Boogie Nights [1997)

Something big is going down.

A country is getting taken down.

And that country is the USA.

It is getting taken down using methods suspiciously-similar to those used by the CIA in their regime change activities around the world.

Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile…

You know their work.

But this time it’s different.

Just as the American intelligence community was weaponized by President Barack Obama against Presidential candidate (and President-Elect) Donald Trump, so is the Deep State (chockfull of former CIA officers) now attempting to bring down the United States to save their asses.

Does China have any reason to attempt to totally destroy the United States AT THIS TIME?

No.  [but they are a part of (willing accomplice to) the takedown]

Does Russia have any reason to attempt to totally destroy the United States AT THIS TIME?

No.

Is there any intelligence organization in the world capable of orchestrating the total war to which the United States has been subjected over the past three months?

Only China and Russia.

And perhaps Israel.

But Israel has absolutely no reason to attempt to depose their greatest ally (Donald Trump).

Iran does not have the capability or sophistication.

Nor does North Korea.

[and North Korea, even if they had the capability (which they do not), has no reason to run a regime change campaign against the most formidable counterintelligence apparatus in the world AT THIS TIME]

And so that leaves us but one “country”:  a country within a country.

The American (Globalist) Deep State.

It is almost synonymous with the CIA.

And the CIA’s methods and signatures are all over the multi-pronged onslaught we have witnessed these past months.

It’s not necessary at this time to point out the biggest players.

Soros?  Yes.

The Clintons?  Yes.

Obama?  Yes.

Bill Gates?  Yes.

What is most important is to locate the quarterback.

And that man is (in my opinion) none other than former Director of the CIA John Brennan.

There are other traitors involved.

But let’s outline the structure of what we have endured:

  1.  Biological Warfare–Here, China sacrificed one of its own cities [Wuhan] to create plausible deniability that they were in any way waging offensive BIOWAR.  As China miraculously shielded the rest of ITS country from COVID-19, they made sure the virus made it (in droves) to the homeland of their arch nemesis:  the USA
  2. Economic Warfare–Here, the Deep State (with a giddy China looking on) watched as the U.S. economy ground to a halt because of COVID-19.  Record unemployment.  All economic activity ceased.  The greatest economy on Earth was ruined (for the time being).  Each U.S. citizen received a pittance of $1,200 which has not been enough to really sustain anyone.
  3. Psychological Warfare–The masses of Americans were told to stay home.  They were cooped up in their houses for two months.  They had nothing to do.  No place to go.  Underlying depressions and anxieties were exponentially amplified.  The populace grew frustrated.  Most of all, the PANIC was conveyed daily by news organizations with heavy connections to the CIA and Democratic Party.  This propaganda terrorized the populace into being afraid to leave their homes–being afraid even to breathe.
  4. Divide and Conquer–Whether the death of George Floyd was a real or synthetic (staged) event, the news coverage would have been the same.  In terms of planning, it is likely that the event never took place at all.  But for the sake of argument, let’s assume for a moment that a man named George Floyd actually did die as a result of an incompetent and cruel police officer.  Magically, the big bogeyman (COVID-19) WAS COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN.  All of a sudden, the pent-up rage and frustration and poverty (see #3 and #2) were activated.  This is the “match in a tinderbox” scenario.  After two months of wall-to-wall coverage of the coronavirus (which ostensibly killed 100,000 Americans by Memorial Day), ALL OF A SUDDEN…THE LIFE OF ONE MAN (george floyd) has become more important than the lives of the 100,000 coronavirus victims (assuming that death toll is accurate [which it is not…it is grossly-inflated]).

So what we have here is a VERY SOPHISTICATED campaign designed to remove Donald Trump from the Presidency.  Worst case scenario (for the Deep State), it is supposed to prevent him from being reelected.

It is also a last-ditch effort to save the asses of those Deep State members whose treason has been pinpointed and for whom justice may not be far off:

-Loretta Lynch

-Sally Yates

-John Brennan*

-James Clapper

-James Comey

-Andrew McCabe

-Bruce Ohr

-James Baker [FBI]

-Peter Strzok

-Lisa Page

-Rod Rosenstein

-Susan Rice

It is my guess that these will be the first pawns to fall.

John Brennan is very important.

More than a pawn (in some ways).

But still a pawn.

How deep will this go?

Barack Obama?

Hillary Clinton?

Bill Gates?

George Soros?

So much depends on each move in this chess game.

Which brings us to Boogie Nights.

There’s a riot goin’ on.

Each of us has a gift.

Heather Graham is great here.

Mark Wahlberg does a really nice job.

We get the Corvette.

Symbol of summer.

Porn with “plots”.

An admirable pursuit.

Burt Reynolds is really phenomenal in this film.

But like Lovelace, this tale of sexual freedom gets darker and darker as it goes along.

You got the touch.

Feel, feel, feel, feel my heat.

Darker and darker.

But very real.

There is a great realism to certain scenes here.

Paul Thomas Anderson really does an amazing job with this one.

Even the usually-vapid Julianne Moore has some actual moments of artful acting herein.

They’re taking her children away.

Black people can like country music.

Definitely a bit of Tarantino in the donut shop scene.

But Anderson is a far superior director to QT.

QT is very talented, but very overrated.

Lots of hype…very little timeless filmmaking.

Anderson is a much more solid auteur.

There is something of Aronofsky here too.

Funny thing is, Anderson got there first.

But Requiem for a Dream goes MUCH DEEPER into drug darkness.

And yet, Anderson paints a portrait of a period of time.

So vividly.

And the colors are washed out.

The soul-eating burn of cocaine is depicted as it really is:  torrid.

Desperate.

Exciting.

Elusive.

Utterly destructive.

Psychosis-inducing.

How many more nights will the “divide and conquer” boogie?

Military police.

82nd Airborne.

101st Airborne.

1st Infantry.

10th Mountain Division.

The United States is under attack…mainly from within.

China played a small (though not insignificant) role.

The main culprits are liberal globalists.

4B.

A second wave of coronavirus will hit the U.S.

This will happen as a result of the fake-news media pushing the narrative that one man’s death (george floyd) is more important than 100,000 ostensible fatalities.

The CIA/liberal media is distracting the country from being vigilant about hand washing, social distancing, etc.

And when will this second wave hit?

Right before November 3rd, perhaps?

 

-PD

Lovelace [2013)

“I know it when I see it”

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.

Obscene.

Pornography.

What is pornography?

As of two years ago, the sixth most visited site by American internet users was Pornhub.

https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-users-access-porn-more-than-twitter-wikipedia-and-netflix-2018-9

Two of the other top 15 sites for American internet users:  XNXX and XVideos.

The latter two sites are both owned by WGCZ Holding.

Pornhub is owned by MindGeek.

WGCZ Holding’s “country of origin” (?) is France, yet their headquarters is in Prague.

MindGeek’s “country of origin” [I suppose this means “where the company started”] is Canada, but its headquarters is in the country of Cyprus.

In our current coronavirus pandemic, it is not hard to find information about the world-wide INCREASE in pornographic viewing.

So it seems only fitting that we come to this wonderful film.

It is a beautiful film.

As beautiful as Amanda Seyfried.

But also a sad film.

Reminiscent at times of Requiem for a Dream.

There are moments, in both of these films, when their respective sadnesses could be viewed as “loss of the soul”.

In Requiem for a Dream, heroin steals souls.

In Lovelace, the porn industry threatens to steal Linda Lovelace’s soul.

But what we get in the movie Lovelace is something more specific.

Spousal abuse.

Domestic violence.

Human trafficking.

Sex slavery.

Spousal sexual abuse.

It’s not very titillating stuff.

It turns the stomach.

It’s like watching Ike and Tina as a fly on the wall.

I’ve seen Deep Throat.

I think it’s an excellent film.

But there is a dark underbelly.

Linda, it appears, was coerced (to put it mildly) into making the picture.

Lovelace (Seyfried) states near the end of our film that she was only in the porn industry for 17 days.

Yet she is probably the most famous porn star ever.

And not without good reason.

Whether it is accurate or not, Chuck Traynor (Linda’s husband) is portrayed as a scumbag.

A creep.

A really bad dude.

There is agenda setting in Lovelace.

We are SUPPOSED to see Traynor as bad.

Which makes me suspicious.

The subtlety of Dostoyevsky is nowhere to be found.

Linda good.  Chuck bad.

Perhaps that is the whole story, but it would be an unlikely black and white moment in a world of gray.

But let’s enter the world of color for a moment.

Amanda Seyfried is so beautiful in this film.

And it is beautifully shot by cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards.

Interestingly, we have two directors on record as having helmed Lovelace:

Rob Epstein and

Jeffrey Friedman.

Which brings us to a familiar story.

Jeffrey Epstein.

If we go further, we realize that Hugh Hefner is played in Lovelace by James Franco.

There’s something going on here.

I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Chloë Sevigny plays a brief role in Lovelace.

Sevigny performs actual oral sex on actor/director Vincent Gallo in his film The Brown Bunny.

What are we seeing here?

How long has this been going on?

It’s clear by this wonderful movie, Lovelace, that Deep Throat brought pornography into the mainstream.

But since then, it has still hidden…and peeked around corners.

It is everywhere.

It is pervasive.

Perhaps it has lost some of its taboo.

But it is still widely regulated.

And ACTUAL hardcore PORNOGRAPHY is still rarely seen in Hollywood films.

So what do we have here?

We have Amanda Seyfried looking beautiful.

We have actors reminiscing on older actors.

We have a major industry paying homage to a minor industry which is itself becoming a major industry (especially during the coronavirus pandemic).

But I’m here to talk cinema.

Lovelace is cinema.

It skirts in and out of being a masterpiece.

Some scenes are timeless.

Others are a little clumsy.

I would say it is well worth a view.

What is particularly interesting is the role that parental judgement plays in Lovelace and Requiem for a Dream.

In Requiem…, the parental element is more of a reference.

But both movies evoke sadness.

Parents want the best for their children.

Most parents probably don’t want their children to grow up to be heroin addicts or porn actors.

There is genuine heartbreak in both of these films.

Kudos to Robert Patrick for playing Linda’s father.

He verges on a caricature of Chris Cooper in American Beauty.

But Patrick is better.  Warmer.  More human.

Wes Bentley is here in Lovelace.

As he was in American Beauty.

Then there was Kevin Spacey…in American Beauty.

And flying around with Jeffrey Epstein.

And Thora Birch was in American Beauty.

And her mom was in Deep Throat.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

It is a very weird spiral.

An almost-invisible web.

What does it mean?

If Trump wins the next election, we have a chance of finding out.

We are ready to unleash hell.

 

-PD

Hateship, Loveship [2014)

This one is a mind-bender.

I must admit…I thought I was watching a Weinstein brothers production.

I know, I know.

But the truth is, I went through several mediocre films to find this gem.

Truly Strange:  The Secret Life of Breasts.  Nope.

3rd World Cops.  ¡Ay, carambas!

The Girl in the Book.  Non.

The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq. Extrême ennui.

Zoom.  Ugh…

Say It Isn’t So.  No thanks.

Lovelace.  Not quite.

And finally the film under consideration:  Hateship, Loveship.

At some point I saw the Weinstein brothers’ names.

I can’t seem to pin it down.

But suffice it to say that it certainly wasn’t in relation to the film under review.

Which is to say, finding a good film can be a lot of work.

And reading this review is probably a lot of work as well.

But I hope I save you some small measure of time.

And perhaps guide you to a cinematic treasure which you might have otherwise overlooked.

I have nothing against the Weinstein brothers.

I know hardly anything about them.

But somehow it stuck.

“I’m watching a Weinstein brothers film,” I thought.

But as this minor masterpiece progressed, I further mused, “My goodness, these guys don’t just make crap with explosions.”

Let’s take a short look.

Inglorious Basterds.  One of the worst films ever made.

The Imitation Game.  Good one.

St. Vincent.  Not good.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno.  Meh.

So I would have been right to be incredulous.

Upon further review.

Considering that the Weinstein brothers have largely saturated the world with unwatchable crap.

But Hateship, Loveship is a different story.

To reiterate, this film has nothing to do with the esteemed Weinsteins.

I’m sure they are honorable fellows.

It was just my tired brain which mistook a very fine film (something which they are unaccustomed to making) for one of theirs.

Indeed, it appears the big cheese responsible for this quite stellar film (which grossed a whopping $80,588 [sic] at the box office) was a chap by the name of Michael Benaroya.

And I can honestly say, whatever he sunk into the project was money well-spent.

The direction, by Liza Johnson, is really remarkable.

A lesser film critic would make some comparison to The Truman Show and call it a day.

But I aspire to more.

The connection is simple.

Jim Carrey (once upon a time) tried to do dramatic acting.

The result was The Truman Show.

A good-to-mediocre film.

He’s probably done other “dramatic” stuff, but I could really give a fuck.

In OUR film, a funny lady tells no jokes.

Yes, not to be too murderously-cryptic…but Kristen Wiig plays it straight here.

And she is fucking fantastic!!!

I don’t know where this side of her acting prowess came from (though I did notice her range in, strangely, a film called Paul [2011]), but I must assume that some of the credit for this performance goes to director Johnson.

But still…Kristen Wiig really nails it here!

It’s one of those strange things…

I kept waiting for her to burst out with some goofy impersonation, but no.

And so this film has a sort of tension to it if you know Ms. Wiig as the brilliant comedienne she is.

The story is hard to sum up.

Scrubbing floors…

Scrub scrub scrub.

Little House on the Prairie.  [d’accord]

Yes.

Wiig’s character is a plain Jane.

She’s a maid.  A housekeeper.

In the beginning, she’s a sort of live-in hospice caretaker.

But I think the best summation for her spirit might be “Protestant work ethic”.

Ahh, that Max Weber chestnut…

It’s a funny thing, though…

Elbow grease so often wins the day.

Indispensable to this tale (back to the movie) is Nick Nolte.

Here is an actor who has aged gracefully.

Like Bob Dylan.

That raspy voice…

He was perfectly cast as a man in need of some housekeeping.

But the really fascinating thing about this movie is the story.

And for that we must thank Alice Munro.

There’s a little bit of stolen identity here.

Internet-age fuckery.

Social engineering (in the sense familiar to “penetration testers”).

Put simply, this film goes because of a scam.

I won’t tell you how.  Or whom.

But it is even more tense and eggshell than waiting for Kristen Wiig to tell a joke.

But none of this would matter were it not for love.

Love is the cocoon which holds everything in.

Here.

That kind of love that makes you pack up all your things and head for the unknown.

That kind of love that makes you break the law.

That kind of love that has you end up in an abandoned motel in Chicago.

Yes, Chicago.

We get some Chicago here.

[Even if the film was shot in New Orleans.  Of which I’m only part certain.]

Our minds are in Chicago.

Because the story tells us we’re there.

And so we fear.

Busstops.

Trips to an unseen corner store.

Under a highway (for God’s sake!).

Love.

And trickery.

It is no innovation to point out that films are trickery.

Most films.

Fiction films.

With actors.

The kind you like.

But the best films make us suspend disbelief.

And this is one of those films.

We believe Kristen Wiig.  We believe Nick Nolte.

We believe the scumbag (played admirably by Guy Pearce).

We believe the cough.

We believe the cocaine on the toilet seat.

Sometimes it’s almost too precious–too perfect.

Too strained to be real.

But Liza Johnson is in firm control of her mise-en-scène.

So while the Weinstein brothers prepare for their “untitled Furby film [in association with Hasbro]”, the damage has already been done.

A little missile of truth has sunk the Hollywood battleship.

If, like me, you want to see something to which you can relate, then try this little slice of awkward loneliness.

Sometimes we just need a goddamned mirror to know we still exist.

-PD