Meet John Doe (1941)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://garycooperscrapbook.proboards.com/)

SECOND COMING

Peculiar White christian movie that preaches brotherly love (but only between Whites) from within the context of a culture based on theft, rape and genocide. If these people are true Christians then Al-Qaeda are true Muslims!

The movie itself admits to the impossibility of practicing what is preached here in presenting characters who are rotten to the core, despite the essential goodness of what they preach and claim to support. Even to the extent of implying that fascism is always the inevitable popular result of an economic recession.

(Image: http://garycooperscrapbook.proboards.com/)

Excellent performances all round - especially from Gary COOPER - make this a must-see for all Frank Capra fans and for those who like to see how White culture views its own past as a palimpsest of reality.

(Image: http://garycooperscrapbook.proboards.com/)

Copyright © 2011 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.

Alpha Dog (2005)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://justin-timberlake.cz/)

Rather weak look at the materialism inherent in White culture but, since it was made by Whites, that very superficiality of treatment is hardly surprising. The moral vacuity of the characters leaves us gasping for air throughout, yet the reasons for it are never explored save platitudes about bad parenting.

The performances are inconsistent, while Ben FOSTER steals the movie as a drug addict going nowhere. No-one seems to know why this mediocre film exists since it lacks a moral core to make the critique of the wasted lives shown explicable.

(Image: http://www.hotflick.net/)

Copyright © 2011 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.

Trash (1970)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://petravonkant.blogspot.co.uk)

Something-for-Nothing

Amusing-but-nothing-special movie about White welfare parasites; possessing no greater ambition than in wondering where the next heroin fix is going to come from and/or the next aspect of their culture they are going to whine about. This satire reflects a Western culture fixated on something-for-nothing to often telling effect.

The central conceit of a young stud - that all the girls fancy - being unable to satisfy anyone sexually because his heroin addiction causes impotence is repeated with varying degrees of success by an actor who is, himself, a sex symbol. (This proves that he is neither as conceited nor as concerned about his public image as are so many other male stars.)

The various episodes are variously funny and many scenes require a strong stomach to accept the repeated use of syringes for non-medicinal intravenous hard-drug use.

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Copyright © 2011 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.

Bonaerense (2002)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.screenrush.co.uk/)

An intelligent depiction of a culture in crisis revealed through its police. A country boy is arrested for his crimes but strings are pulled to take him to the big city and a job in the police force. There he becomes progressively embroiled in an endemically-corrupt system of institutional criminality, ethnic supremacism and violence - he bcomes a part of the problem, not its solution.

Although rather slow-moving, the deadpan direction serves its themes well: Unsensational treatment rams home the point that corruption is an everyday experience. The only police officer that condemns it is seen as a misfit because the corruption is so widespread there seems no means of escaping it nor one's own eventually-corrupt nature. Yet the good officer is the only character who comes across as fully human; the central character being as dead on the outside as he is on the inside.

(Image: http://www.screenrush.co.uk/)

Copyright © 2011 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.

Mépris [Contempt] (1963)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(http://alissainwonderland.blogspot.com)

Hating Hollywood

Movie about its own production processes could not help be anything but solipsistic. And such proves to be the case here - overlaid with the director’s obvious despair at the state of heterosexual relations, in general, in the Western world.

These relationships are presented as financial transactions rather than as a form of sharing – and so are always doomed to fail. Yet, the reasons for this are never dramatically explored; resulting in characters – despite the first-rate cast – who are never more than stereotypes.

The difficulty of artists like the director here getting the money to make the kind of films they want to make is shown in the Philistinism of his producer (expertly played by Jack PALANCE) wanting to modernize Homer’s Odyssey. Fritz LANG plays the world-weary film director in front of the camera as an alter ego for the director behind it. LANG is funny, charming and amusing – especially since LANG must have understood, from his own experience, the issues raised in the script he is performing.

In the end, where this film should have been playful, it is depressing; where it should have been profound, it is trite. Like Fellini’s Eight and a Half, this is evidence of a director coasting, treading water and floundering without any real direction.

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Copyright © 2011 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.

Pere de mes Enfants [The Father of My Children] (2008)

RATING:	40%
TECHNICAL QUALITY:	DVD

(Image: http://www.dca.org.uk/)

Rather self-indulgent look at the independent film business that expresses the solipsistic and narcissistic world the Western bourgeoisie live in.

Well-written and performed - as well as amusing - yet, the childish attitude here is that the quality of a work is inversely-determined by the number of people who see it. This is the pretension that worthlessness is a badge of honor or respect - a badge that this film, itself, would dearly love to wear.

It is hard to empathize with suicides - especially those who are simply running away from their problems rather than facing up to them. Like this film, the characters here focus too much on art and not enough on entertainment; resulting in a film that is unfocused with very little to say for itself.

Copyright © 2011 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.

Eden Lake (2008)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://i4vn.com/)

An attack by Whites on their own lower-class that seeks to be another Deliverance but only ends-up being the cinematic equivalent of a Daily Mail article about chavs - with all the superficial political insight entailed. A pity since the acting is as excellent as the plotting is contrived (& implausible) and the themes poorly-explored. Rather than presents causes, we only see the effects typical of horror movies that evade explanations to increase suspense; while avoiding telling a tale in depth.

Unable to decide whether it is a generic shocker or a serious treatment of a serious subject it fails to take itself seriously; making it hard for us to. A balance between being one or the other is never struck so that the whole becomes neither fish nor foul - a film with more of an identity crisis than any of the characters or culture presented. A movie as confused as its characters.

(Image: http://i4vn.com/)

Copyright © 2011 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.

CHE: Part Two (2008)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://megahotfire.com)

[Guerrilla]

Well-acted and directed, matter-of-fact biography of a political rebel.

Terrorism is largely explained here as a direct and inevitable response to the US imperialism that creates the very terrorism it claims to be fighting. This is a Bin Laden with a more human face; arguing that those who do not wish for terrorist revolutions should endeavor to stop fomenting them. As the UK royal family has avoided a French-style republican revolution simply by both changing - and by appearing to change – with the times.

Aware of the permanent nature of all revolutions if they are to be any way successful, this movie understands the difference between mere involvement and full commitment. Like Nelson Mandela, this sober biopic is as committed to its subject as would be any true bringer of change in the real political world. "Che" Guevara was the unique terrorist who transcended his ideology to become a popular Western icon - as recognizable as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. His appeal coming from the very fact of his being a political activist who risked his life for his beliefs; proving both his commitment and his credentials for martyrdom. (Despite his great popularity, it is hard to imagine Osama Bin Laden having anything like the same cultural impact.)

Benicio DEL TORO is his usual brilliant self who, through his own charisma, gets across the sexual charisma that Guevara must have possessed to have been such an influential (& the ultimate) freedom fighter.

Where this film fails a little is in being a somewhat flat presentation of an interesting historical character: It is too interested in historical authenticity at the expense of audience empathy. But, given the biopic's traditional rejection of actual historical facts – especially the Hollywood biographies - this is a price well worth paying.

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Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER.
Permission granted to reproduce & distribute this posting in any way, shape or form - provided you mention this Blog.
All other rights reserved.