Sunday 25 September 2016

2010:
The Year We Make Contact
(1984)

RATING:60%
FORMAT:Cinema

Cold War in Space

More of an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s earlier film 2001: A Space Odyssey than a film in its own right.

Lacking much of the allegorical meat of the first film this tries hard to be literary rather than cinematic - as per Arthur Clarke’s novels - and ends up falling between two stools. Clarke’s drippy Hippie outlook on life appears naive and childlike and ruins an otherwise enjoyable movie with excellent special-effects.

This is the kind of film making that is all too perfunctory and lacks a soul although it tries its best, but was never likely to equal the original in either breadth or depth.

This film also oddly tries to provide a gloss for the first film and a kind of explanation and an exegesis. The attempt to reduce something quite mysterious to a facile explanation contradicts the potential for wonder and awe that cinema possesses and depletes the story of human potential we are allegedly witnessing.

Sunday 18 September 2016

Color Purple
(1985)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:Cinema

Well-acted, edited & directed story of a woman's search for selfhood despite the limitations of her culture and education.

The emotionally crippled Black males here reveal the Feminist nature of the source novel's enterprise, as well as the negative affects of White supremacism. This bigotry is brilliantly encapsulated in one female character's craven dependence on allegedly helping so-called coloreds (& her fear of sexually predatory Black males!) leading to her inevitable anger when Blacks are not grateful enough for her condescension.

However, elliptical storytelling hampers character empathy; suggesting this would have been better as a longer tv mini series. Nevertheless, director Steven Spielberg - a Jew – understands the concept of a cultural diaspora that is at the movie's core better than most Whites and that the prisons many of the characters inhabit are both literal as well as metaphorical.

Sunday 11 September 2016

Being There


Also Known As:
Unknown
Year:
1979
Countries:
United States… West Germany…
Predominant Genre:
Comedy
Director:
Hal ASHBY…
Outstanding Performances:
Ruth ATTAWAY… Richard BASEHART… Melvyn DOUGLAS… Richard DYSART… Shirley MacLAINE… Peter SELLERS… Jack WARDEN…
Premiss:
A simple, sheltered gardener becomes an unlikely trusted adviser to a powerful businessman and an insider in national politics.
Themes:
Alienation | Christianity | Compassion | Destiny | Emotional repression | Empathy | Ethnicity | Humanity | Identity | Loneliness | Mankind | Materialism | Narcissism | Personal change | Republicanism | Self-expression | Sexual Repression | Social class | Snobbery | Solipsism | Stereotyping | White culture | White guilt | White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Alice in Wonderland (1865)… Full Metal Jacket (1987)… Full Metal Jacket (1987)… Full Metal Jacket (1987)… Full Metal Jacket (1987)…
Review Format:
DVD

America ain’t shit ‘cos the White man’s got a God complex

Amazing political satire (a comedy version of The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser) about the delusional way in which Whites see the world.

White culture requires such self-serving fantasy in its Alice in Wonderland world of make-believe that is necessary to sustain a culture based on White supremacy and - resultant - emotional immaturity. That which Whites do not consume via White media is regarded - by Whites - as either non-existent or unimportant; rendering the Black woman here the sole voice-of-reason - throughout - as she lucidly points out that no Black simpleton would be taken so seriously in an Institutional Racist country like the United States - as the White one is in this movie.

In the various White cultures, being White (literally & metaphorically) is more important than being talented, intelligent or hard-working. Thus, here we have a White man who appears to be the quintessential good-for-nothing, who yet becomes a candidate for the presidency of the United States through his sheer innocence being deliberately-mistaken for profound insight.

Whites speaking in code, rather than with direct honesty, is also carefully-satirized here - along with the emotional emptiness it implies. Whites get so caught up in the game of misinforming each other to obtain some kind of economic and psychological advantage over others (one-upmanship), that they end up losing contact with both the very reality they aim to define & control and their own selfhood.

Here White culture is revealed as built on quicksand; exacerbated by an obsession with believing that what appears in the media is far more real than ones own, actual experience. This leads to Whites not knowing what to do or say or think unless mimicking the media. This robotic inability to think for oneself - without seeking the approval of a White authority - leads one to become an actor reading lines, rather than spontaneously self-expressive.

Along with this infantilism, is the issue of endemic White emotional and sexual repression in the self-serving belief that such thing are necessary for civilization to take place at all; implying Whites are civilized precisely because they are less-than-fully-human. That this is explored through the dramatic agency of a character almost completely devoid of human feelings, thoughts and sexual abilities is perfectly apposite. He wants nothing, he is nothing, he says nothing, yet is admired by Whites as a great sage; eloquently reflecting the emptiness of those who admire him most; while they see him as the embodiment of the human virtues they lack. Being all things to all people, those who seek to exploit him merely project their fears, wants and needs onto a tabula rasa; getting them nowhere fast - as in the story of the The Emperor’s New Clothes. And yet, this man does not set out to defraud, he is - instead - a Christ-like figure of wonder, faith and hope - a man with a true sense of dasein; seeing essentials clearly, as with the eyes of a child.

The unsettling tension throughout the entire length of this film comes from our wondering when anyone is going to finally realize that the central character is not the guru they need to assume he is, despite there clearly being a great desire for most of the characters to believe their own bullshit and collude in their own deliberately-chosen misunderstandings about reality, because that is their reality.

Peter SELLERS’ performance is perhaps his best and very reminiscent of both Stan LAUREL (with added sex appeal) and Jacques TATI. Shirley MacLAINE is as good as an actress can get; while Melvyn DOUGLAS strongly conveys the sense of a man at peace with the fact of his impending death. Everyone here is excellent, in fact - an ensemble cast that is a wonder to behold.

It’s for sure a white man’s world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I’ll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th’ ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want.

Actual White political life is coming increasingly to mimic a movie meant to exaggerate actual White political life; shades of George W Bush, Network and the kind of media satire The Shining could have been.

Sunday 4 September 2016

La Vita è bella
(1997)

100%

[Life Is Beautiful]

Rabid Individuality

Brilliant political satire (in the Dr Strangelove mould) on White supremacism that accomplishes the rare feat of setting a comedy in a Jewish concentration camp.

Like Chaplin’s Great Dictator this is as sad as it is funny because it understands that Western culture is based on a view of life that discounts individuals by claiming they only ever represent a cost, but never a value; that people are only to be seen in the aggregate, as abstractions or statistics. This is an attitude that can only work if both victims and perpetrators accept it without question; hence, the characterization shown here.

The comic timing is spot-on, as are the clever comedy setups and payoffs. Where Roberto BENIGNI has been so clever is in not showing the inevitable atrocities, but implying them at every turn: Their absence makes them all the more present. This allows the jokes about turning people into soap to become genuinely funny. The point is also made, thereby, that those who survive mistreatment are those with the most positive attitude to begin with. The title says it all: Schindler’s List with a life-affirming and death-defying smile on its face.

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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.