USA out of NATO/No More NATO [2022)

Google.

When did Soviet Union collapse?

December 26, 1991.

Wikipedia.

Vladimir Putin.

Retired as a KGB Lieutenant Colonel on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup attempt against Gorbachev.

August 20, 1991.

“As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on.”

One can assume that Putin was against the pro-communist coup.

As for Gorbachev.

Gorbachev the reformer.

Putin was on the same side as Yeltsin.

Which explains what happened next.

But we need to back up.

May 1990.

Putin starts working for the mayor of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) as an advisor on international affairs.

So Putin was working for both the KGB and the mayor (Anatoly Sobchak).

Approximately one year later, he became head of the Committee for External Relations for the mayor of Leningrad.

June 28, 1991.

He was still in the KGB.

Putin held this job until 1996.

Remember when Putin retired from the KGB.

August 1991.

Concurrently, Putin was first deputy chairman for the Government of Saint Petersburg.

He assumed this role in March 1994.

About one year later, he organized the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia: a pro-government political party.

May 1995.

It was a liberal party.

It was founded by Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Pro-government. And liberal.

Remember, Russia had just gotten finished with being a communist country.

So the previous form of government was radically (totalitarian) liberal.

Putin was a legislative election campaign manager that same year.

For the next two years, he was leader of the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia.

1995-1997.

Sobchak, the Saint Petersburg mayor for whom Putin had begun working in 1990, lost his reelection bid.

Putin had been in charge of the reelection campaign.

At this point, Putin resigned his positions within the Saint Petersburg government.

He moved to Moscow.

He began working for Pavel Borodin as deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department.

June 1996.

Putin remained in this position for approximately a year.

March 1997.

Yeltsin, with whom Putin had sided in the failed August coup of 1991, hired Putin to become his deputy chief of staff.

March 26, 1997.

Putin held this position for about a year.

May 1998.

He also was the chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department.

His tenure there lasted slightly longer.

June 1998.

This position was an important one.

Both his predecessor (Alexei Kudrin), and his successor (Nikolai Patrushev), wound up in positions of prominence and also worked with Putin later in their careers.

Putin successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in economics at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.

June 27, 1997.

His thesis advisor was Vladimir Litvinenko.

Putin then succeeded Viktoriya Mitina as First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff “for regions”.

May 25, 1998.

Two months later, he succeeded Sergey Shakhray as head of the commission for “delimitation of power” agreements “of the regions” and head of the President’s federal center.

July 15, 1998.

Putin soon-afterwards, by appointment of Yeltsin, became head of the FSB: the successor to the KGB.

July 25, 1998.

Here’s where our story gets interesting.

And here’s where the current Ukraine war started.

The Czech Republic (AKA Czechia) [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] joined NATO.

Hungary [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Poland [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

March 12, 1999.

Approximately five months later, Putin became acting Prime Minister of Russia.

August 9, 1999.

The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense organization like NATO.

The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist on July 1, 1991.

When did the Warsaw Pact begin?

May 14, 1955.

When did NATO begin?

April 4, 1949.

The Soviets created the Warsaw Pact (CoMEcon) IN RESPONSE to the actions of NATO and the West.

So surely NATO dissolved after July 1, 1991, when the threat of the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, right?

Oh, they didn’t.

Well, then surely NATO ceased operations at least when the USSR ceased to exist on December 26, 1991, right?

Oh, they didn’t take that opportunity for peace either, eh?

Are you fucking telling me that NATO, instead of disbanding and toning it down, INCORPORATED COUNTRIES FROM THEIR FORMER ADVERSARY (CoMEcon AKA the “Warsaw Pact” countries) INTO THEIR FUCKING “MUTUAL-DEFENSE ALLIANCE”?!?

Yes.

That’s exactly what NATO did.

Just five months before Putin first rose to the Prime Minister position in Russia.

1999.

22 years ago.

22 years ago NATO first began to BORDER RUSSIA, right?

[because Poland borders Russia]

No, actually.

NATO began to border Russia in 1949 (!) with the joining of founding member Norway.

Russia was patient.

It was only six years later (1955) that Russia (the Soviet Union) decided to make a proportionate riposte and create the Warsaw Pact zone IN RESPONSE to NATO.

So when Poland joined NATO in 1999, it became the second country bordering Russia to do so.

NATO has been on Russia’s doorstep since 1949.

And NATO set up a fucking tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999.

Fifty years later.

NATO, if they were really about “defense” and peace, would not have taken this provocative action.

Yeltsin wanted Putin to be his successor.

And so Putin ran for President.

Putin had become Russia’s fifth Prime Minister in 18 months.

The State Duma overwhelmingly-approved this: 233 in favor, 84 against, and 17 abstained.

August 16, 1999.

Putin was an unknown outside of Russia.

He had only briefly been the head of the FSB.

Most intelligence analysts expected him to go the way of the four Prime Ministers who came before him (in a mere 18 months).

Yeltsin was sick.

He unexpectedly resigned.

And Putin became Acting President.

December 31, 1999.

Putin won an early Presidential election.

March 26, 2000.

He was inaugurated.

May 7, 2000.

Life came at him fast.

The Kursk submarine sunk.

August 12, 2000.

Another crisis arose two years later with the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

October 23, 2002.

Putin was elected to a second term.

March 14, 2004.

Here’s where “peace-loving” NATO stepped in again.

Bulgaria [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Estonia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Latvia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Lithuania [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Romania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Slovakia [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Slovenia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] joined NATO.

March 29, 2004.

Wow.

So NATO, instead of being satisfied with expanding NATO by two countries in 1999 (and bordering Russia with two members), decided to expand by a further SEVEN (!) countries (giving them FIVE members that border Russia).

The provocativeness of this cannot be understated.

Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Canada.

Because Canada is in NATO.

And Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Mexico.

Indeed, Russia no longer has nukes in Cuba.

It is approximately 230 miles from Havana, Cuba to Miami, Florida.

The world almost ended in October 1962 because of this kind of proximity.

230 miles.

And how far is Tallinn, Estonia (a part of NATO since 2004) from Saint Petersburg, Russia?

Approximately 230 miles.

Look it up.

Don’t take my word for it.

Google.

Havana to Miami.

And.

Tallinn to St. Petersburg (in miles).

Are there nukes in Tallinn?

Probably not.

But there are NATO forces in Tallinn.

And in Estonia.

NATO was on Russia’s doorstep for six years (since 1949) before the Warsaw Pact even existed .

NATO pitched a tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999 with the accession of Poland.

And then NATO effectively started brandishing weapons on Russia’s doorstep with the accession of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004.

What would you do if someone was on your doorstep?

You ask questions.

You find out their name is Norway and they’re in a gang called NATO.

They say, “if you mess with me, then my gang will declare war on you”.

Pretty unsettling.

But you let them hang out and loiter on your doorstep for fifty years.

After fifty years, they bring a friend named Poland and set up a tent on your doorstep.

They are there, every day and every night, sleeping in their tent and cooking on their camping stove.

They leave their trash everywhere.

They act like they own your doorstep.

You cannot leave your house by your front door.

You have to go out of your garage.

Or through your backyard and out the side gate.

Five years later, Norway and Poland (NATO gang members), bring their gang buddies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to live in the tent on your doorstep.

It’s getting crowded in that tent!

But this time there’s something even more unsettling.

These gang members are brandishing automatic weapons.

They have hand guns.

Every time you look out your peephole, you see the five people on your porch.

And they are heavily armed!

That is where Putin was at in 2004 when he began his second Presidential term.

Since then, NATO has added:

-Albania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] in 2009

-Croatia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2009

-Montenegro [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2017

-North Macedonia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2020

East, east, east.

Always east.

Ever eastwards!

NATO is the gang on Russia’s porch.

It started with Norway loitering and saying, “mess with me and you mess with my gang”.

For fifty years Russia let punk Norway hang out and brag about their gang.

After fifty years, Norway and their buddy Poland (another NATO gang member), set up a tent on Russia’s porch.

Day and night.

Norway and Poland talking shit about how their gang would fuck Russia up.

Russia used to be in a gang.

Two, actually.

Russia was the kingpin of both of them.

The capo.

NATO are crips.

CoMEcon (Warsaw Pact)/USSR were bloods.

The bloods have ceased to exist.

Their gang has been broken up.

The bloods (Russia) even made their colors red, white, and blue: same as USA and France (two of NATO’s founding members).

The bloods have taken on the ways of the crips.

The bloods are a defeated gang.

But that’s not good enough for the crips.

The crips want to push their face into the pavement and grind it.

In 2014, with five armed gang members living in a tent on their porch, Russia decided to start going in and out of its own front door again.

They invented a curse word.

Russia invented a curse word.

The word is/was, “Crimea!”

At first, the gang members were shocked that the homeowner (Russia) had grown a pair of balls.

And then every day it happened.

Russia would emerge from its front door.

The gang members would brandish their weapons and say, “why don’t you try something?”

The gang members would say, “this is our porch now, motherfucker!”

And Russia would just say, “Crimea river!”

Russia would go out to the mailbox.

Russia would enter and leave through its own front door.

For eight years Russia has been doing this.

Refusing to be prisoners in their own home.

But last year a new little shit named Ukraine started hanging out in the tent on the porch.

And Ukraine said, “We’re gonna prevent you from saying, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia said, “How are you going to do that?”

Ukraine said, “I’m gonna fuck you up if you say, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia asked, “Are you in this NATO gang?”

Ukraine replied, “Well, not yet. But I want to be. And I’m gonna join as soon as possible.”

This last reply was in the fall of 2021.

There was a new shit on the block: Ukraine.

And Ukraine wanted to be the badass.

Ukraine wanted to make sure that Russia could no longer enter and leave through its own front door.

But Ukraine made a threat.

Ukraine said, “As soon as I get into NATO, I’m gonna fuck you up the first time I hear the words, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia finally decided to do something.

Russia thought, “Ok, I can’t fight these five gang members living with automatic weapons in a tent on my porch. There’s too many of them. But I cannot go back to being unable to enter and leave through my own front door. So there is only one solution. I must fight the one who is threatening my freedom. I should be able to enter and leave through my own front door. And these gang members let me do that. I can even tell them to go fuck themselves and get away with it. Because I’m polite. I just say, ‘Crimea river!’ But now the time has come. I cannot tolerate little shit Ukraine telling me that he is gonna restrict my movement and my speech ON MY OWN FRONT PORCH! This little comedian shit has made his intentions known: as soon as he joins the NATO gang, he is gonna have them fuck me up in colossal manner anytime I exert my ownership of my own house. As soon as I go out to check the mail and they heckle me. As soon as I respond with a relatively-tame, ‘Crimea river!’, Ukraine is gonna sic the entire fucking gang on my ass. So that is the final straw. I can’t fight the whole bullshit gang of thugs, but I can fight the little shit. And I must fight him before he gets into the gang. Now is the time. Do or die.”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7uPO4cFjoSPnnQozEoZKfx?si=e8b7838d8f924d2e

-PD

Lost River [2014)

There’s something very weird going on in Hollywood.

And it has been going on for a long time.

You can look for yourself in Kenneth Anger’s books.

Strange stories about Clara Bow.

The first “It” girl.

From the film of the same name.

And how she kept her skin so soft (ostensibly).

But the range of weirdness in Hollywood seems to move along a continuum.

There are levels.

Not unlike Freemasonry.

Or Scientology.

The hedonism of Henry Miller would be a very low level.

But what we are dealing with here, in this film, is an allusion to a higher level.

Really, the highest level.

There really isn’t a more mot juste for this phenomenon than Satanism.

And, perhaps, even that word does not fully describe what is at issue.

If one was hard-pressed to boil it down–to refine it further, perhaps “evil” would be the essential element.

Recently, the internet collective known only as QAnon “dropped” a crumb of information regarding an establishment in Los Angeles known as the Cannibal Club.

You can find all Q drops here.

The drop in question is #3917 from April 8th of this month.

Here is the website to which Q linked.

It indeed follows the train of thought I delineated above.

You will see the Henry Miller quote (an author I deeply admire).

But then you will see a perversion far beyond (to my knowledge) anything Henry Miller ever wrote about.

What you see on the Cannibal Club website appears to be a restaurant which serves human flesh.

However, with a bit of research, I came to the conclusion that this particular institution (as it is presented) is likely fake.

Why?

The names of the principals all come back empty.  None of them have a digital footprint that I can find.  Sophie Lafitte.  Elspeth Blake.  Hero Conners.  Raven Chan.

The photo of Cannibal Club’s proprietress, Elspeth Blake, was first cached as a stock photo in 2012.

The photo of Raven Chan also was first cached (before it was used on the Cannibal Club website) as a stock photo.  Both photos appear to have originated on the website istockphoto.com .  They are generic pictures.

The Cannibal Club website went live with content in 2009.  Neither the menu, nor the “events” have changed.

My conclusion was that this was a joke made by demented, artsy liberals in order to seed panic in America’s conservative population.

That was my hypothesis:  it is almost certainly a sick joke.

But here’s the rub…

Things like this very well may exist.

Indeed, they probably do.

And thereby we come to the film Lost River.

It came out a mere two years before Trump was elected.

Before Harvey Weinstein was convicted of sex crimes and sent to prison (where, last I heard, he had coronavirus).

Before jet-setter Jeffrey Epstein “hung himself” in a Manhattan jail cell.

You know, Epstein…the guy who flew Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey to Africa.

All this was before Kevin Spacey had numerous sex crime charges brought against him.

And two of his accusers recently dropped dead (over the past year) bringing both cases to a halt.

Lost River.

I appreciate the style.

Very heavy on the David Lynch (with a modicum of Harmony Korine thrown in).

The focus on “place” is very similar to the technique David Lynch and Mark Frost used to ground the town of Twin Peaks in the TV series of the same name.

Evil.

In the woods.

Underwater.

Underground.

And in secret clubs.

Director Ryan Gosling did a pretty good job with this film.

We will forgive him for lifting the ambiance of that Orbison scene from Mulholland Dr. to repurpose it in his Lost River blood-and-guts cabaret.

Because the reason I watched this film at all was for Christina Hendricks.

She has the potential to join a modern pantheon which, at this time, includes only Thora Birch and Kat Dennings.

Though we are never told this in the film, it is set in Detroit.

And that makes sense.

Deserted neighborhoods with crumbling houses.

But it could be anywhere in America if China’s economic warfare (COVID-19) is not soon countered.

Matt Smith does a good job as Bully:  the embodiment of serial-killer animalism.

The thug.

The gangster.

The cartel head.

Extreme cruelty.

Sadistic.

Gosling did a great job location scouting for the zoo scene.

The abandoned zoo.

Very much like the film Hanna and its scenes in the abandoned Spreepark of East Berlin.

Ben Mendelsohn is a fucker.

Such a prick.

But smart.

He’s not an animal like Bully, though he has rage inside him.

He is more of a predator.

And he is much more powerful.

His character, Dave, is a banker.

And Dave tells us, during the course of the film, that he sets up a little “club” in each of the towns he goes to.

Seems Dave gets moved around a lot.

Comes in.

Fires people.

Gets the books on a firmer footing.

And moves on to the next town where he can oblige the poor and demented with a bit of blood lust with his clubs.

Lots of blood.

Lots of lust.

Dave overlaps nicely onto the persona of Harvey Weinstein.

Christina Hendricks is immediately propositioned by the bank manager.

Dave is a thoroughly-unscrupulous scumbag.

Hendricks just wants to hang on to her home…dilapidated though it may be.

Saoirse Ronan does a nice job in a relatively-minor role here.

She glitters occasionally…as she plays her Casio on her bed with sparkly finger polish.

Whispering out a little song.

Or as she tucks in her pet rat for the night.

But it is not the ginger Ronan we are used to.

Her hair is black.

To fit with the landscape.

And to let Hendricks (also a redhead) stand out as the star.

Saoirse is the “girl next door”…literally.

In the tradition of American Beauty.

By this method we can trace Gosling’s influences.

The overarching one is David Lynch.

This film is creepy.

Plenty creepy.

Much of the creepiness comes from the casting.

It really is an amalgam of Lynch’s freaks with Harmony Korine’s amateurs.

There is the grief of the mute grandmother.

Caught in a loop of family films.

Mourning her late-husband who died tragically.

It is sad.

It happens.

The inability to talk for some time after a shock.

Extreme PTSD.

The family films are sad.

Watching how they used to be.

The way they were.

And the grandmother still a widow…with a fishnet veil for mourning.

There is some rubbish in this movie.

Kind of how the second season of Twin Peaks went off the rails.

Eva Mendes is good here.

And scary.

In the basement is something very Ex Machina (also 2014).

And even more so John Cale’s Vintage Violence.

Shells.

Mortal coils.

Simulation.

Apparently, customers can come down and “murder” real people in these shells.

The shells are of a hard, clear plastic.

And formfitting.

The shells supposedly prevent any real bodily harm.

But we never really see them in action.

Iain De Caestecker is pretty good here.

There is a realness in the urgency of his running.

Gosling’s editing crystalizes this.

Running for love.

Panic.

Running to save.

To set off running.

Unprepared for how long the journey really is.

Something special here.

Good vs. evil.

To give.

Charity.

To be selfish.

To ignore the needs of others.

To follow the voice of God.

To follow the instruction of the Holy Spirit.

To be humble before God.

To fear God.

To feel evil all around.

When it comes, and when it goes.

But the most quizzical scene is when Christina Hendricks cuts her own face off (in simulation, of course) in exactly the way we have heard about in the infamous, rumored Frazzledrip video.

In 2014.

Two years before such a thing came to light.

What a strange coincidence.

Let us synthesize more.

Could there be clubs (in L.A., for instance) where children have their faces cut off (for real) in front of an audience of sickos?

Further question, how does Hollywood (in L.A.) have the “imagination” to write these sorts of scenes?

Sure, there’s the old French film Eyes Without a Face.

But that was cosmetic.

It wasn’t for the thrill of spectators.

It was a medical procedure gone wrong.

Gory as it was, it was to SAVE the face of his daughter that the misguided doctor went on a hunt for faces.

Here, the faces are potlatched (apparently).

Or eaten.

But again, this is just a “cabaret”, we are told.

We see behind the scenes.

“Fake blood”.

So where is the truth in these “jokes”?

What kinds of personalities find humor in this?

John Podesta famously jokes about cannibalism in Time magazine and elsewhere.

He jokes about the cannibalistic Donner party.

He had cannibal art hanging on his office wall (a loan from his art-collector-brother Tony Podesta).

Strange fixation, that.

Very creepy.

Verging on Silence of the Lambs.

Ed Gein.

Dahmer.

Really vile stuff.

This is an interesting movie.

Gosling has talent as a director.

He should make more films.

This was his debut.

He has directed nothing sense.

My only quibble is this:  Christina Hendricks was so misused here.

Saoirse Ronan was almost equally misused.

Gosling needs to watch more Godard.

More Hitchcock.

You don’t cast Grace Kelly only to have her wear the same sweater for the whole film.

But it’s also Hendricks’ fault.

She has talent.

But she must embrace who she is.

She is not a good enough actor to be a puritan.

 

-PD

Le Livre d’image [2018)

And so I’m back.

Sort of.

Maybe.

With Godard.

Can we go from back to front?

After having gone halfway from front to back?

More importantly:  WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH?!?

I’m guessing JLG might relish such a reaction.

But really.

Le Livre d’image (The Image Book) is a thoroughly fucked-up film.

Music stops and starts.

Ok, standard Godard.

Images run and then go to black screen.

Again, standard Godard.

But something is further about this film.

Perhaps the most accessible touchstone would be the glitchy music of Radiohead circa Kid A and Hail to the Thief (to name my two favorites).

To wit:  Godard seems to be enjoying fucking with his audience.

Every possible convention of cinema is destroyed and frustrated by his anti-art approach.

It is Swiss.  It is dadaist (in a certain sense).

But it is stranger…

Which brings us to a crossroads.

Is Godard getting senile?

I mean, seriously:  is this the work of someone falling apart?

It may be.

There is an achingly-sad moment near the end when we hear that trademarked Godard narrative voice break up.

Coughing.

Too many cigars.

Almost 90 years old…

But there are other possibilities.

Indeed, The Image Book hearkens back to the Godard of his Dziga-Vertov years.

Extremely obtuse.

Painful cinema.

A cinema of cruelty (for Artaud).

We catch glimpses (literally) of Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

Yes.

There is a pessimism here.

But mostly a hard reality.

And yet, is it reality?

The Image Book is surreal…while being mostly in a stark cinematography.

A bit like Picasso’s Guernica.

But more boring.

Can I say that?

Boring.

When you’re 88 years old (like Godard), perhaps things move slower.

Perhaps you could call it “slow cinema”.

But it is FAST and boring.

Many cuts.

Many, many cuts.

Painstakingly (painstakingly?) spliced.

It seems.

Also seems random.

Aleatory.

I Ching.

John Cage.

But onto another aspect.

That of revision.

Revisiting.

The Image Book is to Godard’s oeuvre as Histoire(s) du cinéma is to film history as a whole.

Le Livre d’image could be said to be a sort of CliffsNotes to the work of Jean-Luc Godard.

But there’s just one catch.

You would need to know the oeuvre in its totality to really make much of this pithy summation.

So it is, in a sense, useless.

But it still speaks.

Galileo.

And yet it moves.

Godard is not dead.

Not yet.

And he should know that he will never die.

Not with the timeless body of work he has contributed to humanity.

And yet, that tobacco cough says otherwise.

To live in those lungs.

To feel the weight of mortality pressing down.

Le Livre d’image is a frustrating piece of work.

It has very little (almost none) of the lyrical poeticism that its predecessor Adieu au langage had.

Indeed, perhaps this is a purposeful “let down”.

Like Neil Young’s On The Beach or Lou Reed’s Berlin.

To extend the metaphor there, it is mostly like Metal Machine Music.

It is jarring.

Annoying.

It gets under your skin.

But it makes you think.

And perhaps that is the whole point.

Perhaps Godard is reaching for a new filmic language.

He may not be there yet, but he is reaching.

This is essential, cranky cinema.

The bleeding edge…

 

-PD

#8 Mr. Bean in Room 426 [1993)

First, a short list of Hulu failings:

-Pootie Tang (shite)

-Mordecai (shite)

-Lars and the Real Girl (epically shite)

-The Voices (shite)

-Mystery Team (shite)

-Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (shite squared) [catalog dilemma]

-Anchorman 2 (shite to the second power)

-Beverly Hills Cop II (repetitive shiteness) [catalog dilemma]

-Cannonball Run II (must see first episode to appreciate this shite)

-Teen Wolf Too (now with word shite!)

-The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (quasi-decimal shite)

-The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (LP shite)

-My Best Friend’s Wedding (shite)

-Cashback (shite)

-Dear White People (shite)

-Everything Must Go (shite)

-Jerry Maguire (shite)

-The Skeleton Twins (shite)

-Trailer Park Boys (shite)

-16-Love (shite)

-Novocaine (sic shite)

-Dark Horse (Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-Little Paradise (shite)

-Frances Ha (epically shite)

-Stranger Than Fiction (shite)

-8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (shite)

-C.S.A.:  The Confederate States of America (ambitious shite)

-Trees Lounge (depressing attempt at shite)

-King of California (total shite)

-Dead Hooker in a Trunk (go-back-to-film-school shite)

-Are You Joking? (more Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-And Now a Word From Our Sponsors (shite)

-Falling Star (Kosher Casino shite)

-Jewtopia (no comment)

-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish shite)

-Heathers (cruel shite)

-Sleeping Beauty (barely shite)

-Gold (Irish shite)

-The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire (quintessential shite)

-Jack Ryan:  Shadow Recruit (lazy shite)

-Mission:  Impossible (a colon-full of Scientologist shite)

-Space Milkshake (actually, not too bad…)

[I hate to say it, but the number of films by mediocre directors named Schwarz is really astonishing.]

Now, you might reason:  these are just the rantings of an anti-Semitic film snob.

I admit I don’t laugh easily.

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.

Mostly I don’t like waste.

Entitled filmmakers are more likely to make shite.

They didn’t earn their stripes.

They have an uncle who works for Sony Pictures.

Actually, the film school rubbish on Hulu is astonishing.

It is completely venal in nature.

I just happen to have had some bad experiences with unfunny Jewish films.

What do I mean, “Jewish films”?

I mean exactly what Brandon Tartikoff was referring to when he first saw the Seinfeld pilot.

In that instance, Tartikoff (himself Jewish) was wrong.

Seinfeld was genius!

Seinfeld is a funny show.

Yes, it exists in a Jewish milieu.

Tartikoff thought the show was “too Jewish” to appeal to Americans in general.

He was wrong.

But, sadly, now we have a gaggle of filmmakers who think they are Woody Allen or Mel Brooks.

Status update:  those two guys actually have talent!

Which is not to say they didn’t make some clunkers.

Hulu happens to have picked up two of those clunkers:  Bananas and Life Stinks.

No one’s perfect.

But please…dear world Jewry,

Please tell your precocious sons and daughters that they aren’t all geniuses.

Who’s funding this shit?

Hulu:  who the fuck is in charge over there!?!

Your catalog indicates that you enjoy wasting the monthly fees people pay for your woeful service.

Ok, ok…

A short list of Hulu successes:

-the Criterion collection

THE END.

And so…what part of the Hulu catalog presently needs the most work?

Answer:  the comedy genre of movies.

Second most problematic lack of imaginative curation?

Answer:  the drama genre of movies.

[If you think that Hulu’s selection of movies might be lacking (based on my first two points of emphasis), then you are right:  it is!]

Third crappiest category on Hulu?

Answer:  the “action & adventure” genre of movies.

Even Hulu’s genres are ass-backwards compared to the pinpoint precision of iTunes.

Korean Drama?  Really???  Ok.  I guess Hulu is really killing it in Seoul (and Pyongyang).

CEO Mike Hopkins needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Whoever got the Criterion catalog, give that person an infinite raise.

The rest of them?  Fire their sorry asses.

Beth Comstock needs to overturn the moneychangers’ tables.

Destroy YOUR business, Ms. Comstock.

Jason Kilar…you know what doesn’t work?  Faux-dreams.

Faux-tographs.

A catalog of shite.

Make a call.  Do lunch.

“Anywhere, Anytime:  Shite”

“For the Love of shite”

“Come Shite with Us”

Lot of people drawing a check at Hulu and turning out a subpar service.

The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words…both of which translate roughly to “shite”.

Now, just to be fair…I wouldn’t sign up for Netflix if my life depended on it.

iTunes is a horribly antiquated business model (and offers very little value for consumers).

Amazon Prime Video was petty to disallow MacBooks (as incompatible devices) as late as last year.  Not to mention that Jeff Bezos is just a wannabe Rupert Murdoch who bans books like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.  [And yes, Virginia, Murdoch is the great Satan.]

And so, with such a paltry selection of movies on Hulu, I’ve been forced to examine its television offerings.  The prospects are not much better.

But I will give credit where credit is due.

Mr. Bean was an excellent pickup.

If you want a tight, seamless work of art (unlike this rambling, frothing review), then check out the episode under consideration.

You know, not even the childlike Rowan Atkinson was above making fun of old people (in this episode) or suggesting that continental Europeans be purposefully killed by British drivers (tourists).  Check out his standup comedy album from 1995 for the latter bit.

Which just goes to show…we all lose our heads.

We all exercise poor judgment.  We all have poor taste now and then.

You may not believe it, but I have put my own sorry butt on the line to stand up for world Jewry.

I will be the first to admit that my term “Judeo-Nepotistic” is incredibly crass and insensitive.

And still, I would ask that Jews (who are no doubt hard-pressed on all sides) please exercise some judgment of their own.  Transparent nepotism is really tasteless.  It goes against our better Jeffersonian principles.

So there you have it.  Bobby Fischer was a jerk.  The Holocaust really happened.  Not so sure about the gas chambers.  You’re welcome Faurisson.  The Earth is not flat.  9/11 was an inside job (and therefore not an Israeli job).  Insofar as it was an Israeli job, the U.S. government was at least half-responsible.  It was much more likely an Israeli job than a Saudi job.  Much more likely a purely self-inflicted inside job (no substantial Israeli involvement) than an Israeli job.  And finally, Israel is a criminal country oppressing the Palestinians in a most disgusting manner.

And for good measure, yes Donald Trump is a bigot.  And he’s horribly wrong about immigration (both in regards to our Mexican brothers and sisters and our Islamic brothers and sisters).  But he’s still the only real choice for President.

Sanders has been right about one thing:  Snowden.  Snowden’s a hero.  But America is not a socialist country.  Sanders would actually be a bigger step backwards than Trump.

The other candidates (Clinton and Cruz) are worthless.

So there you go, Hulu…I need some better circuses here!

To keep me out of the political arena!!

I could use some bread as well 🙂

In any case, I’m sorry for my vile ranting.

But film is my religion.  Through film, omnism.

Stop defiling my religion, Hulu.  Your thoughtlessness is ghastly.

Hire some people who love cinema.

Get your shit together.

 

-PD