Saturday 29 November 2014

Lord of War
(2005)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



A movie as ethically-confused as its leading participants. We never see those indirectly killed - at close quarters - by the gun-running central character and so feel nothing for their loss. The idea that selling arms to dictators kills is as silly as claiming telephone companies are responsible for obscene telephone calls.

Despite the high-quality acting, performers get scant opportunity to show what they can really do with an underwritten script and a weakly-researched plot. Instead, we get a never-ending sequence of gallows’ humour leavened with stylish technical tricks that lower the entire project into simplistic formalism.

There is no logical argument against the arms’ trade and so no rational argument against the more widespread use of firearms: “If They have them then We must have them, too”.


Copyright © 2013 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.