Superman III [1983)

We all battle ourselves.

Self-hate.

Vs. self-love.

Pride vs. self-respect.

A subtle distinction there.

Alcoholism vs. sobriety.

Destructive evil vs. creative good.

But evil itself is created.

Man vs. machine.

Man vs. computer.

Sentient computers.

This is a pretty good movie.

Which gets lazy at the end.

But it is well worth watching.

Because it is iconic.

Richard Pryor really makes this one tick.

Sure, some of the comedy is goofy.

But I also gotta hand it to Christopher Reeve.

He really tapped into an impressive DARKNESS here.

Reeve essentially plays three characters in the film:

-nerdy, clumsy Clark Kent (this is impressive because his portrayal of Clark is so consistent)

-noble, honorable Superman (a suave character who always does the right thing)

-pathetic, angry, bitter, spiteful Evil Superman (Superman’s own opposite–spawned by a sort of “splitting” of Superman’s being)

The new aspect in this film is, of course, this dark side to Reeve’s acting.

And he does it well.

In this film, Clark returns to his hometown of Smallville.

Which brings us to Allison Mack.

And the New York sex cult NXIVM.

Amazingly, Lois Lane doesn’t get abducted in the Bermuda Triangle.

Which brings us to East Palestine.

And a fictional substance called beltric acid.

Which brings us to the Chinese “Belt & Road Initiative”.

The pants in poor countries are always falling down.

Because too skinny.

Hence need belt.

Hey, you can talk shit about the People’s Republic of China, but I got one word for you: TikTok.

TikTok.

YouTube Music (owned by Google [aka Alphabet Inc.]) BANNED all of my music.

Me.

Pauly Deathwish.

They REMOVED about 700 of my original songs.

And have refused delivery of about 300 more.

It all started with my anti-vaccine song “Crimes Against Humanity”.

From there, YouTube banned every song I have ever put out under my stage name Pauly Deathwish.

That includes simple love songs (what could possibly be questionable about those?).

Where is YouTube/Google/Alphabet headquartered?

YouTube is an American company HQed in San Bruno, California.

Google is an American company HQed in Mountain View, California.

Alphabet is an American company HQed in Mountain View, California.

Google (now a subsidiary) and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) are located in the same building (known as Googleplex).

An American company (probably at the urging of the FBI, CDC, or some other federal agency) COMPLETELY stifled my speech.

I am betting that YouTube/Google was merely a proxy for the American government when it came to my music.

Which is a violation of my Constitutional rights.

Anyone wanna take up my case?
It would have to be pro bono as a MOTHERFUCKER.

Cause I don’t make a cent.

Anyway.

Google (the Americans) banned me.

TikTok (the communist, supposedly-authoritarian Chinese) merely removed ONE of my videos.

I was mad about that video being removed.

So mad that I left TikTok.

But I am back on TikTok (pdeathwish).

Why?

Well, let me tell you about the other companies which have banned me.

And before I do, take a wild guess as to where they are headquartered.

Next is Truth Social.

That’s right, Donald Trump’s social media company (to the best of my knowledge) BANNED me (and my 81-year-old U.S. Army-vet father) from their platform.

AFTER THREE DAYS!

Why?

My presumption is because I publicly questioned Trump about his vaccine stance.

Magically, after three days, my account stopped working.

My dad tried to make an account some time later.

I also presume that he was banned because we share an internet connection.

See how that works?

It appears Trump banned MY WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY because I dared to present some facts from the VAERS system on his precious platform.

Now, I should point out.

i SUPPORT Trump in his current legal battles.

I find the political persecution of Trump to be disgusting.

As a disclaimer, I would add that I want to vote for RFK Jr. in 2024.

Indeed, my intention at this point is to vote for Bobby Kennedy.

N.B. I voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Where is Truth Social HQed?

Sarasota, Florida.

Truth Social is a subsidiary of Trump Media & Technology Group.

Where is TMTG headquartered?

Palm Beach, Florida.

If we count YouTube/Google/Alphabet as one company and TruthSocial/TMTG as another company, that makes TWO American companies that have banned me.

Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China and their flagship app TikTok has not banned me.

Far from it!

N.B. No other major music streaming platform in the world (besides YouTube Music) has removed ANY of my material (to my knowledge).

Moving on.

The next company (guess where this one is from) to deplatfrom me was Elon Musk’s Twitter/X.

That’s right.

Even the dipshit assholes Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde never permanently suspended me.

They did, however, suspend me “accidentally” (I have the email from them where they admit that as the reason) FOR FOUR MONTHS.

What happened during the time that Twitter suspended me for four months?

A. the 2020 U.S. Presidential election

B. the Biden inauguration

After Jack and Vijaya admitted they had mistakenly banned my account, I was back in business.

And I had high hopes when Elon took over.

But he banned me.

For “platform manipulation and/or spam”.

It was a very vague, Kafkaesque accusation.

The platform manipulation part is particularly funny to me.

If I was manipulating the platform, then I obviously wasn’t doing a very good job at it.

Why do I say that?

Because my PUBLIC (not set to private) profile [which I had had for five years] had TWO [sic] followers (even though I think I had made 100,000+ tweets).

My followers were:

A. Dr. Steve Pieczenik MD, PhD

B. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

As for spam, don’t you think one of those two personages would have unfollowed me were I a spammer?

Where is X headquartered?

San Francisco, California.

And it appears to be a subsidiary of X. Corp. (which is also HQed in San Francisco, California).

Taken as one entity, that makes THREE A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N companies which have deplatformed me.

Meanwhile, the Chinese communists accept me.

Enough to let me post.

And my posts are seen.

Well, they get views (anyway).

The PRC has censored me.

But very little in comparison with these three American companies (which totally squashed me).

Why am I whining about this?

Because as an almost-unknown musician, I have very little way to tell the world about my music when major media companies (like YouTube and Twitter) ban me.

The further irony is this:

A. Trump’s company is called Truth Social. I came to him with sourced facts from VAERS, CDC, and BMJ. And my account magically thereafter stopped working. Permanently.

B. Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist”. If you can’t see the irony of him then banning me for nebulous reasons, I can’t paint a more-clear picture for you

There is one last company I would like to mention.

Rumble.

The ostensible “conservative” competitor to YouTube.

Rumble did not ban me.

But they refused my advertising dollars.

For a very small campaign with which I was trying to promote my music.

Why did they refuse my money?

Because my website (the one you are reading) is not “age appropriate”.

Let me translate that for you–I think they meant “you are not conservative enough”.

Where is Rumble headquartered?

Toronto, Canada.

Ok, so we finally found another country where my music is hated (by a small company).

But is my music hated in communist China?

Not if my access to TikTok is any indication.

I should also point out that Facebook has mercilessly censored me for at least the past five years.

So much so that I gave up on that platform.

One of their subsidiaries, Instagram, has also recently given me trouble.

Not allowing me to do this. Not allowing me to do that.

But I haven’t had the same issue with TikTok.

Where, by the way, are Facebook and Instagram (subsidiaries of Meta Platforms) headquartered?

Facebook is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Instagram is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Meta Platforms is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

Like YouTube/Google/Alphabet, it is essentially one big company.

So there’s another American company suppressing (probably at the urging of various government agencies) my free speech which should be protected from the hand-in-glove fascism of cozy government/corporate-proxy activity.

Who’s gonna take my case?

I’m not holding my breath.

Which brings us back to Evil Superman.

Who dies by strangulation.

Hell, Superman himself almost even suffocates in this movie.

He gets caught in the Wayne Coyne bubble and it gets a bit uncomfortable for a bit.

Bloke can’t breathe.

But fortunately he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes like Jimmy Page.

We get weather modification.

Weather weapons.

Man vs. weather.

Man vs. machine-controlled weather.

Science fiction?

If you don’t wanna be an evil son of a bitch, you gotta watch out for that low-tar kryptonite.

Pryor is great as a three-star general.

Superman hates himself.

Because he has become poisoned.

Something has come over him.

He changes.

For the worse.

Just a slump (says Ricky).

Coming up on an election year, this was roughly the middle of Reagan’s Presidency.

And it was the decade when computing really fell into the hands of plebes like me.

[though I was not a digital native and didn’t really start becoming computer literate until about 1995]

May 1980: Pac-Mac released in Japan

October 1980: development of MS-DOS begins in U.S.

January 1982: the 8-bit Commodore 64 debuts at an electronics show in Las Vegas

August 1982: Commodore 64, the best-selling computer model of all time, is released

October 1982: MIDI standard is published

June 1983: Superman III is released

October 1983: Microsoft Word is released

This movie really falls apart when Vera becomes a cyborg.

It is utterly-ridiculous.

I’m just an ole chunk of coal.

But I’m gonna be a diamond someday.

Annette O’Toole is the secret weapon of this movie.

-PD

The Last Wave [1977)

Australia has fallen.

To what?

To whom?

Illuminati backwards.

Itanimulli.

Dot com.

Redirects to nsa.gov.

Check it yourself.

itanimulli.com

itanimulli.net has been removed.

But it too redirected to nsa.gov

But the real kicker is itanimulli.org

Which redirects to minervallux.com

Minerva?

Owl?

The landing page is a golden owl.

At the bottom of the page are the years:

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021.

Hitting 2016 redirects you to dc24.minervallux.com

There is a pyramid with an all-seeing eye and five blank spaces which each say “enter code”.

Four icons on this screen open up.

First is the number 8 with the downward slash through the top loop.

It opens as:

Next is the pyramid with the all-seeing eye.

It opens as:

Next is the pixel palette.

It opens as:

And finally is the right-facing arrow.

It opens as:

Tracing our steps back to 2017.

Clicking that number leads to dc.25.minervallux.com

And this image:

Clicking the DNA-strand brick at bottom right opens this:

Moving left, the next brick opens as:

Continuing to move left and clicking on the keystone:

The final stone at left on the bottom row opens as:

Moving up a row (and back to the right), we find this upon opening:

Continuing to move left on this row we find:

All the way to the left, we find this:

Moving up a row (and staring at the right):

Moving left:

But clicking on the all-seeing eye reveals nothing. It does not open out into a new window.

It should be noted that you can “register” for whatever the fuck (a game?) this site is.

Clicking on “privacy terms” does nothing.

There is also a “login” screen:

This whole thing reminds me a bit of Comet Ping Pong.

Wasn’t there some login capability there?

But this is WAY MORE Cicada 3301.

The years of the Trump Presidency.

Plus one.

The pyramid rotates.

It appears to have four sides.

Applying same method to pop out screens:

Some blocks are repeated. Including only originals gleaned from rotating pyramid:

Moving to the third side of the pyramid:

The lock stone simply reads:

Cryptography.

Cryptology.

Ciphers.

It’s looking like 2017 is way more interesting (complex) than 2016.

Q started 2017.

A piece of parchment.

Some gold dust on a drill bit.

On closer examination, the “privacy terms” tab does open with a notice regarding reCAPTCHA.

BTW…the address should be read as Minerval Lux (apparently).

This whole thing has the feel of the Kryptos statue at CIA headquarters.

2018

dc26.minervallux.com

Same method:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0dq2zPvB0tKDh9zvL5G7Xb?si=GeWK6jaUSnK_mkUreUiRZw&nd=1

By this point you’re probably asking, “What the fuck is all this shit?”

We need some context.

We need to keep in mind Pieczenik’s statements about CYBERCOM and Space Force.

There’s a crack in the pyramid. All fractals appear to be the same (requesting 17 code). One block blank (black) requesting 0 code.

How does Finnegans Wake help?

How does Histoire(s) du cinéma help?

How does Das Passagen-Werk help?

Do we have it all?

Are patriots in control?

Can anything stop what is coming?

What is coming?

NSA in Australia.

Alice Springs.

Quarantine camps.

Q camps in Songbird.

Excellent film.

And Contagion.

Essential viewing to decode plandemic.

Emhoff.

Sussmann.

2019

Event 201.

Which Q posts indicate that Q group knew 2020 election was going to be stolen and/or that a virus was about to be unleashed?

Clicking delta middle left:

Apparently all the same in the middle.

Rotating outer ring:

Gordian knot.

Rotating inner ring. No combinatory permutations?

Hag.

Fascism.

[lovely]

Goldsworthy with the leaves.

Thomas Drake?

Raitlin’s challenge.

DEFCON.

2020

Are you tired of this shit yet?

https://t.me/deathwishpauly

2021

Who dares wins.

Thick fuck?

One goes to NSA. itanimulli.com

The other recruits (?) for CYBERCOM? itanimulli.org

This redirect has been going on since 2012?

[same year Illuminati Party LLC was established?]

When did the admirals and generals get together and decide to NOT stage a coup on Obama but (rather) get behind Trump?

Some say it’s all a hoax:

https://itanimullihoax.wordpress.com/

You know what else is in Utah?

The Utah Data Center.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1fbmO0UUzEwPrgXEfdjPqo?si=crGF2Ec0R-WMu3HKTiszxQ&nd=1

-PD

Comment ca va? [1976)

Ça va. From the year I was born.

If you search Google for “comment ca va godard,” you might get 83,000 results in 0.42 seconds. Google tacks on the time to remind us of its power.

Well, I must admit I was a bit powerless in slogging through this film. Keep in mind, the first time I saw Pierrot le fou I thought it was overrated. Also keep in mind, by that point Godard was already my favorite director (by a long shot).

I came to regard Pierrot le fou as one of Godard’s best films, but it had to grow on me.

Perhaps Comment ça va will also grow on me.

What must be remembered is that Godard loves games. For me, the end of this film is easily the most brilliant part.

Godard (or his collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville) plays with the editing program like it is Pac-Man. There is something very ATARI about the whole affair–that green console font and the playful symbolism of a wandering cursor.

But admissions on my part should be more specific here: I was really tired.

So perhaps I did not give this film a fair shake.

It should be no surprise to viewers of Godard’s mid-seventies oeuvre that this film makes little to no effort to entertain. It is, as are many of his films of this era, an investigation. In this case, the investigation is filmmaking itself. It is, in that sense, a bit like his earlier masterpiece Le Gai savoir. The role of Anne-Marie Miéville should not be underestimated here. It is as if Godard and Miéville were recalibrating their artistic sensitivities with this film. While many (most?) filmmakers would leave such a “product” on the shelf and chalk it up to practice or research, Godard had been in the habit of releasing these “attempts at film” for some time. As I have mentioned in previous articles, there is a particular connection between the French word essai (a test, an attempt) and the English usage of essay (particularly, for our purposes, the genre known as film essay).

And so this is very much a film essay which we are dealing with. As such, I feel like a teacher compelled to “grade” said essay. This is the traditional job of critics: to assess value. It is, perhaps, a far more subjective form of the S & P, Moody’s, Fitch gambit.

So yes, I dozed off briefly at a few points. I feel bad about this. One school of thought says that it was Godard’s job to entertain me, but I do not entirely subscribe to that way of thinking.

But let us consult Italian Wikipedia (the English site is slacking) to jog our memory…

It does indeed feel to be shot in Grenoble (certainly not Paris)… I could verify this, but I am very lazy on such points.

The contributors to Italian Wikipedia make a very good point in comparing the film under consideration to Godard’s earlier Letter to Jane. Indeed, the director once again fixates on a particular photo and what it means. We, as the audience, spend a great deal of time staring along with the creators at a picture from a protest in Portugal. 1976.

What is new here is that Godard employs his editing equipment in a novel way. A photo from a French protest three years previous (1973) is superimposed upon the Portuguese picture. It is a similar methodology as found in Letter to Jane when Jane Fonda’s facial expression was compared to other Hollywood actors (including her father Henry).

The story (if it can be called that) involves esoteric distinctions between “the left” and communism. Exactly.

What is not at all clear is that Odette (played by the very, very beautiful Anne-Marie Miéville) is the lady helping with the editing of a film. We see Odette’s face in her interaction with her young worker boyfriend, but we only see her hands (unless I dozed off one too many times) on the typewriter in her directorial capacity. What is significant is that her collaborator is her boyfriend’s father. We see his face. Boy do we see it. Over and over and over again. It should be noted that the typewriter is a motif in Godard’s work stretching all the way back to the machine-gun edit in Vivre sa vie and culminating is Godard’s magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.

In our film, the typewriter and the eyes of the dictator (as in dictation…taking dictation) frame a philosophical investigation of language. We might call it “lost in transmission.”

What is at stake are the alienated products of journalists. The father (head of a newspaper) deprives his staff of true journalistic activity when they become merely glorified secretaries. There is no time to think. Deadlines deadlines. And, as such, dead text. An anonymous caption for a photo (no byline) is the sole work of the editor. A journalist merely types. No time for discussion.

And thus the extension: why should a picture need a caption at all? Shouldn’t a picture tell a story and thereby eliminate the need for text? Is a complex picture which requires explanation inferior? And why not let the picture speak for itself in such a case? Why always explain what the reader is to feel???

A dictatorship falls. Strikes ensue. We hear a radio tell us Franco is dead. A subtle touch. From Portugal to Spain.

Carnation Revolution. Yes, I thought of Angola, but not Mozambique. And it makes sense. Mozambique. The only Marxist Western (as in horses and cowboys)…Vent d’est (1969).

Saint-Brieuc. It was a factory strike in ’72. We are one year off. 1975. Deadline deadline. Go to press.

Now television has completely won. Your show. Shows. On demand. One senses that the battle of art films vs. mass communication was [for Godard] not about format (film vs. video), but rather a question of diffusion and delivery.

The speed of news. The news cycle. “Information cascade” and Operation Mockingbird.

-PD

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paulydeathwish

musician and film critic

Tag Archives: Pac-Man

The Last Wave [1977)

Comment ca va? [1976)