dredyoung Reviews

The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror (2005)

Some valuable history on US Mid East troubles

[8/10 · 29 June 2010]

I will have to watch this documentary again. It is packed with blunt recounting of the history and multiple forces impelling the US and other dominant nations as they mercilessly sweep back and forth across this oil and gas rich and vulnerable Middle Eastern region. I have loosely kept up with the major shifts in power over there over the last fifty years and have delved some into the times in the early 1900s when oil fields were being discovered and drilling contracts were being signed. I only recently learned about the role of the pipelines through the region between Turkey and Afghanistan and from there to China, India, Europe, and the US. There so much provocative information congealed in this hour and a half that it screams to be taken seriously and viewed many times. And, I am not one who views films more than once. I offer thanks to those who made this film.

The Girl in the Café (2005 TV Movie)

An Odd Combination of Romance and Global Politics

[10/10 · 17 May 2010]

You have never heard of this movie, "The Girl in the Café," have you? If not, well, see it and you will know why. After meeting Gina (Kelly Macdonald) in a café, lonely civil servant Lawrence (Bill Nighy) asks her to join him at the G8 Summit in Iceland. These two shy outsiders hit it off almost instantly, but their attraction is tested when Gina's personal convictions contradict Lawrence's professional duties and the modus operandi of the G8 leaders. Macdonald earned an Emmy for her performance in this made-for-television movie. It has an overarching plot about the G8 but that also has a parallel plot that charts the course of an endearing May-December romance between Gina and Lawrence. This is a great movie about a crucial issue in our new, globalized world. While it has a simple plot, it grips your attention with every subtle inflection of emotion and each surprising, modestly spoken, but incisive confrontation by the ingénue outsider, Gina, with the heady, sophisticated, dignified G-8 political leaders. The highlights of the movie, for me, were the tensely awkward moments as these confrontations take place. They were almost humorous had it not been for the glaring gravitas of the issues being addressed by the G8. In an officious, clandestine, sterile, dehumanized, and sanctimonious manner, these men and women are literally charting the course for the entire globe for the next fifty years. While their issues are scaled down and tailored for a brief TV movie, they, nevertheless, contain a simple, persuasive representation of the political philosophy of a group of leaders who now have absolute power over the rest of the world. This power extends, unfortunately for them, to the third world countries made desperately impoverished by the wealthy nations whom the G8 are representing. Most of those who are dispassionately doing the complex intellectual work for these 'Lords of the Universe', and therefore determining the G8's policies, are unelected, highest-echelons civil servants from the eight world dominant nations. This is the most exclusive club in the world. I was spurred on to learn more about this G8. While it is brief and adapted to a television audience, it, nevertheless, gives a revealing insight into that lofty, inhumane, but pretentiously humane, world. It was produced by a British, independent film company. As an Independent film, it is part of the growing trend of 'alternative' movies. As with alternative energy, alternative life styles, alternative-organic-farmer to market foods, alternative medicine, and the internet as a source alternative information, this new generation of films is part of that burgeoning new world of alternatives. These alternative movements are juxtaposed against what is in the mainstream and owned and incessantly promoted on the outlets of the mainstream media that is also owned by this newer version of the ancient Feudal States and controlled by the new Corprocrats. Those of us who are New Green World Denizens must learn to change our habits which have been shaped by those psychopathic, exploitative, dehumanizing, multinational corporations and their lackeys in D C's Center of Corruption.

The Ghost Writer (2010)

"Ghost Writer" a must see

[10/10 · 5 April 2010]

Polanski's "Ghost Writer" is definitely a 'must see.' I got back from seeing "Ghost Writer", back and forth on long bus ride, hadn't eaten since early morn, ate a tidbit, tried to watch TV and zonked out and just now awakened almost four hours later at 11PM and, bleary-eyed or not, I just had to say this: What a fantastic movie. One for those who keep up with world-shaking shenanigans; those with eyes to see, ears to hears, and minds to understand; --- this is a work of true genius and remarkable guts. No one but a world citizen, entangled between evil, global, clandestine principalities that are subjugated by their stealthy, almighty Imperators; only a person with the mind of a great artist as well; no one but a Polanski could have made this particular movie at this particular tipping point in history.

He will only get a virtual Oscar from 'the few' scattered across the 'Western Axis of Evil', but who are not of their world, and only from those who, accidentally, have been prepped to receive his meta- message. I am still in awe that he could pull it off with Hitchcock- like surprising twists while using innuendos to expose a still smoldering, extremely complex, international intrigue. This could only have been produced by German, French, and disaffected UK leaders. No wonder there has been such a tug of war over his extradition. It is not shocking that it has, so far, mostly been seen in Europe. It is no wonder none of the major US theaters have booked it. It has had 'limited' release in US, mostly art house theaters – was made on a 40Mil budget, and has had a low gross so far. It is probably Caviar for the EU, but a hot potato for the US, with the exception of CA movie land, the US Northeast, and the Florida coast, as you might have guessed! Its reception appears to be like those movies dubbed 'Banned in Boston', only for "Ghost Writer" it is "Banned in the Red States."

How 'spot on' he pegged Tony Blair. And, his cryptic, brief and chilling, allusions to Bush and Cheney should be epithets for both of their epitaphs. Such clever nuggets like these alone make it worth seeing.

Cheesh! What a movie! I have been a fan of his film noir style since "Repulsion" in 1965. Remember "Rosemary's Baby"? But my god, in this movie, he reveals that has he matured into the cinema artist's epitome of Jung's Modern Man as described in "Modern Man in Search of a Soul"1 but with laser like insight into and detection of, and a genius international spy's grasp of, the grisly, ugly, ruthless, behind the scenes, lofty, conspiratorial world of power. Traces of "The Good Sheppard", and the many others of that ilk dotting this decade of cinematic critiques of the secret, ruthless side of government, flickered across my mind as the movie advanced to the denouement. And, as an additional bonus, I found a new love in Olivia Williams who played that intriguing, sinister wife, Ruth Lang.

I'm not sure why but I have a hunch that Polanski's very existence on earth is like a shiv in the heart of Stephen Spielberg. The only real justice in the world is poetic justice. With this film, Polanski got his by turning the tables on his judges!

1. "The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it". Carl Jung, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" and " Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other". Carl Jung

Invictus (2009)

Invictus and Mandela the Man

[10/10 · 15 December 2009]

"Invictus", the Movie and the Man Mandela By Edwin L. Young, PhD December 14, 2009

Clint Eastwood's Weltanschauungen is pure Americana. From the Wild West gunslingers to the on-the-outs lawman to macho modern women to global battlefields and finally to reformation in a third world nation, Eastwood's fame has been established on indomitable hero and heroine characters fighting against insurmountable odds and winning. His movies are all of a type one could call the "invictus" type and seem almost to be an extension of what I would presume to label as his own, but not idiosyncratic, 'invictus' type of personality. Eastwood's finesse as a director justly earns him the appellation of one of the greats among movie directors. Yet, with respect to those American-ish accolades, I must retract from the consensus that he is well deserved of being worshiped as a hero in the cinematic world. I must make a case that warrants my detraction from his halo awarded by the film critics, and even me. I strongly suspect that he is a true believer in his version of this pure Americana Weltanschauungen. Unfortunately, and I am sure unwittingly, this thematic schema underlying his work is aiding in perpetuating a broader cultural motif. While seemingly a hallmark of inimitably strong and laudable characters and his own character as well, this pattern in his movies is actually a prominent yet unacknowledged source of America(n)'s proclivity for using violence to deal with conflicts with those who are considered unsavory and misguided antagonists within our nation. Ironically, the same characteristic which is considered worthy of being emulated for the good of the country is, nevertheless, one that contributes to fostering those very same conflicts which presumably is his intention is to put to an end. Paradoxically, "Invictus" is an exception to his themes. It simultaneously proves and disproves a justification for his upholding of his devotion to this macho cultural motif. Surely this movie is a glowing example of that indomitable will with head bloodied but unbowed. On the other hand, Mandela himself, and Mandela's political strategy is the most telling example of a diametrically opposite belief system about what true human greatness is and what the most effective means are for dealing with those who are considered ideologically oppositional, unsavory, misguided antagonists, and enemies, both within his, and our nation, and abroad. Mandela, an internationally famous yet solitary 'consensus of one' within his fiercely divided nation with its formerly mutually violent and now mutually suspicious and antipathetic parties, stands as the turning point, as a pivotal force, for future world history. What was Mandela's strategy and why was he successful in stemming the tide of national, mutual animosity between Africans and Afrikaners? He used two things. First he used the management strategy of interlocking objectives. What this means is that two camps can be, in this case, made to feel that the success and well-being of each depends upon each striving to make sure the other reaches their goal successfully. Second he took on a challenge to make a national symbol, South Africa's Rugby team, the winner of the international tournament. At the beginning they were considered the dark horse. His victorious election to the presidency of South Africa after having been imprisoned for thirty years by the Afrikaners made him a folk hero of monumental proportions to the blacks and an awesome figure to be feared and reviled, but secretly revered, by the losing Afrikaners. So, when he sent for the Captain of the Rugby team to join him in the quest, against all odds, to win the world cup and had them shown on national TV, with the whole nation watching, he put in progress a plan to unite the nation in supporting its team in their determination to win. His public appearances, drawing attention to their county's ambitions for their Rugby team preceding the tournament, began to make the nation see him as championing the cause of all South Africans. Interlocking objectives! Both sides were gradually induced to work for a success that would be their mutual victory and, in the end, to him see as the leader favoring, not one side, not just the blacks, but all South Africans. His character, forged into iron from his early days as a political activist, was further forged into steel while in prison as he read the great books of the world and observed and studied the Afrikaner guards. One major factor not mentioned in the movie was that it was F. W. de Klerk, the last President of the apartheid South African State, who brought him those books over all of those years. I speculate that de Klerk did much more than just bring him books. Mandela read and thought while imprisoned, in an environment sealed off from the immediate pressures that make men small-minded, grew into a highly educated, highly independent, deep and deeply universalistic thinker and planner. What I see in all of this is his abdication of the belief in the cult of the individual. The cult of the individual essentially is the message behind the message in the poem "Invictus." Notwithstanding the invictus message, Mandela now had a new assumption and a new understanding of the encompassing nature of structures and systems. He eventually saw how the system, of racially antipathetic, politically opposing parties, was intertwined with a multitude of other, mutually influencing and sustaining, systems. Further, he eventually saw that there were fulcrums within those systems which others may not see but which could be used to alter them, from the most encompassing at the state and even international level, to the interactions between former antagonists, and ultimately alter even the character, personalities, and behavior of all individual citizens. This is the meaning of a true, great statesman! One who understands how he and all people are shaped by the structures and systems within which they exist and then turns that around to reshape those very same structures and systems for the greater good.

Religulous (2008)

Non-Open-Minded leave all hope behind when entering.

[10/10 · 8 October 2008]

If you have the time, there are two great, very recent, documentary films to watch. "With God on Our Side" is a documentary that is propaganda for the evangelical/right-wing political movement. It is well done and terrifying to me. "Religulous" is a documentary by Bill Maher, the famous, politically incorrect comedian. He travels all over the world visiting sacred places of the major religions, their sects, and their leaders and their followers. It is simultaneously hilarious and profound. Viewing and listening to his interviewees gives you insight into the utterly absurd beliefs common to all religions and the extraordinary, and often dangerous, influence they and their leaders hold over huge segments of the earth's innocent, ignorant, gullible people. I found it helpful to watch "With God on Our Side" first and then "Religulous". Looking back from the latter to the former helps give me better perspective on how sinister political and economic motivations meld with deep religious convictions. In all, or at least most, of these religious 'covens', you dare not question lest you be cast into hell upon death. It is also amazing how intransigent such beliefs are to rational refutation. It is amazing how language and human needs for meaning and immortality work to convince people of beliefs that are pure figments arising from human being's astounding mental faculty of imagination and ability to hold totally incongruous, contradictory information in their minds with equanimity. "Religulous" is now showing in a limited number of theaters across the country. It is, to me, the most important documentary ever, even more so than those of Michael Moore.

Conspiracy (2008)

Old West plot serves modern political message

[8/10 · 25 August 2008]

Another of America's Dirty Little Corporate Secrets I watched a movie the other night called "Conspiracy" (2008 staring Val Kilmer). It had received somewhat poor reviews. This was justified for a professional movie critic who bases their critique on traditional, Hollywood, Oscar-like standards. However, I saw it as a great 'message movie'. I knew a little about the controversy over Mexican immigrant legislation, a little about the Maquiladores, as well as a little about the worldwide exploitation of underdeveloped countries by US corporations, so I immediately became engrossed in the movie. This movie is a valid dramatization of what American corporations have been doing for many decades now. In the movie, Halliburton and Brown and Root and other such companies are all accurately portrayed by their compression into the movie's one 'fictitious' corporation, Halicorp. The movie also accurately represents the true situation with respect to Mexican 'illegals'. Americans have been employing them to do our dirty, hard work while keeping the death scythe of deportation or arrest over their heads to keep them working for slave wages which they need to save their families in Mexico from starvation. A conveniently opportunistic system has been devised whereby US corporations undermine Mexican corporations and make it impossible for Mexicans to earn a living in Mexico. Consequently, Mexican laborers have to flee to the US and take below subsistence wages. The only other alternative for them has been the Maquiladoras. In the beginning, the Maquiladoras were supposed to help the Mexican cities along the border economically but this turned into a nightmare as the US corporations exploited, virtually raped, the cities and their people who had come in the millions to live along the US-Mexican border and make a decent living. Eventually, these corporations moved on to cheaper slave labor in underdeveloped countries that were even worse off. Those border towns turned into impoverished garbage heaps. Those Mexican workers, therefore, had no choice but to swim across the border river or the climb border fences to find slave-wage work in the US. Those who take the time to inquire and those with eyes and ears to see and to hear with their hearts know, understand, and grieve for these Mexican Maquiladores workers and Mexican immigrant workers and their families who are caught in the tragic trap laid for them by the US corporations. There are those who know much of this and are happy to benefit from such dastardly exploitation. Yet, there are some caring few who create sanctuary churches and cities to care for desperate 'illegals' and their shattered families and often even sequester them from local 'de jure' police who are really serving as 'de facto' henchmen, a kind of recrudescent form of the KKK, for local businesses. On the other hand, there are these unconscionably insensitive, narcissistic, obsessively acquisitive employers who find all sorts of convenient ways to rationalize and blithely transform the plight of their Mexican illegal slave workers so as to make it seem like they are actually providing them with a great blessing, in fact, saving them. The white, well-to-do, ordinary American employers also rationalize this villainous behavior by seeing themselves as superior, a kind of unofficial master race, and their non-white slave workers as somewhat like mongrel dogs that must be kept from citizenship in order to prevent a pollution of our pure genes and true American heritage. The movie drives home a final thrust by revealing the xenophobic bigotry of the Halicorp types like Rhodes, the local head of Halicorp, when Rhodes, attacks and demeans retired Special Ops Marine William, whom he thinks he has beaten, for being half American Indian and half Anglo American. War-hero McPherson is the stranger-newly-come-to-town who successfully defends the town, New Lago, and its 'illegal alien' workers against Rhodes and his puppet Sheriff, deputies, and other complicit locals who were acting as Rhodes' thugs out of fear for their lives,. In the end, the people of New Lago, 'emblematic of the vast majority of ordinary people', finally rise up and turn against Rhodes, "emblematic of corporate American CEOs", demonstrating that, after all is said and done, America is a land of non-xenophobic, non-bigoted, non-exclusionist, multi-colored, multi-racial immigrants. On the other hand, however, in America, we know there are a great many Americans who simply choose to look the other way and let this corrupt and calamitous situation with our decent immigrant workers putrefy. Many are aware that this same type of exploitation by American Corporations is taking place in underdeveloped countries all over the globe and do nothing. Finally, there are the perpetrators who are running these US-legitimized criminal operations and hosts of right-wing political and media lackeys who are aligned with them. For these criminal corporations, Halicorp is the perfect, 'grotesques' symbol!

Demonlover (2002)

Pixel-pixilated allegory of modern world culture

[9/10 · 29 July 2008]

This plot is a mere scaffold for a brilliant and unorthodox 'message movie'. The movie is a commentary on modern merging of violence and sex in animated video porn/games that are melodramatic representations of real life. It illustrates the blurring of reality and fantasy with respect to these sexual, violent, and narcissistic-egoistic aspects of modern life on an international scale. The media- intensified-frustrated-lust of both genders is played out in exaggerated dramas of ruthless domination by males of females and females of males. It also epitomizes the extent to which deception and manipulation has been refined. It illustrates, simultaneously, our lust for exposure of and our need for vicarious experiencing of the privately repressed violence, taboo sexuality, and power lust, which is both engendered by and suppressed by our world cultures. It illustrates how the media in modern cultures increasingly and simultaneously are glamorizing slaughter-heroes of war, vicious superheroes of athletic conflicts, predatory sexual conquistadors, and victorious warlords of economic competition, all of whom relish the goriness with which they vanquish the conquered, while at the same time the same media are amplifying their moralistic condemnation unconventional behavior. Life imitates art in this film when killing up close is bloody personal but there is no legal aftermath with which to contend. Nevertheless, the bloody personal aspect wreaks such an immediate psychological consequence of inner terror that only hell could rival that it catapults one straight back to immersion in the animated demonlover flicks where art imitates our real life fantasy world. It is a pixel-pixilated allegory of modern world culture.

Free Zone (2005)

Much needed portrayal of living within Israeli-Palestinian region

[7/10 · 30 May 2008]

My 7 vote was for the filming, direction, and plot. For the informative value of the film, I would give it a 9. It was a bravely balanced portrayal and helped personalize my understanding of the how the structure of the conflict militates against the urge to empathize when face-to-face. It is heartrending watching antipathy being replaced with empathy and mutual assistance even while the regional conflicts continually compel opposing sides toward distrust and attack. Seeing the way the many groups are living in constant fear of lethal attacks has become the norm is heartbreaking. Each side continuing to live with a hollow hope for resolution and peace is awesome and somewhat offsets the massive human tragedy. While typical of human social psychology, it is still sad to see that even clashes within affiliates can lead to incendiary outbursts. The final scene is a terrific metaphor for the complex, dire configuration of the plight of the individual people, the American, Israeli, Palestinian, and all others in the region. Portman is to be commended for her taking the role of Rebecca in a movie that was sure to receive little acclaim.

Babel (I) (2006)

Babel - Old and New

[9/10 · 4 December 2006]

The raw, natural staging of Babel's characters helped make it very realistic. The aging of Pitt added authenticity. Pitt was good and Blanchett had very few lines but they were well executed. The rest of the actors were unknowns but did extremely well.

Babel was similar to Crash but spread across continents. What a great commentary it was on how our new mix-mash world culture has evolved to create unbridgeable misunderstandings and catastrophes both in local settings within families and between families and foreigners and with the same interactions occurring in settings on a global scale while the news of these events involving them are broadcast, instantaneously, from anywhere to everywhere. The people in these catastrophes are presented as good, well-meaning persons, doing what, for their place in their culture, job, and situation, is normal or even obligatory. In other words, horrible consequences are unwittingly perpetrated by well-intentioned people caught in a blindly insensitive and often brutally, haphazardly evolved world-structure. It was often harrowing to watch but, as for instructing viewers in an intelligent perspective on the current mangled state of global culture, it was a mission well accomplished. Accolades go to the writer and director!

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Devil Wears Prada: A portrait, a veritable parable, of modern America!

[10/10 · 28 July 2006]

"The 'Devil' Wears Prada" and the Flies the Most Glamorous and Formidable Jet Fighters I went to see "The Devil Wears Prada" this afternoon. It was very good, very entertaining. Mainly and initially I was interested in the psychology of the fashion world. Of course, I knew pretty much about this already because TV is saturated with it. Also, I had a woman friend, really two in fact, in Dallas who were involved in its Fashion Mart during the seventies and eighties and told me a lot about it. It is a ruthlessly competitive world. Everyone in it plays the game and plays to the status cravings of everyone else. This drive combines with the uncanny ability to cast a bigger spell, a more compelling mystic, and to be more convincing in presenting one's creations than one's rivals. Nevertheless, this drive propels these fashion gladiators to use stealthy throat cutting, back stabbing. Since they cannot be blatant with their unprincipled competition, they resort to Machiavellian deviousness, manipulation, and sabotaging. The tautness of these opposites of stylishness and ruthlessness can result in implosive stress. It can also result in beastly mutual psychological ruination, especially among their insufficiently calloused underlings. All the while they must learn to be coyly dedicated to setting the stage for ripping off obeisant devotees in a conspicuous consumption contest. The game, like all sports, is infectious. Now, an unexpected stage is set for a different set of incompatibilities. Enter a young, beautiful, brilliant, ambitious college graduate with bountiful belief in herself, self acceptance, empathy, and having that crucial element of worldly innocence. Wham! 'Classical' American wholesome meets 'modern' American superficial, frenzied, duplicitous, and winner takes all fashion society. Just that tad of ambition in her is enough to seduce her into this alien whirlwind. At first blush of le style d'un moderne in her appearance, her friends suspect an incipient seduction in the making. She resents their hints that she will inevitably succumb to Siren's beguile. The dizzying aura and commanding magnetism of her boss, challenging her capabilities, ensnares her and she takes up the gauntlet. Bit by bit she forces herself to learn to garner admiration and envy in the glamor game until, seduction almost complete, she is on the brink of becoming the person she initially reviled, her boss. At this moment of truth the submerged wholesome girl emerges with its fill of repressed revulsion bursting out. Her epiphany is grasping the toll on her idealistic soul of this mischievous and counterfeit fashion rat race. Among their not so fortunate and unwary clientèles, on the other hand, the enticement of this fashion world everlastingly and irresistibly sets off ever so subtle but nonetheless horribly loathsome, invidious comparisons and wretchedly demeaning rivalries. Yet, these fawning patrons persist in following religiously. For, in the end, the fashion world could not exist without this dynamic. This is psychological Darwinianism at its pinnacle of calculated maliciousness. Only the most hardhearted, ruthless, cunning cutthroats among the would-be fashion titans survive and ascend. Those who relish being, have the talent, and can convey that special air of ultimate authority as trend setter rise to and endure at the top as high priestesses and nigh sacred icons of the business. These people draw money capitals to their door and can cause currencies to course around the planet. These fashion moguls reap fortunes off the shallow envy of the appearance junkies which they create. With their diamonds and sapphires dangling, they thrive on the wasted heaps of glitter and rhinestone style-mongering idiots who bankrupt themselves while trying to keep up with the latest and most sheik creations from these artists in the craft of facade. But, if you want an understanding of the heart of American culture, here is where you will find it. Ironically, one can apply this same description, this same socio-psychology, to our defense industry, military leaders, politicians, lobbyists, academicians, professionals of all types, and yes even our clergy, and, woefully, you and I, along with the rest of our fellow Americans. Americans are status junkies who believe in one manifestation or another of this competitiveness and ambition for status, power, wealth, and fame, as though 'it' were the ultimate religion. Sadly, however, it is not just winning but is also beating, and defeating any and all comers, that is the prize we seek. Toward this 'holy' end, any means you can get away with is justified. Defeat of and one-upping one's rivals, and even one's friends, is the true religion of Americans. Adhering to the good old American sportsmanship code is necessary, outwardly, of course. Doing this, as winners, must be done not too gleefully and with grace and a barely detectable, demurely condescending, contempt for the losers. This art is also a major requirement in this religion. 'A spoonful of insipid, sugary diplomacy may help the 'poison' go down'. Of course, one must learn to keep one's disdain for the losers inconspicuous, somewhat like a genteel, beneficent serial killer, a Dr. Hannibal Lectern in lace, if you will. One must, however, be a true believer in the arts of this uniquely indigenous religion. Furthermore, one must be true to that religion even if it means destroying the hearts and values of masses of fellow humans and ultimately, in the process, results in consuming and destroying the earth. These hyenas of the fashion jungle, whether in the world of adornment, or any other industry, cannot just momentarily stop their ravenous quest for dominance, victory, or stardom long enough to take stock of themselves or to consider the futility of their addiction and its awful consequences on the hearts and souls of their victims, and the health of the earth as well, while doing so. After all, being number one is all that matters! And everyone, as Miranda so heroically and gallantly says, just before the movie's curtain time, "That's silly. Everyone wants to be us." Yes, deep down, everyone wants to be the envy of everyone, right?

Grizzly Man (2005)

The Grizzly Man: this time a "message transcended the media"

[9/10 · 11 September 2005]

In "The Grizzly Man", an amateurish medium was transcended by its naively, but heroically, acted out message to our time. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Roman Catholic Jesuit scholar of the first half of the twentieth century, said in one's of his latter philosophical/theological books that some people are accidentally selected by history to play out, for us all, on the world stage, the latent, crucial conflicts of the culture. Timothy Treadwell was one of those people. He was not a professional actor or cinematographer, nor was he a zoologist or trained animal tamer. However, he was accustomed to learning to master the skills involved in physical challenges like surfing and diving. He was by no means a genius. He was an educated risk-taker with a capacity for sympathy, a love of bears, a sense of mission, and a passion to stem the tide of extinction of the formidable and awe-inspiring Kodiak bear. For thirteen arduous, solitary summers, stripped to the bone of the conveniences of modern civilization, Timothy Treadwell was the devoted student and friend of these giant, lethal creatures. His vision was to bring back to civilization an understanding and appreciation of this beleaguered, dwindling species. As best he could, he filmed himself fondly interacting with the bears, explaining how using wisdom could minimize their danger, and proclaiming their right to continue to exist without harassment or slaughter within their delimited habitat. During this saga, his winters were spent teaching schoolchildren and enchanting them by showing them his films about the bears. Eventually he attained international fame, for which he was ill prepared. He was exposed to dramatically opposite phenomena: the acclaim and interest of the media and civilization's insensitive encroachment and poachers' ruthless murder of bears. The one catapulted him into a kind of grandiose excitement and arrogance and the other plunged him into dark, anguished despair. This combination, toward the end, resulted in outbursts of outrage and indignation against civilization and its government. With marked contrast, there were simply, caring, ordinary people who lived in the village near his excursions and with whom much of his time in between summers was spent. He developed very close bonds with these villagers and they seemed to have a profound respect for both Timothy and his mission. They were also aware the risk he was taking for his mission due to the danger in which he put his life while living in the midst of the bears. No one was surprised at his gruesome end. With the pain that comes from having to lay to rest an heroic and revered friend, his friends ceremoniously cast his ashes upon the habitat of the bears whom he so dearly loved and for whom he gave his life. The beauty of the bears within their wild territory and the heroism of his mission for the bears' preservation with dignity is truly a message for our day that far transcended the amateurishness of his cinematography. It is a film to be remembered and replayed for generations, especially to our young.

The Constant Gardener (2005)

Love is the bate; intrigue of globalized plutocratic exploitation the hook

[9/10 · 6 September 2005]

A beautiful young woman, Tessa Quayle, with a scintillating and irresistible personality, dazzling intellect, unflinching courage, and undaunted dedication to fighting a vast conspiracy between cross-national governments and a collusion of pharmaceutical companies to exploit impoverished Africans for multi-billion-dollar profits sets the stage for an absolutely compelling cinematic drama. An endearingly descent but insignificant UK diplomat to Africa, Justin Quayle, is the thread used to interweave this amazingly complex tapestry of global crime composed of compromised spies, corrupt bureaucrats, high-level corporate wheeler-dealers and their operatives, research scientists, and even doctors. With such a vast collection of conspirators, it is impossible to detect those ultimately responsible for their exploitation the destitute AIDS patients in Africa. If they do not eliminate the casualties from their experimental drug, their claims for their miracle drug would be undermined. 'They' use long, loosely connected, chains leading down to small-time, obscure hit men to remove anyone who becomes 'a problem', meaning who might expose them. While this is the story's underlying plot it is also its raison d'être. The vast, lofty, impenetrable, world of secret connections and villainous transactions within the shadowy official corridors and exclusive club salons of the untouchable rich and powerful elite confounds attempts at comprehension. Just as confounding, is the virtual miracle of compressing all of these diverse elements into a single plot while blending them with an eye-moistening romance by the expert triumvirate of LeClare, Meirelles, and Caine. While the camera work is a 'stopper', as a spy story, it is a masterpiece. It is also the artists' clarion call to a sleeping world naively putting their trust in those steering the fate of the world.

O Caminho das Nuvens (2003)

A Great Brazilian Movie

[8/10 · 29 August 2005]

A great Brazilian movie called "The Middle of the World", which, in fact, it is in so many ways. It is a rich but unpretentious chronicle of an extraordinary journey of one rural Brazilian family. The father is illiterate and unable to find work. Romão (the father), Rose(the mother), and their five children, from a teen to a baby, begin to make a journey on bicycles and head for Rio de Janeiro, which is 2,000 miles away, to find work. They face all kinds of physical and emotional hardships along the way, seeing many kinds of villages, dirt roads and superhighways, and desolate to spell binding scenes of nature. They beg, do odd jobs, sing in outdoor cafés for money, scrounge around in old abandoned homes, swelter under the blazing sun, almost die of thirst, and sleep under the stars; yet all the while, they keep trying to survive and maintain their love for each other, which is often tested beyond limits. The husband and wife relationship has classic features that are displayed poignantly and expertly. They exhibit a kind of yin and yang pattern with Romão being a strong, soft spoken, intensely patient, idealistic optimist and Rose being the one who verbalizes their feelings of love, sympathy, joy, as well as despair, fear, and anguish. She is also outspoken when their frailties have been overtaxed and when there is a need to be practical. Her pragmatism and his religious convictions balance each other out. Nevertheless, they are able to switch roles as the one to comfort, encourage, or recommit to the challenge when either has had enough and is losing hope and faith in their vision. With no competition from age-group peers, the character of their parents seems to be emulated as role models by the children. As a sub-plot, the teenager, Antonio, is in the middle of growing into manhood. The Father, Romão, exercises patient parental control through mild rebukes and testing Antonio's mettle by letting him use his judgment and make mistakes, but he also subtly guides him with silent looks of acknowledgement that builds Antonio's confidence in himself. Rose, the mother, gives equal guidance by emphasizing caution and protectiveness but also gives him a sense of profound mother-love that becomes his foundation of security. When the father senses Antonio is ready to emancipate, the mother does not want to let go and the father, in his wisdom-love, states simply and firmly to Rose, "We do not own our children." When Antonio is left behind to follow an occupation, the strong and positive family dynamic continues to the end of their journey. Finally, when at their destination of Rio de Janeiro, and expressing the powerful spirit of this family, their triumph is symbolized in a mountain top experience as they stand together viewing Corcovado's Statue of the Christ and overlook the prize of their victory, the city of their dreams. As they crossed the 2,000 miles of their courageous journey, they witnessed the many ways in which the nation they once knew is rapidly changing. It was a raw, earthy, beautiful story. It gave such a realistic picture of Brazil as a whole. It is a beautiful country but also has such vast differences between the rich and poor. The movie also showed what a big and truly dominant role religion, and religious superstitions, plays in the lives of the poor, illiterate 'peasants'. At 'The Middle of the World', two different worlds, the new cosmopolitan and the old world, stand on the same piece of earth!

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Erin the Heroine

[10/10 · 9 August 2005]

Erin Brockovich [2000] with Julia Roberts in one of her most stellar roles.

Erin the Heroine

Erin shows two main things: a. the persistence of a way of being in the world; b. how surface characteristics quickly change as the structure of the person's external world changes. Erin grew up as a small town beauty queen feeling like she was 'somebody', confident, spontaneous, in command, and had a birthright to win in games of one-up-man-ship. After two failed marriages, she realizes the cultural stereotype of marriage is stacked against women. She won't have any more of it. Now, after repeatedly being devastated by the ravages of a male dominant society, alone and penniless with children to support, she is up against that wall of bias against women again.

In the middle of her current gloomy circumstances, she decides that this time she is going to go at it like a she-bear with cubs. Like competitive men who take a no holds barred approach to life, her inner resolve is saying, "Everybody better look out, here comes the old, bold, Erin". She finally scraps her way into a penny ante, food on the table, job.

In her new, menial job in a small law firm, her implicit, strong, trust in her fortitude, intelligence, and judgment causes her mind to pause during the perusal of some legal gibberish. She notes an odd and incongruous conjunction in the information. With her revived naturally spontaneous and assertive self, she seeks validation of her suspicions of a cover-up conspiracy by visiting the actual defendants sited in the report. However, she finds the victims hostile to outsiders and oddly beholden and loyal to their corporate patrons. Rallying another side to her earlier resourcefulness and maturity she confronts the diffident victims with compassion, empathy, and humble eye-to-eye persuasiveness. This opens all the doors to the hearts of these fearful employees in this closed, ravaged, and emotionally depleted corporately sustained community. Her approach turns out to be a knockout combination of punches and she gains their confidence in her.

Soon, her own life circumstances begin changing. As a male admirer enters her life, she holds him at bay while she thoroughly tests him. She hesitates because she does not want a repeat performance of her former relationships with men. When he proves to be genuinely supportive and kind, she finally, but gingerly, allows him into her life. He is truly helpful and patient, especially with her children. She feels the gods must be promoting a happy serendipity since this is just what she needs to give her the backup necessary for her to unleash her enormous but dormant combination of talents.

As she succeeds with what has become a huge lawsuit over lethal damage caused by the pollution the corporation had been successfully covering up, the head of the small law firm calls in big legal guns to take over the case. In a conflict of her two most dominant traits, not to be bested by anyone and a level-headed maturity, the latter wins out. In a verbal contest with one of the legal experts brought to help insure their victory, she clearly demonstrates that she is not a woman to be discounted, regardless of the fact that the experts' credentials outclass her. She concedes that the experts should be allowed their role in the case, but she is remains the incumbent. Like a bull dog with its teeth sunk in a bone she will not relinquish her hold on 'her' case to the 'interlopers'. She proves to be as formidable as a gladiator when it comes to being a mental and verbal combatant, whether she is an expert in legalese or not.

Erin's force-of-nature demeanor crashes through the legal establishment's protocol and causes enough dislodging of their composure to interrupt the judicial monotony. Her unconventional, countervailing mode-of-procedure forces the court to weigh the case on its inherent merit and overrides usual imbalance of powers favoring top-dollar law firms and rich corporations that typically holds-court!

The injection of Erin the she-bear into the intransigent legal culture became the catalyst that cracked the defense and won the day for all of the exploited underdogs she so heartily and gallantly championed and for Erin, herself, as well. The citizens she victoriously fought for feel their esteem rise along with their 'Erin the hero'.

Women of the world, take heart. When a fortuitous crack opens in the masculine wall within structure of the world, be ready with your marching boots to charge through it!

Chelsea Walls (2001)

Chelsea Hotel: symbol of the home, heart, and soul of artistic creators

[8/10 · 20 July 2005]

I watched, with unenthusiastic anticipation, Chelsea Walls last pm. Ethan Hawke directed it, and well, and it was filled with top actors and a few good unknowns. Another independent, Art-house movie no one saw! A collage of struggling artists in a rundown New York hotel once haunted by great and famous artists. Interesting and sad. An authentic commentary of the lives of people who would wrench beauty and truth from their starving souls, bodies, and lives in a surrounding world of indifferent walls and lost, disconnected, bustling, solipsistic climbers. For the casual movie goer or average movie buff? - too raw, too realistic, too deep into the nightmare life of those simultaneously struggling, slavishly, and exclusively devoted, full of emaciated hope, to their art and, yet, never having been loved enough are still - and eternally and desperately - reaching with withered and scared hands and hearts for connection. While both wanting to and searching for elusive care, even while self imprisoned in their anguished solitude, they labor, possessed by and surrendered to their evolving dream creations, to just eke out survival so as to have one more day to forge one more note, one more line, one more stroke of their brush, or one more verse. It is a portrayal of a tattered but soulfully beautiful social Ghetto in the midst of a dazzling, opulent, technologically overly well-appointed, commercially successful, sky-rocketing, Gotham-like Empire. To the artistically inclined: Look and listen to its intimately personal, heart-singeing, message at your own risk. You may find it more informing and rewarding than entertaining.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

An Action Packed, Exaggerated, but Effective Metaphor for Marriage in the Modern (jungle) World

[8/10 · 13 June 2005]

The basic plot is of two secret assassins working for opposite agencies but who happen to meet, fall in love, and marry without knowing that they are both assassins for opposing agencies. Assassins, since they have fake identities and jobs, are not supposed to reveal their actual occupations or for whom they work. Such an arrangement, of course, would not encourage much authentic sharing in a marriage. In the beginning, they have the romantic and erotic excitement of their relationship to share, but as all couples find out, the flame of eroticism eventually turns into dying embers and, typically, there is nothing to fan it back to life. Also, beginning couples are satisfying their curiosity about what each other are really like. This 'also' part, of necessity, has to be missing from this ill-fated pairing of the aptly named 'John' and 'Jane' 'Smith'; the secret assassins working for opposing agencies. This movie is in part an exaggerated metaphor for communication in modern marriages in which couples' lives outside of the home have little in common with each other. Like the modern marriage, when interdependence begins to become a tug of war for equality and equity in sharing responsibilities and negotiation falters, then sharing personal, intimate information merely makes each more vulnerable to blackmail, one-up-man-ship, or revenge as they alternate between roles of victim and victimizer. This movie, then, is also a metaphor for a tight-lipped standoff in marriage. After a few years of unsuccessfully trying to form and maintain sharing roles in the home, staleness permeates the marital air. What are more critical in this case are the long, dry, empty years of not being able to communicate and 'share' what their daily life is like. Hence, they surrender and begin to accept their boredom with one another. So they, as with many couples, do not give up without a last 'token' attempt to salvage the marriage by seeing a marriage counselor. The script for the counseling sessions is compressed into brief statements, by both clients and counselor, which epitomizes the very essence of a typically long, spitefully, and pitifully drawn out process that in the end trudges down an inevitable road to failure and divorce. After the glow, and the ashes of a burned out marriage are about to be thrown out, suddenly there is an 'assignment' in which John and Jane are, seemingly, accidentally pitted against one another. Here, the plot thickens as they each discover they had attempted to 'rub out' one another. Through an of un-covering of each other's true identity and attempt at mutual destruction, the years of smoldering disaffection and resentment explodes into a pressure-cooker of roiling rage. Back home, they each deftly play the domesticated cat while suspecting the other of a sneaky plot to pounce with the lethal blow on their wary mouse. They continue circling in a to-the-death bout but now, as more open assaults at one another unfold, their roles of predators and prey escalate. Egged on by their co-workers, all out battle rages but ends in a draw. In the course of the battle they begin to have a genuine respect for each other's equality in skill and courage. This is the first key turning point. In spite of the great show of determination to destroy, they do not, well, really, emotionally they cannot, bring it off. The secret of their hidden, deep, persistent-against-all-odds love for each ekes out when neither can strike the final blow. This is the second key turning point. Being off guard in the heat of their battles, they are confused when the stealth troupes of both of their agencies enter the fray, attacking both of them. After successfully fending off onslaughts from both sides they meet with John's fellow agent who informs them that they indeed are both targets because no one wants two secret assassins of opposing agencies to be marriage partners. However, they are told that they have a way out. They must find the person, now being held hostage, who was target of the assignment when the fiasco started and surrender him to the agencies. Again, unsuspectingly, they are being setup by both sides so both of these birds can be killed with one stone (Uzi). Nevertheless, they eventually 'get it' and seize this as an opportune moment because they see that by the two best of the best killers teaming up they may defeat the assassins' assassins. When they survive after a harrowing all out war waged by hordes of the agencies' hit men, they pull out all the stops in brutal interrogation and confessing the truth about themselves. Surviving the worst of odds together forms the bond they had longed for all along. They now begin a genuine attempt at an authentic relationship based on mutual respect and a win-win strategy for negotiating equality and equity. Once again, love triumphs against all odds. The final metaphor for modern marriage is that fighting it out as equals, neither one surrendering ground, and developing mutual respect as equals with mutual support in their struggle to survive in the modern world can make a marriage work after all.

Birth (2004)

Birth - contending with existential angst over a lost love

[10/10 · 28 April 2005]

The movie, Birth, with Nicole Kidman, seemed much better later on after reflecting on it a bit. At first I was puzzled by the title, "Birth", since it seemed more about death and the reaction to a lost loved one. However, there was the underlying theme of people's wish for the dead loved one to return in some form, perhaps by rebirth in another's body. The ending, however, showed how when one loves someone deeply, regardless of the nature of the other's love, it leaves such an aching empty place in one's heart. In such cases the effects of the loss can linger and endure for so very long, in spite of one's attempt to reenter and go on with life and love again. The serendipitous, dual, precipitating events of her immediately impending remarriage and the arrival of the 'boy' brought out the latent, unresolved anguish over her loss of her first husband. It was the ending that revealed how deep the pain and emptiness can be and wrenching the moment of realization that the loss is permanent can be. The delicacy of the way family and friends handled her involvement in such a bizarre encounter just on the verge of the wedding was an extraordinary and exemplary way for humans to behave. Nicole did such a superb job with this peculiar little movie. Funny, how she takes on these eccentric roles and movies that are bound to have such a limited audience and lack of acclaim. They must satisfy some deep intellectual and spiritual need in her. "Birth" was like "Dogville" in that regard. Hardly anyone saw "Dogville" and it was such an extremely 'Arthouse' type of movie, yet pregnant with existential significance, which is not uncommon for its type. In spite of the hype in the advertisement preceding the opening of the movie, it was in no way an erotic movie and anyone enticed because of the hints of pedophilia would have had quite a disappointment. It was, exclusively, a movie for existentialist aficionados.

Live Nude Girls (1995)

Ever really observed, as an outsider, a relaxed coffee klatch?

[10/10 · 25 March 2005]

This movie was exactly like what I have witnessed in real life. It captured the essence of the woman's take on sex in modern America. It was a delight to see it played out so true to life on TV. It portrayed both the angst and delight of women's growing sense of sexual freedom. It also captured classic types and how they differ as they venture onto this new, uncertain ground. Talking more frankly as the tempo from the day through the evening quickens and each confronts and encourages the others to drop their public persona, revelations shock and titillate each in different ways. They also try to temper their tendency to be judgmental and recover and be supportive. As they reveal their idiosyncratic, even kinky, fantasies, the defenses gradually drop. Actual sexual behaviors are revealed. Those more modest and fearful of disapproval relax their defenses when they hear their friends daring escapades. These revelations stimulate recollections and reminiscences of 'first' experiences and youthful sexual foibles. This allows them to become really transparent about their suppressed unconventional longings. Gradual mutual acceptance and support leads to a sense of empowerment to experiment and take a chance of being themselves, insulated from traditional female fear of losing their reputation and becoming stigmatized. A new strength comes from their new bond in womanhood that gives them a new found freedom and courage to own their authentic sexuality.