philosophy in film

Never leave the great big highway just because you’re bored.

This is a horror film to be sure. Well, sort of. But the really good ones always seem to know how to make you laugh. You bust a gut but it doesn’t detract in the slightest from the terrible things that happen. It’s just that the folks it’s all happening to have a great sense of humor. Some right down to the bitter end. Not that you are ever meant to take any of it seriously.

And not just regarding the horrors being afflicted on them by “them”. Much more ghastly is the horror they inflict on each other.

People actually argue over what this film is really all about. What is it trying to tell us about life…about relationships…about family…about death and dying.

Nothing more than can be said is my own best guess. And that can be practically anything at all. Unless it was all just a dream. But then how do you explain Frank’s note.

This is no Baghead, true, but it will do until the next one comes along.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_End_(2003_film
trailer: youtu.be/WOKRauvfkUU

DEAD END [2003]
Written and directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Fabrice Canepa

[b]Laura: Was there no dial tone?
Frank: No, Laura. I just forgot the number to 9-1-1!

…

Brad: How does your baby breathe under all those blankets?
Lady in white: She’s dead.

…

Richard: What’s he doing?
Laura: He’s trying to get Brad’s phone.
Richard: With a stick?

…

Laura [who forgot to pack the 'local map"]: Next time I’ll just bring a globe in case you decide to drive to mothers by way of the North Pole.

…

Richard: I know you both think I’m retarded and all but I have a theory and I want you to hear me out. Brad is dead. His body is mutilated and god knows how it got that way. We’re the only people out here and all the clocks stopped at 7:30. This reeks of alien activity!

…

Frank: Talk about a Merry fucking Christmas.

…

Laura: Anything else?
Frank: Yeah. You’re goddamn brother is a freak too. He jerks off to gun magazines!

…

Richard: Pregnant. Oh boy. I hope it’s a boy. “What’s up little critter, I’m you’re Uncle DICK!”

…

Frank: Thank god for the gun freak!

…

Frank: Let’s put your brother in the car.

…

Laura: I wonder if we should we save some pie for Michael?

…

Frank: Holy shit! The bitch shot me in the leg!

…

Frank: They teach you what to do in this kind of a situation?
Marion: Not to panic.

…

Frank: Let’s put your mother in the car.

…

Frank: Why us, huh? Why? What did we ever do to you? All we wanted was a nice Christmas…is that too much to ask…a nice Christmas?!

…

Lady in white [to Marion]: He’s not here for you.[/b]

Charles Bukowski: the bruiser, the barfly, the lush, the lecher. The libertine The wild man. But then [sometimes] he seemed compelled to point this out. Or to remind you that this is what you wish you could be yourself but didn’t have the balls to be. Like Jimi Hendrix: Go ahead on Mr. Businessman, you can’t dress like me. Only the businessman couldn’t care less to.

It was as if instead of just being who he was he became this character people expected him to be. Always self-conscious of morphing into a caricature of himself…the man that everyone had grown to be accustomed to. On the other hand, that’s basically what he accused Rourke of doing!

But then what do I really know about it?! I read his books and I liked the way he put things. Not everything of course but who the hell writes that. I saw parts of myself in him: the pessimist, the cynic, the nihilist, the ironist, the madman, the outsider. The man who could be outraged at the barbaric plasticity of American culture. But that can never be more than me projecting myself into the man I thought he was. Shit, he might be none of those things at all to you. Or even to him for that matter. He also had a great sense of humor. A savage wit you might call it.

Oh, and he was a really good poet. Whatever that really means. And he absolutely loathed Mickey Mouse: “this three fingered son-of-a-bitch that doesn’t have a fucking soul!”. The McDisney world we lived in. He hated the “average man or woman”. But it’s not like he didn’t understand how that was built into the homogenized world we live in. youtu.be/uztD_GRestQ

Of course there are women [and his friend Sean Penn] who accused him of being a misogynist. And Bukowski’s only rebuttal seemed to be that he treats men even worse.

One thing comes through crystal clear after watching this: the man paid his dues. It wasn’t like he stumbled onto success as a writer from the very start. He endured some grueling years to say the least. Sort of like Harvey Pekar. But, like Pekar, he was one of those folks who got to experience what it’s like to live before and after fame.

And he sure looked the part!

“As
the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears”

Works that way for philosophy too. Come on, you know who you are.

Bukowski at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
trailer: youtu.be/94y4lApb-Fo

BUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS [2003]
Directed by John Dullaghan

You’re parents were wealthy and you were all recognized as children to be geniuses. And [it goes without saying] you were all rather…eccentric.

And when eccentric familes crumble you can be certain the part about them getting back together again [after 22 years of “betrayal, failure and disaster”] will be filled with all manner of strange occurrences. Of course some people can afford to be stranger than others.

Well, I happen to like strange people. Or, rather, I do if they pose no actual threat to me. So, sure, I’m on board. I only wish my own family had been eccentric enough to tempt me to go back.

And the old codger is just a con man! He’s playing them just as he has always done. But it doesn’t take long to spot the trajectory here. The scam becomes the real thing. Me, I don’t buy into for a second. But I forgive them because they are so far off the beaten path. Well, as families go.

Anyway, this is one of those films where, in some respects, the characters are way over the top. It’s really hard to take them [or the narrative] all that seriously. But there is enough realism stuffed into it that it doesn’t come off as just a farce.

The ending? Gag me with a spoon.

IMDb

[b]The original hawk used to play Mordecai was kidnapped during shooting and held for ransom - production could not wait for him to be returned which is the reason that the bird that appears later in the movie has “more white feathers” - it’s a different bird.

Gene Hackman mentioned in interviews that he was somewhat hesitant to accept the part, as he felt that he himself had been insensitive to his own family at different points in his life. He asked them if they would find him playing this character uncomfortable for their own sake. They all agreed he should accept the part.[/b]

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Tenenbaums
trailer: youtu.be/HaMfV72q40U

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS [2001]
Written in part and directed by Wes Anderson

[b]Young Chas [asking dad about Margot’s first play]: Well, what’d you think, Dad?
Royal: Didn’t seem believable to me.
Royal: Eli, why are you wearing pajamas? Do you live here?
Young Richie: He has permission to sleep over.
Young Chas: Well, did you at least think the characters were well developed?
Royal: What characters? This is a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes.
Young Margot [stiffly]: Good night, everyone.
Royal: Well, sweetie, don’t be mad at me. That’s just one man’s opinion.
[Margot gets up and gathers her presents. Ethel glares at Royal]
Narrator: He had not been invited to any of their parties since. In fact, virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums had been erased by nearly two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster.

…

Richie: Read it back to me so far, Pietro.
Cote d’Ivoire Radio Operator: “Dear Eli, I’m in the middle of the ocean. I haven’t left my room in four days. I’ve never been more lonely in my life, and I think I’m in love with Margot.”
Richie: New paragraph.

…

Raleigh [into tape recorder, softly]: Dudley suffers from a rare disorder combining symptoms of amnesia, dyslexia, and color-blindness, with a highly acute sense of hearing.
Dudley [from adjoining room]: I’m not color blind, am I?
Raleigh: I’m afraid you are.

…

Chas [moving back home with his mother]: It’s not safe over there. The apartment. I have to get some new sprinklers and a backup security system installed.
Ethel: But there are no sprinklers here, either.
Chas: Well, we might have to do something about that, too.

…

Ethel: Raleigh says you’ve been spending 6 hours a day locked in here, watching television and soaking in the tub.
Margot [lying in the bath]: I doubt that.
Ethel: Well, I don’t think that’s very healthy, do you? Nor do I think it’s very intelligent to keep an electrical gadget on the edge of the bathtub.
Margot: I tie it to the radiator.

…

Uzi: Who’s your father?
Chas: His name is Royal Tenenbaum.
Ari: You told us he was already dead.
Chas: Yeah, well, now he’s really dying.

…

Richie: You know, Rachael’s buried out there, too.
Royal: Who?
Chas: My wife.
Royal: Oh, that’s right, isn’t it? Well, we’ll have to swing by her grave, too.

…

Royal [to Chas]: Oh, that’s right. We’ve got another body buried here, haven’t we?

…

Jim [game announcer]: That’s 72 unforced errors for Richie Tenenbaum. He’s playing the worst tennis of his life. What’s he feeling right now, Tex Hayward?
Tex: I don’t know, Jim. There’s obviously something wrong with him. He’s taken off his shoes and one of his socks and…actually, I think he’s crying.

…

Ari: Were you in prison?
Royal: Kinda. Minimum security. I got jacked by the IRS. Shall we split?
Ari: Yes, sir.
Royal: No, call me Mr. Tennenbaum.
Ari: OK.
Royal: Oh, I’m kidding. Call me Pappy.

…

Royal: Pagoda, call Dr. McClure.

…

Royal: Chas has those boys cooped up like a pair of jackrabbits, Ethel.
Ethel: He has his reasons.
Royal: Oh, I know that, but you can’t raise boys to be scared of life. You gotta brew some recklessness into them.
Ethel: I think that’s terrible advice.
Royal: No, you don’t.

…

Henry: Is that a Tic-Tac?

…

Henry [with the family all gathered around]: I know what stomach cancer looks like. I’ve seen it. And you don’t eat three cheeseburgers a day with French fries if you got it. The pain is excruciating.
Royal: How would you know?
Henry: My wife had it. Not only is there no Dr. McClure at Colby General there is no Colby General. It closed in 1974.

…

Royal [after being exposed]: Look, I know I’m going to be the bad guy on this one, but I just want to say the last six days have been the best six days of probably my whole life.
Narrator: Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true.

…

Raleigh [after reading a private investigator’s research on Margot’s background, which reveals she’s been a smoker since she was 12, she married a man in Jamaica at 19, has had numerous affairs and one-night stands with men and women, including Eli Cash]: She smokes?

…

Margot: Dudley, where is he?
Dudley: Who?

…

Chas: Why did you try to kill yourself?
Ethel: Don’t press him right now.
Richie: I wrote a suicide note.
Chas: You did?
Richie: Yeah. Right after I regained consciousness.
Chas: Can we read it?
Richie: No.
Chas: Can you paraphrase it for us?
Richie: I don’t think so.
Chas: Is it dark?
Richie: Of course it’s dark, it’s a suicide note.

…

Raleigh: You’ve made a cuckold of me.
Margot: I know.
Raleigh: Many times over.
Margot: I’m sorry.
Raleigh: And you nearly killed your poor brother.
Ethel: What’s he talking about?
Margot: It doesn’t matter.
Raleigh: She’s balling Eli Cash.

…

Royal: You’re in love with Margot?
Richie: Yeah.
Royal: Well, since when?
Richie: Since always.
Royal: Does she know?
Richie: Uh-huh.
Royal: Well, what does she feel about that?
Richie: I think she feels confused.
Royal: Well, I can understand that, it’s probably illegal!
Richie: I don’t think so, we’re not related by blood.
Royal: That’s true. It’s still frowned upon. But then, what isn’t these days, right?

…

Eli: I wish you’d’ve done this for me when I was a kid.
Richie: But you didn’t have a drug problem then.
Eli: Yeah, but it still would’ve meant a lot to me.

…

Royal: I’ve always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That’s just my style. But I’d really feel blue if I didn’t think you were going to forgive me.
Henry: I don’t think you’re an asshole, Royal. I just think you’re kind of a son of a bitch.
Royal: Well, I really appreciate that.

…

[the family is gathered at the cemetery for Royal’s burial]
Narrator: Among the few possessions he left to his heirs was a set of Encyclopedia Britannica in storage at the Lindbergh Palace Hotel under the names Ari and Uzi Tenenbaum. No-one spoke at the funeral, and Father Petersen’s leg had not yet mended, but it was agreed among them that Royal would have found the event to be most satisfactory.
[Chas, now wearing a black Adidas tracksuit, nods to his sons]
Ari: Fire!
[Ari and Uzi, also in black Adidas tracksuits, fire their air rifles into the air]
Ari: Fire!

…

Royal’s headstone:
ROYAL O’REILLY TENNENBAUM
1932 - 2001
DIED TRAGICALLY RESCUING HIS
FAMILY FROM THE WRECKAGE OF A
DESTROYED SINKING BATTLESHIP[/b]

It’s a bleak life. And it is about to get bleaker still. People pay him to communicate with the dead. He acts as a middleman between sweatshop owners and illegals who sell their knockoff junk. He’s about to become involved in an operation that involves human trafficking. He’s got two kids to raise alone and can barely keep the bills in line.

Then he finds out he has advanced prostate cancer and has only weeks to live.

This a world of immigrants – from China, from Senegal – interacting in a local economy that barely allows them to survive from day to day. A world where others are always making their lives miserable. And then [in order to make a living] they find themselves having to make the lives of others miserable too. Or they just take out their miseries on each other. Meanwhile to the rest of the population they are either invisible or a menace to be driven out. And all they really are are men and women struggling to survive, to raise their families, to have a better life. Everyone is trapped in “the system”. The “way things are”. Why? Because that is in the best interest of those own and operate it. But then from time to time you see them interacting in ways they wish it could always be. But there is ever some new calamity on the horizon and it never is.

And then they bring all the crap they have to endure “earning a living” home with them. There they take it out on their families. And then the families take it out on each other. Around and around in the same vicious circle. Though for some more than others.

Up to a point, we all live in a variation of that world. But we all don’t live in a struggling working class community in Barcelona. The part that Woody Allen somehow missed in Vicky, Christina. Ironically, Javier Bardem also starred in that.

There are people who will not like this movie simply because it tells them unpleasant things about the world we live in…things they would just as soon not be made aware of. This film got only a 64% fresh rating at RT. One critic laments that “Inarritu is stuck in a grim rut.” Hmm. Maybe it’s time for him to give us a musical comedy. On the other hand, it’s not like for every film like this one, there aren’t dozens more stuck in the McHollywood la la land rut.

IMDb

Javier Bardem’s part in this film is the first time that a performance entirely in the Spanish Language has been nominated for an Academy Award Best Actor Oscar.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biutiful
trailer: youtu.be/m_OrqZQV8p8

BIUTIFUL [2010]
Written in part and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

[b]Marambra [to Uxbal]: At least I laugh…if I’m happy because I’m happy, if I’m depressed because I’m depressed. I love you. I love you I said.
Uxbal: Yeah. Me too.

…

Ana: Dad! How do you spell “beautiful”?
Uxbal: Like that, like it sounds.

…

Uxbal: I’m not ready to leave. I’m afraid to leave the children on their own. I can’t.
Bea: You think you take care of the children? Don’t be naive, Uxbal. The universe takes care of them.
Uxbal: Yes, but the universe doesn’t pay the rent.

…

Uxbal: Why is this happening to me? Is it a punishment?
Bea: You can give up, let yourself go… or grit your teeth and hang on like stupid people do.

…

Uxbal: If you want to wear them out sewing shit 16 hours a day, exploiting them like…
Boss: Exploiting them?
Uxbal: Exploiting them, yes.
Boss: Do you know how much they earned in China? Fifty fucking cents a day. There are millions of Chinese who’d be willing to suck my dick every morning to be here.
Uxbal: In case you don’t remember, I was the one who negociated the pay for each worker. And by the conditions downstairs it’s clear they are not getting a fucking dime.[/b]

Out of his own pocket though he pays for heaters to keep them warmer at night. But the heaters are defective. They emit carbon monoxide. It kills them all.

[b]Marambra [weeping]: If I close my eyes then the thoughts start. They make me scared. I called you. I called you many times. I can’t give the children what they need. I’m so sorry I was cruel to Mateo. I’m doing what I can to survive. I really want to be faithful to you, but I also like to have some fun… like a whore.
Uxbal: Don’t say that, Marambra. Forgive me. I’ve never known what I should give you; I still don’t know. Something… I’ve never known. But we have hurt each other so much.

…

Tito: It’s dangerous to trust a man who is hungry. And even more if his children are hungry.

…

Uxbal [to Ana about his father]: When he was 20, he fled Spain to avoid the death penalty but died two weeks later in Mexico, of pneumonia.
Ana: Did you love him very much?
Uxbal: I don’t know. I never knew him.

…

Uxbal: Look in my eyes. Look at my face. Remember me, please. Don’t forget me, Ana. Don’t forget me, my love, please.[/b]

Javier Bardem should have won the academy award for this scene alone.

Why in the world do I like this movie so much? After all, “out in the world” there are no such things as vampires. And ordinarily I steer clear of films where the “suspense” and the “thrillls” revolve around things “supernatural”. Aside from those where the filmmaker’s tongue is crammed so far in his or her cheek it practically comes out the other side.

For instance, I have no interest in the Twilight type films. Or even the more campy renditions like True Blood. But this one is so well made it got me to thinking: that, if vampires were real, this is the world they would populate.

Or maybe it is more about the bullies. I have always detested them. I detested myself when I was one. And I detested those who bullied me. It’s just hardwired into my childhood. I saw kids bullied in the most unconscionable ways. It turned me around 100%. And who wouldn’t want someone like Eli around—either to stop others from bullying you. Or from bullying those you care about.

On the other hand, it’s not just bullies the vampires kill here. And few folks actually deserve to have all the blood sucked [or syphoned] out of them. Do they?

But these are two outsiders [each in their own way] who somehow make contact in a world where outsiders either have each other or they go it alone.

IMDb

The title of the film (as well as the novel upon which it was based) refers to the fact that, according to myth, vampires must be invited in before they can enter someone’s home.

faq IMDB: imdb.com/title/tt1139797/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In_(film
trailer: youtu.be/ICp4g9p_rgo

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN [Låt Den Rätte Komma In] 2008
Directed by Tomas Alfredson

[b]Oskar [aloud to himself]: Squeal like a pig. Squeal. Squeal!

…

Eli: I can’t be friends with you…just so you know.
Oskar: Why?
Eli: That’s just how it is.

…

Oskar: How old are you?
Eli: Twelve…about. How old are you?
Oskar: 12 years, eight months and nine days. What do you mean “about”?

…

Eli: Oskar, listen. You have to fight back. You have never hit them back have you?
[Oskar shakes his head]
Eli: Start hitting back…now. Hard.
Oskar: There are three of them.
Eli: Then you have to hit even harder! Hit back harder than you dare. Then they’ll stop.[/b]

Trust me on this: Maybe they will and maybe they won’t.

[b]Oskar: But what if they don’t…
Eli: Then I will help you.

…

Oskar: Eli, do I have chance with you?
Eli: With what?
Oskar: I mean…do you want to go steady?
Eli: Oskar, I’m not a girl.
Oskar: No? Do I still have a chance with you?
Eli: Can’t we just be like this?
Oskar [thinking about it]: Yes.

…

On a note Eli writes to Oskar: TO FLEE IS LIFE, TO LINGER, DEATH.

…

Oskar: Are you a vampire?
Eli: I live off blood… Yes.
Oskar: Are you… dead?
Eli: No. Can’t you tell?
Oskar: But… Are you old?
Eli: I’m twelve. But I’ve been twelve for a long time.

…

Jimmy [brandishing a switchblade knife]: Do you know who I am?
Oskar: Yes.
Jimmy: Good, then you get it. We’re going to have a little contest. You stay under water for three minutes. If you can do it, I’ll just nick you. But if you can’t, I’ll gouge one of your eyes out. An eye for an ear, okay?
Oskar: But that’s impossible.
Jimmy: That’s your problem. Three minutes.[/b]

Though the president never makes an appearance, this is described as a “thinly disguised” portrayal of the “special relationship” between Tony Blair and George Dubya Bush. More to the point, this is all about the enormous gaps that exist between what governments tell their citizens about the nature of its foreign policy and what actually motivates it instead. Here it is England and the United States. But it is more or less applicable to them all. The ofttimes egregious gap between what is “legal” and what is done being even wider still. Torture, rendition…stuff like that.

Obviously, this is what so many folks fantasize about with regard to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice: Hauling their asses before one or another court and charging them with war crimes. Crimes against humanity. Mass murder.

It gets you to wondering: Just how thinly disguised is it? Does it come closer to “the truth” than anyone realizes? I mean, was Tony Blair [or his wife] a creature of the CIA? And then there is this: Is what is true closer to the best or the worst of all possible worlds?

Or maybe this is just Polanski’s way of saying “fuck you” to the American government. In other words, whatever damage he may have caused with his pecker is nothing compared to the terrible things done in American wars with American bombs and missiles…with American black ops and secret prisons.

Of course for any number of folks here the ghostwriter’s book is just another commodity. Will it or will it not sell? Fuck the stuff that is actually written in it.

IMDb

[b]When Roman Polanski was arrested September 2009 in Switzerland, post-production was never put on hold. He saw every step of the film and made all artistic decisions. He finished editing the movie while in a Swiss prison. In December 2009 Polanski was released on bail but placed under house arrest, where he remained when this movie was released.

Largely because Roman Polanski could not set foot in the United States, filming took place in Germany made to look like Massachusetts.

Writer Robert Harris is a former BBC TV reporter and political columnist who actively supported Tony Blair until the Iraq War, which Harris felt was a mistake. Blair resigned June 26, 2007, spurring Harris to drop his other work to write The Ghost, which was published Sept. 26. Similarities between Blair and Adam Lang, Cherie Blair and Ruth Lang, Hatherton and Halliburton, etc., are clearly intentional. Mo Asumang appears briefly as a Condoleezza Rice look-a-like Secretary of State in a photo op with Lang.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Writer_(film
trailer: youtu.be/L_AerBW0EcI

THE GHOST WRITER [2010]
Written in part and directed by Roman Polanski

[b]Ruth: Well? How bad is it?
The Ghost: Well, let’s just say it needs some work.
Ruth: How much work?
The Ghost: Well all the words are there, they’re just in the wrong order.

…

The Ghost: I’d never guess you smoked.
Amelia: I only allow myself one. In times of great stress or contentment.
The Ghost: Which is this?
Amelia: Very funny.

…

The Ghost [leaving a message for rick on phone]: Can’t talk now. Some peace protesters are trying to kill me!

…

Adam: Are you saying I can’t leave the United States?
Sid: As your attorney I strongly advise you not to travel to any country that recognizes the jurisdiction of the Inernational Criminal Court.
Ruth: Well, just about every country in the world recognizes the ICC.
Sid: America doesn’t.
Ruth: Who else?
Josh: Iraq, China, North Korea, Indonesia, Israel.

…

Ruth: I think it is a terrible idea. It’ll look like you are America’s whipping boy running crying home to daddy.

…

Ruth [to bodyguard]: Oh for God’s sake, if we meet any terrorists, I’ll text you.

…

The Ghost: Forty thousand years of human language, and there’s still no word to describe our relationship. It was doomed.

…

The Ghost: Did you ever want to be a proper politician in your own right?
Ruth: Of course, didn’t you want to be a proper writer?

…

The Ghost: You ought not to be written out of history.
Ruth: Why not? Most women are.
The Ghost: Then I’ll reinstate you. I’ll put in all the occasions that he’s forgotten.
Ruth: How kind, like the boss’s secretary who remembers his wife’s birthday for him.

…

Island Ferry Attendant: Single or return?
The Ghost: Return…I hope.

…

From the Hatherthon [think miltitary industrial complex, think Halliburton] promo: “With $35 billion of funds at its disposal, the Hatherthon Group brings together a family of companies devoted to defense and security. And with unrivaled expertise in the Middle East, including the services of two former presidents, three Prime Ministers and two directors of the CIA, Hatherthon is proud to stand at the forefront of the struggle against terror.”[/b]

And if they all get filthy rich in the process then, surely, that’s just incidental.

[b]The Ghost: I really don’t think this is a good idea.
Rycart: You have no choice.
The Ghost: Emmett must have told Lang I’ve been to see him.
Rycart: So what’s he going to do about it? Dump you in the ocean?
The Ghost: Well it happened before.
Rycart: Which means it can’t happen again. He can’t drown two ghost writers, for God’s sake. You’re not kittens.

…

Adam: Whatever I did, I did because I believed it was right.
The Ghost: What, even supporting illegal kidnapping for torture?
Adam: Oh, for God’s sake, spare me the bleeding-heart bullshit! Do you know what I’d do if I was in power again? I’d have two queues at airports: one for flights where we’d done no background checks, infringed on no one’s civil bloody liberties, used no intelligence gained by torture. And on the other flight we’d do everything we possibly could to make it perfectly safe. And then we’d see which plane the Rycarts of this world would put their bloody kids on! And you can put that in the book![/b]

There you go, right?

It’s a common speculation: “What if there was a parallel universe—in one you meet John and in the other you do not”. Then you imagine sitting back and watching how your life might have unfolded if one were the case rather than the other.

And yet “in reality” this sort of thing happens all the time. But in one universe. Something happens that in fact does cause one set of circumstances rather than another. And as a result of it our life does go in one direction and not the other. Unfortunately, we have no way of really knowing what might have been. We just know that things could have been different – very different even – if we were able go back and experience the other reality.

For me, of course, this always comes back to the nature of dasein. To how contingency, chance and change can have a profound impact on how we consture ourselves out in the world of interacting value judgments.

Here the stakes basically revolve around love. He is a shit and, as contingency chance and change would have it, she finds out. That’s great though because it gives her the chance to meet a much, much better man. Unless, well, unless he is a shit too.

But the stakes can be much, much higher, can’t they? But that’s another movie.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliding_Doors
trailer: youtu.be/4u7akRLnGyk

SLIDING DOORS [1998]
Written and directed by Peter Howitt

[b]Helen: I-I’m not - I’m not very good at - at, you know…
James: Constructing sentences?

…

James: Cheer up. Remember what the Monty Python boys say.
Helen: “Always look on the bright side of life”?
James: No, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

…

Helen: And I just couldn’t help thinking if I had caught that train, it would never have happened. I’d have been home ages ago.
Gerry: Oh, well, don’t wonder about things like that. You know. “If only this…”, and “What if that…” It’s done now.

…

Russell: You want my opinion?
Gerry: Will I like it?
Russell: Well, of course not! It’ll be based in reality.

…

Helen: For God’s sake, Gerry. I asked you a simple question; there is no need for you to become Woody Allen.

…

Russel: Lydia’s becoming more and more demanding. And you feel bad because Helen’s working night and day to keep the money coming in. But you’ve asked Helen to come on a research trip to Dorset with you, knowing that she won’t be able to…to cover up the fact that you’re really taking Lydia. And despite the fact that Lydia gave you an out on the phone, which you didn’t take, you’re having a moral dilemma. Gerry, you are a morality-free zone.

…

Lydia: Gerry, I’m a woman. We don’t say what we want. But we reserve the right to be pissed off if we don’t get it. That’s what makes us so fascinating…and not a little bit scary.

…

Lydia [to Gerry]: I just thought of a great ending for your book…THE END.

…

Anna: Are you okay?
Helen: Yes, just going quietly mad.
Anna: Thank goodness for that. I was worried.

…

Helen [to Gerry]: You wanker. You sad, sad wanker.

…

Russell [to Gerry]: I must say, being friends with you certainly makes the wait for the next episode of “Seinfeld” much easier to bear.

…

James: I mean, don’t think that I have not called you. I haven’t not called you. I mean, I don’t… I don’t mean I haven’t not called you, because that’s a double negative - so as to say that I have called you.
Helen: When did you call?
James: Well, I didn’t. But I…I didn’t not call you in the way that you might think I didn’t call you.

…

Lydia [to Helen]: Sorry, I can’t take the interview just now. I’m discussing whether or not I’m going to keep your boyfriend’s baby.[/b]

The grass is always greener on the other side. So apparently are the palm trees. And given where Noi resides that is never far removed from his mind. Some folks insist there is no such thing as too much snow. Let them live here for a while.

He is a very bright kid but he is stuck in a world [a remote fjord in the North of Iceland] where the options are not very bright at all. So he decides to become a loser instead. And is he ever good at it.

He wants more out of life. Or, okay, maybe he doesn’t. One thing for sure: He is not equiped to get it. See Noi. See Noi rob the bank. See Noi humiliated.

Then he meets Iris. But, as her Pop notes, he really doesn’t have anything to give her. Once she goes back to the big city, she won’t be all that enthralled with what he has to offer in their tiny little town out in the middle of nowhere. Only she never makes it back.

And that brings us to the end of the film. I can tell you this: I never saw it coming. But that’s the way it is: Out of the blue with little or no warning: fate?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noi_the_Albino
trailer: youtu.be/nznx9Xk9zJA

NOI THE ALBINO [Nói albínói] 2003
Written and directed by Dagur Kári

[b]Alfre [after Nói hands in a blank test paper]: Are you handing it in like this?
Nói: Yes.
Alfre: And what mark do you think you’ll get for it?
Nói: Zero?
Alfre: No! You get zero point five for writing your name!
Nói: Really? That’s better than I expected.

…

Oskar: Listen to this: Either you get married or you don’t get married. You will regret both. Laugh at the stupidity of the world. You will regret it. Cry over it; you will also regret it. Either you laugh at the stupidity of the world, or you cry over it. You will regret both. Hang yourself. You will regret it. Don’t hang yourself. You will also regret it. Hang yourself or don’t hang yourself. You will regret both. Either you hang yourself or you don’t hang yourself. You will regret both. This, my dear gentlemen, is the core of all human wisdom.
Noi: What was that?
Oskar: Some fucking piece of bullshit. Kierkegaard… Kierkegaard = Graveyard. That’s a fitting name for such an idiot.

…

Iris [to Noi]: Are you retarded, or what?

…

School psychiatrist: How often do you masturbate?
Noi: Is this a part of the test or just personal interest?
School psychiatrist: Yes, it is…a part of the test.
Noi: How often do you masturbate?
School psychiatrist: You are answering the questions, not me.
Noi: If you answer me, I’ll answer you.

…

Kiddi [to Noi, his son]: Just remember to use a condom. Unwanted children don’t let you know they’re coming.
[then it dawns on him how Noi might take that]
Kiddi: Ah, you know what I mean.

…

David: Noi is sort of here…
Teacher: Sort of here? Either you are here or not. As far as I can see, Noi is clearly not here.
David [pointing to a tape recorder]: He gave me this substitute. He was very busy and couldn’t be here this morning. But he didn’t want to miss anything so he told me to record the whole thing.

…

Diddi: Noi, bring the blood.

…

Noi: Press the button for Iceland.
Iris: It’s not an option. There is no Iceland.
Noi: Look at Iceland. It’s like a spitwad.
Iris: Want to run away?
Noi: Where to?
Iris: Press a button.

…

Kiddi: There’s no music in this fucking piano!!

…

Kiddi [earnestly]: Noi, don’t throw your life away like I did.
Noi: I’ve been expelled from school.
Kiddi: For God’s sake don’t joke with me now, please. I’m trying to honest for once so please don’t joke with me.
Noi: I’m not joking. Those jerks just threw me out.

…

Noi: I have to go see Gylfi. The fortune teller.
Iris: Gylfi the Fortune Teller? What for?
Noi: My grandmother thinks he can see some future for me.
Iris: Come to me instead. I’ll tell you what he sees.
Noi: Can you also see people’s fortune?
Iris: Of course not. It’s just that all fortune tellers in the world always say the same thing.
Noi: And what is that?
Iris: That in the future they see a lot of money and a journey to exotic places, and a new person, that brings love and happiness.
Noi: Sounds good to me.
Iris: Its just what everybody wants to hear, idiot.
Noi: Sounds just like reality to me.
Iris: What do you mean?
Noi: This new person might as well be you, and we have talked about running away to exotic new places. Money is the only thing missing.
Iris: In your dreams.[/b]

Exactly: We’ve come full circle. Time to, uh, rob a bank.

[b]Gylfi: There is nothing but death in this cup.

…

Priest: Now, I don’t know where your belief lies… but I recommend that we say the Lord’s Prayer together.
Nói: I don’t think I know the Lord’s Prayer.
Prestur: Do you know another prayer?
Nói: No.[/b]

Buried alive? Fuck that. Better to be eaten by sharks. Well, if you are me. That final scene from The Vanishing stayed with me for quite some time. Here it’s the whole goddamn movie.

And how often do you come across a film that takes place entirely inside a coffin. From beginning to end.

For starters, you only have so much oxygen. So the more you flick the bic the less there will be. But without it there is total darkness. And the more you panic [or struggle to get out] the more of the oxygen you are gulping down. But how in the hell do you not panic?

You can imagine your mind racing. Over and over and over and over again you explore every inch of the box. Looking for something, anything that might help to get you out.

Then he finds the cell phone. That opens up all sorts of possibilites. But who do you call…and how do you explain your predicament?

And yet through the conversations he has we learn stuff about the Iraqi conflict never readily available reading the New York Times or watching CNN.

IMDb

[b]Ryan Reynolds states that he suffered from claustrophobia towards the end of filming (much like the character he is playing). This was mainly due to the fact the coffin he was in was gradually filled with more and more sand as filming went on. He describes the last day of shooting as “unlike anything I experienced in my life, and I never ever want to experience that again.”

Ryan Reynolds is the only person we see in the flesh. All of the other performances are either voiceovers or recorded on his cell phone. The whole film is shot from the interior of the coffin. We never see the outside world. The film never repeats a single shot. These all make Buried one of the most minimalist films ever made.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buried_(film
trailer: youtu.be/9FGixhjX0ys

BURIED [2010]
Directed by Rodrigo Cortés

[b]Operater: Mr. Conroy, this is the 911 emergency from Youngstown, Ohio.
Paul: Ohio?
Operator: Yes, sir.
Paul: Forget it.

…

Paul: Linda, call me back at the number on the screen. I’m buried in a box. I’m buried in a box.

…

Jabir: American can breathe? No breathe?
Paul: No, I can’t breathe. Please get me out of here.
Jabir: Get out?
Paul: Yes, get me out. Please help.
Jabir: Soldier.
Paul: No, no I’m not a soldier. I’m a truck driver. Just a contractor.
Jabir: Contractor?
Paul: Yeah. A contractor. Not a soldier. I’m just a truck driver. That’s all.
Jabir: Blackwater.
Paul: No. Not for Blackwater. I’m not a security contractor. I’m just a truck driver. That’s all.
Jabir: You are American?
Paul Conroy: Yeah.
Jabir: Then you are soldier.[/b]

Just like all the folks in the Twin Towers. That’s how you rationalize these things.

[b]Jabir: 9 PM., five million, money.

…

State department: Has contact been made with the kidnappers?
Paul: Yeah. The guy says he wants $5 million by 9:00 tonight.
State department: Okay, or else…?
Paul: Or else he’ll take me to SeaWorld. What the hell do you think, lady?!

…

State department: We’ll do everything we can.
Paul: So you’ll pay them then?
State department: No. That we can’t do.
Paul: Wait. Wait. Why not?
State department: It’s the policy of the United States government to not negociate with terrorists.
Paul: Not the policy of the United States government?! Lady, come on! You’re sitting in an air conditioned office…You’re not stuck in a coffin, buried in the goddman desert!!
State department: I understand your frustration.
Paul: FRUSTRATION?! LADY, I’M GOING TO FUCKING DIE IN HERE!

…

Paul: “Situation”. I love how you people keep calling it that.

…

Paul: The government won’t pay you the money. They said they do not negociate with terrorist.
Jibar: Terrorist? I am terrorist?
Paul: Yeah. You’re a terrorist you son of a bitch.
Jibar: You terrified, so I am terrorist?

…

Paul: I am here to do a job. To make money. That’s it.
Jibar: I had a job until you come. Now my family have nothing.
Paul: That’s not my fault.
Jibar: 9/11 was not my fault, but you still here. Saddam was not my fault, but you still here.
Paul: I told you, I’m only here to work. To help rebuild.
Jibar: Rebuild what you destroyed.

…

Paul: I’m not a terrorist.
Ben: Neither are they?
Paul: How do you know?
Ben: If you’re family was homeless, starving…what would you do for them?
Paul: I wouldn’t kill someone.
Ben: How can you be sure?
Paul: What difference does it make?
Ben: They’re criminals, desparate ones at that. They don’t care about anything other than getting the money.
Paul [fiercely]: So pay them, just pay them!
Ben: Trust me, if that was an option, I would do that in a heartbeat.
Paul: How many others have there been?
Ben: Since I got here, dozens. Journalists, contractors, soldiers. Dozens have been taken. One of the only functioning businesses out there.
Paul: How many have you rescued.
[after pause]
Ben: Not many.

…

Dan: …your ransom video already has 47,000 hits on YouTube. Why the hell did you make it? Now your captors have no choice but to follow through!

…

Paul [from CRT]: It’s important we keep this situation as contained as possible.
Dan: The “situation” is in a coffin! I think it’s pretty contained!

…

Dan: I’m sorry, Paul. I’m so sorry.[/b]

Mentally and emotionally I have been to lots of strange, aberrant places. I’ve been neurotic [frequently], depressed, paranoid. I was once diagnosed as bi-polar. I have visited any number of folks who treat these things. I have been prescribed a number of medications. But in order to rid myself of these maladies never, ever have I felt the need to find [let alone serve] anyone or anything analogous to a “Master”—either spiritually or otherwise. So it is hard for me to really empathize with the folks who do. It’s simply a frame of mind I am not familiar with. Even as a Christian I never experienced my faith as in “service” to God. God was just an anchor I could attach “I” to.

Some note there is an [obvious] connection between this film and Scientology:
slate.com/blogs/browbeat/201 … bard_.html

Personally, I can’t even begin to imagine a mind able to go along with something as preposterous as that sort of thing. Yet many, many do. And many of them are hardly lacking otherwise in intelligence. Go figure the places a human mind can – and will – go. At least when it comes to finding the “meaning of life”.

To me, embracing a “spiritual community” like this is sort of just like putting your life [willingly, willfully] into a straitjacket: A proper place for everthing and everything in its proper place. And for lots of folks that can be sublimely comforting.

Why else would someone allow himself to endure the sheer absurdity of “processing” into something like The Cause? Auditing in other words.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_(2012_film
trailer: youtu.be/phozNwKGlp4

THE MASTER [2012]
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

[b]Freddie: What do you do?
Dodd: I do many, many things. I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

…

Freddie: Well, I’m sorry if I got out of hand last night. It was cold and…
Dodd: Don’t apologize. You’re a scoundrel. And as a scientist and a connoisseur, I have no idea the contents of this remarkable potion. What’s in it?
Freddie: Secrets.

…

Dodd: There’s a cycle, like life. Birth, excitement, growth, decay. Death. Now… now. How about this? Here comes, a large dragon. Teeth! Blood dripping! Red eyes! What do I got? A lasso. And I whip it up, I wrap it around its neck, and I wrestle! Wrestle! Wrestle him to the ground. I snap up, I say “Sit, dragon!” Dragon sits. I say “Stay!”, dragon stays. Now it’s got a leash on. Take it for a walk. And that’s what-where we’re at with it now. It stays on command. Next we’re gonna teach it to roll over and play dead.[/b]

Praise God?

[b]Dodd [from a recording]: Man is not an animal. We are not a part of the animal kingdom. We sit far above that crown, perched as spirits, not beasts. You are not ruled by your emotions. It is not only possible but easily achievable that we do away with all negative emotional impulses, and bring man back to his inherent state of perfect.

…

John More [the obligatory skeptic]: Some of this sounds quite like Hypnosis. Is it not?
Dodd: This is a process of dehypnotization, if you will. Man is asleep; this process wakes him from his slumber
John More: I still find it difficult to see the proof with regards to past lives that your movement claims.
Dodd: Would you care to submit yourself to processing? You’d look through the telescope, as my friend said.
John More: Perhaps another time. You’ve also said that these methods, cause methods can cure leukemia. According to your book…
Dodd: Some forms of Leukemia. In being able to access past lives we are able to treat illnesses that may have started back thousands even trillions of years
John More: Trillions?
Dodd: With a tee, sir.
John More [chuckles]: Earth is not understood to be more than a few billion years old.
Dodd: Well even the smartest of our current scientists can be fooled, yes?
John More: You can understand skepticism, Can you not?
Dodd: Yes, Oh yes yes. For without it we’d be positives and no negatives. Therefore zero charge, we must have it.
John More: Good science by definition allows for more than one opinion, doesn’t it?
Dodd: Which is why our gathering of data is so far-reaching.
John More: Otherwise you merely have the will of one man. Which is the basis of cult. Is it not?
Dodd: Tis, tis. And thankfully we are, all of us, working at breakneck speeds, in the unison towards capturing the mind’s fatal flaws and correcting it back to its inherent state of perfect. While righting civilization and eliminating war and poverty and therefore the atomic threat.
Jon More [chuckling]: Well, I find it difficult to comprehend, or more to the point believe, that you believe, sir, that time travel hypnosis therapy can bring world peace and cure cancer.

…

John More: I belong to no club, and if you’re unwilling to allow any discussion…
Dodd: No, this isn’t a discussion, it’s a grilling! There’s nothing I can do for you, if your mind has been made up. You seem to know the answers to your questions, why do you ask?
John More: I’m sorry you’re unwilling to defend your beliefs in any kind of rational…
Dodd: If, if you already know the answers to your questions, then why ask PIG FUCK? We are not helpless. And we are on a journey that risks the dark. If you don’t mind, a good night to you.

…

Peggy [reacting to More, to the skeptics]: And this is where we are at. At the lowest level. To have to explain ourselves, for what? For what we do, we have to grovel? The only way to defend ourselves is to attack. If we don’t do that we will lose every battle that we are engaged in. We will never dominate our environment the way we should unless we attack! And the city, city’s just noise. I know the city. I know its rotten secrets, its filthy lies and secrets. They… invited us here and welcomed us. Only to throw us down. And kick us out. It’s a grim joke.

…

Peggy [to her husband while masterbating him]: You can do whatever you want…as long as I don’t find out. And as long as no one that I know knows about it. Other than that, stop with this idea. Put it back in its pants. It didn’t work for them and it’s not going to work for you. We have enough problems as it is. Can you come for me?
Dodd: Oh, yes.
Peggy: Okay, come for me. Come for me.

…

Val [to Freddie]: He’s making all of this up as he goes along. You don’t see that?

…

Dodd [Lancaster and Freddie have been imprisoned in two separate cells, sharing a wall]: Your fear of capture and imprisonment is an implant from millions of years ago. This battle has been with you from before you know. This is not you.
Quell: SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Dodd: It’s not you.
Freddie: SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!
Dodd: It’s not you. You are asleep. Your spirit was free. Moving from body, to the next body. Free. Free for a moment. Then it was captured by an invader force, bent on turning you to the darkest way, you’ve been implanted with a push-pull mechanism that keeps you fearful of authority and destructive. We are in the middle of a battle that’s a trillion years in the making and it’s bigger than the both of us!
Freddie: You’re making this shit up! You make this shit up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!

…

Peggy: This is difficult for you, listen.
[she begins reading Victorian pornography]
Peggy: “It’s really a damn shame to tease you so, my little whore, he laughed. So I will get the dildo out of my cabinet in the next room. He was scarcely gone many seconds before he returned and I felt his fingers opening the lips of my cunt. Oh oh ah who is that? I screamed for my…”
Freddie: I don’t want to hear any of this.
Peggy: Just listen, no reaction.
[reading]
Peggy: “Kiss her, put your tongue in her mouth, my boy. Fuck, fuck, fuck away.”

…

Peggy [to Freddie]: The Cause is something you do for a billion years or not at all. It’s not a fashion.
[she turns to Dodd]
Peggy: This is pointless. He isn’t interested in getting better.

…

Dodd: Free winds and no tyranny for you, Freddie, sailor of the seas. You pay no rent, free to go where you please. Then go, go to that landless latitude and good luck. If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you’d be the first in the history of the world.

…

Dodd: If you leave here, I don’t ever want to see you again. Or you can stay.
Freddie: Maybe in the next life.
Dodd: If you leave me now, in the next life you will be my sworn enemy. And I will show you no mercy.[/b]

I still like Ringo Starr’s rendition best. Asked if he was a mod or a rocker he said, “I’m a mocker.” To the best of my recollection.

More myths behind the music. Either reinforced or exposed. It’s all the same to me since I couldn’t care less what’s behind it. Only that it exists at all. And who would really want to live in a world without the music of folks like, say, David Bowie.

Or Iggy Pop. Or Kurt Cobain.

Glam rock? Okay, let’s make a buck on that! Kids have to go out and buy whole new sets of clothes, records, posters, gear. But it really did create an entirely new platform for folks to explore themselves sexually. To rethink gender norms. Gay, straight, bi?

Yeah, I like boys, I like girls. They’re all great. There’s no difference is there, Mr BBC.

You listen to the music [at the time] and you think: This is going to change the world! And it doesn’t even change you. Not really. You just go on to the next “new wave”. It’s only a matter of either figuring or not figuring this out.

Look for money. It’s everywhere. And certainly explains the advent of punk and hardcore. That still doesn’t make the music here shit though.

Or maybe this is all just a remake of Citizen Kane.

IMDb

[b]Much of the dialog comes from Oscar Wilde’s writings.

The Curt Wild character is mainly inspired by David Bowie’s relationship with two American 1960’s underground rockers whose careers Bowie resurrected, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Iggy Pop hailed from Michigan and shared Wild’s long blond locks, while Reed underwent shock therapy for bisexuality as a teen and was rumored to have had an affair with Bowie before their falling out after Bowie produced Reed’s album Transformer.

Courtney Love considered supplying music to the film’s soundtrack, however after viewing a rough cut she withdrew, claiming that the character of Curt Wild too closely resembled her late husband Kurt Cobain both in character and physicality. The Wild/Cobain parallel later became a much-discussed point among critics, and while director Todd Haynes and actor Ewan McGregor have noted similarities between Cobain and Wild, both claim the resemblance was unintended. Haynes, for his part, notes that Cobain borrowed many style traits from Iggy Pop, who served as partial basis for the Wild character.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Goldmine
trailer: youtu.be/FRY9K78uDRs

VELVET GOLDMINE [1998]
Written in part and directed by Todd Haynes

[b]Title Card: Although what you are about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless be played at maximum volume.

…

Child’s voice: Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man that wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
How I wish he’d go away.

…

Teacher reading to class: “There were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history was merely a record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act and circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it has been in his brain and in his passions. He felt that he had know them all, those strange, terrible figures that had passed along the stage of life, and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed that in some mysterious way, their lives had been his own…”

…

Cecil [voiceover]: Brian despised the hypocrisy of the peace and love generation and felt his music spoke far more to its orphans and its outcasts. His revolution, he used to say, will be a sexual one. But in 1970, rock audiences bred on Credence Clearwater and the Beatles were not entirely sure what to make of this particular brand of revolt.

…

Brian [after Curt Wild has exposed himself to an audience]: They despised him.
Mandy: Yeah…
Brian: I wish I’d thought of it.

…

Mandy: No, right after everything crashed we…we split…And Brian, he just became someone else. But then he always was.

…

Mandy [voiceover]: It was New Year’s Eve 1969: the start of a new decade, and everywhere you went there was this sense of the future, the feeling in the air that anything was possible.

…

Brian [to reporter]: I should think that if people were to get the wrong impression of me, the one to which you so eloquently refer, it wouldn’t be the wrong impression in the slightest.

…

Mandy [voiceover]: For the first time in Brian’s life, he was simply telling it like it was. Did he realize what he’d actually done? How could he have? I mean today, there’d be fighting in the streets. But in 1972…it was more like dancing.

…

Jerry Divine: That man sitting over there in the white suit is the biggest thing to come out of this country since sliced Beatles.

…

Freddie: The first duty in life is to assume a pose. What the second duty is no one has yet found out.

…

Mandy: What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.

…

Brian: Man is least himself when he talks in his own person…Give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.

…

Mandy: It’s funny how beautiful people are when they’re walking out the door.

…

Mandy: Now, just because someone sees, you know, two naked people asleep in bed together, it doesn’t necessarily prove sex was involved. It does, however, make for a very strong case.

…

Mandy: It was the idea of Curt more than anything, this – image. Which, of course, no one could ever possibly live up to. I mean Maxwell Demon, Curt Wild – they were fictions! Somewhere along the way, though, Brian seemed to get lost in the lie.

…

Malcolm: I don’t believe that there is much of a future to speak of.
Pearl: We’re in a bit of a decadent spiral, aren’t we?
Billy: Sinking fast.
Ray: Big Brother, baby, all the way.
Malcolm: Which is why we prefer impressions to ideas.
Billy: Situations to subjects.
Pearl: Brief flights to sustained ones.
Ray: Exceptions to types.
Pearl: And yourself?
Arthur: Well, I’m just looking for a room at the moment.

…

Mandy [to Arthur]: I mean…I knew it was over. I just didn’t know it was up to me to make it stop.

…

Mandy: You live in terror of not being misunderstood.

…

Brian: Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

…

Curt: We set out to change the world…ended up just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What’s wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing, if you don’t look at the world.[/b]

Based on a true story.

Say that to some folks though and they will come at you with baseball bats. It seems this film sparked a “forur” among some regarding just how accurately Jackie Du Pre was portrayed. In particular within the community of folks who worked with her. And even within the family itself.

One chooses fame and fortune, the other domestic bliss. Or as much as one can choose these things. In order to truly excel at something like this [prodigy or not] you must be willing to sacrifice practically everything else. Your life revolves almost entirely around the practice it takes to become this good. Is it worth it? Jackie the star, Hilary the homemaker. And both in love with the same man. Though he is only married to one of them.

There is no way a two-hour movie can even begin to explore the complexities of the relationship between Jackie and Hilary. And then Jackie and Hilary and Kiffer. And you’ll just end up filling in the holes with your own prejudices anyway. Suffice it to say that the crux of the matter is not lust but love.

And then Jackie is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Of course, it must be all the worse when you have so much more to lose. What a terrible fucking disease.

As for the final scene – “I just wanted to tell you that everything is going to be all right” – what could possibly be more absurd?

An aside:

Life is most unfair to children. How so? Well, some have childhoods like these while others have childhoods like mine. And then some have childhoods like mine while others are slowly dying from starvation. In the end, what else is there: FUCK YOU, GOD!
Sorry, that just came out of the blue. But, really, is there anything else you can fall back on?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_and_Jackie
trailer: youtu.be/Xtvk1TDk-Ao

HILARY AND JACKIE [1998]
Directed by Anand Tucker

[b]Jackie [mid-recital]: Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I have broken my A string.
[she leaves stage]
Jackie: At least it wasn’t my G string.

…

Jackie: You don’t have to marry him. Look, do you know what that is? That, my dear, is a Dutch cap. It’s a contraceptive.
Hilary: Is it really? Hmm. Where did you get it?
Jackie: Doc fitted me up. Oh, come on, Hils. Let’s get a flat together and go bonkers. We could have all the men we wanted to.
Hilary: I’m going to marry Kiffer. I love him. He loves me.
Jackie: He does not love you. He just wants to get into your knickers. You don’t have to get married every time you fancy a screw. That’s what these are for.
Hilary: I want to get married.
Jackie: Well, you can’t marry him. You can’t just leave me.
Hilary: I’m not leaving you. You’re not here anymore. You never will be again.
Jackie: Haven’t you heard? I’m giving up the cello.
Hilary: Oh, don’t be silly.
Jackie: I can do what I want.
Hilary: But you don’t know anything apart from the cello. I don’t know anything apart from the flute. We’re babies, Jacks.[/b]

And there it is: the turning point.

[b]Hilary: Kiffer makes me feel special.
Jackie: That’s a big swizz, because the truth is…you’re not special.

…

Jackie: You know what I’m thinking now, don’t you, sis?
Hialry: Not really.
Jackie: Yes, you do.
Hilary: No, I don’t.
Jackie: I’ll tell you.
[Jackie gets up and walks over to Hilary, who is next to Kiffer…she bends over and whispers in Hilary’s ear]
Jackie: I want to sleep with Kiffer. You don’t mind, do you, sis? We always did say that we’d share everything, remember?
Kiffer: What? What is it?
Hilary: Nothing. I think we should all go to bed.

…

Hilary: We have to.
Kiffer: No, we don’t have to. Why would anyone have to?
Hilary: Because she’s my sister.
Kiffer: Yes, well, I think you’ll find that this is not the sort of thing that sisters normally ask one another.
Hilary: I’m sure it would just be the once.
Kiffer: Just the once, huh? Any particular position?
Hilary: She just needs proof.
Kiffer: Proof of what, for god’s sake?
Hilary: Proof that somebody loves her.

…

Jackie [after sleeping with Kiffer]: I feel a million dollars this morning. That was exactly what the doctor ordered![/b]

But then:

Hilary: Get off me Kiffer! She’ll hear us! She’ll never talk to me again now.
Kiffer: You’ve got to start saying no to her. The more you give her, the more she wants. You’ve got to start saying no to her.

So she does…

[b]Hilary: I’ve given you everything. Ever since we were little, everything you’ve asked for I’ve said yes. Jackie, listen. Jackie…Jackie…Jackie…I’m sorry.

…

Jackie [a younger Jackie]: It’s just, um…it’s just the cello. Well, it’s silly, really. I just don’t want to be a cellist after all. Well, I never asked to be a cellist, you see? It’s all just a big cock-up. One day, I was just playing, and then the next day, I was booked up for the next 2 years. I hate the cello, if you want to know.

…

Hilary [to Jackie]: If you think being an ordinary person is any easier than being an extraordinary one, you’re wrong.

…

Hilary [to Jackie]: If you didn’t have that cello to prop you up, you’d be nothing.[/b]

Back in time…

[b]Jackie: Would you still love me if I couldn’t play?
Daniel: What?
Jackie: Would you still love me if I couldn’t play?
Daniel: You wouldn’t be you if you couldn’t play.
Jackie: No, I want to know.
Daniel: Our bodies sway to music/Oh, brightening glance/how can we know/the dancer from the dance?

…

Jackie: Don’t you wish sometimes that you couldn’t play, that you could just be ordinary?
Daniel: Like what? Live in the country? Making bread? Feeding chickens? Playing once a year with a bunch of amateurs?
Jackie: How dare you insult my sister like that.
Daniel: I wasn’t insulting her.
Jackie: Well, at least she chose her life. Not like you and me. We’re just trained freaks.[/b]

That’s when she just takes off. That’s when she returns to Hilary. To kiffer. Both are musicians in turn. Both are trained and exceptional musicians. Just not stars.

[b]Jackie [to Dame Margot]: Hilary keeps chickens. She used to be a musician, but now it’s all chickens and children, isn’t it?
Dame Margot: I would so like to have had children.
Jackie: Hilary’s got heaps of them. In fact, if you want to get yourself impregnated, you should ask her hubby. He’s extremely fertile, and if you ask her nicely, she’ll lend him to you.

…

Jackie: Danny, I just want to play again. I’ll play the fucking triangle. I just want to make music again.

…

Jackie [to her mother]: When…you play…everyone… loves you. When you stop…you’re alone.

…

Daniel: I don’t understand what she wants. I think she’s in some sort of pain.
Rabbi: There are things you want to say. I can see that. But you cannot say them. We cannot understand them. But there is someone who hears your thoughts. Do not worry. God hears them all. He hears your every thought.
[Jackie then screams out in agony and rage][/b]

Nothing is as it seems. So expect to be confused at times. For some, all the way to the end. The closest you come is in speculating on what might be true. And where could this possibly be more appropriate than in a prison for the criminally insane. On the other hand, how far is it really from the perspectives of all the rest of us? Of course in order to understand that you have to think like I do. So you don’t.

Well, do you?

One look at the place and you know this: some really, really creepy shit goes on. After all, if you are going to conduct experiments involving aberrant human behavior, who are these folks to protest? If you are.

But it has often been noted there is a correlation between insanity and high intelligence. And that certainly seems to make sense from my perspective. Besides, here you can never really be entirely certain if the patients are more or less dangerous than the staff. Or even which is which. Then the past gets all tangled up in the present and the island all tangled up in the war. But occasionally it is also intertwined in the actual historical paradigm shifts that have occured in the field of psychiatric care. All the competeing “schools” as it were.

Anyway, this takes place back in the 1950’s. The powers that be were ever intent on undermining the Commies. So, do I have to draw you a picture?

In other words: How paranoid do we really have to be about the government? Very. Last night PBS aired a documentary on the history of comic books in America. Comic books? Believe it or not, the government is written all over them.

To wit: Just because this guy is crazy doesn’t mean the stuff he believes is true is not true. It’s only a matter of degree.

So, anyway: At the end, who is fooling who?
One take on it: screenrant.com/shutter-island-sp … vic-46052/

IMDb

[b]The quote “remember us for we too have lived, loved and laughed” seen on a plaque on the way to the mental institution is taken from Medfield’s Vine Lake Cemetery. A contest was held to come up with an quote to be used on a stone marker as a remembrance of those who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic known as the Spanish flu.

The title “Shutter Island” is an anagram of both “Truths and Lies” and “Truths / Denials”.[/b]

FAQs at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt1130884/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_Island_(film
trailer: youtu.be/rf8XLSYN42g

SHUTTER ISLAND [2010]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Teddy [to the deputy warden]: You act like insanity is catching.

…

Dr. Cawley: Those paintings are quite accurate. Used to be the kind of patients we deal with here were shackled and left in their own filth. They were beaten, as if whipping them bloody would drive the psychosis out. We drove screws into their brains, we submerged them in ice water until they lost consciousness or…or even drowned.
Chuck: And now?
Dr. Cawley: We treat them. Try to heal, try to cure.

…

Dr. Cawley [regarding Rachel]: We don’t know how she got out of her room. It was locked from the outside. And the only window’s barred. It’s as if she evaporated, straight through the walls.

…

Teddy: Seriously, Doctor, how is it possible that the truth never gets through to her? I mean, she’s in a mental institution, right? Seems like something you’d notice from time to time.
Dr. Cawley: Sanity’s not a choice, Marshall. You can’t just choose to get over it.

…

Dr. Cawley [examines Rachel’s note]: Ah, this is definitely Rachel’s handwriting. I have no idea… what the “Law of Four” is, though.
Teddy: It’s not a psychiatric term?
Dr. Cawley: No, I’m afraid not.
Chuck [reads the note]: “Who is 67?” Fucked if I know.
Dr. Cawley: I have to say that’s quite close to my clinical conclusion.

…

Teddy: Anything unusual occur?
Nurse Marino: Define ‘unusual’.
Teddy: Excuse me?
Nurse Marino: This is a mental institution, Marshal. For the criminally insane. Usual isn’t a big part of our day.

…

Dr. Naehring: Men like you are my specialty, you know. Men of violence.
Chuck: Now, that’s a hell of an assumption to make.
Dr. Naehring: No assumption, no, not at all. You misunderstand me. I said, you are ‘men of violence’. I’m not accusing you of being violent men. That’s quite different.

…

Chuck: You’re bluffing?
Teddy: I didn’t say that.

…

Dr. Cawley: Do you know the state of the mental health field these days, gentlemen?
Teddy: No, not a clue, Doctor.
Dr. Cawley: War. The old school believes in surgical intervention. Psychosurgurery. Procedures like transorbital lobotomies. Some say the patients become reasonable, docile. Others say they become zombies.
Teddy: And the new school?
Dr. Cawley: Psychopharmacology. A new drug has just been approved called Thorazine which relaxes psychotic patients, you could say tames them.

…

Chuck: Everything about this place stinks of governments ops. What if they wanted you here?
Teddy: Bullshit!
Chuck: You were asking questions about it.
Teddy: Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!
Chuck: We came here for Rachel Solandes. Where’s one shred of evidence she even existed?
Teddy: There’s no way they could have known I’d be assigned to this case.
Chuck: What if while you were looking into them, they were looking into you?

…

Noyce [to Teddy]: This is a game. All of this is for you. You’re not investigating anything. You’re a fucking rat in a maze.

…

Rachel: You think I’m crazy. And if I say I’m not crazy? Well, that hardly helps, does it? That’s the Kafkaesque genius of it. People tell the world you’re crazy, and all your protests to the contrary just confirm what they’re saying.
Teddy: I’m not following you, sorry.
Rachel: Once you’re declared insane, then anything you do is called part of the insanity. Reasonal protests are denials. Valid protest, paranoia.

…

Rachel [to Teddy]: Fifty years from now, people will look back and say, “Here, at this place, is where it all began. The Nazis used the Jews, Soviets used prisoners in their own Gulags. And we - we tested patients on Shutter Island.”

…

Warden: Did you enjoy God’s latest gift?
Teddy: What?
Warden: God’s gift. Your violence.
[Teddy looks at him blankly]
Warden: When I came downstairs in my home, and I saw that tree in my living room, it reached out for me…a divine hand. God loves violence.
Teddy: I… I hadn’t noticed.
Warden: Sure you have. Why else would there be so much of it? It’s in us. It’s what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices, and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor.
Teddy: I thought God gave us moral order.
Warden: There’s no moral order as pure as this storm. There’s no moral order at all. There’s just this: can my violence conquer yours?
Teddy: I’m not violent.
Warden: You’re as violent as they come. I know this, because I’m as violent as they come. If the constraints of society were lifted, and I was all that stood between you and a meal, you would crack my skull with a rock and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn’t you?

…

Warden: If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy: Give it a try.
Warden: That’s the spirit.

…

Dr. Naehring: Did you know that the word ‘trauma’ comes from the Greek for ‘wound’? Hm? And what is the German word for ‘dream’? Traum. Ein Traum. Wounds can create monsters, and you, you are wounded, Marshal. And wouldn’t you agree, when you see a monster, you… you must stop it?
Teddy: Yeah… I agree.
[he injects him with a sedative]

…

Teddy: If you ever loved me Dolores, please stop talking.

…

Teddy: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck: Yeah, what’s that, boss?
Teddy: Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?[/b]

Documentaries like this are being made all the time. And, really, nothing much changes at all. So, what does that tell you about “the system”?

Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andrew Fastow, Arthur Anderson, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney. You tell me: In this tale, where does one end and the others begin? Crony Capitalism.

And just on the horizon: Lehman Brothers, the subprime mortgage crisis and the near collapse of the global economy. And still nothing changes.

Enron was a house of cards. It took them 16 years to become the 7th largest corporation in America…and 24 days to go bankrupt. It embodied a gigantic scandal that [like Bernie Madoff et al] could only have a unfolded in a privileged world where those on the inside pull the strings. Or the most important ones. And without government knowledge – acts of omission, acts of comission – this sort of thing is almost impossible to pull off. Smoke and mirrors? Come on. Enron is hardly just an aberration here.

To regulate or not to regulate is never the question. It is always a question of striking a balance. But when the game is rigged and the deck is stacked, the “balance” will only be calculated to serve the interest of a few. And most of us aren’t them. Government, as Reagan was fond of pointing out, was not the solution to our problems…governemnt was the problem. Well it certainly could be in collusion with folks like Ken Lay. And put him in the same room with Bush 41 Bush 43 and Dick Cheney and…well the rest is history.

Mark to market accounting anyone? And why not? The bottom line can be whatever you say it is. Then when it came time for the “real money” to make an appearance project “pump and dump” was already in full swing.

Then there’s Enron in California: “There would be ample supple available at the right fucking price.” Listen to the tapes of the Enron traders here. The abject misery that so many people endured is just one big fucking joke to these assholes. Then as a result of this phoney “energy crisis” Gray Davis is kicked out and Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected.

Crooks and idiots. More often than not both.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The … n_the_Room
trailer: youtu.be/0zMakN-EMLg

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM [2005]
Written in part and directed by Alex Gibney

[b]Congressman [to Skilling at hearing]: In the Titanic the captain went down with the ship. In Enron, it looks to me like the captain first gave himself and some friends a bonus and lowered himself and the top folks down into a lifeboat and then hollored up, “oh by the way, everything is going to be just fine”.

…

Narrator: Beyond the financial issue, some suspected a political conspiracy. Enron had been the largest corporate contributor to the first presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

…

Narrator: When Jeff Skilling applied to Harvard business school the professor asked him if he was smart. He replied, “I’m fucking smart”. One of his favorite books was The Selfish Gene about the ways human nature is steered by greed and competition in the service of passing on our genes.[/b]

He used to say that money was the only thing that motivated people. Capitalism here is aligned with human nature in other words. Nurture apparently has nothing to do with it.

[b]Trader at Enron [on the the survival of the fittest mentality pervasive there]: If I’m on my way to the boss’s office to talk about my compensation and if I step on somebody’s throat along the way that doubles it, I’ll stomp on the guy’s throat. That’s how people were.

…

Narrator: The game was called “pump and dump”. Top execs would push the stock price up and then cash in their mult-million dollar options.

…

Analyst: You are the only financial institution that can’t produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings…
Skilling: You, you, you… Well, uh… thank you very much. We appreciate it… asshole.

…

Calif. Gov. Gray Davis: I’m going to get the $9 billion dollars back that Enron stole from us.[/b]

And we know what happened to him.

Narrator: The year long energy crisis in California would cost the state $30 billion dollars.

And it was all just a fake crisis brought on by Enron in order to make obscene profits. What to do? Turn it into a fucking joke:

[b]Skilling: Oh I can’t help myself. You know what the difference between the state of California and Titanic? And this is being webcast, and I know I’m going to regret this - at least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on.

…

Sherron Watkins: August 14th, 2001, Skilling abruptly resigns. Well that made me angry and it made loads of employees angry. It was a real sense of betrayal by the employees. This was Jim Jones feeding us the kool-aid and then deciding not to drink it himself.

…

Lay [Q&A session with employees]: All right, we are down to questions. And I got a few that were sent up here.
[he reads a question from the floor]
Lay: ‘I would like to know if you are on crack, if so that would explain a lot. If not, you may want to start because it’s going to be a long time before we trust you again.’

…

Commentator: I’ve thought about this and it couldn’t have been just a few executives at Enron that made this happen. If you think of the banks involved…Chase, Morgan, Citi-Bank…the billions in loans…Arthur Anderson…the lawyers…there had to have been complicity across the board.[/b]

Just follow the path. Or go off the beaten one. The one where you don’t risk running into any “tourists”. The one where you might get lost and die. That’s because just like that you can go from endless options to bare survival.

But at the time they were figuring any path at all will lead them eventually to “the thing”.

Them: Two guys who call each other Gerry. Two guys who use the expression “to gerry”. To gerry: to fuck up. And boy do they ever. For example: they trek though the desert with no water.

Then there’s THE MOMENT: that’s the one when they first realize they are completely lost out in the middle of nowhere. Then there is THE MOMENT when they realize they could very well DIE out there.

Needless to say for some this will only be worth watching if they find the desert beautiful. Why? Because that’s really all there is: Two guys walking through the desert from beginning to end. Lost.

But if you come to like them you’ll stay until the end if only to see if they survive. And the ending is truly heartbreaking. Just think of your own best friend. And then think of the two of you being the two of them.

IMDb

This film, Elephant and Last Days form Gus Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” which he edited himself. This film centers on death at the hands of one’s best friend.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_(2002_film
trailer: youtu.be/5LHKhsXvjMo

GERRY [2002]
Directed by Gus Van Sant

[b]Gerry: Hey, Gerry, the path.

…

Gerry: Hiking moms on the trail?
Gerry: It’s just gonna be. It’s all tourists up there.
Gerry: Well how far is the thing.
Gerry: We’re halfway there. Let’s go this way, man. Everything’s gonna lead to the same place.
Gerry: Just loop around. Do our own fresh route.
Gerry: Yeah.

…

Gerry: Fuck the thing.
Gerry: Yeah. Fuck the thing.
Gerry: It’s just going to be the thing at the end of the trail.
Gerry: Yeah, let’s go back.

…

Gerry: Where you going?
Gerry [his voice breaking]: I don’t know!

…

Gerry [after several minutes of walking in complete silence]: Fuck you.
Gerry: Fuck you.

…

Gerry: I’m leaving…[/b]

For some mysterious reason women are unable to give birth. But then one does. And yet given the state of the world – dystopian down to the bone for some – is this really such a good thing? After all there are any number of folks who insist they would never bring a child into a world this fucked up. And others will tell you the planet could only be better off with the extinction of the human race.

Here the whole world has crumbled into chaos. Only the Brits “soldier on”. And, as a result, they have a rather significant problem with immigrants. Britain apparently is what now passes for “civilization”. If you can call a virtual police state civilized.

And yet isn’t this what [increasingly] more and more people are predicting? The end of the world as we know it. A new world where only the fittest will survive. In their minds there are only two kinds of people: those who are preparing for it and those who are not. We’ve got a few of the former right here, don’t we? Kids mostly. In fact, they can’t wait for the world to come crashing down!

Here though it’s hard to distinguish which is worse: the authorities or the masses. And while one might think the world would celebrate – united – the first child born in 20 years, the mother is a “fugee”. And black. And that equals terrorism.

The contrast is stark: The world they experience and the willingness to bring a child into it. Something about the human species [through the Human Project] going gack to square one: back to Africa. I can just imagine the reaction of the fascists in here!

IMDb

[b]When Miriam (Pam Ferris) is taken off the bus at Bexhill, the camera pans by several cages with prisoners inside. One of them is the infamous “hooded man” from the Abu Ghraib prison torture pictures. He is seen in the exact pose as the real pictures.

Michael Caine based his performance on John Lennon.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men
trailer: youtu.be/BA3JTWAeZ2A

CHILDREN OF MEN [2006]
Written in part and directed by Alfonso Cuarón

[b]Jasper [to Theo as a bus passes them]: Illegal immigrants. Taking them to Bexhill. Poor fugees. After escaping the worst atrocities and finally making it to England, our government hunts them hown like cockroaches.

…

Theo: The Human Project, why do people believe this crap? You know even if these people existed with these facilities in these secret locations, fuck me, that’s strong! Even if they discovered the cure for infertility, doesn’t matter! Too late. World went to shit. Know what? It was too late before the infertility thing happened, for fuck’s sake.[/b]

I’m with him.

[b]Jasper: Ok, the Human Project gives this great, big dinner for all the scientists and sages in the world. They’re tossing around theories about the ultimate mystery: why are all the women infertile? Why can’t we make babies anymore? So, some say it’s genetic experiments, gamma rays, pollution, same ol’, same ol’. So, anyway, in the corner, this Englishman’s sitting, he hasn’t said a word, he’s just tuckin’ in his dinner. So, they decide to ask him, they say, “Well, why do you think we can’t make babies anymore?” And he looks up at ‘em, he’s chewin’ on this great big wing and he says “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said, “but this stork is quite tasty isn’t he?”

…

Theo: Julian? I haven’t seen you in twenty years. You look good. The picture the police have of you doesn’t do you justice.
Julian: What do the police know about justice?

…

Theo: I don’t talk politics.
Julian: That’s all you ever used to do.
Theo: That was 20 years ago. I’m a lot more successful now.

…

Theo: A hundred years from now there won’t be one sad fuck to look at any of this. What keeps you going?
Nigel: You know what it is, Theo? I just don’t think about it.

…

Theo [about Kee’s name choice for her unborn child]: This is the first baby born in 20 years and you want to name it Froley?

…

Miriam: It’s all part of a bigger thing.[/b]

There are the kids who need to be protected and the police unit assigned to provide this protection. They both take a toll here.

This is filmed as a docudrama. The characters are actors but the stories are true. All too terribly true. It is based on actual cases handled by the Paris CPU [Child Protection Unit].

All major cities have these sordid underbellies. But Paris is not one that immediately comes to mind. The city of love? Tell that to these folks.

Let’s face it, when sex is turned into a commodity it is going to be everywhere. Sex sells. So you are bombarded with it. It is hardly ever far from your mind. And some minds are more twisted than others. The minds of men in particular. So expect all manner of unseemly consequences.

And over there like over here kids can be used by parents to get back at each other. And sometimes that includes accusations of sexual abuse. What is true and what is not? Or the really surreal cases. The woman who “jerks off” her young son each night because it’s the only way to get him to fall asleep. She seems genuinely startled when the police tell her this is a sex crime.

Or families that are ripped apart when the parents exploit their own children for money and then the children are taken away from them. It’s not like the children love their parents less. Or even the parents, the children. It’s all about the money. About subsistence. At least from their frame of mind. Or surely some of them.

Of course, it’s not always about sex. Children can need protection from the adult world for any number of reasons. The parents are junkies, or beat them, or neglect to feed them, or leave them alone for hours [days] at a time. And sometimes the adults themselves are left dangling in the system: victims of poverty, racism, homelessness, a lack of jobs, being immigrants. The children are just along for the ride.

All the cops can do then is deal with the consequences that flow from the bigger picture. If that isn’t changed nothing they do will. They can only have the satisfaction of helping one child at a time. Of course if the problems were tackled systemically they would be out of a job. And that would be fine with them. There are plenty of other ways to be a cop.

And then there are the kids who choose to do these things [they will tell you] of their own free will:

Kid: Back in the day you waited for marriage, had sex when you were 20, but life’s changed now. The old days are gone, Louis XIV and all! Life is this now. Aged 14 you suck and you fuck and you live! Watch some TV, try to get with it!

And forget about the gaps in communication that revolve around religion and culture:

CPU agent: You won’t talk to me because I’m a woman?
Muslim man [about to marry off his young daughter]: Shame on you. Go home and look after your husband and kids.
CPU agent: Shame on me? Don’t talk to me like that! Respect, okay? You’re sure you read the Qu’ran? Prove it.
[she holds out a copy of it]
CPU agent: Tell me, if you’re a man and a good Muslim, tell me just where it says a father can force his daughter to marry. Show me. You think you can teach me about the Qu’ran? Where does it say a woman isn’t allowed to work? Show me! You call yourself a Muslim?! You taint us! The Qu’ran teaches respect? Got it?

IMDb

The French word for Police is spelled and said the same as in English. The title “Polisse” sounds like “police” and it is written as a child would do.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polisse
trailer: youtu.be/PbXbO2iYxEA

POLISSE [2011]
Written in part and directed by Maïwenn

Prepare or die!

Preppers. They’re everywhere these days. Or they are if you subscribe to cable television. And why not. There are so many potential threats out there. Consider: asteroids, comets, CMEs, a supernova, a supervolcano, a megatsunami, runaway climate change, a freak weather event, a viral pandemic, a nuclear war, a gamma ray burst, an economic implosion, a societal collapse…even something they call “grey goo”.

So, sure, take shelter.

Of course the calamity can also originate from inside your own mind. Disturbing dreams, for example. An apocalyptic mental illness. Once we go down this road though we always have to wonder: is it real…or is it all just in his head? And once it gets stuck in there it can come at you from all directions. You start to see what you believe. And not believe what others tell you they see.

Here you have to take shelter from yourself. Good luck with that. And good luck for those around you.

This is one of those movies that will spark debate: What happened at the end? What does the end of the movie mean? Some folks hate ambiguity. Some can’t get enough of it.

Oh, and you also get another look at health care in America. The part about how some just can’t afford to actually need it. Or barely can.

IMDb

[b]Tova Stewart, the little girl who plays Hannah, is deaf in real life. And so are both her parents.

Michael Shannon purposely didn’t read up on mental illnesses before taking on the role as Curtis, as this is something the character himself knew little about.

As it is mentioned in the DVD special features, the extras in the group lunch at the Lion’s Club were only told they would get free lunch and be in a movie. They had no idea the scene would escalate to a physical fight and (seemingly) psychotic rant.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Shelter
trailer: youtu.be/I5U4TtYpKIc

TAKE SHELTER [2011]
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols

[b]Curtis [talking about Hanna, his deaf daughter]: I still take off my boots not to wake her.
Samantha [whispering]: And I still whisper.

…

Curtis [to the family]: I’m thinking about cleaning up that storm shelter out back.

…

Curtis [paying for a prescription]: How much is it?
Clerk: $47.92.
Curtis: How much is the co-pay?
Clerk: That is the co-pay.

…

Curtis [at counselor’s office]: Out of the five possible symptoms needed to be diagnosed with schizophrenia – delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behvior and the negative symptoms – I’ve had two. Delusions and hallucinations.
[the counselor looks at him…startled]
Curtis: So, I took this quiz in the back of the book. I scored a five out of a possible 20. Schizophrenia starts at 12. So they say it might be a brief psychotic disorder.[/b]

It seems his mother was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia when she was 30. He’s now 35.

[b]Samantha [watching Curtis dig the shelter]: Are you out of your mind?!

…

Curtis [to Samantha]: You gonna leave me?

…

Curtis [ranting angrily at a roomful of neighbors]: You think I’m crazy? Well, listen up, there’s a storm coming like nothing you’ve ever seen, and not a one of you is prepared for it. Sleep well in your beds. 'Cause if this thing comes true, there ain’t gonna be any more.

…

Curtis: Sam?
Samantha: Okay.[/b]

This comes about as close as a mainstream movie is ever likely to in exposing what goes on behind the scenes in most top drawer American elections. Like the song says:

Presidential elections are planned distractions
To divert attention from the action behind the scenes
Like a game of chess when the house is a mess
Or a petty money squabble when your marriage is in trouble
Or a football game when there’s rioting in the streets
youtu.be/BbT1PJsTVkU

It’s a scenario cynics like me dream of: Some nationally known candidate [here a Senator] has nothing left to lose so he runs a political campaign predicated solely on what he actually believes is true and not what his handlers insist he must stump on based on the latest polls. Or in alignment with the wishes of his biggest campaign contributers.

Imagine a televised campaign debate where a candidate says this to the celebrity newswoman from the corporate media:

Come on, why are you here? Admit it. It’s because you make a bundle. Come on, come on. We got three pretty rich guys here getting paid by some really rich guys to ask a couple of other rich guys questions about their campaigns. But our campaigns are financed by the same guys that pay you guys your money!

The plot is totally absurd but no more absurd than the actual election campaigns we endure. Unfortunately, the very real points being made here about the nature of the American political process tend to get lost in slapstick, in farce…in the inanity that unfolds between the preposterous characters making the points.

And the ending? Oh well, this is Hollywood. And Twentieth Century Fox no less!

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulworth
trailer: youtu.be/-0SgQKpWGD4

BULWORTH [1998]
Directed by Warren Beatty

[b]Insurance company lobbyist: …you throw down some lazy welfare-taking, drug-dealing, rap singing punk and then you tell me my people have to give him a policy? Why? So he can burn down his house or smoke crack and get AIDS?
Bulworth: I’m not sure you can get AIDS by burning down your house, but I get your point.

…

Bulworth [to the guy who hires the hitman]: A check for the second half of the money. If I’m not dead by Monday, I stop payment on that check.[/b]

That’s right: He’s hiring someone to kill himself. Let’s just say it’s, uh, integral to the plot.

[b]Woman in the audience [at South Central church]: When the riots went down four years ago you promised us federal funding to rebuild our community. What happened?
Bulworth: What happened was we knew that was gonna be big news for a while so we all came down here – Bush, Clinton, Wilson – we got our pictures taken, told you all what you wanted to hear and then we pretty much forgot about it.

…

Woman in the audience [at South Central church]: We can’t get any insurance down here—no health insurance, fire insurance, life insurance. Why haven’t you come out for Senate Bill 2720?
Bulworth: Well, because you really haven’t contributed any money to my campaign have you? Do you have any idea how much these insurance companies come up with? They pretty much depend on me to take a bill like that and bottle it up in committee during an election and in that way we can kill it when you are not looking.

…

Woman in the audience: Are you sayin’ the Democratic Party don’t care about the African-American community?
Bulworth: Isn’t that obvious? You got half your kids are out of work and the other half are in jail. Do you see ANY Democrat doing anything about it? Certainly not me! So what’re you gonna do, vote Republican? Come on! Come on, you’re not gonna vote Republican! Let’s call a spade a spade!
[loud, angry booing]
Bulworth: I mean - come on! You can have a Billion Man March! If you don’t put down that malt liquor and chicken wings, and get behind someone other than a running back who stabs his wife, you’re NEVER gonna get rid of somebody like me![/b]

Next up: The Jews.

[b]Man: Senator, do you thnk those of us in the entertainment business need government help in determining limits on the amount of sex and violence in today’s movies?
Bulworth: You know the funny thing is how lousy most of your stuff is. You make violent films and dirty films and you make family films…but most of them are just not very good, are they? It’s funny…so many smart people could work so hard and spend all that money and make so much money on them. What do you think it is…it must be the money, huh? It turns everything to crap! How much money do you guys really need?
Man: Do you think it’s advisable to schedule campaign stops with industry leaders when you have such a low opinion of their product?
Bulworth: My guys are not stupid. They always put the big Jews on my schedule. You’re mostly Jews, right? Three out of four anyway. I’m sure Murphy put something bad about Farakhan in here for you.

…

Bulworth: What is it exactly you’re concerned about, Murphy?
Murphy: I’m concerned that you stood up in front of three hundred people in a black church and told them that they were not a factor and never would be as long as we remain in the pocket of the insurance lobby! I’m concerned that you went to a fundraiser in Beverly Hills and told various leaders of the entertainment industry that they make a lousy product, and since many of them also happen to be Jewish, you decided the prudent thing to do would be to mock their Jewish paranoia! I’m concerned that we are in an after-hours club in Compton on the eve of the most important event of the campaign swing, where God knows how much illegal activity is taking place and you are SMOKING MARIJUANA!

…

Bullworth: Murphy, Feldman, you’re lookin’ pretty beat / I thought you might feel better with some ribs to eat / Eat 'em, gentlemen, you’ll think they’re really fine / And if you want a couple more you can get 'em anytime!
Murphy: I am incredibly frightened.

…

Bulworth [now rapping his campaign]: One man, one vote now is that really real/The name of our game is “let’s make a deal”
Now people got problems the haves and have nots/But the ones that make me listen pay for 30 second spots.

…

Bulworth: Why do you think there are no more black leaders?
Nina: Some think it’s because they all got killed but I think it’s from the decimation of urban manufacturing bases. Senator, an optimistic, energized population throws up optimistic, energized leaders. When you shift manufacturing to the Thrid World you destroy the blue collar core of the black activist population…Fact is, I’m a materialist. If I look at the economic base, high employment means jobs for African-Americans. World War II meant lots of jobs for black folks. That is what energized people for the civil rights movement. An energized hopeful community not only produces leaders, but leaders they’ll respond to.

…

Bulworth [at the debate]: The companies we both get our money from want us to believe that corporations are more efficient than government, right? You want to know why the health care industry is the most profitable business in the United States? 'Cause the insurance companies take 24 cents out of every dollar that’s spent. You know what it takes the government to do the same thing for Medicare? Three cents out of every dollar. These guys need to be regulated. What, do you think these pigs are going to regulate themselves?

…

Bullworth: We’ve got people in this country that can’t even buy a meal! / Ask a brother who’s been downsized if he’s gettin’ a deal. / Or a white boy bustin’ ass till they put him in his grave / he ain’t gotta be black to be livin’ like a slave.

…

Bulworth: All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin’ everybody 'til they’re all the same color.[/b]

I’m reasonably certain the bourgeoisie – most of them – are [by now] indifferent to being mocked and ridiculed. As long as they get to keep doing the things that the bourgeoisie do. For instance, exploiting the rest of us.

In other words, for the “masses” [sadly], all they really have at their disposal is the ability to caricature them.

But enough of “politics”. Here it’s personal. And their mannerisms never change: always surreal, always absurd. Whatever the occasion. A world totally bereft of irony. By, among other things, bursting at the seams with it. Lampooning the French ruling class is [apparently] almost as effortless an undertaking as lampooning the prigs in Britain. It’s all just a matter of perspective. And here even the “revolutionaries” are fair game.

In short, everything is blown up all out of proportion. Until [at last] we begin to see how futile it is to take any of it seriously at all. Except that “out in the world” the various factions do take “it” seriously. Along with themselves. After all, it’s not like they have much choice. Though the brutal consequences would not be described [by many] as surreal and absurd.

And then there is the question of what to put in its place. Is there anything at all that isn’t also subject to satirical romps? Bunuel…the nihilist?

Or just think of it as a dream within a dream within a dream.

Look for the French connection.

IMDb

In his autobiography, My Last Sigh, Luis Buñuel said he had difficulty finding a title for the film. On the last day of writing the script, he came up with A bas Lénine, ou la Vierge à l’écurie - Down with Lenin, or The Virgin in the Manger. Someone suggested Le Charme de la Bourgeoisie, and the adjective “discret” was eventually added. Buñuel said he and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière never once thought of the word “bourgeoisie” while working on the screenplay.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discre … ourgeoisie
clips from movie: youtu.be/YOsobfjQt7k

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE [Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie] 1972
Written in part and directed by Luis Buñuel

[b]Rafael: No system can give vthe masses the proper social graces. But you know me, I’m no reactionary.

…

Bishop: I’m delighted to meet you. We have an important mission in Bogota.
Rafael: Bogota is in Colombia.
Bishop: That’s right, Colombia. Sorry, I got mixed up. I’ve never been to Miranda, but I hear it is a magnificent country: the Great Cordillera, the pampas…
Rafael: The pampas are in Argentina, monsignor.
Bishop: The pampas. Of course. I should’ve known that. Recently I saw a book on Latin America. There were photos of your ancient pyramids.
Rafael: Our pyramids? We have no pyramids in Miranda. Mexico and Guatemala have pyramids. We don’t.
Bishop: You’re sure?
Rafael: Absolutely.

…

Colonel: Marijuana isn’t a drug. Look at what goes on in Vietnam. From the general down to the private, they all smoke.
Mme. Thevenot: As a result, once a week they bomb their own troops.
Colonel: If they bomb their own troops, they must have their reasons.

…

M.: Any news from Miranda?
Rafael: Yes.
M.: The situation?
Rafael: Quite calm.
M.: And the guerrillas?
Rafael: There are a few left. They are a part of our folklore.
Alice: You have problems with the students?
Rafael: Students are young. They must have some fun.
Mme. Thevenot: How’s your government treating them?
Rafael: We are not against the students, but what can you do with a room full of flies? You take a fly-swatter and Bang! Bang!
Mme. Thevenot: No more flies!

…

Colonel: I didn’t know that chivalry still existed in your semi-savage country.
Rafael: Sir, you just insulted the Republic of Miranda!
Colonel: I don’t give a damn about the Republic of Miranda!
Rafael: And I shit on your entire army!

…

Peasant: Father? I want to tell you something.
Bishop: Then tell me, my child.
Peasant: I really don’t like Jesus Christ. Even as a little girl I hated him.
Bishop: But such a good, gentle God? How is it possible?![/b]