Tuesday 31 December 2013

Blood Never Dried

(2000)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:Book



A People’s History of the British Empire

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

Fascinating and readable book revealing how much like the Third Reich the British Empire was. It is well-written, concise and to the point; making the necessary parallels with the White supremacism of current UK foreign policy in its attempt to regain imperial glory through a so-called Special Relationship with the United States.

All colonial activity is essentially economic; representing the gangsters’ approach to getting rich quick through the use of state force - police & soldiers; using systematic rape, torture, executions, massacres & enslavement/serfdom - while entire foreign economies are plundered. This inevitably led to the nationalist freedom struggles that called into question the long-term economic viability of militarily subduing the world to keep the rich rich, since greater and more expensive military force is then required; reducing or eliminating profits.

Like Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, this fills in the gaps left by White supremacist victor’s history books that whitewash the past to deflect present-day shame and guilt.


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

Sunday 29 December 2013

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens
(1979)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD

Because Russ MEYER was becoming disenchanted with the blue movie industry and its increasing and monomaniacal obsession with gynecological explicitness, this was his last film. It is, therefore, imbued with a certain anger about a genre he clearly loves but could not find it in himself to embrace the hardcore side - and it shows.

The trademark humor, surrealism & attacks on Christian fundamentalism, so central to his oeuvre, are drastically reduced here in favor of repetitious formalism. MEYER goes as far as a non-hardcore film can go before becoming hardcore (ie, show people really having sex); making this a sort of anti-porn porn movie!

Disappointing fun.


Wednesday 25 December 2013

Tashan
(2008)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Deliriously melodramatic comedy/crime caper/musical that sweeps over you in deliciously brutal - yet remarkably bloodless - waves. Despite the movie’s overwrought characterizations and highly coincidental revelations, the emotions are real in this tale of love lost and found.

Just about everything the stunt arranger could think is thrown in from a fully armed militia facing our largely bullet-proof heroes (& heroine) to flame-throwers, helicopters, jet skis and a cricket bat!

The running joke about the crime boss wanting to speak good English (like George Bush!) never fails to amuse. This suggests a self-deprecating bemusement at the tendency of Hindu film characters to use English when making jokes, swearing or telling each other of their love. Hindustanis can clearly incorporate foreign influences without feeling swamped.


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

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Engrenages
(2005 – )

RATING:80%
FORMAT:tv

[Spiral]

Realistic (yet strangely melodramatic) cop drama that uses a desaturated color scheme to emphasize its gritty realism and actors that do not seem to wear makeup. The visual style is gory-to-disgusting but this stresses character via the implied motivations behind such heinous criminality. Moreover, the visual excess is married to a judicious mix of litotes and suggested carnality.

The acting (especially Caroline PROUST), characters, dialogue, situations and relationships are very well played by all and keep one glued to the tv set - they never stray from the straight-and-narrow of everyday reality.

Because it is impossible to strictly separate law enforcement from law breaking, we find many of the characters are not as squeaky-clean as they might otherwise appear.

The endemic and systemic nature of crime in the West means that absolutely anyone could be a perpetrator: A cop, a lawyer, an immigrant, a judge, a prostitute, a government minister. There is no true separation between criminal and law abider here and this adds layers of interrelationships to the already morally-complex dramaturgy and mise en scène that focuses on a single murder for an entire series with various digressions for minor issues. Our desire to eliminate crime is matched by our desire not to report the wrongdoing of anyone known to us personally. So we accept a certain level of criminality as natural – especially in ourselves.

This series deals effectively with the emotional affects of events rather more than the physical causes - the former is the basis of all good drama while the latter merely acts as dramaturgical catalyst. This drama also does not feel the need for the characters to brandish firearms at the drop of a hat in case the audience is going to fall asleep and is all the more exciting for it.

Sunday 22 December 2013

if....

(1968)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD

Summary: If only…

Brilliant exposé of the emotionally-retarded, violent and sex-obsessed world of Whites.

The English Public School shown here is like a Hitler Youth training camp wherein obedience is just for the sake of obedience – a White culture with no real goals after the collapse of the British Empire. White Christans support such a régime because it is the only means for them to achieve any real power since the spiritual power of their founder led to his execution; proving its lack of efficacy in the real world of lived experience.

The English class-system is based on money not merit; hence, the inevitable rebellion shown here.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Rocky Horror Picture Show
(1975)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD

Fun paean to the polymorphous perversity and sexual decadence of youth through paying tribute to Rock music (White Rock ‘n’ Roll) and the B-movie genres of science fiction and horror.

Tim CURRY is an effortless scene-stealer and provides much of the amusement on offer here in this highly-stylized musical romp.

Where this movie falls flat is in its lack of thematic coherence. It fails to fully explore the theme of the negative affects of Christian life-denial and death worship.

The characterization is also weak and only Susan SARANDON manages to inject some much-needed human warmth into her role of a prim-and-proper virgin who is not so prim-and-proper underneath - given the right encouragement.


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

Sunday 15 December 2013

No Way Out
(1987)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:Cinema

Clever thriller in the Alfred HITCHCOCK mould that contains a genuinely surprising ending. What appears to be a conspiracy thriller of a senior politician wanting to save his career from scandal by eliminating witnesses turns into something far more serious and far more sinister.

The cleverness here lies in devoting a great deal of time to the hero’s love affair with the politician’s mistress as well as detailing his military heroism and bravery. This successfully diverts us from the true, hinted-at thrust of the underlying story in a plot-driven film with an accent on engaging and largely likable characters.

The only real problem with this film is its music, which is somewhat amateurish; leading to some action scenes not being as involving and as suspenseful as they should be.


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

Saturday 14 December 2013

Invasions Barbares
[Barbarian Invasions]
(2003)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



Very good movie about a West declining in terms of economics, religion, sexuality and culture. (Middle film in the trilogy comprising: The Decline of the American Empire and Days of Darkness.)

The superficiality and materialism of White culture is exposed through the ever-changing dependence on political fads and isms: Maoism, Marxism, Leninism, Marxist-Leninism, anti-imperialism, etc – none of which express core values rather than the absence of them. Moreover, the West can no longer defend its vanishing borders from the influx of both migrants and terrorists; rendering it vulnerable to the paranoid fear that such people are going to destroy a culture that exists largely in name only.

Specifically, here, the Canadian health system is in fiscal meltdown while, down south, a PET scan costs USD2,000 (for those who can afford them) - and there is no waiting list. Yet, a dying White Canadian prefers treatment in Canada for fear of Islamic extremists! His virtually Third World hospital is a metaphor for an ailing culture threatened by self-created Barbarians: Al Qaeda, trades union, socialism, neophobia, rising divorce rates, chemical dependency, etc. Only hardcore capitalists can fare at all well because they can buy their way out of quantitative problems but not the qualitative ones.

The film reconsiders the central character’s reprobate life (his inoperable cancer analogous to the decline of his values) and finds his family Diaspora the result of their desire to get away from his innate selflessness. This is a tragicomic cross section of modern (2003) Canada, as a middle-aged man thinks back on the political changes he has seen that have gotten both him and his country effectively nowhere.

Where this film fails is in not exploring – in detail - the reasons for the decline of the West; opting instead for satirical assaults on what the director Denys ARCAND sees as its quintessential “cretinism”.

Marie-Josée CROZE offers a winning performance as a heroin addict who is as wise as she is screwed up.


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

Tuesday 10 December 2013

In Bruges
(2008)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD

Quirky and darkly-surreal tale of honor-among-thieves that just does not quite ring true.

Despite fancy dialogue and winning performances, this film is not really about anything much at all. The tail wags the dog in violent set-pieces redolent of no underlying emotions because the filmmaker could not quite decide whether he was making an existential thriller or a commercial one. The deleted scenes prove this and so should not have been cut as they deepen the characters.

The plot is made up as it goes-along as oddly-disconnected events follow on, one from the other, without rhyme or reason. The inherent falseness of the entire proceeding is even highlighted by the fact that the dénouement occurs on a film set.

However, despite all this, one watches fascinated simply to know what will happen next and how it will all turn out in the end.


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

Monday 9 December 2013

Batalla en el Cielo
(2005)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



[Battle in Heaven]

A tale of guilt and redemption concerning the kidnapping of a child that goes wrong when the child dies. This drama focuses on the aftermath as the kidnapping couple find their consciences troubled by what they made happen.

To evade the mental conflicts arising from bad behavior, the characters engage in an indulgence of the senses through sex and drunkenness; leading to further bad behavior that avails them nothing. Here, the style marries the content in that the more explicit the sex the less attractively it comes across because there is so little real pleasure in it. The clever paradox here is that while the sex is real the emotions are faked.

The characterization and performances are superb, but the dispassionate directorial style never truly gets at the source of the despair felt by the central characters - although it tries very hard. It never reaches the parts that Lourdes does but, as in L’Enfant, the only way out of any self-created mess is the acceptance of both contrition and of the concomitant punishment.


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

Saturday 7 December 2013

BLACK IVORY:
Slavery in the British Empire
[2nd Edition]

RATING:80%
FORMAT:Book

Typically schizophrenic book written by a White about the racial slavery that made Britain wealthy which runs from any moral comment about where the money came from to fund the Industrial Revolution - among other things. The title gives away the fact that the author believes racial slavery to have been a trade rather than a human holocaust. This is a pounds, shillings and pence view of history in which human beings are largely absent.

Explains in great detail why Great Britain became wealthy form the exploitation of Blacks and why White supremacy still exists today - because White culture still believes in something-for-nothing since racial slavery made Whites welfare dependent. It also details the corollary issues of the popularity of initially slave-produced goods such as sugar, tobacco and tea - and their continuing use today, despite two of them being unhealthy.

Riddled with the inevitable White race-guilt and Institutional Racism typical of White histories of White history (eg, claiming people can look British; confusing nationality with genes), this still manages to partly-remember that the so-called Slave Trade was a holocaust for Blacks. Yet the usual White ethnic sensitivity about being criticized for being racist shines through - especially given Whites contemporary reliance on racial violence to retain the unearned privileges of centuries past. There is also no talk of how Whites today are morally-compromised when they pretend to take an interest in human rights. It also tries to promote the myth of the unconscious racist and that Christianity is incompatible with racial slavery when it is the necessary bedrock justifying it. This book provides proof that the central tenet of White culture is economics above everything else.

This author never challenges the slave-owner’s assumption - and his own - that slaves are both non-human when required to work but human when being punished. Thus, slaves are deprived of human rights by being enslaved, yet punished when committing an act that would not be punished if a non-human (ie, an animal) had committed it; eg, appropriating their master’s property. If a dog steals something from a human, one does not prosecute it for theft, because the animal has no human rights and, therefore, no human responsibilities. Farmers, after all, do punish their cows for damaging farm buildings. This schizophrenia (the actual realization that people cannot be property as animals can), inherent in all exploitation is not usefully-explored in case the writer’s own White supremacy be revealed. Yet hiding it, in so obvious a manner, only makes it all-too clear. He even has the temerity to be surprised that slaves given extra privileges by Whites were just as likely to be rebellious against slavery, even though there can be no privileges in a slave system since once is still a slave. As well as sucggesting that a slave denouncing a rebel slave plot was loyal. The author is still clearly a slave to the brainwashing he has received from Whites.

Although a good primer on the ethical emptiness of White culture it is a little too academic for its own good. Worst of all, it does not explain why Whites continue to choose savagery as a way of life while feigning genetic and moral superiority. Capitalism & Slavery is a better read because it contains insight as well as hard facts. Most importantly, it fails to explain why Great Britain abolished the very trade that proferred it the greatest profits.

The book does, however, stress the uniqueness of Black slavery in the British Empire since it was designed to last forever with Blacks always being slaves for a thousand years. But he does not look at the psychological affect of dehumanisation on either the slaves or the slavers - almost as if it never really happened and was nothing more than a bad dream.

Nevertheless, it is written for the average reader and is, thus, highly accessible.


Friday 6 December 2013

SPY KIDS 3-D:
Game Over
(2003)

RATING:20%
FORMAT:DVD

A perfect example of what has always been wrong with the Hollywood love of cliché and the merely dramatic over serious drama.

The puppy-love storyline is weak because it is performed and written so badly. The usual childlike empowerment issues are not treated with any due seriousness for children so that strength becomes the mere possession and expression of it rather than its most effective use and non-use.

This Tron rip-off makes the film no more than a characterless, humorless and purposeless race through the innards of a computer game - peppered with guest stars from the earlier films. Self-reference and self-parody is not enough to make an emotionally-involving drama and, although the film is short, the time spent watching it still drags. The family values’ ending comes too late to stave off a thankfully-brief flirtation with the idea of DVD-induced suicide.

Worst of all are the irritating 3D effects that do nothing but draw attention to themselves rather than serving any dramatic purpose. The equally-annoying 3-D glasses one needs to wear to watch this mess also add absolutely nothing to the work; proving that rubbish in three dimensions is still rubbish.


Tuesday 26 November 2013

Great Train Robbery
[First Great Train Robbery]
(1978)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



As usual with Michael Crichton, the research overrides the story and gets in its way.

A realistic depiction of Victorian London is the backdrop for a crime caper with class that crackles with sexual wit but is decidedly lacking in thematic content or context or interesting characterization.

Dickens could have made something smart and sociological with this material but Crichton simply is not up to the task.

Good escapist fun, with a thrilling finale, but essentially disposable.


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

Friday 22 November 2013

Fair Game

(2010)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD



An amusing movie about how Whites cannot trust each other and about how they will sell each other out in pursuit of Manifest Destiny. That Whites subscribe to such a polity is testament to both their cupidity and their lack of any viable alternative since non-Whites can never trust Whites either. This is the political correctness that attempts to make facts fit the most economically-profitable theory – rather than the other way around.

A movie also about the alleged treason of not agreeing with democratic governments - as if lying for your country were patriotic - and the delusion that war implies a temporary suspension of civil rights; permanent war, a permanent suspension of same.

Even better than Bourne.


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

Thursday 21 November 2013

Babylon
(1981)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD



A great British film taking an impressionistic look at Black South London life that still perfectly-resonates today in suggesting the necessary impossibility of social cohesion.

The film’s lack of Political Correctness means the story is told realistically and without self-indulgence. Given that Whites made this, it is a surprisingly-astute vision; albeit one lacking first-hand experience.

The filmmakers are lucky with their actors – all of whom are excellently-expressive of their roles because their performances come from direct experience of the White Babylon – especially endemic UK police White supremacy. This is an all-too-eerie prediction of the Brixton riot that exploded soon after it was made, this movie encapsulates the reasons for the troubles and the fact that White supremacy proves a culture unhappy enough with itself to seek scapegoats.


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

Sunday 17 November 2013

Boots! Boots!
(1934)


RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Dated, though an important historical document of a great music hall turn. The sheer cheek of the man is quite infectious and he even gets away with abusing his own boss.

Much of it is quite funny despite being shot in master shots and broad performances that mimic the experience of being a member of the audience of a proscenium theatre. Essentially a series of comedy sketches with little coherence. A typical example of the material: ‘Have you been cutting hair long?’ ‘No. Short, as a rule.’ There is also some good physical comedy and the women are suitably spunky in the face of exceedingly gormless males.

George “Goofy” FORMBY is a loveable fool and the women like him despite the fact that he is not the handsomest of males. This successfully matches the theme of a young poet finding the woman of his dreams in the real world.


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

Saturday 16 November 2013

Boy Eats Girl

(2005)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD



A film that cannot quite decide what it is and, like the average schizophrenic, moves in different directions simultaneously. Not funny enough to be a true comedy; not scary enough to be a true horror, it relies on buckets of blood for its impact. The plot is inconsistent and merely serves to provide excuses for the increasing bloodshed.

The cast struggle as best they can with underdeveloped stereotypes instead of characters. The script is happy to avoid the kind of figurative associations with sexual appetite and flesh-eating zombies that would have made the mayhem a useful metaphor for adolescence. It, thereby, also avoids being emotionally involving since the love story does not really come to life – only the zombies do.

Still, it is all good fun and only lasts an hour and a quarter so will not take up too much of your valuable time.


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

Friday 15 November 2013

Banlieue 13
(2004)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



[District B13]

An interesting response to racial tensions implicit in White-dominated cultures like France. Endemic White supremacy here has produced ghettos (banlieue) which are then - themselves - blamed for the very social tension that created them.

In this science-fiction movie, the government decides to withdraw all social services from these districts and build a wall around them before destroying them with “clean” nuclear weapons.

However, these important thematic concerns are not dramatically developed in favor of very impressive stunt work from actors taking their own risks in jumping over, through and around buildings. The free-running action is impressive - and cleverly choreographed - primarily because no special effects of any kind are utilized. Nevertheless, these stunts are the tale wagging the dog in this tale of institutional fear of dark-skinned immigrants.


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

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Farewell, My Lovely

(1975)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



Faithful to both plot and style to the original Chandler novel, this is perhaps the finest version of any of his works.

Robert MITCHUM is excellent in the down at heel role of a private detective struggling to make a living – if a little too old – and Charlotte RAMPLING plays the sultry femme fatale with aplomb. Everyone in this film is good, in fact, and Jack O’HALLORAN is brilliant as the brave but not too bright Moose Malloy.

The undercurrent of Institutional Racism is impressive given the unusual acknowledgement of a police White Supremacy that refuses to properly investigate the murder of a Black man by a White.

The movie captures the sleazy style of the period, the geographical location and the underworld it details – an underworld that is no more than an unpleasant mirror image of the “overworld”.


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

Very Best of India

(2003)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:CD

Very good primer for the wide range of music from the sub-continent.


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

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Me and You and Everyone We Know

(2004)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



A community is comprised of me and you and everyone we know. Yet here Loneliness is writ large in a Western culture atomised to death with individualism - individuals who do not know how to make human contact with other - so-called - individuals.

This Caucasian self-alienation is emphasised in children sensing the adult loneliness and becoming sexualised by it in sharing childish sexual fantasises with many of those adults: Both copro- and paedophilic. We somehow sense that they'll grow up to become the same unself-aware misfits their parents are since, at a young age, they are already talking like the adults they will become.

The problem with films about boring, solipsistic, narcissistic and self-indulgent people is that they tend to make for boring, solipsistic, narcissistic and self-indulgent movies.


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

Monday 11 November 2013

Mean Girls

(2004)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



A good argument against the institutionalising effects of schooling - particularly as children are routinely distrusted no matter their behaviour. But, it is not this, nor an analogue for how Muslims are treated in Islamophobic cultures – so it is not as self aware as it pretends.

However, the homeschooler’s first school day (at age 16) and the teenage cliques are detailed. Here, Girl World is a warped form of Feminism where what others think of you is more important than what you think of yourself.

Witty, well written and insightfully funny, with spot on performances and characterisation. The balance of power shifts to an understanding that scapegoating others will not make you happy: ‘I don’t hate you because you’re fat; you’re fat because I hate you!’ Women would obviously run the world if they did not hate each other like this.


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

Sunday 10 November 2013

Mumbai Meri Jaan

(2008)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



[Mumbai My Life]

About any city in the world that has experienced terrorism at close hand.

The ironic title expresses love for a city riven with racial and religious tensions, along with endemic police corruption; while acknowledging that the 7/11/2006 can ultimately be seen as a uniting event.

Despite the fear of public transport resulting from shattered trains and the inevitable persecution of Muslims that results, the characters achieve emotional catharsis through realizing that everyone has the same fears: Redemptive in its limited way.

Structured around the lives of those affected by the bomb blasts, the parallel story strands do not cohere in any meaningfully-dramatic way. This conflicts with the film’s theme that citizens need to come together to beat not terrorists, as such, but their fear-of-terrorism in order to minimize the atomizing of the culture so threatened.


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

Friday 8 November 2013

5150, Rue des Ormes

(2009)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD

[5150 Elm’s Way]

Although yet another serial killer film about a crazy White family of Christian Fundamentalist psychopaths, this is the best one that will ever be made.

Thursday 7 November 2013

Munich

(2005)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:Cinema

A movie with a too limited remit on terrorism and our response to it in that it does not deal with prevention: Its breast-beating moralism rings a little hollow.

Revenge does not work because the resulting tit-for-tat paranoia proves it is already too late for negotiation. Nevertheless, within its limits, this is a well balanced presentation; shot like an old-fashioned 60s Cold War thriller – especially as terrorists are not ridiculously shown as monsters. This docudrama matter-of-factness well serves an excellent cast.

Though targeted killings are justified, the film resorts to emotionalism rather than ethical or political debate – it does not develop its own issues, dramatically, save to say that the only true country is family.

As shown here, wars will continue so long as no one wishes to end the cycle of violence, unilaterally.


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

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Science:



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



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


Sleep of Reason:



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



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


Humans & Aliens:



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



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


Führerprinzip:



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