Thursday, 31 January 2013

People’s History of the United States
(2003)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Book

(Image: http://en.wikipedia.org)

A book disrespectful of governments and respectful of people is a superb antidote to those history books of White culture’s that valorize and aggrandize the beneficiaries of that culture – Whites.

A veritable hatchet job on the lies and delusions of US White culture based, as it is, on the White supremacy of Columbus, the genocide of Native-Americans, the emancipation from colonial rule that was only freedom for rich White males, the conquest of large parts of Mexico and the US Empire up to and including the Islamophobic War on Terror.

Wealth for a few meant a culture based on ethnicity, gender, national origin and social class. This means that wars – internal and domestic – are the heath of the state. The First World War being a good example of the means of obtaining a false cultural unity through patriotism and loyalty to the state – a state that is of little benefit to its citizens. The Second World War cemented the policy of totalitarianism, White supremacy and militarism by fighting the same in other White cultures - a battle for whom among the White nations could be the best exemplars of these three White tendencies. The Vietnam War showed that such over reaching could be dangerous.

White cultures tend toward the childish view that superior saviors are going to save them from the problems they have created for themselves. That citizenship means being obedient and voting regularly with no ethical concerns whatsoever – as if democracy were a moral system rather than a political. This surrender of human strength, demeans Whites’ abilities and volitionally obliterates White selves. To conceal poverty, groups are deliberately divided against one another: Homeowners against the propertyless; Black against White; native-born against foreign-born; intellectuals & professionals against the uneducated & unskilled. Their only commonality being sharers of the leftovers of a wealthy country: An artificial unity.

Christianity is held largely to blame for all this for defending piracy with meanness, loot and pious hypocrisies. And for the basic discontent and political alienation that such attitudes ultimately foster when they are shown to be inoperable in practice.

We now face a White culture of economic insecurity, environmental deterioration, generalized violence and family disarray with no White politician suggesting fundamental political change to counter the decline. Such people are only concerned with their own political power; hence, the lack of enthusiasm for democracy because little fundamental criticism is tolerated nor reported in the media. Political consensus equals economic stagnation: All that remains is bread and circuses. This has led to scapegoating other cultures, immigrants, foreigners, welfare mothers and minor criminals instead of major ones. Corporate wealth and power are still protected as well as a military machine that drains the nation’s wealth while forming alliances with foreign tyrannies.

A history book disrespectful of governments - as such - and making clear that the project of egalitarian life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has largely failed – except for rich White males.

Zinn makes the point that history is written from the point of view of the historian because of the facts he regards as important and because of those he omits. He is not exist outside of the invented genetic, gender and the social class privileges granted him at birth. Thus, many points of view need representation before anything approaching a full - non-arrogant - appreciation of history is achieved. Zinn’s hope is that history is the history of the individual’s assertion of his own humanity rather more than it is the assertion of the demands of an irrational system of intimidation and control.

Politically naïve in its hippie solutions, but an indispensable guide to a particular White culture.

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.

Love Hina
(2004)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	Book

(Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/)

Amusing fantasy about a young male who becomes the landlord of a co-ed’s dorm. This absurd sexual fantasy becomes the springboard for some great, if a little repetitious, comedy at the expense of his inexperience with women.

There is at its heart a sincere childhood sweetheart melodrama that is as endearing as it is twee. First sex and first love fantasies are dealt with knowledgeably but not very insightfully as the Yong Ma is bullied by the girls who are having trouble coming to terms with their respective sexual longings for him.

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.

Monday, 28 January 2013

Autobiography of Malcolm X
(1968)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Book

(www.amazon.co.uk)

Purposeful Life

Way above-average story of redemption leading to a strong sense of personal identity and purpose.

This one serves as a valuable source of a role-model in the form of Malcolm X’s life as he salvaged and reconstructed it from the predations of White, Christian culture and proved that it could be done. As inspirational, in its way, as any honest account of the life of Muhammad Ali. They both realized that without self-identification, there can be no self-determination.

The most obvious fact of the book of greatest interest to Blacks, is that bit represents the most politically-ontogenetic experience for Blacks in a White supremacist culture as they try to forge a cultural identity for themselves in the face of mass hostility from those who themselves lack a clear sense of ethic identity.

Growing up in a White culture that demands Blacks was Malcolm X’s quintessential problem as a maturing and sensitive man and was the cause of his many political mistakes during his life - especially the veering from one political extreme to the other. Still, moderation is only for people who choose not to grow up since the path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. A moderate knows only about moderation, not about other political positions, so he really knows very little at all.

Saturday, 26 January 2013

Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism
(2002)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	Book

(http://www.amazon.com)

May offend Whites

Inevitably any book that lampoons White supremacy is not going to be very popular with Whites – and this work knows it full well. To get around this problem the definition of the term racism is widened to include any comment about anyone’s ethnicity whether derogatory or flattering. This has the effect of watering down the book in the same way that a definition of pornography that includes all sexually explicit material would render the term meaningless.

That aside, this is often side splittingly funny – especially for the intended US audience – and a robust sense of humor is needed throughout. It has acute perception about the way Whites are intentionally racist in the most casual way; while pretending they intended no offence.

This is a ragbag and a miscellany of stuff about the White supremacy of the modern West - Hollywood, video games, trivializing Black experience, stereotyping, cultural appropriation, transactional analysis, etc; making it something of an unedifying slum through the underbelly of White culture:

Hey, see that Black man
Note how gracefully he walks
Throw a rock at him.

Life and Death of Peter Sellers
(2004)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	Cinema

(www.moviegoods.com)

Superlative acting.

Subtle but not profound – why is he so repressed?

The man who wasn’t there would have been a good alternative title for this movie since when he enters a room he makes it seem emptier. He lacks both political and personal commitment of any kind.

Friday, 25 January 2013

Bez konca
[No End]
(1984)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.themoviedb.org)

Haunting, elegiac film.

Like an amputee missing his leg, the central character refuses to get over the loss of her husband.

Metaphor for the martial law declared to crush Solidarity.

Needs knowledge of event to fully appreciate story of wife missing her dead husband - especially sexually - along with the crushing of hopes for a democratic Poland.

A film about grieving over the (temporary) loss of something good could have been very depressing but is, in fact, utterly engrossing thanks, in no small part, to the excellence and faultless sincerity of the performances.

Some are crushed by the experience of cowering in fear of the oppressive authorities; others find the integrity to speak out and fight.

Nowhere Boy
(2010)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

Yet another film about the youth of John Lennon pretending to tell us the untold story that has been told many times before!

The idea that John Lennon was a genius is fatuous in the extreme, yet this is a fine film of a story that has been done to death when one would have thought that there was nothing new to say. That this hagiography lacks honesty is to be expected since Mr Lennon was one of the few White performers to make a successful career from a Black musical form.

John Lennon’s fear and abuse of women is absent, his insecurities, his rampant cynicism and his general misanthropy. Nor is the fact represented that, despite being raised in comfortable middle-class suburbia, he tried to pass himself off in later life as a working-class hero. No child prodigy this - and a man with an uneventful and rather mundane life that in no way suggests a budding genius. No more nor less interesting than millions of others who are abandoned by both their parents, The Beatles turned out to be no more than Black American artistes’ tribute band (with classical-music pretensions).

Directed by a woman, this is a female-identified film as though the complex character that was John Lennon could be explained solely by his relations with women. The movie also plays the Freudian game of reducing human nature to little more than the sum of one’s neuroses. For the emotionally childish this is fine, but for grownups it represents the limitations of a culture that produces such limited people: Psychoanalysis for so-called creative artists.

In the end, this film cannot decide if John Lennon was a disturbed rebel or a creative genius and conflates the two groups. The decline in Lennon’s creativity after The Beatles’ split (as with the decline in quality of Gilbert & Sullivan’s work after they separated) shows he was the former while the film suggests its belief in the latter.

Kristin SCOTT THOMAS is excellent - as ever - as is Anne-Marie DUFF: Superb acting; poor dramaturgy. This is a drama made by those who are more concerned with claiming to have had similar experiences to John Lennon than making a perspicacious film about Mr Lennon. This narcissistic self-indulgence makes the creators out to be as creative as Mr Lennon when the film clearly shows that they are not. Hero worshiping is not the same as saying that the person you worship is like the worshiper - as implied here - since too many creative people are empty vessels making the most noise. Without any real level of understanding between the re-enactor and the re-enacted there is no real re-enactment, because we never get to an understanding as an audience of the people so represented.

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.

O’ Horten
(2007)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.boston.com)

Summary: Dryly funny and deadpan comedy that is too slow-moving for its own good.

This melancholic retirement drama of a man who has little to occupy his time after ending his working life offers little in the way of insight into the predicament faced by its central character.

His odd first name (Odd) makes it obvious that this is going to be quirky and eccentric - with deft touches of magical realism - but not as much as it could, or should, have been.

Parineeta
(2005)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

Personal is not Political

The girls are very fetching and the songs and choreography are above average - but this is really something of a mess.

Purporting to be a treatise on marriage and the difference between personal relationships and business ones, it features contrived meandering plotting and a lack of any real defining theme. This gives the actors little to do to support their rather fruitless emoting.

A shocking waste of a good cast.

Penny Points to Paradise
(1951)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

A rather hit-and-miss affair featuring the early film work of Peter SELLERS: A great talent in the making - the like of which we do not see emerging today.

However, despite the home-movie feel, this is a necessary watch for all SELLER’ fans since his characterizations are excellent and a lot funnier than the material with which he is presented in the script here.

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.

Pinocchio

(1940)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://en.wikipedia.org)

Single Parenthood

Interesting variation on single-parenthood in that this one concerns a lonely man wishing for a son through surrogate, wombless birth.

This superior fairy tale is a Frankenstein for all the family - but without the criminal’s brain. It involves having to learn free will and, in so doing, not blaming others for the choices one makes. Moreover, the effect of telling lies on proboscises imparts a simple moral lesson - in visual terms - that all ages can appreciate.

Inevitably, a cartoon about a godlike act of creation is implicitly commenting on its own production and existence. And this playful self referentiality is subtly present throughout. The need of the marionette to grow up and away from its parent in order to mature into an adult standing on its own two feet is the basis of this movie’s morality. However, this film’s ethical take on life is more emotional than strictly rational; hence, the moral weakness at the center of this technically-brilliant film with its craftsman’s-animation-verging-on-artistic-genius.

Modern animation is mediocre because there are few alive today like Walt Disney - not even at Walt Disney Productions! This movie is one of the best animated musical comedies of all time, partly because what these animators do without computers boggles the mind - a perfect combination of art and craft in which the craft supports the art and the special effects do not become the story, but remain proper adjuncts to it.

Voices are employed because of their vocal abilities, not solely their being well-known. The production team’s obvious confidence in the material did not require the emotional crutch of a name star to help sell the movie. Moreover, fine character animation, memorably relevant songs that neatly and effectively carry the plot forward, a fun plot & laughs aplenty ably complement this self-assurance.

That a man like Disney could produce such quality merchandise and yet makes tons of money proves quality will out. Disney also proved that family movies - and their associated values - could always sell, no matter how cynical the public (or its exploiters) might claim to be. And also that visual explicitness is not necessary to tell a good story about real life issues in all their Sturm und Drang.

Animation is the highest art in the movie world, and such labors of love are always so lovely to watch.

Gake no ue no Ponyo
[Ponyo]
(2008)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

Cultured Magic

Visually-arresting animation with the high imagination quotient one has come to expect from Hayao Miyazaki. Films like this put Western animation to shame, despite their lesser technical quality. What they lack in the latter they more than make up for in the ideas department.

The damage White humans do to the Earth is the theme here of a nature out-of-balance that needs to be restored by an undersea wizard. Just for once, the apparent villain is not so bad; his motivations easy to understand. Shifting the emphasis of the dramatic conflict on to Man’s relationship with his environment, rather than Man’s relationship Man, the ocean is presented as a character in its own right - and it is clearly mad at us for having polluted it.

The depth and breadth of this movie can only be accounted for by the depth and breadth of Japanese culture and their having a greater wealth of mythology and folklore upon which to draw - yet still being willing to borrow from others. The film also implies a generational continuity defeating the ages rather than a conflict between the generations. Like in the movie Bambi, the father here is a ghostly, yet absent, presence and the mother a strong protective influence in the life of the boy hero.

Princess and the Frog
(2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.freemovieposters.net)

Judging by Appearances

Summary: Southern belle stands against racism of Disney.

Desperate to overcome its reputation as quintessentially White supremacist, Walt Disney Productions present a fairy tale with a Black heroine allied to a twist on what is supposed to happen when a White virgin kisses a frog.

Her White girlfriend is presented as a spoilt brat who believes in wishing on stars and frog princes, despite their skin pigmentation; a veritable parody of Vivien Leigh’s Oscar-winning Southern-belle roles in Gone with the Wind and Streetcar Named Desire.

Thematically, this states the obvious: People cannot be objectively judged solely by appearance, in its musical plot stolen from Blues Brothers. Moreover, the voodoo villain is straight out of Live and Let Die - and all the more effective for it.

Toe-tapping jazz (strongly reminiscent of the sixties’ Jungle Book), imaginative musical set-pieces and vivid characterization mark this out as a cut above the usual mediocrity of Disney’s more recent output - despite the lack of memorable song lyrics. An old-fashioned style animation (ie, without CGI) that reminds us of the glory days of a once great movie studio: A celebration of The Big Easy that makes the destruction of Hurricane Katrina (2005) diminish.

Producers
(1968)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

White Supremacy for Beginners

Gleefully-funny movie about bad-taste and White supremacy that is a perfect example of bad taste itself.

Neurotic self-loathing and emotional aggrandizement are mercilessly-parodied and enjoyed as we enter the weird showbiz world of Broadway stage productions and the self-involved theatrical angels who support it - along with the greed, sex-obsession and self-delusion of producers who decide what should be presented to what they consider is a gullible public.

(http://www.dvdjournal.com)

What makes this film work so well, when its subject matter could have so easily gone wrong and produced a disaster along the lines of the worst play ever written, is the performances of Zero MOSTEL and Gene WILDER - the perfect odd couple. As well as Kenneth MARS as the living embodiment of Nazism and Dick SHAWN as the perfect hippy flower-child, who has absolutely no idea that the musical comedy he is appearing in is about the greatest evil perpetrated by mankind and that he is playing the most hated man in history. For him, as for many others, the last act of the play “Springtime for Hitler” is depressing not because of this character’s inherent evil, but because the war is not going well for his eponymous character!

The real fun here, of course, comes from being invited to dance on Hitler’s grave while laughing your head off! If that’s tasteless, then you have no sense of humor worth worrying about. Where it partly fails is in being too ad-libbed and not disciplined enough, but: “Don’t be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party” is an absurdly-classic line of dialog that all-too-eerily echoes the peer-group pressure world of those who cannot think for themselves.

Public Enemies
(2009)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://owentattoos.blogspot.co.uk)

Handsomely-mounted but largely-ineffectual crime drama; recalling the great days of Warner Bros - even though the glory days of gangster movies are long over (as they are with musicals and westerns).

This film has nothing new or insightful to say about women who love criminals nor the savagery of criminals nor the counter-savagery of the state’s response to criminality. Like the modern-day War on Terror, the war on crime here simply ensures crime remains an endemic part of the culture because there is no attempt to understand why anyone would choose a life of crime. Now that would make a profound premiss for a good crime story, if anyone thought it worth telling. Instead, we have a charismatic and hard-to-contain criminal who is as determined as the cops, but no-one we can really admire as we do, say, with the similarly-resourceful Mesrine.

Worst of all, Marion COTILLARD is wasted as the gangster’s moll in a role she could have quietly played in her sleep.

Hong gao liang
[Red Sorghum]
(1987)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(www.baike.com)

A simple storyline overwhelmed by its poetic telling: Here, the treatment is everything; the plot nothing.

In truth, this is a neophyte movie from a filmmaker who has little of value to tell us yet says it beguilingly through the bold and constant use of the color red. Red is used to convey passion towards life, unrestricted vitality and spirited emotional enthusiasm. The visual impact of such a color fully justifies the director’s choice of filming in rich colors since there could be no other way to show blood, wine, anger, revenge, sex, youth - the life-force itself.

Gong LI is as lovely to look at, as ever, and actually embodies the film’s visual themes in her perfectly understated way. But this film is really all show and no go and amounts to little more than extremely beautiful wallpaper.

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.co.uk) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

Remains of the Day
(1993)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.guardian.co.uk)

Light & Frothy

Deep down this is a sentimental old love story larded over with portentous statements about the nature of racewar.

That aside, the acting is superb and helps us easily forget the fact that this is not a very profound look at those who believe service to others is foremost above service to self. Psychologically, an immature work, it nevertheless compels with its sheer production values, the performances and the conviction everyone brings to the piece.

Road
(2009)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://www.dovesandserpents.org)

Another movie proving once again how Whites are unable to think outside their own frame of reference and imagine a world outside of their own culture. Yet another post-apocalyptic road movie that obsesses about the loss of White privilege that was caused by that very privilege.

What remains is a story of family that has successfully stripped away the materialism of a culture that has eaten itself to death. This brings out the cannibalism inherent in such a culture by making anthropophagy literal. But the film refuses to really address the issues it raises and becomes hopelessly treacly, cloying and sentimental.

The hope here lies in people continuing to express their belief in choice and that these should be made fully rather than strenuously avoided. The idea here that most people in the West are bad is claimed after the world ends as if that was not true before.

Like most science fiction this is an allegory about the present state of the world; asking the question: How to preserve ones humanity in a hostile environment. Despite the ostensibly humanitarian nature of the project, the plot and style reek of contempt for humanity. Humans would somehow become bestial after a global war; catalogs of human awfulness - They are awful; We are great.

The Christian concept of original sin has ruined many a good story with its implicit assumption of human Evil when there is no one around to punish that Evil Without the latter, there is no Good here; meaning the work treats human beings as the same pieces of meat as do the film’s anthropophagy.

It is also very hard to identify with people who took life on Earth for granted - the very cause of the catastrophe seen here. Mixed in with this is the sense that this is little more than an elaborate and expensive whinge at others for their lack of humanity - a lack of humanity hypocritically matched by the filmmakers themselves in their negative depiction of humans in this movie. Deep down, such people regard human nature as worthless - a reflection of their own nature.

A drama where human nature is posited as essentially bestial is very simple to write: Everyone gets killed, there can only be one survivor, The End. If the only way for Whites to exemplify their love of life is to imagine that state-of-mind in contradistinction to the worst imaginable behavior of human beings, then they have a relative definition of love. And that is no real definition at all since it only exists if evil does and lacks an objective existence without it. A love that can only exist in the presence of hate is not love. It is the spurious claim of the bad parent who infantilizes their children by claiming that only they can love them and that others are to be feared; ie, do not take sweets from strangers.

A bleak film from a bleak culture that sustains itself with the lie that it loves its children despite the bleakness of the culture this lie creates. Only the superlative casting makes this mess at all watchable.

Like a whole slew of White writers, their books are about nostalgia for auld lang syne when things were better before White cultural decline set in. This is really coded White fear of a world in necessary flux from familial decline. Strange that a culture that has so little faith in its young, should produce such an attempt to pretend otherwise.

When Whites talk about Man-made disasters, they are really talking about disasters made by White Man (eg, the finale of the movie Planet of the Apes). There would, in fact, be whole areas of the Earth not devastated by atomic bombs; eg, Africa. Yet Whites always assume in their movies that the entire world would be destroyed, rather than just the White part. Logically, any White survivors would head for those parts of the globe least likely to have been destroyed. But they never do and one wonders if this is because they would much rather die than share the Earth with Blacks - the most likely survivors of a nuclear war? (Now that would make a really good movie if Whites ever had the courage to make it.)

Die Hard 4.0 was much better than this and so are the post-apocalypse films of Andrei Tarkovsky. If the child is the father of the man, where is the man? Like a lot of existential blather, this one offers no relief from the gloom, nor a single reason to go on living in a world that is dying from the negative attitudes on show here. Worse, it offers no reason to go to the cinema.

Samson and Delilah
(2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(http://managedprintsolutions-online.com)

Clever teenage story of infatuation that subtly builds it characters from out of small gestures, glances and actions. Coming on like Badlands in its depiction of youthful alienation, this shows a pointless existence in an isolated rural community to great effect. An indictment of the affect of White supremacy on aboriginal Australians that is left with little more than the remains of its culture to market to White tourists.

This film is problematic unless you understand the situation in Australia, since unpleasant events take place without apparent rhyme or reason. Saying it is all the fault of White supremacists is not really enough and the lack of parental guidance offered to the central couple remains unexplained.

This movie offers very little insight into Aboriginal culture; while suggesting the emptiness of White culture - without a great deal of dramatic exploration of either. Yet, somehow, the elliptical, dialog thin narrative manages to emotionally affect the viewer because of its stress on remaining true to your cultural roots.

Thursday, 24 January 2013

Scanners
(1981)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://networkawesome.tumblr.com/)

Having only a good idea and some crowd pleasing special effects, mark this out as something of a failure. The story never really develops its theme of telepaths being exploited by private industry as possible weapons. The issue of the impossibility of controlling scanners without their consent is never fully addressed, nor is the exact use to which they would be put if they were ever to give such consent.

The lack of ambition here is sad given that the mostly good actors do their best, but are largely wasted in roles that practically anyone could play.

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.

Tini Zabutykh Predkiv
[Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors]
(1966)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

WEBSITE: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors [Tini zabutykh predkiv] (1966)...

(Image: http://artelanternamagica.blogspot.co.uk)

That rare thing - a movie that is as good as its says on the box.

The story of a lost love is conveyed with touching beauty and poetic grace throughout and, despite this being something of a tragedy, manages to be uplifting. Peasant life in the Ukrainian Carpathian mountains is shown as hard yet vibrant. Sexual attraction and its affects are vividly, yet implicitly, shown through character interaction in a bucolic and overwhelmingly natural landscape setting.

The actors are superb and get the way that people attracted to one another look and gaze at each other; making their love affair all the more believable.

Reminiscent of the best work of Ken Russell, this movie is a potent mix of folklore, magic and Christian symbolism that makes art as accessible as life itself, without the need for obfuscation so common among artists who think emotion is secondary to intellect.

Caine
[Man Eater;
Shark]
(1968)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

Despite a weakly-characterized script and the obviously low budget, this is well-plotted and contains some excellent performances - particularly Arthur KENNEDY as an engagingly-convincing drunk.

The humor is subtle and the shark fight-scenes are genuinely scary and realistic. But this adventure story of dissolute Yanks abroad suffers from a too-obvious McGuffin for the main characters to be fighting over and not enough character conflict to maintain audience interest and dramatic tension.

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.

Sherlock Holmes
(2009)

RATING:	40%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/anorak-city/)

A faithful compendium of the essential elements of the Sherlock Holmes’ stories, this one adds Americanisms and a modern idiom for the dialog and a Butch & Sundance relationship between Holmes and Doctor Watson.

Robert DOWNEY, Jr offers an unconvincing but fun English accent that adds to the general sense of this movie being less than the sum of its clever, amusing and entertaining parts.

The problem here is that the film lacks any themes worthy of Conan Doyle. The plotting is suitably intricate, but Holmes’ anti-social gynophobia and cocaine-addicted fear of boredom that made the original stories so engaging are missing. Guy Ritchie has finally made a film that has nothing of himself in it except his visual style. And outside of his usual lower-class London milieu, Ritchie really has very little to say.

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.

Single Man
(2009)

RATING:	80%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://soberingconclusion.com/movies/)

A peculiarity of Western culture is its inability to live in the present. The ever present political pressure to live in the future based upon the delusions of the past dominate the here and now. This situation is reflected in the central character here who cannot renounce his dreams of a better future while having no real future to boast of. He retreats into an emotionally-detached mode of living that does not work - and never could. Yet, like us all, he cannot remain an island and also live a full and enjoyable life - no matter how hard he tries. Only in the desire to relinquish his life does he begin to come alive - as does the film - which becomes a matter-of-factly imagined collection of beautiful and intensely-savored moments.

The style is strongly Hitchcockian, complemented by a musical score that quotes Bernard Hermann. Like an older generation of American filmmakers, the music conveys much of the mood, while the acting is largely a set of glowingly photographed conversations between intimates. The suspense comes from not knowing if the central character is going to kill himself or whether he will see the light. The only deficiency here is the focus on emotional effects but not enough on causes.

Colin FIRTH gives his all in this one as does the always magnificent Julianne MOORE. This is the kind of character driven film first rate performers such as these get so few opportunities to appear in - more’s the pity. An existential melodrama that will suggest the best way of getting through the best and worst of days.

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.

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
[Spirited Away]
(2001)

RATING:	100%
FORMAT:	DVD

(Image: http://wallpoper.com)

Exemplary animation from Hayao Miyazaki that leaves the declining likes of Pixar and the now-mediocre Walt Disney in the shade. The technical inadequacies are more than made up for by the sheer bravura piece of entertainment that this is. A cartoon is perhaps too good for the kids and can easily be shared by their parents without feeling that they have to sit through it as a chore.

Brilliantly imaginative - perhaps too imaginative - rendition of the classical tale of a child lost from its parents who have been turned into pigs in a world of spirits. She endeavors to rescue them and discovers a great deal about the meaning of personal identity and self-hood. Her character is spunky and feisty, as she should be as she battles all sorts of strange and eccentric characters in an otherworldly dimension of spirits to overcome her fears and help her grow to adult maturity.

The Japanese just do this sort of thing so much better than anyone else does - beautiful and emotionally affecting.

Star Trek
(2009)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

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

A whole lot of fun that plays with the audience’s expectations of a Star Trek movie with many in-jokes about the original series. Many of the clichés from the original series are also intact here, such as characters introduced merely to be killed-off in the next reel; while the lead actors remain largely unhurt.

Sadly, however, the gratuitous violence is also much in evidence - albeit with the necessary homoerotic tinge. Along with clichéd, unimaginative plotting and special effects that over-awe, but serve no dramatic purpose.

Although dramatic, this movie lacks a real heart that would have been approved of by Gene Roddenberry - the creator of the original tv show. The opening sequence is exceptional, but it is downhill all the way from there. Furthermore, the inexpensive actors employed here (most of the budget being spent on the SFX) are not empathetic enough to make us care about them - mostly because they are not very good actors. Only Mr Spock (Zachary QUINTO) offers any gravitas in the role and, worst of all, the villain is bland. Most of the original tv series’ episodes were this bad, but they at least had good, likable actors.

Too much emoting; not enough emotion. Like a tribute band, more of an affectionate tribute to a tv series than an exemplar of the real thing. Like teenagers in charge of their dad’s sports car, it seems odd that such youngsters could ever be in charge of a starship. A lazy movie that knows it has a ready-made audience for its wares and so does not feel the need to try too hard to actually be worth a damn.

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.

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.)

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Thursday, 31 January 2013

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Purposeful Life

Saturday, 26 January 2013

May offend Whites

Friday, 25 January 2013

Personal is not Political

Single Parenthood

Cultured Magic

Judging by Appearances

White Supremacy for Beginners

Light & Frothy

Thursday, 24 January 2013

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