philosophy in film

I think there is a tendency for children to trust folks who are able to figure out how to say the things they want to hear. Then it all becomes a matter of their intentions. Why do they want to tell kids things they have surmised they want to hear? For sex? Well, if it’s a complete stranger telling a kid these things on line in a chat room, yeah, probably.

Next up, Chris Hanson?

Close:

The text exchange Will is having online is a transcript from a real conversation between “fleet_captain_jaime_wolfe” and “sadlilgrrl” and is fully available on the web page Perverted Justice. IMDb

This film is bursting at the seams with “typical teens” in America. And that’s scary enough: I just got invited to a cool girl’s party

Also, the film exposes just how preoccupied American culture is with sex. It’s everywhere. Her father’s job. Billboards. Pictures in the mall. Teens are routinely sexualized up one side and then down the other.

Here’s the thing though: Does this film serve to deter or to encourage this sort of behavior in men? Especially in a culture awash in sexual commodities. They put this beautiful young teen in the hotel room dressed in the skimpiest [sexiest] of lingerie. Was that really necessary? And the guy is never caught.

trailer: youtu.be/lhufUDjSKyQ

TRUST [2010]
Directed by David Schwimmer

Dad [watching daughter chat on line]: Who are you talking to?
Annie: Charlie. He’s a junior in high school in California.

Nope.

[b]Charlie [texting on line]: I’m really 20. Sophmore at UC Berkely. I said I was in high school because I didn’t want to sound preachy giving you advice because I play college volleyball. Do you hate me?
Annie [after long pause mulling it over…and a look over her shoulder to see if Dad is around:] No, it’s okay. I still like you.

Serena [to Annie at party]: Come join us. We’re teaching Alexa how to give a blow job. She sucks. She keeps gagging.[/b]

This is the menality of so many of them. Rich, spoiled and narcissistic.

Mom: Does, like, Serena say “like” all the time too? Because, like, you never used to. You don’t have to dumb yourself down for guys, like Serena.

Unfortunately, most of the other parents are, like, vacuous too.

They meet:

[b]Charlie: Annie?
Annie: Yes?
Charlie: It’s me. Charlie. Hey, you. God, I can’t believe it’s really you. Look at you. You’re gorgeous.
Annie: Is this a joke?

Annie: You’re not 25.
Charlie: Hey, it’s me Charlie. The same guy that you’ve been talking to every day and every night for the last two months. I love you. And I don’t get how age has to change that.

Charlie [in the hotel room]: It’s okay, Annie. Don’t worry. I’m just going to take these things off.[/b]

Later…

[b]Annie [texting Charlie]: Why aren’t you calling me back?

Lynn [mother]: How long will this take?
Doug: It depends if we get enough genetic material to run a profile.
Will [father]: And if there is, how long?
Doug: Right now, there’s a nationwide backlog. In Illinois alone, we’ve got 2,000 unopened kits sitting in freezers waiting to be processed. Some people have been waiting a year.
Lynn: How is that possible?[/b]

Indeed, if the government had the political will here it would not be so. Everything is a matter of priority. Of politics.

[b]Will: You won’t believe this. This is the National Sex Offenders Registry. These perverts are all over Willmette, not just Chicago. See this? All these red dots. They’re everywhere.
Lynn: Oh, my God.

Will [handing Lynn the IM transcript he stole from Doug Tate]: Read it.
Lynn: What is it?
Will: Just read it. “I can’t stop thinking about it. You inside me. I get wet when I picture it.”
Lynn: Okay, stop.
Will: Out daughter wrote this. Annie. “How big are you? I bet you taste good.”
Lynn: Will, stop it.
Will: “I want to see it, right now”. I mean, she’s 14. Where the hell did she learn this?
Lynn: She is 14. She didn’t make this happen!
Will: We’re gonna have to talk to her about this.
Lynn: You are not going to talk to her about this.
Will: But look at it! Our daughter sounds like a fucking porn star!

Annie: Everything would have been fine if everyone would have just chilled out.
Will: What are you talking about?
Annie: Charlie and me. Are you the crazy one! Checking my phone, bringing out sickos on the web.
Will: I’m trying to find the scumbag.
Annie: He’s not like that! You don’t even know him!
Will: My God, you’re protecting him. The guy raped you.
Annie: He didn’t rape me!..Get out, get out of my fucking room now! I hate you. get out![/b]

The thing is we know the guy is a scumbag. But she won’t admit this to herself. And theoretically, it is always possible that some 14 year olds are precocious enough, emotionally mature enough, to handle the situation if the man really isn’t a scumbag. But the law can never take chances here. And I don’t think it should.

[b]Will: Even if he was in jail I wouldn’t be happy.
Gail: Why?
Will: Because I would still want to rip his fucking head off.

Gail: We can’t control what happens to us or our loved ones. What happens when Annie goes to college?
Will: What are you saying?
Gail: People get hurt. There’s only so much we can do to protect ourselves, our children. The only thing we can do is be there for each other when we do fall down to pick each other up.[/b]

Is this true? Again, it always depends on the context. On the people. On what we think we know is true.

Another slice of life most of us don’t have the vaguest clue regarding. We hear of the “immigration problem” in Europe and all we can do is to think of it in the most general way.

Still, this is just one story though. So, in the end, we are still largely ignorant of all the many moral and political facets involved.

One thing for sure: Just as it is in America it is over there: a tale of political economy. And power.

I like films where the protagonist aims to con someone into thinking he is someone he is not [for selfish, ulterior motives] and then along the way becomes that person. Of course “the cause” here is just.

There are people whose lives are almost completely in the control of others. Some can fight back. Others cannot. Justice anyone?

wiki

[b]The debate about illegal immigration intensified after French Immigration Minister Éric Besson and film director Philippe Lioret debated the issue during the popular French television discussion show “Ce soir ou jamais”. Lioret took the opportunity to ask for an amendment to French law depenalising those who help refugees. “If such a thing passes on [amending] this article, it will be a victory”, he declared.

The French member of parliament Daniel Goldberg introduced a proposition to decriminalize aiding illegals. The proposition was hotly debated. The amendment was discussed but did not become law. Goldberg said he intended to introduce further measures to amend the law. Another proposition was tabled by a group of Communist senators, but never discussed.[/b]

trailer: youtu.be/t40ANH4Pe14

WELCOME [2009]
Written and directed by Philippe Lioret

[b]Bilal [explaining his panic in the truck]: When I left Iraq the Turkish Army caught me.They tied my hands and put a black bag over my head. And they left the bag on me for eight days.

Marion: Do you know what barring people from shops means? Do you want me to buy you a history book?

Simon [to Marion]: The tall one’s a nutter. He wants to swim to England. He wants me to train him.

Marion [on phone]: Simon, it’s me. I’ve been thinking. You can’t shelter those Kurds. It’s heavy shit. The police watch everyone. You could get a five-year jail sentence!

Simon [to immigration inspector]: Okay. I sheltered and trained him. I gave him the wetsuit and he paid me—1000 euros. Satisfied? And I fucked him…So leave her out of it.

Immigration official: I have bad news for you, Mr. Calmat.
Simon: Where is he?
Immigration official: Here. The Brits sent him back to us in a plastic bag.[/b]

There are generally two kinds of horror films. The first revolves around one or another supernatural element: ghost, monster, creature etc. Not particularly effective if you don’t believe in that sort of thing.

But, in the second, we are the source of the horror. And these are often called “psychological horror” films because the horror is derived from the mind of someone who is very, very real. Just [for one or another reason] very, very twisted too.

And they can scare the shit out of you because, however unlikely, it is not entirely out of the question that you won’t stumble into one. Someone, for example, who, as a child, is brutalized. It can leave their psyche in tatters. Then you come along. She’s the monster here. But it makes perfect sense that she would be. You are just the collateral damage.

And each time the film cuts to the man in the canvas bag that’s where your mind heads.

IMDb

[b]When the film was screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival 2000 it had a record number of walkouts. At the Swiss premiere someone passed out and needed emergency room attention.

The dog bowl of vomit fed to Asami’s (Eihi Shiina) prisoner is in fact the actual vomit of actress Eihi. Takashi Miike claims that Eihi is a method actress and insisted on doing this.

Takashi Miike wanted to end the film at the onset of the torture scene that the film is now famous for. However, one of the producers told him to “be a man and see it through to the end.”[/b]

Audition at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audition_(1999_film

trailer: youtu.be/b7SEjkIwLAw

AUDITION [Ôdishon] 1999
Directed by Takashi Miike

Shigeharu: I’d like to see many women then choose my ideal one.
Yasuhisa [a film producer]: I have an idea. Have an audition.

In the guise of, say, casting a movie.

[b]Yasuhisa: I intend holding the audition next week. Choose 30 applicants.
Shigeharu: 30 applicants?
Yasuhisa: That’s right. And don’t trust the pictures. The composition can be much more useful.

Shigeharu: Your writing says that quitting what you love is almost similar to accepting death. I was highly impressed. I think everybody has similar experiences. In your lifetime when you have something beyond your control. What can you do but accept it? I think that’s life. I mean I was amazed a young girl like you understands that. I think you live your life in a very thoughtful way.

Yasuhisa: You decided on her before the audition.
Shigeharu: She really impressed me.
Yasuhisa: I’m sure she’s a serious type of girl. She is better than her photo and may also be good hearted. But I don’t like her.
Shigeharu: What’s wrong with her?
Yasuhisa: Can’t say exactly what’s wrong. I just don’t like her.

Yasuhisa: About Ms. Yamasaki. Without suspicion, I called Ace Records. It’s no big deal, but something didn’t seem right.
Shigeharu: What is it?
Yasuhisa: Director Shibata isn’t at the company. To be precise, he isn’t there anymore. He’s been missing for a year. He just disappeared.

Asami: Living alone was a hassle, I have nobody to talk to. You are the first one who is really warmhearted and tries to accept me and tries to understand who I really am.
Shigeharu: It’s hard to overcome that experience, but, someday you’ll feel that life is wonderful.

Asami: Please…Look at my body. I burnt myself when l was little. I want you to know all about me.
Shigeharu: You are very beautiful.
Asami: Please love me. Only me.
Shigeharu: I understand.
Asami: Everybody says so. But l hope you are different from the others. Only me. OK? Only me. Please love me. Only me.
Shigeharu: Yes.

Hotel manager [on phone]: This is the front desk. I’m terribly sorry. You must be in bed. We tried calling many times but there was no answer. The thing is, your partner left. We want to confirm your stay.
Shigeharu: Left?

Shigeharu: Asami was supposed to work here 3 times a week.
Man at Stone Fish bar: Some kind of a mistake.
Shigeharu: Excuse me…Why was the owner killed?
Man: I’m not sure but people talk about some sort of man problem. She used to be associated with a music industry guy. She used drugs too.
Shigeharu: Did she get murdered here?
Man: The body was chopped up completely. It’s a 28 year old building. The whole thing is tilted. We saw her blood flowing through a gap in the door. The other mystery was…The police tried to recompose her body together. Three extra fingers and an ear came up. An extra tonque as well. Isn’t it a terrible world?[/b]

Oh, I’d say so.

[b]Asima: When l was little, my parents got a divorce. I was sent to my uncle’s house. That was a terrible place. I only remember being abused.

Asami: You guys collect many girls from auditions. Make them fail. You contact them later. Just wanting to have sex. Everybody is the same.

Asami [pushing long needles into him]: Painful? Words create lies. Pain can be trusted. This is the most painful point. Then here too. Here as well. Right? Here we go. Underneath the eyes is also very painful.

Asima: You can’t go anywhere without feet. And this wire can cut through meat and bone easily.[/b]

Romania, 1987, the brutal Ceausescu communist regime is in place; birth control is illegal and abortion is a crime punishable by death.

Imagine enduring the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy back then and there. Or, perhaps, imagine women enduring it again here and now. Here in America if the political reactionaries prevail.

The abortionist is basically all about the money [and, as it turns out, sex] and the patient is not exactly prepared for what’s coming.

But this guy is a real scumbag. And when men and women talk about these things it is sometimes as though they are in 2 different worlds.

IMDb

Based on a real-life account an old acquaintance told the director.

FAQs at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt1032846/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm

At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_ … and_2_Days

trailer: youtu.be/xzitmvuOLKE

4 MONTHS 3 WEEKS 2 DAYS [4 Luni, 3 Saptamâni si 2 Zile] 2007
Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu

[b]Mr. Bebe: What month are you?
Gabita: Third.
Mr. Bebe: On the phone you said second.
Gabita: Yes, it was second then, now it’s the third.

Mr. Bebe: What did you expect? When you called me, I thought you’d decided.
Gabita: I have, but…
Mr. Bebe: But what? Young lady, this isn’t a game. We could go to prison for this. Both of us. Only I would face a longer sentence. We’re not fooling around here. Once it starts, there is no turning back.

Otilia: How long will the abortion take?
Mr. Bebe: It could take 2 to 3 hours or 2 to 3 days. It depends on how the body reacts. Each one is different.

Mr. Bebe: How many months did you say?
Gabita: 3
Mr. Bebe: I suggest you pay attention. What was your last period…?[/b]

Turns out she was actually closer to 5 months than to 2.

[b]Mr. Bebe: You’re playing games with the months! It’s a new offense after the fourth. They get you for murder! Five to ten years!

Mr. Bebe: I don’t judge you for what happened. In life, we all make mistakes. I asked you nothing. It’s none of my business. I’ve hidden nothing. I came in my car, I left my ID at reception. If the police come, they’ll get me first. I’m risking my freedom. I have a family, a child of my own. So if I’m nice to you, if I help you, you should be nice to me too, right? Do you think I’d risk 10 years in jail for 3,000 lei.

Mr. Bebe: Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go to the bathroom. When I come out, you give me your answer. If it’s yes, tell me who goes first. If it’s no, I get up and go.

Otilia: Shit Gabita, sometimes you drive me crazy!![/b]

You have to sympathize with her here. From start to finish Gabita has made this all so much worse than it had to be. But then what do I know about being in this predicament.

[b]Adi [after Lotilia and he discuss Gabita]: I said I was sorry.
Otilia: You apologized. But do you know what for? Tell me. Why did you apologize?

Gabita: I got rid of it. It’s in the bathroom.[/b]

And there it is, the aborted fetus laying on the bathroom floor. And it looks just like a…

[b]Gabita: You will bury it, won’t you? Promise?
Otilia: I won’t just dump it.

Gabita: Did you bury it?
Otilia [after pause]: Do you know what we are going to do? We’re never going to talk about this again.[/b]

Love and memory in the netherworld between fantasy and reality. And each of us, when push comes to shove, makes it up as we go along. Which is to say that each of us will understand the narrative here from a point of view.

Though, of course, nothing like this actually exist in the here and now. We’re still stuck with what we have always had—crude exchanges like this one.

And, it goes without saying, these people are all gorgeous. The ones that count anyway.

Everything is all about them though. It is as if the rest of the world did not even exist. And some of us really are able to live that way, aren’t we?

The photography [and the music] here are nothing short of luxuriant.

IMDb

[b]The title of the film refers to the last year before the 50-year period the Chinese Government promised to let Hong Kong remain as it is. Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997.

Each character speaks their own languages. Mr. Chow speaks Cantonese, Bai Ling speaks Mandarin, and Tak speaks Japanese even when talking to each other. Even so, they seem to understand each other perfectly.[/b]

2046 at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2046_(film

trailer: youtu.be/vfNe3zFT9rk

2046 [2004]
Written and directed by Kar Wai Wong

[b]Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: Everyone who goes to 2046 has the same intention, they want to recapture lost memories. Because in 2046 nothing ever changes. But, nobody knows if that is true or not because no-one has ever come back. Except me.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: His company in Japan had sent him to Hong Kong When he got here he checked into this hotel.
Mr. Wang [to his daughter]: The world is full of men! Why do you have to choose a Japanese? Get rid of him! I will never meet him! You want my blessing? Not while I’m alive!
Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: It had been going on for ages. Mr. Wang’s family suffered under the Japanese in the war. So they had to break up.[/b]

Here love [or its absense] is clearly “out in the world”. The trick is in realizing it is only a narrative. There may be ways around the obstacle. Or the obstacle may disappear. Or, sadly, there maybe no real options at all.

[b]Bai Ling: So people are just time fillers to you?
Chow Mo Wan: I wouldn’t say that. Other people can borow my time to.
Bai Ling: And tonight? Are you borrowing me, or am I borrowing you?
Chow Mo Wan: No difference. Maybe I borrowed you earlier, now you are borrowing me.
Bai Ling: Ridiculous.

Bai Ling: I’m sleeping here tonight.
Chow Mo Wan: An overnight stay is expensive.
Bai Ling: No problem. Name your price. I’d pay anything to be with you.
Chow Mo Wan: Every day Retail is fine. Wholesale is out of the question.

Bai Ling: I don’t mind you having other women. But I won’t be treated the same as them. I don’t care if you love me or not, I’II Love you anyway. Since we got together I haven’t brought other men back. I hoped you’d think the same way. Will you promise me that?
Chow Mo Wan: No.
Bai Ling: I see…Then we’re through. I’ll never bother you. And I don’t ever want you in my room again! Here. $10. Tonight, I’m paying!
Chow Mo Wan: Thank you. If you’re ever in the mood feel free to come over. I’ll charge you the same.
[she storms out of the room…and back to whoring]

Mr. Wang: Our cabin attendants are superbly designed…But there’s one problem: when they’ve served on so many long journeys, fatigue begins to set it. For example, they might want to laugh, but the smile would be slow to come. They might want to cry, but the tear wouldn’t well up till the next day…

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: I slowly began to doubt myself. Maybe the reason she didn’t answer was not that her reactions were delayed but simply that she didn’t love me. So at last, I got it. It’s entirely beyond my control. The only thing left for me…was to give up.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: Love is all a matter of timing. It’s no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I’d lived in another time or place my story might have had a very different ending.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: Watching her taught me something. When you don’t take no for an answer, there is still a chance you’ll get what you want.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: I didn’t want to spend the Christmas of 1969 in Hong Kong, so I visited Singapore and went back to the casino. I waited for several days but Black Spider never turned up. No one knew where she was. Some thought she’d gone back to Phnom Penh. Others thought she was dead.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: It struck me that her past was like the hand she always kept gloved: A mystery with no solution.

Chow Mo Wan [to Su Li-zhen]: Take care. Maybe one day you’ll escape your past. If you do, look for me.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: In love you can’t bring on a substitute.

Chow Mo Wan [ending the story]: He didn’t turn back. It’s as if he boarded a very long train headed for a drowsy future through the unfathomable night.

Chow Mo Wan [narrating]: Everyone who goes to 2046 has the same intention, they want to recapture lost memories. Because in 2046 nothing ever changes. But, nobody knows if that is true or not because no-one has ever come back.[/b]

Ballast: “Anything that gives mental, moral, or political stability or steadiness.”

Some need it more than others. Some have it more than others. And one may have nothing to do with the other.

Imagine, for example, your twin brother commits suicide. What do you do? Try it yourself? That’s what he does. And comes this close to succeeding.

From then on it’s trying to close the gap between your own life and the lives you see unfolding on the screen. For me the gap is considerable. These folks are mainly working class blacks struggling to survive from day to day down in the Misssissippi Delta. And way out in the sticks too. Race isn’t really a factor here so much always there somewhere in the background.

It’s hard to believe but these are just local non-professional actors.

trailer: youtu.be/s1lOiy3j-K0

BALLAST [2008]
Written and directed by Lance Hammer

[b]James [holding a gun on Lawrence]: Where’s his wallet?
Lawrence: It’s next door.
James: Go get it. So how did he die?
Lawrence: He took pills and fell asleep.
James: On purpose?
Lawrence: Yes. So how does that make you feel?
James: Just give me the wallet. I don’t feel nothing. He was an asshole and a fucking coward.
Lawrence: Did your mama tell you that?
James: You both are.
Lawrence: I know you think a lot of ugly things about Darrius, but he really loved you.
James: No, he didn’t. He never even came to see me once.
Lawrence: He couldn’t, James. Your mama asked the court to make it illegal for him to see you. You didn’t know that?

Lawrence: I’ll give you money if you need it, but you have to tell me what it’s for.
James: Just give it to me!
Lawrence: If it’s to buy drugs, I ain’t giving you any.
James: Just give it to me!
Lawrence: Not for that. You’re all fucked up now, aren’t you?
James: You want me to shoot you?
Lawrence: You can shoot me if you want.
James: I’ll shoot you!
Lawrence: I don’t care.[/b]

Hell, hadn’t he just shot himself in the chest?

[b]Marlee [James’s Mother]: He fired me. He said I couldn’t work this way. I had to take a sick leave. And I’ve already had too many, so I’m out! He said I couldn’t work like this 'cause it’s disturbing for the clients. Like the motherfuckers even know I’m there! I’m invisible to them! I’m so sick of this shit!

Marlee: James, we can’t afford to feed no dog right now, especially theirs.

James [trying to figure twins]: If you’re almost the same person and have the same feelings as my dad, did you love my mom too?
Lawrence: No.
James: Did she love you?
Lawrence: No.

James [to his mother]: Did you ask the court to make it illegal for my dad to see me?
Marlee [to Lawrence]: You no good motherfucker, you never stop, do you? How the fuck you gonna tell James I had Darrius barred from seeing him?
Lawrence: 'Cause it’s the truth.
Marlee: He left us first. Why the hell you didn’t tell him that truth? How you gonna fill his head with some fucked-up bullshit about his father loving him…making him out like some goddamn hero and me some crazy woman? He left us like a fucking coward!

Lawrence: It took our dad a whole lifetime to save up enough to buy this property and you just think you can walk in our lives in one day and piss that all away? That’s a pretty fucked-up kind of love, don’t you think?
Marlee: A fucked-up kind of love? Let me tell you what’s a fucked-up kind of love…Being so terrified of your brother wanting…
Lawrence: You were an addict, Marlee. Where was that money really going to?
Marlee: Fuck you! You were so terrified of him having something out of life, wanting something different…you was willing to destroy his whole damn family! Huh? Weren’t you? For what? To be caught in some sick little prison of yours? That’s a truly fucked-up kind of love!
Lawrence: You will never comprehend my love for him.
Marlee: You call that shit love? That bullshit you whispered in his ear about me was love? Look what your love did to him![/b]

And there we are. Trying to sort through the narratives, trying to figure out who is lying to the other more or less than they are lying to themselves. But then, necessity being the mother of invention, they work things out.

Marlee: I know that the things you been doing with James are genuine. It’s confusing, but it makes sense. I mean, genetically and all. That’s why I’m saying I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying, but…
[they hug and Lawrence tries to kiss her]
Marlee: What the fuck you doing? Shit! Is this what it was all about? Is this what you was after?

The ending is just ambiguous enough to let you know you have barely scratched the surface in understanding these folks.

What does it mean to have the emotional depth and the social skills necessary to make it in the Big City? Especially when, by and large, you come from a sheltered upper middle class family rather far removed from the perils and predicaments of the Big City.

Let’s explore that…

After all, no one seems to have them here.

But first let’s explore the part about paying the bills. Without, for example, having to call dad for the money.

Nothing really happens here. People just talk. And emote. And stumble about all around each other. Just hoping that something will stick. It speaks volumes regarding the sort of people our culture mass produces these days. Where oh fucking where is the Sixties! Maybe pretentious at times. Maybe hopelesly idealistic and ponderous at other times. But anything is better than this.

Some people hated this film and that doesn’t surprise me. But you have to view the characters ironically. At least I hope that’s the point.

wiki

Mutual Appreciation is a 2005 independent film by Andrew Bujalski who previously directed Funny Ha Ha (2002). The script is primarily dialogue between a group of young people as they try to determine where they fit in the world. It is considered part of the mumblecore movement.

the mumblecore movement:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore

trailer: youtu.be/BwyaexHA9tk

MUTUAL APPRECIATION [2005]
Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski

A chance encounter and the real estate shark tumbles back into the world of music. The world of the artiste. The world of the classical pianist. But no less the crook and no less the thug.

The past and the future begin to tug fiercely at him.

One pays better though. And it might work if one chose to actually let go of the past. But when you tug it into the future with you day after day [and it’s filled with corruption and the potential for violence] it’s just too jarring a leap. The mother is long gone but the father is right there. His head is always in two places.

Dad’s got to go. But is that enough?

trailer: youtu.be/p2OhGLNvyAg

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED [De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté] 2005
Written and directed by Jacques Audiard

[b]Conservatory Professor: You last played when?
Thomas: About ten years ago.
Professor: Ten years without practice?
Thomas: I practice. I never gave up comletely. I play for myself, when I’m in the mood, or for friends.
Professor [with barely disguised sarcasm]: And now you are auditioning?
Thomas: That’s right.

Thomas [walking away from the professor]: Fuck you, prick.

Robert [father]: Remember that favor I asked you?
Thomas: What favor?
Robert: The couscous jerk who owes me 6 months rent.
Thomas: Sorry, no time.
Robert: No time? Time to see that fag and get psyched up about pianos, but not twenty minutes for me?

Thomas: Hold it. Doesn’t she speak French?
Jean-Pierre: She only just got here. She speaks Chinese, Vietnamese and a little English.
Miao Lin [as Thomas lights a cigarette]: No smoking.
Thomas: No smoking, no talking?

Sami: Playing piano is making you flip. Stop it now!
Thomas: Nothing is making me flip. I’m not flipping. I’m having a ball. I feel fantastic, dont’ you see? It’s important, I’m serious about it.
Sami: You gonna make dough from pianos?
Thomas: Not pianos, the piano! It’s not about making money, it’s about art.
Sami: What’s in it for us? You coming to meetings all, ‘Hi guys, I’ve been playing piano.’ Shit, I’ll take up the banjo.
Thomas: It’s over your head.[/b]

The truth not only can be adjusted, it is done all the time. And you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that. You just have to be a capitalist. It’s the nature of the beast. The bottom line. It’s only a matter of how you rationalize it. If you bother with that at all.

And ironically the biggest scams revolve not around crooks like these but around the things that are all perfectly legal.

So, every now and then another one of these big corporate scandals – Hooker Chemical, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Exxon, Shell – hits the front page. But nothing really changes. Not systemically. It all just becomes absorbed in the best of all possible worlds that it’s claimed to be.

Would that “real life” could have an ending like this one.

Michael Clayton [2007]
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy

[b]Arthur: Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it’s you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I… I know it’s a long way and you’re ready to go to work… all I’m saying is wait, just wait, just-just-just… please hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it’s… I’m begging you Michael. I’m begging you. Try and make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building, okay, I’m running across Sixth Avenue, there’s a car waiting, I got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I’m dictating. There’s this, this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we’re standing in the middle of the street, the light’s changed, there’s this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I… I-I freeze, I can’t move, and I’m suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I’m covered with some sort of film. It’s in my hair, my face… it’s like a glaze… like a… a coating, and… at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic - embryonic - fluid. I’m drenched in afterbirth, I’ve-I’ve breached the chrysalis, I’ve been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I’m thinking no-no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I… I… I… I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the… the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I set that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe that I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now.

Michael: Mr. Greer, you left the scene of an accident on a slow week night, six miles from a state police barracks. Believe me. If there’s a line, you’re right up front.
Mr. Greer: I can get a lawyer any time I want. I don’t need you for that. We’re not sitting here for forty five minutes for a god damned referral.
Michael: I don’t know what Walter promised you but…
Mr. Greer: A miracle worker. That’s Walter on the phone twenty minutes ago. Direct quote, okay, “Hang tight, I’m sending you a miracle worker.”
Michael: Well, he misspoke.

Mr. Greer [pointing to the ringing phone]: That’s the police, isn’t it?
Michael: No. They don’t call.

Michael: What can I tell you? Don’t piss off a motivated stripper.

Arthur: Six years, Michael. Six years I’ve absorbed this poison. Four hundred depositions, a hundred motions, five changes of venue…85,000 documents in discovery. Six years of scheming and stalling and screaming, and what have I got? I’ve spent 12 percent of my life defending the reputation of a deadly weed killer!

Karen: This is totally unacceptable. This is a 3-billion-dollar class-action lawsuit. In the morning, I have to call my board. I have to tell them that the architect of our entire defense has been arrested for running naked in a snowstorm, chasing the plaintiffs through a parking lot.
Michael: I understand.
Karen: What sickness is he talking about?
Michael: I don’t know. It could be a number of things.
Karen: Well, give me one.
Michael: Frostbite.
Karen [shocked]: You think this is funny!

Marty: We’ve got 600 attorneys here. We’ve got to find out who’s an expert on psychiatric commitment statutes.
Michael: I can tell you who that is: Arthur.

Arthur [on the phone with Anna Kaiserson]: Isn’t it what we wait for? To meet someone… and they’re, they’re like a lens and suddenly you’re looking through them and everything changes and nothing can ever be the same again.

Gabe [regarding Michael’s gambling debts]: Do everyone a favor. Get out the treasure map and start digging. You got a week.

Arthur: Michael, I have great affection for you and you live a very rich and interesting life, but you’re a bag man not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed you should have kept me in Wisconsin where the arrest report, the videotape, eyewitness reports of my inappropriate behavior would have had jurisdictional relevance. I have no criminal record in the state of New York, and the single determining criterion for involuntary commitment is danger. Is the defendant a danger to himself or to others. You think you got the horses for that? Well good luck and God bless, but I’ll tell you this: the last place you want to see me is in court.
Michael: I’m not the enemy.
Arthur: Then who are you?

Authur: Yes! Here we are, all together. Is everyone listening? 'Cause this is the moment you’ve been waiting for, a very special piece of paper, so let’s have a big, paranoid, malignant round of applause… for United Northfield Culcitate Internal Research Memorandum #229! June 19th, 1991. “Conclusion: The unanticipated marketing growth for Culcitate by small farms in colder climates demands IMMEDIATE cost-benefit analysis.” Hah. Would you like a little bit of legal advice? NEVER let a scientist use the words “unanticipated” and “immediate” in the same sentence. Okay? Okay. “In-house field studies have indicated small, short-season farms dependent on well water for human consumption are at risk for toxic, particulate concentrations at levels significant enough to cause serious human tissue damage.” Well, this is a long way of saying that you don’t even have to leave your house to be killed by our product, we’ll pipe it into your kitchen sink. “Culcitate’s great market advantage that it is tasteless, colorless, and does not precipitate, has the potential to mask and intensify these potentially lethal exposures.” Now, I love this. Not only is this a great product, it is a superb cancer delivery system. “Chemical modifications of Culcitate product, or the addition of a detector molecule such as an odorant or a colorant, would require a top-down redesign of the Culcitate-manufacturing process. These costs, while assumed to be significant, were not summarized here.” Which, loosely translated, means “it’s going to cost a fortune to go back on this, and I’m just an asshole in a lab, so could someone else PLEASE make the decision?” “CLEARLY, the release of these internal research documents would compromise the effective marketing of Culcitate, and MUST be kept within the protective confines of United Northfield’s trade secret language.” You don’t need me… to tell you what that means. Goodbye!

Karen: Okay.
Wet Man: Is that, “Okay, you understand,” or “Okay, proceed”?

Michael: What if Arthur was onto something?
Marty: What do you mean? Onto what?
Michael: U North. What if he wasn’t crazy, what if he was right?
Marty: Right about what? We’re on the wrong side?
Michael: Wrong side, wrong way. Anything. All of it.
Marty: This is news? This case reeked from day one. Fifteen years in I gotta tell you how we pay the rent?
Michael: But what would they do, what would they do if he went public?
Marty: What would they do? Are you fucking soft? They’re doing it! We don’t straighten this settlement out in the next twenty four hours, they’re gonna withhold nine million dollars in fees. Then they’re gonna pull out the video of Arthur doing his flashdance in Milwaukee, they’re gonna sue us for legal malpractice. Except there won’t be anything for them to win, because by then the merger with London will be dead and we’ll be selling off the goddamn furniture!
[hands Michael an envelope]
Marty: That’s eighty. We’re calling it a bonus. You’ve got a three year contract, that’s your current numbers, that’s assuming this all works out.

Michael [to Karen]: I’m not the guy that you kill. I’m the guy that you buy. Are you so fucking blind you don’t even see what I am? I’m the easiest part of your whole goddamn problem and you’re gonna kill me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a fixer. I’m a bagman. I do everything from shoplifting housewives to bent congressmen…and you’re gonna kill me?

Karen: Five is easier. Yeah, 5 is something that we could talk about.
Michael: Good. And then the other 5 is to forget about the 468 people that you knocked off with your weed killer.
Karen: I’ll talk to…
Michael: Do I look like I’m negotiating?

Michael: You’re so fucked. Here let me get a picture while I’m at it.
Karen: You don’t want the money?
Michael: Keep the money. You’ll need it.
Don: Is this fellow bothering you?
Michael: Am I bothering you?
Don: Karen, I’ve got a board waiting in there. What the hell’s going on? Who are you?
Michael: I’m Shiva, the God of death.

Taxi driver: So what are we doin’?
Michael: Give me fifty dollars worth. Just drive.[/b]

Ten years in the making this particular revenge is served up very cold indeed. But it is a strangely problematic portion. Depending on how much emphasis you place on intentions. Or the lack of discretion. Or even common courtesy.

But this was, after all, the most important moment in her life.

On the other hand, I draw the line at collateral damage. Especially children.

trailer: youtu.be/fANWrJPhqWw

THE PAGE TURNER [La Tourneuse de Pages] 2006
Written and directed by Denis Dercourt

[b]Jean [to Melanie]: There’s something I want to tell you before I go. My wife is a pianist. She plays in a trio. They’re giving a concert next week. A very important concert. You need to know that two years ago, she was in a car crash. Somebody drove into her. It was a hit-and-run. Since then, well, it made her fragile. She started getting stage fright. All performers get stage fright but hers is quite crippling. That’s why she needs support. It’s important that you’re here all the time.

Ariane: You read music?
Melanie: Yes. I used to play the piano.
Ariane: You gave it up. That’s a pity.

Ariane: Did you know Melanie plays the piano?
Jean: No. Do you?
Melanie: I did, a long time ago.
Ariane: Well, she reads music perfectly. She’s turning for me at the radio concert.
Jean: That’s a big responsibility! A page turner can throw everything off balance. Horowitz said this, not me.

Ariane: I’m going to ask her to turn at the concert. It’s a little risky but she’s quite at ease. She reassures me.
Virginie: Notice how she watches you?
Ariane: How?
Virginie: Intently.

Tristan [rubbing his arm]: I have a pain here.
Melanie: Don’t worry. It happens. It’s a secret. Not a word.
Ariane: What’s a secret?

Ariane: How did it happen?
Virginie: Cellos are heavy. He said he lifted it up to retract the spike. It slipped, I suppose. But I’ve never heard of such an accident.

Melanie: There’s one thing I’d like to ask you for. You’ll think it’s weird.
Ariane: No. Go on.
Melanie: I’d like your autograph.[/b]

The title is an anagram of “vampire”. It’s a movie about the making of a movie that is a remake of an earlier silent film. It’s a movie about the workings of the French film industry at the time. Or one man’s particular take on it.

Is it art more or less than it’s a commodity?

Maggie Cheung plays herself. She’s to star in the film if the film can ever be made. Like here, however, egos abound. And when they do, they clash. And there are lots of things about making a movie that almost no one ever thinks about. Which means lots of reasons to clash.

And that’s before you get to the sexual politics.

trailer: youtu.be/z_S0LxwXmkk

IRMA VEP [1996]
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas

This is a world we don’t get to see everyday: An illegal mining operation in Northern China.

Morality here doesn’t get much murkier. In other words, not the sort of Communism envisioned by Marx and Mao. But clearly the sort of capitalism many reactionaries would like to see exported over here. Profits way before people.

But even here the grifters can ply their trade. And this con is deadly.

One way or another, the fix is in. It’s only a matter of just how illegal it is.

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Shaft

trailer: youtu.be/a4LmmUEgaAU

BLIND SHAFT [Mang Jing] 2003
Written and directed by Yang Li

[b]Manager: Boss, why bother? Why not just kill the two of them?
Boss: You crazy? We can’t take any chances now.
Manager: Just get in touch with your police chief pals.
Boss: No way. These cronies gotta take a hefty cut. A hundred grand ain’t enough for them.

Boss: It’s almost the New Year. A corpse lyin’ around isn’t auspicious.

Song: Next time it’s your turn to mourn.

Prostitute: Mister, pick a song.
Song: He doesn’t know how to sing. He only knows how to fuck you.
Yang: Go to hell! I was in the front row when our commune sang. We sang “Long Live Socialism.” Put the song on.
Prostitute: Mister, that song became old-fashioned ages ago.
Song: Let him sing it.
Yang: “Long live socialism, long live socialism/Socialist countries high atop/Reactionaries overthrown/The imperialists run away their tails behind…”
Prostitute: Hey, you hick, those words changed long ago.
Yang: How’d they change?
Prostitute: “The reactionaries were never overthrown/The capitalists came back with their US dollars/Liberating all of China”

Yang [to Yuan]: Would I lie to you?

Song: You’ve fucking found a kid!
Yang: I don’t care if he is a child, just as long as we make money. You feel bad for him, but who feels bad for you?

Boss: Have you been down a mineshaft?
Yang: Yep.
Boss: Why’d you stop working?
Yang: The roof caved in and crushed workers.
Boss: What’s a few deaths? One shits after eating. One might die down the shaft. If you’re afraid, then don’t work here.

Boss: Take it or leave it. China has a shortage of everything but people.

Song [to Yuan]: You still want to work? Don’t work here if you are afraid of death.

Yang: Okay, today we’ll get him laid and tomorrow we kill him.[/b]

Nope. Oh, sweet, sweet irony.

In some respects, it’s the standard “love me love me love I’m a liberal” line on corporate America: if only those who run [litigate/advertizse for] Big Business would learn a lesson from the decent hard working man on the street: Can’t we all just get along?

Another Bud Fox here.

But this is grasping capitalism on the level in which some claim socialism to be purely scientific. But admittedly this does come a lot closer than most films in the genre to exposing it as a “system.” As a political economy. The role of power in other words.

Any time you change lanes you are creating a new set of conditions. And that can set into motion consequences beyond your wildest dreams. But even those less drastic can have a profound effect on your life. And here worlds clash. Worlds each of them are basically oblivious to.

Hey, what can I say: The laws [and “souls”] are for sale.

wiki

[b]Several themes are explored. A recurring instance is irony, a good example being the two students whom Banek interviews apparently for roles of articled clerkship with the firm, fresh out of law school. The young man especially says he would like to be a lawyer because he believes people are by nature good, and that conflict arises from historical forces, the law being there as a “buffer”, him believing strongly in fairness and justice. He is given the role by Banek, who invites him to see for himself just how the law is in practice. The audience is left wondering how very different the two characters’ days would have been had only Banek cared to ask Gipson where he was going that morning, that is the same place as he, to give him a friendly lift.

There is a sense of fate that is seen when Gipson returns the file to Banek. The two protagonists realize that while they had both been blaming the accident at the beginning of the film for their misfortunes thereafter, their lives had always been leading towards where they were in life at that moment. Gipson realizes that he had always been a “very, very unstable father” and Banek realizes that the trust fund case had not been handled the right way from the very beginning.[/b]

See? Liberal to the bone.

CHANGING LANES [2002]
Directed by Roger Michell

[b]Doyle: Come on, man, don’t leave me out here like this.
Gavin: Sorry, better luck next time.

Doyle: You said, “Better luck next time.” I said, “Give me a lift”. You said “Better luck next time” and just sped off.

Doyle: Money. You… you think I want money? What I want is my morning back. I need you to give my time back to me. Can you give me back my time? Can you give my time back to me? Huh? Can you? So she won’t move back to Oregon! So she won’t take my sons! So they’ll move into the house so I can be a father! Just 20 minutes! Can you give me that?

Michelle: I always thought you were cutting a pretty big corner by convincing a dying old man to sign a power of appointment.
Gavin: It wasn’t like that.
Michelle: Are you sure it wasn’t like that?

Gavin: What am I gonna do? How do I get the file back?
Michelle: Well…there’s this guy. He helps with things that need…helping out.
Gavin: Like what?
Michelle: Like things. Like…getting people to do things you want them to do when they don’t necessarily want to do them.
Gavin: Where is he?

Sponsor: What happened in court today?
Doyle: I’m in a bar. What does that tell you?

Doyle: I hope you don’t mind, but I was intrigued by your conversation. I just thought you were in advertising. So I want to give you my dream version of a Tiger Woods commercial, okay? There’s this black guy on a golf course. And all these people are trying to get him to caddy for them, but he’s not a caddy. He’s just a guy trying to play a round of golf. And these guys give him a five-dollar bill and tell him to go the clubhouse and get them cigarettes and beer. So, off he goes, home, to his wife and to their little son, who he teaches to play golf. You see all the other little boys playing hopscotch while little Tiger practices on the putting green. You see all the other kids eating ice cream while Tiger practices hitting long balls in the rain while his father shows him how. And we fade up, to Tiger, winning four Grand Slams in a row, and becoming the greatest golfer to ever pick up a 9-iron. And we end on his father in the crowd, on the sidelines, and Tiger giving him the trophies. All because of a father’s determination that no fat white man - like your fathers, probably - would ever send his son to the clubhouse for cigarettes and beer.

Gavin: What’s in those files that I haven’t seen?

Gavin: Let me think about it.
Stephen: What the hell are you going to think about, your high school ethics class?

Michelle: What’s the file say?
Gavin: It says they pay themselves a million and a half dollars…each, out of the trust.
Michelle: Which is the reason why they got rid of Mina Dunne and the rest of the board.
Gavin: It’s probably not even illegal.
Michelle: It’s probably just disgusting.

Doyle: I wasn’t bankrupt yesterday and I’m not bankrupt today!
Ron: I’m sorry, Mr. Gipson. The computer says you are.

Cynthia [wife]: What do you think the law is at this level of the game? At my father’s level? It’s a big, vicious rumble, Gavin. The people who established this law firm and the people who sustain it understand the way the world works. If you want to continue to live the way we are living…
Gavin: You have to steal.

Gavin [to priest in confessional]: I came here for some meaning. I’m trying…I want you to give the world meaning to me.
Priest: Why does the world need meaning?
Gavin: Why does the…Because…because the world’s a sewer. Because the world’s a shithole and a garbage dump. Because my father-in-law got me to screw a good man, a decent man out of his money. And my wife cheers me on. Because I got into a fender bender with vthis guy on the FDR. I had a fight with him. I tried to do everything to settle it. But this guy just won’t let it go.
Priest: Why? Why wouldn’t he let it go?
Gavin: I DON’T KNOW WHY!! Sometimes, God likes to put two guys in a paper bag and just let 'em rip.

Gavin [snickering then laughing out loud]: The law keeps us civilized?
Tyler [interviewing for a job]: I don’t think it’s funny.
Gavin: That’s why I’m gonna give you this job. I’m giving you the job because I wanna hear what you have to say about the law after you’ve worked here for five years. Or three years. Or a month. A week, a day, an hour.

Sponsor [to Doyle]: What you saw today is that everything decent is held together by a covenant. An agreement NOT to go bat shit.

Sponsor [to Doyle]: You know, booze isn’t really your drug of choice anyway. You’re addicted to chaos. For some of us, it’s coke. For some of us, it’s bourbon. But you? You got hooked on disaster.

Stephen: How the hell do you think Simon Dunne got his money? You think those factories in Malaysia have day care centers in them? You wanna check the pollution levels of his chemical plants in Mexico or look at the tax benefits he got from this foundation? This is all a tightrope, you gotta learn to balance.
Gavin: How can you live like that?
Stephen: I can live with myself…because at the end of the day I think I do more good than harm. What other standard have I got to judge by?

Gavin: I was thinking about what you said to me. About the end of the day - about doing more good than harm. That is what you said, isn’t it?
Stephen: Don’t you fuck with me.
Gavin: I am not fucking with you, sir. Can you imagine how unpleasant it would be if the judge got a hold of this file? I’m gonna hold on to this file. I’m gonna keep it in a very safe place. But I’m not going to Texas. I’m gonna come back into work on Monday. I’m gonna start doing that pro bono work that you recommended that I do. But I’m gonna do it from our office. The first thing we’re gonna do is help a man buy a house.

Valerie: What do you want?
Gavin: Five minutes, ma’am. I owe your husband twenty. Hell… I’m only asking for five with you.[/b]

Money doesn’t talk here, it screams bloody murder. Everything else is incidental. And it still is today. But it was a whole different world back then. Everyone was “juiced in”…or “made”. You were where you were because one or another set of “bosses” dictated it. And the bosses played footsies with the pols.

But it’s a world I never really learned to comprehend at all because I never [ever] had even the slightest inclination to gamble.

It’s an ersatz spectacle that plastic people thrive on. And that’s okay by me. As long as I can steer clear of them.

But then people being people even the pros here eventually succumb to the ravages of contingency and chance and change. And while fear works wonders in keeping the sheep in line there were just too many anomalies ready, willing and able to stir things up.

Now it’s just business as usual.

IMDb

[b]The blackjack “cheats” were using a technique known as “spooking”. Nevada courts have mostly ruled it to be legal because it merely takes advantage of hold card information exposed by sloppy dealers.

Martin Scorsese stated before the film’s release that he created the “head in the vise” scene as a sacrifice, certain the MPAA would insist it be cut. He hoped this would draw fire away from other violent scenes that would seem less so by comparison. When the MPAA made no objection to the vise scene, he left it in, albeit slightly edited.

When James Woods heard that Martin Scorsese was interested in working with him, Woods called Scorsese’s office and left the following message: “Any time, any place, any part, any fee.”

In the scene where Joe Pesci comes over to Ace Rothstein’s house to talk to Richard Rheil (the banker). There is a photo on the counter, where Robert De Niro is standing. That is an actual photo of Lefty Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro, which are the real guys DeNiro and Pesci are portraying.[/b]

Casino at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_(film

CASINO [1995]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Ace [voice-over]: Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a helluva handicapper, I can tell you that. I was so good that when I bet, I can change the odds for every bookmaker in the country. I’m serious. I had it down so cold that I was given paradise on earth. I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run: The Tangiers, by the only kind of guys that can get you that kind of money. Sixty-two million seven hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know all the details…
Nicky [voice-over]: Matter of fact, nobody knew all the details. But it should have been perfect. I mean he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend watching his ass. And he had Ginger, the woman he loved on his arm. But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin’ valuable again.

Ace [voice-over]: At that time, Vegas was a place where millions of suckers flew in every year on their own nickel and left behind about a billion dollars. But at night, you couldn’t see the desert that surrounds Las Vegas. But it’s in the desert where lots of the town’s problems are solved.
Nicky [voice-over]: Got a lot of holes in the desert and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. Except you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you’re talking about a half hour or 45 minutes of diggin’. And who knows who’s gonna be comin’ along in that time? Before you know it, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin’ night.

Nicky [voice-over]: Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything. Somehow, somebody’s always lookin’ the other way. Now, look at these guys. They look busy, right? They’re countin’ money. Who wants to bother them? I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal.

Ace [voice-over]: No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back until one of you is dead.

Ace [voice-over]: In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I’m watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.

Ace [voice-over]: Ginger had the hustlers code. She knew how to take care of people. And that’s what Vegas is all about. It’s kickback city. She took care of the dealers, pit bosses, floor managers…but, mostly, she took care of the valet parkers…the guys who could get you anything and take care of anything. Ginger took care of the parkers because they took care of the security guards who took care of the metro cops, who let her operate.

Ace [voice-over]: Nicky’s methods of betting weren’t scientific, but they worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. I mean, what were they going to do, muscle Nicky? Nicky was the muscle.

Nicky [voice-over]: Ace was so fuckin’ worried about his casino he forgot what we were doin’ out here in the first place. A million times I wanted to yell in his fuckin’ ear…“This is Las Vegas. We’re supposed to be out here robbin”‘…you dumb fuckin’ hebe.

Ace [voice-over]: Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I’m doing. Here, they’re giving me awards.

Nicky [voice-over]: To be truthful with you, I had to admire this guy. Tony Dogs was one of the toughest Irishmen I ever met. This son of a bitch was tough. For two days and two fuckin’ nights, we beat the shit out of this guy. I mean, we even stuck ice-picks in his balls. In the end, I had to put his fuckin’ head in a vise.

Nicky: Hey, Dogs, can you hear me?
[Tony Dogs looks over]
Nicky: Listen, Dogs. I’ve got your head in a vise. I’ll squash your fucking head like a grapefruit, if you don’t give me a name.
[now in reasonable voice]
Nicky: Come on, Anthony. We go way back. Don’t make me do this, please. Don’t make me have to be the bad guy here.
Tony Dogs [weakly]: Fuck you.
Nick: [miffed]: Fuck me?
[to cohorts]
Nicky: Do you believe this? Two whole days and nights now.
[turns to vise and starts twisting it almost spinning it like a sailor’s wheel]
Nicky: Fuck me? Huh? Fuck me, motherfucker? Fuck my mother? Is that what you’re telling me?
Tony Dogs [gasps painfully as one of his eyes literally sprouts out of its socket]:
Nicky [upon seeing this]: Oh God, please give me a name.
Tony Dogs [gasping]: Charlie, Charlie M.
Nicky Santoro: Charlie M? YOU MAKE ME POP YOU’RE FUCKING EYE OUT TO PROTECT THAT PIECE OF SHIT?!

Mob Boss [to Nicky]: Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that the money we’re robbing is being robbed? Somebody’s robbing from us? We go through all this trouble and somebody’s robbing us? Huh?
John Nash: Like I said, it’s part of the business. It’s considered leakage.
Mob Boss: Leakage my balls. I want the guy who’s robbing us.

Nicky [voice-over]: But the bosses never believed in leakage…so listen to what they do. They put Artie Piscano, the underboss of K.C. in charge of making sure nobody skimmed the skim.

Pat Webb: We may have to kick a kike’s ass outta town.

Nicky [to Charlie]: I think in all fairness, I should explain to you exactly what it is that I do. For instance tomorrow morning I’ll get up nice and early, take a walk down over to the bank and walk in and see and, uh, if you don’t have my money for me, I’ll crack your fuckin’ head wide-open in front of everybody in the bank. And just about the time that I’m comin’ out of jail, hopefully, you’ll be coming out of your coma. And guess what? I’ll split your fuckin’ head open again. ‘Cause I’m fuckin’ stupid. I don’t give a fuck about jail. That’s my business. That’s what I do.

Ace [voice-over]: Meeting in the middle of the desert always made me nervous. It’s a scary place. I knew about the holes in the desert, of course. And everywhere I looked, there could have been a hole. Normally, my prospects of coming back alive from a meeting with Nicky were 99 out of 100. But this time, when I heard him say “a couple of hundred yards down the road”, I gave myself 50-50.

Nicky [to Ace]: Get this through your head you Jew motherfucker, you! You only exist out here because of me! That’s the only reason! Without me, you, personally, every fuckin’ wise guy skell around’ll take a piece of your fuckin’ Jew ass! Then where you gonna go? You’re fuckin’ warned! Don’t ever go over my fuckin’ head again! You motherfucker, you.

Ace [narrating]: By this time, Nicky had things so fucked up on the streets that every time Marino went back home, the packages got smaller and smaller. It got to the point, when he walked into the place he didn’t know whether he was going to be kissed or killed.

Gaggi: Frankie, I want to ask you something. It’s private. But I want you to tell me the truth. Of course, Remo. I want you to tell me the truth, mind you. I always tell you the truth, Remo. Frankie…the little guy…he wouldn’t be fucking the Jew’s wife, would he? Because if he is, it’s a problem.
Frankie [voice-over]: What could I say? If I had given them the wrong answer, I mean, Nicky, Ginger, Ace - all of them could have wind up getting killed. Because there’s one thing you gotta know about these old timers, they don’t like any fucking around with the other guy’s wives. It’s bad for business. So I lied. And even though I knew that by lying to Gaggi, I could have wound up getting killed myself.

Nicky [voice-over]: When it looked like they could get twenty-five years to life in prison just for skimming a casino, sick or no fuckin’ sick you knew people were going to get clipped.

Ace [voice-over]: The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior’s college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s like checkin’ into an airport. And if you order room service, you’re lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it’s all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing? And that’s that.[/b]

Death apparently is even more taboo in Japan. Not a good profession to be tied to.

I don’t buy into the spiritual or religious overtones here. But if you must have a ceremony for the dead this is certainly one of the least undignified. Everything revolves around a series of solemn rituals handed down over the ages. It makes death less scary [or permanent] if you are able to buy into it.

It is obviously comforting for those who have lost loved ones…so why not just leave it at that. The ceremony can be very moving.
And, when it comes to dealing with death, well, whatever works.

What is particularly surreal [to me] is how you can be talked into paying for a really expensive coffin [just like here] but in the end they are all burned to ashes in the cremation of the bodies.

Look for Hideki Gondô.

wiki

Loosely based on Aoki Shinmon’s autobiographical book Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, the film was ten years in the making. Motoki studied the art of ‘encoffinment’ at first hand from a mortician, and how to play a cello for the earlier parts of the film. The director attended funeral ceremonies in order to understand the feelings of bereaved families. While death is the subject of great ceremony, as portrayed in the film, it is also a strongly taboo subject in Japan, so the director was worried about the film’s reception and did not anticipate commercial success.

trailer: youtu.be/6UFlWO5zhO8

DEPARTURES [Okuribito] 2008
Directed by Yôjirô Takita

Daigo: She’s got one.
Ikuei: Got what?
Daigo: A thing.
Ikuei: What thing?

Yes, that thing.

[b]Daigo [pointing to the cello]: And I still owe on that.
Mika: How much?
[Daigo hesitantly holds up one finger]
Mika: That’s okay. I’m working. We can pay off a million yen.
Daigo [shaking his head vigorously]: 18 million.
Mika [shocked]: 18 million?!

Ikuei: Will you work hard?
Daigo: Yes.
Ikuei: You’re hired.

Daigo: What does the job involve?
Ikuei: Well… At first, being my assistant, I guess.
Daigo: Specifically…
Ikuei: Specifically? Casketing.
Daigo: Casketing?
Ikuei: Putting bodies in coffins.
Daigo: You mean dead bodies?
Ikuei: You find that…funny?
Daigo: Uh, no, I mean…The ad said departures, so I thought it meant a travel agency.

Mika: So, what’s the job? A tour guide? Sales?
Daigo: It’s not a travel agent.
Mika: So, what is it?
Daigo: Ceremonies.
Mika: Like weddings?

Daigo: Can someone who has never even seen a dead body before actually do this job?

Ikuei: To preserve the dignity, take great care that family members do not see the bare skin of the deceased.

Daigo [driving to his first body]: What should I do?
Ikuei: Today…just watch.
Daigo: All right.
Ikuei: But it’s one of those. You picked a bad one.
Daigo: What do you mean?
Ikuei: You’ll see…[/b]

Two weeks dead.

[b]Daigo [watching Ikuei work]: One grown cold, restored to beauty for all eternity. This was done with a calmness, a precision and above all, a gentle affection. At the final parting, sending the dead on their way. Everything done peacefully, and beautifully.

Yamashita: People are talking.
Daigo: About what?
Yamashita: Get yourself a proper job!

Ikuei [on training video Mika is viewing]: This is done in such a way that the family does not see. The anus must sometimes be blocked. The cotton wool is rolled, and pressed deep into the anus. This prevents seepage.

Mika: Aren’t you ashamed having a job like that!
Daigo: What’s to be ashamed of? Touching dead people?
Mika: Just get a normal job.
Daigo: Normal? Everyone dies. I’ll die, and so will you. Death is normal.
Mika: Spare me the word games. I want you to quit.
Daigo: And if I don’t?
Mika: I’m going home. Come see me when you quit.
Daigo [reaching out to her]: Mika!
Mika: Don’t touch me! You’re filthy!

Daigo [at his dead father’s side]: So what was his life for, anyway? Living 70 odd years and leaving behind one box of stuff.

Mika: My husband is a professional.[/b]

Fuck 'em? Well, that’s what some will say. But the ones who die are almost never the ones who cash in on it. And this was more a “humanitarian” mission. At least on paper.

The fog of war. You can take that all the way to the bank. And for those who thrive on the military industrial complex it can never be foggy enough. Reconfigure the Commie into a terrorist and the war never, ever ends. And Somalia of all places. But today I suspect we’d hit the warlords with drones. And wouldn’t you like to own a corporation that builds those!

Here, you can read about them: huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/2 … 46263.html

And coming out as it did in 2001 it fueled all the more the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits were made there, right?

On the other hand, there is the question of genocide. Or mass starvation. But that’s hardly ever the motivation behind any particular deployment. More often than not the rationalization.

But I don’t pretend to grasp fully what the hell really happened back then.

Here are a couple of “dissenting” views on the conflict:
wsws.org/en/articles/2002/02/hawk-f19.html
ratical.org/ratville/CAH/GM012902.html

IMDb

[b]One of the favorite films of George W. Bush.

Unlike Ridley Scott’s previous film G.I. Jane, this production received the full co-operation of the US military.

18 US soldiers died in the incident depicted in the film. The number of Somalis who died during the battle has been estimated between 500 and 2,000.[/b]

BLACK HAWK DOWN
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Title Card BASED ON AN ACTUAL EVENT. SOMALIA - EAST AFRICA. 1992. Years of warfare among rival clans causes famine on a biblical scale. 300,000 civilians die of starvation. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, rules the capital Mogadishu. He seizes international food shipments at the ports. Hunger is his weapon. The world responds. Behind a force of 20,000 U.S. Marines, food is delivered and order is restored.

Title Card: April 1993. Aidid waits until the Marines withdraw, and then declares war on the remaining U.N. peacekeepers. In June, Aidid’s militia ambush and slaughter 24 Pakistani soldiers, and begin targeting American personnel.

Title Card: In late August, America’s elite soldiers, Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR are sent to Mogadishu to remove Aidid and restore order. The mission was to take three weeks, but six weeks later Washington was growing impatient.

Durant: Command Super 6-4, we got militia shooting unarmed civilians down at the food distribution centre. Request permission to engage.
Man over Radio: Super 6-4, are you taking fire over?
Durant: Negative command.
Man over Radio: UN’s jurisdiction, 6-4. We cannot intervene, return to base. Over.
Durant: Roger. 6-4 returning.

Atto: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because I grew up without running water I am simple General. I do know something about History. See all this, it is simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white boy’s ideas in it.
General Garrison: Well, I wouldn’t know about that, I’m from Texas.
Atto: You shouldn’t have come here. This is a civil war. This is our war, not yours.
General Garrison: 300,000 dead and counting. That’s not a war Mr. Atto. That’s genocide. Now you enjoy that tea, you hear.

General Garrison: This isn’t Iraq, you know. Much more complicated than that.

Galentine: Sgt Eversmann, you really like tha skinnies?
Eversmann: It’s not that I like 'em or I don’t like 'em. I respect them.
Kurth: See what you guys fail to realise is that the Sgt here is a bit of an idealist. He believes in this mission down to his very bones don’t you Sgt?
Eversmann: Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN. Right?

Garrison: So this is the real deal? Is he sure this time?
Harell: He sounds scared shitless.
Garrison: Good. That’s always a good sign

Hoot: Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window.

Hoot: When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.

Hoot: See you’re thinking. Don’t. 'Cause Sergeant, you can’t control who gets hit or who doesn’t or who falls out of a chopper or why. It ain’t up to you. It’s just war

Durant: My government will never negotiate for me.
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Then perhaps you and I can negotiate, huh? Soldier to Soldier.
Durant: I am not in charge
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Course not, you have the power to kill, but not negotiate. In Somalia, Killing is Negotiation.

Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this. Without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world.[/b]

There must be a million movies about growing up “in the ghetto”. And virually all of them at told from the perspective of gang bangers. Men and boys shooting up and shooting each other over and over and over again on the mean streets of testosterone. Macho bullshit that is basically glorified.

But men [you know the ones] are everywhere here.

Still, some just don’t give a shit about the lives of anyone living “on the outs”. And you see them when they’re “fucked up” and you see them when they’re not and it seems a no brainer.

As always though it’s the kids your heart goes out to. Only some of them here are “packin’”

One thing for sure: in this political climate look for more of the same. Can you imagine Barack Obama proposing a massive urban renewal project to reclaim places like this? Or, more surreal still, “the people” themselves taking to the streets and demanding it?

The more you see stuff like this the more cynical you get. Or you do if you’re me. There are lots of good folks here trying to make things better. But the economy that used to sustain places like this is long gone. And in its place came systemic poverty, drugs and gangs. And a political economy that shrugs in response to it.

This is a really depressing film. It’s The Wire on crack. You wonder: What’s the point here? Enduring shit like this is the reason why most choose to escape it—anyway they can.

trailer: youtu.be/YkncKY6qSVI

ON THE OUTS [2004]
Directed by Lori Silverbush, Michael Skolnik

Everyone has a past. But how many start out wondering if they were switched as a baby in the hopsital?

Here is a psychologically “complicated” woman married to a great pianist and the people who become entangled in her dark web. Of course, the others have webs all their own.

But, for me, this is largely about who we become based on circumstances we have no control over. And who we think we are can often reflect only what others have told us about our past. What difference does it really make who – biologically – brought us into this world? Well, it could make a lot of difference if you place the emphasis on genetics. But then who raised us is also of considerable importance.

In this regard, the film reminds me of Toto Le Hero. All the elements of “identity” most of us barely scratch the surface of.

Actually, this film is billed as a psychological thriller. It’s the account of a woman who is obviously “disturbed” but, as in much of Chabrol’s work, the ambiguities are left for you to untangle. And how much can anyone really know about her frame of mind? Or, for that matter, their own? At least Mika recognizes this.

trailer: youtu.be/vSf8Hyo6WRE

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT [2000]
Written and directed by Claude Chabrol

Guillaume: You believe you are my father’s daughter?
Jeanne: Of course not!

But he’s not so sure. And soon, nobody seems to be.

[b]Guillaume: Finished your act, have you? What is it you are after?
Jeanne: Nothing.
Guillaume: You’re pathetic when you try to look like my mother. And when you try to play like my father.

Jeanne: I saw your step-mother spill the chocolate on purpose.
Guillaume: Mika? That proves it, you really are crazy. She made the chocolate herself. She always does. She’d never let anyone else do it.
Jeanne: So?
Guillaume: You’re trying to say she drugged it?
Jeanne: I’m just telling you what I saw.
Guillaume: That’s ridiculous. I mean, why would she do it? So, according to you, she drugged my hot chocolate and then spilled it to make sure I wouldn’t drink it?
Jeanne: Believe what you want. I’ve warned you. My conscience is clear.

Mika: What about Jeanne?
André: She could be my daughter. I’d like to have a daughter…

Jeanne: I want to go.
Louise [her mother]: Go but remember, you’re not Polonsji’s daughter.
Jeanne: That’s all over.
Louise: I’m not so sure.

Louise: Your father isn’t your father.
Jeanne: Polonski, you mean?
Louise: I didn’t say that.
Jeanne: No, you didn’t. You said, “You’re father isn’t your father.”
Louise: Polonski isn’t your father…nor was my husband.
Jeanne: You’re telling me this now? So who is my father?[/b]

The fact is no one really knows who her biological father was.

[b]Jeanne [to Guillaume]: She does nothing by halves.

André [to Jeanne]: At 18, children start to disappoint you.

Jeanne [to Guillaume]: Why did you switch our cups?

Mika [to Andre]: I have a knack for doing wrong.

Mika: I give and I give and I give; I never ask. I never even asked to live.
Andre: You received life like everyone else. You can’t deny that.
Mika [after long pause]: I don’t understand. I never understand when you speak.
[another long pause]
Mika: I know what I am. I am nothing.

Mika: Instead of loving, I say, “I love you,” and people believe me. I have real power in my mind. I calculate everything.

It’s in God’s hands.[/b]

She’s not especially pretty. She’s not especially thin. Her famous father has a wife almost as young as she is. And most of the time people befriend her only as a way to meet her father—the renouned writer and publisher.

He’s basically a narcissistic pig. He treats people like shit and has nothing to do with them unless there is something in it for him. Of course the other side of the coin is that some he thinks are friends are just using him in turn.

Still, some people get away with it more readily than others.

It’s all about where the individual and all the rest choose to meet in social interaction. “I” and “we” in the “modern world.” That and the clash between “serious art” and “pop culture”.

It’s amazing how many French films revolve one way or another around music. Classical music in particular.

trailer: youtu.be/y_K4d-1zQOA

LOOK AT ME [Comme Une Image] 2004
Written and directed by Agnès Jaoui

[b]Pierre: I’m no longer a writer. I’m ashamed. Next time, under “profession,” I’ll put “kept man.” “Writer” goes under “hobbies.”

Karine: This store has great stuff, and you won’t try.
Loitia: Nothing in my size.
Karine: At least try this one on. I’m sure you’ll look great.
Lolita: I just hope I fit in the booth.

Sébastien: Why are you so mad at your dad?
Lolita: I’m not. I’d just like to kill him.

Étienne: Does Fabien want tea?
Lolita: No. We’re going for a walk. And his name is Sebastien.
Étienne: I had the “ien” right.

Étienne: There’s cyanide in the bathroom.
Sébastien: Why do you say that?
Étienne: Just to cut the tension.

Sylvia: Beautiful voices are a dime a dozen.

Lolita [to Sylvia]: They’re all the same. They find out I’m so-and-so’s daughter and suddenly they find me very interesting. They’re all the same. Well, not you, of course.[/b]

As a matter of fact…

[b]Étienne [with his arm around Lolita]: My big girl.
Lolita: Stop, you’re hurting me.
Étienne: Wouldn’t hurt if it was muscle.

Karine [to Étienne]: Lolita will never like me. With you it’s the same. I don’t count. You say you love me and I believe you. But at times I feel like a chair. You don’t see me.

Sylvia: But telling millions of people he sometimes practices sodomy may not be necessary.

Lolita: I look like a Russian doll.

Étienne: She’ll go far. What’s her name?
Lolita: Aurele. Want her number?
Étienne: Hey, come on, Lolita.
Lolita: With guys like you, she’ll go far.
Étienne: I said she’s pretty. Are you nuts? I can’t say that? What should we do, wear blindfolds?
Lolita: She sings! Who cares how she looks?
Karine: I understand her…
Lolita: No you don’t. You gain an ounce and you want to die! I’m not the crazy one!

Étienne: Everyone’s crying. And over what? Because I said she’d go far?
Sylvia: Thanks to her looks.
Étienne: You musicians above all that?
Sylvia: No, we’re not above anything. You see what happened. It was her night. You said nothing.
Sébastien: Because he didn’t hear her.
Sylvia: Didn’t hear her?
Sébastien: He left three minutes in, came back to applaud.[/b]

Let’s play master and servant.

Banned practically everywhere as little more than pornography. Is this art instead?

It is based on an actual relationship. The meaning though will be decided one dasein at a time. And it is rooted in the gender relationships that prevailed in pre-war Japan. Back in time and place.

If you like it try Blind Beast. My favorite of the two.

Unfortunately, the dvd I have is dubbed in English.

home made trailer: youtu.be/bk_aOjfkCrY

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Realm_of_the_Senses

IMDb

[b]The writing on Kichizo’s chest, that Sada wrote using Kichizo’s own blood, reads “Sada Kichi futari kiri” (“Sada and Kichi, just two of us together”). This was the actual writing seen on the real Kichizo’s body when the police found his corpse on 19 May 1936.

Demand to see the film at its first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival was so high, 13 screenings were arranged.[/b]

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES [Ai No Korîda] 1976
Written and directed by Nagisa Ôshima