Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Elephant
(2003)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.premiere.fr/)

As usual, director Gus VAN SANT queries the nature of cinema, itself, by questioning what actually constitutes a film in this impressionistic account of a high-school tragedy.

Told from multiple and inevitably-repeating viewpoints (as in Rashomon), we witness the emptiness of a Western culture apparently unable to offer a raison d'être to its young other than the relentless pursuit of materialism.

The style is cold-blooded because the acts depicted are; making this an excellent marriage of form and content - although not in terms of character motivation. The long, interleaving takes and general lack of plot-advancing dialogue helps convey a sense of pure film, as each person moves slowly and inexorably toward a rendezvous with a common fate.

Affluent Whites who, despite possessing the privileges of living in cultures based on positive-discrimination for Whites, choose to throw it all away in a spree of wanton mayhem. Whites are almost always the ones who commit such crimes, and the movie’s very existence proves that when Whites engage in such behavior it is considered unusual enough (even though 89% of mass murderers & serial killers are White) to warrant cinematic attention, since the reasons appear non-obvious. Yet, on the rare occasions Blacks do the same, the reasons are assumed the result of genetic and cultural inferiority - so that the ritualized hand-wringing and self-questioning never then takes place among Whites. This lack of creative self-reflection among Whites is a serious flaw in an otherwise good film seeking to explore a pressing contemporary issue.

There is no reference to the fact that Whites are taught to view the world as their oyster (without an ethical underpinning of accompanying duties & responsibilities along with the rights & privileges). This, for example, explains why the Earth has become so polluted by those who believe they can take without giving anything back. When Whites find they possess no automatic birthrights, they tend to openly-express violent outrage - at their own kind - by killing them; and also at non-Whites by claiming the latter are a threat to White civilization. That the vast majority of motiveless murderers are White would have been a more informative, profound and interesting avenue of dramatic exploration. We are left, instead, with our own pre-existing thoughts on the subject, since the film itself falls into the trap of automatic assumptions about the nature of White culture and its endemic unwillingness to see the elephant in its own room; notwithstanding the movie’s title.

There is no real explanation for the events depicted here apart from tokenistic references to effects (but not causes) such as violent computer games, alcoholism, bullying, Nazism and the easy availability of firearms in the US. Yet many teenagers are exposed to just these things and never go on a mass-murder spree.

One of the most horrifying movies you will ever see both for what it contains as well as for what it crucially leaves out.

Copyright © 2012 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.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
(2009)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.cinemagia.ro/)

More solipsistic narcissism from the pen of a writer who can only refer-in-passing to the ethical issues (belonging & cultural intolerance) that she resolutely refuses to deal with dramatically. The moral level here is that of a child - like the characters about whom she writes.

Not the morality tale it pretends to be but a narrative of political correctness which, for the amoral, is a vapid substitute - a poor man’s ethics. Escapism is fundamentally immoral because the characters, the author and the audience are all complicit in running away from the real-life maturity-challenges raised by this story.

Supposedly anti-bigotry, this movie is trapped in middle-class Whiteness and the belief that if everyone does what Whites tell them to do, then everything will be all right. Yet this creates the very problem that such little-Hitlerism is purportedly-designed to alleviate.

The set design focuses on the old-fashioned; stressing the film’s desire for nostalgia-for-its-own-sake, not the expressed wish for a culturally-integrated future. Its integrationist model is just another from of intolerance.

Ultimately, magic is posited as the orphan’s revenge on a cruel, heartless culture - a world that, in fact, only appears to be so depending on how you choose to look at it. The wizardry school the younger characters attend is really nothing more than an orphanage for social misfits who can find nothing much worthwhile to do with their special powers - unlike the denizens of, say, the Marvel Comics’ universe.

The grim mediocrity of this film series fascinates - as each installment gets longer than the last and, yet, we get no further forward in understanding the characters and their real-world motivations in a puerile fantasy that bears little emotional relationship to lived experience. The SFX are the tail-wagging-the-dog in a teen soap opera that lacks both real imagination and dramatic bite. Add to that the fact that the performers are not precociously-believable and you have a formula box-office success in the absence of anything better in competition. This movie, like its predecessors, lowers the bar rather than raising it with great visuals pointlessly used to ultimately nullifying effect

The younger performers are non-charismatic and the older ones cannot save the day since they are not the focus of the plotting and, anyway, lack the screen time to fully engage our emotions. This is storytelling by numbers and the filmmakers could do worse than revisit a masterpiece like the Wizard of Oz to get a fresh idea of how it could be done better.

Turgid cinematic torture, unrelieved by any worthwhile belly laughs.

Dîner de Cons
(1998)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://kineforum.wordpress.com)

[Dinner Game]

Les cons here are simply those unsophisticated enough to tell lies on a regular basis in order to support a vapid lifestyle. And they are far more likeable than the farceurs who cannot keep their hands off the wives of others and/or from keeping mistresses: The humorless oafs with the hearts of gold.

The whole affair revolves both around purportedly-intelligent people needing idiots to prove their own intelligence, by comparison, and in coming to need the latter to get them out of a social/sexual fix - of the intelligent people's own making. The cultural snobbery here is writ large and it soon becomes apparent who the real fools are. Affective proof that treating idiots as idiots can backfire.

(http://moviemusereviews.com)

From small beginnings this French farce rolls downhill with increasing speed; becoming ever more elaborate and complicated and funny. It is contrived in a way that does not spoil our enjoyment of the contrivance especially since the characters are archetypes and the entire mechanism is like a finely-tooled Swiss watch. The movie does not outstay its welcome and its diet-fed running time ensures it is all lean and no fat.

Man Without a Past (2002)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://5plitreel.wordpress.com/)

Brilliant surrealist black-comedy whose implausible plotting makes it a totally engrossing look at the nature of human identity.

A man, apparently beaten to death, comes back to life to find he’s forgotten who he is. Bizarre adventures follow in the near-alternate universe of the homeless and their helpers: The Salvation Army. Slowly, he rebuilds his life but still has no memory of who or what he used to be; leading to fatalist acceptance coupled with a desire to become the manager of a rock 'n' roll band.

(Image: http://www.undergroundbee.com/)

The acting and direction is completely deadpan to emphasise the odd netherworld explored - analogous to the abnormal psychological state of the central character. Redeemed, he finally comes to terms with the better man he has now become - as well as the bad man he once was: Being savagely beaten was clearly the best thing that could ever have happened to him.

(500) Days of Summer
(2009)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.filmposters.ru)

Collation of the minutiae of being in sexual love that does not add up to the self-revelatory experience that it really is. The decided lack of a definition of the state-of-mind that this film claims to explore is its downfall; lacking originality in its expression and content, while failing to enlighten.

Twenty-somethings still having teenage infatuations that leads nowhere, the film confuses shared interests with shared values. As usual with those who theorize about an experience before (or instead of) having it, when it does not agree with their hypothesis, they reject the lived experience and pretend there was something wrong with it - but nothing wrong with their theory. To take love for granted - as this film does - is just as bad as taking the one you love for granted.

(http://everyday-inspirations.blogspot.com)

Gimmicky and uneven, the only real reason to watch this film is the welcome presence of Zooey DESCHANEL - a completely natural and instinctive actress.

Saturday, 25 February 2012

King Kong
(2005)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.premiere.fr/)

Overly-imaginative, over-long and anti-romantic stylized fantasy that seeks to compensate for its thin rendering of the beauty-and-the-beast myth with impressive visuals. These contradict the theme of inner beauty being equal to outer with computer-generated effects that focus obsessively on the outer.

Naomi WATTS is excellent, but cannot save a film that is trying - in typical Hollywood fashion - to have its cake and eat it.

Friday, 24 February 2012

1408
(2007)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://entretenimento.uol.com.br/)

Reasonable horror movie spoiled by weak characterization and rather tired special effects.

This movie concerns itself with the classic writer’s problem of being trapped inside his own head and not knowing how to escape the resulting solipsism. To make this work cinematically, the film alternates between first- and second-person narratives, but without being a telling evocation of either viewpoint.

(Image: http://www.aceshowbiz.com/)

The unresolved-grief basis to the story is not as well explored as it could have been, so we are left with the experience of entering a Room 101 - where our worst fears are exposed - but without the necessary catharsis. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining was somewhat better than this, as was The Exorcist, regarding the loss-of-faith-in-God theme.

CHE: Part One
(2008)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.rowthree.com)

[The Argentine]

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 Bin Laden with a more human face; arguing that those who do not wish for revolutions should endeavor to stop fomenting them. As the UK royal family have avoided a French-style republican revolution simply by appearing to change with the times.

(www.moma.org)

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 ful commitment. Like Nelson Mandela, this sober biopic is as committed to its subject as any true bringer of change in the real world of politics would be.

“Che” Guevara was a 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 this 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 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 (&, indeed, the ultimate) freedom-fighter.

Where this film fails a little is in being a somewhat flat presentation of an interesting historical character: It is far 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 variety - this is a price well-worth paying for an audience as committed to filmgoing as the hero here is to rebellion.

20 Million Miles to Earth
(1957)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.cinemasquid.com/)

ARRIVIDERCI ROMA

Above-average creature feature boasting superior animation from Ray Harryhausen and, like King Kong before it, focusing on the xenophobic inadequacy of White culture when confronted with the unknown. The so-called monster here is sympathetically presented - so much so that its performance is more Oscar-worthy than the living actors. Its violent reaction to mankind is shown as an inevitable result of attempts to cage it.

(Image: http://www.cinemasquid.com/)

The screenplay veers from a childlike simplicity - coming from a lack of basic scientific knowledge - to a sly romance between an Air Force colonel and the inevitably-beautiful daughter of the head of zoology at Rome Zoo. And it does make a nice change not to see familiar US landmarks being reduced to rubble - and Rome is so much more attractive in its Old World, European charm.

(Image: http://www.cinemasquid.com/)

There is an elegant analogy here between the poor communications and resulting distrust between the various cultures of Earth, its nations and their conflicting political ideologies. Needless to say, the inability of all sides to communicate in a civilised fashion leads to death, mayhem and the impressively-mounted terrorization of Rome.

(Image: http://www.cinemasquid.com/)

3 Women
(1977)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/)

Strange film about social anomie, loneliness and emotional dissociation that is a cross between Performance and Single White Female.

The women here become so closely-associated with one another that they begin to resemble and play each other’s roles in their desperate attempts to escape the traps they have made of their own lives. This is a view of Western culture where everyone is playing a part rather than being themselves.

(Image: http://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/)

Shelley DUVALL and Sissy SPACEK are both excellent and make the film watchable despite its deliberate obscurantism. Hypnotic, beautiful and haunting - but essentially empty.

(Image: http://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/)

Thursday, 23 February 2012

35 Rhums
[35 Shots of Rum]
(2008)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://2011.riverrunfilm.com/)

In its own quiet and understated way, this is really something of a masterpiece. An active meditation on family, harmony, loyalty and belonging; crackling with intimacy and intensity from a title suggesting something that you only do once in a lifetime - that therefore needs to be done right.

A profound yet discreet look at the human condition that reaches across the generations of a single family and their kith. The shifting moods and relationships are deftly handled by a master filmmaker (Claire Denis) as the film slowly gets under your skin and finally moves you with its self-confident take on life.

The acting is superb throughout in a movie that is better experienced than talked about.

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(1969)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://bananaoilmovies.wordpress.com)

Original comedy-western that fails to completely integrate its various plot elements with any genuine character-development or thematic exploration.

A tragedy of men who have lived beyond their times and cannot see clearly that the lawless period of the Wild West is now over and that they have nowhere else to go. Yet at least they had a good time while it lasted.

That a schoolteacher like Etta Place should take up with a band of outlaws is explained as her wanting to have fun because her life is so boring. But this is never explored in an interesting way except for the fact that the film glamorizes outlaws and contains the very real sense that the entire audience for this movie lives the same empty life; yet wanting their final destruction to be avoided. The only way the eponymous characters know how to live is to finally die - "gloriously" - in our imaginations, as their endless running from the law inevitably leads nowhere.

Where the film also fails is in its sense of balance. The first half is too funny for its own good and we never really take the characters and their terrible predicament seriously enough. The second half is much better balanced and we begin to see clearly the essential emptiness of their lives that can only have one outcome. The movie is constantly running the risk of teetering-off into farce when the serious elements return to put us back in our place as an audience.

Yet, this entertaining film has rarely been bettered for its combination of apparently-incompatible visual elements. There is comedy, tragedy and musicality. Actors who, even by the standards of Hollywood, are impossibly beautiful, play the three principal characters - who are, of course, beautifully photographed and well directed. The timing from non-comics is excellent and adds to the tragedy rather than detracting from it. The music is as anachronistic as the dialogue and Katherine ROSS is miscast - too young and not tough enough.

Uniquely, these leads form a kind of Marx Brothers for a more modern generation and the obvious personal chemistry makes their relationship believable.

There are also pleasant surprises here. The most romantic scene ROSS has is not with her boyfriend, but Paul NEWMAN: The rape scene that is not a rape scene. Robert REDFORD’s character cannot swim while being a rough, tough killer. These are both funny and tragic and never lose sight of where the film is finally heading.

To get the character balance between comedy and tragedy right is very difficult and this is one of the rare Hollywood movies that manages it, thanks mostly to the script and the playing of NEWMAN and REDFORD. An elegiac tragedy that is to be applauded, despite its numerous flaws.

Monday, 20 February 2012

Pacific
(2010)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://felaries65.livejournal.com/)

The usual White supremacist nonsense about how Whites fought - and died - to free the world from racist aggression, only to impose their own brand of the same on the allegedly-saved world. In this regard, the equally-bland movie Saving Private Ryan has to bear much of the blame for the existence of this Band of Brothers tv-series rip-off.

Despite claims of historical accuracy, the fact that the US armed forces were racially-segregated, is never mentioned. There are also no conscientious objectors here, only mostly true-blue Aryan supermen - in military uniform. The fact that the Second World War was a profoundly racist one is rarely-mentioned - even though this was crucial to the justification for it. This was especially true of the Pacific War, which presented (in White propaganda) the Japanese as genetic inferiors in a way that the Germans, in Europe, were never depicted. Although both sides engaged in this race-baiting, this White drama evades the issue as much as possible because it undercuts the phoney heroism on show.

Here, war brings out whatever is latent in everyone who takes part. But the characterization is so poor that we never really come to appreciate this fully; and, any discussion of the wider politics of combat is taken as read rather than properly analyzed. Only the ethnically-correct casting implies some of the dramatic possibilities missed by this mediocre drama. This would be as if war served no political purpose whatsoever, when the paradox here is that that would invalidate not only the reason for fighting the war being depicted in the first place, as well as its depiction.

This self-contradictory mini-series is a victim of the Political-Correctness of being produced by a country (the USA) currently (2012) at war in the so-called War on Terror, so much so that it fears to address politics directly for fear of being labelled unpatriotic.

As with recent Hollywood war movies, there is a predictably-regressive attitude to warfare - especially as regards the enemy - who is portrayed only from a distance, as mere targets to be slaughtered while the GIs are rather more bulletproof! Here, characterisation counts for far less than Whites having an axe to grind about the West’s present economic decline by rewriting their own history as if it were far more glorious than it ever was or ever could have been. Political propaganda disguised as drama that is too sanctimonious and self-righteous for its own good.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Brüno
[Bruno]
(2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.vulture.com)

Satirizing Caucasian Insecurities

Fascinating sociological experiment about the difference between people’s stated attitudes and their actual ones.

Not only a clever satire on the ethical emptiness of most Western media, but a successful skit on the pointlessness of Political Correctness and the White supremacist project that underwrites it. (Tellingly, creator Sacha Baron COHEN refers to Mel Gibson as “Der Führer”; explaining, perhaps, the latter’s non-appearance in this movie.)

The clever comedy is frequently cringe-making as it takes potshots at the usual targets. White people - as a whole - homosexual homophobes, the sexually-insecure, emotionally-shallow celebrities, xenophobes and materialistic Christians.

(http://swiftor.com)

Where COHEN has been so very canny is in allowing his interviewees to express their stupidity and neurosis through their own words. Not only are they fools because of what they say, but because of the fact that they say it without any apparent realization that they are being had.

The funniest stuff here is that between the overtly-masculine men whom we quickly come to realize are crypto-homosexuals. How a supposedly-loving Christian can express his self-loathing in the message ‘God Hates Fags’ with a straight face is proof of pietism not piety. Volitional ignorance and willful parochialism exacerbate the gullibility on show here along with the lack of a sense of irony that would have come from real-world experience.

COHEN is brave in many of the scenes, which often seem laden with the potential for violence that comes from confronting repressed people with themselves. Clearly, Freud was right when he claimed that we laugh at what we fear. Although the gimmick of faux interviews is starting to show signs of age, this is still funny because it is still the case that many a true word is spoken in jest.

The other obvious problem for COHEN's methodology is that as his face becomes increasingly well-known, he is less able to trick people into revealing the unhappiness inside themselves. This actually occurs when he is prevented from entering a fashion show because the organizers realize who he is and what he is trying to do. Nonetheless, they become aware of his presence too late to stop him revealing the devastating superficiality and sheer vacuity of one particular catwalk model. In this, the film also serves as a parody on the despairing need for fame in the absence of any discernible talent.

Like its predecessor, Borat, this is a surprisingly-subtle gay love story that pillories the emotionally-repressed for their ultimate message to the world: Do not love yourself or our god will smite you!

Copyright © 2012 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.

Racconti di Canterbury
[The Canterbury Tales]
(1971)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.cinemedioevo.net)

Coming on as a kind of Carry On for highbrows, this is an amusing retelling of some of Chaucer’s old tales; benefitting greatly from being pornographic but not smutty.

Difficult to know on what basis the tales were selected for inclusion but one assumes, with director Pier Paolo PASOLINI that they are those allowing him to indulge his interest in the male physique - of which there are many examples here.

The orificial and earthy humor sits well with the realistic recreation of English medieval life. It is certainly more believable than anything Monty Python could have dreamed up, since it is not emotionally stuck in resentment and jealousy at the greater enjoyment of physical pleasures in an allegedly prelapsarian world. It also more actively embraces anti-Christian and pro-life rhetoric.

Demotic cinema implicitly and, here, explicitly condemns the hierarchies of Christianity and the religious hypocrisies they lead to. A film much more of political ideas than of characters.

Friday, 17 February 2012

Best Years of Our Lives
(1946)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://woodlandshoppersparadise.blogspot.com/)

A very fine motion picture, indeed, dealing with the consequences of war and the affects on three representatives of the armed services after their return from combat - especially concerning their varying fortunes in reintegrating into civilian life.

On the whole, these three find they have changed more than they thought and that this means life can never be what it was before, nor can they resume their old lives where they left off. For its entire length, the movie plays like the last third of The Deer Hunter, as we see people out of sorts with their old - once-familiar - surroundings.

(Image: http://www.livejournal.com/)

A subtle well-played melodrama that carefully avoids too many Hollywood clichés to reveal a depth of characterization and human understanding rare in this most commercial of media. So much of the inner life of the characters is not only unstated but actually unstatable; requiring the best efforts of the actors. And, in the main, they deliver.

Tears are wrung from the audience without any false emotionalism because the sincerity of both the performances and the writing are self-evident. If only the film producers in California could produce movies like this more than once in a blue moon, my DVD player would be far less gloomy with what I put into it.

(Image: http://woodlandshoppersparadise.blogspot.com/)

Thursday, 16 February 2012

American Gangster
(2007)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.forbes.com)

More Crime; Less Police Work

Essentially a thoughtful disquisition on honesty and moral integrity, this movie posits the notion that few wish to actually prevent crime because so many are employed on the back of it; that is, in only curing it.

Thus, police corruption is endemic here - up to 75% of officers being on the take. They know their law-enforcement efforts are largely ineffective so they feel they might as well profit from illegal drug sales themselves, by selling the drugs they seize back to the dealers; turning crime into a cash cow for themselves. In this, it is good on the solidly-capitalistic principles of its central antagonist regarding branding, quality control, product consistency, trade names, copyright, etc. So much so that it could easily serve as a primer for any budding businessman.

This institutional criminality means no-one can ever truly be free of its baleful influence. It oils the wheels of so many activities that to reduce crime is also to reduce the need for crimefighters, locksmiths, security guards, etc. Thus, an uneasy balance persists between police and criminals so that each can avoid being a victim of their own respective successes - so much so that honest policemen are seen as “crazy”.

(www.matttrailer.com)

Inevitably, criminals are caught not because the police are particularly diligent, but because criminals get careless and the police have to make an arrest or otheriwse reveal their own corruption in being reluctant to make such arrests.

(www.matttrailer.com)

Denzel WASHINGTON is brilliant as the super-criminal who runs his business like General Motors and the Mafia combined, but with infinitely more skill and success - in full honour of the American Dream. Russell CROWE is as bland as he has now become - a once-great actor who has lost his way in Hollywood. This could have been a great cinematic double-act of equal antagonists, but is not because Crowe does not take seriously enough the screenwriter's concept of a politically-incorruptible policeman who is somewhat degenerate in his personal life.

(www.matttrailer.com)

Despite being very good, the film is too long for its underdeveloped dramatic concerns so it sometimes drags when it should soar.

(www.matttrailer.com)

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Science & Politics of Racial Research
(1996)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Book

(Image: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/)

An excellent review of scientific racism in which the tail wags the dog as the prophecy fulfills itself; the theory chasing the data (rather than the other way around). Despite claiming natural superiority, Whites still claim the need for man-made interventions to ensure their alleged superiority; contradicting the original claim.

This is a comprehensive look at the reasons for the endemic White supremacism of the Western world. The self-serving narcissism of White culture is revealed in its centuries-old use of science to try to justify political cynicism as opposed to the claimed disinterested search for truth. Here, the emperor’s new clothes are revealed as non-existent, while pseudo-scientists treat prejudiced assumptions as established facts.

As with so many inferiority complexes, White scientists also get to experience the commonplace guilts of a culture that has abused other ethnic groups for centuries. They wish to claim that such abuse is inevitable given purported genetic superiority of one group over another. To fail to engage in such exculpatory work would mean having to admit to some of the greatest crimes in human history (eg, North-Atlantic Slavery, the British Empire & the Holocaust) and then to admit that ones culture is based on a superficial lie, albeit one with profound political and personal implications.

Friday, 3 February 2012

Adventureland
(2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.seriousland.com/)

A softly-spoken film about the awkwardness and steep emotional learning-curve of adolescence that never fails to engage.

Whites are shown as using sex to exploit others and for solace after unhappy childhoods. Amid all this, lies a touching love story about a cute guy and a pretty girl - who prefers older men - that seems like it can go nowhere. An overly-honest romantic and a cynic makes for an uneasy combination as we wonder how this will all work out in the end. White music and fashions are ridiculed; while being admired as a vital part of growing up in that particular culture.

The adventure, here, lies in the journey, itself, not so much in the destination.

AIRPLANE II - The Sequel
(1982)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://www.cineplex.com/)

Not nearly as funny as the original, but almost as silly. This sequel will help pass the time with its inane humor and likeable parodies of our favorite disaster movies and their stars.

Julie HAGERTY, in particular, is a joy to behold since she intuitively understands the correct tone to be adopted throughout. Without her much-needed presence, this movie would be silly without being particularly funny.

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.

(1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)

Pages:

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

[Dinner Game]

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Friday, 24 February 2012

[The Argentine]

Thursday, 23 February 2012

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Monday, 20 February 2012

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Satirizing Caucasian Insecurities

Friday, 17 February 2012

Thursday, 16 February 2012

More Crime; Less Police Work

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Friday, 3 February 2012

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