Ben Stein for President

This title may be somewhat misleading in that it’s really not about Ben Stein running for president, because he’s not. But as far as I’m concerned, IMHO, after seeing his movie “Expelled”, he could. I am seriously thinking of writing him in, just so someone can be said to have done that. Somehow I believe I would not be alone.

The Movie: It has quite a few great points. Ben’s movie is at once funny, brilliantly written, wonderfully edited, with just the right amount of pathos and humor. It was very well balanced. It is a documentary style, and if you know me, you know I don’t even believe in documentaries. There is no such thing as a true documentary. If you were in my “Wag the Dog” class a couple of years ago you would remember that as a keystone to understanding the material of the class. Documentaries don’t exist because it is impossible to turn on a camera without having a point of view. Instead, what we have is a documentary STYLE, and there are certain characteristics of that style that place it in that category. But all films have a point of view, and the truly artful filmmaker in the documentary style will craft a work that demonstrates their point of view in such a fashion that will completely convince us of that point of view, and challenge opposing notions. This is done via the Interview, the reality shot (or cinematography that comes from the “live” event), the structure of opposites which places opposing material side by side for what appear to be glaringly different comparisons, and appropriate music and sound that is not obtrusive or overly dramatic or draws attention to itself, and matches the subject matter. Expelled meets all of these qualifications.

Although it employs artfully persuasive tactics, I don’t know how anyone could possibly conclude that this movie was anything but fair. Here before our eyes and ears are the words and representations of BOTH sides of an issue; the issue of freedom of speech, and the squelching of that freedom by the bureaucracy of the official Scientific establishment, protecting their multi-billion dollar industry. Expelled clearly and succinctly draws the picture for us of the situation that we face in our particular culture of the impending loss of our freedom due to the overwhelming presence of the staunch belief in Darwinism, not just as a worldview, but as policy and law. One particularly astute observation by the representation of the scientific community in Poland stated that the problems we face in the US over the issues in science is directly because of the representation that science has in our legal and political structures. The point is taken to the extreme near the 2/3 crux of the film (where all great filmic stories take on their most powerfully prominent moments of truth) when we visit the results of Darwinistic thought in the remnants of Nazi Germany. The most powerful moment in the film, I thought, was after that whole sequence.

Ben Stein is visiting the large shrine and museum of Darwin’s thoughts and writings, called Down House, and is facing the seated statue of Darwin at its entrance, staring Charles in his stony face, and there is silence. Very powerful, and compelling us to draw the conclusions for ourselves of the “origin” of his thinking, and where it might lead us to if allowed to go unchecked by the freedom to investigate as we please, speak as we please, and in the words of one scientist interviewed, “..follow the evidence wherever it may lead us”.

There could be no more perfect comparative metaphor than that of the Berlin Wall, as used by Stein in this film. The two different sides of this issue are truly at that great of a distance from one another, yet also in close proximity, and the results of the division are showing themselves to be exactly the same. I believe what Stein is attempting to take on here is not so much the “proof” (such a scientific word in itself) of the legitimacy of the particular claims of Intelligent Design theory or its constituents, or Creationism, as he is simply pointing out the dangers of the persecution and hostility towards those who openly investigate ID, site ID scientific-based research or conclusions, or espouse ID-ology as part of the basis for their work. Ben Stein is clearly on solid ground in his understanding and portrayal of the particular American situation within our scientific policy and community, and potential effects that it has on not only our decisions regarding the legal treatment of professors or the inclusion of alternative ideas in the classroom, but is striking right at the heart of who we are as a people and a nation; a nation founded on the ideas of freedom, and what taking those basic freedoms away could mean.

Ben Stein for president? Maybe he’ll read my blog and consider it. He would do much better than Michael Moore, I’m sure.

SC

I'm away for awhile. I'm writing a novel. Steeped up into it. No going back now. No direction home. Trying to set the night on fire. Breaking on through to the other side.

There's just so many hours in the day, and right now there are none for writing a blog.

I have movie reviews and comments on culture here from days gone past, if you'd like to read them. That would be swell. But for now, I must be off.

That's what my forehead tells me as well, for trying to write a novel....I must be off.

I'll be back, God willing.

Film:
Stranger than Fiction

Quick Summary: The Accidental Tourist with videographic steroids.

High Points: When Will sings the song and Ann Pascal jumps in his arms. When the writer Emma gets the phone call from Harold as soon as she types it on the page. When the bulldozer suddenly chomps into his room. There are at least a dozen more.

Filmic Notes: The computer-laced graphic overlays done very well and not overdone. The plot/writing great. Casting near perfect. Queen Latifah not the best choice, but probably an industry payola part. But better her than Whoopi Goldberg.


Film:
Venus

Quick Summary: Cinematographically beautiful artistic rendition of the dying sentimental foray by an old man into the flower of youth he is losing.

High Points: When O'Toole speaks with Jodie Whittaker alone about what he likes about her and becomes completely transparent. When Jessie/Venus (Whittaker) is in the bath and she relays her sad story, the truth, and OToole quotes poetry through the door while she listens on. When the old farts get in a fight in the restaurant. When O'Toole delivers his goodbye speech to Vanessa Redgrave at the dinner table.

Haven't published for some time. My time has been devoted to writing a novel. I've decided to put some small segments here for a "taste". I truly hope this is a success. I'm not E-ven going to try to explain this. The novel will likely end up around 6-700 pages. These are just tiny, random tidbits that I like. I simply hope that the teaser of the words will bring about their own world in your head when you least expect it, and some of you who read this will unexplainably awaken in the night and get the urge to get out of bed, find my post, and read it again. Then you'll have to go back to bed and wonder..."Will this man ever publish this thing he's writing?".

The Blue Prophet of Gingham

_____________________

On the shelves were pictures in small frames. One was of himself, big and bright in the center of two other men, all dressed in Army greens with no hats on. They had taken them off and were holding them for the picture that someone else was taking for them, perhaps a passing native of the land they were in. But it was an excellent picture, blue skies and a sandy and palmy town in the background, and very blue water just off to the left in the corner of the frame. His army buddies’ smiles were so large it seemed they would hurt themselves. Korea was golden and green. Their youth then was still evident and glowing from them, and must have been impressive even to the photographer, three troubadours on a sabbath, the day belonging to them, so far from home and so much water in the way, but for the moment triuphant. This was as far south in Korea as you could be in that time, the north taken, the starched olive and red army erecting barriers, walling others out, or was it walling themselves in? And Oholibamah then, not having his new name yet, was free as the wind at that time, his discharge up any day, papers to go home, having now learned of the local world across the great sea, having met the enemy face to face in combat and won, having kept his integrity of mind and heart. Oholibamah knew his work there was finished, and his life was uncertain on coming back weather he would get in the school of his choice, or if there was a school of his choice, as had been advertised. He wanted to become an engineer then, and rank amongst those building up America, building highways, bridges, dams, and even more difficult projects. He knew where the money was, and the jobs were, and he thought maybe he knew how to get one for himself. He was full of hope, the picture radiating, the buddies holding on to each other, ready to take a life raft back home if their big transport plane didn’t leave soon, the sun belonging to them, as well as the wind. They had to believe in something, they’d seen so much in the north, and had failed. They’d shot, and rescued, and burned, and saw burning, and faced an invisible enemy, and an enemy that was so very different than they themselves knew of, and they longed for home and the moist dirt and the corn-fed girls and the smell of perfume and lavender toilet water and a movie and a chance at creating something instead of destroying it. Their homesickness was not seen in the picture because they were already home in their hearts and minds, their air lift just being a shuttle really, gifts already wrapped and token of their trip packed, but not much thought of, only home mattered. Oholibamah didn’t know exactly what home would be like when he got there as momma had not written for a month. He figured that since she knew that her boy was coming back and he would not get his mail anyhow she had ceased writing because it would likely be lost in transit or get to the wrong place, and that trouble with daddy had been taken care of that she mentioned, just another one of his failures that they would have to overcome, but maybe…maybe in time he would make good yet. Her last letter seemed broken.

One other picture in particular stood out amongst all others, the picture of the virgin Mary. But this was no ordinary picture. This Mary was quite dark, and beautiful yes, but not slender like so many of the white Marys he had seen, and full in the features, hinting at Africa, but somehow not all African, not all American negro either, but something hybrid, something south across the Mediterranean, and universal about her. After all, Mother Mary was mother to God, and like Eve a new mother, primal and a bit of us all. Maybe she was from Mesopotamia, the birthbed. Yet Oholibamah liked the picture for many reasons, not the least of which was his belief in the Mother, but that is it also reminded him of Her, his own Mother, just more rounded, his mother being more slender, and actually more beautiful he thought. When he thought hard about it, he could see her above him over his bed, the clean white shirts she would wear making her more brown than she was really, there in the reflected light of the doorway, the smell of her perfect skin close to him, the laundry folded in her lap where she left off doing it for a minute to check on him, she folding what came in from the line, her smile perfect somehow, white, not a gap anywhere, the eyes clean like white fire around the greenish deep brown in the center, sometimes reflecting golden in the right light when they were outside, sometimes almost black in light like that by his bed or in the evening half-light. He worshipped her. He did not understand how it was that daddy did not seem to worship her in the same way. Daddy was another story. He was also a beautiful man in his own way, but very sad to Oholibamah’s memory. He seemed always to be striving, unlike the picture there of Mary, holding the little dark child, the same color as she, there in the bundle, only a small speck of his face showing, one closed eye, the virgin Mary looking out and away, not at anything in particular, but the gaze that went beyond the picture frame, beyond you, beyond the horizon, and you knew, out, out beyond the now the here and the real and through all, a lightning strike that seems like an x-ray it’s so brilliant that it pierces things and you can see the inner workings right down to the center of a cell and the mitochondria swimming around in the cell, and right through your heart. She saw God the Father. There wherever that stare went was God the Father, and her even and calm stare said, “I will always take care of this one, hide him until his time comes, hold him and cherish the brief touch of him in this life, keep the bond between us special, even more so because you told me so yourself and kept your unusual promise, and keep my virgin secret, the miracle child here in my arms. I will watch, and wait.” There was no doubt in the picture, or fear.

____________________

It was just Saturday night and all this had accumulated from the settling dust of the night before. Friday had brought the great cloud of accumulation and fear and trembling and joy and unspeakable truths, and Sat. looked like regular lawn mowing day, there in April, like a regular day just to relax and let out a few bars of a favorite song and then go to work on something on the house and catch a glimpse of regular season baseball as it opens up and trim the hedge and call a friend or their family up about the possibility of a barbeque and leaving the kids with a teen so that you can all go out to the drive-in and watch a race movie or hey, the Green Berets was playing last you heard. But that was not what Friday left on the doorstep really. It had pulled in something entirely different other than this snapshot of postwar booming reality. It had dropped off a negative from the photo shop for examination by the photographer to see if he wanted prints, but the negative was much closer to reality than the white picket fence and the clipped grass and American Beauty roses and new storefronts and the polished chrome rims and comparing war tattoos. It had dropped off something that was a cure for the itch that Saundra of the library could not scratch. Whether it was the cure for the thing that she wanted or not, she would not be sure.

The cloud had brought with it a stranger in paradise that hid within him the hard hurt of a personal reality that defied paradise. He had a microscope in his pocket and was taking slides of every soul around him in vain hopes of a cure for a disease he felt that only he had.

The quiet storm had also dropped a blue bomb in the midst of Missouri. He came with paint and words and a quarrel with normal.

But Friday did not indeed just dole out evil without providing the scale equivalent of the cure, and the possibility of grasping at it, and even went so far as to place it carefully within arm’s reach of Sunday morning. Friday wanted it’s own cure worse than Saturday ever knew. Saturday is always oblivious to Friday’s whoredom and willfully ignorant of Sunday’s repentance, being instead the dancing nephew and niece of imprudence and licentiousness, the dazed, heat-of-the-moment reveler at Carnival not knowing where the bottom of the pocket is really whilst playing the games of chance that inevitably empties it.

Saturday was a five aspirin day. A day to sleep in and let the breeze through the window wake you. Children crept up early on Saturday because they knew they could watch cartoons without getting caught because mom and dad were most likely asleep late and didn’t care if Tom and Jerry killed each other or not. Flash Gordon almost always got lazered, even though the evil dominion never really won completely and Roy Rogers was old and boring.

Friday and Sunday were fighting.

____________________

The cloud went East, but moved back over Washington, D.C., and over Chicago, and over the Mississippi to Kansas City, the center of the country, and thought that quite interesting. It had a mind to settle down in one place all of the hard interests that had come it’s way. There were those, like Jerry Rubin, who thought that freedom would be best served in such a way that it meant freedom from restraint. This was certainly a welcome message to the latest and greatest generation, or so they thought themselves, and fed their appetite with freedom of the flesh and freedom of the mind, and mostly, freedom from the rules. If you wore a tie to work you were a rule-maker. The tie was a rope that tethered you to The Man and all of The Man was tied together, so to speak, in one giant boardroom. So the Cloud would be plopping down distinctive tie-cutters and putting them at the doorsteps of the tie-makers. The confrontations were inevitable. It’s just like dust settling in a corner. The question was just which corner would they all find a swirling eddy in which to mix.

Across the land in 1968 all things were breaking. Nothing was working right. Airplanes began to fall from the sky. Baggage for your flight didn’t end up in the right places. Technology was not in place yet to control all of the vast and quickly growing systems that were already in operation. Mail got routed to the wrong addresses, and plain old delivery of packages was becoming a joke. For the first time in North American history there were massive sit-outs, as opposed to sit-ins, of government workers like the US Postal Service, the garbage men of New York, and air and freight unions. They began to expect something back from their America. The cloud brought with it a range of emotions and sentiments that went beyond feeling and catapulted whole people groups into action. But it was 1968 when all the shit hit the fan.

A young man named Hunter began writing about it all on the road and taking it all in; a young man with a pen and a typewriter, and another named Jack.

And there was another strange older young man who’s sentiments ran after all the rest of the young flesh. He was also a writer, but mostly a physical observer of those who wrote and sang and sat-in, and popped pills and shot things in their veins and threw off their clothing in public and piled on each other in orgiastic glee. He did it all too, but not necessarily with deep abandon, but rather with curious observation, and then wrote it all down; a scientist making notes. William dug himself deep enough into the culture to not get out again. He would write about people hanging themselves and the dark side of the 50s and 60s.

The cloud had already picked up and swept up another young man and a young woman at about the same time, almost straight from the beaches of the California coast. The young woman smoked quite a bit of pot, and she had quite a bit of pot to smoke as she lived and breathed amongst the glitterati of Hollywood and Beverly Hills houses during the day and ran off in a (car description) at night to be amongst the thrilling and adventurous and dangerous lives on the strip, daddy and mummy bankrolling her right up until she had enough of her own notoriety and wanted revolution. Jane would have painted herself blue and invaded a small town as well if she had thought of the idea first. But she was off to foreign shores and marches and colleges, believing that her mind and the power of her persuasion and her position as a woman, and a good looking woman at that, had persuasive power in the shifting tide of cultural opinion and direction, the direction that the cloud moved. And they did. Jane was a freedom junkie; freedom from restraint. Everywhere else she touched down freedom from restraint at home led her to hand out freedom from restraint like candy with a spirit of aplomb and a great degree of persuasive politicking.

Speaking of handing out candy, the young man named Timothy practically threw new basement-manufactured pharmaceuticals at people, trying to hit them in the eyes with his little pills and blotters and pads of chemicals; trying desperately to change the face of the human earth with his “natural” science, telling old children that they needed to drop out of their normal day-jobs, tune in to whatever natural occurrences would happen after partaking of his wares, and turn on like some kind of switch which was basically the opposite of what people were in their ‘normal’ waking lives and become something else entirely. This was so appealing that quite a huge number from California to New York, and over the big pond where opium was already a fashion long-enjoyed, partook of his chemicals and did just as described. Many a chaotic moment came and went around this culture of opposites; living negatives walking the streets and lying on the beaches and surrounding the night clubs and some cutting themselves on the sharp edge of the living, and dying instead. Many took trips they would not return from. Timothy swore that his favorite trip was riding a motorcycle as fast as he could go and having a bunch of other motorcycles suddenly come up along side ridden by huge rats with machine guns and shooting at him.

Heroes, revisited...AGAIN.
OK,
I'm close, but I have to revise that last entry. Here it is:

I believe firmly that the W.H.O.-type organization that I spoke of is there. But I believe that there are TWO major groups, and one minor one.

ONE group of people represents the benevolent type, protecting the information about the genetic discovery. But the other is out to use it for personal gain, or world domination. HRG I believe, from what I can tell, is mixed up with the bad organization, and that organization included Mr. Nakamura at the top of it somewhere.

I do NOT believe that Hiro's dad, Mr. Nakamura, is together with Linderman. I believe that these 2 men are part of 2 different groups. At the moment though, there is no way to tell which one is really the benevolent one. It would seem that the one that HRG is mixed up with are bad guys, and now that he knows this, or senses this, he wants out. He did not know who Linderman was! That was key to me that his group is separate. This would also make Linderman's group the so-called "good" guys. However, just because Linderman healed a plant doesn't mean that he's a good guy. It would seem that my tables from my last entry could be completely turned, and that Linderman could actually be a type of God. HRG is a sort of type of Godly man, or really good person. I'm convinced that he at least is virtuous.

As far as Syler is concerned, he is not a consequence of either group at all. He's just another person with the genetic anomaly, and his has manifested in a way that absorbs other's talents, like Peter Petrelli. However, what is being exhibited in Syler (which is of course simply the name of a watch company that made really good imitation watches in a Swiss style) is the very negative aspects of the human nature when allowed to run unchecked by morality and discipline. Do we honestly believe that if Suresh didn't pull the trigger on him he would have worked it out with him and became a real partner? 99.999 not.

About that 3rd "minor" group. It seems that there is a renegade group of people who have "defected" from the whole group of people "in the know" about the genetic anomaly. Mrs. Petrelli, who had the "superior say-so" in the matter of Claire and what happened to her, and who obviously commanded the Haitian all of the time, is part of this group. HRG knew this all of the time as well, and he purposefully sent Clair to that group of people when the chips were all the way down. This is all hidden from the Petrelli brothers, even after Nathan goes to kill Linderman in the hotel kitchen with the gun. Nathan and Peter knew nothing of him then.

Could it be that Mrs. Petrelli and Mr. Linderman were once married? I mean, we've met her as Clair's grandmother, but am I missing or just forgetting something in saying that we have have never met her mate, or have an idea of who he is? Who is the grandfather of them all in that group, and is he alive? Mr. Linderman is a good candidate.

As far as the actual plot, it could go in as many different ways as there are people posting theories online. Because you have a shape shifter, two people who absorb everyone else's talents, one who kills to get them, and the other who simply absorbs them, a guy who goes back in time, one who reads minds, a couple of them who can touch machinery like computers or telephones and manipulate them to their own ends, a nuclear guy, and a couple of fly boys - then shake and add the power to bodily regenerate - and you've got a huge amount of possibilities. Anything can happen here. I'm not even gonna try. I'm more interested in the stories' motives and underlying purposes, as usual. Besides the changes noted above, I'm still sticking with the same theory that I posted in my last post about why, as far as the genetic code. It's just that now, after the last show we have evidence that suggests that there are 2 different groups, like I did say, but that they are most likely mutually exclusive, and of course, at odds.

Save the World

Affliction

This was one very disturbing film. Very disturbing.

03/22/07

The thing about Scorsese is that every picture is better than the last. I’m sitting here watching the Oscars after I just watched the Departed DVD last night until 3 AM. Ok, I got started too late. But yeah, about the Scorsese guy, you bet he gets the best director or I’m eating my last movie ticket stub. He looks rather cartoonish in the crowd, and when accosted with a script by Ellen Degeneres, laughs it up and promises to look at it later. I doubt if it’s a real script, and I doubt he would look at it later if it was. I don’t think he needs script submissions at this stage.

Marty takes the cake for best directors of all time so far. My top three are Martin Scorsese, reluctantly Alfred Hitchcock, and Benito Bertolucci. I say reluctantly about Alfred because, well simply he was so stinking weird. But I’m just talking about their directing ability, not their personal beliefs or their lives or legacy.

But I will also state this uncategorically that Marin Scorsese would not be the filmmaker that he is without Thelma Shoemacher. Their editing teamwork goes back to his first gangster film and they haven’t stopped since. It’s kind of like a marriage. But she is brilliant all by herself. I think there should be a film about HER actually. It would be a documentary that I would spend the time to watch. I would want to see Thelma put in the top all-time editors in the filmmaking hall of fame.

In The Departed the sequences of dual character development flow so smoothly that they are indistinguishable, and one character flows into the other without being so confusing as to be lost. The moment of the cutaways, the use of sound in the editing in the gun battles and subtle changes in the climate of sounds and atmosphere in cellphone conversations were very nicely cut, but the timing of how long to hang on a face, the conversations, the movement across the screen, etc., is all Thelma. Ok, it’s Marty that makes the actors do their thing, but the perfect timing, I mean flawless timing of the cut, to the frame, goes to Thelma. One can only hope to find a partner to work with and team with in life the same way that these two operate.

Ok, so it’s 11:40 PM EST and Thelma just won. I am so justified. So now I guess I’ll wait until the nominee for best director and watch Marty make his walk down there. It’s about time he did. I don’t know about best picture. It’ll be close, and The Departed may make it, but I have a feeling that it could be Blood Diamond, or the Queen, but since I haven’t yet seen either one yet, well…there’s Marty. I am typing this as the envelope is opened. And……yep, it’s Marty. I knew that. But that doesn’t make me smart, because it was a given this year. And best picture…yep, it’s The Departed. Ok, now I feel smarter. Maybe I’ll watch it again tomorrow and pay my extra dollar to Blockbuster.

Gnite.

I just figured out who HRG is in Heroes. I know it for sure.

[HRG, “Horned Rimmed Glasses” on Heroes, is really an employee of an organization that is much like WHO, the World Health Organization, but a branch that is much more like the CIA and very secretive, and they’ve branched off and made their own highly secret pact to control the whole genetic anomaly that is creating these presentations as extranormal human abilities.] They knew even before the older Dr. Suresh did that the human genome had this trait evident within it, as capable of producing these results, but here’s the kicker – they actually CAUSED this to happen on purpose, knowing also that the genome, while developing on it’s own had these capabilities, would not have presented in any form high-profile enough to find except in rare and sporadic cases without a “PUSH”, and so they experimented with large areas of the human population by releasing certain hormonal-laced inhalents as gasses (or as soluble liquids in water supplies – wait and see on that one – proteins are very difficult to manage as they are such large molecules – it’s been proven, like the new inhalable insulin that that only works as inhalant and not liquid, anyway…)over large population areas, and as such were harmless in and of themselves.

On the other hand, the Cheerleader, Clair along with the entire Petrelli gang, and mother, and Clair’s mother who lives in the trailer park, and who knows how many others, is a direct responsibility of a mating of people who actually AGREED to be part of an experiment early on in the Human Genome project, and the whole family has these miraculous abilities because of the direct genetic manipulation of the PARENTS of the politician and his brother, and the mother who lives in the trailer, etc. So that all leads back to some very tricky manipulation on the part of the parents of the Petreilli brothers (the mother sat at lunch with the press person who gave them such a hard time) and the elusive Mr. Linderman, and HRG.

I believe that Linderman is basically just a bad guy after a lot of money that happened to “horn in” on the action of the whole WHO-type organization and his funds are involved, trying to develop the heroes to do the bidding of a personal organization like that, and hence the “control devices” that they are all being outfitted with. As such, it could be that Linderman is NOT associated with HRG at all now and they’ve broken off, and that’s why HRG is trying to be so secretive and keep the information out of the open so that Linderman does not find out how they are operating. So basically here’s how that scenario would work out: Linderman is a type of the Devil (and you’ll see later in my paragraph below, Nazi), and HRG is a type of God.

I’ve personally seen HRG as a type of God since the beginning anyway, and have made my bets that he is really a very good guy. But he’s very much like the Judeo-Christian god as seen by the larger culture and not a central figure in how this all shakes out. As such, Clair represents a type of the church catholic, and/or/also a type of innocence, beauty, and goodness at the very least, in mankind, and also because she is “blonde, American, a Cheerleader, a virile teen woman” she also represents a current social ideal (and maybe someone who is a screenwriter’s ideal) of what genetic evolution on this side of the pond would be.

So besides the jabs at what the subtext is all about, let’s get back to the science of it and why it’s all so important anyway. The story is definitely heading for a moral point, and I’m seeing it as only coming out one way, that’s the way that Jewish-controlled media has been attempting to shape public consciousness for the last 3 decades. It’s all about the evil direction that genetic manipulation and human intervention in human design can take, and a cautionary tale about our dangerous manhandling of such a volatile substance as genetic material. You may ask how I know this about the Jewish media and why it’s such a hot issue. If you just consider their history…and then consider the history in Hollywood. Let’s look at the Alien series as an example. That whole series was nothing if not a giant cautionary tale about the future of people using genetics to completely wipe out another race of people, or gain mass-amounts of planetary resources. 3 decades you say, just what exactly was happening in the 80s? Look back at a series on television then called “V – The Final Battle”. There was nothing more Judeo-paranoid than that series.

Anyhow, that’s the bottom line – the so-called “Heroes” are our genetically manipulated future, and the world can easily turn into a “freak show” if not handled correctly. The believers in this are not strictly Jewish by faith you probably understand, but the highly secularized version of their religious cousins. As such they have inherited/gained a cultural zeitgeist that refuses to be whitewashed under watered-down Americanism or post Cold-War euphoria. They see the world as amalgamated, treated by very ethnic-conscious individuals, secular humanists, not Christian humanists, and groups that shun, no, fear such things as ethnic cleansing. They have every right, you know, to have such a fear, having had the experiences that they have had as a community. Consider this last “little” thought if you will – the name “Linderman”.

And I am not saying that I disagree with them. I am only stating the facts as best I can see them. “The science could be good if tightly controlled and used for the right reasons, but given greed, and the evil bias of certain men who would feel that they are created a bit higher than other men, and also human fallibility and a record of not controlling ourselves, you will have a deadly combination that creates havoc rather than good.”

I’m counting on this show actually demonstrating a way out of that ultimate destruction, and I’m betting it has much to do with the idea, not so much of leaving genetic manipulation alone, but rather controlling it correctly and not allowing it’s misuse. They are trying to create an opinion here that is not highly skeptical of the science itself, but rather highly cautious, and will try to prove that this type of science not only needs to be taken very seriously and cautiously, but also controlled and in the right hands.

Firefly: Space 1999 for 2006

My college friends I work with, half my age, are in love with this series that was evidently a televised SciFi channel production, because I had never heard about it until this semester. I find it to certainly be an interesting cross between Western and Space. Nice cross-breeding! It's visually not unlike Space 1999, however, in that the sets are obviously TV, albeit the SFX are good later generation stuff. But what sets this apart is the characters, as a good show should. I love the characters, and love their humor. They lack a little complexity, except for the captain and the Bishop. They are the centerpieces. I love the girl mechanic, but mostly just because she makes me smile, because, well...she's always smiling, even when she's been shot in the gut.

But the Captain and the Bishop I believe make up the main conflict of the story, even though they certainly are getting along well enough to travel the same ship together. Every good company needs a captain, a mechanic, a second-hand who not-so-secretly wants to take control, a whore, and a misguided doctor. Oh, and a nutjob. All good ingredients for story.

Ok, I like it enough to keep watching, but if it remains as formulaic and polished, I'll lose interest because every show seems to keep going the same and there isn't the rich development that I would anticpate in something written more in depth. I give it 7 out of 10 so far. I'm on DVD #2.

Heroes Revisited

Written Tues. Nov. 14th, submitted: Mon. Nov. 27th

Ok, you don't have to believe that I wrote this earlier, but here it is.

My early expectations for plot have not gone completely askew, and my initial look at Heroes has not really gone wrong with respect to the general direction of the show, however, I now must admit, ahem, I did not stop watching at 3 shows. Nope; I am now addicted. I am totally ready to save the Cheerleader. We have now gotten a glimpse into the world of the Dad.

He was not who we expected now, was he. There are moments still when he makes the blood run cold as he looks through windows on what’s going on with the other characters. He is always looking through windows, and wears those signature glasses with the wire and black rims, his time period showing no love of modernism and no need of upgrading his appearance to please others. He is always spying, looking in, but as we know now more fully, manipulating and adjusting, and deeply involved in the race to discover the identity and whereabouts of Syler.

Syler, the dark one, the murderer, and demonic-like figure of mystery. We have been set up with a definite line of demarcation between the good and evil, and now that there is a time and a date attached, a showdown of sorts it seems. Next week is supposed to reveal at least the character and nature of this evil being, although I’d feel safe to say at this point not the total purpose of Syler (because there are quite a few shows left ).

But back to the Father. His smiling and knowing protective outer cover will probably come out at some point as well. The mother is absolutely oblivious, I’m sure, her and Mr. Muggles. If she’s in on it I am going to quit watching. But the wide-eyed girl helper who is involved with Mohandas Suresh and the painter and seems to have the gift of persuasion, and the quiet dark man that always seems to be the backup for the Father and “cleans people out” of their memory, while at first all seeming to be the suspected evil scourge, now seem more to the point to be the very good guys themselves.

So ok, now I’m going to go off into speculation. Before, I had estimated that this would be one more piece of postmodern mishmash with a pluralistic and pantheistic god omnipresent in the background, neither good nor bad but shifting in perfect harmony with the tides of metaphysical force and subatomic energy. Along with that is the basic atheistic materialist belief that the people involved are all subject to the domination effect of evolution, and that given it’s course we all can evolve in our abilities, and that sooner or later there could develop in us, by the pantheistic god’s effect and the shifting of the planets (notice the eclipse motif in the painting by the heroin addict, and the appearance of an eclipse in the second adventure, also of note the obvious circular planet effect in the show’s title sequence) a wave of supranormal abilities, shifts in time and space, and physical interactions through the body and minds of certain individuals, few at first, and then growing into a pandemic. The conclusion that the story seems that it has been heading for philosophically is that we are all superheroes, and if we can tap into the great metaphysical force all around us, nurture belief in the human mind, and believe in the triumph of goodness in the human person, then we can “evolve” into better mankind. I still pretty much believe this.

Notice please the fairly consistent pattern of duality in the characters. There are many who have a dark side, an unseemly persona, and personal weakness, even if it’s as simple as Hirohito’s naiveté’, or as deeply disturbing as what looks like demon possession by the painter, or the dual-personality of the blonde mother. And the surprises never seem to stop popping up as to who has abilities; take for instance DL, the blonde’s husband “escaped” from prison and “appearance” in the house. Seems like the eclipse brought on a wave of the supernatural.

So my early estimation was such, but now I’ve gotten a slight glimpse of something more. This is where the writing of the show is getting deep, and me, I’m always digging it seems deeper than may be there. I have this strange, almost supernatural ability it seems, as a media critic, to see beneath the layers of lens flares, special FX, and rhetoric. Hmm, maybe I’m growing in this ability?

Let’s just imagine for a moment that the Father is a type of God. He has an investment in the Cheerleader because she represents innocence and good, kind of like the Church. He is doing everything he can to protect this relationship and keep it intact, whole, like a family. He seems to have near omniscience, and omnipotent ability in getting around and getting to the right people. He certainly knows much more than Dr. Suresh ever knew. And here is where I think the story may go in another twist – I predict that the older Dr. Suresh is not really dead. He simply had to go into hiding and is working with the Father.

I still stand by my early prediction that this group of Heroes will band together to form a “league” if you will of working heroes, and now I believe that the Father will be their leader, and that their arch enemy will be this Syler, along with maybe many others that are also evil but less talented in their abilities, just like the good guys grow and learn about their talents and learn to harness them.

So we have a couple of metanarratives within the scope of the story already, and 2 of them very familiar with American culture: the story of the Church, and salvation and a watching over by a benevolent God cast against an unspeakable evil which wishes to destroy it, and also the Cheerleader as a type of America the Beautiful, and the preservation of freedom and purity. But these are narratives which I believe in the end the story of Heroes will try to enclose or envelop within the supposedly larger narrative of the godless mass of pantheistic physical nature, the yin and yang of balance, and the consummation of complexity and chaos theory. Will one win out over the other? We shall see.

book review

Greil Marcus - The Shape of Things to Come - Prophecy and the American Voice

Greil Marcus seems to be waging an internal war and then displaying it on his own canvas. But he is doing it in a sort of Jackson Pollack kind of way. The cohesiveness must be all there, we tell ourselves, and we can see it, somewhat, but it is fraught with conflict that when pieced together is giving a picture in total of a cynical heart; a jaded soul. The three narrative historical landmark speeches he is using as foundation for his painting are all hopeful yet simultaneously dire warnings; all inspirational and incendiary. But he seems to spend a great deal of his initial energy separating the zeal and hopefulness of the speeches from a swathe of reality that he places liberally on the canvas in grey or black tones, separating as in distancing, in order it seems to point out the inevitable failure of the Union, the very grey-blue notion of America as only an idea, and not realized.

I am supposing after the initial burst of cynicism and a generally negative spirit, because of the title, itself being prophetic in nature and presupposing an answer, that Mr. Marcus is going to somehow redeem his text with some sort of replacement, revision, or reenactment of historical events that will enlighten us as to how it should be, was really, or could have been. It is yet to be seen what direction his “answer” will be to these supposed “voids”, but because he has written a book I’m supposing he has one. Or will he? Please tell me that this will not be another one of those high-language intellectual thrillers that destroy the past and current American system and waylay all paths of possible return to a reasonable rescue under that system, and then leave us to our own devices as to a solution, or offer very little in the way of redemption. I’ve seen this before. A writer of no mean political and intellectual talent splatters their frustration over the canvas with abandon, and then leaves the painting dripping red and black and blue; no flowers, no pointers to signposts up ahead.

But then again, I’m only on page 39.

The Fountain - Darren Aronofsky - release Nov. 22, 2006

This was a great piece of art work in motion, and certainly a great story, but it was not a cinematic masterpiece. Art meets science fiction meets Darren Aronofsky meets real science through the eyes of the microscopic special effects. Nice. But is the North American crowd ready for art alone to stand? And also, I believe that Darren, still a growing director, has not shown us maturity in this piece for the simple fact that he does not trust his own work yet. His reliance upon repetitiveness was taken as style in Requiem, but in this piece I saw it as tedium and unnecessary. I’m not sure of what everyone else thought, but I “got it” early on and connected his dots, and did not need the many consistent reminders. The dots I did not connect were purposeful on his part, and well done. I'll explain that a little later in this article.

Darren has a fascination with symbolism in all of his work so far. This one was cinematically straightforward and powerful. All of the themes were central, circular, rotational, and consistent. One cannot deny the visually adept eye of Darren’s cinema awareness and his ability to craft an almost totally visual story. You could easily make a hundred or more wall-hangings from this work suitable for framing. Candles and deep black were abounding, and rich textures reminiscent of Rembrandt. Kudos to the furniture, costume, and lighting people. Huge accolades to the Cinematographer. This one could be up for set and wardrobe Oscar.

I’ve just sat through a vision that is quite beautiful, and certainly metaphysically complete. While the vision that I’m left with is of Buddhist completion, circles within circles, it lends credence and understanding to the Christian bedrock story of the Tree of Life as well. Brining it home, Aronofsky leaves us with reality, and dealing with death, and the promise of life. This giant allegory draws upon both traditions to simply illustrate the holistic principle of life from death, and the relinquishing of life has never been so visually stunning. This was a great offering from the standpoint of art and it’s ability to bring about the heightened awareness of spirituality without actually saying a word. And speaking of words, there were indeed very few. The lush visuals did all the talking. Ultimately we are left with hope and promise, and the vision of life beyond where we live. The fearless face of beauty and love squares against strife and anxiety and the face of science and our machinations against the reality of death. The winner is life, but on it’s own terms, God’s terms.

The ultimate failure of the tree, even at the end, I believe was not necessarily the failure of the story of the Garden of Eden’s Tree of Life, but rather the ultimate subjugation of the human story to that of death, and re-birth in another life. The Doctor’s strivings prove to be fruitless. His striving to find the source, just like that of the Spanish conquistador, and his ultimate acceptance, to “finish it”, to write that 12th chapter, was a transcendence that we all must face. Flowers do indeed grow from the ground. “Unless a seed fall into the ground and die it cannot produce fruit”.

The final scene of the star was reminiscent of the final scene in the film Brainstorm, which also took the partaker of that vision, in that case Christopher Walken, into the world of the eternal and was like the enfolding of eternal space upon space, a never-ending light and folds of light. This beautiful and yet limited vision of the eternal is about as descriptive as cinema can get visually, metaphorically. But because of the somewhat overdriven visuals I was left with the same effect that Big Fish had upon me; I knew it was fake, but I loved it anyway. And I stayed with the story because of the illustrations’ strength.

Yet there was much to be desired in regard to the story. I am putting pieces together in the aftermath. During the first viewing I wanted to know more about the future hero and his world. I wanted to know where that bubble starship came from. I wanted to see the background of just how that ship was created, and where he got the tree of life from, and how it was that he knew to take it to the galaxy. Was he indeed the year 2000 man, still alive? It turns out he had the original and faded tattoo, and the place where the ring was prior to it’s theft. That did not become completely clear until the end. The now extremely fragile-looking and worn pen that he used spoke of the years, and so I’m assuming that he was the original Dr. that did surgery on monkeys. And so Darren is here attempting to draw us on with the suspense and the fairly thin line of mystery about this future space traveler. That was actually a good ploy. It worked.

It does work, however I think it might have been fine, would have helped somewhat, to just simply show the context of that world to some degree, to see an origin of that time. Maybe just a shot of his preparation and takeoff from planet earth with the tree in partial bloom, and other people of similar nature watching him go, a larger-scaled vision of the world of 2600 that he finally comes to live in. And if indeed he was the inheritor of that tree, just how was it that only he could take it off-world and to it’s origin? There are many questions that never get answered. Those details don’t really need to be in the film itself. But the answers to these puzzles, indeed some of the questions do not come until reflection later. This is a great reflective piece, and may be lost on some younger audiences without sufficient background to understand either religion, death, cancer, experience with love, or other more mature themes.

I’d say for all of the above reasons while the story was certainly well-rounded, was succinct, it lacked scope (not depth – it’s plenty deep), but was also a visual feast worth seeing for it’s beauty and poetic, lyrical vibrancy.

Heroes

Besides the bad channel feed I get where I'm at, I'd say that at least the plot is not fuzzy. Yes, believe it or not I find the new TV series Heroes to be predictable. People are discovering their super powers and are being drawn together in an inevitable plot to form a league of heroes not quite the same as "other" leagues we've seen before.

I DO like the freshness of the characters and their believeability. That is refreshing. Also, the discoveries they make about themselves are creepy, and it seems that not just one but a few of them have a negative or uninviting personal life. This is good, but of course the stuff of comics past, already been written.

The interchanging of scenes is very good, and the special effects normal to ok, the acting is as I've said, believable, and also cast well. The show has a filmic quality and is not too TV like, so it looks good (as far as I can tell with my bad reception - ok it's a shared campus network cable, but even though it's satellite it's not that great). One drawback I saw so far that is a weakness is the use of a floating voice that sporadically interjects poetic and mysterious-sounding lines that may or may not have anything to do directly with the visual of the moment. So much for aesthetics, let's get to the meat.

This is where rerun #2 comes into play. If you close your eyes and listen to what's being said it's standard postmodern mixed with all-but-deserted humanism and fantasy thinking. This will entertain all those who do not have a life and wish they really had one. Well, ok, and those who like heroes and comics just because they do. There is a huge dose of positivism thrown in, and you can tell from the plot so far, even though it hasn't thickened yet, that there will be many obstacles to overcome to make the show addicting. But it's all psychological drivel that amounts to little more than faith in mankind, against of course great odds and unnamed evils, the worst evil of course being resignation to tedium and amalgamated homogeniety. Nobody likes to be homo (sic).

But I am waiting to see the next recorded episode off of the TIVO. I'm betting there is mention, if not outright dutiful recognition as some kind of player, of a deity or higher power source, most likely fitting neatly into the catagory of an atomically and metaphysically correct pandeity. Will most likely catch about 3 episodes and then drop this one from future consideration. No stars really or good tomatoes, cows, whatever....

Syrianna

Kind of like Illiana, the combination of IN and IL. But no where near the midwest.

The strength of this film is visual, and the editing is minimalist. We are whisked from one scene to the next and made to put together the pieces. Now if you're a puzzle person you will like that. If you need things spelled out for you, this is not a good show. It is precicely, however, this type of editing that reflects the goals and ambitions of the project. We are kept engaged in a global spider web. We see bits and pieces of it, and very close up, and gradually we are drawn back until the entire web comes into focus. At first it looks like a few dewy, drippy lines of rope, and then when we get further back we see it for the huge trap that it is.

This is of course the filmmaker's view of politics. It's all tied together. But craftily they don't just want to spell it out for you. This does one of two things. We give up somewhere and proclaim "it's all too complex", or, and this is what makes the issues at hand compelling and believable (note that I'm not saying that the actual facts that are given to us are believeable in themselves), we come to the great "Ah hah!" that the story has been desigend to bring us to, and we therefore feel a great sense of personal discovery and enlightenment. This heightened state of involvement creates a buy-in for us. The buy-in is inclusive of Clooney's character, as we discover that he is an unwitting accomplice to destructive U.S. govt. policy and concurrent behavior; ergo, we side with him in his "quest for the truth". Dito with the Matt Damon character, and unwitting accomplace from the Swiss Banking end of the deal, and equally outraged at being used and abused, and wined and dined at the expense of his ethics. All of this is peachy if you buy into those kinds of politics. But of course who trusts their government any more, right? Since no one does it seems, we are open to this kind of thinking: the massive consipiracy. The reason that a film like this will succeed however, over and against a film like Farenheit 9/11, is because of it's understated agenda. It's much easier to buy into "fiction". We never feel as if we are being preached to in an action flick.

Very much in the vein of the original Manchurian Candidate, the gradual unfolding of the plot and the confidence we have in the hero of the story both lead us to the inexorable conclusion that all is not right with our current policy. We of course do not trust institutions that we rarely see the inside of or know of their policy, so the movement within the CIA, in particular by it's biggest directors and action figures, is belieable. We either believe that what they are doing is actually OUTSIDE the knowledge of the chiefs of staff or the presidency, or that somehow the upper management knows of it and is purposefully not directly involved, either way implicating a strong government involvement in direct manipulation of a foreign power's political choices, and all of that resultant from commercial concerns. The differnce between this film and the Manchurian Candidate would be that in the Candidate the manipulation takes place in the foreign power with designs on our own. You know, Candidate was banned for quite some time. I saw no smoke about this from any DC based committees...

Devil's Advocate Note:
Well, it certainly was a sad trip. The "good guys" get killed in the end, and all by our dear military. We are supposed to feel saddened by our own greed and licentiousness, and, according to the commercial at the end, start making an immediate gravitation away from our dependence on oil. We've got to stop encouraging the Arabs to just put up hotels and theme parks with their money and allow them to start building for the future without an oil based economy! That's what we're doing now folks: playing the whore and taking Vegas to them and not teaching them the value of savings! Without a fair shake from us now we will just be taking their money and leaving them with multimillion dollar roller-coasters and no electricity to run them with! Then where will they be, huh? You can't eat a roller-coaster! These poor ignorant Arabs can't think for themselves, so we've got to stop our government manipulation on levels like this! I'm so damned fired up about this I'm just liable to go jump in my SUV and ride right down to my congressman's headquarters, take him out to lunch, and give him a wake up call! So outbid the Chinese and give them what they need over there! Schools, and clinics, and football!

Man on Fire

I will never forget that little face. It could be because I have a sweet little blonde on her way to being just like that. I’d be on fire too if my girl was taken like that, taking a shot in the chest and cutting off fingers to find out who dunnit. It wasn’t even his little girl. But somebody like that would get under a man’s skin without too much encouragement. This just took about 40 laps in a pool, a few hugs, and naming her bear after him. Replacement father happens while real one is away. Maybe the hypocrisy of the real dad came through by comparison, kind of like a silent effect. Kids know who real people are without a great deal of thinking.

I thought this was one of the most engaging thrillers/mysteries/action dramas I’ve seen in awhile, not just for its high tension but because of the deeply personal and believable background story. But mostly, and this is not a first, the on-screen presence of Denzel Washington is unbelievable. He absolutely sizzles, again. His understated tension can almost be felt in this story with your eyes closed; walking TNT with Nitro sweat rolling off of him.

Now deep into the story when the stakes are high and we are drawing to a conclusion, the friend played by Christopher Walken is a little overplayed in the scene where he begins to describe Creasey’s “Masterpiece” (albeit it is true). That made the whole thing just a little too melodramatic for me, and that was the first time in the flow of the story that I broke out of the story’s trance and became aware of the acting. However, it didn’t take long for the story to close in again. I just would have directed that scene somewhat differently. Right idea and timed well in the story line, but over the top.

Walken in all other parts of the story makes a perfect compliment to Washington. Their friendship is genuine and warm and immediately bankable. Their past is made equally mysterious and adds perfect weight to the story, and power. We really don’t need to know the full story to feel the power behind whoever Creasy might have been, or exactly what he had done. The line, “Do you think God will ever forgive us for what we’ve done?”, is just plain great writing. It is, of course the entire theme of the story carried forward to the beginning, ending with a close up of the failing grasp of a hand on the figure of St. Jude.

All through the poignant story is the search for redemption and justice. It is classic bad guys and corruption vs. lone ranger with an edge. And the Lone Ranger is flawed by the past and predilection to alcohol, turning to the relationship with the little girl, and to God to get a grip. His personal turning point of putting away the bottle is not cheesy or pretentious, and his character displays genuine struggle. The consistent putting aside of the self for another, and blatantly placing himself in harm’s way, seemingly without regard for the guns of the enemy, Creasy comes off almost as a superhero, and his life takes on a very supernatural air, defying death, all the while seeming almost nonchalant about his dance with it. Particularly powerful were the brief glimpses of Creasy in a pool with his continued bleeding mixing with the clear water, reminding us of his ongoing condition while also adding even more tension and the pressure of time to the already heavily climbing events.

So tension and more tension is the word for this film, and a strong sense of story that carries us forward and sticks with you afterward. I have not been this engaged and felt such dramatic buildup since my first experience with the Russian film “Come and See”. So if you haven’t “gone and seen” this one, rent the disk, and make sure the kids are asleep. Not for the squeamish, nor those who need sleep.

Rate: 7 out of 10 Klodneys.

Coming soon, movie reviews on:

Syriana - hard to follow, poignant, party-line opinionated shaping of history
Final Cut - neat idea, too easy to follow, characters predictable
Man on Fire - read this later please
Birth - brilliant, stinking brilliant - more later on this one

Band of Brothers

While highly romanticized in style, I'd say the content was true and realistic. The amount of time spent on details was incredible, but that is to be expected of such a noteworthy historical remake. This series originally aired on HBO draws you in and creates a world of its own, which good cinema does. It's something else to create a lasting world after the DVD is turned off, which this also does.

The characters are all genuine, both in spirit, their acting, and in looks and language. This is one of the best rebuildings of history I've seen on any screen as far as authenticity. One expects some emotional buildup to the scenes in episode 9 of the Jewish camps they found, and there certainly was. It was an incredibly good choice to contrast the war-end atmosphere of American plundering, the concerns of a drunken Lieutenant about his ongoing problems at home and a divorce pending, and sexual escapades, with that of the new discovery of the death camps. It was portrayed accurately and without a great deal of aplomb in scope in order to demonstrate the real surprise of the findings. They also demonstrate the reality of the situation of not knowing immediately what to do with all those displaced men. There were no women shown at this particular camp that was found, as have other cinema expositions of the same nature, such as Schindler's List. But the emotions and realism were nonetheless clear and present. Animosity was dealt with fairly and I didn't feel that there was an attempt at creating a sense of "American scourge", or rather the slanting of the piece to make American involvement somehow look bad, as has been the case with so many other productions on Korea and Vietnam. The soldiers' real feelings, and justifiably so under the circumstances, were brought out in the scene where so many surrendered Germans were marching the opposite direction of the invading army. But Americans were not portrayed as a brutal or demoralizing force. I'd say this was a very fair representation of the actuality of the war, and in no way sensationalized. 5 stars.

Steve

The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy

There is always a “mole”, and the old saying comes true once again, “Follow the Money”.

These 2 films are about as action-packed a suspense thriller as you can get. The first one was more artfully photographed than the 2nd, and depended much less on the moving camera and special effects for its real thrill. It also depended much less on the amount of “drive time” that we get in Supremacy. There were a lot more smashed cars in Supremacy than in Identity. Losing the favorite female early on gave quite a bit of motivation to the audience, juxtaposing the beauty and romance of their initial location in India with that of the cold blue world of Russia, where we end.

But in the end, to have the satisfaction of possible redemption for Borne in finding his true identity, and the fact that he was able to get to the root of his bad dreams and reconcile as best he could with the Russian girl, facing the very thing that we are led to hate by this work, was satisfaction indeed. It felt well-rounded and not a bit trite; albeit overdue it would seem by the length of the story. It might also have worked if he somehow ended up dead in the girl’s apartment at the last, telling her of her parent’s fate and coming to a sort of conclusion himself. We could have learned of his own true life in a moment in which the CIA chief female figure walks in into the Netski girl’s apartment to find him dead there and in a brief moment tells the onlookers his real name, and who he “would have been”.

But all in all it was very satisfactory, and a very personal ending. Normally it’s just about the bad guys and the good guys, and once again we have that running in the background, but at least here there is so much more than just the stakes of cash verses altruism, or some version of lust verses ethics. Here, as I’ve said, a face is put on the “job”. Bourne’s searching to piece the dream back together is our searching to put pieces back together from the torn fragments of our existence too.

And you can tell it's not all about "Finding the Money", as that set of facts does not figure in to the story until almost the end, and in one moment (albeit a chiefly weak cinematic moment and fairly forced - one of the weakest moments of these 2 films)the literal beans are spilled about how much money it all is and who is controlling it, and where it came from.

There is so much in the world that is violent and out of our control. Taking back control and finding the source of our anxiety, and then rooting it out and apologizing for it makes for great story. It is what we really all want to do. There is an anxiety in reality that lurks beneath all of our waking days, and we long to root it out and put it in the light; face it down. We all long to come to a place of reality and integrity and would love to expose the hidden faces of those behind the scenes who bring corruption and greed. But the problem in most cases is that we have also all partaken to some degree in that out-of-control scenario.

The Bourne Identity and Supremacy are about conscience. Conscience outlives even memory. We may not remember specifically, or even know all that we have done, but we sense that it is not made right. We just will not rest until all is made right again.

Steve

Come and See - Elim Klimov -
Russia: 1985

"The Greatest War Movie Ever Made" - J.G. Ballard, author of many bizarre works of fiction.

Well, ok, so this would be a film that Ballard would like. One of his recent books is prefaced by William Buroughs. But Sean Penn, known for his highly conservative and quiet demeanor (ah hem) also commented, "What I saw will stay with me forever...it's a masterpiece..."

And truly it is.

The class I taught this spring semester was about equally divided between horrified and enthralled. I admit that prior to the semester's beginning I had dismissed showing this film because of it's supposed difficulty in obtaining it (which turned out to not be true as a new DVD came out), and also because I was not sure that it's extremity was necessary in the depiction of formalistic style. There is plenty to pick from in the surrealistic end of the style spectrum; we did end up watching Big Fish as the class choice for our final film. But Come and Sees hugely sweeping and ethereal sensations were something that I remembered from the time I saw it in Chicago at the Music Box theatre when it was new.

I remember getting tickets with a friend, a room mate named Troy. We were both up for a movie, and I was up for about anything that was playing at the Music Box because I needed a taste of downown, living in the suburbs, and in an open kind of mood. Downtown, coffee, and culture was appealing. But from the moment the lights went down and Troy and I dived into the realm of the depiction of WWII Russia, we were no longer present in Chicago. In fact, it was some time before I could really return. I remember emerging from the theatre and it was raining, a nice heavy summer rain, and I stopped under the marquise and asked Troy, "Are we really here? Back in the US?" We had a quiet trip home.

The integrity of place that Klimov demonstrates never once breaks away in this cinematographic masterpiece. While there are moments of lengthy agony, as the "swim" through the swamp, they are never inappropriate, nor really overly lengthy without purpose. The style is extremely personal, and is so very much inside the Point of View of the main character, a young boy who is agonizingly transformed through the events he experiences during a chapter in the Russian invasion by the Nazis. We are taken from beauty to horror, from innocence to jaded and hardened bitterness. We are exposed to graphic violence superimposed over joyous and raucous celebration by the temporary conquerors. In his work here that depicts the reality of this event firmly established in history Klimov does 2 things simultaneously: he veers far into the realm of expressionistic techniques, while also bringing such a vision of realism to the screen. One of the most noticeable is his use of sound. While we watch Florya, the young boy, struggle with the destruction of his family, we literally hear the ringing of his ears, and the eerie superimposition of sounds of screaming and voices over the ring and hum still left in his head. We are watching him from the outside, but experiencing what he is hearing, and also vicariously through the torturous timing of the shots.

This film is all about contrasts. It is filled with almost mystical lyrical symbolism all throughout, such as the raining scene in the woods at the beginning. In the midst of the overhanging threat of the enemy, Florya, our young boy, has teamed up with Glasha, a beautiful girl of traditional Russian appearance. In the space of a short time they have a courting time, build a "home", sleep together to keep warm, and are visited by a stork. The spell of the dream is broken by Florya as he then remembers his family and returns to the village to find them. What follows is horrifying in its reality, but revealing in the way that Klimov uses the characters to play against each other in their emotional states to comment on the difference between the reality and denial that the citizens would experience during this historically horrifying ordeal.

Often forgotten in the wake of the Jewish holocaust and the amount of attention that has been given to that over time since the war, the Russian invasion was no less an ethnic cleansing. But once you've "Come and Seen" from the Klimov perspective, you will never forget it.

Here is another excellent review:
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/02/20/come.html

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Definitely different movie than "A Beautiful Mind".

I greatly enjoyed the film. My overall sense was that it was very positive. The overall sense is what I always react to after a viewing. This was a very potent piece of film making that definitely must be seen again, not just because it was so delirious and complex; it was that, but because it was so rich in imagery and deserves a second look.

Here are the strongest immediate impressions:

1. We spend the bulk of the story in the EVENTS. Mystery is a good device in a drama. We are forever piecing together the story of the relationship with their brilliant and not-so-brilliant moments, both positive and negative ping-ponging back and forth, and both reflecting the different perspectives of the characters. Like the underwear on the couch scene, then we are in the market hearing them have a disagreement about having a baby (another strong character-revealing moment), the jumping moments are reflective of the random way in which we process information. But it's the EVENTS that are the primary key to the overall direction of the story. They are actually the showpiece.

I viewed this film for the first time tonight with a large group of college students, and hung out to hear all the talk afterwards. If I had made a comment in the group I would have noted that there was a film in the 70s called Brainstorm. In that story, which stars a much younger looking Christopher Walken, the couple are on the skids and there is much stress. He is a scientist who has discovered how to record brain activity in such a way as a person can play it all back, and others can actually "be in" someone's mind that way. In any case, he makes a recording of all the great moments in his life that he's had with his spouse that are coming from inside his mind, and then he plays it back for her by having her put the transmission device on her head. She relives all those great moments from his perspective. It was a beautiful flashback sequence that spelled out their entire relationship of times past in a very effective way. In the story it saves their marriage.

In Spotless Mind this same type of device is used in a much more complex and drawn out kind of way. The many separate events of their lives are portrayed like a huge moving scrapbook. And the more we peel away the pages the more grey the backgrounds become in the "pictures", and the faster things begin to disappear around them. (I loved the fading book covers and signs in the bookstore near the end). We can focus more and more on the characters because the surroundings become more and more surreal and unstable. There is a house that had his mother's face in the window looking out at him. It becomes a paint-peeling shack. There is a big house that they almost spend the night in the first time around. In the latter part of the story it is falling apart as they converse. It's just downright cinema poetry at that point. Nice. But the filmmakers didn't stop at that. There is the car sequence as well, with Carey riding in it looking out while "frame" after "frame" of his life with her is going by, all mixed and intertwined, like the piles of filing cabinets in one room, and the car covered by a broken up shell of a house. It was all so fast I had to see that part again to take it in.

2. A device that this film uses to draw us into the story is first of all our natural desire for "the guy to get the girl", or vice verse. We naturally want people to meet, fall in love, and be together. It is the motivation for thousands of stories, and once again a simple human (Godly) drive is used to propel them together in this story. From the very first shot of him at the beach with her in the background at a distance(a cinematic device that is also foreshadow of what is to come - her being a part of his past and in his mind - there she is almost standing on his right shoulder) all the way through the train sequence, we are, with director Michael Gondry, putting them together. We want them to end up together. It doesn't matter how wildly different they are. It doesn't matter that she seems totally wigged and he seems totally inept. We are "with" her when she stops him from going out of the apartment the first time and asks him to call her. We are glad that they don't have just cheap sex and he doesn't succumb to her "part of the seduction" thing, almost throwing, well ok, throwing herself on him. We like it that he calls her right away, we feel his vulnerability and some innocence in that, and also wonder about rather it is going to work at that point. I feared at the moment he called her that he was going to get "burned" by the relationship, or hurt. When the title sequence came up late into the show it also took me back somewhat, and of course that whole reasoning didn't fit together until the end when he wakes up again and repeats his whole day. But no matter what, through thick and thin, we are WITH them because of the natural chemistry that is created in the story. The film maker is using that most natural tendency of our desire for a positive outcome here to perfection in keeping us glued to the plot. It also comes VERY strongly into play during the moments when he is struggling to wake up and stop the process. We want to as well. I could almost feel the suffocation. I felt my breath shorten with him, and realized I was holding my breath at the one moment when he first opens his eyes.

3. I don't believe that this film is about the ethical issue of the science of taking someone's memory, just like I don't believe that the movie Alien is about space monsters. That's just a story device, and a good one. This story is all about the preciousness of the moments we have with each other and how over time those moments can erode because we forget them in the immediacy of a bad time, or we allow the grievous side of a relationship to take precedence, as when he keeps repeating to himself, and hears the doctor's voice repeating to him the phrase of their interview, "She grew tired, and wanted a change".

4. Going back to the car sequence - when he is seeing a review of his memories going past - there was always a very powerful sense of the interrelatedness of everything. The theme of strong connectedness was brought out in 2 ways in the story. There was much juxtaposition of the "facts" of their lives intertwining. Events were also tied to objects. And there was also the very strong resistance that Joel had on his bed to the computer process, seeming to "erase" all their progress so they had to start over at another point. Those story points powerfully delivered the idea that good and bad are both taken together, so that in the climactic moment in the hallway we understand why they say "Ok" to each other, and start laughing at it all. She has just summed up her life's problems of why she is so impulsive and not a good match for him. She is prone to always changing her mind and being flighty, etc. The point is strongly made, I believe that good and bad, the relationship is worth it, even knowing that not all the pieces fit together.

5. I would agree that maybe caution is warned here about leaving the film in an existential state, and that maybe this is humanism in very fine moralistic form. We could easily assess this as feel-good material and dismiss it because of secular roots, but I can see that the foundational principals of what is concluded is nonetheless scripturally sound; spiritually grounded, in that relationships, although flawed, and equally so on both ends, are still worth having. It should also be noted that the ongoing relationship is stressed, and the desire to be together is confirmed.

6. The discussion group took us down the path of pain, and bringing up pain, and the fact that so many war veterans cannot talk about their experiences even to this day. It also noted, and very astutely, that the kind of pain that a veteran might have suffered during war might be one of those kinds of things that could be desirable to erase, or eradicate from memory. I'm not sure we spent enough time on the "pain" discussion. It is in fact through the painful parts of life that we learn and grow. And I'm not so sure that a war veteran should shut out all of that pain. That pain, unfortunately for them, is still part of who they are, and part of who we are. Without that pain we could easily rush into war again, forgetting how much our true worth is, or how precious life is, or the cost involved. Our being "dumped" by a loved one can make the next relationship more cautious, yes, but oh how much more rewarding is the time that it comes together and it begins to work. I want to discuss this more and can't right now, but this area also has to do with our ability to be honest and open in the body. The Church is very much like the secular world in this, in fact maybe worse, in that we cover up the sore spots, and the weaknesses, treating them as discolorations that need to be painted over.

Another later observation on the film:

Another huge point that only became clear after the film is over, at least for me is that the Carey character Joel we see in the beginning, and again in the end upon waking (both times) is MUCH LESS of a person than the person we meet at the party when he actually did meet Winslet for the first time. He was articulate to some degree, and conversant. And how about that Huckleberry Hound thing he did, remember? He did the proverbial joke you would do with someone named Clementine, but on the train he had NO IDEA who Clementine or Huckleberry WAS. NO RECOLLECTION. And here’s the catch – those memories of Huckleberry Hound were another part of him altogether from his childhood or elsewhere, not part of his relationship that was supposed to be erased with Clementine!! The other “attached” parts of him got erased too. Therefore I'd have to conclude that the story has much more riding under it than just a relationship story, as complex as that is. It is also a confirmation that we are interconnected through many and various ways and highly complex beings, and that love and relationships are intertwined with our whole self.

I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you can collaborate this, that the longer that people spend together in marriage, the more they actually begin to physically look like each other to some degree. The effects that we have on each other are so much more complex than selective memory blots.

When we meet Joel in the awakened state he is almost comatose, lacking depth and emotion, not being able to get beyond the word “nice”. He is thinking to himself that he always messes up with the ladies, etc. But as it turns out he wasn’t all that messed up to begin with. He was definitely severely lessened by the erasure operation. You notice that the colors are extremely muted in the very first scene (that we see twice); the banged up car, the interior of the apartment looking so normal in medium shot, the dull colors of the beach scene shot on a grey day, and the train station. And then into his life (again, as we find out) comes Tangerine, and “Caustic Blue” or whatever that color was she had in her hair. Later when they are shot in their various scenes together there is a different film stock used altogether. The overhead shot of them on the ice is very vibrant and high contrast verses the muted faster stock used for the initial outside footage. I’d say that the way that the high-contrast indoor footage in the apartment, or on the couch together, or wherever, in bed, and please notice the high colors of the sheets and the shots under the covers when they are looking at each other in that little “cave” world enclosed by those covers, is all meant to contrast with the footage “without” her, or whenever in the memory segments she is disappearing. I’d be willing to bet that if we went shot by shot we would find those differences. Kudos to the cinematographer. Of course much of that work can be done post, but it’s always better to do it with the film stock original if you can. Gives a nicer look. This would be one case where film stock (original or post) played a major role in the development and affirmation of character AND plot.

The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
The Butterfly Effect:
Uh...let's see, which one of these do I want to comment on? Ok, I'm joking. This was an ok movie, movie-wise, but I really don't want to do the Ebert thing and talk about the film conventions here. I want to get to the chase.
My summary:
Chaos theory has probably to date not been illustrated as well as this. But it is a Godless theory. It's roots are still highly existential. The resulting ethos is lonely and ultimately lives up to it's name, leading to dispair. Only a short leap away is Theology of Choice, that being that multiple miriads of millions of possible futures exist according to our choices, yet all intertwine connectively to assemble themselves in the end in the fabric that God weaves into a most perfect tapestry. The difference in these two, again, and risking redundancy, is that one is Godless, and the later is not.

On wishful thinking this movie gets an A+. It is our utmost desire to get through life without hurting anyone, and without being hurt. "If only I had..." begins a thousand sentences through life. The ability to go back and fix those things would seem marvelous. In the end our hero, played by Krutcher, sacrifices his own desires for the good of many it would seem. That's very selfless of him. In the end, though unrealistic, I think most would identify with this desire, and yet we still live with the nagging "what ifs" of normalcy until something utterly "out of the ordinary happens" to us.

The story devices of time travel and the conveniently inherited trick of "the butterfly effect" certainly highlights for us many moments that we may relate to in the icons of the bully, a moment of decision that causes pain, or destruction. Words said that either heal or destroy, and especially impotency in the reality that what we could have done but did not in the face of something bad gets played over and over in our heads. Guilt is a strong force. It can be destructive by making us inward, depressed, jaded, and bitter, or it can motivate us to see justice, become sensitive, or break through the pain of what we have done and heal it many times over by proactively making sure it does not happen to others.

While this story may be based on a Godless theory, it is not Godless in it's morality, and at least makes us think strongly about our decisions, and how important others should be to us. It does not trivialize relationships, but indeed shows us how close-knit they are, and how interrelated everything is. My own personal saying regarding reactive synthesis is, "When you throw a rock, it comes back down". Another closely related saying of my own is, "When you throw a rock into a pond, the ripples actually never DO stop". I would say that is as close to "The Butterfly Efffect" as you will get. However, I'm firmly in the God-initiated camp.

Chaos theory in and of itself cannot give us an ultimate answer. It is only one very good way of observing interatctions, not an end in itself.

Everwood - Mon. Nov. 22, 2004
I'm stealing this review from "The Watercooler" from TV Guide, because I didn't see the show, but I'm sure this is accurate and it's funny.

Everwood
I normally don't watch this every week, but I'm tuning in tonight 'cause Amy and Ephram are supposed to do it! Or, as Harold told Andy, "My daughter is about to be deflowered by your son's super-sperm!" Whose father talks like that? And how many, armed with that knowledge, would actually allow their children to spend the night together? At least we see a nervous Amy reading the hilariously titled "Guide to Getting It On" and trying to justify her decision to her best friend (who wants to wait until marriage, natch). "Call it horizontal jogging," Amy tells Hannah, "and suddenly it's no big whoop." Well, not exactly, since she chickens out when she and Ephram are finally alone in the cabin. But when he wipes away her tears and holds her close, something tells me she'll change her mind. Which, of course, she does, surrounded by flowers, candles and a flickering fire. And fathers across America vow to lock up their teenage daughters until they're 30.

The INCREDIBLES. Saw them Sat. 11/13/04.

The Incredibles were just THAT! A friend said the word funny, but I found them to be far more than just funny, no offense to my friend. And I KNOW that I've seen this movie before. Yes, that's correct, I've seen the Incredibles before they ever came onto the big screen. Do I have super powers of premonition?? No, actually, I've just read alot of comics, seen a million movies, read a truck load of science fiction novels and short stories, and am a cartoon-a-holic from the time of the 60's. That's where I've seen them before! The Incredibles combined the high art of 3D, and superlative perspective animation with the lower-grade and flatter simple animations of other types of cartoon works and cell animation to create a very rich media experience, not to mention the rockin' sound of Dolby jets, splashes, footsteps, grunts, and yells. One of the best soundtrack mixes I've ever heard. What I found most amazing about the animation was the depth of the work, as when we plunged deep into the enemy stronghold on the island, through a waterfall, and a volcanic wall of fire. The realism of the surrealism just about killed me. 3D and 2D art's marriage has not found it's equal to date! Pixar has truly come into it's own as far as the bridging of the gap between realism and animation. Awesome!

But as for the depth of the story, I usually take a note down here on most films and begin to explain how it lacked emotional complexity, or it had hyper-realistic characters whose imaginations went way too far, or, and this is the worst to me, it falls short of having any redeeming value so far as the characters' morals and ethical lives are concerned. But I cannot say that about The Incredibles. Mr. truly stuggles with being "normal", but does it in such a way that integrity shines through. His office scene with the old woman is truly touching in a very funny kind of way, and even though it's high comedy, it's also something that we totally agree with and support. We cannot help but hate the boss and his bottom line. Corporate greed, while not the center stage for the whole of the story, comes through loud and clear as needing to be changed. It makes you believe there really are good people inside every organization, and that whistle blowing is a fine upstanding characteristic. Just the very idea that the Incredibles are brought down altogether by lawsuits is enough to put me both in stiches and head-nodding at the same time. I guess that means I could pull something in my neck if I'm not careful.

But what is the "big story" here? There's always the bad guy, yes, but if we go back to where the bad guy came from we can see it is from a type of envy, and a type of false worship. He was Mr. Incredible's "biggest fan" if you recall... oops, am I giving it away? His bitterness over rejection brings his struggle full circle to absolute hatred of all that is superior. He is filled with none other than self-loathing and self-centeredness at the same time. He sums up his entire philosophy in the speech he gives to the Incredibles in their captivity. He states, "Soon I'll make my machines and inventions available to EVERYONE! Then everyone can be super! Then 'no one' will be." His plan is to bring all the super people down, put himself in their place, not really being super himself, and attaining all that power,attention, and glory by way of his own intellect use it to put everyone on the same playing field as himself, which is to say, not super at all. What a great insight into the nature of evil itself. Someone at Pixar has been doing their character homework! Not to mention philosohical archeology.

Every character had complexity. What a great job with Violet, the teanager! Wow, she was perfect. So filled with trepidation over her identity, and doubt. So sweet in her coming-of-age in the need to be recognized by boys, and yet her inability to face them. Then her turning around and changing into a confident girl who can hold her own in a conversation. Very nicely done. They did the whole thing about Mr. Incredible getting ivolved with "the other woman" in a very subtle and kindly manner, so that the end result was that we can see trust overcome the doubt of what would normally be a very hard-to-accept set of circumstances. And all of that in the midst of the hilarity of the moments, and the non-stop action and story. It had to have been a tight team to pull this movie off.

Oh, and I wanted to mention that I could tell right away who Elastigirl was. I love Holly Hunter's voice. She is so sweet.

Good stuff. Go see.