Monday 30 June 2014

Cloverfield

Also known as:
Unknown
Year:
2008
Predominant Genre:
Science-Fiction
Best Performance(s):
None
Plot:
Aliens attack New York.
Theme(s):
Personal change
White supremacy
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Miracle Mile
United 93
Review Format:
DVD

Interesting, avant-garde attempt to resurrect a hoary Hollywood genre shot - as if recorded on someone’s camcorder - to give it an immediacy a more conventional treatment would never allow. However, many shots make no sense since they linger on expensive set pieces (to justify the expense) that people running for their lives would never do.

The feeble and cliched script also fails to conceal the unoriginality of the premise; being little more than a collection of ‘Oh my Gods’ at the admittedly impressive visuals. A movie so impressed with itself the dialogue reflect its own self importance.

The characters are dull and, although the actors do their best, mouthe dialogue commenting on the film we are watching rather than being indicative of their active participation in it.

A silly but entertaining movie for its brief running time, but not as good as Miracle Mile.


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 29 June 2014

Khartoum

Also known as:
Unknown
Year:
1966
Predominant Genre:
Historical
Best Performances:
Charlton HESTON… Laurence OLIVIER…
Plot:
A military force of 8,000 is massacred during a holy war; leading to a greater confrontation.
Themes:
Personal change | Self-expression | White supremacy
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Unknown
Review Format:
DVD - UK version

Jihad Made Simple

The age-old story of the clash of Christian fanatics with Muslim ones, with all the contemporary resonances you would expect. Featuring the original anti-infidel Muslim fanatic, played by Laurence OLIVIER, this is an impressive – if under-length – spectacular.

The Mahdi (a Sudanese) claims his Holy War against Egypt is divinely ordained - as Christians claim maintaining the British Empire is a matter of British honor. So the Egyptians invade Sudan with inept British assistance and suffer a devastating military defeat.

However, the over-extended British Empire cannot afford to send an army themselves to defeat the Mahdi – nor do they wish to police the world if this involves too much effort. Instead, they desperately seek to deny any and all responsibility for the catastrophe. Thus, mutually jihadist, period geopolitics is quite well sketched with intelligence and political subtlety, as: ‘Greedy businessmen, scheming generals and conniving politicians’.

The films failing is its fear of boring the audience with too much exposition that would fill out the characters more and deepen its political insight. This is exacerbated by flat, perfunctory direction and overly-emphatic music not quite in sympathy with the sophistication of the script nor of the excellence of the performances.

The casting, in general, is superb: Charlton HESTON makes a surprisingly-convincing Englishman; OLIVIER, an effective Arab. They both capture the often-conflicted nature of the great movers & shakers of history and the all-consuming vanity of men who see themselves at the center of, and in terms of, an inflated historical perspective. Both men here might be called pragmatic mystics; the paradox of such a description underlying the readily-apparent dramatic tensions.

Being an essentially martial nation, Great Britain has produced many great-souled military men with egos to match; here matching those of the stars involved. Yet, their bravery is never in doubt since history is the story of vain men whose sense of conscience overrides their common sense (along with the ability of their superiors to control them from a distance). Nevertheless, such men make history books worth reading and movies like this worth watching.

Saturday 28 June 2014

Dogville

(Rating: 80%)
Also known as:
Unknown
Year:
2003
Predominant Genre:
Drama
Best Performances:
Zeljko IVANEK… Chloe SEVIGNY…
Plot:
Small town harbors a fugitive from justice; thinking they can exploit her as a kind of underpaid slave.
Themes:
Personal change
Self-expression
Compassion
Totalitarianism
Political Correctness
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Revolver
Mephisto
Review Format:
DVD

Rape is the New Love

Clever look at Acceptance among Whites.

The township here is only willing to accept others so long as they are born into the community in which they live: Outsiders will always be tolerated outsiders - and nothing more. A ghost town of living corpses whose repressions make conscientious civilization there impossible: A moral and emotional trap for the unwary traveler.

We come to realize that the friendliness of this White community is a mask covering the resentment of having to be nice to people you do not like simply because they are members of the same clan. This engenders the bitterness that posits others as permanently estranged no matter how acceptable they might be objectively. Yet, Whites actually need those they fear so that they can try to evade solving their personal problems by focusing outwardly onto others and away from themselves. The very attitude that makes them unhappy is the very attitude they cling to in order to give themselves any sense of who they are. After all, it is easier to take out ones frustrations on those labeled permanent outsiders, since they have less power to fight back. This also has the advantage of keeping the false relationships with insiders going, since they can then define themselves by what they are not, so that they do not have to engage in the hard work of becoming anything. As with genetics, the “gene pool“ of White social relationships becomes generationally-diluted - to its eventual demise. All attempts to protect culture lead to cultural stasis.

The film also successfully mocks the White delusion that small town life is somehow better and more human than city life by showing that such games happen in all White communities - no matter their size. Because of the decline of the family as the basic unit of White society and the resultant neurotic neediness and desperate wanting-to-be-liked that results from seeing ones culture as a substitute family. By conflating the Personal with the Political, in this way, emotional blackmail results as Whites find they do not spontaneously warm to each other; faking friendships to feel less alone. This explains why Whites can behave immorally; living in such a permanent dread of social-ostracism, that they will do just about anything to be accepted (even if the acceptance is little more than an act). It also perpetuates the decline of White culture, which continues to see the Family as the source of social ills because it has become so politicized as a form of fascist social control; producing well-paid careers for hordes of psychiatrists. This also helps explain why Whites favor a theoretical approach to life in order to rationalize rejected-because-painful emotions. They thus define themselves in terms of their weaknesses that are most-often revealed by the presence of outsiders; hence the hostility to same.

That such an excellent cast should assemble for such an unconventional narrative is little short of miraculous - despite the lead’s affected acting style. This helps with the deft characterization that properly differentiates all the characters will quietly explaining their shared goal.

The inability of Whites to trust outsiders is fully-explored by revealing White culture to be a game played to achieve the maximum exploitation of others. By pretending that if outsiders allow themselves to be exploited (ie, integrate), they will eventually be accepted – despite the fact that the day of acceptance never arrives. Whites know this fantasy makes them angry and alone because it is not ultimately fulfilling, yet fear to live without the comfort of the false social power it provides.

Friday 27 June 2014

Heartbeat Detector

Also known as:
Question Humaine
Rating:
100%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2007
Predominant Genre:
Thriller
Plot:
Corporate psychologist slowly uncovers the real reasons for the increasingly-erratic behaviour of the CEO of a multinational chemical company.
Themes:
Compassion
Totalitarianism
Political Correctness
White supremacy
Similar To:
Beat that my Heart Skipped
Mephisto
Best Performances:
Mathieu AMALRIC… Michael LONSDALE… Edith SCOB…

[Question Humaine]

Yuppie culture is used here as a metaphor for the White belief that civilization is only possible in exchange for emotional repression.

This exceptional film explores issues of how Whites could allow the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews yet still call themselves civilized. Whites do this by conflating the Personal with the Political such that how to fit in to a corporate culture, yet still retain ones humanity, becomes a critical issue. Rather than effect a complete separation of both, so that Whites could obtain personal satisfactions from a private life they have not renounced, Whites try to make emotional repression - itself - a source of pleasure; the odd behavior it causes being labeled: Personality.

Thus, the empty and circular arguments relating to work–life balance become ends in themselves as a vain means of evading real-world issues such as Humanity versus Greed. Systemic White supremacy then becomes easy to explain as a result of the need to find admirers and followers in the absence of anything for which to admire Whites. While White guilt and scapegoating also become suddenly explicable as the inevitable consequence of a guilty conscience, as well as the need to blame others for decisions Whites, themselves, make.

Ultimately, this flawlessly-acted film understands a basic tenet of Nazism: Before you can turn your enemy into untermenschen, you must first do the same to yourself.

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Bron/Broen

Also known as:
The Bridge
Year:
2011 -
Countries:
Denmark…
Sweden…
Predominant Genre:
Crime
Best Performances:
Kim BODNIA…
Sofia HELIN…
Christian HILLBORG…
Plot:
Danish and Swedish police inspectors share jurisdiction and work together to find serial killers.
Themes:
Personal change
White supremacy
Similar To (in Plot, Theme or Style):
Dogville
Killing
Spiral
Review Format:
DVD

Interesting look at White culture’s failings in terms of the inability of Whites to have both successful Personal and Political lives. Thus, the Personal becomes Political as the criminals depicted here are White terrorists against their very White failings producing terrorism in the first place. Terrorists usually have their hearts in the right place, the issue is nearly always their methods of achieving their goals; a nicely-made distinction here.

The obviously-contrived, red herring-filled plotting masks an apparently-mismatched detective duo anxious to find in each other what they both lack - and which they both cannot find in others. The performances here are spellbinding and facilitate the central mystery: Not who-did-what-to-whom but, why does Saga Norén repress her emotions such that she cannot enjoy personal relationships beyond the sexual? - and will she ever grow up into a fully-fledged human being? Like an Ingmar Bergman parody, Sofia HELIN’s portrayal of Norén speaks volumes for the millions of Whites one meets everywhere in the West who seem completely cut-off from their deep-seated emotions by a White supremacist political system which demands that this be so. she understands the give-and-take of Political relationships but not the share-and-share-alike of Personal ones.

This series only sounds depressing in the abstract and in the synopsis. There are fine moments of human tenderness and laugh-out loud humor here as Saga Norén’s social autism leads her to blurt out the truth (& ask for same) - even when there is no possible benefit to her; making this a comedy-of-manners in all but name. Like Sherlock Holmes and Mr Spock she seems completely oblivious to any social emmbarrassment (& human feeling); making her approach supremely objective and explaining her almost-greatness as a cop. (As susual with European cop shows, there is little reliance on gunplay to keep the audience awake after they realise they have been cheated into watching commercials wrapped around poorly-written drama).


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.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Valseuses

Also known as:
Going Places; Getting It Up; Making It
Year:
1974
Predominant Genre:
Comedy
Best Performances:
Isabelle HUPPERT… Jeanne MOREAU… MIOU-MIOU… Patrick DEWAERE… Gérard DEPARDIEU… Brigitte FOSSEY…
Plot:
Three Whites in search of a seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.
Themes:
Compassion | Personal change | Political Correctness | Self-expression
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Unknown ()…
Review Format:
Cinema

Early, immature work from director Bertrand Blier about the anarchy of carnal desire and coming-to-terms with it regardless of the invidiousness of other people.

The film satirizes Freud’s claim that civilization is only possible if people volitionally repress themselves for the alleged common good, since such a Western attitude leads to such things as drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and the middle class.

For all its erotic preoccupation, the movie presents little more than the sheer physicality of sex for the young; being content merely to imply the emotional fulfilment and genuine social order that this could presage with the advent of healthily-expressed sexuality.

Although its picaresque nature eventually palls-through-repetition, the movie is oddly-good at suggesting the smells inherent in human sensuality – a real achievement in a medium with only two senses: Sight & sound.


Monday 23 June 2014

Orchestral Music:
Anton WEBERN

Also known as:
Unknown
Year:
2002
Predominant Genre:
Music
Best Performances:
None
Plot:
None.
Themes:
Self-expression
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Unknown
Review Format:
CD

This is really music to commit suicide to for those who have lost the connection between their heads and their hearts: Music for horror movies.

So much of twentieth-century music is reflective of the fact that all the best tunes have been written and there is nothing left for composers to do other than the empty formalism of complex scales and/or pastiches of the greats of the past.

There is no underlying emotional force to this music and, therefore, no real audience for it - save the cognoscenti who read music rather listen to it.

Atonalism and serialism might possess concision, delicacy, economy, concentration, symmetry, silence and unity but, like all sterile intellectual exercises, they all lack the ability to get under your skin.


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 22 June 2014

Red Tails
(2012)

Also known as:
Unknown
Year:
2012
Predominant Genre:
War
Best Performances:
David OYELOWO… Bryan CRANSTON…
Plot:
Black pilots save White airmen from White culture’s moral turpitude.
Themes:
Patriotism | Personal change | Self-expression | Compassion | White supremacy
Similar To (in Plot, Theme & Style):
Tuskegee Airmen (1995)…
Review Format:
DVD

Excellent adventure movie about the White fear of Black people; presented with a simple, life-affirming dignity.

Whites wanted to win the Second World War without help from those they considered inferior. That would be tantamount to admitting that Whites needed such help and were, thus, not as superior as they claim. (This is why White history books almost always imply that Whites won World War 2.) Yet every able-bodied man was needed to win the war, so Whites had to swallow their so-called race-pride and accept help from wherever they could get it.

The characterization is well-handled as each pilot is clearly distinct from his mate; making the unity of the squadron seem all the more remarkable - even though White supremacy makes such unity inevitable, since there was a war being fought on two fronts here - against White anti-Semites and White negrophobes.

The only real problem with this movie is that it tries to pack in too much political detail concerning its theme of White insecurities. This makes the rich source material better fodder for a tv series - where all the various issues can be more fully developed and explored. Yet, this movie still manages such a fine balance between combat and dialogue scenes that this does not matter too much in an otherwise first-rate entertainment.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Hellboy II

Also known as:
Hellboy 2
Rating:
80%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2008
Predominant Genre:
Action
Plot:
Hellboy must save the world.
Themes:
Personal change
Self-expression
Compassion
Totalitarianism
Similar To:
Hellboy
Best Performances:
Selma BLAIR… Ron PERLMAN…

The Golden Army

Superior sequel to the same director’s Hellboy - the kind of coherent drama that Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth should have been.

A story of freaks with special powers who are lauded by Men while simultaneously being criticized for somehow being ugly because they remind the world’s mediocrities of that very mediocrity. A clever analogue to the way in which, in the West, celebrities are raised to a level above ordinary mortals just before we watch, with schadenfreudic glee, as we proceed to tear them down for the sheer hell of it.

The characterization and acting is above average for this kind of action/adventure fantasy since it focuses on relationships rather than just special powers and the SFX aren’t arbitrary cinematic displays of digital cleverness, they actually carry the humorously told story forward.

Friday 20 June 2014

Flags of Our Fathers

Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
60%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2008
Predominant Genre:
War
Plot:
Life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima.
Themes:
Unknown
Similar To:
Pacific
Band of Brothers
Best Performances:
None

Buy War Bonds

Emotionally-noncommittal retelling of the affects of heroes being put in the media spotlight by a government eager to refinance a Pacific War (bankrupting the economy) via a war-weary public - despite its apparent necessity. The Japanese not cooperating in being easy to beat as they should; leading to a drain on US resources; fueling inflation. Our feelings toward this film mirror such weariness, unfortunately.

The shell-shocked reluctance of the leading characters makes them poor public relations’ men for United States of America, Inc, so there’s no real conflict in this drama save on the battlefield. It struggles to stir up our feelings but merely incites our boredom.

The performances are excellent despite the paucity of characterization; leaving gory special-effects to tell the story of how such brutality has brutalized them.


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 19 June 2014

Crew

WEBSITE: ...
(Image: http://???)
Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
40%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2008
Predominant Genre:
Crime
Plot:
Spying on the enemies of Socialism brings out paranoia and the bitter realisation that such politically-correct vindictiveness creates a lack of personal fulfilment.
Theme(s):
  1. Unknown
  2. Self-expression
Similar To:
  1. 1984
  2. Mephisto
Best Performance(s):
  1. Ulrich TUKUR
  2. Thomas THIEME

Repetitive, inept and structurally unsound, this relentlessly hysterical film starts as it means to go on. As usual with tyro film directors, the accent is on form over content as the craft of filmmaking is learned with the audience as guinea pig.

No themes are explored in a plot cobbled together from old bottle tops you have seen before: It is all very Guy Ritchie but without his rich humor. A formalistic work whose perfunctory stabs at characterization allow very good, fresh actors to show what they can do but whom really need better material than this. Striving for significance, it fails, and violence, swearing and inappropriately strident music does not save the day.

A film where the parts are far greater than the whole - that could have done with having more deleted scenes. Hopefully, this director will day make better work.


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 18 June 2014

Animal

Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
60%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2005
Predominant Genre:
Crime
Plot:
Spying on the enemies of Socialism brings out paranoia and the bitter realization that such politically-correct vindictiveness creates a lack of personal fulfillment.
Themes:
Compassion | Ethical Politics | Personal change | Self-expression | White supremacy
Similar To:
Unknown
Best Performances:
Entire cast

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Despite the elliptical and underdeveloped nature of the script, this is a fairly-powerful attempt at filming the 300-year after-effects of US slave owning. Here, Blacks are killing each other in ghettoes of the mind and only a single Black revolutionary is wise enough to see that Blacks are fools if they go along with the widespread White belief in Black inferiority.

Inevitably, Black viewers will obtain more from this movie than Whites, because it mentions historical figures like Malcolm X that they would be only too familiar with; hence, the lack of dramatic elucidation of issues already known to its likely audience.

The characterization is excellent - with acting to match. The semi-documentary style also chimes with the street-smart performances and story of a leopard trying to change his spots from the “Animal” White supremacists want to see him as; into being a fully fledged human being.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Gerry

Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
80%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2002
Predominant Genre:
Drama
Plot:
Friendship between two young men is tested in a rugged environment.
Themes:
Personal change
Self-expression
Compassion
Similar To:
Unknown
Best Performances:
None

Moody Blues

Rather good, existential piece about two close friends lost in the desert. This severely tests their friendship to the point of complete physical and moral exhaustion.

The pair soon despairs of ever finding water, food and the civilization they thought they were only temporarily leaving behind in their hike from the stresses of modern life. They do not understand the natural world; having only seen it on tv and, once out of their car, quickly lose their way.

Shot in master takes, the film slowly builds to its inevitable climax; the improvised dialogue matching the sparseness of the visuals. Largely wordless, this is a hypnotic movie set amid the great natural beauty of the landscape that’s killing them; while communicating the pair’s growing estrangement. A very rewarding experience about friendship, fate and responsibility.


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.

Monday 16 June 2014

Last Days

Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
60%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2005
Predominant Genre:
Drama
Plot:
Depressed pop-musician story.
Themes:
Self-expression
Similar Titles:
Unknown
Best Performances:
Unknown

Well-cast film offering no explanation as to what we see. It is taken for granted that White rock musicians tend towards excess and depression and often die of drug overdoses in a way Black musicians rarely do. Yet, no insight into either culture is offered, save the tritest of rock‘n’roll clichés.

Selflessness is depicted accurately as the characters – despite their material success – go nowhere psychologically. This leads to the strange conclusion that suicide is a positive, spiritual choice for some.

Without a context within which to place the characters, this is an empty drama since the audience is given no room for empathy. We can easily sympathize with someone physically disabled because their options are naturally limited; while the self-destructive possess no excuse of this kind that can justify their behavior.

Sunday 15 June 2014

Super

Also known as:
Unknown
Rating:
80%
Format:
DVD
Year:
2010
Predominant Genre:
Comedy
Plot:
Nerdy White guy becomes a superhero to avenge the loss of his wife to someone more interesting.
Themes:
Personal change
White anger
Self-expression
Compassion
Similar Titles:
Kick-Ass
Best Performances:
Ellen PAGE…
Kevin BACON…
ndre ROYO…

Clever movie about the White rage that seeks to express itself outwardly rather than adopt a reasonable perspective on their own personal problems and actually solve them.

The movie does not analyse why Whites are so angry that they need to invent alter egos as a means of evading their guilt feelings about such violent emotions. This is one of the reasons the explicit violence makes so much sense, dramatically.

However, this lack of depth negatively affects the characterizations which are helped, nonetheless, by first-class actors who part makeup for this lack.


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:

Name

Email *

Message *

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.