Tropic Thunder [2008)

Jim Marrs fought the good fight.

Straight out of The Party.

And later Being There.

Full retard.

Ritardando.

Waiting with bated breath.

After just five days.

Seven days in May.

I didn’t recognize Tom Cruise.

Impressive invective.

What is it with these Scientologists?

Why they gotta be such good fuckin’ actors?

Travolta.

And musicians.

Beck.

Never mind.

Fuck ’em!

A bunch of nut jobs!!

‘Bout to rub tiger balm on this bitch.

Coogan spontaneously combusts.

But he had the right idea.

Strait out of Spies Like Us.

Strait out of The Three Amigos.

Massive influence of John Landis on Edgar Wright.

But here, Ben Stiller.

Straight out of Blair Witch.

Homage-o-meter.

Like Pavement.

I can relate.

Restecp.

Dgfffcf.

Real bullets.

One round.

Rock and road.

Full metal jacket.

Guarding the poppy fields in Afghanistan.

Pat Tillman.

Now comes the pain.

Why were McConnell and McCain in Burma?

ASSK.

toBurma.

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23471

First Secretary of State to visit Myanmar in 50 years.

Big feather in her cap.

She came, she saw, he died.

Her foreign policy achievements.

Think the CIA isn’t capable of stoking race riots?

Princess Diana.

Is this real world or exercise?

NEADS.

NORAD.

USSF.

Child soldiers.

Borat with video record.

VHS.

No more LARPing.

Thoughtful Americans can no longer have any confidence in the U.S. voting system…unless they are Democrats.

Which may be mutually exclusive to “thoughtful”.

Regardless, the machines are rigged for Democrats.

Democrats never get in trouble.

Especially the big ones like Hillary.

But also the ones like Ruby Freeman (who get $100 to stuff the ballot box).

Just as busted as Derek Chauvin.

Ruby Freeman with her knee on the neck of our vote.

And Shaye Moss.

Asphyxiating democracy at the State Farm Arena in the early morning hours of November 4, 2020.

And Ralph Jones Sr.

And an as-yet-to-be-identified fourth suspect.

Suspected of committing massive ballot fraud.

The whole country has seen it.

But Ruby Freeman walks free (apparently).

No consequences.

Because she’s a Democrat.

And it would be racist to not let a black woman cheat.

Maybe there was no Q.

Or maybe Q is about to unleash hell.

Don’t ask me.

I don’t know.

Consigned to play the role of Simple Jack for eternity.

Colonel Kurtz, I presume.

Loyalty.

Are there shifts?

I love America.

But my vote no longer counts in America.

Because of Ruby Freeman and (even more so) Dominion Voting Systems.

But also Hart InterCivic.

By way of the SolarWinds hack.

[Austin]

And even ES&S.

Why was Smartmatic interested in Burma’s vote in 2015?

Twitter.

IMG_7614

You think we are weak and defeated.

QAnon was merely boot camp for digital soldiers.

Willing to die.

How die?

Rounded up by Biden’s death squads.

How die?

Targeted by Antifa.

How die?

Imprisoned on trumped up charges.

Better to burn out than to fade away.

Rust never sleeps.

Never stops oxidizing.

We know you, but do you know us?

We took down the Soviet Union with rock and roll.

Who are we?

We scoured Zbig’s big tell.

We will win the culture war.

You squash us, but we are Levi’s jeans in Gorky Park.

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

You have to have balls.

To be a rock and roller.

Fuck it.

Let it roll.

Heads.

Call it in the air.

Tumbling into the basket.

Fish and loaves.

By the power of Jesus Christ.

We rebuke you.

Satan.

Q-uantico.

Larry Silverstein.

What a disgusting prick.

Human slime.

Warren Buffett too.

NetJets in Flight 93 neighborhood.

Nearest bird.

Golf tournament.

At Offutt AFB?

Lloyd Austin giving Donald Rumsfeld a run for his money.

As most pathetic, treasonous SecDef in U.S. history.

Forrestal is rolling in his grave while quoting Ajax.

Frank Olson has never been avenged.

What does Fort Detrick make of COVID-19?

Asymmetric?

Certainly unrestricted.

Warfare.

False-flag STAND DOWN.

Fake woke.

Lloyd Austin.

Traitor.

Trained actors.

Trained musicians.

Trained artists.

Information warfare.

Strategic intelligence.

CIA is Wall Street.

Hit ’em where it hurts.

GameStop.

Game continue.

The kabuki of war.

Willing to die.

Because I love George Washington.

And I love “one person, one vote”.

Because I am not a slave.

King Gary.

Gay.

Something in the Civil War.

Fog.

Bridge wired.

Stabbed by Mini Me.

War is hell.

All is fair.

I cannot accept a fake president.

How am I to participate in democracy if my vote no longer counts?

I lack “standing”.

My state lacks “standing”.

And all Democrats (and most Republicans) have also passed the buck.

Shirked their duties.

There is no justice at the Department of Justice.

But I still believe in the FBI.

I don’t believe in Comey.

I don’t believe in McCabe.

I don’t believe in Strzok (or his wife who just got a cherry position at the SEC).

I don’t believe in Lisa Page.

Clinesmith handling is a blatant double standard.

I still believe in the military.

I believe in law enforcement.

I shall remain peaceful.

I ask for the help of the military.

I ask for the help of law enforcement.

Make us proud.

Go out on the same limbs we do.

I have nothing in this life.

I am a “racist” just because I voted for Trump.

I need to be “deprogrammed”.

I need to be “re-educated”.

I will fight till my last day.

The word is mightier than the sword.

-PD

 

Twin Peaks “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer” [1990)

By way of progressing my survey of David Lynch’s masterpiece television series, I would like to direct your attention to a film which I will likely not review in the normal sense.

That film is The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

There’s some rubbish about POM Wonderful which officially fills out the title.

I wouldn’t be a Jewish mother if I didn’t worry about such stuff.

David Lynch was right to introduce Michael J. Anderson 11 years before MJA’s portrayal of Larry Silverstein premiered at Cannes.

The whole thing came to me in a dream.

The collapse of the stritch and manzello.

In a dream I saw the bright shining genius of Morgan Spurlock.

The birth of Chomsky and Nader.

Putting a word to beauty:  Mädchen Amick.

Miss or missy.  Little maid.

Mademoiselle.

In dreams wiped clean like São Paulo.

Or Tibet.

Martin Lindstrom is following closely the amygdala.

60 feet and 6 inches from a damn good cup of coffee.

Mark Crispin Miller rightly brings up “the spectacle” (I SEE you…).

Miguel Ferrer is a perfect Rosenfield.

No one uses Mane ‘n Tail on queer street.

It’s hard to pin down further.

Brilliance and brilliances.

Courage to be clever.

A place to fit within the business world.

The disruptive innovation of two auteurs.

Spurlock and Lynch.

Fact and fiction or faction.

Slice of life and life of slices.

Sad for what we’ve lost.  And hopeful for what we’ll gain.

Hard work.  Optimism.  Artistic integrity.

Marketing is no less surreal than a Shetland pony speaking through backmasking (and subtitles).

A kiss from Sheryl Lee.

Perhaps there is no other way to convey the savant fullness of Kyle MacLachlan than through such an oblique strategy.

 

-PD

 

 

Pickpocket [1959)

Writing about film makes you appreciate the film.

You think.

What will I say about this picture?

This succession of pictures.

Sounds.

And so silently you ponder the ways to express true genius.

And how lucky we are to witness true genius.

It’s true.

The Criterion Collection has brought us many films which otherwise might have been forgotten.

Film didn’t begin with The Godfather.

It doesn’t end with Citizen Kane.

And so we need to see the other stuff.

We need to hear voices from outside of America.

Hollywood is international, to be sure, yet everything which enters there leaves marked.

It is a sentiment which Godard expressed in his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.

And this is the other stuff.

Robert Bresson.

You might only know Henri-Cartier Bresson.  Don’t stop there.

Robert Bresson was the master of taking non-actors and capturing their vitality on film.

Pickpocket does justice to Uruguay as much as did Isidore Ducasse (which is to say, completely).

Martin LaSalle, a young Urugayan-French actor in his film debut, plays the lead role here of the pickpocket Michel.

LaSalle’s eggshell acting is essential to this masterpiece.

Yet, it is director Bresson who brings the ballet of crime to life.

Yes, it is like Orson Wells doing his magic tricks in F for Fake (his magnum opus).

Indeed, everything has an art.  Even crime.

And as paper currency disappears from the industrialized world we see the migration of subway thieves to the ether in an attempt to pilfer Apple Pay “money”.

Yes, I’m afraid that soon everything will need quotes around it.

Perhaps I just don’t understand.

But, there is an art to everything.

Take accounting, for instance:  the most boring subject invented by human beings.

And yet, there is an “art” to it…I’m sure…somewhere…deep, deep down inside.

But Pickpocket is of a different era.

Perhaps computer hacking and financial calculator operations require a certain finger dexterity, but nothing like the prestidigitation which Bresson brings to life in this film.

It is a noiseless ballet of lifts, drops, catches, exchanges, etc.  Buttons flicked.  Buckles finessed in one motion.

It reminds me of the one true line in Goldfinger…perhaps the only genuinely cinematic moment in that film (though I love the other 99% pulp)…

Delivered by the title character, as played by Gert Fröbe, it goes a little something like this:

“Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He’s fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor… except crime!”

Ahhh…the rolled Rrrrs of that final word.  Like H.W.’s brief year at Langley.  Like Kissinger at Iron Mountain.  Ah!  But here we run into a problem.

Hoaxes.  Like Sandy Hook.  Like Hani Hanjour.

And will Donald Trump have the balls to read a book?  Perhaps Webster Griffin Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror:  Made in USA?

I doubt it.

Is Trump a provocateur or merely provocative?

Because if he shot his mouth off a little more pointedly he’d have my vote.

And I would stand with my immigrant brothers and sisters every day to see Dick Cheney take the stand.  Under oath.

And Philip Zelikow.  Under oath.

And Donald Rumsfeld.  Under oath.

And Larry Silverstein.  And Rudy Giuliani.  And Richard Myers.

Somebody else did it?  Then you got nothing to worry about.

Unravel unravel unravel.

Because Trump is wrong about immigration.

And Bernie Sanders is right about Snowden.

And I don’t like Trump or Sanders.

But Trump is the only one even tangentially touching on the real issue:  truth.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Off the rails. Film review.

C’est la vie.

Conspiracy.

Don’t mind me.

I will just go back to watching films.

Go back to sleep.

Nothing to see here.

-PD

Mulholland Dr. [2001)

How not to start a symphony.  With a rest.  #5 (7)j j-j o ^ (7)j j-j o

Beethoven started with a pause.  A pause, in this case, is unheard.  Felt.

No hay banda.

Il y a n’est pas d’orchestre.

I wish I was more confident in my French memory.

The Spanish is simpler.

[silencio]

It could be Roberto Benigni in La vita è bella reeling off a priceless punchline.

[silencio]

It could be John Cage forcing us to listen in 4’33”.

Painfully good.  A perfect film.  Mulholland Drive.  Dr. Mulholland.

I’ve either gained you or lost you by this point.

Dr. Benway.

You will excuse the word virus at work.

Perhaps the word bacteria predates Burroughs.

Always a cut-up in class.

And those classy suits.

It’s a talent to be weird, though Charles Mingus would argue otherwise.

A talent to be simple.

You have to stay with me like Lord Buckley or Lester Bangs.

I got yer Oxford comma right here.

, and don’t I know it!

She takes Hayworth’s name from Gilda.

Rita.

Laura Elena Harring.  Laura Harring if you’re into the whole brevity thing.  Concision of expression.  Bthvn.

If you really wanna impress the familia, it’s Laura Elena Martínez Herring.  Miss USA 1985.  Just missed 1984.

Or well, Wilbur…

Mr. Ed.  Paging Mr….

Herring.  Pink.  She is a living Modigliani onscreen for a brief moment on a couch.  A stippled nipple in deep focus.

But this is not her film.  She is a MacGuffin in heels.

No.  This is Naomi Watts’ film.  Boy is it ever!

But let us pop this balloon before it goes all Vivre sa vie on us.

Is this the best Amer-ican film ever made?  Probably.

Dog Star Man has a steep mountain to climb without a soundtrack to blow Sisyphus to his zenith.

F for Fake is to American cinema what Histoire(s) du cinema is to the French pantheon.

The only real challenger, then, might be Gummo.

But let us return to Maestro Lynch.  David Lynch.  Montana Dave.  The Cowboy…

This is, to reiterate, a perfect film.  Such creations do not come along often.

As such, we should savor each morsel of finesse embodied in this feast for eyes and mind.

And don’t forget the ears.  Badalamenti.  Badda bing, badda boom.

What would Chico Marx have made of this film???

Who cares…  It’s Chico stuffed into a dough ball suitcase with $50k and Groucho and Harpo mashed up

with even a good portion of Zeppo as Little Mr. Sunshine in Naomi Watts’ first character Betty Elms.

Nightmare on Elms’ street.

Mulholland Dr.

Great minds think alike.  Cannes premier of this film May 16, 2001.  Radiohead’s Amnesiac album?  June 5, 2001.

Rita.  Camille.  Diane Selwyn.

Kryptos.  Jim Sanborn.  Mengenlehreuhr.

Set theory.

(0,2,3,5)  Le Sacre du printemps.

Spitting espresso into a napkin, strikes fear in the hearts of the most hardened capitalists.

Fear.

The Flower That Drank the Moon.  Not a real film.

The Big Sleep.  She.  H. Rider Haggard.  Angel-A.

Finnegans, upon waking, diapasoned Wachet auf.

Just call me Death.  Everyone else does.

We don’t stop here.

We push on.  Like Gene Wilder on a magical fucking river of chocolate.

You can’t split the existential atom any further.  Kubrick tried in 2001.  And now Lynch had arrived at the same year.

If you open a MacGuffin, you will find nothing.

I have a bag full of money and I can’t remember my name.  That is Hollywood.

This is the girl.

And the gun.

24x per second.

Truth before the big lie even sprouted wings.  L’Effroyable imposture.  Vérités et Mensonges.

It’s like the old Edison tone tests.  Hit the lights.  Who’s playing?  The phonograph or the violinist?

Like looking at L.A. through Roy Orbison’s glasses.  A blur…a haze.

No one has split the literary atom any further than Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

[…]

Those three little dots.

The rhythm of speech.  From Modest Mussorgsky to Harry Partch.

Boris Godunov was lousy so we had to shave his armpits.

We would have never gotten to know each other so well, Boris and I.  Henry.  Mr. Bones.

Yeah, I keep on sloggin’ and get diminishing marginal returns.

Just a fancy way of saying less and less.  Nothing (more or less).

And then nothing turns itself inside out.

Naomi Watts goes from gee swell to Valerie Solanas.

The key.  CERN.  When they rev it up.

What does it open?

Möbius (stripped bare by his bachelorettes), even

[The Large Hadron Collider]

Mimesis.  Die a Jesus.

Greatest goal in life?

To achieve immortality and then die.

J. Hoberman.  J. Mascis.  J. Spaceman.

Putrefaction is merely Der Untergang des Abendlandes.  The decline of the evening lands.

Rises east, sets The West.

Civility.

L’Usine de rêves.

That killer blonde that we all want.  From Kim Novak to Daniel Craig.

Monty Montgomery.  Hope you only see him once more.

Good v. Bad, 410 U.S. 113 (2001)

The abortion of Newtonian physics.

Twice.

Thrice.

Michael J. Anderson as Larry Silverstein.

We don’t stop here.

This is the girl.

Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.

And we watched the building collapse.

That would be the shadow government.

An accident is a terrible event—notice the location of the accident.

Who gives a key, and why?

-PD