Platoon [1986)

The crusader.

The volunteer.

Ants.

Red and black.

On yer neck.

Except they’re constant.

Can’t advance storyline.

Driving you crazy.

Mosquitos.

Under your green towel.

Would even give up breathing if it meant the flies couldn’t get in.

Snakes.

Leeches.

More snakes.

What kinda watch you wearing?

It’s your shift.

Night watch.

Don’t fall asleep.

Recruited from the world’s greatest insomniacs.

Depends on where you’re deployed.

In Vietnam I would be a workaday, crack-of-dawn man in a gray flannel suit.

Night watch.

Digital foxhole.

Faster alone.

Not a diving watch.

Smeared with mud.

Rainforest.

Grime.

Now we develop.

And change.

From green.

To cynical.

But hard as nails.

Able to take it.

Until we break.

A new war.

Now.

Blew his arms off.

Don’t take the bait.

The village starts breaking you down.

Snap.

Changes you.

Supplying those that murder your friends.

War crimes are war crimes.

But you need warriors to win.

But war crimes are still war crimes.

And we lost.

Seemingly.

Vietnam was not a war.

Vietnam was a battle.

The war is just now getting started.

USA vs. China.

No American soldier died in vain in Vietnam.

It was the right decision to fight.

But we got our butts kicked.

How did America lose?

How did it come to pass?

That we had to retreat?

Making a stand against world communism.

Was successful.

And now the main fighting will ensue.

Johnny Depp wanted to kill the President.

And he said this in Vietnamese.

Then we see Vietnamese children being raped by American soldiers.

War crimes are war crimes.

Charlie Sheen stood up against the falsehoods of 9/11.

From playing a character.

To being the real thing.

WTC7.

You believe at first.

In the war.

But as the years go by, you may lose that belief.

Especially if the war becomes unwinnable.

Moronic leaders.

Bombing their own troops.

Calling in the wrong coordinates.

Some assholes know how to fight.

And how to stay alive.

And we need them.

But they can go wrong.

We need the crusaders.

But we need to remember who the true enemy is.

Vietnam was a war of ideology.

But it must not have seemed that way in the jungles.

You cannot see the forrest.

You do not have such luxury.

To think strategically.

Don’t discount the warriors.

And don’t discount the crusaders.

Because the crusaders can fight.

And be deadly efficient.

They may have active minds.

They may see the looming loss.

But they will fight their way out of an ambush.

And they will fare well.

Due to experience.

Study Pat Tillman.

How did he die?

Why?

War is hell.

It is barbaric.

It pushes the envelope in every direction.

War should be avoided.

Unless it is absolute necessary.

Oliver Stone almost loses the reins of this thing when Willem DaFoe dies.

Which is a shame.

Because DaFoe is magnificent in this film.

And so is Charlie Sheen.

Tom Berenger gives a powerful performance.

All men are sinners.

I don’t know how to fight.

But I know how to destroy.

There are no atheists in a foxhole.

As the saying goes.

We are on the frontline.

Have we been abandoned?

Power comes in owning your name.

In owning your actions.

In owning your words.

I am not anonymous.

If you fight, it is likely the man next to you will fight as well.

And the converse also holds.

Groupthink.

Bad.

But seething masses.

Good.

When directed.

CIMIC.

We don’t know if the war is still going on.

We might get off a few more rounds.

Before we are entirely disintegrated.

We have no comms.

How much do you want to win?

How badly do you want victory?

At what point have we become digital cannon fodder?

It went so fast.

Stabbed himself in the leg.

I missed it.

Thought he was stabbing a lingering enemy.

False-flagged his way home.

Where nations choose free market democracy, the USA must support them as much as possible.

Where nations are invaded by communism, the USA must protect those who have communism forced upon them.

The war is about to start in earnest.

-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

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne [1945)

Bresson has been slaying me recently.

First Balthazar, and now this.

They are similar.

Films which seem boring.

You watch them once.  They wash over you.  Very little effect.

And then you are stranded at the end of the world.

Just you and Górecki’s third symphony.

Yes, you pack away some life beneath your belt.

You ingest the poison trickery of the world.

Et voila!

The film comes to life.

All the Frenchies start out looking the same in black and white.

You furiously follow the subtitles.

But the film presents meaning the second time around.

First were the forms.

A donkey.  Some sluts.  Bad memory.

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is so forgettable the first time around.

All we remember is the Bois.

Conflated with some lines of Céline’s Voyage…

But this is the real deal.

Maria Casarès was like the Alida Valli of The Paradine Case here.

Indeed, it just may be that Hitchcock lifted the essence of his criminally underrated film (no pun intended) from Bresson’s minor masterpiece of two years previous.

Whatever the case may be, Casarès is absolutely diabolical as Hélène.

Revenge is a dish best served.

Simmer, reduce, garnish, and serve.

Revenge revenge revenge.

And yet we feel for Hélène.

And so in the grand mystery of the spheres we wonder, “What is God if not an impossible camera angle?”

A crumpled note.

Our hearts torn to shreds.

And always raining.

Like some goddamned B-movie with a thunder sheet in the wings.

If I didn’t hook you at first, then you’re not still with me.

HOW TO BLOG:

brevity.

The oppression of Twitter.

So we must think of the greatest tricks of all time.

The recent Microsoft Tay psyop.  To make Trump and his followers look stupid.

As if he needs any help.

But a very real conspiracy none the less.

For some events are so transparent.

And some pure whores like  Agnès (Elina Labourdette) have that bullshit detection meter straight out of The Shining.

Preternatural, if not supernatural.

We might think we’re being tricked.

Too good to be true IS.

“Deceit deceives itself.”  Guy Debord.  D.N. Smith.

It is a very delicate story.

The crystallization of immense pain.

Vanity, yes.

But also human nature.  Survival of the ego.

A hurt so deep as to propel plans.  Special plans.  Operations.

Some countries blow up their own cities.

The old “self-inflicted wound” ploy…as Clouseau would call it.

Orwell was very clear about this in 1984.  The government is firing rockets at its own people.

Because it is only natural to assume an outside enemy as culpable, the true authors slip by.

And as the narrative becomes codified and accepted…and everyone has come back to the NFL, and hockey, and soccer…then the beast can’t be disturbed.

The beast which knows not its own power.

The beast whose abuse rises from below.

The Lilliputians in charge condescend upwards.

All bark and no bite.

And the beast bites the wrong lands.

Afghanistan.  Iraq.

With each passing year the creation myth (9/11) requires inference upon inference upon inference to justify the next humanitarian bombing.

Libya.  Syria.

Very few understand the importance of replacing due process with death by Hellfire missile.

Yemen.

No wonder the video game makers consult with the Pentagon.

A seamless transition from energy drinks in mom’s basement to the joysticks of drone strikes.

Far afield.

From those ladies.

Those ladies who have been used.

Sold a false bill of goods.

A very sloppy expression.  Arcane.

Left dangling like a modifier.

And so we want to go back to a simpler time.

Before we gave up on our dreams (in the blink of an eye).

I call out to cold regions.  Cold rooms.

I call out to cold hearts.  Mixed response.

But the one true miracle is to push onwards.

No more sugar-coating the shite she dished out.

She was a real bitch.

And I was as mad as any painterly glass of absinthe ever existed.

I can’t forget.

No, never.

But I can forgive.

Not much here to steal or ruin.

A very marginal existence.

I can sleep because of a girl.

A dream of a girl.

A girl I don’t even know.

She is hope.

A sort of personification of liberty.

And when will we revolt from this life and bolt?

One step at a time.

Not hasty.

So many years piled on my shoulders.

This is, by the way, a film review.

Not caring how ridiculous I look.

Take your best shot.

World, shut your mouth.

I was no trick.

I’ve been desperate.  Money troubles.  My ethics in the gutter.

But given a second chance by the universe I made an important decision.

To be boring.

A few days longer.

Some dreams worth chasing, others are a disease.

People over profit.

Sign me up, Chomsky!

Better get right with the lord.

Or git hit in yer soul.

It’s easy.  Chomsky won’t touch 9/11.

And Alex Jones won’t touch Israel.

It’s easy.

Why?  Same team, different squads.

I don’t care.

Not being run down by no third-rate psyop.

Fuck your Godwin’s law.

This was 1945.

An odd year to be jilted.

 

-PD