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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secret Agent [1936)

If this is propaganda, it is among the most artful of all time.  For it seems to emanate from the mind of an individualist and patriot.  Alfred Hitchcock.

We get our subject material from Somerset Maugham.  Ashenden.

“The wrong man!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”  Thus laughs “the General” Peter Lorre…a sort of lovable psychopath (if such a thing is possible).  Yes, the wrong man.  It is to Hitchcock’s oeuvre what prostitution is to Jean-Luc Godard’s.  But it is a grotesque moment.  The wrong man.  In this case, it went all the way:  they killed the wrong man.  Just an innocent old man with a wife and a dog.  All in a day’s work for a covert operative…Lorre’s laughter seems to tell us.

No.  Lorre is no typical agent.  He’s a hitman.  He doesn’t mind killing.  In fact, he kind-of enjoys it.  Takes pride in his craft (as it were).  Very clean, he says…strangling, a knife…no guns…too noisy.

But let’s back up to John Gielgud.  To make a spy, you kill the man.  It is quasi-Christian.  The old is gone.  Behold, the new has come.

The perfect spy has no past.  This sort of agent wakes up to read his own obituary.  Before long, he has a new identity.

Though this film predates WWII, its subject matter of WWI is certainly infused with the building tension of a second continent-wide conflagration.

And again we witness James Bond far before Ian Fleming birthed him.  The milieu is the same.  Gielgud reports to “R”…like the “M” we would all come to know and love.  And of course Lorre…himself an M of another type (see Fritz Lang).

Trouble in the Middle East.  Why can’t it be Tahiti?  Where’s Leonard Bernstein when you need him???

“The Hairless Mexican” a.k.a. “The General” Peter Lorre…kinda like the Federal Reserve:  not Federal and no reserves.  Yes, Lorre is quite hirsute.  As for his rank, it is as dubious as his other winning personality traits.

Gielgud’s not very careful…right from the start.  I suppose they should have trained the chap in the dark arts before sending him out into the field.  At least the field is Switzerland (Allen Dulles’ future stomping grounds).

Back to our Bond parallels…the gorgeous Madeleine Carroll, like Eva Green in Casino Royale, stipulates a separate-bed rule as part of her cover (Gielgud’s “wife”).  We wonder whether her character, like Hitchcock and Green’s Vesper Lynd, is of Catholic upbringing.

But for the main course…we get some rather convincing ethics from Hitchcock–a morality which we would scarcely see again in the future of film through to the 21st century.  To wit, espionage is the dirtiest of jobs.  Never mind the old trick of digging though a rubbish bin:  the whole operation is filthy and loused up with sickening concessions.  Hitchcock gets right to the point quite forthright:  murder.  Many of the darkest jobs are just that!  One can spin it anyway one wants, but it is still cold-blooded.

It’s not all fun and games, Gielgud tries to convey to Madeleine.  If you’re here for a thrill, you’d best recalibrate your perspective:  things are about to get real ugly!

It is some scary shit.  Imagine Olivier Messiaen and Giacinto Scelsi collaborating with Morton Feldman for a 45 second piece.  It’s called Sonata for Corpse and Organ.  Their contact has been murdered.  The assassin pulled out all the stops.  Just after the prelude, a fugue of struggle ensued which left a button from the killer’s garments clutched in the dead organist’s hand.  We get a rich, chromatic chord until Gielgud and Lorre realize there’s far too little harmonic rhythm to this chorale.  The bloke’s been whacked (slumped upon the keys).

This button, a single-use MacGuffin, leads them to offing the wrong man.  Poor old Percy Marmont…

At this, Gielgud is ready to quit…sickened by the thought of having innocent blood on his hands.  Credit Madeleine Carroll with a nice performance…especially when she plays the straight (horrified) woman to Lorre’s laughter.

And so, again like Casino Royale, Gielgud and Carroll (madly in love) decide to dispense with the whole mission and pack it in (complete with a resignation letter to “R” from Gielgud).

I won’t give away too much.  Lorre is fantastic:  both ridiculously awkward in his humor and deft in his acting.

Unfortunately, the artfulness of the film which Hitchcock had lovingly built up is marred by a somewhat daft, abrupt ending.

Like this.

-PD