https://open.spotify.com/episode/4WBRAewr9PGkpHgDB6eeb3?si=5a2c7822d22343a1
Tag Archives: Alfred Hitchcock
“Miss Lonelyhearts” [2021)
https://open.spotify.com/track/2H5rAvG46VxsVNKLQOPTDs?si=3ab2cffbafaa46ee
Recommended if you like Mercury Rev
Last Night in Soho [2021)
First off.
I am in love with Thomasin McKenzie.
I think Saoirse Ronan has lost her touch.
Kat Dennings doesn’t even bother with films anymore.
And Thora Birch is too much of a liberal moron.
But then all actors are liberal morons, aren’t they?
Except for a precious few.
Jon Voight.
James Woods.
Rob Schneider.
Kirstie Alley.
Robert Davi.
Jim Caviezel.
Secondly.
This film is a masterpiece.
Edgar Wright is the best filmmaker in the world right now.
Is he better than Jean-Luc Godard?
No.
But Godard is not making films for mass consumption.
Is he better than Wes Anderson?
BY A MILLION FUCKING MILES!!!
Don’t get me wrong.
Wes Anderson made one perfect film.
And that film was The Grand Budapest Hotel.
And that film wouldn’t have been perfect without Saoirse Ronan.
That’s how important her presence in that film was.
Saoirse has made another perfect film.
Hanna.
But her others are mediocre.
Brooklyn.
Meh.
Lady Bird.
Even more meh (not a good thing).
Saoirse has gone astray.
Just as Thora Birch went astray.
Ghost World is a perfect film.
And American Beauty is close to perfect.
For my money, Homeless to Harvard is her other perfect film.
Kat Dennings films kinda suck.
Her masterpiece is actually 2 Broke Girls.
I’m serious.
But that’s not cinema.
Twin Peaks is cinema.
Even though it’s a TV show.
Histoire(s) du cinéma is the best film ever made.
And it was made for TV.
Homeless to Harvard is a Lifetime movie.
Made for TV.
It is not cinema.
Not exactly.
But it may be a perfect film.
Wes Anderson made his perfect film with Saoirse Ronan.
And he made a good film (Tenenbaums).
The rest are shite.
I did not understand Edgar Wright’s film language when I first saw Shaun of the Dead.
I thought it was crap.
How wrong I was!
Here is my contention.
Every Edgar Wright film is perfect.
Shaun of the Dead?
Yes.
Hot Fuzz?
Yes.
The World’s End?
Yes.
Baby Driver?
Yes.
Scott Pilgrim?
Yes.
And this film is perfect too.
But this is not quite the Wright you are used to.
This is a genuinely scary film.
But it stands up with Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining as one of the four best horror films ever made.
Edgar Wright films are all about detail.
But not the twee obsession with detail that Wes Anderson has.
Edgar Wright is overflowing with talent.
Wes Anderson is not.
Anderson needed Saoirse Ronan to make his perfect film.
And there was a bit (just a bit!) of grit in Grand Budapest.
Saoirse is missing from his other films.
And there is no real grit in any of the others.
Tenenbaums is good.
But the Wes Anderson players are tiresome.
Is Bill Murray amazing?
Yes.
But are his performances in Wes Anderson films his best work?
Absolutely not.
No more Jason Schwatzman (for fuck’s sake!).
Is Luke Wilson a great actor?
Yes.
What’s his best film?
Masked and Anonymous.
Maybe it’s Paltrow and Hackman which make Tenenbaums good.
For my money, Luke Wilson is the one who makes that film go.
But it is not on the same level as Grand Budapest.
Last Night in Soho is the Grand Budapest of the ’20s.
We’re in the ’20s now.
Are they roaring?
Like a fucking mouse.
Last Night in Soho is a gazillion times better than No Time to Die.
This film has everything the Bond film didn’t.
Substance.
Competent directing.
A story worth sticking with.
And so it is fitting that Diana Rigg’s last role should absolutely trump the death of James Bond.
The one George Lazenby film was WAY better than No Time to Die.
The death of love is more sad than the death of the hero.
Diana Rigg is the linchpin in the Bond franchise.
Pull that thread, and the sweater unravels.
Léa Seydoux is boring as fuck in the Bond films.
She was great in Blue.
But she was nothing compared to the one who carried that film (Adele Exarchopoulos).
Exarchopoulos made one perfect film.
Blue is the Warmest Color.
None of her other films are even good.
Wright makes what Youth in Revolt might have been.
He is not glib.
This is not a hipster film.
Michael Cera (who has made one perfect film [Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist]) is, mercifully, NOT in Last Night in Soho.
[correction…Kat Dennings DID make one perfect film]
Thomasin McKenzie’s obsession with ’60s London music is real.
It’s not a fucking Austin Powers joke.
Rita Tushingham is wonderful as Gram.
Excellent casting.
[take note, Bond franchise]
Thomasin hooks up with a black dude.
No big deal.
Take note, Bond franchise.
NOT EVERY FUCKING PERSON HAS TO BE BLACK IN ORDER FOR A FILM TO BE VIABLE!!!
Thomasin’s love interest is a black fellow.
I have no problem with that.
He does a good job.
For fuck’s sake…he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page!
Michael Ajao.
Fine acting!
There can be important black characters WITHOUT A FILM BEING A WOKE FUCKING JOKE (like the recent Bond film).
No big deal.
Don’t make it a big deal.
It has to fit with the story.
The story is the most important thing.
The writers of the Bond film (Purvis and Wade) have allowed their name to be attached to the fucking pathetic shit of No Time to Die.
So you get a kiwi to speak in a Cornish accent.
GREAT ACTRESS!
Thomasin McKenzie.
Say that name with me.
Jacinda Ardern’s father (or mother?) was a horse.
Ugly bitch.
Ugly soul.
Thomasin McKenzie is the best thing to ever come out of New Zealand.
However, there has been one perfect kiwi movie: Eagle vs Shark.
Synnøve Karlsen is so fucking annoying in Soho.
And she was supposed to be.
So, good job (I guess).
Every film needs a villain.
And Jocasta (Karlsen’s character) is the real villain of this film.
Thomasin is different.
Jocasta beats her down.
Mentally.
A stingy spirit.
Can never share in any of her joys.
Do you know anyone like that?
But Thomasin is troubled.
Hallucinations?
Maybe.
Seeing ghosts?
Maybe.
We’re trying to solve a case here.
Cold case.
Maybe a lot of cold cases.
Maybe a serial killer.
To the Belle and Sebastian bedsit.
Salad days are short-lived.
Don’t underestimate Sandie Shaw.
Always something there to remind me.
1964.
Puppet on a string.
Gotta pay your dues.
As a wind-up bird girl.
Brian Epstein.
Giorgio Gomelsky.
Andrew Loog Oldham.
ABKCO.
The influence of Vertigo upon Last Night in Soho cannot be understated.
The red of the Café de Paris.
The blonde of Anya Taylor-Joy’s hair.
And Thomasin’s hair.
[also, don’t underestimate Bergman’s Persona]
The glance to the side.
It’s not Jimmy Stewart.
It’s Thomasin.
Allusions to The Way of the Dragon and The Lady from Shanghai in the mirrors.
Sure, a bit of Pulp Fiction.
But that’s just for the kids.
Edgar Wright’s grasp of cinema history is way deeper than some Tarantino bullshit.
And yet, he likes zombies.
And shitty horror films from the ’80s.
I mean REALLY shitty, camp ones.
Slasher films.
Back to Vertigo.
Kim Novak’s apartment is bathed in green neon.
But Thomasin’s bedsit is a red, white, and blue homage to Godard.
An homage to Une Femme est une femme.
Dancing.
Dancing girls.
Prostitutes.
Vivre sa vie.
Pink dress fembot.
Pew pew.
Thomasin is way sexier than Anya Taylor-Joy.
Thomasin is the girl next door.
The frumpy hair of Homeless to Harvard.
I love it.
It must be this way.
To juxtapose the transition to Swinging Sixties glamour.
Is Trump just culture jamming with his vaccine tack?
Either that, or the hero has become the villain.
Did the D.C. swamp make Trump into a swamp zombie?
Maybe no one comes out clean.
International law was broken.
War crimes.
All these Wright films have zombies.
Or robots.
Faceless automatons.
A bit of Dragon Tattoo.
We all like a good microfiche scene!
Is Terence Stamp her father?
If Sandie is her mother?
Could be.
Otherwise, she would be the daughter of a prick.
But Stamp tried to save Sandie.
Arsenic and old lace.
The ones you never suspect.
Sicario.
“Buried” in the walls.
Decomposing.
Poe.
Gacy.
Wright’s “sympathy for the serial killer”.
What happened to these people that made them monsters?
Don’t underestimate Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (his only English-language film…and a flat-out masterpiece).
In the world of Edgar Wright, it is records.
Vinyl.
Not books.
And sometimes the elderly want to die with their memories.
They are not going anywhere.
They are not fleeing.
It’s been a good life.
Going down with the ship.
Up in flames.
The shitbags want their deaths avenged.
After all, they were just horny, well-to-do dads who needed a little excitement.
Prostitution.
It’s the law, after all.
Murder is murder.
Crimes of passion.
By reason of insanity.
Not guilty.
Not insane.
But traumatized.
But Thomasin has been on the adventure.
She knows what Sandie has been through.
Trump was abused for four years.
That is true.
And he fought like a champ.
Is there no justice?
Is it culture jamming (I ask again)?
Confusion.
Keeping his enemies off balance.
Getting a foot in the door.
Truth Social will censor “hate speech” with a Silicon Valley AI bot.
In order to get on Apple App Store and Google Play.
But the roll out is delayed?
Lie about the vaccines.
“Safe and effective”.
Move in for the kill shot.
Against whom?
Big Pharma and the New World Order.
But we have to call out serial killers for who they are.
If you are saying the COVID vaccines are “safe and effective”, you are spreading misinformation that is endangering the lives of those who hear and trust you.
CDC: 11,879
Open VAERS: 23,149
Neither safe,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
nor effective.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-covid-deaths-2021-vaccines-b1963790.html
10,000-20,000 vaccine deaths should be read as 100,000-200,000 vaccine deaths because of this:
https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/underreporting-vaccine-adverse-events
And correlation does not necessarily equal causation…unless this (peep the myocarditis…you think that’s all JnJ? [nigga please!]):
https://openvaers.com/covid-data
But the election was stolen.
Or was it allowed to be stolen?
When will the other shoe drop?
Or does the other shoe even exist?
This charade is going to go on until 2024?
Maybe Sandie is not her mother.
-PD
Argo [2012)
Q in Joseph Murphy.
MCIA.
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity.
Unclassified files from DARPA.
Now held at Quantico.
Project Veritas.
NCIS.
File name “jag”.
Ron DeSantis.
Navy SEAL.
JAG.
Quantico.
CYBERCOM outed two pedophile producers at CNN.
Drip drip drip.
We have it all.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7IgbjPtUs3iUnf5eWcCb1Z?si=lsb_L_5TRvqAOGNb1FqU0A&nd=1
release_good
https://open.spotify.com/track/2qtyA0aoLHNjChD3aNr2Dd?si=JF6LHX23SgC7uCdXZ7S58Q&nd=1
George Kaplan.
Roger Thornhill.
You can never tell anyone what you do.
Can you keep a secret?
Maybe I stayed home for two months.
Didn’t leave the house.
Or maybe I left the country.
Phone farm.
Replica of house.
Internally consistent.
Who can check?
Two rooms.
Three.
Four.
Four is easy.
One, two, and three are more effort than it’s worth.
Because this possibility never seemed plausible to any analysts.
Ghost Army were decoys.
But their chatter was real.
A ghost army is still an army.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/18/pentagon-reportedly-running-secret-global-army-of-60000/
FISA renewed.
Australia loophole.
McCrystal is butthurt that we highjacked his idea.
Because he used our truth.
Military intelligence is far superior to CIA.
With some caveats.
Old CIA < New CIA.
William Burns good.
Trust operation.
Counter-info op turned into info op.
Counter-info op that hijacked a LARP.
Is it a cover story to protect DTRA and make DARPA look honorable?
Maybe.
Or maybe DoD are less scumbags than CIA are.
War between NSA and CIA.
Hacking capabilities.
Tailored access (Fort Meade).
Vault7.
Frankfurt consulate.
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
CIA attempt to usurp NSA area of expertise.
DIA pushback against CIA via DCS.
COVID as bat vaccine.
Aerosolized.
To be sprayed in caves.
Escaped Wuhan lab before it was finished.
EcoHealth Alliance (run by Peter Daszak [check out his opera singer brother]) offered GoF project to DARPA.
DARPA declined.
EcoHealth’s proposal was on a top secret drive.
TS/SCI.
TS/SAP.
Documents not classified.
Pushed off site by Major Joseph Murphy (USMC).
Aide to Commandant Berger.
General staff.
MCIA as intel support to Berger.
In his role on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who have certainly fucked things up before [Operation Northwoods proposal for false-flag terror attacks {real casualties} on American citizens]).
Now led by traitor Mark Milley.
Also populated by subversive Michael Gilday.
Civilian control by Lloyd Austin (traitor for pushing killer vaccines on troops).
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
Why is CDC parsing HHS VAERS data to make it look half as bad as it actually is?
How passive is the surveillance of VAERS (historically)?
Let’s take something serious such as Kawasaki Disease as an example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698/
Underreporting of severe adverse events to VAERS appears to be by a factor of 10.
If CDC admits 10,688 #VaccineDeaths , the actual number may be 106,880.
If OpenVAERS gives the real number in the VAERS system (21,382 vaccine deaths), the actual number may be 213,820 vaccine deaths so far in the USA from this portfolio of COVID vaccines (JnJ, Moderna, and Pfizer).
Pfizer is clearly the most deadly (as the above picture shows).
CDC tries to play the “correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation” card, but that doesn’t wash.
Consider this:
https://openvaers.com/covid-data
For free, techno fog.
Major Murphy makes it clear why this is.
Thank you, James O’Keefe:
The above document deserves extreme scrutiny.
If it is a cover story, it is a good one.
It may provide some cover for the military.
But I think it is largely true.
There is, unfortunately, a reason the military might need cover.
What the fuck is this (ongoing program)?
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_HDTRA11710064_9761
The “highlights”:
How could INSCOM not know about this?
DTRA is literally co-located with them at Fort Belvoir.
Do you need the CliffsNotes?
No problem:
Flynn is definitely doing the Lord’s work.
As is Colonel Sellin:
The Canadian Caper.
Of course it’s CIA propaganda.
But Godard said some of the best (because of their passion) movies ever made were propaganda.
Mosaddegh.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
SAVAK.
The original Joe Biden (Jimmy Carter).
Inflation (Bidenflation).
Gas price.
Afghanistan and Yemen now substituting for Tehran.
2012.
Obama.
John Kerry.
Pallets of cash (Iran Deal).
Heavily invested in Big Pharma.
It appears Joe Kennedy III took over where the “Climate Envoy” left off:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/pfizer-inc/members-invested?id=D000000138
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/johnson-johnson/members-invested?id=D000000386
I disagree with Major Murphy on Remdesivir.
Causes fluid in lungs.
Completely unsuitable as a treatment for COVID.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/gilead-sciences/members-invested?id=D000026221
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/merck-co/members-invested?id=D000000275
Problem is Moderna IPO in Dec. 2018 and BioNTech IPO about ten days before #Event201 in October 2019.
Open Secrets (Congressional stock holdings) lagging approximately four years right now.
Kerry just as deep in Burisma as Joe and Hunter Biden.
Ukraine blew it.
They could have blown the whistle on Biden.
They caved.
Now Russia will own them.
They dug their own grave.
Corruption has consequences.
RE: BioNTech (and Event 201 foreknowledge).
Gates Foundation invested $55 mil. in BioNTech the month before their NASDAQ IPO.
To reiterate, that IPO then preceded the coronavirus war game (sponsored by Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum with help from Johns Hopkins CHS) by about a week and a half.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-biontech-ipo-idUSKBN1WO29B
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/players/haines.html
#AvrilHaines (John Brennan).
Avril Haines now promoted (by Biden) from extremely-suspicious pandemic exercise RIGHT BEFORE THE REAL PANDEMIC BROKE OUT to head the entire U.S. intelligence community (ODNI).
John Brennan and Michael Hayden are, for all intents and purposes, the same traitorous piece of shit.
No reason for either of them to publicly (a huge break in precedent for CIA and NSA) berate Trump for four-straight years on Twitter.
Brennan’s protege at Event 201.
Joint Chiefs of Staff fuckery:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
I thought Lyman L. Lemnitzer was the worst CJCS.
That was until Mark Milley came along.
T-R-E-A-S-O-N.
Like Tammy Wynette might have sung:
https://nypost.com/2021/09/17/milley-claims-china-calls-perfectly-within-the-duties-of-his-role/
But Trump is a fucking retard as well.
Latest proof:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-roasts-gutless-desantis-for-keeping-his-booster-status-a-secret
#DeSantis2024 #Rand2024
A history of Trump’s retardation and #CrimesAgainstHumanity .
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-i-got-the-pfizer-125703879.html
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-played-conspiracy-theory-hits-024518810.html
Trump had to nonchalantly mention his booster status in what was basically a church setting.
This is about as close to being Hochul-level-evil as one can get.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/gov-kathy-hochul-defends-calling-nyc-churchgoers-my-apostles/
Kinda like how England vaccinated people in cathedrals with organ music playing to calm their nerves (slaughterhouse).
Who’s more objectionable now: Milley (absolutely a traitor) or Trump (absolutely encouraging crimes against humanity [the administration of killer vaccines] when he should know better)?
Milley is a straight-up traitor to the United States of America…and he might be a better person than Donald Trump.
I’ve already demonstrated that the COVID vaccines are dangerous.
Now let me remind you that they don’t work.
[#NeitherSafeNorEffective]
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2306
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-covid-deaths-2021-vaccines-b1963790.html
What would make Trump go from being the best President in modern history (he was!) to a vaccine-worshipping, sell-out cunt?
Some really tortured logisticians postulate that it’s all about “optics”.
Hm. Perhaps.
But to what end?
What is the strategic advantage of Trump alienating his own base?
Does he really think he’s going to win over liberals?
Is he winning them over by sucking the dick of Big Pharma?
I don’t think so.
The heat is now on Fauci.
-PD
The grey suit in NXNW [1959/2017)
Maybe.
After many long years.
I finally got a decent suit.
But the pinnacle is still Cary Grant in North by Northwest.
Perhaps more important than Dorothy’s slippers.
The grey suit.
Gray? Grey.
Because Archibald Leach (Grant’s real name) was from Bristol.
Now.
The debate rages on.
Was it Norton & Sons (Savile Row) or Quintino (Beverly Hills)?
And this is a very important matter.
Basis in fact.
Innocent lives are at stake here.
Vanity Fair (at least they employed Tosches for a time) contends it was a British suit.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/behindthescenes200803
But The Independent counters that it was an American (Beverly Hills) tailor.
My first thought is always The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (novel 1955, film 1956).
1959.
Something in the air.
Advertising.
Madison.
Shopping.
5th.
Whatever you do, don’t buy a property at 666 5th Avenue.
Mr. Kushner made that mistake.
Can you change an address?
Can we inch the building over a bit?
666 1/2?
But finally, that eternal quote of Mike Ruppert:
“The CIA is Wall Street. Wall Street is the CIA.”
What could all this mean?
What could ANY of this mean?
It’s well-known.
But the real danger is Finnegans Wake.
Is it unpredictability?
The real danger is changing stripes.
Spots.
Markings.
Camouflage.
A mask.
My daily trousers are sweatpants.
And then we must bring in Erik Satie.
As dangerous (harmless) a man as ever lived.
The “Velvet Gentleman”.
Seven gray velvet suits. All identical. One for each day of the week.
A revolution in simplicity.
But there are many, many hours of piano music to wade through.
Through which.
It’s not just the Gymnopédies.
Or even the Gnossiennes.
SS.
It’s a veritable Voynich manuscript of eccentricity.
Quixotic.
Mercurial.
Bizarre!
But with Magritte we got the grey bowler.
And Max Ernst: “The hat makes the man.”
But did he say it in English?
Not bloody likely!
And so rail-thin Cary Grant, almost certainly homosexual, looks stunning…dapper…a paragon of class in North by Northwest.
And it is a rare time where I (and many other men) say: “Wow…I want that business suit!”
Because I didn’t grow up rich.
And it took me till age 40 to get a passable sack.
Brooks Brothers was expensive.
Still is.
I’m low-rent.
High-brow.
A conundrum.
I don’t want to sell oil.
I’m a city boy.
They won’t take me on the farm.
So what am I?
Do I ride around on a horse?
Do I spit tobacco into a cuspidor?
[not anymore]
We must go away. To come back. And see for the first time.
What was Jia Zhangke talking about?
Or from?
The I Ching?
Or some Zen text?
Advertising.
Memetics.
Messaging.
COMMUNICATIONS
We are drawn to the suit.
The breezy ease with which Cary Grant negotiates New York sidewalk traffic.
Every remark quick.
Never at a loss for words.
And the characters all pay attention.
From Martin Landau to Eva Marie Saint: menswear.
Three buttons.
[a detail I missed…too late]
Buttons on cuffs.
Cufflinks.
Two-piece.
The most remarkable aspect, though, might be the “grey suit with grey tie” effect.
I mean, “what the fuck”?!?
It is slightly “off”.
Not the color-matching.
That’s fine.
But the concept.
Or this hypothetical exchange:
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Gray.”
“Gray?”
“Yeah, I don’t know…I just like gray.”
“What about it do you like?”
“I don’t know…it’s sorta mysterious?”
“Ok…but, I mean, it seems sorta drab, don’t you think?”
“Well, I’m not in the market for a gray bikini…”
Ah!
There’s the gender.
Men.
Do men fancy grey?
Is it one of the colors they’ve been “given”?
And women.
Do they really fancy pink?
I suppose some diabolical seamstress has plotted the complementary colors of all the world’s hetero couples.
Grey and pink.
Pink and green.
Orange and blue.
Red and green.
Purple and yellow.
Ad absurdum.
All I can say is this.
I feel spectacular in my new gray suit.
I’m a little closer to Daniel Craig, though mostly in the Cary Grant body type.
Or, put differently, I’m an extremely-poor-man’s Daniel Craig 🙂
I, too, would look scrawny next to James Bond.
Which segues nicely into the 007 franchise.
Suits…again.
Whether in Jamaica or parts unknown.
The sartorial fastidiousness would play a major role in framing Bond as “not just another guy”.
Taste.
An eye for detail.
Quality.
And personality, though understated.
The grey suit.
It the biggest weapon in my fashion arsenal (as of today).
And thus we turn towards commerce.
Another run, perhaps, of job searching.
Selling myself.
But at a certain point you just gotta say, “Fuck it!”
I’m a cool person.
I ain’t out to hurt nobody.
I read books.
Big fucking books.
About math and shit like that.
I’m a nerd to the nth power.
I know that.
And I’m fine with that.
Because I see the value in that.
So now I may have to bludgeon the HR receptors with a whole new level of qualifications.
Can I do it?
Can I be a lawyer?
Can I be a PhD?
[notably, perhaps, in advertising]
And beyond.
Because life has led me to this impasse.
We worry about bread on the table.
And some milk to stay healthy.
Heat in the winter.
Cooling in the summer.
Most of all…in all this mess of writing…I am thankful.
Thankful for a chance. A chance to do the right things.
And thankful for family. Thankful for time.
Thankful for intuition.
And thankful for failure.
Have your cake. Or eat it.
Thank you, my friends…for your support.
I am happy today. Hard day, as always.
And I pray the good happenings for each of you…in your lives…
-PD
El Dorado [1966)
Funny thing about Westerns…
Sometimes you seen ’em, but you done FORGET you seen ’em.
And this one is that type of affair.
Except that it’s a masterpiece.
This here film takes multiple viewings to fully appreciate the craftsmanship at work.
Because back in those heady nouvelle vague days, it seems that the Cahiers crowd were known as the Hitchcocko-Hawksians.
I may be borrowing a term from Richard Brody’s book on Godard.
But he may have been borrowing it from elsewheres.
I don’t rightly know.
But El Dorado is certainly the spitting image of another film…by the same auteur.
Yes, Rio Bravo was the first incarnation.
1959.
It’s the one that gets all the praise.
But if my eyes and heart don’t deceive me, Robert Mitchum is a better actor than Dean Martin.
[as much as I love Dino]
And James Caan bests Ricky Nelson as well.
But it’s hard to replace Walter Brennan.
Damn near impossible.
That said, Arthur Hunnicutt is pretty darn fabulous in El Dorado.
But let’s get back to those Hitchcocko-Hawksians.
The first part is probably pretty self-explanatory.
These Cahiers du cinéma film critics revered Alfred Hitchcock.
Above all else.
Hell!
Before Truffaut did his book of interviews with Hitch (1967), Chabrol had written a monograph on the master (1957).
To be more exact, Chabrol cowrote the book with Rohmer.
Might as well say Rivette (“Rivette!”) just to round out les cinq.
Like the Mighty Handful (Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin), and one short of les six (Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Tailleferre), the Cahiers crew were the Hitchcocko-Hawksians.
But what of that second seme?
Indeed, it was Howard Hawks.
The director of our film.
And an auteur which Jean-Luc Godard has gone on about at length…in a profusion of praise.
But why are we even talking about these Westerns?
What do El Dorado and Rio Bravo have in common besides diagesis and director?
Ah yes: John Wayne!
In El Dorado, our villain is Ed Asner.
Quite rich when considering that he was one of the very few to be a true hero in America after 9/11.
That’s right.
Ed Asner was on the front lines of getting the truth.
And we never got the truth.
Not from any official source.
But that’s ok.
Because we have gathered the general gist of the situation.
And so Ed Asner’s most important performance was what he did in real life.
To try and honor those 3000 souls who perished and were draped in a lie.
But we’re in Texas.
And Texas is a lonesome land.
Inhospitable.
And we aim here to mainly talk about the examples of the silver screen.
In Technicolor.
“details…deliberately left out” says Wikipedia…
Ah yes…something David Ray Griffin spotted with his razor-sharp mind.
“Omissions and distortions”, he called it.
That is the beauty of film.
It gets deep.
It burrows.
And it fuses to what we have experienced as visceral verities.
Charlene Holt was actually from Texas.
And she is every bit the female lead here.
Charming. Strong. Sexy.
I won’t go comparing her to Angie Dickinson, but let’s just say that Ms. Holt fit the bill.
To a T.
T for Texas.
And Ms. Holt passed on (God rest her soul) in Tennessee.
We get horses and streams.
Rifles and pistols.
And a lot of earthy talk.
As you can tell.
Gets under your skin.
Your tongue.
Burrows.
Say, was you ever bit by a dead bee?
[Oops, wrong funnyman. And Hemingway.]
Pound born in Idaho. And Papa H died there.
Because the pain was too much.
Gut shot.
You can’t turn your back in these parts.
Gotta waddle out backwards.
On yer horse.
In high heels.
And keep your peripheral sharp.
Cardsharp, not shark.
Tiburon country.
Anyone missing Angie Dickinson likely ogled Michele Carey for the better part of El Dorado.
Though the appearances were brief.
John Wayne turns the other cheek.
Smears blood on the cowhide.
Get outta here.
Tough guy gets back on his horse.
Always guns in the river.
But you gotta retrieve it.
Dr. Fix (Paul Fix) isn’t up to the procedure.
Doesn’t wanna bungle a good man.
Tells him take care uh that whens you get tuh proper chirurgien.
Christopher George looks spitting Willem Dafoe.
Ping!
But the real story is Diamond Joe.
Or so.
It seems under the bridge.
Natchez. Matches.
Jarmusch maybe…
Always.
Revenge.
Gotta git your own justice.
Around these skillet lickers.
Like the freaks from Octopussy, knife to a gunfight.
Had to saw off a holstered piece at the Swede.
Following me?
If the top is a high hat, Mississippi’s is low.
I think Tom Petty adopted one.
Mine never fit quite right.
From crown to gun butt…soft wobble with every bump.
But enough phrenology.
Only love can break your heart. Neil Young said that.
And I know all too well.
Stuck behind an 18-wheeler from Dallas.
And the rains set in.
And Górecki just makes you cry even more.
Feels like an addiction.
And sometimes you substitute one addiction for another.
Because you got an empty place there in your ribcage.
Friendship rides in least expected.
Crusty.
Professional killer don’t have no friends.
A liability.
Can’t get too connected.
Go soft./
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long. Bob Dylan said that.
And I think maybe he meant Robert Johnson.
When the poison of whisky ain’t enough. I said that.
Not enough holes in the world get a rise outta me at Royal Albert.
But I’m not too worried about it.
Just modulating grammar.
Because El Dorado is filled with sine qua non dialogue.
Seeming hapex legomenon with every breath.
Latin/Greek shift.
Cipher.
A lot of soap.
Running joke.
The others’ll come to me.
Maybe.
High low, do-si-do.
My uncle died with a stack of VHS Westerns on his TV set.
That smoking’ll kill you.
Two uncles.
But only one owned a square dance barn.
So that no matter how Cahiers I get, I’ll always be from Texas.
City boy.
Country heart.
Not even aware how much of a rube I really am.
It’s a concoction you gotta pinch the nose to force down.
A medicine resembling asphalt.
Alcohol, 4 days
No punctuation.
I’m just lucky to never have done more’n cowboy tobacco.
But Texas is lonesome.
Unless you’re riding with John Bell Hood.
In which case you’re shitting yourself with fear.
Itch on the back of your neck.
But learn to play a good bugle.
Close quarters combat.
Urban warfare.
In the Wild West.
Two walk forward, two reverse.
To slap a RICO charge on a greasy bastard.
Like the goddamned Great Gate of Kiev.
And back to the five.
A gamelan of adobe marksmanship.
Distraction.
Diversion.
Deputy was just the courage. Pin on “I do”.
We think Pecos.
Information travels.
And to have a leg up.
[no pun]
Old wounds and creaky bones.
Been knocked down too many times.
Fallen off my horse.
[shift]
We don’t negotiate with terrorists.
But do we terrorize negotiators?
Turns out the whole thing was about water.
When it’s dry.
And you gotta wake up.
And you didn’t just win the Super Bowl.
Why you can’t take a giant leap in chess.
Giant steps.
Because your plan sucks.
Just showing up is pretty damned brave.
Every day.
Fight.
[And I didn’t even get to Edith Head and Nelson Riddle]
-PD
The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956)
Netflix seems to be down tonight.
I tried several times. Several movies. Several fixes.
And so it is only fitting that history should trump the ephemeral stages of technological development.
Yes, time for a good old VHS tape.
And not a film about which I’ve previously written.
While I have surveyed many of the early Hitchcock films, I never wrote about the original version of this film.
1934.
To my knowledge, this is the only film of Alfred Hitchcock’s early career which he chose to remake.
Just on this fact alone, it would seem that the story was either very dear to the auteur or that he couldn’t resist something about the plot.
Granted, the two films are considerably different.
Even on a surface level, the 1934 version was (of course) in black and white.
But this was a VistaVision, Technicolor production.
1956.
22 years later.
For better or worse, I was familiar first with the earlier version.
It is a film I should revisit.
But it was not what I would call a “home run”.
The one aspect of the original which one might miss in the remake is the presence of Peter Lorre.
But we must move on to the future. The present.
1956.
Jimmy Stewart plays the leading male role. A doctor from Indianapolis.
Doris Day plays his wife.
The action is set for a good bit in Morocco.
Specifically, Marrakesh.
Indeed, the beginning of the film is a sort of travelogue.
In other words, its a good excuse to show off the exotic locale in North Africa.
Camels. Veils. [that one’s important] The social tradition of eating with the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand. While leaving the left hand in the lap.
All very edifying and exciting.
But Doris Day is suspicious from the start.
If we knew nothing of Hitchcock, we’d say her paranoia was unfounded.
But, in fact, it’s Jimmy Stewart’s ease which is the fateful misstep early on.
And so this movie is about suspicion.
Who can we trust?
In this age of anxiety (thank you W.H. Auden), everyone and everything is suspect.
The only true bliss is ignorance.
[and perhaps my only wisdom is that of paraphrase]
One thing which escaped me the first time I saw this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (in the theater…lucky me) was a funny detail about Brenda de Banzie.
Yes, dear readers (and fans of Peter Sellers), Ms. de Banzie would later appear as the annoying, flamboyant Angela Dunning in The Pink Panther (1963).
Indeed, her role as the terror of Cortina (d’Ampezzo) was her second-to-last film.
But here she is a much more mysterious character.
I will leave it at that.
We get some interesting things in this film.
“Arabs” in disguise.
Which is to say, certain personages of the spook variety in brown makeup (and native garb).
One need not look very far back in history to find a poignant parallel.
Consider, for instance, the “Basra prison incident” of 2005.
I’m guessing that T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) would provide another example, though I am no expert on this matter.
As are almost all Hitchcock films, this one is a tense affair.
Doris Day, in particular, does a surprising job of portraying the personal terror of her character.
Perhaps most notable about this film is the musical component.
As an accomplished percussionist in my own right, I heartily appreciate Hitchcock’s attention to the intricacies of an orchestral percussion section.
Indeed, the film begins with a close-up of this little-featured “choir” (in addition to the three trumpets and three trombones at the bottom of the frame).
What is most remarkable is Hitchcock’s use of the musical score (in various permutations) to tell this unique story.
Funniest is the shot of the cymbalist’s sheet music.
It is nearly a complete tacit…save for one fateful crash.
I fondly remember (with some measure of anxiety) a time when I manned the cymbals for the overture of Verdi’s La forza del destino.
It was a similar affair.
Interminable waiting.
And if you miss your one crash? Even in rehearsal?
Well, you are screwed!
The judging stares of oboists are enough to melt a man…
But the musical score appears elsewhere.
In the private box.
Perhaps a page-turner for an assassin.
Most vividly, Hitchcock makes the score come alive in a fascinating series of extreme close-ups.
It is like a very erudite version of “follow the bouncing ball”.
So yes…some of our action happens at the Royal Albert Hall.
In an interesting twist of fate, usual Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann garners copious screen time as the conductor…OF ANOTHER COMPOSER’S WORK!
Were it Beethoven, I’d understand.
But the piece is Storm Clouds Cantata by Arthur Benjamin (who?) and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis (not to be confused with [Percy] Wyndham Lewis).
And yet it is a moving piece.
The London Symphony Orchestra sounds lovely (really magical!) in their on-screen segments.
But the real Leitmotiv of our film is “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.
Speaking of magic…it is always a gossamer thing to hear Doris Day sing this song in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
I remember a time when I didn’t know this song at all.
Being in a studio with Corinne Bailey Rae and hearing a playback of her wonderful band own this song.
And my discovery of Sly and the Family Stone’s inimitable version (sung by Rose Stone).
But few movie music moments equal Doris Day in her Marrakesh hotel room singing “Que Sera, Sera…” with little desafinado Christopher Olson.
The only ones which come close are Rita Hayworth (actually Jo Ann Greer?) singing the Rodgers and Hart masterpiece “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” the next year (1957) in Pal Joey and Ms. Hayworth “singing” (actually Anita Kert Ellis) “Put the Blame on Mame” in Gilda (1946).
An interesting note about this version of The Man Who Knew Too Much…
It seems to be a sort of forgotten classic, wedged as it is between the first of my Hitchcock “holy trinity” (Rear Window, 1954) and the other two perfect films (Vertigo, 1958, and North by Northwest, 1959).
Actually, this was a period of experimentation for Hitchcock.
Our film most precisely follows the odd comedy (!) The Trouble with Harry (1955) and precedes the black and white hand-wringer The Wrong Man (released later in 1956).
But The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) should not be forgotten!
It is such a beautifully-shot film!
Robert Burks’ cinematography is divine.
And George Tomasini’s editing is artfully deft.
Like To Catch a Thief (which is actually on Netflix in the U.S. [last time I checked]), The Man Who Knew Too Much is a film which perhaps needs multiple viewings to be truly appreciated.
-PD
American Psycho [2000)
This is a terrifying movie.
A sick joke.
It’s funny, in parts.
And dripping with irony.
But the overwhelming characteristic of it is the disturbing nature of what is represented on film.
Indeed, American Psycho suspends disbelief (the jokes not withstanding) to inflict psychological terror on those who see this film.
Some viewers may not seem to be bothered.
They are either masochists.
Or they lack imagination.
But let me tell you my own frame of reference: pizzagate.
Go ahead. Look it up.
It is going viral on several media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube.
And it is just what I was talking about prior to the U.S. election.
Pizzagate is the theory that John and Tony Podesta, along with James Alefantis and his Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., are involved in a kidnapping and child trafficking ring for pedophiles who rape and then murder their young victims.
Another pizzeria ostensibly used for ritualistic sex murders might be the neighboring Besta Pizza (besta, as in beast).
There is an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence which points to the above being true.
But I cannot outline the entire conspiracy here.
Suffice it to say that dead babies, dead children, dead teenagers were potentially the fruits of these incredibly strange and evil proceedings.
As I have mentioned in the past, the organization through which this pedo ring is likely being run is the Clinton Foundation.
There are further revelations which seem to tie Department of Justice employees Andrew Kline and Arun Rao to this Satanic pedo ring.
Mr. Kline owns Besta Pizza.
[Update 12/16/16: The ownership of Besta Pizza is in question. There seems to be two Andrew Klines at issue. Further, it appears that other persons may share ownership in this establishment.]
Mr. Alefantis was lovers with David Brock of Correct the Record and Media Matters.
And that’s where George Soros comes in.
Soros has given five-figure donations to Comet Ping Pong on multiple occasions.
And we can’t forget Jeffrey Epstein who used his plane (the Lolita Express) to make jaunts to his own private sex slave island in the Caribbean (I belive it’s in the Virgin Islands).
Bill and Hillary Clinton took multiple trips on Mr. Epstein’s Lolita Express.
Mr. Epstein is a registered sex offender.
Then there’s the Haitian angle. When Laura Silsby was charged and jailed in Haiti for child trafficking. Ms. Clinton was very interested in this case.
Put most simply, the information leaked by WikiLeaks has given researchers a cache of U.S. government documents written in a very strange code.
Pizza means girl. Hotdog means boy. Cheese means little girl. Pasta means little boy.
Walnut means person of color or girl with undeveloped genitalia (uncertain).
Map means semen. Sauce means orgy.
There are other codes involving handkerchiefs. Indeed, there appears to be a long-standing code called “the handkerchief code”.
What I’ve written doesn’t even begin to describe the more lurid (and convincing) aspects of this citizen investigation.
But it did put me in the mindset to watch American Psycho.
I must say, this is a truly demented film.
I must have had two panic attacks watching this thing.
Because my mind keeps moving.
I certainly don’t want pizzagate to be true.
I hope it’s not true.
Because the carnage and evil wrapped up in it is almost unimaginable.
It’s sickening. Disgusting. Terrifying. Revolting. Terribly sad.
And those same words describe American Psycho pretty well.
In a technical sense, Mary Harron made a very fine film.
But I question her motives for doing so.
The sheer level of violence in this film is shocking.
In fact, it appears that the Hollywood mechanism is to make young people think killing is cool and normal (even gory ax murders) and make them think this by lacing the drama with humor and laughs.
It is a bizarre, insidious concoction.
I’m failing to see the connection to the art horror films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Something more sinister is going on here.
Set in 1987, Christian Bale is the psycho.
But he also (no doubt) represents white people in general.
He represents the conservative element in America.
The propaganda, then, is that conservatives are really (deep down inside) psychopathic, cold-hearted serial murderers.
What is REALLY ironic is that the Clinton pizzagate is (so far) populated solely by liberals.
And Hollywood is thoroughly liberal.
And so there’s a strange message being set up here.
We question the inspiration for this film.
And the characters who came to give the story life.
The acting is fantastic. Christian Bale is great.
But I don’t see the point in making this film.
What could an actor possibly get out of playing such a role?
What could a director get out of directing such a film?
Is it really just for money?
Perhaps Hollywood knows that the American viewing audience is very desensitized as a result of decades of ultra-violent movies.
And so this one had to ratchet it up a notch.
The story is fundamentally sound. [barring a few truly questionable scenes]
Hitchcock would have made a masterpiece from such a story.
But American Psycho just leaves me sick.
It’s a sick sense of humor which Hollywood seems to share.
That death is fun. That killing is liberating. It’s truly a psychotic ethos.
And so I leave my readers with a warning (for the first time ever).
See this film only in the practice of opposition research.
Furthermore, exercise extreme caution in watching this film.
It is engineered to make you psychologically and physically ill.
I’m glad to be more informed, but I never want to see this gratuitous filth again.
-PD
SNL Season 1 Episode 10 [1976)
“…I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know…”
Ah, Bill Withers. A lyrical genius. And though I kid, I mean it. This section of “Ain’t No Sunshine” is one of the most tense portions of pop music ever laid down on tape. In case you’re wondering, there’s 26 “I know”s.
And indeed, the powerful Mr. Withers performed this very song on SNL backed up by Howard Shore’s band to amazing dramatic effect.
Now, if you have been following along with my clinically-insane review of the entire Saturday Night Live oeuvre (or canon, if you will) you will know that the musical guests thus far had been:
Billy Preston, Janis Ian, Simon & Garfunkel, Randy Newman, Phoebe Snow, Esther Philips , ABBA, Loudon Wainwright III, Gil Scott-Heron, and Anne Murray. [Hopefully I didn’t leave anyone out.]
I mention them again because almost all of them (with the notable exception of Simon & Garfunkel) were pushing product. To use the terminology which Kurt Cobain so presciently keyed in on, they were attempting to be “radio friendly unit shifters”. Shift those units. Move that product.
This is significant when viewing Bill Withers’ performance. “Ain’t No Sunshine” was from his 1971 album Just As I Am (that’s five years before this broadcast). He’d had at least four albums come out since 1971. He would have a fifth released in 1976. And though he only got to perform one song, he went back to his big hit.
It makes me wonder whose idea that was. Lorne Michaels? Perhaps even a wily A&R man trying a counterintuitive tactic. Kinda like, “Hey…I’m Bill Withers. Remember me?”
All…that…having…been…said:
this is a fantastic episode!!!
I must admit I had no idea who Buck Henry was upon viewing this.
Pierre Henry? Of course. But Buck Henry? No way.
Sure, I’d seen The Graduate, but paying attention to who the screenwriter was had to be the last thing on my mind as the credits rolled.
I like films without scripts. Godard.
The only script I can honestly say I’ve ever read out of admiration for the film (and writing) is Ernest Lehman’s fantastic North by Northwest (brought to the screen, of course, by Alfred Hitchcock).
To make a short story long, Buck Henry is an amazing actor.
I don’t know to what extent he was involved in the writing of skits for this episode, but I can confidently say that this show surpasses all the others before it.
What is more, Buck Henry is ten times the actor that is Elliott Gould (the previous week’s host).
So, there. Buck Henry is great. From his role in John Belushi’s Samurai Delicatessen to his part as Gerald Ford’s aide in the Oval Office.
Speaking of these two skits, they are certainly among the highlights (if not the outright best two).
Belushi was improving with every episode. From Samurai Hotel came Samurai Delicatessen. It is an artful role on par with the talent of Peter Sellers.
The extra portion Belushi brought to the table was his singing (yes, singing). We heard him earlier in the debut season doing a send-up of Joe Cocker. In the episode under consideration, Belushi and Dan Aykroyd debut a proto version of The Blues Brothers…in bee costumes!
I must say that their performance of “I’m a King Bee” is infused with the punk spirit which was then coursing through the veins of New York City. Belushi takes his breaks from singing as opportunities to do ridiculous, stumbling cartwheels around the stage.
This is one thing for which you have to give the Not Ready for Prime Time Players credit: they would do anything for a laugh.
The precedent had been set early on by Chevy Chase. No one could fall quite like Chevy, and thus it was natural for him to portray the unlucky Gerald Ford.
One of Chevy’s real miracles was a failed attempt (as Ford) to put the star on a 15-foot Christmas tree. I don’t know if Chase had stunt training, but his falls are impressively wild.
But again, in this episode we see Chase developing his comic timing and humorous subtleties which he would later parlay into a successful movie career. Chase’s portrayal of Ford is particularly smooth (peppered, of course, with appropriately clunky dementia).
Two more bits bear mentioning. Michael O’Donoghue’s anti-impression illustrates all that was good about the early days of SNL. It’s flailing about, but it is such a refreshing flailing.
And finally, I must mention that Toni Basil returned to the show (after making an appearance earlier in the season with the dance troupe The Lockers). This time Basil does some great scat singing (and, of course, dancing) on the old tune “Wham”…(re bop boom bam).
It’s an impressive performance with a touch of Cyd Charisse in the choreography.
Bravo SNL!
-PD
Die Büchse der Pandora [1929)
Elle est une femme fatale.
Thus sang the chorus. Der unsichtbar Chor.
On Big Star’s cover of The Velvet Underground.
Third/Sister Lovers. Alex Chilton from Lou Reed.
And so if we want to really know the prostitute in Vivre sa vie (Godard’s best “movie”), then we must see G.W. Pabst’s Die Büchse der Pandora.
Pandora’s Box.
Is empty.
See Mulholland Dr.
Blue key.
Lighting.
Her hair.
Louise Brooks.
The gloss of her brunette bob.
Yes, this film is many things.
Confusing? Yes.
Boring? Yes.
Genius? Absolutely.
And here is why.
The two climaxes.
One would fit seamlessly into Fritz Lang’s M…or virtually anything by Alfred Hitchcock.
But the other climax?
It is seconds before.
And worlds more important.
A candle.
Like Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation album.
Two lost souls.
Dreaming.
One is reflecting on a messed up life. Perhaps.
The other is a messed up life reflecting on nothing. Just content with a moment’s peace. Maybe.
Together.
The misfits.
Soon consumed by cataclysm.
An act of God.
Or its opposite.
What I mean to convey is that G.W. Pabst did something remarkable with this film.
It really does read (watch?) like Mulholland Dr. or The Big Sleep.
Something is missing here and there.
Sound! (for one thing…)
I’ve said it before, but it really does matter who picks the music for these silent films.
It takes some research to know whether the version which has come down to you has anything to do with any official release which might have happened in the year of said film’s premiere.
What I got was Tchaikovsky…and “Greensleeves”…
But, most remarkably…it is the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (by Пётр Ильи́ч) without the soaring love theme…which is to say, it is the build-ups…the violent cymbal crashes…the angular solemnity which Dvořák’s 9th Symphony also shares (particularly the bold final movement).
But none of this really matters.
What matters is Lulu. Nana.
Alban Berg. “Das Messer ist blutig…”
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