Red Dawn [1984)

Wikipedia wants to focus on NATO.

“–Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years.

–labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade.

–Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000.

El Salvador and Honduras fall.

–Greens [sic] Party gains control of West German parliament.

Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil.

–Mexico plunged into revolution.

–NATO dissolves.

United States stands alone.”

Gist correct.

Minor typographical errors possible.

Agenda set by Joi Ito’s sister Mimi.

Jeffrey.

Benjamin Mako Hill.

MIT Media Lab.

One Laptop per Child.

What could possibly go wrong?

Nicholas Negroponte.

Epstein.

John Negroponte.

First DNI.

Beneficiary of 9/11.

Now Avril Haines.

Rewarded for being a “player” in Event 201.

Mexico and Honduras.

Davenport College.

Yale.

George H.W. Bush (Skull and Bones [CIA]).

George W. Bush (Skull and Bones).

William F. Buckley Jr. (Skull and Bones [CIA]).

Samantha Power.

Trevor Neilson (Gates Foundation).

Craig Newmark (Obama/Biden).

Melissa Hagemann (Soros).

Essa’a Al Shafei (MIT Media Lab [WEF]).

How snow looks in Texas from a 4th grade window.

Gets a bit ridiculous quite quickly.

A bit implausible.

Thinking Soviet.

Red.

They heard some Spanish.

Find the gun owners.

Confiscation.

Lots of batteries.

Soda water.

Cereal.

Arrows.

Ammunition.

7,000 Bell helicopters in the Vietnam War.

Re-education at the drive-in.

Harry Dean Stanton.

Film on repeat.

Saying how America was never great.*

120/124 #FlagOfficers4America .

Boykin.

Bolduc.

72 special operators from USSOCAF lost under Bolduc’s command.

4thPOG.

Avenge me!

Avenge me!

Toni and Erica join up.

Hidden in the cellar.

Like Jews.

Because of an invading force of pillaging rapists.

A constant in war.

Lea Thompson gunner.

Headless.

Jennifer Grey nade.

Keep me warm.

No surgery now.

No surviving a wound of this sort.

Multiple gunshots.

Abdomen.

Chest.

Bleeding out of mouth.

Pull the pin for me.

Wolverines.

Michigan.

Matthew DePerno.

Families of rebels killed.

Break the spirit of the rebels.

Mayor Bates is Mike Pence.

Powers Boothe.

F-15 ejection St. Louis on runway.

https://www.businessinsider.com/st-louis-airport-f15-pilots-reportedly-ejected-2021-5

Southwest Texas State.

Me too.

Year two.

Later return.

Texas State.

Omaha (Offutt) overrun by Cubans [STRATCOM].

D.C. nuked.

Invasion across U.S. southern AND northern borders.

Middle of country taken.

Stopped at Rockies and Mississippi.

Conventional warfare prevails.

Asymmetrical wolverines.

Legendary on the coasts.

In California.

In the mountains of Colorado.

Northwestern Canada seized by Soviets.

Most important line.

600,000,000 Chinese on our side.

Give me a fucking break.

Wait for the remake.

China has never been a U.S. ally.

Wikipedia riddled with subtle propaganda.

Shaffer.

Sellin.

10th Mountain.

Fort Drum.

A chopper from Rambo III.

Where were they getting these things?

Iraq?

Israel?

Defectors?

MIGs at Area 51.

Must be willing to fly vertical.

Looked like Erica shot Daryl.

Mil Mi-24.

Ravenous.

Apples.

Cereal.

Pour in mouth.

Milk later.

Squeeze rind to flirt.

A moment of joy in the mountain sun.

Orange freshly.

A bit maudlin.

Propaganda.

Cuban revolutionary cannot kill other revolutionaries.

Actually, a very interesting theoretical conundrum.

John Milius more writer than director?

Dirty Harry.

Apocalypse Now.

The Hunt for Red October.

Clear and Present Danger.

The film peaks.

By the swing set.

What we never thought we’d become.

Soldiers.

In a war.

China is the threat and the invader.

The war is now.

Bio psywar economic sabotage Marxist divide and conquer British bolsheviks.

Bolsheviks

Cheney out.

Operation moving.

1 by 1.

Just sayin’.

-PD

The Big Lebowski [1998)

It’s been a long time.

And a rough time.

Cousin died of a heart attack.

Freaked me the fuck out.

I was sick for two months.

Had to start taking heart medicine.

Double whammy.

Thought I could sleep it off.

Depression.

But, more so, overwhelming fear.

My cousin went at age 43.

Like a thief in the night.

And here I am sittin’ at age 40.

Jesus.

Yes.

Jesus has happened to me.

No, really.

A funny thing happened on the way to my mid-life crisis…

Mental breakdown?

Sure 🙂  Whatever…

Doesn’t matter what you call it.

Just matters that grieving can fuck you up.

Our minds are fragile.

And I am not used to death.

I am not a hardened individual.

I have seen a lot of things.

But I haven’t seen a lot of death.

So my cousin’s death fucked me up.

Bad.

But I’m back.

And I’m getting better than ever.

Which brings us to this film:  The Big Lebowski.

You know, I used to be such a snobby prick.

Probably still am in some people’s eyes.

But believe me:  life has brought me low.

And so I say prayers…all the time…for anyone I’ve ever hurt.

Anyone I’ve ever insulted.

Karma follow us.

Like baggage.

And thus the East-West divide of The Big Lebowski.

Cowboys as Confucians.

My cousin was a cowboy.

Big, Copenhagen-dipping hoss!

I miss that motherfucker.

Shit, I miss Copenhagen 🙂

The city and the tobacco…

Well, at least Denmark.

Never been to København.

My new readers (if I have any) might be wondering, “Does he have to curse so much?”

I’m working on it.

I don’t know how to be me.

I love God.

I believe in Jesus.

And I drop f-bombs everywhere…when I write.

Let me explain:  Pauly Deathwish is a persona.

It’s me, to a certain extent.

But it’s also the badass (failed) musician who toured the world in Young Heart Attack (yes, you read right) and Lost Bayou Ramblers.

I am that guy.

And I am getting back to music.

After 2 1/2 torturous years in business school.

Now I have a BM and an MBA.

[bachelor’s of music is the first one…in case you were wondering]

The Big Lebowski.

Is a masterpiece.

This is The Beatles’ of films.

Everyone loves it.

And should love it.

Film snobs will scoff at it (as I once did).

But I have seen the error of my ways.

Life is too fucking hard to forego a laugh.

I needed this film tonight.

I needed John Goodman.

I needed Jeff Bridges.

And I needed les frères Coen 🙂

Being a snob is a hard habit to break.

Critic is just another word for snob.

And cursing is really hard to quit…once you’re balls-deep.

“What the fuck are you talking about…man?”

Exactly.

The exception that PROVES the rule?

I don’t know.

Etymology has shifted.

Words have taken on their opposite meanings.

Much stranger than dialectics.

Defined by opposition.

No, that is much simpler.

Yin and yang.

But language is slippery.

And, so, do not fear…dear friends.

I am back.

I am scared as shit.

But here I am, writing my ass off.

Trying to bring you some glimmer of REAL in this world of fake.

That is the whole point.

We are searching for those treasures…

We want to keep our best moments.

Cinema.

We love vérité.

I owe to Jesus my salvation.

I am a sinner.

No better than any other man or woman.

I have a long road to walk (God willing)…to get back to the godliness I once knew.

But the point is simple:  all glory to God!

It is not my doing.

I am saved by the grace of the Lord.

This may sound like psychobabble.

That is fine 🙂

Don’t worry about a thing, my friends.

Love one another.  And seek God.

God is love.

I hope to bring you many more film reviews.

I praise God for this opportunity to share my writing with you.

Thank you for reading.

God bless you.

I love you all.

 

-PD

Dahmer [2002)

I almost didn’t make it through this one.

Several times.

Not exactly light viewing for me.

Some people…obsessed with gore.

I’ve never been that way.

But there is something fascinating about serial killers.

Not in an adolescent worship rebellion way.

Stories about serial killers are like car crashes.

Sometimes we can’t look away.

Perhaps we feel compelled to go into that deep place within ourselves.

We want to know the horror of truth.

We want to be able to handle the truth.

The truth is sometimes disgusting.

Panic-inducing.

If you live in a war zone, you are used to blood.

If you are a soldier who’s fought in a war, you’ve seen the worst kind of dying.

Dahmer is a different sort of death.

It is a feast for psychologists.

We want to learn how these things happen so that we can prevent them.

I’m no psychologist.

Far from it.

I’m just a student of life.

And so in order to really appreciate wild sunflowers growing by the railroad tracks, we must face Dahmer.

Let me just say that this film puts Ted Bundy to shame.

First because of director David Jacobson.

It is a masterful film.  An artful film.  Everything that Schindler’s List is not.

In stories like this…there is nothing more important to remember (as an auteur) than the banality of evil.

But Dahmer introduces a star:  Jeremy Renner.

But you know who really deserves some credit?

Those people that auteur theorists often forget about.

Production designer (Eric Larson).

Art director (Kelley Wright).

Costume designer (Dana Hart).

These functional elements are essential here.

You think The Nice Guys has a cool look to it?

It ain’t shit compared to Dahmer.

And Ryan Gosling (that fucking guy annoys me…Ryan Reynolds with a mustache)…

Funny thing is, The Nice Guys looks like a good film.

But it’s vanilla…beige…compared to the cinema under discussion.

I’m not going to be wanting to see Dahmer again anytime soon, but it’s an essential film.

If you want to understand his crimes.

Bruce Davison is excellent as Dahmer’s father.

Artel Kayaru is really good!

Don’t discount the horror medium.

The “greatest creator of forms of the 20th century” (to quote Godard) kicked it off in earnest with Psycho.

Darkness is inextricably wound up in the light of cinema.

 

-PD

Vampyr [1932)

I come to you from the darkest place.

Where all hope has been extinguished.

A maze of study and revelation.

Barely a word here spoken.

Do not give me your attention.

I am not the first person.

You wander in this dream.

He comes to know the horror.

Her and her alone.

Climb climb climb from the mist of history.

Give up your secrets to the light.

Vampyr, Kryptos, Tutankhamun.

IQLUSION.  1Q84.

gravity’s rainbow.  CERN.

In a Glass Darkly.  Published in Ireland.  1872.

Sheridan Le Fanu.  Dublin.

Does Langley know about this?

Always candles.  Always lighting candles.

NYPVTT.  Berlin.

Nicolas de Gunzberg as Julian West as Allan Gray.  Got it?

MZFPK.  We’re losing time quickly.

At an even pace.

Speeding towards the hour.

As slowly as we’ve ever been.

William H. Webster.  The only person to have ever headed both the CIA and the FBI.

Courtempierre.  Loiret.

Ah!  The review…

As if waking from a dream.

Or falling back into a nightmare.

Placing one foot in front of the other.

Rena Mandel could have come straight from Nosferatu.

Like Greta Schröder.  1922.  1932.

Not flapper like Frances Dade.  Blonde on blonde.  Helen Chandler.

UFA wanted Dracula to come out first.

A strange tactic.

And then utter failure.

But Sybille Schmitz has that Nazi jawline.  Like Leni Riefenstahl.

Spoonsful of tea for a dying man.

Candles peer in through the glass.

And the camera stares upwards…at the swaying trees.

It is like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.

To be opened after my death.

Sealed in wax thrice.

Submission is the only slow number.

Mid-tempo.  A revelation.  Talisman.

A crooked doctor.  And you’re giving blood.

They’re putting you on statins.

The drug companies will pay.  And general practitioners will have impunity whoring for big pharma.

A view to a kill.

Berlin.  Surrounded by East Germany.

Mengenlehreuhr.  Yale.

Ooga booga.

Buried alive in the blues.

Come spend a life in Texas.

With no one.

Come be abandoned in Texas.

Not even on the island.

Information warfare.

He is getting his message out desperately.

Franz Liszt as Marguerite Chopin.

No comment from Gounod.

Walpurgisnacht.

Nerval translated 1828.

Gretchen.  Margaret.  Marguerite.

Ettersberg.  Buchenwald.

We see why Godard became suspicious.

Because all but the Dutch declined Resnais’ solicitation for holocaust footage.

Inside the camps.

During the war.

By the most technologically-advanced civilization in terms of film production.

Obsessive-compulsive documenters of expenditures.

The problem with the gas chambers.

Sybille Schmitz looks like a raving lunatic.

The ecstasy of Stockholm syndrome.  A bank.  Those doe eyes and bearded hippie among the safe-deposit boxes.

The Goethe Oak at Buchenwald.  THE Goethe Oak?  George Washington slept here.

The Goethe Oak bombed by the Allies.

Now a concrete stump thanks to the DDR.

Goethe Eiche.

Janus-faced Germany.  Januskopfes Deutschland.  Sounds like a load of rubbish to me.

Schiller’s beech tree didn’t bite the dust till 2007.

Death by flour.

I’ll say it again:  Wikipedia’s masterpiece.  “List of unusual deaths”.

 

-PD