narrative he has. Period. There is no getting around it. Rilke’s panther again.

Of course there is one plot device that ages the young more immediately: cancer.

But the cage is even smaller for most women. It’s not for nothing that [in film] in 9 out of every 10 of these May/November romances the woman is May.

ELEGY
Directed by Isabel Coixet [from the Philip Roth novel The Dying Animal]

[b]David [interviewed on the Charlie Rose show]: We’re not all descended from the Puritans.
Charlie Rose: No?
David: There was another colony 30 miles from Plymouth, it’s not on the maps today. Marymount it was called.
Charlie Rose: Yeah, alright, you mention in your book…
David: The colony where anything goes, went.
Charlie Rose: There was booze…
David: There was booze. There was fornication. There was music. There was… they even ah, ah, ah, you name it, you name it. They even danced around the maypole once a month, wearing masks, worshiping god knows what, Whites and Indians together, all going for broke…
Charlie Rose: Who was responsible for all of this?
David: A character by the name of Thomas Morton.
Charlie Rose: Aah, the “Hugh Hefner” of the Puritans.
David: You could say that. I’m going to read you a quote of what the Puritans thought of Morton’s followers. Debauched Bakunin aliens and atheists, falling into great licentiousness, and leading degenerate lives. When I heard that, I packed my bags, I left Oxford, and I came straight to America, America the licentiousness.
Charlie Rose: So what happened to all of those people?
David: Well, the Puritans shot them down. They sent in Miles Standish leading the militia. He chopped down the maypole, cut down those colored ribbons, banners, everything; party was over.
Charlie Rose: And we became a nation of straight-laced Puritans.
David: Well…
Charlie Rose: Isn’t that your point though? The Puritans won, they stamped out all things sexual… how would you say it?
David: Sexual happiness.
Charlie Rose: Exactly. Until the 1960s.
David: Until the 1960s when it all exploded again all over the place.
Charlie Rose: Right, everyone was dancing around the maypole, then, make love not war.
David: If you remember, only a decade earlier, if you wanted to have sex, if you wanted to make love in the 1950s, you had to beg for it, you had to cop a feel.
Charlie Rose: Or… get married.
David: As I did in the 1960s.
Charlie Rose: Any regrets?
David: Plenty. Um, but that’s our secret. Don’t tell anybody.
[laughter]
David: That’s just between you and me.

…

David [narrating]: I think it was Betty Davis who said old age is not for sissies. But it was Tolstoy who said the biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age. Old age sneaks up on you, and the next thing you know you’re asking yourself, I’m asking myself, why can’t an old man act his real age? How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed.

…

David [to class]: This course is called “Practical Criticism”. So…Let’s go! Right to the big question, shall we? Does “War and Peace” become a different book because we read it? Yes, of course. But why? Because we bring something to the book? We bring ourselves. What’s more, if you read the book again in 10 years, it will change again, because you’ve changed.

…

David [narrating]: I’ve always been vulnerable to female beauty, Ms. Castillo was different, her posture was perfect. And she dressed like a young associate of a prestigious law firm. There was a sophistication, that set her apart. She knows she’s beautiful. But she’s not yet sure what to do with her beauty.

…

David [narrating]: Since they posted the sexual harassment hotline number down the hall from my office, I never make private contact with any of my students until they’ve received their grades. Afterwards I always throw a cocktail party for the class.

…

David [narrating]: Why all this talk about Kafka, Goya and her Cuban family? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that her family’s Cuban and she enjoys my class. But I go on yakking away mainly because I want to fuck her.

…

David [to George]: She is a throwback to a completely different time. She has to be wooed.

…

David [narrating]: Consuela. My whole life was dedicated to independence and at some cost I had achieved my goal. Nevertheless, it was in that moment, that my terrible jealousy was born. That is when I realised that I would never, ever, really possess her. I feel anxious unless I speak to her on the phone every day, and then I feel anxious after we’ve spoken. What are you wearing? Where are you? I knew it’s only a matter of time before a young man found her and took her away. I knew. Because I was once that young man who would have done it.

…

David [narrating]: On the nights she isn’t with me I am deformed, thinking of where she might be. And all this because this girl will tell me a thousand times how much she adores me and means it. This girl will never once tell me she yearns for my cock.

…

David: Of course the whole situation was ridiculous.

…

George: Beautiful women are invisible.
David: Invisible? What the hell does that mean? Invisible? They jump out at you. A beautiful woman, she stands out. She stands apart. You can’t miss her.
George: But we never actually see the person. We see the beautiful shell. We’re blocked by the beauty barrier. Yeah, we’re so dazzled by the outside that we never make it inside.[/b]

Men still say things like this. After all, sometimes what else is there to say?

[b]David [to his son]: …what are you doing? You’re going to escape from one prison and race headlong into another maximum security facility.
Kenny: Where did you get the idea that marriage is a prison?
David: From serving time.

…

Carolyn: I’m getting old David. The way men look at me changes every day. There are women…a lot of women who are on these dating websites. You’re guaranteed a certain number of dates per year. And you pay for the silence…and…the same conversation, every time. I’ll end up like them.

…

Consuela [in phone message]: Hi, David, it’s Consuela. How are you? Feels strange to call you, but I want to talk to you, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you myself before you hear it from someone else.

…

David: I collapsed to the floor, listening to her message, again and again, fearing the worst. She was in love, she was getting married. Perhaps she even wanted my blessing.[/b]

Nope, not that.

[b]Consuela: You know what’s funny? I feel older than you now.

…

Consuela: It’s like not being able… to get into a… a comfortable position, because no matter which way you turn, you’re stuck. I’m stuck inside myself.

…

David: You know Hipolita, the beautiful Amazonian queen? She actually cut off her right breast so she could shoot her arrows faster and she was no slouch.[/b]

Dead Man:
directed by Jim Jarmusch

Stupid fucking white man.

Look out the window. And doesn’t this remind you of when you were in the boat, and then later than night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape, and you think to yourself, “Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?”

Chinatown with a happy ending? The pragmatic melding of vice and virtue? Copland with a few new twists? Dexter without “the code”? You know me: Make up your own mind. But then be prepared to change it.

Good cop? Bad cop? I couldn’t make up my mind. Each new context seemed to tug me in another direction. But it’s a frame of mind I garner mostly from the world of entertainment. Like you too probably.

So why not explore [yet again] the gap between why folks choose to become cops and what actually being one does to reconfigure their point of view? With detectives in particular the gap seems to widen.

But always, always, always: it’s politics. Underlying and underminding everything.

IMDb

Many of the events in the movie were based upon real events. These include the Bloody Christmas scene where drunken police officers brutally beat up Hispanic prisoners suspected of beating up two uniformed cops (the real-life cops involved were named Trojanowski and Brownson – in the film, they’re referred to as Helenowski and Brown); the plot line of real-life gangster Mickey Cohen’s arrest touching off a gang war for control of the rackets; the LAPD Goon Squad which would kidnap out-of-town gangsters, beat them up and threaten to kill them if they ever tried to come back to set up their operations; Lana Turner dating gangster Johnny Stompanato (although this movie is set in 1953, and the real Turner and Stompanato didn’t start dating until 1957). In real life, Turner’s daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed Stompanato to death on April 4, 1958, after catching him beating her mother.

wiki

Critically acclaimed, the film holds a 99% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 85 out of 86 reviews positive.

The odd guy out? Dwight Garner at Salon.com: “It’s the story of good white actors stranded, in the name of noir, in a movie that refuses to kick into gear until it’s far too late.”

What must it be like to see the film through his eyes? And how could he [or all the rest of us] get it so wrong?

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Directed by Curtis Hanson

[b]Dudley: Edmund, you’re a political animal. You have the eye for human weakness, but not the stomach.
Ed: You’re wrong, sir.
Dudley: Would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence on a suspect you knew to be guilty, in order to ensure an indictment?
Ed: Dudley, we’ve been over this.
Dudley: Yes or no, Edmund?
Ed: No!
Dudley: Would you be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect you knew to be guilty?
Ed: No.
Dudley: Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back, in order to offset the chance that some… lawyer…
Ed: No.
Dudley: Then, for the love of God, don’t be a detective. Stick to assignments where you don’t have…
Ed: Dudley, I know you mean well, but I don’t need to do it the way you did. Or my father.

…

Bud: Merry Christmas.
Lynn: Merry Christmas to you, officer.
Bud: That obvious, huh?
Lynn: It’s practically stamped on your forehead.

…

Dudley: Bud White is a valuable officer.
Ed: White’s a mindless thug.
Dudley: No, Edmund, he’s just a man who can answer yes to those questions I’ve asked you from time to time.

…

Dudley: I admire you as a policeman - particularly your adherence to violence as a necessary adjunct to the job.

…

Dudley: You’ll do as I say, and ask no questions. Do you follow my drift?
Bud: In technicolor, sir.

…

Lynn: There’s blood on your jacket. Is that an integral part of your job?
Bud: Sometimes.
Lynn: Do you enjoy it?
Bud: When they deserve it.
Lynn: Did they today?
Bud: I don’t know.
Lynn: But you did it anyway.
Bud: Yeah, just like the half-dozen guys you screwed today.
Lynn: Well, actually, it was two

…

Jack: Are you sure Golden Boy is up to the task, Cap?
Dudley: Oh, I think you’d be surprised what the lad is capable of.

…

Ed: A naked man with a gun? Do you really expect anyone to believe that?
Bud: Get the fuck away from me.
Ed: How’s it gonna look in your report?
Bud: It’ll look like justice. That’s what the man got. Justice.
Ed: You don’t know the meaning of the word, you ignorant bastard.

…

Lynn: Where’d this come from?
Bud: When I was twelve, my old man went after my mother with a bottle. I got in the way.
Lynn: You saved her.
Bud: …Not for long.
Lynn: I’m sorry, Bud, it’s none of my…
Bud: He tied me to the radiator. I watched him beat my mother to death with a tire iron. Then he left us there. Three days before a truant officer found us… They never found the old man.
Lynn: Was that why you became a cop? To get even?
Bud: …Maybe.

…

Mrs. Lefferts: Was it a rat?
Bud: Yeah, a great big one.

…

Jack: Why in the world do you want to dig deeper into the Nite Owl killings?
Ed: …Rollo Tamasi.
Jack: Is there more to that, or am I supposed to guess?
Ed: Rollo was a purse snatcher. My father ran into him off duty, and he shot my father six times and got away clean. No one even knew who he was. I just made the name up to give him some personality.
Jack: What’s your point?
Ed: Rollo Tamasi is the reason I became a cop. I wanted to catch the guys who thought they could get away with it. It’s supposed to be about justice. Then somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that…Why’d you become a cop?
Jack: [long pause] I don’t remember.

…

Bud: How would a two-bit hood like Meeks get his hands on a large supply of heroin?
Johnny: You’re right. It’s probably bullshit. And even if he did he could never unload it. Not without drawing all kinds of attention.
Bud: Maybe that’s why he’s under a house in Elysian Park and he don’t smell too good.

…

Lana Turner: Who in the hell do you think you are?
Jack: Ed…
Ed: Take a walk, honey, before I haul your ass downtown.
Johnny: You are making a large mistake.
Lana Turner: Get away from our table!
Ed: Shut up! A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker.
Johnny: Hey!
Ed: She just looks like Lana Turner.
Jack: She is Lana Turner.
Ed: What?
Jack: She is Lana Turner.
[Turner throws a drink in Ed’s face]

…

Lynn: [to Ed] Fucking me and fucking Bud aren’t the same thing, you know.

…

Dudley [to Jack]: Don’t start trying to do the right thing, boyo, you haven’t had the practice.

…

Dudley: Edmund, might I have a word with you? We’re trying to run down a lead on an associate of Vincennes. The records check has led to a dead end.
Ed: What’s the name?
Dudley: Rollo Tomasi. Have you ever heard Vincennes mention him?

…

Sid: I can tell you he’s on a night train to the Big Adios.

…

Bud: The Nite Owl case made you. Do you want to tear all that down?
Ed: With a wrecking ball…You want to help me swing it?

…

Ed [to Ellis]: Is that how you used to run the good cop-bad cop?[/b]

Motels by the hour. You know what that means. But try to imagine figuring out what it means when you are a 13 year old kid helping your mother to run one. And your family is from out of town. Like half way around the world out of town.

But then what exactly is an “Asian-American” perspective? Don’t they have daseins there?

It seems we might be able to gravitate to some around us if others around us weren’t intent on yanking them away. Before we push them away instead.

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=EMcKXlWrO6s

THE MOTEL
Written and directed by Michael Kang

[b]Ahma: Room 6 needs a new lock.

…

Ernest: So, do I get dinner?

…

Sam: I know what you were thinking. I hope this guy speaks english.
Ernest: No, I guess I knew you spoke English.
Sam: Really, how?
Ernest: You walk like you speak english.

…

Sam: I’ll bet you see a lot of shit growing up here. And you don’t even flinch!

…

Daughter: How come people stay at our house for three hours?
Mother: Sometimes people like to take naps.
Daughter: How come they’re so loud when they take naps?

…

Sam: I tried. You can’t say I didn’t try.[/b]

The crying game. Two of them in fact. One on the battlefield [of sorts] and one in the bedroom.

The one in the bedroom is played straight until it is not. But by then it is too late: he has already fallen in love.

Falling in love and doing battle are, apparently, “in our nature”. But the permutations down here on the ground make that all but
moot at times. Like here for example.

I think could fall in love with her. But, then again, she’s insufferably “feminine”.

IMDb

[b]A few weeks into filming, Jaye Davidson got ill from flu. A doctor was called to the set to take a look at him. The doctor entered Jaye’s tiny trailer, examined him and came out to talk to director Neil Jordan. The doctor asked Neil “Have you considered the possibility that she might be pregnant?”. To which Neil and the other crew began to laugh. The doctor looked bemused, and was only let in on the secret a few minutes later. He felt very foolish.

Time magazine critic Richard Corliss subtly gave away the movie’s plot twist in his review of the film. The first letter of each paragraph spells out the phrase “She is a he”.[/b]

THE CRYING GAME
Written and directed by Neil Jordan

[b]Jody: I’m thinking to myself, What the fuck am I doing here?
Fergus: What the fuck were you doing here?
Jofy: I got sent.
Fergus: You could have said no.
Jody: Can’t. Once I signed up.
Fergus: Why did you sign up?
Jody: It was a job. So I get sent to the only place in the world they call you nigger to your face. Fergus: Shouldn’t take it personally.
Jody [imitating a Belfast accent]: “Go back to your banana tree, nigger.” No use telling them I came from Tottenham.

…

Jody: Now put it back in. It’s only a piece of meat.

…

Jody: Two types of people, Fergus. The scorpion and the frog. Ever heard of them? The scorpion wants to cross a river, but he can’t swim. Goes to the frog, who can, and asks for a ride. Frog says, “If I give you a ride on my back, you’ll go and sting me.” Scorpion replies, “It would not be in my interest to sting you since as I’ll be on your back we both would drown.” Frog thinks about this logic for a while and accepts the deal. Takes the scorpion on his back. Braves the waters. Halfway over feels a burning spear in his side and realizes the scorpion has stung him after all. And as they both sink beneath the waves the frog cries out, “Why did you sting me, Mr. Scorpion, for now we both will drown?” Scorpion replies, “I can’t help it, it’s in my nature.”
Fergus: So what’s that supposed to mean?
Jody: Means what it says. The scorpion does what is in his nature. Take off the hood, man. Fergus: Why?
Jody: 'Cause you’re kind. It’s in your nature.

…

Col: It takes all types.
Fergus: So who’s he?
Col: He’s what she should run a mile away from.
Fergus: Then why doesn’t she?
Col: Who knows the secrets of the human heart?

…

Dil: Funny the way things go. Don’t you find that, Jimmy? Never the way you expect it.

…

Deveroux: Does Pat have a tart?
Fergus: She’s not a tart.
Deveroux: No, of course not. She’s a lady.
Fergus: No, she’s not that either.

…

Fergus [to Deveroux]: Did you ever pick your teeth up with broken fingers?

…

Fergus: Do they know?
Dil: Know what, honey?
Fergus: Know what I didn’t know. And don’t call me that.
Dil: Can’t help it, Jimmy. A girl has her feelings.
Fergus: Thing is, Dil, you’re not a girl.
Dil: Details, baby, details.

…

Jude: We’ve got some plans here. And we’ll need a Mister Nobody to execute them.
Fergus: No way, Jude. I’m out.
Jude: You’re never out, Fergus.

…

Dil: My pills…
Fergus: What pills?
Dil:. For my condition.
Fergus: What condition?
Dil: My condition. Ennui.

…

Dil: She was there, wasn’t she?
Fergus: She was.
Dil: And she used her tits and that cute little ass to get him, didn’t she?
Fergus: Yes.

…

Dil: What am I supposed to call you then, Jimmy?
Fergus: Fergus.
Dil: Fergus… Fergus. My love. Light of my life.
Fergus: Please, Dil.
Dil: Can’t help it. You’re doing time for me. No greater love as the man says. I wish you’d tell me why.
Fergus: As a man said, it’s in my nature.
Dil: What’s that supposed to mean?
Fergus: Well… there’s this scorpion, you see, and he wants to go across a river. Well, he can’t swim so he goes to this frog, who naturally enough can swim. And he says,
[imitating the scorpion’s voice]
Fergus: “Excuse me, Mr. Froggy. I want to go across the river.”
[continues narrating]
Fergus: So the frog accepts the idea. The scorpion hops on the frog’s back. Suddenly, the frog: “Aah!” He feels this sting! “You stung me! Why did you go and do that?” The scorpion looks at him and says, “I can’t help it, it’s in my nature”.[/b]

That [in 1965] this was a true story in South Africa won’t surprise many. Though surprisingly some will insist it can never happen again. Or happen here. Wherever here happens to be for you.

What people think gets tangled up in all sorts of variables—factors one would assume are tangential to a rational perspective. A prejudice against those deemed “different” – and in all the ways that can be deemed – has been the lot of many construed to be “other then we are”.

The extent of this can’t help but make you wonder how we will ever live in a world where the only variables that count are the ones that are true.

The story becomes particularly surreal when Sandra’s father tries to keep Sandra [who clearly looks black but is legally white] away from Petrus [who clearly looks and legally is black]. Again: How can otherwise rational and intelligent people think like this?

wiki

Skin is a British-South African 2008 biographical film directed by Anthony Fabian, about Sandra Laing, a South African woman born to white parents who was classified as “Coloured” during the apartheid era, due to a genetic case of Atavism.

Sandra Laing at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Laing

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=wbj691Z1Z1E

SKIN
Directed by Anthony Fabian

[b]Title card: Apartheid was a system of racial segregation legally enforced by the ruling white minority in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. The Population Registration Act [1950] classified all citizens by racial group. People of different races were forbidden to enter the same shop, attend the same school or live under the same roof.

…

Young Sandra: Mother, why are they all staring?
Sannie: You’re new here, my sweet. They’re just curious.

…

Elize: Sandra? I’m Elize.
Young Sandra: What do you want?
Elize: I’m from Swaziland. That’s another country.
Young Sandra: I know that, I’m not stupid.
Elize: All of my friends have always been black.
Young Sandra: I’m not black.

…

Young Sandra: Upon seeing Elize with a bloody nose: What happened? Tell me.
Elize: I told Annie you weren’t black and she hit me.

…

Teacher: …and on these plains were savage natives who were always trying to take our land, There were many wars between them. Why do you think that was, students?
Annie: They couldn’t live together because they were different.
Teacher: That’s right. Good, good, good. Because they were…
Class: Different!

…

Young sandra [after the school doctor measures her head]: Am I sick?

…

Dr Sparks [a geneticist from Wits Universtiy at a court hearing]: I believe there is a plausible genetic explanation for Sandra’s appearance. The history of our country is such that many, indeed, we believe most Afrikaners carry black genes. So two white-looking parents can contribute enough black genes to produce a child quite a bit darker than themselves. This phenomenon is commonly known as a throwback. We prefer to use the more precise term, polygenic inheritance.

…

Reporter [on the radio]: And in Parliament today an amendment was made to the Population Registration Act. Descent rather than appearance, will be the determining factor in all classification cases. Children must now be classified the same race as their parents.
Abraham: Thank God. She’s white again.

…

Abraham: Sandra! You’re white!

…

Abraham: What do you think you’re doing with my daughter.
Petrus: Just talking, baas.
Abraham: Six feet Petrus. That’s the distance you keep when talking to her.
Petrus: Sure, my baas.

…

Sannie: No more smart talk Sandy, this is serious.
Sandra: I like him. Petrus.
Sannie: You like him like a friend, like a brother?
Sandra: A boyfriend.
[her mother slaps her hard across the face]
Sannie: Petrus is a black man. Dirt in this country.

…

Abraham [to Petrus while holding a gun]: Dead and buried. That’s how you’ll be if you come near my property or my family again. You understand?
Petrus: Sure, baas.

…

Sannie [to Abraham]: You know what keeps me awake at night? Maybe she made the right choice.

…

Sannie: All these years you’ve kept us apart. You didn’t even want to see the pictures of her children. What has changed? Why is it okay now?
Abraham: Please. I need to see her.
Sannie: You need to see her? I have needed to see her every day for the last ten years!
Abraham: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I need…I have to tell her.
Sannie: You want her forgiveness? You don’t deserve it. Neither do I.
Abraham: Sannie, I’m begging you.
Sannie: No. You made your choice.

…

Sannie: Your father wasn’t a bad man. He did the best he could.
Sandra: “Never give up”.
Sannie: I wish that I had never heard those words.
Sandra: No, Ma. They kept me going.

…

Title card: Sandra’s Rainbow Tuck Shop was launched in 2003. She now has 7 grandchildren.
Sandra’s two brothers Leon and Adriaan refuse to reunite with her to this day.[/b]

What will always impress me most about this film is Stone’s willingness to broach the military industrial complex as an impetus behind the Kennedy assassination. He focus on means, motive and opportunity. Around this:

The organizing principle of any society, Mr. Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers. Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term. He wanted to call off the moon race and cooperate with the Soviets. He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962. He set out to withdraw from Vietnam. But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963.

Is this entirely true? Perhaps not. But, with billions of dollars at stake, why take chances?

IMDb

[b]The film generated intense controversy upon its release with many accusing Oliver Stone of making up many of the facts. In fact, Stone published an annotated version of his screenplay, in which he justifies and attributes every claim made in the film. Stone later addressed the controversy in his TV movie Wild Palms in which he has a cameo. That film takes place in the 21st Century and has Stone appearing on a talk show discussing how all his conspiracy theories surrounding “JFK” had been proven true.

Dr. Marion Jenkins, the anesthetist, plays himself in the film. He was genuinely surprised at the level of detail and research that had gone into preparation for that key scene. Even the tiles for the set of Trauma Room One were exactly the same shade of green he remembered (even though the scene itself is black and white in the finished film).

Shortly after the film’s release, film critic Roger Ebert received a tongue-lashing from Walter Cronkite, berating him for praising “JFK”. Cronkite was adamant that there wasn’t a shred of truth to the film.[/b]

Bashing the bashers from Huffington Post:
huffingtonpost.com/jefferson … 73722.html

And for those who want to bash them right back:
mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jfkmovie.htm

Like Ferrie said: a mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma.

JFK
Written and directed by Oliver Stone

[b]title card: “To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards of men.” - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
President Eisenhower: …We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. And to do this three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishement. We annually spend on military security alone…
Narrator: January, 1961. President Dwight D. Eisenhowers’s Farewell Address to the Nation.
President Eisenhower: …This conjunction of an immense military establishment and arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office in the federal government. We must guard against the aquisition of unwarranted influence - whether sought or unsought - by the military-industrial complex. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

…

Banister: Here’s to the New Frontier. Camelot in smithereens. I’ll drink to that.

…

Garrison: Thank you for your time, David. I’m sorry this has to end inconveniently for you but I am going to have to detain you for further questioning by the FBI.
Ferrie: Why, what’s wrong?
Garrison: David, I find your story simply not believable.
Ferrie: Really? What part?

…

Dean: You’re a mouse fighting a gorilla. JFK’s dead as that crabmeat. The government’s still breathing.

…

David Ferrie: Oh man, why don’t you fuckin’ stop it? Shit, this is too fuckin’ big for you, you know that? Who did the president, who killed Kennedy, fuck man! It’s a mystery! It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin’ shooters don’t even know! Don’t you get it?

…

X: After I came back, I asked myself, why was I, the chief special officer, selected to travel to the South Pole at that time that any number of others could have done? And I wondered if it was because one of my routine duties if I had been in Washington would have been to arrange for additional security in Texas, so I decided to check it out. And sure enough, someone had told the 112th Military Intelligence Group at Fourth Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston in Texas to stand down that day, over the protests of the Unit Commander, Colonal Rike. This is significant because it is standard operating procedure, especially in a lnown hostile city like Dallas.

…

X: We would have arrived days ahead, studied the route, checked all the buildings. Never would have allowed all those wide-open windows overlooking Dealy Plaza, never! We would have had our own snipers covering the area the minute a window went up! They would have been on the radio. We would have been watching the building, checking for baggage, coat under the arms… Never would have allowed a man to open an umbrella along the way! Never would have allowed the car to slow down to 11 miles an hour, much less take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm! You would have felt an army presence on the streets that day. But none of this happened. It was a violation of the most basic protection code we have, and it’s an indication of a massive plot based in Dallas.

…

X: Don’t underestimate the budget cuts that Kennedy called for in March of 1963. Nearly 52 military installations in 25 states. Twenty-one overseas bases. Big money. You know how many helicopters have been lost in Vietnam? Nearly 3,000 so far. Who makes them? Bell Helicopter. Who owns Bell? Bell was nearly bankrupt when First National Bank of Boston asked the CIA to use the helicopter in Indochina. How about the F-111 fighter? General Dynamics of Fort Worth, Texas. Who owns that? Find out the defense budget since the war began. $75 going on $100 billion. Nearly $200 billion will be spent before it’s over. In 1949, it was $10 billion. No war…no money.

…

Garrison [to his wife after watching a damning NBC special report]: There’s only 20 or 30 million people watching this tonight. At least my reputation is still fine with people watching “Laugh In”.

…

Broussard: How the hell can you keep a conspiracy going between the mob, CIA, FBl, Army Intelligence and who knows what else when you can’t keep a secret in this room between 12 people?
Here’s where some say the “conspiracy” goes off the deep end:

…

Garrison: Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill, or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob appoint the Warren Commission to cover it up? Could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep? And since when has the Mob used anything but .38’s for hits, up close. The Mob wouldn’t have the guts or the power for something of this magnitude. Assassins need payrolls, orders, times, schedules. This was a military-style ambush from start to finish… a coup d’etat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings.
Broussard: You’re saying Lyndon Johnson was involved? The President?
Garrison: Johnson got $1 billion for his friends, Brown and Root to dredge Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
Broussard: Boss, are you calling the President a murderer?!
Garrison: If I’m so far from the truth, why is the FBI bugging our offices? Why are witnesses being bought off and murdered? Why are federal agencies blocking our extraditions and subpoenas?
Broussard: I don’t know.

…

Broussard: This is Louisiana, chief! I mean, how do you know who your daddy is? Because your mama told you so? You are taking a crap in the wind. And I am not going along on this one.[/b]

The heart of the conspiracy:

[b]Garrison: The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case. Three bullets, one assassin. But two unpredictable things happened that day that made it virtually impossible. One, the eight-millimeter home movie taken by Abraham Zapruder while standing by the grassy knoll. Two, the third wounded man, James Tague, who was knicked by a fragment, standing near the triple underpass. The time frame, five point six seconds, determined by the Zapruder film, left no possibility of a fourth shot. So the shot or fragment that left a superficial wound on Tague’s cheek had to come from the three shots fired from the sixth floor depository. That leaves just two bullets. And we know one of them was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy. So now a single bullet remains. A single bullet now has to account for the remaining seven wounds in Kennedy and Connelly. But rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further, the Warren Commission chose to endorse the theory put forth by an ambitious junior counselor, Arlen Spector, one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. We’ve come to know it as the “Magic Bullet Theory.” The magic bullet enters the President’s back, headed downward at a 17-degree angle. It then moves upwards to leave Kennedy’s body from the front of his neck wound #2 where it waits 1.6 seconds presumably in midair, where it turns right, then left right, then left and continues into Connally’s right armpit. Wound #3. The bullet then heads down at an angle of 27 degrees, shattering his rib and exiting from the right side of his chest. Wound #4. The bullet turns right, reentering Connally’s body at his right wrist. Wound #5. Shattering the radius bone the bullet exits Connally’s wrist, wound #6 makes a dramatic U-turn, then buries itself in Connally’s left thigh. Wound #7, from which it later falls out and is found in almost pristine condition on a stretcher in a corridor of Parkland Hospital. Some bullet. Any combat vet can tell you, never in the history of gunfire has there been a bullet this ridiculous.

…

Garrison: When my office or you, the people, asked those questions, demanded evidence the answer from on high has always been: national security. What kind of national security do we have when we’re robbed of our leaders? What national security permits the removal of fundamental power from the people and validates the ascendancy of an invisible government in the US? That kind of national security is when it smells like it, feels like it, and looks like it you call it what it is: Fascism! I submit to you that what took place on November 22, 1963 was a coup d’état. Its most direct and tragic result was the reversal of Kennedy’s decision to withdraw from Vietnam. The war is the biggest business in America worth billions of dollars a year. President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy planned at the highest levels of our government carried out by fanatical and disciplined cold warriors in the Pentagon and CIA’s covert-operation apparatus. Among them, Clay Shaw, here before you.

…

Garrison: There’s a simple way to determine if I am paranoid. Ask the two men who profited most from the assassination former President Johnson and your new President, Nixon to release the 51 CIA documents pertaining to Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby. Or the secret CIA memo on Oswald’s activities in Russia that was destroyed while being photocopied. These documents are yours. The people’s property. You pay for it. But as the government sees you as children who might be too disturbed to face this reality or because you might lynch those involved you cannot see these documents for another 75 years. I’m in my 40’s so I’ll have “shuffled off this mortal coil” by then. But I’m telling my eight-year-old son to keep himself physically fit so that one glorious September morning, in 2038 he can go to the National Archives and learn what the CIA and FBI knew. They may push it back then.[/b]

Based [loosely as they say] on actual events this film explores the kind of stuff that folks like me [and probably you] barely begin to understand. It’s like following Saint and Morrow here at ILP regarding TEW and RM. The fact that nothing is finally resolved though speaks volumes about the complexity of the variables.

Thus how close they are to the way things really are is not for me to say. The problem, however, is is all the stuff that deviates from the dark matter at hand. The “personal” stuff. The stuff of “ego, politics and cultural insensitivity”. You can only imagine how good the film might have been. But still worth watching.

The lesson to be learned: My truths are objective, your truths are not.

And what the hell is Meryl Streep even doing in this movie?

One point of view:
math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=677

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=p8kM2cjlPog

DARK MATTER
Directed by Chen Shi-zheng,

[b]Jacob: You did this?
Liu Xing: Can this be my dissertation?
Jacob: Are you out of your mind? This is way over your head…beyond your capabilities.
Liu Xing: But I’ve already got a good result.
Jacob: Let me explain something to you. This is a marathon. You cannot sprint all the way. Pick something simpler and then build on that. You have to pay your dues first, okay?

…

Professor Colby: You have to admit this is a highly original piece of work.
Jacob: Do you really want to sign off on a thesis that may be entirely inaccurate simply because some of the ideas in it are intriguing.
Professor Colby: Jake, he made a very persuasive argument.
Jacob: He took the most speculative theory in physics and speculated a little further. He is in way over his head.
Professor Colby: Well maybe he is way over our head.
Jacob: Liu Xing. I’m afraid we can’t accept your dissertation until you redo the computations.[/b]

In other words, until they are more in line with his own.

Fucking men. In particular the fucking lowlife scumbag working class sort. Not all of them of course but it sometimes seems that way. But with so much at stake what alternative is there but for both sides to push back as hard as they can?

Some might find it hard to sympathize with the victum here. But those that made her the victum are way beyond anything but contempt.

And it also exposes the [behind the curtain] practice of “let’s make a deal” for what it sometimes is: the least possible justice.

This is an unusual case in that those on trial were not only the rapists themselves but those who cheered the rapists on and encouraged them.

IMDb

[b]The movie is based on a real-life gang rape that occurred on 6 March 1983 at Big Dan’s Bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Upon seeing a pre-screening of the film, Jodie Foster thought her performance as Sarah Tobias was so awful that she immediately began preparing for and taking the GRE’s for graduate school. She was prepared to leave her film career behind and focus on academia…until she won the Academy Award for her performance.

Linda Hamilton, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Cusack, Tatum O’Neal, Molly Ringwald, Debra Winger, Justine Bateman, Rosanna Arquette and Jennifer Connelly all turned down the role of Sarah. Diane Lane, Brooke Shields, Sarah Jessica Parker, Carrie Fisher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Kelly McGillis and Geena Davis were all reportedly offered it. The part was actually written for Andie MacDowell. Valerie Bertinelli, Jennifer Grey, Meg Ryan, Mia Sara, and Sharon Stone were considered for the role of Sarah Tobias.[/b]

wiki

This film was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with rape in a direct manner.

THE ACCUSED
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan

[b]Kathryn: A lot of alcohol.
Rape center volunteer: Legally drunk.
Kathryn: And grass too. What else?
Rape center volunteer: What difference does that make? She was raped by three men.
Kathryn: I’m not a rape counselor. I’m a prosecutor, and I have to make a rape case.
Rape center volunteer: Then go prosecute.

…

Sarah: And I heard someone screaming. And it was me.

…

Sarah: What the hell are you talking about? You saw me at the hospital, what you think I asked for that? Is that what you think? If that’s what you think then you get the fuck out of my house!

…

Kathryn: Have you ever made love to more than one man at a time?
Sarah: What the fuck kind of question is that?
Kathryn: It’s the kind of question you’re going to be asked on the withness stand. You’re also going to be asked if a man has ever hit you and you liked it. You’re going to be asked about your drug bust and how many drinks you had that day. And how many joints you smoked. And how often you go to bars alone and whether or not you wear underwear when you go to them. And which diseases you’ve caught and how many abortions you’ve had. And I will object to all those questions. And sometimes the judge will sustain me, but sometimes not.
Sarah: That ain’t fair.
Kathryn: Sarah you’re a witness and the defense’s job is to show the jury that you’re a rotten witness because you’ve got a rotten character.
Sarah: I’ve got a rotten character. You ain’t gonna defend me because I’m some low-class bimbo?
Kathryn: I didn’t say that.

…

Kathryn [in plea bargaining negociations]: This is what the jury is going to see. And they are going to see the girl too and you can’t tell it from these. But she’s tiny. She’s the most defenseless looking thing you ever saw.

…

Sarah [at Kathryn’s dinner party]: You don’t understand how I feel! I’m standing there with my pants down and my crotch hung out for the world to see and three guys are sticking it to me, a bunch of other guys are yelling and clapping and you’re standing there telling me that that’s the best you can do. Well, if that’s the best you could do, then your best sucks! Now, I don’t know what you got for selling me out, but I sure as shit hope it was worth it!

…

Sarah [to Kathryn]: I don’t get it. I thought you were on my side. You told me you were on my side. Why did you do that?

…

Cliff: No, I don’t know her. She’s a whore, the last time I saw her she was doing a sex show.
Kathryn: You watched?
Cliff: You bet your ass I watched. She put on a great show!
Kathryn: I thought she was raped?
Cliff: Raped? She fucked a bar full of guys then she turns round and blames them for it? Listen lady, she loved it, she had an audience, she did the show of her life!

…

Kathryn: Listen again…“A person is guilty of criminal solicitation if he commands, induces, entreats or otherwise persuades another person to commit a felony-”
D.A.: You can read it to me until you’re blue in the face, I am not gonna let you prosecute a bunch of spectators -
Kathryn: [cutting him off] They’re not spectators. They solicited the rape.
D.A.: Do you really want to ask a jury to lock up a bunch of people for clapping and cheering?
Kathryn: Clapping? Cheering? Pushing? Goading? Getting the rape going and keeping it going!
D.A.: And what happens if you lose? You’ll look like an incompetent. If you win, you’ll look like a vengeful bitch. Either way, you’ll hurt yourself and this office. Now, drop it. You’ve got more important things to do.
Kathryn: No I haven’t.
D.A.: You haven’t got more important things to do than go to trial with a sure loser? What the hell’s gotten into you?
Kathryn: We owe her.
D.A.: Owe her what? We put the rapists away.

…

Kathryn: Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Paulson has told you the testimony of Sarah Tobias is nothing. Sarah Tobias was raped but that is nothing. She was cut, bruised, and terrorized but that is nothing. All of it happened in front of a howling crowd and that is nothing. Well, it may be nothing to Mr. Paulson, but it is not nothing to Sarah Tobias and I don’t believe it’s nothing to you. Next, Mr. Paulson tried to convince you that Kenneth Joyce was the only one in that room who knew that Sarah Tobias was being raped. The only one. Now you watched Kenneth Joyce, how did he strike you? Did he seem specially sensitive? Did he seem so remarkable that you said to yourselves, “Of course. This man would notice things other people wouldn’t.” Do you believe that Kenneth Joyce saw something in that room that those three men didn’t see. In all the time that Sarah was pinned down on that Pinball machine that other people didn’t know? Kenneth Joyce confessed to you that he watched a rape and did nothing. He told you that everyone in that bar behaved badly and he was right. But no matter how immoral it may be, it is not the crime of criminal solicitation to walk away from a rape. It is not the crime of criminal solicitation to watch a rape. But it is the crime of criminal solicitation to induce, or entreat, or encourage, or persuade another person to commit a rape. Hold her down, stick it to her, make her moan. These three men did worse than nothing. They cheered and they clapped and they rooted the others on. They made sure that Sarah Tobias was raped, and raped, and raped, and raped. And tell me, was that nothing?[/b]

Do movies like this exist because this is the way high schools are or are high schools the way they are because movies like this exist? Sort of along the lines of Woody Allen’s, “life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.” And then into this increasingly sub-mental menagerie is thrown the rape of a 13 year old girl.

Everyone complains about the extent to which school kids in America are so far down the list when it comes to language skills or math or science. But that is the least of it if this accurately portrays the mentality of our “youth”. So many of these kids are really nothing less than complete assholes.

Unfortunately, there are a bunch of stick figures here too. And they have speaking parts. Besides, this is a whole other world now.

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=uSCzahFXMrs

SPEAK
Written and directed by Jessica Sharzer

[b]Melinda [voiceover]: The school board decided that Trojans didn’t send a strong message of abstinence. So we’ll now be the home of the Merryweather Hornets.

…

Cheerleader: What are we supposed to cheer? “We are the hornets, the horny horny hornets!”?

…

Melinda [voiceover]: All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. No one really cares what you have to say.
Heather: So here’s the plan. We join 5 clubs. One for every day of the week. Not like Latin club, but cool stuff. What do you wanna join? Hey, maybe we can tutor kids at the elementary school. What about your friends from last year? Don’t you know Nicole?
Melinda [voiceover]: I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.

…

Melinda [voiceover]: Gym should be illegal. It’s humiliating.

…

Melinda [voiceover]: We’re studying American history for the ninth time in nine years. Every year they say we’re gonna get right up to the present but we always get stuck in the industrial revolution.

…

Mr. Neck: My family has been in this country for over 200 years. We built this place. We fought in every war, from the first one to the last one, paid our taxes and voted. So tell me why my son can’t get a job?
[a number of students raise their hand but he ignores them]
Mr. Neck: Reverse discrimination. He wanted to be a firefighter. Went up for the job but he didn’t get it. What I’m suggesting here is maybe if we had closed our boarders in 1900 then real americans would get the jobs they deserved.
[the Native American student raises his hand but the teacher points to Heather]
Mr. Neck: Young lady.
Heather: Um, I think that we’re all foreigners and should just give the country back to the native americans.
Mr. Neck: Now we have a debate, don’t we? “Native Americans”?
Black student: Maybe your son didn’t get the job because he wasn’t good enough. Or maybe he’s lazy. Or maybe the other guy was just better than him.
Mr. Neck: Watch your mouth, mister. That’s my son you’re talking about. You know what? That’s enough debate. Everybody take out your book.
[Dave stands up to speak]
Mr. Neck: Mr. Petrakis, please take your seat.
David: If the class is debating then each student has the right to say what’s on his mind.
Mr. Neck: I decide who talks in here, Mr. Petrakis.
David: You opened a debate, you can’t close it just because it’s not going your way.
Mr. Neck: Watch me! Take your seat, Mr. Petrakis!
David: The constitution does not recognize different levels of citizenship based upon the time spent in the country. As a citizen and a student I’m protesting the tone of this lesson as racist, intolerant, and zenophobic.
Mr. Neck: Sit your butt in that chair, Mr Petrakis, and watch your mouth! I try to get this debate going and you people turn it into a “race” thing. Sit down, Mr. Petrakis, or you’re gonna go down to the principal’s office.
[Dave walks out of the room]
Melinda: [voiceover] Dave Petrakis is my new hero.

…

Melinda [voiceover]: Heather has found a clan. The Marthas. Very Connecticut. Very prep. I suspect money changed hands.

…

Melinda [voiceover]: And then there’s me. I’m clanless.

…

Hairwoman: Every word Hawthorne wrote, every comma, every paragraph break, these were done on purpose. It is our job to try and figure out what he’s really trying to say.
Melinda [voiceover]: Why couldn’t he just say what he meant? Would they pin a scarlet letter on his chest? “S” for straightforward?

…

Loudspeaker: Attention, Merryweather students. The final tally is in. Bees 35. Icebergs 17. Hilltoppers 6. Wombats 84. We will now be the home of the Merryweather Wombats.
Heather: What rhymes with wombats?

…

Heather: Once you get through this “life sucks” phase I’m sure lots of people will want to be your friend.

…

Melinda [voiceover]: I’ll write about the Suffragettes. Before they came along women were treated like dogs.

…

David: The suffragettes fought for their right to speak. They were attacked, arrested and thrown in jail for daring to do what they wanted to do. Like them, Melinda is willing to stand up for what she believes. That no one should be forced to give speeches.
Mr. Neck: What is this?
David: Melinda has to deliver her report to the class as part of the assignment. She made copies everyone can read.
Mr. Neck: Oh, no you don’t. When I say oral I mean oral. Now you sit down! And you Sordino read that report. Open your mouth Sordino. Open your damn mouth!
[Melinda remains silent]
Mr. Neck: I am so sick of your attitude.
[he drags her by the arm to the principal’s office]
Melinda [voiceover]: I forgot the suffragettes were hauled off to jail.

…

Melinda: It’s time for a mental health day. So conjugate this: I cut class. You cut class. He/she/it cuts class.

…

Melinda: It happened. There’s no avoiding it. No forgetting.

…

Hairwoman: A revolutionary is only as good as his analysis. What does that mean?
[Melinda raises her hand]
Hairwoman: Melinda, better late than never. Why is a revolutionary only as good as his or her analysis?
Melinda: I think you should know what you stand for, not just what you’re against. You should be able to show how things can be better.[/b]