Requisitos para ser una persona normal [2015)

The world has broken down.

Who can save it?

As we hope and dream.

Sometimes we get lucky.

And we find where we belong.

Barafundle.

She cut off a classmate’s finger with a katana.

And forever the story follows her.

She is weird.

It was an accident.

Maybe.

She is beautiful.

When her hair is messy.

Is there more than one version?

Of reality?

Drinking water and looking at lamps.

Leticia Dolera does an amazing job here behind the camera.

This is a very smart film.

Like a Catalan version of Napoleon Dynamite.

But love requires strength.

We have now a fight before us.

China-Joe Biden threatens our country.

Do your research.

Globalism is a rip-off.

Some smart people in the U.K. got their Brexit asses the fuck out of the E.U.

The E.U. is a rip-off.

It is a prison.

And China most CERTAINLY is a prison.

So I cannot support Joe Biden as President.

Especially when his votes went through Scytl to Frankfurt to be manipulated by the CIA.

But that’s just one way he cheated.

Scytl is based in Barcelona.

SOE Software of Florida was bought by Scytl.

Now they call it Clarity Elections.

We know votes from Michigan were sent over the internet.

People cast their votes on Dominion Voting Systems machines.

The machines were connected to the internet.

Against Michigan law.

Find the former state senator (Democrat) who agreed to be a poll-watcher for the Republicans in Wayne County.

Epoch times.

IKEA.

Sweden as heaven.

Texas and Spain.

We will soon find out if the world will go to shit.

Donald Trump is the only thing standing between the World Economic Forum and global domination.

China has infiltrated everything.

Global communism is coming.

It will be brutal.

There is one chance to stop it.

January 6th.

The world has been ruined by Chinese biological warfare.

Look up Chi Haotian.

Study him.

Deeper.

This is what China wanted.

The main target was the U.S.

Lock down Wuhan.

But let the flights leave.

Shroud in secrecy.

Human transmission.

Irregular biowar.

Human carriers.

Weaponized.

Willing to die for their country.

And now China has stolen our election as well.

What does Trump have left?

In his back pocket.

I will never apologize for being a fucktard.

I have enough degrees.

Two.

I give more references than most on social media.

I do not trust the CIA.

I do not trust George Soros.

I do not trust the ruling establishment in America who have made Donald Trump’s first four years a living hell.

I do not respect these “journalists”.

I am imperfect.

I struggle to keep it together.

I try to make good decisions.

China declared war on the whole world.

Fuck China.

And fuck all the Americans who have sold out for Chinese money.

Not me.

Fuck that.

Give me starvation.

Give me horror and misery.

I call on Jesus Christ.

Save our land from the monstrous evil of Satan.

Save our land from this evil that enshrouds us.

Hear our prayer.

We call to you, dear God, to deliver us from the absolute evil that presses us on all sides.

Do not let us fall.

May we be purified.

We know that you win in the end, dear Lord.

But as long as we are on this earth, we will fight for what is right.

We owe allegiance to You (above all things).

Our country was founded by men and women who called your name.

May we purify our country.

No more secret societies.

Please save our republic, dear Lord.

Please let us prevail against our oppressors.

Do not let our walls be overrun.

Give us strength for this battle.

Give us strength for the war ahead.

Bring us swift victory.

May suffering leave our land.

Dear Lord, release the kraken.

Please let justice materialize.

Please let patriots be united.

Please let wisdom prevail.

Please let foresight be brought to fruition.

Manuel Burque does a nice job in this film.

Leticia Dolera is as good on film as she is behind the camera.

Well worth a watch.

Requirements to Be a Normal Person.

Free to watch on Tubi.

-PD

Napapiirin sankarit [2010)

Here is a masterpiece.

Not since Aaltra (2004) has a movie so perfectly made use of the dark humor pioneered by Louis-Ferdinand Céline in Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932).

Lapland Odyssey is Finnish film which is currently free to watch on Tubi.

I cannot give enough praise to the director, Dome Karukoski.

This is not just a miraculous feat of storytelling, but the mise-en-scène of a true auteur.

I was born 15 days earlier than Mr. Karukoski: 43 years ago.

Our director hails from Cyprus.

Where Eric Schmidt has recently applied for citizenship.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/9/21547055/eric-schmidt-google-citizen-cyprus-european-union

Funny timing, that.

Wouldn’t Eric Schmidt welcome a Biden Presidency?

Does Mr. Schmidt fear something in the United States?

Perhaps the former CEO of Google knows something we do not?

Might it concern impending public corruption trials?

And, just maybe, a reelection of Donald Trump?

Lapland Odyssey premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010.

That was the same year that Toronto-based company Dominion Voting Systems acquired not only Premier Election Solutions (an American company [Ohio]) from ES&S (Election Systems & Software [Omaha, Nebraska]), but also Sequoia Voting Systems [California] from Smartmatic [U.K.].

PES had only been acquired by ES&S the previous year (2009). Before that, PES was owned by Diebold.

Premier Election Systems was formerly known as Diebold Election Systems.

Before Diebold bought it, it was known as General Election Systems.

Before General Election Systems bought it, it was known as I-Mark Systems.

You get the picture.

Dominion Voting Systems is now owned by American private equity firm Staple Street Capital (which has extremely strong ties to the Carlyle Group [George H.W. Bush’s former benefactor]).

https://www.osler.com/en/expertise/deals-cases/dominion-voting-systems

None of this would have been possible without Jussi Vatanen.

Vatanen is our hero.

He is tasked with the impossible.

Find a digital TV receiver (“digibox”) in one night.

After the local electronics store has closed.

This involves a trip to Rovaniemi: the main city of Lapland.

[population 63,032]

Hundred of kilometers to get to Finland’s 17th most populated city.

In Finland, Lapland is not only the northernmost province, but it is also the largest province of the country.

It bears mentioning that there is also a Swedish province called Lapland.

The cleavage of these two Laplands dates to 1809: when Russia annexed the eastern part of Sweden and declared it the Grand Duchy of Finland.

My closest brush with this region was a single musical concert I played years ago in the town of Kiruna (in Swedish Lapland): Sweden’s northernmost town [population 22,906].

It was an experience which profoundly changed me and which stays with me till this day.

Finnish Lapland borders Sweden’s Norrbotten County. At Norrbotten’s northernmost point can be found Kiruna (north of the Arctic Circle).

At the southeast corner of Norrbotten County is Piteå: my favorite town in Sweden.

The town of Piteå sits on the Gulf of Bothnia–just across the water from Finland.

I also played a musical concert in Piteå.

It was, perhaps, the happiest time in my life.

So I can imagine Rovaniemi.

A city just four miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Jussi Vatanen plays the loser who makes good.

Which makes him, in fact, not a loser.

I can intimately relate to that.

I have lost my job (again).

I am addicted to drugs (again).

And I am addicted to alcohol (a first for me).

It is in these days, when I am having the first true experience in my life with alcohol withdrawal, that I come to this film.

It is the perfect film.

It is just exactly the film I needed at this particular time.

Because I, like Janne (Vatanen’s character), am trying my damnedest to get my life together.

Last week, I got engaged.

Actually, REengaged.

I exercise (pacing back and forth in my parents’ garage as my phone records my steps).

I drink less.

I exercise.

I drink less.

Nausea.

Dizziness.

ANXIETY.

And extreme fucking INSOMNIA.

When I was in Kiruna, the sun only went down for four hours.

I didn’t see the Northern Lights.

But you can see them in this film.

And they are glorious.

If it is CGI, then I am losing my touch.

Because I don’t believe it is.

I appears to be the genuine article.

Aurora borealis.

And headaches!

Lots of sunflower seeds.

Big red welts all up and down my arms and torso from nicotine patches.

I can no longer afford my General Snus.

Sure, I have some stashed away…

But my wise old psychologist once told me: “just move one thing at a time”.

alcohol
tobacco
valerian?
Ambien?
Xanax?

I put question marks because I am unsure of the order.

Main goal is STOP DRINKING.

Or, should I say, the FIRST goal.

If I can get an MBA, surely I can stop drinking.

[God willing]

For every hero, there needs to be a doubter.

To provide context.

The hero forges forward (when it would probably be best to just quit).

The hero quits (when it would be much easier to just continue).

The hero is determined.

The hero gives energy and inspiration to those around him.

But the doubter adds richness.

Because it is human to doubt.

Will Donald Trump be reelected President?

We will find out when the Electoral College meets on my birthday to ELECT a new President-Elect.

Till then, Joe Biden is at best the worst kind of poseur.

He is doing exactly what he promised Chris Wallace and the American people he WOULD NOT do: to declare victory before the election is independently certified.

What a hypocrite.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-victory-election-independently-certified

Each state certifies its vote.

Biden does not have enough votes at the moment (by way of certified state votes and their concomitant electors) to declare victory.

N.B. It is the Electoral College which will ELECT the next President (who THEN AND ONLY THEN becomes known as the President-Elect).

And so we doubt.

Me and Jasper Pääkkönen.

Was there fraud?

I believe so.

And you may doubt in the other direction.

Was there fraud?

You doubt there was.

But I know there was.

Because I have basic research skills.

And I availed myself of Rudy Giuliani’s masterful delineation of the case for fraud.

[no thanks to American mass media (which completely blacked out all coverage of Giuliani’s press conference with Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis)]

So we all doubt, each in our own way.

And someone may convince us.

The law may even compel us.

The U.S. Supreme Court may weigh in on the legality of certain ballots in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Cold states.

Particularly Michigan and Wisconsin.

Fort Meade.

4thPOG.

Dark Horse.

Fly fishing.

Fort Bragg.

Timo Lavikainen is the late-bloomer.

Along for the ride.

But absolutely essential.

Able to love.

You must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Sibelius.

Karelia.

1893.

News of war.

Siege.

National anthem.

At some point we might mention the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Which lasted about 500 years (until 1795).

For beauty, we have Pamela Tola.

She just wants a fucking digibox, for christsakes!

Something about those blonde bangs.

Then there is the villain.

A bit like Alex “Scott Evil” Soros.

A bit like Martin Vanger.

Kari Ketonen plays the boy who never got anything.

…and let it make him evil.

He plays the cheater.

The trickster.

A character with absolutely no morals.

Strictly driven by lust.

[and a good bit of narcissism]

He comes off looking a bit like Kip in another masterpiece of a film: Napoleon Dynamite.

Imagine Kip as an irredeemably-unscrupulous character and you will have a pretty good idea of who Pikku-Mikko is.

Little Mikko.

Short.

Short people.

Randy Newman.

Mikko moves in for the kill while the matrimonial bed is still warm.

Mikko false-flags his way into manipulating his enemy.

Mikko is a master of PSYWAR.

But God wins in the end.

And Moa Gammel is the real star of this film.

In a strange way.

Principal siren.

Debussy.

A Swede.

Almost the doppelgänger of Pamela Tola.

The Swede is the world image of beauty.

Alluring.

Beckoning.

The Finn is more quixotic.

Cute.

Harsh.

Soulful.

None of this, of course, means a damn thing.

And all the while Timo Lavikainen just wants to see Miia Nuutila’s tits.

License plate.

Ali G.

There will be helicopters.

-PD

1 Comment

UHF [1989)

Here’s a masterpiece of a movie.

I didn’t think so the first time I watched it.

I was a little preoccupied.

But this time I had a reason to be more emotionally invested.

Mops!

That’s right, mops.

Mops play a big role in this movie.

Spatulas also make a sort of cameo.

But mops predominate.

In particular, there is a special mop which is almost like a character in this film.

It doesn’t talk.

It doesn’t have a name.

But it is more than a MacGuffin.

Stanley Spadowski (the true star of this movie) received the mop in question for his 8th birthday.

And, apparently, he used that mop well into adulthood.

He decorated it with various bits of colored electrical tape.

And it was with this mop that he dutifully fulfilled his role as janitor at a major local TV news station: Channel 8.

But one day, Spadowski (played brilliantly by Michael Richards) found himself to be, in the tradition of Hitchcock, “the wrong man”.

Spadowski did nothing wrong.

He was not careless.

Even though he didn’t possess a notable intellect per se, he gave his all to his janitorial profession.

…and he actually enjoyed it.

Mopping.

Scrubbing.

Stanley Spadowski took pride in his work at Channel 8.

But, as “the wrong man”, he suddenly found himself blamed and scapegoated.

Though his unscrupulous employer made no effort to prove Spadowski’s guilt, Spadowski could not PROVE his innocence.

It was a quick exchange…

Q: Did you do this?

A: No.

Q: I don’t believe you. You’re fired.

Something like that.

Very capricious.

And, thus, Spadowski was crushed.

But the most crushing blow for Stanley was when the station owner’s son (also an employee [l’il bit ‘o nepotism]) confiscated Stanley’s mop as “station property”.

It was not.

But Stanley was helpless.

Thunderstruck.

Aghast.

Stanley had no one to stand up for him.

Yet, though he didn’t get what the wanted (to retain his job at Channel 8), he got what he needed: a new job as janitor of the UHF station 62.

And all of this because one man observed the pitiable scene of Stanley being deprived of his tool of the trade (which he had used since childhood).

That man was “Weird Al” Yankovic.

As in the movie (where “Weird Al” is the station manager of “U62”), Yankovic was also the brains behind this movie itself.

He wrote it.

With someone named Jay Levey.

Mr. Levey directed this “cult classic”.

If it tells you anything, Levey still does not have a Wikipedia page in English…41 years after this movie came out.

So I am going to assume that Levey did not go on to bigger and brighter things in the film industry.

That being said, it appears this film actually realized a 20% profit (box office – budget = x [x/budget = profit as a %]).

But let’s get back into Stanley Spadowski (a character “Weird Al” or Levey must have invented).

I’d bet money that Yankovic came up with this character.

But this character could not have come to life without the talents of Michael Richards.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, could have pulled it off.

Michael Richards is a very underrated actor.

If you look on iTunes, you are apt to see a mere two films in which Richards plays anything approximating a significant role.

One is this: UHF.

The other is another sort of “diamond in the rough”: Transylvania 6-5000.

The latter would be a mostly-unwatchable, tedious comedy were it not for Richards’ breakout performance.

Richards distinguished himself as Fejos in that film four years prior to UHF.

Indeed, just a fortnight before UHF was released in 1989, Seinfeld premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles.

Richards played the role of Kessler.

As The Seinfeld Chronicles became Seinfeld, Kessler became Kramer.

The world, in general, knows Michael Richards as [Cosmo] Kramer.

The show ran for nine years.

But let’s adjust our tack a bit here.

Who is Stanley Spadowski?

I would argue that he is the “cousin” (so to speak) of Carl Spackler: the groundskeeper in 1980’s Caddyshack.

Where Spackler is laconic, Spadowski is prone to frenzy.

And yet, these two characters are cut from a similar cloth.

Spackler (Bill Murray) always has his impermeable camouflage bucket hat.

And usually a dirt-and-sweat-stained T-shirt.

Baggy cargo shorts.

And combat boots.

Appearing in 1980, Carl Spackler would have probably been seen as a nutty Vietnam vet.

Indeed, Spackler is tasked by his boss (the HEAD groundskeeper) to take care of the golf course’s gopher problem.

In hilarious fashion, Spackler goes after the gophers…even employing plastic explosives.

Spadowski is also a T-shirt guy.

With suspenders.

Always suspenders.

And whether they are real or fake (I think fake), Spadowski has noticeable (and endearing) bucked teeth.

He can hardly keep them in his mouth.

He is awkward.

He usually speaks slowly.

But when he gets excited, he is like a fire hydrant that’s just been opened.

What’s important about Spadowski and Spackler is that they are everymen.

They are most certainly underdogs.

And UHF, at its heart, is an underdog story.

U62, the channel, is an underdog.

It is not a network affiliate.

UHF (as opposed to VHF) was the television equivalent of AM radio (as opposed to FM).

Local stations.

Questionable programming.

Shoestring budgets.

You could find ANYTHING on UHF television or AM radio.

Anything was possible.

There was less control.

Today, in my town, my favorite radio station is run by a Methodist church.

Their format (vaguely) is “oldies”.

But their programming swings a bit wildly…and usually I love them for it.

They play songs I’ve never heard.

Occasionally a similar station will pop up in the same range of the dial using this “none of the hits–all of the time” approach (only to disappear back into the ocean of static which separates one clear-signal island from another).

U61 is this sort of beast.

Which makes sense.

Because it is run by a dreamer: George Newman (“Weird Al”).

George starts off this film flipping burgers.

This may be a reference to the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

“Weird Al” gets fired.

The tone of the scene is very similar to Fast Times…

Which brings up an important point.

UHF is a pastiche.

It is stream-of-consciousness.

The narrative shifts wildly with non sequitur episodes interpolated here and there.

UHF makes continuous reference to the pop culture of its day: the 1980s.

And this makes sense because the creator of this film was “Weird Al”: best known as a musician specializing in parodies (usually of contemporary hits).

I hate to get all artsy-fartsy here, but I would dare say there is a modicum of post-modernism in “Weird Al”‘s filmic approach.

And, perhaps more importantly, a noticeable measure of Thelonious Monk (autism?) in Stanley Spadowski.

Idiot-savant.

And so UHF is a work of art which captures awkwardness in some of the same ways that Napoleon Dynamite and Poto and Cabengo do (respectively).

The message is: be yourself.

You have value.

There is a person out there for you.

There is a job that is right for you.

There are no guarantees.

But you won’t be happy anyway if you’re not being yourself.

-PD

1 Comment

Eagle vs Shark [2007)

One of the finest films ever made.

Loren Horsley is so cute working at Meaty Boy.

Like me at Starbucks.

So endearingly pathetic.

I hope.

Jemaine Clement is fucking genius here.

Those sideburns!!!

Let’s be frank.

This is quite fucking obviously the New Zealand version of Napoleon Dynamite, BUT IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER…BECAUSE IT’S STILL BLOODY AMAZING!!!

Eagle vs Shark is about pathetic life.

In pathetic places.

Pushing wheelchairs around.

Places where everything sucks.

But it’s also about complicated love.

And how that might look in an environment where everything sucks.

Such as a town where no one has hope.

Provincial nightmares.

One further qualification…

Eagle vs Shark is JUST AS GOOD as Napoleon Dynamite in its own way.

It is a must-see.

It is that good.

Excellent job by director Taika Waititi.

-PD

El Crítico [2013)

Fucking masterpiece.

A fucking masterpiece.

God damn…

It’s not often that a movie strikes me this way.

I had every reason not to even WATCH this film.

The premise was too perfect.

Too good to be true.

In English (and on Netflix in the U.S.), it is listed as The Film Critic.

But we pay our respects to international films even if the template of our website goes haywire in so doing.

El Crítico is an Argentine-Chilean coproduction.

Sounds like a wine, right?

Well, this beats any Malbec I’ve ever tasted.

I cannot say enough good things about this picture!

First things first-Hernán Guerschuny is a goddamned genius.

From the very start of this film we get the Godard whisper…that voiceover which started (si je me souviens bien) circa 1967 with 2 ou 3 Choses que je sais d’elle.

The majority (80%?) of El Crítico is in Spanish, but the remaining 20% (in French) makes all the difference.

We have an Argentine film critic, played masterfully by Rafael Spregelburd, who thinks in French.

We are thus privy to his internal monologue throughout the film.

For anyone who writes about motion pictures, El Crítico is indispensable.

Priceless.

Just right.

[not even a pinch of salt too much]

Dolores Fonzi is really good, but Señor Spregelburd is outstanding.

Spregelburd plays a Godard-obsessed film critic (are you seeing why I like this?) whose fumbling attempts at romance stem from his total immersion in cinema.

Guerschuny deftly interpolates scenes which are “meta-” in the same sense that Cinema Paradiso was essentially a film ABOUT film.

And I am a fan of this approach.

It worked perfectly for the greatest artistic creation in the history of mankind (Histoire(s) du cinéma) and it works exceptionally well for Guerschuny’s film [of which James Monaco and la Nouvelle vague I think would be proud].

Guerschuny, like his main character Tellez [Spregelburd], wants to explode the genre of romcom.

Yes, you heard me right: romcom.

And it thus places El Crítico in the same tradition as Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste and Godard’s Une Femme est une femme.

But something happens to our protagonist Tellez.

And something, I suspect, is in the heart (!) of director Guerschuny.

This is, in fact, a film about appreciating naïveté.

It is a postmodern idea.

And an idea dear to my heart.

It’s quite simple, really…

I can appreciate Arnold Schoenberg as much as AC/DC.

Abel Gance as much as Napoleon Dynamite.

The idea is that pretentious films (and film reviews) can become just as tiresome as trite, Entertainment Weekly boilerplate.

Does that magazine even still exist?

I don’t know.

It’s an honest question.

In fact, I wasn’t even sure I had the title correct.

It’s supermarket-checkout-lane film criticism.

But it’s not worthless.

Sometimes the most esteemed, erudite film critics become blind to the beauty around them.

They don’t give simple movies a chance.

On the other hand, there are a ton of crappy movies out there today.

But El Crítico is not one of them.

But let me tell you about the secret weapon of the film under consideration:

Telma Crisanti.

Without her, this movie fails.

Not miserably, but the façade falls apart. And then the superstructure…

Ms. Crisanti plays Ágatha, the 16-year-old niece of our film critic Tellez.

It is she who plants the seed within Tellez’ mind that romantic comedies can be sublime.

But the salient point is this: the masses are not dumb.

I will stand by Thomas Jefferson on this point till the bitter end.

And so The Film Critic speaks to young and old. And middle-aged.

It is about miracles.

But it is real.

Simply put, this is the Sistine Chapel of romcoms.

Or, what Michelangelo would have done with the genre.

Simply stunning!

-PD

4 Comments

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure [1985)

This movie is kinda like LSD.

Not that I would know.

But from what I hear…

If you come into it with fear and anxiety, it will be a grating, disorienting, annoying experience. Frightening.

But if you come into it at peace and relaxed, you might just have a wonderful time viewing this movie.

The first third of the film was tense for me.

Everything is tense for me.

Thank God for drugs.

And so the rest of the film was quite charming and (dare I say?) meaningful.

We probably all know the Pee-Wee story…how he got caught whacking off in an adult movie theater.

But everyone deserves a second chance.

Sure, a guy who wakes up in the morning wearing lipstick and rouge might be a little suspect to some, but this whole film is fantasy.

Back to psychedelics…

It’s only appropriate that my old computer has just come down with the trippiest virus I’ve ever seen.

But no matter.

We push on.

Five more days.

Yes, Pee-Wee is like Mr. Bean.

And when Pee-Wee dances, it presages Napoleon Dynamite’s talent show jaw-dropper by some years.

Paul Reubenfeld –> Paul Reubens –> Pee-Wee Herman

In Hollywood, you can be anyone you want to be.

That’s entertainment (as The Jam sang).

But we have to give a shout out to the adorable Elizabeth Daily who plays Dottie.

Madame Ruby only accepts cash…even on a rainy night.

But she also does income tax.

Sure, Pee-Wee looks a little too comfortable in his Audrey-Hepburn-meets-Laverne-&-Shirley frock, but that’s part of his oblivious joy.

Large Marge is, of course, unforgettable.

Diane Salinger is really great as Simone.

With that aching dream to get to France.

I know. This dream.

I lived it.

And how I’d so like to go back.

“Au revoir, Simone…”

Nothing like sitting on a tongue…watching the sun come up between some teeth.

But then we get my hometown.

San Antonio.

And a lot of it!

Please don’t think we all speak like Jan Hooks 🙂

As an amnesiac, Pee-Wee can recall but one thing:

“Remember the Alamo!”

Yee-Haw!!!

So let’s see…fainting after bike theft (Truffaut) followed by EMS and oxygen? Check.

Amnesia after being thrown from a bull? Check.

Hospitalization after riding a Harley through a wooden sign? Check.

I am remiss to mention that I forgot the appendectomy in Spies Like Us.

These signs that God is looking out for us.

And France.

A story which didn’t resonate during my youth.

But only after I’d fallen in love to Messiaen.

Only after I became Tropic of Cancer.

A duck in Milton Berle’s pants is enough to get Pee-Wee on set at Warner Brothers.

What ensues is truly a zany take on the car chase cliche.

Then Pee-Wee frees the animals at the zoo. XMAS

And with handfuls of snakes, faints again (trumping Truffaut) before first responders revive him.

Breaking the rules was a way to promotion in the 1980s.

And when it’s couched in playful imagination, it is charming indeed.

When it’s funny. A farce. Comedic.

Pee-Wee as bellhop is like Jason Schwartzman’s understudy in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Director Tim Burton deserves heaping credit for making this an actually timeless film. It is creative throughout.

It’s really a joy to see.

Just don’t take the brown acid.

-PD

2 Comments

Poto and Cabengo [1980)

This is the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen.

16 ways to say potato.

Eclipses Ira Gershwin by 14.

George and Ira.

Grace and Virginia.

Poto and Cabengo.

Godard and Gorin.

It’s maddening.

That time has forgotten the most beautiful girls ever.

Wild and free.

The playful sounds of Poto and Cabengo.

Maybe there’s no finding them.

And that’s the message.

That they disappeared like their ephemeral language.

But I want to know.

What happened to the most beautiful girls ever?

We want to capture the past.

We can’t let it get away.

Because we are so moved by the images and the sounds.

What if I lost my language?

This language I have worked so hard to develop.

Science would call me a sophist.

Stylometry might have something to say about how developed my idiom is.

I cannot tell you, people, how much this movie moved me.

Napoleon Dynamite is like Shaft in comparison to the realness herein.

Intelligent Dasein.

I can’t possibly be the first to that pun.

But we wonder:

who will be the first blogger to win a Nobel in literature?

[surely not me]

Putting aside the auto-response for a moment…

Because it is bound to happen.

Writer started as blogger and progressed to…what.

Books?

Folio. Quarto. Octavo.

Potato.

1 patata 2 petata 3 pitata 4

5 potata 6 putata 7 pateta more

Abandoned in your own home.

The wild child and her double.

Theater of cruaute. Crunchy crouton vegetables 🙂

And the zoo!

The San Diego Zoo. So that you can love your city. San Antonio.

“People say we got it made/Don’t they know we’re so afraid?”

…think we don’t know what staccato means. Shit…

It’s our secret language.

As if the Navajo code talkers had dwindled down to two.

Pound would write a much more erudite version of this.

So much so that it was completely unintelligible. And brilliant.

Have I mentioned Jean-Pierre Gorin?

Because he’s a genius.

The only collaborator through whom Godard’s name was subsumed.

Their language became strictly verboten.

They weren’t sent back into the forest.

We welcomed them. To mop floors at a McDonald’s.

And work on an assembly line.

And I love them.

Because that’s what America sends its geniuses to do.

Wipe up fast-food fry grease. And God knows what kind of menial work.

There are no more worthy stars in the history of film than

Grace and Virginia (“Ginny”) Kennedy.

Beauty is forever.

-PD

3 Comments

The Life of Adam [2015)

Back again with another installment from the talented Independent Media Solidarity group.

This is a sort of follow-up to We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook (which I previously reviewed).

Our producers are Peter Klein (famously described by Lenny Pozner [ostensibly a grieving parent] as “Evil” [sic]), TNN (presumably TyrannyNewsNetwork [a YouTube “handle”]), and MrStosh (previously identified by his [?] YT handle MrStosh314 in the aforementioned film).

Our narrators are SwanSong (another YouTube handle [whose voice sounds strikingly like that of David Knight from infowars.com]), Insanemedia (the name of the site Swan Song edits…another YouTube name?), and the previously mentioned producers (minus Klein).

I have to admit…

The first time I heard Steve Shine’s opening song (about Adam Lanza) I wasn’t overly impressed.

But it has grown on me.

It employs echo delay rather effectively.

But let’s clear the air.

Just what is it to which this film’s title refers?

It is, if I am not mistaken, a bit of police radio activity from Dec. 14, 2012 which sounds like the phrase “end the life of Adam”.

I have been familiar with that thread of inquiry for awhile.

I initially didn’t put much stock into those elusive words.

It’s almost like something you’d hear on a ghost-hunting program.

But it makes some sense…

Was it a garbled phrase?

A twisted transmission?

Or did some official from some U.S. government agency (FEMA?) actually utter the words “end the life of Adam”?

Because, you see, within the Sandy Hook research “community” (hey, if our 16 intel agencies can be a community, then fuck off!) it is not firmly established whether Adam Lanza even existed.

This emaciated superhuman of murderous efficiency seems to be a prime candidate for fictional personage.

In the opening credits of our film, you can also see a graphic symbolizing the theory that Adam Lanza (who may have only existed in a handful of photographs) was actually his brother Ryan Lanza at an earlier age.

To simplify (Mr. Ockham), there was no Adam.

There was only Ryan.

And to borrow a phase from another brave bunch of auteurs (aside from this IMS crew), it is quite possible (perhaps even probable) that “nobody died at Sandy Hook”.

The consensus from Dr. Fetzer and others seems to be that it was a drill which was passed off as the real thing.

I have not had the pleasure of reading Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, but the fact that Amazon.com, Inc. banned the book (after it had done brisk sales for about a month) while continuing to sell Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is really a case of the world having been turned on its head (to paraphrase Guy Debord).

But we press on…

The story of Adam Lanza seems to be about more than just gun control.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that the primary purpose of the event was to take another Fabian socialist baby-step towards disarming the American public, but there’s a little more to it.

IMS do a great job of highlighting this.

Adam Lanza is Tim McVeigh updated for 2012.

It had been about 17 years.

It was time for another unbelievable domestic terrorist to emerge.

Now, I’m no expert on the OKC bombing, but from what I’ve seen it looks like McVeigh was a patsy in the mold of Oswald.

Adam Lanza seems to be a whole new level of government duplicity: a virtual killer.

Sandy Hook seems to be a “kinder, gentler” form of state-sponsored (you read right) terror.

My guess is that some of our leaders in the U.S. fancy themselves to be quite humane now that they’ve marginally figured out how to kill without killing.

All they wanted were the effects.

“Never let a good tragedy go to waste.” –Rahm Emanuel?

If true, this would be a new systemic trend.

It goes along laughably with the “pinpoint precision” of drone attacks.

We know that is not true.

Ask the residents in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Or I might have it all wrong…

Because the truth is on CNN, right?

Remember Desert Storm?

Ooohhh…Ahhhhh…

Cameras on bombs.

Look, ma! We’re killing the “right” people.

Yay!!!

Look how humane war has become 🙂

The Gulf War…1990/1991.

An in-and-out burger war.

“Kinder, gentler” bombing.

At least it was marginally “prudent” (though completely duplicitous).

You can take the Hill & Knowlton campaign…Kuwaiti babies ripped from incubators.

[As witnessed by the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S….who (she) was not in Kuwait…and was not advertised for who she really was…because she was acting…in front of the U.S. Congress…in a public relations campaign to shore up public sentiment that war (the Gulf War) was necessary.]

But you can also dig deep…into the State Department…and know that Saddam was given a promise that we would not interfere if he invaded Kuwait.

Whoops… Sounds like a cynical stratagem FOR WAR to me.

Just itching to get their war on (as the inimitable Wayne Madsen says)…

So back to Adam Lanza.

No. Wait a minute.

Let’s not forget the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (1999).

In eight years (since our techno-war, our “smart bomb” Gulf War) we hadn’t learned how to read a map. Fucking ridiculous!

We “see” Adam Lanza from the back. Playing Dance Dance Revolution (not to be confused with East Germany…the other white DDR).

“Adam Lanza” with his Beatle haircut.

So what is this “other” agenda to which I referred?

Other than gun control.

It is that WEIRD = BAD.

If someone is shy or out of the ordinary, then they are your next shoot-’em-up rampage candidate.

Who benefits?

Cui bono?

The system. The spectacle (to again reference Guy Debord).

If you don’t look the part.

If you aren’t in style.

God forbid you’re as dorky as Napoleon Dynamite.

Then everyone should fear you.

You are a virus. A stain.

What did they focus on?

Autism.

The purported acts of Adam Lanza have nothing to do with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

But that was one of the insidious messages which the DUMB public was to receive.

Yet some are not buying it.

Even if I was a proponent of gun control (which I am not…rather, quite the opposite), I wouldn’t feel good about the hollow (ineffective) victory achieved by the national security state through Sandy Hook.

It’s worse than Realpolitik. It’s the consummation of our simulation culture.

We should get around to dragging Baudrillard into this at some point.

So, you ask: who’s fighting for you?

Well, in addition to Independent Media Solidarity, there is Sheila Matthews of ablechild.org. You can hear her story in The Life of Adam about the quest to make Lanza’s psychiatric treatment history public.

It’s not public.

Almost nothing about this weird Sandy Hook case is public.

It’s all secret.

It’s all in line with the limits of reality.

If the reality was that it was merely a drill (passed off as real) to sway public opinion, then it would have the limits of reality placed upon it.

The fraud could only be as convincing as its budget (and the devious professionalism of those running this operation).

The unnecessary secrecy is in line with the potential truth. There are no pictures of the crime scene because there was no crime scene.

Rather, the crime scene was the scene of a far different crime.

The crime was fraud, not murder.

I can’t help bringing up Anderson Cooper again…because his whole role in this shenanigan is really revolting.

It is no stretch of the imagination to say that he and CNN are responsible for an extremely articulate, tenured professor losing his job.

That is the misfortune of Dr. James Tracy.

You will hear his story in The Life of Adam.

You’ll see the fumbling, bumbling police Sgt. Paul Vance (who threatens people like me for spreading rumors). This is the same authority who couldn’t make up his mind where the supposed shooter (Lanza) shot himself. Was it in the hall? Room 10? There’s a difference. How could you forget that? It’s fresh on your mind.

Better have a look at your FEMA script one more time…

Of particular interest is the story of Sabrina Phillips.

I must admit that her line of inquiry sometimes loses me. In other words, she is deeper into this than me.

But I really respect what she is trying to do.

Dig up the truth. Damn it!

Not only does television suck (sorry all you network addicts), but the news is blatantly fake.

Anderson Cooper needs to march right back to Langley and demand better acting lessons.

As James Mason said, perhaps the “Actors Studio”.

You are no Cary Grant, Mr. Cooper. You’re no Murrow.

You’re nothing. You’re just a well-dressed sellout.

The Internet will reveal your grave error in getting Tracy fired.

You’re no journalist. You’re no better than the “evil empire” over at Fox News.

You know that. Deep down inside.

You are truly a gigantic nothing.

There’s no Edelman to PR you out of this one.

You lose. Your network loses. CNN is not your network. Seems pure CIA to me.

Ok, mini-diatribe over.

I hope you will take the time to watch The Life of Adam and its equally-brilliant predecessor We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook.

The sad fact is that conspiracies are ruling our lives. We can ignore them, but they are the main political tool of the 21st century. They get somewhat more sophisticated each time, but they are still false flags…still just kids with their hands in the cookie jar pointing at an uninvolved sibling.

-PD

Pumpkin [2002)

This is almost a perfect film.

Because it’s better than perfect.

Like Napoleon Dynamite, what should have been a larf was generally a sobfest for me throughout.

If you’re having problems in life, you need to see this movie.

Hollywood is so denigrated these days because the vast majority of popular cinema is utter shite.

From the very beginning, Pumpkin is different.

We should thank American Zoetrope.

And for that we have to thank Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.

Do you even know what a zoetrope is?

Well, I do.

And they did.

And it was le mot juste.

A zoetrope is special.

Let’s call it retarded cinema.

A more pure form. Slowed down.

Pumpkin grossed $308,552 at the box office.

No, I didn’t forget a comma and an additional three digits.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics has no way of predicting the sort of inflation Pumpkin will experience in the annals of cinema history.

For any who have ever doubted Christina Ricci: this is her masterpiece.

As lead actress and coproducer, she gives a performance which goes deeper than even the esteemed Thora Birch in Ghost World.

Yes, this is that sort of film.

Indispensable.

I have overused it of late.

But there is no other word. Pumpkin and Ghost World and Napoleon Dynamite are not second-class films to such as I fidanzati. No. They are equals with Ermanno Olmi’s masterpiece.

But don’t get confused.

Pumpkin goes in a direction completely “other” than any film I’ve ever seen.

Sure…it starts out tongue-in-cheek.

It is perhaps a dystopia which is best summed up by the saccharine mise-en-scène of The Truman Show. But where The Truman Show fails (and that is in many places), Pumpkin succeeds at telling a timeless story.

The story is the cast.

[Thank you Marshall McLuhan.]

Ricci is a thespian goddess here. Real skill. Real goddamn skill!

But neck-and-neck is Hank Harris.

I can’t nail it.

It’s something I saw long ago.

At my college orientation.

A bit of Sam Shepard and some other playwrights.

Sure. It is Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men.

But it’s more.

Sweeter. More optimistic. More frothing with disgust.

All three.

A concoction.

Frozen yogurt and 1400 on the SAT.

Harry Lennix is indispensable to the story. [start counting]

He is the angry poet. Not a college professor. And this is not a class.

This is a poetry workshop, motherfucker!

Even Julio Oscar Mechoso is indispensable in his short role as Dr. Frederico Cruz. [where we at?]

But let’s talk about some buttresses.

Melissa McCarthy is indispensable (truly) as Julie.

It’s not an easy role.

And yet, she’s not as bad off as Pumpkin.

Who’s Pumpkin?

Is it Christina Ricci with her jack-o’-lantern-perfect bob–her Chantal Goya -meets- David Bowie Low surf perm? That one little curl…so perfect…all the way ’round?

No.

It’s Hank Harris.

He’s Pumpkin. Napoleon. Lothario.

But Sam Ball is especially indispensable here. [Ugh…]

He is Ken (actually Kent) to Ricci’s Barbie.

Tennis pro.

Spitting image of Ryan Reynolds.

Or Whitney Houston…

Anyway.

This cast brings it together.

Bringing it all back home are directors Anthony Abrams and Adam Larson Broder (neither of whom have a Wikipedia page).

BLOODY HELL, HOLLYWOOD! HOW COULD YOU CHURN OUT SO MANY FILMS AND NOT SEE THE BRILLIANCE OF THESE TWO BLOKES!?!?!?!?!

But in the end it’s just Ricci and Hank Harris.

The brilliance of a duo.

A truly timeless film.

I’m inclined to agree with many (including Dr. Steve Pieczenik) that Adam Lanza did not exist.

But Pumpkin Romanoff (a nod to Michael Romanoff, the storied Lithuanian restaurateur of 1940s/50s Hollywood?) most certainly did exist. For me. Tonight. When I needed him most.

This is immortality.

-PD

4 Comments

Napoleon Dynamite [2004)

If this film makes you cry, then you have problems. Welcome to my world. Hopefully this will be the best thing I have ever written.

There are a couple of times. Laugh out loud. But those parts which pass by like strange quirks. The space in between laughs. That is the pathos of marginalia.

People. Marginalized. What the hell am I talking about?

There’s awkward and aw-kward. It is the latter with which we are concerned. A whole new level of pariah.

But also mundane. And not to be forgotten…endearingly strange.

Preston, Idaho. It’s real. Really exists.

Napoleon and his brother Kip. Lots of weird mustaches here. But Napoleon is just the geeky gawky gangly guy growing up.

As Kip shows, some of us never grow up. And Uncle Rico…whoa mama. All regrets and what-ifs.

Grandmother was at the dunes and broke her coccyx. Tailbone.

Riding the four-wheeler.

Grandma’s got a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or something.

This is one time when some Wikipedia contributor has actually done a loving portrait of a film.

Perusing.

Rico is our campervan Beethoven. A real jerk. But not without his humorous (humerus?) moments. Funny bone.

Fortunately LaFawnduh’s cousin is apparently Jamiroquai (they being a band and not a person).

Whoa…aw-kward. Writing.

Jon Heder approaches the greatness of Peter Sellers in this film. Heder is our lead…our anti-Bond (James). Not cool. Never was cool. Painfully existing.

Tina Majorino brings an indispensable side ponytail grace to this story. Such a beautiful girl. A real person. This film succeeds by employing a sort of Robert Bresson technique. It also is the laughing equivalent of the Romanian New Wave. To wit, Jared Hess made one of the most important American movies of recent decades. Kudos to Fox Searchlight Pictures for giving this the distribution it deserved. We know they later picked up Beasts of the Southern Wild. Nice job Fox Searchlight!

And why do we cry? Part of it is Efren Ramirez as Pedro. Down here in San Antonio. People living for their Spurs. I know. Me too. Small victories seem so big. El Presidente. He builds her a cake. The vacuous Summer. No!!! (little hearts beneath the exclamation points)

It’s hot. Pedro doesn’t have air conditioning. Napoleon’s top-loading VCR comes in handy after he scores a sweet Kid ‘n’ Play video at the thrift store. Kip backs over the Tupperware in a failed Ginsu demonstration. “Dang it!”

Pedro from Juarez. In Idaho. That’s like a Martian in Indiana or Iowa. It’s real. We all end up someplace. For some reason. And the cousins with the sweet low-rider. The cousins with the hookups. A short segment about banding together. People with odds stacked against them helping other people with odds stacked against them.

A very humble project.

And someday Napoleon’s ligers will hang in the MoMA…and his portrait of Trisha (with the deftly-shaded upper lip) will fetch $100 million at Sotheby’s.

And LaFawnduh from Detroit. Definitely AOL-era. No cellphones in this movie. Deb (Majorino) has to go to a payphone to tactfully reprimand Napoleon. But it was all Rico’s fault. Uncle Rico. Hell, Napoleon even got a job moving chickens…for $1 an hour. And they had big talons! Just drink the raw eggs and mingle with the farmers. The old people have good stories. About Shoshone arrowheads in the creek bed. White-bread sandwiches. I don’t understand a word I just said.

It’s that I don’t have any skills. Nunchuk skills. Computer hacking skills. Cage fighting skills. Rex kwon do skills.

Oops. Yeah, I dress like Peter Pan. Forever the butt of a joke.

Napoleon runs like Forrest Gump…with Trisha’s corsage. But it’s lonelier. It’s stranger. Like Peter Sellers doing Camus. Chaplin and Sartre. Les Temps modernes.

So when the antihero finally succeeds it elicits an honest firestorm of support. Lots of people with nothing to live for. A little saint for the hallway. A prayer has been answered. They already tore down my high school. Same name, different building. I pass it everyday. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Some might say. I know there’s a place for me somewhere.

It’s not all about tetherball. It’s the determination. A solitary game. A clueless dork. Thanks be to god. THis movie.

-PD

18 Comments

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