Wednesday 30 April 2014

Ruling Class

(1972)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Snobbery as a Substitute for Insight

Interesting film about English snobbery as expressed by those who only see what they want to see. However, the wastrel nature of people who have never earned their privileges is never fully dissected nor is an alternative suggested. This movie then becomes a wallowing in the very culture being criticized.

The emotional repression of White Western aristocrats is well presented - along with the inevitable consequences: Lovelessness, materialism and existential angst. And with the loss of the British Empire, the aristocrats have less people to order about and so develop a strong sense of purposelessness - masked by a cunning attempt to pretend that nothing has really changed.

The lack of an integrated inner life leads to the very sexual violence condemned in the lower-class that provides for a fake sense of being fully alive for the upper-classes. All of this is mixed-in with the upper-class dependency on the lower-class to act as scapegoats. Here we have an English culture fossilized because it lives in the past and relies on an upside-down ethics of a Christian god; a country ruled by the ultimate symbol of woman-hating patriarchy: Jack the Ripper.

The wordplay is clever - as you would expect from playwright Peter Barnes - but this soon comes to resemble something of a sprawling mess; albeit an amusing one. Indeed, Arthur LOWE easily steals the show - in his accustomed comedic way. Because the ruling class here implicitly claim divine rights, this movie is ultimately an attack on Christianity and its cosying up to political power to achieve its own political power that it could not achieve independently. All of this is tied its 500-year-long participation in British imperial evil. Moreover, the claim of having “blue blood” is contradicted by the willingness to accept a middle-class person into their ranks simply because she is fertile and can thus save their family line from extinction.

The performances lack depth and the style and themes are more important to the story in any case. The characterization follows suit since the characters are really nothing more than mouthpieces for the playwright’s wit.


Monday 28 April 2014

Imposible

(2012)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD

[Impossible]

Ethnocentric Contextless Vacuum

As you would expect from Whites, this is the story of a true historical event told from the point-of-view of people who do not live locally to the event. As if a story of an earthquake in Los Angeles were to be told from the point-of-view of a family of Japanese tourists who just happen to be in California at the time.

This narcissism offers the audience no context with which to understand the tragedy from the point-of-view of those who suffer most and, therefore, no real means of understanding what is really happening. White solipsism restricts us to a gilded cage from which we witness events that make us grateful they have not happened to us from the comfort of knowing they never will. This places us affectively outside the action and, thus, somewhat disinterested and emotionally distant.

White self-absorption tells us more about Whites than about any other ethnicity; while never alluding to this central fact - the dramaturgical elephant in the room. This could be about any natural disaster, since there is no particularity in the enactment.

Unlike Hereafter, the tsunami here is central to the pseudo-drama and no issue is ever properly addressed. A mere catalyst there is the entire movie here - with no thematic development.

The acting is largely mediocre, but this is because there are no human insights for the actors to portray. A tourist travelogue of a disaster movie – with CGI effects - rather than an actual disaster movie: The Poseidon Adventure was much better in this respect. Without a story, the audience is left with overly-contrived melodramatic suspense, with no corollary analysis of what it is that makes a family tick despite the implication that this movie is all about the family unit, as such.


Sunday 27 April 2014

Heart Burn

(1986)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD

Living Inside a Ping-Pong Ball

Superficial film by Whites about superficial Whites and their superficial culture.

There is no analysis here as to why Whites have the highest divorce rates nor what to do about this. Simply the unstated ethnocentric implication that such problems are true for all cultures and that, therefore, no solution need be found.

An elliptical narrative reveals the essentially perfunctory nature of the plot - as if checkboxes are being ticked-off on a shopping-list of plot points. Being good at description and observation but poor on insight and explanation emphasizes the White whining that is really going on underneath this mediocre and self-pitying work.

Greats, NICHOLSON and STREEP, do the best they can with weak material and make a convincing married couple. Not as good as Terms of Endearment or even The Big Chill.


Saturday 26 April 2014

Little House on the Prairie
(1978-9)


RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD

[Season 5]

Interesting tv series that covers a number of political issues quite well.

This is how capitalism should work - in effectively communitarian terms: All pulling together in times of emergency with a positive approach. And all working hard to feed their families and inculcate the virtues of hard work, honesty and integrity. That real life is not always like this is the dramatic contrast in the minds of the audience that makes the series as compelling as it is despite the streak of cloying sentimentality that mars some of the episodes.

As usual when Whites mythologize their culture Blacks, Orientals and Native Americans are not meaningfully mentioned - as if they had nothing to do with the founding of the modern United States. These groups haunt the drama by their non existence and suggest that White attempts at historiography are little more than attempts to whitewash their own history - to their own aggrandizement. This aspect of the series very much appeals to a twisted version of Auld Lang Syne, where life was so much sweeter for Whites.

Human rights here are shown as democratic rather than absolute and white supremacism is individualized rather than an endemic part of White culture. This makes White supremacy silly rather than sinister in that attitudes become far more important than behavior. This is an important failing in an otherwise commendable series.

The acting is as variable as the episode quality and is as female dominated as the series itself: As it should be in a series celebrating the virtues of family and hearth 'n' home. This is also reflected in the fact that the actresses give more fully rounded performances than the actors. No doubt this is the result of the source novels being written by a woman, but it is also because the actresses chosen are of such high quality - especially the excellent Karen GRASSLE.

Friday 25 April 2014

Guns, Germs, and Steel

(2009)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years

Good book about the fact that physical and geographical environment is the single biggest factor in human development; explaining why different continents culturally-evolved in different ways.

Where the book fails is in trying to pretend that the study of history can ever be a science. Given that history is a subject tainted by political correctness and propaganda, this is delusional, at best.

The style of the book is easily-readable but not entirely un-academic, since it is about 100 pages too long. However, author Diamond has such important and interesting things to say, this is not the drawback it would first seem. A book that easily ranks with Willem van Loon’s Story of Mankind.


Thursday 24 April 2014

Django Unchained

(2012)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:DVD



80%

Amusing and ironic satire on Institutional Racism and White supremacy that reveals the White tendency toward sado-masochism, as well as the belief that Blacks are incorrigibly worthless.

The characterization is weak, but Samuel JACKSON is particularly brilliant as the House Negro whose obsequiousness is as funny as it is self-hating. The plot is somewhat longwinded and, as usual with film director Quentin TARANTINO, refuses to keep a tight focus on the drama’s themes - like a researcher so caught-up in his research that he becomes obsessed with the See Also. Moreover, the style is so slick it adds nothing to the drama.

This film tests the limits of White understanding of race-relations’ since Whites can only ever really understand their White guilt from the inside and not the realistic world-view shared by Blacks that comes from not deluding themselves about the true nature of Whites and their culture. A kind of comedy version of Mandingo.


Copyright © 2014 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 23 April 2014

Deep Blue Sea

(2011)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Guarded Enthusiasm

Terence Rattigan was a brilliant writer about the emotional dullness, lack of cultural sophistication and wanton superficiality of Whites - along with the belief that social respectability is superior to a life lived fully and purposely. He also writes female roles exquisitely well.

The characterization and acting serve the theme beautifully, especially the highly-shaggable Rachel WEISZ as the passionate Englishwoman who cannot truly escape her vicar’s daughter upbringing, erotophobic self-denial and endemic fear-of-loneliness. She would obviously have been better off with a Black man or an Italian here; leading to the only caveat of the usual White reluctance to compare their culture with others in order to obtain a fuller understanding of why they are such emotionally-bleak people and what could possibly be done to make it better.

The style is necessarily downbeat since the theme expresses a life lived as if one were already dead - wrapped-up in a plot that can only end in inevitable tragedy, a la Sophocles. To this end, the cinematography is dark and autumnal - life lived in eternal shadows and impending winter - and the direction from Terence DAVIES smooth and to-the-point. All in all, a kind of vampire movie without visible blood where the period details actually serve the drama (like the best of Hammer horror) rather than distract one’s attention from it. Every bit as good as Brief Encounter.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Mulholland Drive
(2001)


:
Unknown
:
Original screenplay
needed to precede following dl
:
Irrelevant
:
Image of the national flag of the United Kingdom Image of the national flag of Spain
:
141 minutes (Uncut)
Review Format:
DigitalDVD
:
2001
:
Image of the national flag of France Image of the national flag of the United States
Predominant Genre:
Mystery
Directors:
Directors

David Lynch
Image of David Lynch
:
Outstanding Performances



Rebekah DEL RIOChad EVERETTMelissa GEORGE
Image of Actor Rebekah DEL RIOImage of Actor Chad EVERETTImage of Actor Melissa GEORGE
Outstanding Performances



Lee GRANTAnn MILLERNaomi WATTS
Image of Actor Lee GRANTImage of Actor Ann MILLERImage of Actor Naomi WATTS
Premiss:
An aspiring actress meets and befriends an amnesiac woman hiding in an apartment belonging to the former’s aunt.
Themes:
Advertising | Alienation | Art | Corporate Power | Cowardice | Curiosity | Destiny | Emotional repression | Empathy | Friendship | Hollywood | Identity | Ideology | Loneliness | Love | Materialism | Narcissism | Nostalgia | Paranoia | Parasitism | Passivity | Personal | Political | Political Correctness | Sadomasochism | Schizophrenia | Solipsism | The West | Western culture | White culture | White people
:
Fiction:
Image of a similar work Image of a similar work Image of a similar work Image of a similar work Image of a similar work Image of a similar work
Non‑Fiction:
Unknown
:
Unknown
Awards:
Awards & honors

Hollywood for beginners

David Lynch’s 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller:

  1. Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits;
  2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade;
  3. Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
  4. An accident is a terrible event – notice the location of the accident;
  5. Who gives a key? And why?
  6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup;
  7. What is felt, realized & gathered at the Club Silencio?
  8. Did talent, alone, help Camilla?
  9. Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie’s.
  10. Where is Aunt Ruth?

Summary: The Surreal Dream‑world of Caucasians.

Mannered, surreal, often first‑person mystery (sometimes changing who the person is) that actually works.

Initially somnolent, it grows on you to become a hypnotic tale of schizophrenia and failure. What at first seems trite – complete with weirdness for its own sake – becomes a profound exploration of the nature of both cinema and real‑life alienation with the two seen as necessary concomitants.

The ever‑excellent Naomi WATTS plays the ingénue character needed to drive a somewhat absurd plot without forcing the audience to ask why she simply doesn’t call the police from the get‑go.

The film is really too long and the pace a little too sluggish, but it is a subtle satire on the Hollywood version of the White American Dream that stands favorable comparison with illustrious forebears like Sunset Blvd.: Its characters live in a fantasy world of dreams‑of‑escape that finally lead nowhere but an early grave.

Monday 21 April 2014

Death of a Salesman

(1985)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD

The definitive Death of a Salesman told, appropriately, in the first person.

A father lives through his sons and passes this ethical emptiness onto them. He represents the many delusions behind the American Dream: False bonhomie, mirthless cheerfulness, materialism, self deceit, emotional atrophy, etc. Here, you are what you can sell – nothing else matters – so it is hardly surprising this rational business attitude eventually infects personal relationships.

Dustin HOFFMAN dominates as Willy Loman – as his ranting bully character should. An employee who thought he was an employer; an immature man who cannot help his children grow up and away from the false protection of his insignificant shadow. He hates to see his sons as they really are because this would remind him that they mirror his own failings.

Well cast throughout.


Copyright © 2014 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 20 April 2014

Cooper’s Half Hours

(2007)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

More silly than funny, COOPER’s humour is based less on the things he says and rather more on the fact that he’s an intrinsically amusing man.

Profoundly laughter-making because he is prepared to laugh at himself with audience’s willing and knowing consent: ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? But when I was a baby, I used to be ugly’.

If you think a fez on its own can make anyone laugh, then you really do not need to watch this DVD!


Copyright © 2014 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 19 April 2014

Boston Legal

(2010)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Season 4

Alan SHORE: Isn’t it grand… We do these things that seem completely absurd and then, incredibly, we manage to make them not only watchable, but fun and informative. Aren’t you just dying to see how we do it, this time? Yes, we certainly are!

This quote perfectly sums-up the series better than I can.

The best of contemporary television viewing at whose core lies a profound deliberation on the nature of male friendship and the essential humanity inherent in the concepts of Tolerance and Acceptance.

The characterizations and style moves with disarming ease from the distinctly surreal to the tear jerkingly poignant; with plots deriving straight from the newspaper headlines.

The phrase that also best describes this series is: Many a true word spoken in jest. Approaching difficult subjects with humor offers insight into jocularity’s true purpose.


Copyright © 2014 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 18 April 2014

Pianist

(2002)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD



A gripping description of where White racism always leads. First, create mental ghettoes for Jews by hating them. Second, build real ones to make them easy to deport. Third, exterminate them after gentiles become used to their non presence. Fourth, hope the Jews will not be missed.

The matter of fact casual nature of the brutality of racism in Western culture makes this movie still so culturally resonant. Particularly the fact that racial abuse creates the very behaviour labelled as characteristic of alleged inferiors. Racists need to work openly to pretend racism is natural and so vainly avoid a guilty conscience that would result from accepting the other's humanity.

A perceptive look at the self fulfilling prophecy inherent in all snobbery, that is uplifting despite the horrors since there is, here, humanity in everyone.


Copyright © 2014 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 17 April 2014

Comic Strip Presents

(2007)

RATING:40%
FORMAT:DVD

[The (Almost) Complete Collection]

Little more than empty pastiche and political posturing (apart from Keith ALLEN & Alexei SAYLE) that is as ludicrous – rather than funny – as what is pastiched. Guilt-ridden White middle-class denunciations of White supremacy are little more than White supremacist, themselves, as they attempt to scapegoat the White lower-classes as inbred bigots: Sex-obsessed White English emotional-repression that parodies sexual promiscuity while reveling in it.

These are the cognoscenti in-jokes and the amateurishly-undergraduate execution of largely-talentless mediocrities.

White alternative humorists strive so hard for Political Correctness and comprehensive inoffensiveness that they end up saying nothing of any real value. A vow of silence would have been preferable to pasticcio since the quality improves, chronologically, but rarely rises above the merely adequate.


Copyright © 2014 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.

Contact Form:

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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.